Royal Caribbean’s 2 1/2 year project, The Icon of the Seas, docked at Port Miami, Florida, on Wednesday, according to the Miami Herald.
This ship is now the longest and largest cruise liner in the industry. It can carry 7,600 passengers comfortably along with an extensive crew, weighs 250,800 tons and stretches 10 feet longer than Royal Caribbean’s 2022 Wonder of the Seas, per Royal Caribbean’s blog.
Matt Hochberg, the blog’s writer, commented, “Not only is it a new ship, that’s always exciting. But this is the next evolution in new cruise ships.”
The boat boasts of 40 restaurants, three-story town houses for families, a park with 33,000 kinds of plants and a water park with six waterslides. The company’s blog added that the ship’s water park includes “an open free-fall slide, the tallest drop slide at sea.”
For now, the boat will depart from Port Miami and will make stops at Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and CocoCay, a private island in the Bahamas. Its first departure is set for Jan. 27.
“The demand is so over the top at this point that they moved up booking for a sister ship that is not even in existence at this point,” Today reported. “That is the level of buzz right now that the Icon of the Seas is generating.”
The “Today” show filmed a walking tour of the cruise ship led by Royal Caribbean’s chief product innovator, Jay Schneider.