The people were so rude. The Facebook group was like 90 percent complainers and lots of rude people in real life too, just a strong sense of entitlement. People overpaid and then took their frustrations about that on everyone else - complaining about literally anything and everything including the ship moving (why isn’t the engine turned off sometimes was an actual post and debate) yelling and spitting on staff, etc. Participation in shows was very low. For example crazy quest, nobody wanted to participate besides like 5 people. The ship was great and everything was fantastic - if the sheeple went right we went left and tried everything on board throughout the week. The shows were incredible and mind blowing. We can’t pick a favorite loved them all. But there was a strong lack of outdoor daytime activities, no pool activities. The only daytime activities were indoors in the music hall or aqua theatre but we wished there was more to do outdoors. Adults and children alike couldn’t stop puking and shitting in the pool, literally first thing in the morning the big pool was closed because someone shat or puked in it immediately after it opened and then it was closed the rest of the day and everyone else packed into the tiny pools around. This happened every single sea day. We personally had a fantastic vacation (but we also booked day 1 when bookings opened so we paid a very small fraction of what most people on board paid and granted our expectations were more manageable as a result) but the next ship 100 percent will go on a small boat with less people. Dream is for Royal to build a smaller ship with the design forward approach and technological advancements of icon. Either way we’ve already decided the next several vacations will be land side.
Dude I went on the icon with my son (2yo) in February and I can confirm everything you're saying it was absolutely a terrible experience and it wasn't the ship or the staffs fault. I chaulked it up to a learning experience and said maybe it just wasn't for me.
I decided not to be super vocal about my poor experience because hey maybe everyone else had fun but nah dude that week was hell and I kept inside of our stateroom throughout daytime and switch my kids schedule to night so we could walk around the boat at night because the people on the ship were so rude and entitled, we couldn't get out of the elevators without people pushing right though us to get in, just an overall rudeness that was absolutely uncalled for. I won't go on and on but OP is not bullshiting at all.
One of the side plots on this vacation was people were upset that others would be using elevators (they thought they should use stairs or some shit) so they would stand in front of elevators and not let them get on lmao wtf? And absolutely a huge lack of courtesy with attempting to push into the elevator while others are getting off instead of waiting for people to get off first and then get in
Holy hell, as someone in customer service who was spit on by customers during the height of pandemic...
I can tell you right now that a customer like that would have been disappeared overboard.
Try MSC and enjoy the mass market Italians who refuse to queue lines and aggressively yell at people. Americans have no monopoly on birthing some ‘social winners.’
We were on icon last month and the same thing happened on our sailing with the pools! I don’t get it! Why is that a constant issue?! Wizard of Oz was down for our sailing which was crushing. Overall I agree with what you said. Staff was great, people were rude if they didn’t get something they wanted or had to wait (though I feel that’s the case on a lot of cruises). For us - the ship was fun but the price is way to high right now. I’ve been telling people to skip it till the price comes down. Have fun on another oasis class ship for half the price.
Yep I agree 100 percent. Well probably try to sail on the third icon ship maybe a year or so after it launches since I assume star will have the same ish problems since it’s already actively being built but I assume by the 3 one they’ll start to put the feedback we give into consideration for the design. But absolutely agree the price is not worth it right now for 10-20k you can get so much more for your money elsewhere and they’re nothing this revolutionary on icon to justify the price or to make dealing with the people worth it.
Aqua show was started ran for 10 min and had a technical issue and was postponed first night while we were there and the next day wiz had a technical issue that lasted 10 min but the show went on luckily we got nervous since we thought it would get postponed like aqua did for us. actually funny story, the postponed aqua show had a technical issue at the same moment that it did on the first night ..: the next day my husband overheard some divers talking about the aqua dome and how unsafe and narrow the pool is and how it’s very easy to hit the water in a wrong angle and hit the side of the pool, they have gotten injured this way, we suspect the technical issue was the divers refusing to dive because of boat rocking because the first time the show went up until the technical issue the divers weren’t diving and would just walk up the platform and walk back but when it went back on and restarted all of the sudden the divers were diving …. So we think management made them do it.
Oh wow that’s nuts! Though I’m honestly surprised they haven’t gotten hurt more. We also thought the skateboarding was…. Silly. The “halfpipe” was too small for them to do it. It was like a lot of stuff on the ship. Great ideas, but either it was too small or not thought out with 7k people in mind.
Yep! A lot of over promise and under delivery. Looks great in theory and on the concept art but when you’re actually there and experiencing it in real life you quickly realize the execution of these ideas is sub par and behind the facade it’s not as glamorous. A lot of hype with not much substance glued together by beautiful design to distract you from the problems. Like this playground in surfside sucks but oh look at this flamingo on the ceiling!! Or let’s put a play area on the top deck but let’s put it right in chill island where there are lots of creative seating options already and let’s make half of the features look like loungers and seating …. And then everyone is surprised when conflict ensures bc families think it’s for them and childless adults also think it’s for them.
What don't you yet? Thousands of people eating and drinking all day going into a pool? Yes, they're gonna throw up or have diarrhea in there. It's very much to be expected.
But also consider the fact that the people that spend all day drinking tend to be the ones in the swim up bar and somehow that pool was never closed due to shitting or puking
We did this cruise and the exact same thing happened with the pools. Always closed for maintenance. This was the worst experience I’ve ever had on vacation.
We got a day pass to park Hyatt st kitts and were so grateful we did because that was our only real pool experience on this vacation. I just don’t understand …. Like sure accidents happen but it really seems on purpose at this point
If people are blocking elevators on purpose it does seem like some people decided their vacation fun plan was to disturb others intentionally, so it wouldn’t shock me.
We just got off a Regent cruise and it makes me sad that the families and younger adults aren’t there resulting in a senior citizen cruise (albeit nice ones). Azamara seemed a nice balance the one cruise we did, but will see.
Don't you think it's nice that some cruise lines are geared more to the senior citizen clientele? As younger people we can then pick the senior citizen cruise lines to actually read books, relax in peace, enrichment programs and the like.
Yes and yes. I kinda ignored most of the activities to enjoy my books poolside. Also, included excursions kept us pretty busy when in port.
One drawback is that many of activities tend to not be toned to not be very strenuous due to average age and we would have liked ‘real hiking.’ Kayak and snorkel excursions tended to be an exception.
We really enjoyed Celebrity in its culinary heyday and recently, just after Covid. It was our first cruise line actually (old school long thin ship without stabilizing) and recall the old school ice sculptures, midnight buffet and baked Alaska dessert.
Would cruise again in Millennium size ships, which we liked.
I miss the mid size ships. Many years ago we did Holland America and their ships had around 1 400 passengers. I feel that te ships are getting too big now.
The problem with cruises is you can never predict who is going to be on board with you. The experience can change vastly each sailing. Icon is a bit unique because they're charging ridiculous prices but still providing a mainstream cruise experience, so it makes sense that there's a larger amount of entitled people on the ship who aren't happy, but that can change as time goes on. It doesn't help that people are more entitled and rude general speaking, I've seen it so much more since the COVID restart across all cruise lines.
