Family Travel Unpacked: Make the Most of Travel With Kids

All About Icon of the Seas: Review, Pros, Cons and Everything In Between

• Melissa Conn • Season 1 • Episode 20

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Icon of the Seas review: honest multigenerational cruise tips for 12 travelers ages 4-78. Western Caribbean ports, dining, shows & staterooms.

We're just back from a week on Icon of the Seas with our crew of twelve! I'm sharing what worked (and what didn't) for our multigenerational cruise over New Years. From our perfect Deck 8 balcony setup to managing the water slide crowds, this comprehensive Icon of the Seas review covers everything families need to know.

Episode Highlights:

  • Why Icon of the Seas neighborhoods make crowds manageable with 7600+ passengers
  • Our connected balcony hack for multigenerational travel
  • Reality check on Category 6 water slides and timing strategy
  • Honest take on kids club age groupings (the weakest part of Icon)
  • Western Caribbean ports: Costa Maya, Roatan, Cozumel & CocoCay
  • Dining variety from Main Dining Room to Izumi Sushi lunch deal
  • Entertainment winners: Lou's Jazz n Blues, The Passing Zone, Aqua Action
  • Critical arcade spending limit tip (our biggest mistake!)
  • Mobility solutions for grandparents on cruises

More tips for cruisers:

Don't miss this inspiring, practical travel with kids podcast hosted by family travel expert Melissa Conn, founder of The Family Voyage, certified Child Passenger Safety Technician, and mom of two who proves family travel is achievable for everyone.

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Melissa:

Hey there and welcome back to Family Travel Unpacked. I'm Melissa, and in case you're new here, you can find tons of detailed destination guides, travel tips, hacks, and more on my website, thefamilyvoyage.com. We just got back from week aboard the world's largest cruise ship, icon of the seas. Cruises aren't normally our immediate family's pick for trips, but we all loved Icon. Something different wowed us a few times every single day. In this episode, I'll share what we loved- and didn't love- about Royal Caribbean's flagship, along with our Western Caribbean itinerary. We traveled as a big group this time, 12 people from a preschooler to a senior citizen, so I'll have plenty of different perspectives to share. Before I get too far, I wanna shed a little light on how we picked this specific trip. As I mentioned in episode nine about multi-gen travel, basically the only week of the year that we can do a trip with our extended family is over New Year's since we have a lot of schedules to line up. We went to Hawaii together last year and that was amazing, but I personally had to do a ton of heavy lifting to plan that, and cruising requires a lot less effort from me. There's just one excursion per port day max, and no need to spend hours researching restaurant options that can take reservations for a big group, or figuring out rental cars and things like that. We won't cruise all the time, but it's nice to mix in with other kinds of trips now and then. Cruise ships are also great for grandma. They're easy for her to get around and there's plenty of live entertainment every night. Plus, she definitely likes the little time in the casino. Once we decided to take a cruise, I checked out cruise.com to see what sailings were available for the dates we needed. Since most of the people coming on our trip live in Ohio or Chicago, we focused on Florida departures. There are plenty of nonstop flights, and if a major winter storm canceled our flights before the cruise, then our absolute worst case scenario would be to drive down. Obviously, that's not what anyone wants to do, but after we got caught up in that Southwest meltdown a few years ago and missed the first few days of the extended family trip, it's really nice to have that option in our back pocket just in case. There were a few options available that left after Christmas and got back to port before school was gonna be back in session. We have two public school employees in our group, so we only had a day of flexibility on the return side. We had a great experience on Wonder of the Seas two years ago. So when we saw that there were a few Royal Caribbean options, we dug into research. We basically narrowed it down to two options: the Western Caribbean Sailing on Icon that we ultimately chose, or Southern Caribbean cruise on Oasis of the Seas, which is almost Wonder's Twin. There were a few other sailings that would've worked, but they were either on older ships or they were visiting Eastern Caribbean ports that we had already gone to. It was sort of hard to decide between Icon and Oasis. Icon offered us the fancy new ship, but honestly not the best ports. On the other hand, the Oasis itinerary had great ports- Aruba and Curacao- but four Sea days on a ship that we had pretty much already experienced. If we could have done the Southern Caribbean itinerary on Icon, that would've been perfect. And actually the upcoming Legend of the Seas, which is one of icon's twins, will be doing just that starting later this year. So keep your eyes peeled. Now let's talk about the ship itself. Icon of the Seas is absolutely stunning and it's got a