When it built Icon of the Seas, Royal Caribbean reimagined every aspect of the mega-cruise-ship concept.
The cruise line's design team started with a blank piece of paper and worked from there.
It's not that Royal Caribbean (RCL) threw away everything that passengers love; it just wasn't tied to the past. That led to a ship that offers both a best-of-Royal-Caribbean, and some stunning new innovations.
Related: Royal Caribbean passengers face key price hikes
The cruise line kept, for example, the popular Central Park outdoor area, but enhanced it. Icon's Central Park added the Izumi Japanese restaurant, which now has a takeout counter. It also added a jazz bar, with many new cocktail options, and a champagne bar, and it now serves some light bites at the mainstay Trellis Bar.
Royal Caribbean also kept the popular Royal Promenade — an open area on deck 5 packed with bars and restaurants — but added a stunning (and useful) new feature. The Pearl, a huge structure that frames the staircase that leads to the Pearl Cafe, a new version of the Cafe Promenade coffee shop, isn't just for social-media photos.
It's actually load-bearing and enabled the cruise line to add floor-to-ceiling windows in the cafe, which serves an upgraded menu. The change took a spot that was useful and made it a prominent place to have coffee and a snack.
Icon of the Seas also features one less-flashy innovation that Royal Caribbean appears to be planning to bring to more ships.
Image source: Daniel Kline/TheStreet
Icon of the Seas fixes a major pain point
Anyone who has cruised has been frustrated with the ship elevators. Sometimes, you can wait a few minutes for an elevator, only for it to arrive full. In other cases, the elevator shows up and someone has pushed every button, or no one's done this but it stops at every floor anyway.
Icon of the Seas has solved this problem in a way that both Carnival and MSC Cruises have tried on some ships. The new Royal Caribbean ship has tablets in front of its elevator bank. Passengers input their floors and the number of people in their groups and are then sent to specific elevators.
The elevator arrives promptly, and while it might make a stop or two. it generally goes quickly to the assigned floor. There are no buttons to press, which does leave you stuck if you change your mind about where you are going, but the technology also prevents people from pushing every button.
Royal Caribbean tests new elevator tech
While you can assume that the new elevator technology will be on the upcoming Oasis-Class Utopia of the Seas and the next Icon-Class ship, Star of the Seas, Royal Caribbean has made a surprising move. It's testing the Icon-style elevator system on Allure of the Seas, according to Matt Hochberg of Royal Caribbean Blog.
"Guests sailing on Allure of the Seas on Tuesday (April 30) noticed one of the elevator banks looks a lot like a destination elevator bank from Icon of the Seas," Hochberg wrote. "[The] elevators had temporary letters above each door, to indicate what assignment a passenger would have when requesting an elevator."
If the cruise line plans to retrofit the new technology on its ships, Allure of the Seas seems like a logical choice as it's heading to dry dock later this summer.
Royal Caribbean no longer comments on what it plans to add to its ships when they enter a drydock, but Allure of the Seas is expected to replace the Sabor Mexican restaurant in the Boardwalk neighborhood with Playmakers Sports Bar. The ship is also expected to add a water-slides package.
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The cruise line has not disclosed plans for its elevator technology but has confirmed that it will be offered on Utopia of the Seas, which will sail three- and four-day itineraries from Port Canaveral, Fla., beginning in mid-July.