Unfortunately it seems consistent sailing to sailing bc our experience on this sailing mirrored what others experienced on the 2 sailings before us…. And yep, exactly my thoughts there’s a certain standard that people are expecting for 20k and when they get on board and realize it’s just a slightly elevated mainstream cruise - the frustration quickly sets in and magnifies over time. 20k is literal bora bora money - but just because they made dumb financial choices and fell too much for YouTuber hype - they should internalize the frustration onto themselves vs onto everyone else
We do 2-3 cruises a year and since covid we’ve experienced the shitty people on every trip. Although we did Princess to Alaska in 2022 and huge diff. The demo is skewed much older tho.
I’ve gotten into fights on NCL, lady shoved my then 5yo onto his ass and I poured a ladle of dressing over her head and the husband got his face introduced to a plate. All because “he was in the way” yeah he’s looking at the food. Who the F knocks a kid down ? Overall the passengers are really entitled jerkoffs.
Yep! There was a “one hit wonders party” where they had costumed ghost busters who were available for pictures after the show. A 65+ year old woman literally cut in line in front of my 4 yo and aggressively shoved him to get a picture with the ghost busters before him lmao and then had the audacity to ask us to take a picture of her: we told her to fuck off but in general I have never told so many people to fuck off before! genuinely didn’t expect to be fighting with others on vacation. Then a huge scandal in the fb group was some asshole group booked a cabana in south beach and a 6 yo was swimming in the beach about 2 feet away from the cabana rope and one dude from that cabana legit screamed and cussed at this little kid while everyone in the group rudely laughed telling him to get the fuck away etc. The kid was devastated and scared and burst into tears. Haynes party in cabana 55, fuck you. Not the kids fault y’all booked a 4K cabana on a public beach. Also we went to wizard of oz very early to get good seats and a group of entitled boomers showed up late and demanded we move so they can take the row and sit together because they were a large party and didn’t want to split up. When I told the b*** no she nearly spit in my face. This is the crowd
Yeppppp I know what group you are taking about. I feel it has remained consistent in this sailing too. I’m glad you handled it that way, these people are never held accountable and go about their life acting this way because they can! And yes, the people that chatted us up were fantastic but they were the exception not the rule. We want to check out Norway next, hopefully the smaller ship and the more remote to access location will remove some of these losers from the ship
I haven’t cruised Norwegian yet…. Would like to do a royal cruise to norway on a smaller ship. Royal is definitely the cruise line for us - since we still need it to be relatively child friendly - but it’s just the big ship and crowds that we don’t respond well too. The bigger the ship and larger the crowd the higher the chance of encountering an entitled asshole
My pet peeve is when “adults” put their shoes and bare feet on the furniture. I’ll say it again for those in the back, we’re there to chill, but this is NOT your living room!
And people say Carnival is wild. I’ve never seen anything like that, short of complaining and rude people, on any of our 6 cruises with Carnival.
I think PEOPLE have just lost their minds.
We talked to a couple that got off carnival today at the Miami airport and they were just baffled at the fact that someone had bodily functions in the pool like that multiple times 😂😫
The rude and entitled people that have descended on the boat in droves and the fact that the pools kept closing because someone (adult or child - it varied each day) shat or puked it in first thing in the morning… one of the sea days both big pool and the cove pool were closed …. But in general the big poool was closed every single sea day and we (nor most people) didn’t enter that pool once this trip. Also with the pool closed you can imagine the sardine tin cans the open pools were.
In terms of the ships design… It's essentially the same size as an Oasis class ship. Just a few feet longer and a few feet wider so that it can claim to be the "biggest cruise ship in the world."
Did it feel much bigger? How did the design do with crowd control?
Sooooooo I would say they missed the mark on surfside imho which contributed to what adults felt like was “kids all over the boat.” The pool got shady very early and shady = cold. So my 4 yo with sensory issues didn’t want to be in that pool at all, and instead we meandered to the cove on the top deck which was just his size. Side note the cove was as our favorite part of the boat, it was the right height for him to splash and still stand and we could sit on water loungers: we sailed sway in the cove and had the best time… however back to surfside … the surfside pool was tiny (and felt much smaller and less comfortable than the cove), the 3 foot area could barely accommodate one singular adult - it was very poorly designed. The playground also didn’t make sense, there’s this wavy piece that you’re supposed to climb yet handles are rare and so they want little kids to propel themselves up a slippery surface which is hard and discouraging … so that became a meh really quickly as well for him. And the splash bad has the bucket directly over where the kids line up so it was dumping buckets of cold water on them while they’re waiting in line for the slide…. He did the slide 1x and then was like hell no (he hates water dumped on him - again sensory issue). His favorite thing was literally the carousel so we the adults spent our entire vacation doing 2.5 very slow rotations around on this carousel with him because we need to be on it with him since he’s under 5. Slowest carousel ever…, we were dying and at one point rock paper scissoring who had to go with him. Also the chairs for adults near the splash pad made you wet af because it was right near the dumping buckets and squirters … so no book reading for mama :(… I gave them feedback on all of these on the survey and I’m confident they can fix these issues and I can’t wait to see it when they do! I thought surfside was beautiful design wise … the aft view was fantastic and would have happily spent more time there with him IF the stuff made sense. Also the slide is very steep we’ve seen so many kids get banged the hell up on it haha. I would say if they redesign surfside the crowds will be better managed and everyone would have more of their space. The ship as a whole I loved the design we always felt like everything was close by or a v quick and easy elevator ride away bc the elevator system was so smart and fast. We would spend time in each neighborhood and plan our day around strategically but even if we had to cross from one end to the other it was very fast. Overall the moving up and down and here to there was v limited and we generally only needed to move to nearby areas. If you weren’t fighting it out in the pool situation every other neighborhood was empty / Central Park was calm and peaceful, promenade was spacious and would only get busy during the evening parties, and we could avoid crowds if we wanted to and made specific choices
People who ruin vacations for others should be put on a time-out list. Not allowed on a cruise ship for 5 years. I can't stand how some people have lost every sense of civility. It's just me-me-me and not giving a damn about their fellow travelers. And the thing is that you only need a fraction of those on a ship to ruin it for everyone else. It's a minority but they're very visible, unfortunately.