great modern feel. It's also massive, so it's not necessarily the best choice if you want an intimate, bespoke experience. Although, as you'll hear more in this episode, there were really only a few times that it felt truly crowded. I think that's a feat worth mentioning when you take into account that the max capacity is 7,600 passengers, and we sailed over New Year's when the ship was basically sold out and full of families. Now I haven't done a ton of cruising, but I really love the way Royal Caribbean has designed these recent ships. Everything is centered around different neighborhoods, which is a great concept to make things more manageable. Icon takes a huge space and breaks these down into distinct areas in a way that's much more traveler friendly than some of Royal Caribbean's much earlier ships. They started doing this with the Oasis class, like Wonder of the Seas, but Icon has taken it to the next level. They've consolidated a lot of the ship's infrastructure and activities by interest, which makes it easier to enjoy what you wanna do while keeping the crowds under control. You might be wondering how the layout impacts crowds. Well, on a sea day when there are more than 7,000 people roaming the ship, it's easy for a family with young kids to spend most of their day hanging out in the Surfside neighborhood, while those of us with older kids will plant ourselves in the chill island or thrill island neighborhoods on the top decks, maybe older guests who wanna a quieter experience could spend a few hours strolling the shops, eateries and music venues on the royal promenade, or watching the waves with a good book in the overlook. Let me walk you through those main neighborhoods. The Royal Promenade on deck five and six is the main artery of icon, and thanks to some new engineering, it's now two stories that fully connect all the way along on deck six. That's a huge improvement over the Oasis class ships, where you couldn't go from one end of deck six to the other without going downstairs and then back upstairs. You'll enter the ship on deck five here in front of the iconic pearl structure. Rather than being a dark enclosed space like on older ships, the new Royal Promenade does a great job of bringing in natural light. There's a huge seating area on the upper level behind the pearl, in front of a massive wall of windows, and you can walk outside to the running track with these big inviting seating areas on both sides of the ship on deck five. These changes make the royal promenade feel way less claustrophobic to me. Surfside is the family focused neighborhood on the back of deck seven. It's geared for the preschool and early elementary set. It's geared for the preschool and early elementary set. There are kid friendly eateries, a cute carousel, a climbing structure, splash pad with different pool depths, the arcade is over there and more. If your little one isn't potty trained, they'll only have access to the splash pad here, which unfortunately isn't huge. My niece and nephew- they were four and seven during our sailing- they love this area and they wanted to spend a lot of time in Surfside. I also like sitting on the back deck of the ship here for great Sailaway views, right around like four o'clock or so when those young families are getting cleaned up for their five o'clock dinner seating. The main pool area is Chill Island, and that's on decks 15 and 16. Unless I'm missing some, there are three pools, five hot tubs, a Mexican Quick Serve restaurant, soft serve, a bunch of bars and tons of chairs. Seriously, across the two levels of Chill Island, there are so many chairs that you really don't need to stake your claim early. Thankfully, the staff is pretty good about removing personal items that have just been abandoned there To hold chairs. On a Warm Sea Day, it can still get pretty packed, but we got chairs over by the Sprinkle Soft Serve Station without any issue. You've also got the ship's, two main lunch spots, the enormous Windjammer Buffet on one end, and the Food Hall Style AquaDome Marketplace on the other- i'll talk more about those later. Thrill Island on deck 17 is all new for Icon and brings together activities that'll appeal to older kids and teens. There's the category six waterpark, which has six water slides. There's rock climbing, mini golf, flow rider surfing simulator, plus there's a new eatery called basecamp for lunch and snacks. The water slides include two of these vertical or drop slides, two headfirst mat racing slides, and two family raft slides- one of them is for three people and the others for four. Keep in mind that the drop slides have a 52 inch minimum height, and the others have a 48 inch minimum height. So these really are not meant for young kids. They're serious slides for thrill seekers. And I'm saving the best neighborhood for last: Central Park on deck 8. This beautiful oasis is peaceful by day and enchanting by night when it's all lit up, it's not crowded, and actually it's the only neighborhood on the ship that'll offer a guided tour. Central Park has three of my favorite spots on Icon Park Cafe Lou's Jazz and Blues, and Izumi Sushi. Speaking of deck 8, our family stayed in a series of three Ocean view balcony state rooms right near the entrance to both