It’s a show-stopper. Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas – the biggest cruise ship ever to set sail with 7600 passengers – has been named in the World’s Greatest Places of 2024 according to Time Magazine.
The 20-deck Icon of the Seas, measuring more than three football fields in length, has seven swimming pools, the largest water park at sea, a neighbourhood just for families complete with a carousel featuring whimsical sea creatures, the largest ice arena and the first at-sea performance of Wizard of Oz.
Icon, “festooned with twisting slides, has drawn ire and adoration alike while simultaneously setting the bar for what’s to come in an industry that’s constantly evolving,” said Time Magazine.
Icon was named in Time’s annual list of the World’s Great Places for 2024 which highlighted 100 extraordinary destinations to visit and stay, voted by the magazine’s international correspondents and contributors.
Icon debuted when it sailed from Miami for St Kitts in the Caribbean on January 27 this year.
“We pushed the limits on innovation and challenged ourselves to try things that had not been done before,” says Kara Wallace, chief marketing officer of RCI.
“Icon became the culmination of everything we’ve learned in our more than 50-year history.”
The accolade comes off the back of the successful launch of RCI’s Utopia of the Sea which launched earlier this month with celebrity singer Meghan Trainor as the godmother. The next Icon Class ship, Star of the Seas, will debut in August 2025.
Cruise tourism hit a record 31.7 million passengers in 2023 – up 7 per cent on 2019 according to Cruise Lines International Association’s 2024 State of the Cruise report.