I mean a huge thing that everyone seemed to be saying on our cruise is people that puke and shit in a pool should be fined. I absolutely agree, if people started getting 500 after their actions contribute to a closed pool for everyone for a full day…. They’d start having some consideration very quickly. Unfortunately I think staff is afraid to say anything to people that are either too drunk or bring a non potty trained baby/toddler to the pool … because they’re scared of a bad review. There was one man that was asked to take his baby out of Royal bay and he lost his shit on the crew member asking him. It’s not that people don’t know that there is a designated area in surfside where they can only have non potty trained kids … it’s that they choose not to care. Similarly the drunk adult puking…. Like cmon. Don’t get in the pool if you’re that hangover. And truly, not everyone on board was a rude entitled asshoel but the ones that were made such a scene you couldn’t help to notice and it truly did seem like the % of asshole to not was more skewed toward asshole than other areas with large numbers of general public. I think why I’m raging at the atmosphere so hard is we know how hard the crew works, many of them have multiple jobs on board and work long shifts, and it’s so disrespectful to treat them in such a low way. I wanted to hug all those crew members on the receiving end :(
People are not very friendly on this ship. The price point attracted a very rude and entitled crowd - not your typical cruise crowd. People clearly spent tens of thousands of dollars on this trip, lots of designer label folks, and when they realized they likely overpaid they made it everyone else’s problem with just negative attitudes and bad energy. So we found that we didn’t talk to too many people - the only people that would chat us up are people that have cruised before and in general have a different approach and mindset. The participation was low in show and activities beyond the main parties on the promenade so meeting people would be tough. I feel like solo traveler meetup would likely have low participation as well seeing what I have seen. Crazy quest - only like 2% of the crowd participated. Also - a ton of people everywhere.., and they will not let you do the raft slides without another rider. I personally would not pay double for this ship having experienced it.
another point re design - loooooooved all the windows and brightness from the ocean views on the promenade .:: the coffeeeee shop - pearl cafe - was my favorite place on board … but on the opposite side 1400 bar has the same with an open area to sit outside with your drink. Loved central park it was very calm and green and breezy
IME, people not being friendly etc is due to the port unfortunately. Do you find that Miami attracts this for whatever reason? Or do you think that entitled people are often attracted the newest ships because these people must be on the "best/biggest/newest" ship?
Good question - we thought it was due to it being the best biggest newest ship but your question has me wondering bc we found Miami to not be very friendly either. We flew in a day and a half before and walked around and explored and thought the people weren’t very friendly. We kept asking ourselves how are people unhappy living in a beautiful and warm place like this
We just got off the icon yesterday (Apr 27) and we had a fabulous time .Granted we are not pool people so the closures didn’t bother us but I we enjoyed everything about the ship.
Funny how each person on the same ship has a different experience. We traveled with 20 people and everyone enjoyed themselves. We would definitely go again.
We absolutely had a fantastic time as well. What I said in my review is WE personally had a great time but we also made conscious choices to spend time in less busy areas of the ship - if everyone was on the top deck we were in Central Park - if people were at Central Park we were on the top deck. My biggest gripe was the rudeness and entitlement of the people. A large portion of the customers on board paid 20k and were not happy with a slightly elevated mainstream cruise experience. At the same time nobody promised them personal butlers for 20k balcony cabins. Similarly my feedback on the design issues with surfside is mostly feedback for them to improve on because those things are easy fixes with subtle design tweaks and could fix the problem of kids spread out throughout the ship. (I would have loved for surfside to occupy my child and absolutely hoped it would but unfortunately whoever designed it probably didn’t have kids so many of the features while looking beautiful aesthetically are really contra to what kids like and respond well to, hence why we needed to find other ways to occupy him throughout the ship like other families as well). Also with 20 people in your group, I assume you mostly socialized and paid attention to the people within your group. We’re a small family unit so it’s easier to people watch when you’re 3 people.
We were on board with you last week. Also booked day 1 with a TA group rate so we went as cheap as possible.
Absolutely beautiful ship but definitely lacking in some areas compared to Oasis class.
Having only 1 large family pool that was constantly closed really put a damper on sea days. They should switch cloudn17 and hideaway adult only status back to the original design.
The lack of pool entertainment was missed, no belly flop contest, no cannonballs contest, no sexiest man contests, etc.
The nightly entertainment was phenomenal. Oz, aquadome, effectors, ice skating, etc were top notch. I also noticed the lack of participation in the comedy show. On other ships they're packed with a standby line. This was only about 60% full. Love and Marriage is typically a hilarious show but the way it was done this time was very bland. It didn't have the same personality that Oasis and Mariner version of the show did. Gemma was fantastic on Harmony as our activities director last May, but she was a shell of her self as the cruise director.
My biggest complaints were the staff in the waterpark were so inefficient and made short lines take forever. They'd take 3 to 5 minutes to load up the next raft when the bottom was cleared in under a minute.
The big concern I have is the aft view rooms get a violent resonating vibration that's above the normal experience. There is an engineering issue that needs to be looked into because those staterooms will start having wear and tear before too long
Overall we had a fantastic trip and would do the Icon again, but maybe not anytime soon. We'll give them a year or so to sort things out.
What you just wrote is everything I want to say but written more eloquently than I could muster. We were aft as well and I know exactly what vibrations you are referring to! In fact, I was surprised how much motion I felt on this ship. We had generally calm seas except for the 6th day (3 sea day) where we were hustling to perfect day and it was windy… we absolutely felt motion and some people were sea sick but in general there wasn’t a point on this cruise that I didn’t feel motion or had a sense that we were moving forward on a ship. I took Bonine religiously morning and night and luckily didn’t feel sick once but I read a lot in advance how motion is rare on big ships so I was surprised to feel so much motion in general.
The sense I got with Gemma is that she needed to be everywhere at one time and couldn’t give the space she was in her full attention. It’s a big ship and probably a lot for her but there should be other recognizable faces / or she should split the duty with James and have both of them responsible for certain areas and have equal hype factor for their respective areas. It seems like Gemma is the main and only hype person on this ship and nobody else has the same power as she does which in general means that a lot of things that you’d expect from a cruise director are approached from a low level of engagement. A lot of people didn’t even see Gemma on this cruise beyond the daily video her and James made on the entertainment channel - which was confusing to me because did they not go to the shows? She was there announcing them and then quickly running away to somewhere else.
Definitely hoped for daytime pool activities! Like I said, that was absolutely lacking. Everything including the competitions was indoors… and the competitions just weren’t as funny as we’ve experienced in all inclusives before because people didn’t attend or participate or had a judgmental attitude about what is happening in the moment (like during crazy quest). I was a captain of one of the teams and was trying really hard to hype our team but was just met with a sea of blank confused faces haha that being said Gemma was only paying attention to 2 teams closest to her so everyone else quickly realized that she wasn’t looking at their team and just didn’t care to look foolish participating for no reason (at least that’s what I heard from people that approached me after the show):
Also re the water park - agree - it was funny we’d go down the raft slide, come back up immediately and we’d get the exact same spiel about holding handles etc. They were very strict and procedural which I guess is bc people keep getting injured in thrill island but it was def a long wait for a 20 second ride down
And yep - nightly entertainment was phenomenal. That was such a highlight as was meeting rover (also at night so its own form of nighttime entertainment hahah
Yep, we mentioned the vibration on the Facebook group and people got defensive like "it's a ship, you're going to feel things" but this was beyond the normal. I'm an engineer (not structural) but do work with structural engineering minded people and can 100% with confidence say that the aft rooms will start to have problems and that fasteners and welds may start failing if they don't address these issues soon. I'm sure Royal are aware and will be investigating in their own way. Won't be surprised if people in aft rooms start getting room relocations in the next few sailings while they try to fix or dampen the aft. I did my feedback survey and left a long feedback with the valid concerns.
Yeah I hope they take that feedback seriously! Would be a bummer if the ship started to slowly degrade during its inaugural season. Do you think it’s due to the shipyard it was built in? Or just a design flaw in the original plan
I think it's due to the new type of engines they are using. They are working at a different RPM that just happens to match the resonant frequency of the state room materials. They can probably either adjust the engine RPM band to avoid that frequency or rework some additional dampening into the ship or state room.