Central Park and Surfside. We booked a pair of connecting rooms plus another adjacent room. All three rooms were basically identical at right around 200 square feet each plus a 50 square foot balcony. Here's what made our setup really special. Our awesome state room attendant Han, opened up the balconies across all three cabins. So while only two cabins connected inside, all three were connected outside, we treated the giant extended balcony, sort of like a living room. It was a comfortable spot where we could all sit outside and chat in the fresh air away from the chaos inside everyone's rooms. We could run a sunscreen assembly line in the morning and put everyone's wet swimsuits to dry in the evening. On the sweeter side, it also let my little nephew come wake up my son with a giant hug and a smile most mornings- those are memories you just can't buy. Having a balcony on this cruise was an absolute joy for me. I could sneak over to the Park Cafe, which was just a few seconds from our room, and grab a coffee and sit outside to sip and read while my team kept sleeping. One critical note about the AC on this ship if you have a balcony cabin: that AC only works if your balcony door is 100% closed and locked. During our first night, we got incredibly hot and we couldn't figure out what was wrong. Eventually we realized that we had accidentally locked the balcony door in place, just a hair before the fully closed position. Also, if you're booking icon, keep in mind that there are two different types of balconies now. There's the traditional style with the sliding door, and there's also the new infinite balcony style. The infinite balconies incorporate the balcony square footage into your state room, and you push a little button to drop the upper half of the window. Personally, I'd stick with the traditional balcony for a warm weather sailing. On a cooler sailing like Alaska, I'd be more open to the infinite balcony. And if you're traveling with a group like we were, the infinite balconies don't connect. That said, they do give you more space in each room, which can be great for a family since cruise ship state rooms tend to be pretty tight. We had our room configured with the twin beds, pushed together into a king, and then our 14-year-old used the sofa with the back cushions removed. Our state room attendant padded it with a folded comforter, and my son didn't complain. I'd read some comments about the sofa being too small, but it worked great for him. In another room my daughter slept on the same sofa, and then in the third room, they pulled out the sofa and used it for two kids without an issue. The bathroom was a pleasant surprise in our cabin. There was more than enough space for storage and personal care. There are large shelves and a drawer underneath the sink. Small shelves on the wall next to the sink, and even more shelves tucked in a corner behind the toilet. The shower is also shockingly spacious, and there's even a bench in there. Overall, no complaints about our ocean view Balcony room on Icon of the Seas. And now that I've been spoiled by a balcony, it would be really hard to go back to a room without one on future cruises. All right. Now let's talk about the fun stuff, eating entertainment and activities. To be honest, we were really impressed with the diversity and quality of the dining options on Icon of the Sea. The fact that there are so many different free choices meant that we didn't get tired of eating on the ship even after being on board for a full week. Starting with the main dining room: overall, I'd say the quality of food was solid and there were plenty of choices for adults, kids, and people with allergies. Our waiters, Baghas and Isti, and the dining room manager, Leoncia, were incredibly attentive. After the kids asked for cherries one evening, our waiters brought them a huge bowl every other night. I also enjoyed brunch in the main dining room on a sea day away from the huge crowds at the buffet. Now the timing for the main dining room can be a little tricky to figure out. Standard seatings are at five and eight 30 and Royal Caribbean offers something called my time dining in between those times, where you don't have a fixed reservation or table assignment Usually my time isn't recommended for big groups or for people with food allergies because it's just easier if you have everything set up in advance. We initially signed up for the early seating because we knew that the late option definitely wouldn't work for the kids. But 5:00 PM is just way too early for us, especially since we were planning to get off at all the ports. Leoncia switched us to my time, but she was able to assign us to 6:45 every day and at the same table, which was perfect. We sometimes had to wait a few minutes for our table, but once we were seated, that fantastic team made sure we were well taken care of. For my daughter with celiac disease. Leoncia personally managed her pre-ordered gluten-free meals every single evening without a hitch. Now onto the Windjammer buffet, up on deck 15. Washy, washy! Thankfully, Royal Caribbean staff makes hand hygiene virtually mandatory and always fun every time you enter their buffet. They're singing and dancing, but they're making sure that everybody washes their