The world’s biggest ship is getting a twin, Star of the Seas will be every part as large as its headline catching sister ship Icon of the Seas.
The behemoth ship has just been floated out for the first time at its shipyard in Turku, Finland, her first adventure outside of the shipyard before she starts sailing in August 2025.
The ship comes from the same Icon class as Icon of the Seas, and while there are no details yet on when, Royal Caribbean have already revealed there will eventually be a third ship in the class.
Cruise Passenger was at the shipyard in Finland before the float out of Icon of the Seas, and the cruise line makes no secret that it views its Icon class as their crowning achievement. Icon of the Seas, apart from a recent mechanical hiccup, has been delivering extremely popular itineraries out of Miami and across the Caribbean.
Star of the Seas won’t mess with the winning formula, with the ship overall being extremely similar to Icon of the Seas. However, the Royal Caribbean team have been keeping a close eye on what works and what doesn’t and tweaking things here and there to ensure the Icon class continues to evolve, despite the extremely quick turnaround of ships.
Something as monumental as the world’s biggest cruise ship, or at least tied for the biggest, coming into service is sure to raise a lot of questions, so we’ve got you covered here with everything you need to know about the latest big move by Royal Caribbean.
What will be different to Icon of the Seas.
As mentioned, the ship won’t be vastly different to Icon of the Seas, but here are the important tweaks you should know about.
- Food and dining tweaks: Several dining adjustments will be on Star of the Seas. For example The Empire Supper Club, a New York City themed immersive dining experience will instead be replaced with the flavours and energy of Chicago, pivoting to the Lincoln Park Supper Club. Jay Schneider, Royal Caribbean’s Senior Vice President and Chief Product Innovation Officer has also revealed that Pier 7, a restaurant new to Icon, will be evolved on Star of the Seas, but couldn’t reveal more details as of yet. Schneider also hinted at changes to the AquaDome Market, but is yet to reveal any details.
- Kid tracking to be introduced: Royal Caribbean has run some pilot testing of a program that parents can use to track their kids. It is used via waterproof wristbands that appear with a location in the Royal Caribbean mobile app, helping parents to know what their little ones are up to as they run around the ship.
- Adventure Ocean to be more interactive: Schneider states that feedback has been received that kids want a more explorative experiences from the Adventure Ocean kids club. Scheinder says he has heard they want places “to meet up and then kid of move around the ship to be more like adults”, therefore Star of the Seas will have a redesigned teen club, incorporating that feedback. In other updates for kids and families, it is expected that Surfside, the onboard neighbourhood designed for kids and families, will be refreshed.
- Facial recognition for stateroom doors: Schneider says that pilots will be run on facial recognition technology for stateroom doors. “We don’t know how far that pilot will go yet, but we’re pretty confident that we will at least be able to pilot the right subset of doors.”
- An extra hot-tub will be onboard: Star of the Seas will slot in an extra hot tub. This can be found adjacent to the Aqua Dome and the Lime & Coconut Bar. This will mean the giant ship will pack in a total of 10 hot tubs across all the decks.
Will Star of the Seas become the world’s biggest cruise ship?
The answer to this one is both yes and no. Star of the Seas won’t stand alone as the worlds biggest ship as Icon has done, but it will be just as big, making it tied for the world’s biggest cruise ship. The numbers? Star of the Seas will weigh in at 250,800 gross tonnes, 365 metres long, and carry 5600 passengers at double capacity.
Where will Star of the Seas sail?
Star of the Seas will sail itineraries out of Port Canaveral, rather than out of Miami where Icon of the Seas sails. From here, the ship will sail various itineraries across the Caribbean. The sailings will be split between eastern and western Caribbean itineraries, but all itineraries will be seven-nights and unsurprisingly, all sailings will visit Royal Caribbean’s Perfect Day at Coco Cay, the cruise line’s private island experience in the Caribbean.
Eastern Caribbean sailings will visit ports like Phillipsburg in St Maarten and Charlotte Amalie in St Thomas, whereas Western Caribbean itineraries will visit destinations like Cozumel in Mexico and Roatan in Honduras.
Essentially, if you want to get on Royal Caribbeans best and biggest ships, the Caribbean is the place to do it. Star of the Seas, Utopia of the Seas and Icon of the Seas all of the cruise lines newest rock stars, are based out of the Caribbean.
Will Royal Caribbean ships keep getting bigger?
The answer to this is that right now, nobody knows. However, Cruise Passenger can reveal that executives who work out of the Meyer shipyard in Turku, think that yes, ships could keep getting even bigger.
The engineering appears to all be possible, but it comes down to the resources, as well as the goals of the cruise line as to whether we’ll keep seeing cruise lines building even bigger ships.
It’s an interesting time for the world of cruise, as there ports all over the world that are actually wanting to see less large ships. However, this doesn’t appear to be proving an issue in the Caribbean, which appears set to continue as Royal Caribbean’s playground for building it’s biggest and most innovative ships.