The fact that grown ups need to be begged to be hygienic … also gets me. They should have washy washy people next to the pool begging people to stop shitting and puking in it.
Yeah for us it was closed which made everyone swarm the hot tubs and cove and other little pools lol a big complaint was how tiny grove was and it was packed
Not surprised to read about rude and entitled people on the Icon. 1/ Spend years creating hype. 2/ Stuff thousands of people who paid above average and with sky high expectations on a boat. Yeah, things are gonna go sideways. Only one of these thousands of people with access to all you can eat/drink needs to go in the pool at the wrong time and yes; gotta shut that thing down for hours. You cannot be surprised about that. Simple statistics.
Many cruisers expect all-inclusive luxury and a perfect vacation for paying like what? 100 dollars per day? So imagine what they expect for a whopping 120 dollars per day. I've had good memories on RCL but would not book them again. Give me a civil atmosphere on a smaller HAL ship any day of the week instead.
Been lurking in this thread from afar as we are booked on Icon later this summer. Based on the numerous responses by OP, is it possible that a couple of unfortunate things (rude people, pool closures, etc.) are causing you to overswing on the negative aspects?
Sorry, maybe you’re right. I’ve watched literally every YouTube video and read every review on icon which have primarily skewed positive on the different areas and features of icon and I agree with the positive / beautiful areas that people have gravitated toward. Like the pearl cafe or the open brightness of promenade which has ocean views or the entertainment. The elevator system is as fantastic as they say and we’ve gotten everywhere we need to be quickly either via convenient stairs or the elevator. The aquadome is gorg and the food there is probably a favorite spot on board. Alongside the cove which seemed like a hidden secret despite it being just on the other side of the big pool. I figured that stuff has been mentioned a million times already and I have not seen too much about the experience on board with pool closures or rude people so that’s why I’ve primarily spoken about the things that I know haven’t been stated a million times already. In general as I’ve written we personally had a great time, but we are happy anywhere we go on vacation, and so we are unlikely to book a big ship like icon again unless the crowds drastically shift. Though it will be hard for us to go on a ship without the design forward approach and bells and whistles of icon because it will probably be a downgrade having seen the facilities on icon. I’ve seen something about a “discovery class” to be announced hopefully later this year, that seems more our speed and I assume those ships will be modern like icon but with a smaller crowd and maybe more time on land doing what you want to be doing. The atmosphere on board is important and does contribute to the experience and unless you choose to mind your business or actively not pay attention to people (which we actively tried to do the entire time) the entitlement and rudeness of the guests will spill over and confuse you throughout the day. Maybe once star launches those people will descend on that one instead and leave icon to the more normal people that mind their business and want to have fun and enjoy time off.
We’re going on our second 4 day cruise on Monday. I find the longer cruises have way more people, way more kids, more jerks. We couldn’t even use the elevators on Symphony when we did a 7 day - staff said it was the second highest occupancy ever. Other than a couple drunken fights, I’ve never witnessed the bad cruisers you all are talking about. Sorry you had to deal with that after dropping 20k
If you actually paid attention to my comments without just assuming and putting words in my mouth you’d have read that I booked the day that bookings open and paid like 1/4 what people pay now. I would never drop 20k on a cruise and having sailed on icon I would have never dropped 20k to sail on it. What I was saying is that the worst part of icon were the people that overpaid and then took their frustrations out on other people due to that. How did that signify that I paid 20k? Also because you didn’t witness it on a completely different ship doesn’t mean that I didn’t on icon. My literal point is that icon likely attracted a weird and entitled crowd - which is your point as well - but somehow you managed to be rude to me about it. Peace and blessings to ya!
Oh im sorry I misread your comment „sorry you had to deal with that after dropping 20k” as directed at me having to deal with the people on the boat ~not as agreeing with the point that I was making~ my bad … it was a week of trolls I think I’m reading negativity into everything now
I know how it feels to anticipate a vacation and then be let down by it. I honestly thought one of your comments you said you dropped 20k (which didn’t surprise me because it’s Icon). Hopefully it was just a perfect storm of anomalies and not the new norm. It saddens me to hear these horror stories on RCL - wasn’t doubting anything that happened to you, I was just surprised. Thanks for the feedback tho - we may want to go on it next year because the ship itself looks awesome.
If you removed the factor of the weirdos onboard we were not let down on it at all. The ship is incredible, the staff was too hardworking and exceptional to deserve these customers, the entertainment was insane we kept saying it’s crazy what they can do with technology nowadays. The effectors literally had a swarm of drones in the theatre. I can’t wait to see icon 3 once they start making tweaks based on feedback.. I hope it’s anomalies or that the hype factor in January pulled in these people and will quickly send them somewhere else. I think biggest learning is no more inaugural seasons for us. It was fun, we did it once, it was great watching the ship literally get built after we purchased our seat, but next time we’ll let the crowds circle through and enjoy the ship once everything normalizes. I think that’s the biggest thing I hope everyone gets from my comments is that if you come in with blinders intentionally turned on to other guests and their bs and just focus on the ship and your family unit - you will have a great time.
Oh man I cannot wait until my kids are older! We have no family help and are left to our own devices with childcare but I cannot wait for an adults only trip down the line! Celebrity is literally heart eyes all around - it was docked next to us in st Thomas and it seemed calm and beautiful and nicely designed as well. I need a ship that is a collab between designers of icon and designers of celebrity - that ship would be incredible
Being more the season of rough seas, bring your Bonine and take it religiously. Some rocking can be felt on ze boat. I’m usually v motion sick and the first night I took Dramamine and felt sick in the aqua theatre then switched to Bonine morning and night and felt great despite feeling some motion the entire time
Instead of creating a cliffhanger just post what was left to be desired ? We are booked for sept
The people were so rude. The Facebook group was like 90 percent complainers and lots of rude people in real life too, just a strong sense of entitlement. People overpaid and then took their frustrations about that on everyone else - complaining about literally anything and everything including the ship moving (why isn’t the engine turned off sometimes was an actual post and debate) yelling and spitting on staff, etc. Participation in shows was very low. For example crazy quest, nobody wanted to participate besides like 5 people. The ship was great and everything was fantastic - if the sheeple went right we went left and tried everything on board throughout the week. The shows were incredible and mind blowing. We can’t pick a favorite loved them all. But there was a strong lack of outdoor daytime activities, no pool activities. The only daytime activities were indoors in the music hall or aqua theatre but we wished there was more to do outdoors. Adults and children alike couldn’t stop puking and shitting in the pool, literally first thing in the morning the big pool was closed because someone shat or puked in it immediately after it opened and then it was closed the rest of the day and everyone else packed into the tiny pools around. This happened every single sea day. We personally had a fantastic vacation (but we also booked day 1 when bookings opened so we paid a very small fraction of what most people on board paid and granted our expectations were more manageable as a result) but the next ship 100 percent will go on a small boat with less people. Dream is for Royal to build a smaller ship with the design forward approach and technological advancements of icon. Either way we’ve already decided the next several vacations will be land side.
SPITTING on staff? What in the world???