hands. The massive spread near the top of the boat has windows on all sides and station after station for three meals a day. They have everything from simple kid food to gourmet offerings, plenty of produce, sweets galore, and always at least one Indian dish. While I don't personally love buffet experiences overall, I was pretty pleased with almost everything I ate in Windjammer. To keep the crowds under control. The port starboard sides of the buffet are mirror images. You can go to either side, but you just need to find your group, which can be tough. I hope at some point they'll color code the sides to make that easier. One thing to know for gluten-free eaters: there's an entire gluten-free section toward the back, but we also found out that there are additional options available upon request, things like gluten-free french toast in the morning. Unfortunately, those special orders can take an extra 10 or 15 minutes, so make sure you put them in as soon as you get to the buffet before you go to get anything else. Park Cafe is one of my two favorite casual eateries on Icon of the Seas. It's perfectly located in the Central Park neighborhood and it's a great place to enjoy a sandwich or coffee surrounded by trees and artificial bird sounds. My son speaks highly of the Kümmelwreck roast beef sandwich. There are also pastries, fresh fruit, yogurt, and museli cups For a light breakfast. If I have one knock on Park cafe, it's that they only offer drip coffee, which is free, but not specialty coffees, which I'll talk about in a minute. Pearl Cafe is a new addition for Icon class ships. It's located just behind the massive pearl structure on the Royal Promenade. It's sort of a grab and go, with some items the staff will warm up for you. They have sandwiches, salads, and desserts plus both free drip coffee and paid specialty coffee options. Thankfully, Pearl Cafe is open 24/7. I was really impressed with the selection- things like a warm apple and brie sandwich, curry chicken salad, hummus and veggie boxes. It's nice to have some lighter fare available even when you need a midnight snack. Okay, so I mentioned specialty coffee a few times and I wanna explain for a sec. You can always get drip coffee, usually two types of regular and one decaf, for free at different spots around the ship. But if you like espresso based drinks like a latte or an iced coffee, that's considered a specialty coffee. Cruisers who buy the drink package will get those whenever they want, no problem. If you're like me and you don't wanna buy a drink package, you can opt for the specialty coffee card. It theoretically covers 15 shots of espresso, and I bought two of those cards for$28 each for our family, since the card is shareable. A regular latte uses one punch, but a large latte or an iced coffee should use two punches, which never happened for us. They always just did one punch. So I think it's a really good value and if you don't finish the coffee card, you can actually bring it on your next Royal Caribbean cruise. If you have the specialty coffee card, or the drink package, you can get those specialty coffees in the main dining room, Windjammer Buffet, Pearl Cafe, Rye Bean Coffee Bar in the overlook in front of the Aquadome, vitality Cafe at the spa and most of the specialty dining restaurants. Alright, now back to Food. Sorrento's on the Royal Promenade. Serves at pizza by the slice from lunchtime until 2:00 AM. It's every kid's favorite late night option for second dinner, and I've been known to enjoy a slice or two, so I can tell you it's actually pretty good. Pro tip for the gluten-free cruisers out there: Sorrento's will provide you with a medium-sized gluten-free pizza upon request. It's even baked in a separate oven, but just give yourself a few extra minutes to wait for it. The new AquaDome Market is sort of a mini food hall. It has stations for crepes, mac and cheese, Asian food, Mediterranean bowls, and more. Overall, we really like the Aquadome market, especially the kids and most of the stations have at least some gluten-free options available, including the crepes, which is a real highlight for my daughter because she usually can't find gluten-free crepes anywhere locally. The best pool day snack on Icon of the Seas is El loco fresh. This is the Mexican food spot in the Chill Island neighborhood. You can grab a pre-made quesadilla or burrito if you're in a rush or stick around and build a custom taco. They have gluten-free corn tortillas available upon request in the back or for a quick snack don't be afraid to grab a bowl of chips and load it up with some guacamole from the salsa bar. Basecamp is a new option for Icon. Most of the food there is included, but I think they do have a few premium options. My husband swears that if you're a burger lover, you can't miss this Smashburger. They also have hot snacky foods like pretzel bites. This is a quick serve spot and it's perfectly positioned near the Thrill Island water slides, mini golf and rock climbing. Of course it wouldn't be a Royal Caribbean cruise without sprinkle soft serve. Icon levels up with two locations. There's one by the pool in Chill Island, and there's another one that's in the middle of Surfside. The Surfside location was probably my kid's favorite part of