How do you top an already record setting cruise ship? Royal Caribbean has big plans for its next big ship to follow up on Icon of the Seas' incredible success.
Star of the Seas will launch in August 2025 and be the second Icon Class ship in the fleet. Royal Caribbean isn't content with making a carbon copy of Icon, as they've outlined key areas how the next ship will be different.
The new cruise ship will offer 7-night cruises from Port Canaveral, Florida to destinations in the Eastern and Western Caribbean. Just like Icon, Star will be packed with lots to do for everyone, leaning heavily into the family cruise segment.
Picking a homeport less than an hour from the tourist hub of Orlando is no coincidence. Royal Caribbean wants to bring the world's best family vacation to one of the biggest family markets.
Jay Schneider, Royal Caribbean's Senior Vice President and Chief Product Innovation Officer, said his team took a deep dive into the incredible success of Icon of the Seas to find ways to go beyond that with Star, "we've looked at Star and we've kind of identified a series of big focus areas for us through that lens of ship destination and home port."
Doubling down on family
Royal Caribbean has made it no secret the Icon Class ships are positioned to be direct competition to land vacations in Orlando at Walt Disney World.
Star of the Seas will sail from Port Canaveral in order to draw families away from a typical land trip and instead take a cruise.
Mr. Schneider said one goal has been making the family component of Star of the Seas even better for families, "the first focus area has been really doubling down on youth and family."
Surfside is an entire neighborhood designed with kids in mind and Royal Caribbean has a few ways they'll make it even better.
Fundamentally, they're going to make Surfside appeal to slightly older kids too. Mr. Schneider said Icon's Surfside was meant for ages 0-6, but Star will bring that up to about 10. That's because the area drew families with slightly older children.
Splashaway Bay and the Playscape will get new features, "more play activations really to kind of make kids of all ages happy with the offering."
The Water's Edge pool was originally meant to be an enclave for parents, but in practice has become an extension of the kids pool.
"What we found over time is it really is just expanded play for kids with parents, too. And so programmatically, we continue to lean in to that," Mr. Schneider said.
The kids clubs on Star of the Seas will get updates too. In addition to evolving the look and feel of Adventure Ocean, Mr. Schneider said there will be more "analog play" offered instead of relying on video and computerized games.
"While we're not taking anything away, one of the things we've heard is more analog play and so more kind of classic analog games," he said in talking about the impetus for the improvements.
Royal Caribbean will reboot the teen offerings to match what they're seeing in guests feedback.
Mr. Schneider said teens, "really want places to meet up and then kind of move around the ship to try to be more adults."
"We're rebooting based on that feedback the look and feel of the teen space and then reevaluating our programming for teens, how we activate them elsewhere in the ship as well."
Photo by Shannon Sinclair
Some other initiatives first introduced on Icon of the Seas will continue with Star of the Seas.
The Kidfinder option will be rolled out of testing and into full offering on Star of the Seas. This is a waterproof bracelet that allows parents to track the bracelet's location via the Royal Caribbean app.
Fear not, Star of the Seas will have a family dog onboard, named Sailor.
Introducing facial recognition cabins
Royal Caribbean is going to test facial recognition stateroom doors on Star of the Seas.
This was an idea the cruise line had in play just before everything shutdown in 2020, but will get implemented in a small capacity on Star of the Seas.
Read more: Royal Caribbean patents facial recognition cruise ship cabin doors
Mr. Schneider said this will be a pilot program, and was not sure how many cabins will be equipped with it.
One other stateroom change is an update to the epic family suite on Star of the Seas, known as the Ultimate Family Townhouse.
This is the most expensive suite ever that covers three floors and has an in-suite slide, movie-viewing room, karaoke machine and a "backyard" with a ping pong table, outdoor seating and a white picket fence leading directly to the Surfside area.
Mr. Schneider said the townhouse will get an "uplift" and "will get really a new look to it."
Based on guest feedback so far on Icon, the cruise line felt changes were needed.
Upgrades to dining
Royal Caribbean has said the top two reasons people go on a cruise with them is for destination and food, and that drives a lot of the offerings on Star of the Seas.
There will be a sequel to the glitzy Empire Supper Club dining experience. On Star, the focus will shift west to Chicago and become the Lincoln Park Supper Club.
"It's our flagship intimate fine dining entertainment concept [that] will bring forward that same formula that's worked so well in the Empire Supper Club. But again, themed menu, music, all paired to the Chicago and Chicagoland area."
Royal Caribbean also wants to improve on one of its most well-received complimentary venues, Aquadome Market.
On Icon of the Seas, it's located inside the ship’s AquaDome neighborhood, and offers five food stands offering everything from chicken pita wraps to bacon mac n’ cheese and a variety of paninis.
"We're currently in the concept testing of how to evolve for Star, and eventually Icon Three, kind of the offering in the market," he said.
Don't worry, the fundamentals of the Aquadome Market won't change. There will still be great complementary grab and go food served in a food hall.
One restaurant that will be overhauled is Pier 7. Mr. Schneider said called it, "a successful concept for us" but they want to keep it a "white space" to tinker with a new offering.
Located in the Surfside neighborhood, it serves California inspired cuisine and kids eat free there.
Mr. Schneider said they have not picked a final idea for the space yet, "We won't probably announce that until much closer in because we're going to do the same thing we did on Icon, which is we're going through the concepting as a result of it being a white space."
Read more: Royal Caribbean surveys customers for a new restaurant idea on its Icon class ships
Combining a new ship and a new beach club
When Star of the Seas launches, you can eventually look forward to cruises that take you to a day at Royal Caribbean's new beach club in Mexico.
Opening sometime in 2026, the Royal Beach Club Cozumel will be the second Royal Beach Club to open, following Royal Beach Club at Paradise Island in The Bahamas.
An extra cost beach available exclusively to Royal Caribbean passengers, admission will include access to swim-up bars, pools cabanas to rent, snorkeling, kayaking, restaurants, and street markets.
"We're excited about that kind of combination of new ship, new homeport and then... the continued expansion of our destination product."
More tweaks and enhancements
Mr. Schneider highlighted a few other improvements Royal Caribbean has planned for Star compared to Icon.
The Pearl will be improved to be more spectacular visually, "instead of a single color light ring in the back of each of those 3500 plus tiles, they go to full multicolor rings."
"That allows us to get a much richer color, wash throughout the entire Pearl, and gives us kind of a broader canvas to play with as we think of the stories that we want to tell."
There will also be more more pool space on Star. That's because Mr. Schneider's team was worried about "water weight", but it's practical to add it back, "we are adding a little bit of incremental water weight back in a hot tub that will be adjacent between Lime and Coconut, and the Aquadome Market that was originally planned on being there, but got pulled at the last minute due to water weight."
"It turns out we had enough weight to play with, and that was my quick ten minute, maybe longer run through of our our focus areas."
"The world's best family vacation was never about size for us"
Star of the Seas won't be slightly larger than Icon of the Seas, and Royal Caribbean doesn't necessarily care about that title.
When asked about if Star will be bigger than Icon, Mr. Schneider talked about the importance of what the ship offers rather than dimensions, "that's never been a focus for us. The world's best family vacation was never about size for us. It still isn't."
"The reality is the things that we expected in our kind of hyper focused guest research needs, we've continued to look at through the lens of what we're actually seeing in operation. And all of it is, is just working so well."
He sees tremendous success with how Royal Caribbean has positioned its Icon Class ships to offer the very best experience, and offering many ways for families to bond and create memories.
The Product Development team focuses on the diverse options for guests to enjoy onboard, and while that may move the needle to require a bigger cruise ship, it's not simply size.