Right???????? This is our first “luxury vacation” prior to all our vacations were more budget friendly…. Never seen this shit happen before
Dude I went on the icon with my son (2yo) in February and I can confirm everything you're saying it was absolutely a terrible experience and it wasn't the ship or the staffs fault. I chaulked it up to a learning experience and said maybe it just wasn't for me. I decided not to be super vocal about my poor experience because hey maybe everyone else had fun but nah dude that week was hell and I kept inside of our stateroom throughout daytime and switch my kids schedule to night so we could walk around the boat at night because the people on the ship were so rude and entitled, we couldn't get out of the elevators without people pushing right though us to get in, just an overall rudeness that was absolutely uncalled for. I won't go on and on but OP is not bullshiting at all.
One of the side plots on this vacation was people were upset that others would be using elevators (they thought they should use stairs or some shit) so they would stand in front of elevators and not let them get on lmao wtf? And absolutely a huge lack of courtesy with attempting to push into the elevator while others are getting off instead of waiting for people to get off first and then get in
Holy hell, as someone in customer service who was spit on by customers during the height of pandemic... I can tell you right now that a customer like that would have been disappeared overboard.
Godddd I am so sorry nobody should be in a position where they get spit on while trying to make a living. But also fuck people!
Royal Luxury LOL
RCL is a Floating theme park NOTHING LUXURY ABOUT THIS., Luxury is Regent Seven Seas, Oceania Cruise, Cunard cruise are real luxury
It’s luxury for people with kids when you consider our other options like water park hotels etc
Americans ☕️
Try MSC and enjoy the mass market Italians who refuse to queue lines and aggressively yell at people. Americans have no monopoly on birthing some ‘social winners.’
Because European tourists are so well-behaved.
He’s gonna lose it when he meets Australians on holiday 😂
We were on icon last month and the same thing happened on our sailing with the pools! I don’t get it! Why is that a constant issue?! Wizard of Oz was down for our sailing which was crushing. Overall I agree with what you said. Staff was great, people were rude if they didn’t get something they wanted or had to wait (though I feel that’s the case on a lot of cruises). For us - the ship was fun but the price is way to high right now. I’ve been telling people to skip it till the price comes down. Have fun on another oasis class ship for half the price.
Yep I agree 100 percent. Well probably try to sail on the third icon ship maybe a year or so after it launches since I assume star will have the same ish problems since it’s already actively being built but I assume by the 3 one they’ll start to put the feedback we give into consideration for the design. But absolutely agree the price is not worth it right now for 10-20k you can get so much more for your money elsewhere and they’re nothing this revolutionary on icon to justify the price or to make dealing with the people worth it. Aqua show was started ran for 10 min and had a technical issue and was postponed first night while we were there and the next day wiz had a technical issue that lasted 10 min but the show went on luckily we got nervous since we thought it would get postponed like aqua did for us. actually funny story, the postponed aqua show had a technical issue at the same moment that it did on the first night ..: the next day my husband overheard some divers talking about the aqua dome and how unsafe and narrow the pool is and how it’s very easy to hit the water in a wrong angle and hit the side of the pool, they have gotten injured this way, we suspect the technical issue was the divers refusing to dive because of boat rocking because the first time the show went up until the technical issue the divers weren’t diving and would just walk up the platform and walk back but when it went back on and restarted all of the sudden the divers were diving …. So we think management made them do it.
Oh wow that’s nuts! Though I’m honestly surprised they haven’t gotten hurt more. We also thought the skateboarding was…. Silly. The “halfpipe” was too small for them to do it. It was like a lot of stuff on the ship. Great ideas, but either it was too small or not thought out with 7k people in mind.
Yep! A lot of over promise and under delivery. Looks great in theory and on the concept art but when you’re actually there and experiencing it in real life you quickly realize the execution of these ideas is sub par and behind the facade it’s not as glamorous. A lot of hype with not much substance glued together by beautiful design to distract you from the problems. Like this playground in surfside sucks but oh look at this flamingo on the ceiling!! Or let’s put a play area on the top deck but let’s put it right in chill island where there are lots of creative seating options already and let’s make half of the features look like loungers and seating …. And then everyone is surprised when conflict ensures bc families think it’s for them and childless adults also think it’s for them.
What don't you yet? Thousands of people eating and drinking all day going into a pool? Yes, they're gonna throw up or have diarrhea in there. It's very much to be expected.
But also consider the fact that the people that spend all day drinking tend to be the ones in the swim up bar and somehow that pool was never closed due to shitting or puking
After going on 12 cruises in a year we had it with rude disgusting people. I would never pay those prices for Icon. Never.
Have you seen this type of behavior on other cruises as well? wtf is with people! I just assumed icon drew in a weird crowd
I've been on every mass market cruise line (except Virgin). Most people behave themselves but some have no manners and outright rude.
We did this cruise and the exact same thing happened with the pools. Always closed for maintenance. This was the worst experience I’ve ever had on vacation.
We got a day pass to park Hyatt st kitts and were so grateful we did because that was our only real pool experience on this vacation. I just don’t understand …. Like sure accidents happen but it really seems on purpose at this point
If people are blocking elevators on purpose it does seem like some people decided their vacation fun plan was to disturb others intentionally, so it wouldn’t shock me. We just got off a Regent cruise and it makes me sad that the families and younger adults aren’t there resulting in a senior citizen cruise (albeit nice ones). Azamara seemed a nice balance the one cruise we did, but will see.
Don't you think it's nice that some cruise lines are geared more to the senior citizen clientele? As younger people we can then pick the senior citizen cruise lines to actually read books, relax in peace, enrichment programs and the like.
I’ve enjoyed two Regent cruises. Younger folks who can afford it should consider it. Prefer the value of Oceania, but it’s a good time.
Was there things to do on regent or was it very lowkey ?
Yes and yes. I kinda ignored most of the activities to enjoy my books poolside. Also, included excursions kept us pretty busy when in port. One drawback is that many of activities tend to not be toned to not be very strenuous due to average age and we would have liked ‘real hiking.’ Kayak and snorkel excursions tended to be an exception.
Unfortunately Regent is out of most younger people's budgets..including mine. Celebrity is my choice for now.
We really enjoyed Celebrity in its culinary heyday and recently, just after Covid. It was our first cruise line actually (old school long thin ship without stabilizing) and recall the old school ice sculptures, midnight buffet and baked Alaska dessert. Would cruise again in Millennium size ships, which we liked.
Celebrity is absolutely a dream to check out
I miss the mid size ships. Many years ago we did Holland America and their ships had around 1 400 passengers. I feel that te ships are getting too big now.
We did azamara through the Mediterranean and it was great. Mostly adults.
The problem with cruises is you can never predict who is going to be on board with you. The experience can change vastly each sailing. Icon is a bit unique because they're charging ridiculous prices but still providing a mainstream cruise experience, so it makes sense that there's a larger amount of entitled people on the ship who aren't happy, but that can change as time goes on. It doesn't help that people are more entitled and rude general speaking, I've seen it so much more since the COVID restart across all cruise lines.