being in the back of Deck 8- the round trip soft serve run was only around three minutes from our room. All of those included options kept us super busy, but we wanted to try out one specialty restaurant, Izumi Sushi. I booked this for lunch on day six, which was a sea day and also New Year's Day on our itinerary. Because I caught a sale, lunch was$38 per adult and$12 per kid, including the gratuity. My youngest niece was actually free because she's only four. For that money everyone got miso soup, tea, one small dish, two large dishes, and a dessert. I'm gonna tell you guys, the amount of food was unreal. My 7-year-old nephew got fried rice beef, teriyaki chicken ramen, and a chocolate lava cake for$12. Most of us adults used our large plate options to get sushi rolls and sashimi. Between all 12 of us, we tried a huge chunk of the menu, and we were pretty happy with the quality of everything we got. My husband did let the kids splurge on one trip to the Desserted milkshake bar, which is in Thrill island and is not included. I'll be honest and say I think they're pretty to look at, but not worth the cost. The shakes range from$9 to a whopping$18 for a milkshake. The kids went without me, so I only got to try the remnants, and I didn't even get to take any pretty pictures, but to me, they tasted just like regular milkshakes. So I rate that as a pass. We skipped the rest of the specialty Dining on icon. While I'm sure the quality's fine, a lot of the other menus aren't that different than what you'll get in the main dining room over the course of the week. There's so much variety in the main dining room menus, steaks, seafood, Italian that we opted to save our dining budget for some special meals on land before and after the cruise. Now let's talk entertainment. Even though cruises aren't my favorite type of travel, one thing they're amazing for is evening entertainment. I love that after dinner you can bop around the ship seeing so many different live acts rather than just heading to your room and turning on the tv. And if people in your family have different interests, that's okay because everybody can go and check out something different and then you'll meet up later. Royal Caribbean's done a great job of providing a huge range of options on these newer ships. The entertainment is mostly split into two types: shows you'll wanna reserve in advance and drop in performances at smaller venues. Our ship set sale on December 27th, and I was able to reserve shows on October 31st. Most of them didn't end up being full, but a few were totally packed and we wouldn't have gotten in without those reservations. The main show in the Royal Theater on this ship is The Wizard of Oz. It's an impressive production. It's fully staged, detailed costumes, and there's a live orchestra providing the music, which is not something you find on a lot of cruise ships. I think a lot of people might be feeling some Oz fatigue about now, but the show was well done and I think it was worth watching. One intriguing show I signed this up for was called Headliner Showtime. I'll be honest, the description sounded like it was written by ai and it was so generic that we couldn't figure out what the show was, but we decided we might as well go and check it out. Actually It was one of our favorite shows on Icon. We got a wonderful performance by the Passing Zone, which is a duo of juggler comedians previously seen on America's Got Talent and in The White House. The headliner performers vary from week to week depending on who's available. I think sometimes it's a comedian or a ventriloquist, But usually it's gonna be somebody that's really good and appeals to all ages of cruisers Over in the Aqua Theater you can catch the impressive Aqua Action Show several times during the sailing. The synchronized swimming, choreography and stunt work are really impressive and the show also brings in plenty of music that'll appeal to travelers of all ages. The show is super popular, so be sure to reserve it and get there at least 15 minutes early to get seats near the center. That's where you'll get the best views. When I walked by at the end of the week, it was still standing room only after multiple shows. In the back of the boat, you can check out two different ice skating shows in absolute Zero. The main show, Starburst Elemental Beauty, is sort of a periodic table theme and incorporates super cool lights and backgrounds. The performances are really great and the skaters are extremely talented, but to be honest, I wish that the plot was clearer or that there wasn't an attempt at a plot at all. The other show they do is called Once Upon a Time, the King's Royal Ball, and that's meant to entertain the youngest kids. My son took his 4-year-old cousin to this show and said that she was entranced the whole time so I'd call that a win. For the adults, you can send the kids to Adventure Ocean and enjoy the 18 plus comedy show at the Attic Comedy Club. We had a showcase of three standup comedians, one of whom we'd seen on Wonder the Seas. It was a great set. You absolutely need to reserve this in advance. It's a small venue, and there were only a few shows during the week long sailing. At the end of the week. The comedians also performed one big show in the Royal