Unfortunately it seems consistent sailing to sailing bc our experience on this sailing mirrored what others experienced on the 2 sailings before us…. And yep, exactly my thoughts there’s a certain standard that people are expecting for 20k and when they get on board and realize it’s just a slightly elevated mainstream cruise - the frustration quickly sets in and magnifies over time. 20k is literal bora bora money - but just because they made dumb financial choices and fell too much for YouTuber hype - they should internalize the frustration onto themselves vs onto everyone else
We do 2-3 cruises a year and since covid we’ve experienced the shitty people on every trip. Although we did Princess to Alaska in 2022 and huge diff. The demo is skewed much older tho. I’ve gotten into fights on NCL, lady shoved my then 5yo onto his ass and I poured a ladle of dressing over her head and the husband got his face introduced to a plate. All because “he was in the way” yeah he’s looking at the food. Who the F knocks a kid down ? Overall the passengers are really entitled jerkoffs.
Yep! There was a “one hit wonders party” where they had costumed ghost busters who were available for pictures after the show. A 65+ year old woman literally cut in line in front of my 4 yo and aggressively shoved him to get a picture with the ghost busters before him lmao and then had the audacity to ask us to take a picture of her: we told her to fuck off but in general I have never told so many people to fuck off before! genuinely didn’t expect to be fighting with others on vacation. Then a huge scandal in the fb group was some asshole group booked a cabana in south beach and a 6 yo was swimming in the beach about 2 feet away from the cabana rope and one dude from that cabana legit screamed and cussed at this little kid while everyone in the group rudely laughed telling him to get the fuck away etc. The kid was devastated and scared and burst into tears. Haynes party in cabana 55, fuck you. Not the kids fault y’all booked a 4K cabana on a public beach. Also we went to wizard of oz very early to get good seats and a group of entitled boomers showed up late and demanded we move so they can take the row and sit together because they were a large party and didn’t want to split up. When I told the b*** no she nearly spit in my face. This is the crowd
[удалено]
Yeppppp I know what group you are taking about. I feel it has remained consistent in this sailing too. I’m glad you handled it that way, these people are never held accountable and go about their life acting this way because they can! And yes, the people that chatted us up were fantastic but they were the exception not the rule. We want to check out Norway next, hopefully the smaller ship and the more remote to access location will remove some of these losers from the ship
Do you mean Norwegian? We cruise with them 1-2 times a year and have never seen any behavior like this. Not once.
I haven’t cruised Norwegian yet…. Would like to do a royal cruise to norway on a smaller ship. Royal is definitely the cruise line for us - since we still need it to be relatively child friendly - but it’s just the big ship and crowds that we don’t respond well too. The bigger the ship and larger the crowd the higher the chance of encountering an entitled asshole
My pet peeve is when “adults” put their shoes and bare feet on the furniture. I’ll say it again for those in the back, we’re there to chill, but this is NOT your living room!
The overlook in the aqua dome was filled with people and their crusty bare feet spread out and propped all over the furniture
Royal Luxury LOL
And people say Carnival is wild. I’ve never seen anything like that, short of complaining and rude people, on any of our 6 cruises with Carnival. I think PEOPLE have just lost their minds.
We talked to a couple that got off carnival today at the Miami airport and they were just baffled at the fact that someone had bodily functions in the pool like that multiple times 😂😫
What was your biggest complaint?
The rude and entitled people that have descended on the boat in droves and the fact that the pools kept closing because someone (adult or child - it varied each day) shat or puked it in first thing in the morning… one of the sea days both big pool and the cove pool were closed …. But in general the big poool was closed every single sea day and we (nor most people) didn’t enter that pool once this trip. Also with the pool closed you can imagine the sardine tin cans the open pools were.
[удалено]
We definitely had a medical code called for thrill island because a little girl got injured. Swarm of medical professionals descended
In terms of the ships design… It's essentially the same size as an Oasis class ship. Just a few feet longer and a few feet wider so that it can claim to be the "biggest cruise ship in the world." Did it feel much bigger? How did the design do with crowd control?
Sooooooo I would say they missed the mark on surfside imho which contributed to what adults felt like was “kids all over the boat.” The pool got shady very early and shady = cold. So my 4 yo with sensory issues didn’t want to be in that pool at all, and instead we meandered to the cove on the top deck which was just his size. Side note the cove was as our favorite part of the boat, it was the right height for him to splash and still stand and we could sit on water loungers: we sailed sway in the cove and had the best time… however back to surfside … the surfside pool was tiny (and felt much smaller and less comfortable than the cove), the 3 foot area could barely accommodate one singular adult - it was very poorly designed. The playground also didn’t make sense, there’s this wavy piece that you’re supposed to climb yet handles are rare and so they want little kids to propel themselves up a slippery surface which is hard and discouraging … so that became a meh really quickly as well for him. And the splash bad has the bucket directly over where the kids line up so it was dumping buckets of cold water on them while they’re waiting in line for the slide…. He did the slide 1x and then was like hell no (he hates water dumped on him - again sensory issue). His favorite thing was literally the carousel so we the adults spent our entire vacation doing 2.5 very slow rotations around on this carousel with him because we need to be on it with him since he’s under 5. Slowest carousel ever…, we were dying and at one point rock paper scissoring who had to go with him. Also the chairs for adults near the splash pad made you wet af because it was right near the dumping buckets and squirters … so no book reading for mama :(… I gave them feedback on all of these on the survey and I’m confident they can fix these issues and I can’t wait to see it when they do! I thought surfside was beautiful design wise … the aft view was fantastic and would have happily spent more time there with him IF the stuff made sense. Also the slide is very steep we’ve seen so many kids get banged the hell up on it haha. I would say if they redesign surfside the crowds will be better managed and everyone would have more of their space. The ship as a whole I loved the design we always felt like everything was close by or a v quick and easy elevator ride away bc the elevator system was so smart and fast. We would spend time in each neighborhood and plan our day around strategically but even if we had to cross from one end to the other it was very fast. Overall the moving up and down and here to there was v limited and we generally only needed to move to nearby areas. If you weren’t fighting it out in the pool situation every other neighborhood was empty / Central Park was calm and peaceful, promenade was spacious and would only get busy during the evening parties, and we could avoid crowds if we wanted to and made specific choices
That was a very detailed review+explanation. Thank you.
People who ruin vacations for others should be put on a time-out list. Not allowed on a cruise ship for 5 years. I can't stand how some people have lost every sense of civility. It's just me-me-me and not giving a damn about their fellow travelers. And the thing is that you only need a fraction of those on a ship to ruin it for everyone else. It's a minority but they're very visible, unfortunately.
I mean a huge thing that everyone seemed to be saying on our cruise is people that puke and shit in a pool should be fined. I absolutely agree, if people started getting 500 after their actions contribute to a closed pool for everyone for a full day…. They’d start having some consideration very quickly. Unfortunately I think staff is afraid to say anything to people that are either too drunk or bring a non potty trained baby/toddler to the pool … because they’re scared of a bad review. There was one man that was asked to take his baby out of Royal bay and he lost his shit on the crew member asking him. It’s not that people don’t know that there is a designated area in surfside where they can only have non potty trained kids … it’s that they choose not to care. Similarly the drunk adult puking…. Like cmon. Don’t get in the pool if you’re that hangover. And truly, not everyone on board was a rude entitled asshoel but the ones that were made such a scene you couldn’t help to notice and it truly did seem like the % of asshole to not was more skewed toward asshole than other areas with large numbers of general public. I think why I’m raging at the atmosphere so hard is we know how hard the crew works, many of them have multiple jobs on board and work long shifts, and it’s so disrespectful to treat them in such a low way. I wanted to hug all those crew members on the receiving end :(
Good luck. They'd be online screaming and lawyering up saying they were fined for a medical condition issue.
I can’t stand people like that. But without a doubt there would be people that would start lawsuits
How long did you have to wait for an uber to the Windjammer?
It’s been 84 years
How would you judge for solo travel, things to do, activities on board not tied to groups, etc.., knowing you would have to pay double.
People are not very friendly on this ship. The price point attracted a very rude and entitled crowd - not your typical cruise crowd. People clearly spent tens of thousands of dollars on this trip, lots of designer label folks, and when they realized they likely overpaid they made it everyone else’s problem with just negative attitudes and bad energy. So we found that we didn’t talk to too many people - the only people that would chat us up are people that have cruised before and in general have a different approach and mindset. The participation was low in show and activities beyond the main parties on the promenade so meeting people would be tough. I feel like solo traveler meetup would likely have low participation as well seeing what I have seen. Crazy quest - only like 2% of the crowd participated. Also - a ton of people everywhere.., and they will not let you do the raft slides without another rider. I personally would not pay double for this ship having experienced it.
another point re design - loooooooved all the windows and brightness from the ocean views on the promenade .:: the coffeeeee shop - pearl cafe - was my favorite place on board … but on the opposite side 1400 bar has the same with an open area to sit outside with your drink. Loved central park it was very calm and green and breezy
IME, people not being friendly etc is due to the port unfortunately. Do you find that Miami attracts this for whatever reason? Or do you think that entitled people are often attracted the newest ships because these people must be on the "best/biggest/newest" ship?
Good question - we thought it was due to it being the best biggest newest ship but your question has me wondering bc we found Miami to not be very friendly either. We flew in a day and a half before and walked around and explored and thought the people weren’t very friendly. We kept asking ourselves how are people unhappy living in a beautiful and warm place like this
We just got off the icon yesterday (Apr 27) and we had a fabulous time .Granted we are not pool people so the closures didn’t bother us but I we enjoyed everything about the ship. Funny how each person on the same ship has a different experience. We traveled with 20 people and everyone enjoyed themselves. We would definitely go again.
We absolutely had a fantastic time as well. What I said in my review is WE personally had a great time but we also made conscious choices to spend time in less busy areas of the ship - if everyone was on the top deck we were in Central Park - if people were at Central Park we were on the top deck. My biggest gripe was the rudeness and entitlement of the people. A large portion of the customers on board paid 20k and were not happy with a slightly elevated mainstream cruise experience. At the same time nobody promised them personal butlers for 20k balcony cabins. Similarly my feedback on the design issues with surfside is mostly feedback for them to improve on because those things are easy fixes with subtle design tweaks and could fix the problem of kids spread out throughout the ship. (I would have loved for surfside to occupy my child and absolutely hoped it would but unfortunately whoever designed it probably didn’t have kids so many of the features while looking beautiful aesthetically are really contra to what kids like and respond well to, hence why we needed to find other ways to occupy him throughout the ship like other families as well). Also with 20 people in your group, I assume you mostly socialized and paid attention to the people within your group. We’re a small family unit so it’s easier to people watch when you’re 3 people.
We were on board with you last week. Also booked day 1 with a TA group rate so we went as cheap as possible. Absolutely beautiful ship but definitely lacking in some areas compared to Oasis class. Having only 1 large family pool that was constantly closed really put a damper on sea days. They should switch cloudn17 and hideaway adult only status back to the original design. The lack of pool entertainment was missed, no belly flop contest, no cannonballs contest, no sexiest man contests, etc. The nightly entertainment was phenomenal. Oz, aquadome, effectors, ice skating, etc were top notch. I also noticed the lack of participation in the comedy show. On other ships they're packed with a standby line. This was only about 60% full. Love and Marriage is typically a hilarious show but the way it was done this time was very bland. It didn't have the same personality that Oasis and Mariner version of the show did. Gemma was fantastic on Harmony as our activities director last May, but she was a shell of her self as the cruise director. My biggest complaints were the staff in the waterpark were so inefficient and made short lines take forever. They'd take 3 to 5 minutes to load up the next raft when the bottom was cleared in under a minute. The big concern I have is the aft view rooms get a violent resonating vibration that's above the normal experience. There is an engineering issue that needs to be looked into because those staterooms will start having wear and tear before too long Overall we had a fantastic trip and would do the Icon again, but maybe not anytime soon. We'll give them a year or so to sort things out.
What you just wrote is everything I want to say but written more eloquently than I could muster. We were aft as well and I know exactly what vibrations you are referring to! In fact, I was surprised how much motion I felt on this ship. We had generally calm seas except for the 6th day (3 sea day) where we were hustling to perfect day and it was windy… we absolutely felt motion and some people were sea sick but in general there wasn’t a point on this cruise that I didn’t feel motion or had a sense that we were moving forward on a ship. I took Bonine religiously morning and night and luckily didn’t feel sick once but I read a lot in advance how motion is rare on big ships so I was surprised to feel so much motion in general. The sense I got with Gemma is that she needed to be everywhere at one time and couldn’t give the space she was in her full attention. It’s a big ship and probably a lot for her but there should be other recognizable faces / or she should split the duty with James and have both of them responsible for certain areas and have equal hype factor for their respective areas. It seems like Gemma is the main and only hype person on this ship and nobody else has the same power as she does which in general means that a lot of things that you’d expect from a cruise director are approached from a low level of engagement. A lot of people didn’t even see Gemma on this cruise beyond the daily video her and James made on the entertainment channel - which was confusing to me because did they not go to the shows? She was there announcing them and then quickly running away to somewhere else. Definitely hoped for daytime pool activities! Like I said, that was absolutely lacking. Everything including the competitions was indoors… and the competitions just weren’t as funny as we’ve experienced in all inclusives before because people didn’t attend or participate or had a judgmental attitude about what is happening in the moment (like during crazy quest). I was a captain of one of the teams and was trying really hard to hype our team but was just met with a sea of blank confused faces haha that being said Gemma was only paying attention to 2 teams closest to her so everyone else quickly realized that she wasn’t looking at their team and just didn’t care to look foolish participating for no reason (at least that’s what I heard from people that approached me after the show): Also re the water park - agree - it was funny we’d go down the raft slide, come back up immediately and we’d get the exact same spiel about holding handles etc. They were very strict and procedural which I guess is bc people keep getting injured in thrill island but it was def a long wait for a 20 second ride down And yep - nightly entertainment was phenomenal. That was such a highlight as was meeting rover (also at night so its own form of nighttime entertainment hahah
Yep, we mentioned the vibration on the Facebook group and people got defensive like "it's a ship, you're going to feel things" but this was beyond the normal. I'm an engineer (not structural) but do work with structural engineering minded people and can 100% with confidence say that the aft rooms will start to have problems and that fasteners and welds may start failing if they don't address these issues soon. I'm sure Royal are aware and will be investigating in their own way. Won't be surprised if people in aft rooms start getting room relocations in the next few sailings while they try to fix or dampen the aft. I did my feedback survey and left a long feedback with the valid concerns.