Theater, which we went to as well. But honestly, it didn't quite land for us. I think that two of the three comedians were a lot funnier in a small venue where they could really engage with the audience. There's also the Effectors Show, which has stunts and drones, and it's meant for those elementary schoolers mostly. This was by far our least favorite show on Wonder The Seas, so we just skipped it this time and I don't really feel bad. Those are just the big scheduled shows. Icon of the Sea also has a huge selection of smaller musical acts all evening, every evening. My son, who's a jazz trumpeter, couldn't get enough of Lou's jazz and blues. He hung out there every night listening to Singer Joy Parris and the Boplicity Jazz Band, or the High C's Horns. This Central Park Bar is new for icon class ships, and I think it's a fantastic addition. The quality of the music here is just great. It's also a perfect fit for Central Park and yet another reason we were thrilled with our Deck 8 location. Grandma's more of a piano and vocals lover, so she liked spending evenings bouncing between Schooner Bar, which is a Royal Caribbean Classic, and the new dueling Pianos bar. With two piano bars just down the promenade from each other, I would say Schooner Bar was a lot less popular than it was on Wonder of the Seas, while dueling pianos was always packed. That said, I found the quality in dueling pianos to be kind of uneven, but I know a lot of people really love it. You'll also be able to catch a solo guitarist at the Point Feather Pub, Latin music with a big dance floor at Boleros or party music in the music hall. If you wanna get on stage, show up early at Spotlight Karaoke to get on the list. My 11-year-old daughter, did a fabulous performance one night during a family karaoke session, so that was super fun. For sports lovers, you'll find your entertainment at the Playmaker Sports Bar. The layout on Icon Class Ships is a completely open walkthrough space between the Adventure Ocean Kids Club and absolute zero ice skating rink. There's definitely a rowdy vibe during big games, but it's also got fun free games like Foosball, Pool and Shuffleboard plus some paid arcade games, skeeball and pop a Shot. I think it's a great spot for teens and tweens who aren't into the kids programming, but want something a little more engaging than just roaming around the ships and packs blocking staircases. Now onto the activities. There are so many activities on the icon and most of them are free, so you can stay busy all week long even without leaving the ship. Kids can hang out in the Adventure Ocean Kids Club, which is free for ages three to 12 until 10:00 PM. My high energy 7-year-old nephew was definitely in the sweet spot for kids club, and his 4-year-old sister enjoyed the toddler area a few times, but the older kids in our family either didn't like it or refused to go. And I get it, the three to five year olds have their own area, but everyone else, and sometimes it's more than a hundred kids, they're running around together and it can get pretty wild in there. Teens get access to Social 0 2 0, which is for ages 13 to 17. My son went the first night to meet the other teens and see what it was all about. But unfortunately, he left after getting dragged by a girl a few years older than him, and he never felt like going back. I don't blame him. And that brings me to why I think the kids clubs are the weakest part of Icon of the Seas. A 6-year-old and a 12-year-old don't have that much in common, and plenty of 13 and 17 year olds are literal oceans apart developmentally. Disney shifted a few years ago to kids club ending at 10 years old and a tween club serving 11 to 14 year olds. I think both of my middle schoolers would've been much better served by having a tween club on Icon of the Seas. For a ship that's totally focused on families, I think this is something that they really need to get right. The category six waterpark is a big draw in terms of activities. Lemme talk about the water slides because I think expectations need to be managed here. Now, I'm not saying it's not awesome, but honestly I thought our crew would spend a lot of time enjoying the water slides and that's just not how it worked out. On our first full sea day, my son got in line for one of the drop slides and waited nearly an hour before changing his mind when he saw a kid in front of him throw up from anxiety. Those slides are super intense and actually a decent number of people get injured on them, so I wasn't surprised at the change of heart. But the crowds were huge that day. The next day we were in port, but we got back while it was still warm and light so he went up and managed to go on a couple of slides with pretty short wait times. I think that's the way to go rather than trying for a sea day. My plan had been to check out the water slides on the second Sea Day. Unfortunately, that whole day was too chilly and windy to swim. We found plenty of dry fun on the icon of the seas, but I'm bummed that I didn't have a chance to check out the raft slides. My takeaway tip for the water slides is to strike while the iron is hot. Board, the ship in your swimsuits, and go straight to category six that afternoon if the weather's warm enough. You should have