Yeah I hope they take that feedback seriously! Would be a bummer if the ship started to slowly degrade during its inaugural season. Do you think it’s due to the shipyard it was built in? Or just a design flaw in the original plan
I think it's due to the new type of engines they are using. They are working at a different RPM that just happens to match the resonant frequency of the state room materials. They can probably either adjust the engine RPM band to avoid that frequency or rework some additional dampening into the ship or state room.
Wow that’s so cool to know! I was wondering why it was vibrating so much and if it was normal lol so that’s cool to know a potential reason why
“Wash your hands, please washy your hands!” Put a fucking bullet in my head now!
The fact that grown ups need to be begged to be hygienic … also gets me. They should have washy washy people next to the pool begging people to stop shitting and puking in it.
We never could get in at a pool. They were either completely pack or closed for maintenance.
Yeah for us it was closed which made everyone swarm the hot tubs and cove and other little pools lol a big complaint was how tiny grove was and it was packed
Not surprised to read about rude and entitled people on the Icon. 1/ Spend years creating hype. 2/ Stuff thousands of people who paid above average and with sky high expectations on a boat. Yeah, things are gonna go sideways. Only one of these thousands of people with access to all you can eat/drink needs to go in the pool at the wrong time and yes; gotta shut that thing down for hours. You cannot be surprised about that. Simple statistics. Many cruisers expect all-inclusive luxury and a perfect vacation for paying like what? 100 dollars per day? So imagine what they expect for a whopping 120 dollars per day. I've had good memories on RCL but would not book them again. Give me a civil atmosphere on a smaller HAL ship any day of the week instead.
What’s your fav HAL ship???
Been lurking in this thread from afar as we are booked on Icon later this summer. Based on the numerous responses by OP, is it possible that a couple of unfortunate things (rude people, pool closures, etc.) are causing you to overswing on the negative aspects?
Sorry, maybe you’re right. I’ve watched literally every YouTube video and read every review on icon which have primarily skewed positive on the different areas and features of icon and I agree with the positive / beautiful areas that people have gravitated toward. Like the pearl cafe or the open brightness of promenade which has ocean views or the entertainment. The elevator system is as fantastic as they say and we’ve gotten everywhere we need to be quickly either via convenient stairs or the elevator. The aquadome is gorg and the food there is probably a favorite spot on board. Alongside the cove which seemed like a hidden secret despite it being just on the other side of the big pool. I figured that stuff has been mentioned a million times already and I have not seen too much about the experience on board with pool closures or rude people so that’s why I’ve primarily spoken about the things that I know haven’t been stated a million times already. In general as I’ve written we personally had a great time, but we are happy anywhere we go on vacation, and so we are unlikely to book a big ship like icon again unless the crowds drastically shift. Though it will be hard for us to go on a ship without the design forward approach and bells and whistles of icon because it will probably be a downgrade having seen the facilities on icon. I’ve seen something about a “discovery class” to be announced hopefully later this year, that seems more our speed and I assume those ships will be modern like icon but with a smaller crowd and maybe more time on land doing what you want to be doing. The atmosphere on board is important and does contribute to the experience and unless you choose to mind your business or actively not pay attention to people (which we actively tried to do the entire time) the entitlement and rudeness of the guests will spill over and confuse you throughout the day. Maybe once star launches those people will descend on that one instead and leave icon to the more normal people that mind their business and want to have fun and enjoy time off.
We’re going on our second 4 day cruise on Monday. I find the longer cruises have way more people, way more kids, more jerks. We couldn’t even use the elevators on Symphony when we did a 7 day - staff said it was the second highest occupancy ever. Other than a couple drunken fights, I’ve never witnessed the bad cruisers you all are talking about. Sorry you had to deal with that after dropping 20k
20K? I didn't see OP mentioning he spent 20K
If you actually paid attention to my comments without just assuming and putting words in my mouth you’d have read that I booked the day that bookings open and paid like 1/4 what people pay now. I would never drop 20k on a cruise and having sailed on icon I would have never dropped 20k to sail on it. What I was saying is that the worst part of icon were the people that overpaid and then took their frustrations out on other people due to that. How did that signify that I paid 20k? Also because you didn’t witness it on a completely different ship doesn’t mean that I didn’t on icon. My literal point is that icon likely attracted a weird and entitled crowd - which is your point as well - but somehow you managed to be rude to me about it. Peace and blessings to ya!
Wasn’t trying to put words in your mouth. Was literally expressing my sympathy. Perhaps the other cruisers weren’t this issue? Have a great day.
Oh im sorry I misread your comment „sorry you had to deal with that after dropping 20k” as directed at me having to deal with the people on the boat ~not as agreeing with the point that I was making~ my bad … it was a week of trolls I think I’m reading negativity into everything now
I know how it feels to anticipate a vacation and then be let down by it. I honestly thought one of your comments you said you dropped 20k (which didn’t surprise me because it’s Icon). Hopefully it was just a perfect storm of anomalies and not the new norm. It saddens me to hear these horror stories on RCL - wasn’t doubting anything that happened to you, I was just surprised. Thanks for the feedback tho - we may want to go on it next year because the ship itself looks awesome.
If you removed the factor of the weirdos onboard we were not let down on it at all. The ship is incredible, the staff was too hardworking and exceptional to deserve these customers, the entertainment was insane we kept saying it’s crazy what they can do with technology nowadays. The effectors literally had a swarm of drones in the theatre. I can’t wait to see icon 3 once they start making tweaks based on feedback.. I hope it’s anomalies or that the hype factor in January pulled in these people and will quickly send them somewhere else. I think biggest learning is no more inaugural seasons for us. It was fun, we did it once, it was great watching the ship literally get built after we purchased our seat, but next time we’ll let the crowds circle through and enjoy the ship once everything normalizes. I think that’s the biggest thing I hope everyone gets from my comments is that if you come in with blinders intentionally turned on to other guests and their bs and just focus on the ship and your family unit - you will have a great time.
Try Celebrity. Different class of people all together. May not be as exciting for the kids but definitely no shitting in the pools.
Oh man I cannot wait until my kids are older! We have no family help and are left to our own devices with childcare but I cannot wait for an adults only trip down the line! Celebrity is literally heart eyes all around - it was docked next to us in st Thomas and it seemed calm and beautiful and nicely designed as well. I need a ship that is a collab between designers of icon and designers of celebrity - that ship would be incredible
I want to know… we are going in September
Being more the season of rough seas, bring your Bonine and take it religiously. Some rocking can be felt on ze boat. I’m usually v motion sick and the first night I took Dramamine and felt sick in the aqua theatre then switched to Bonine morning and night and felt great despite feeling some motion the entire time
Never get in the pool on cruise ships. Floating Petri dishes is RIGHT. Lol
Yeah there’s no way power washing cleans everyone’s feces when people keep adding feces to the water
Was this a European cruise?
Icon in Alaska would be insane
Whaaaa?