pretty short lines because most people don't think about this and they pack their swimsuits in their luggage that they're waiting for all afternoon. Going late in the day after port excursions is also a solid bet if you get back early enough. In that same part of the ship, Thrill Island, you can also check out the Fun nine Hole Mini Golf course. This is much cooler than the one on Wonder of the Seas, and even with 7,000 people on the ship, we didn't have to wait more than a minute or two to play on a sea day. Behind the mini golf there are two more fun free activities: the sports court and the climbing wall. The sports court seems to get heavy use between scheduled activities, basketball tournaments, and pickleball sessions. I don't think there's really a lot of opportunity to go in and just play some pickup basketball unfortunately. The climbing wall is shorter than on some other Royal Caribbean ships, but the location is much better, so I think more people use it. Personally, I think it's a good trade off. The staff provides the climbing shoes and all the necessary gear, but you do need to bring socks and be sure you're wearing dry clothing. Icon of the Seas also offers ice skating sessions throughout the week in absolute zero, you'll need socks and long pants For that. You can't reserve ice skating until you're actually on the ship and it fills up super fast. So I just grabbed whatever session I could as soon as I was on board. The rink is pretty small compared to anything you'll find on land, but it's also, I think, the largest ice rink at sea- make of that what you will. Thanks to the tight capacity controls, though, it didn't feel too crowded. I just wish they made the sessions a little longer. By the time I helped the kids with their skates and helmets and then laced up my own, I only had a few minutes until they called for a group to leave the ice. Thankfully, they weren't aggressive about kicking people off during the transitions. Supposedly there's laser tag on Icon of the Seas, but we checked the app every single day and never saw it listed. I have a feeling that it didn't happen on our sailing because the ice skating was offered on both sea days, and usually laser tag takes over the rink. That's a bummer, because we thought it sounded like a blast. Sorry, had to do it. The one paid activity I did was the escape room, rendezvous in space. The minimum age is 12, so my 14-year-old and I did it together. I've actually never done an escape room, and I thought it was super fun. All the escape room spots were full for the entire sailing, so I'm glad I booked it in advance and at a discount. Including the introduction, the whole thing was about 50 minutes, and I thought it was pretty well crafted. Another paid option for kids is the arcade, located in Surfside. I am really not a fan here. There are a lot of claw machines and push a button for ticket kind of games that are done in 30 seconds at$2.50 a pop. I bought the kids discounted arcade credits online in advance, which I definitely recommend. But here's a critical pro tip: royal Caribbean makes it way too easy for kids to overspend at the arcade. By default, kids accounts have a$50 per day limit at the arcade. That means that on a typical one week cruise, each of your kids could rack up$350 in arcade charges without even realizing it. Ask me how I know. If you've got a couple of kids hanging out in the arcade together, good luck. Do yourself a favor and message guest services the minute you get on board to change the limit to whatever you feel comfortable with. If you buy your kid a hundred dollars of arcade credit for$75, maybe cap them at$15 or$20 per day for the first few days and then adjust based on how much credit they have left. Before we get to the ports, I wanna talk for a second about the weather. We sailed on December 27th from Miami, and in theory it's a pretty decent weather week In the Caribbean. But we had three days that were cooler and breezier than expected. That impacted our water slide plans and made our second full sea day too chilly for swimming. Plus it put a damper on one of our ports. We still had an awesome cruise overall, but it's still worth mentioning that you can have some weather surprises even in the Caribbean. All right, time to talk about our four ports: Costa Maya, Roatan, Cozumel, and Coco Cay. First was Costa Maya, Mexico, which is south of Tulum. I was sort of excited for this port, but now that I've been there, I understand why it's love/hate for most people. The port itself is built like a maze of a village that's specifically for cruisers. They're trying to keep you tangled in a web of cheesy souvenir shops since Royal Caribbean owns the Port. We walked to the private excursion pickup area outside of the port, and that was probably 20 or 30 minutes from Disembarking the ship. We opted for a tour of the Bacalar lagoons, about 90 minutes south of Costa Maya. We chose that because it looks beautiful and unique. I've always wanted to go, but I've never been quite in the right area. And also the Sargassum situation is really unpredictable in Costa Maya, so it can be risky to plan a beach day there. The excursion was definitely fun. We explored the beautiful blue waters of Bacalar by boat, and we had two swim stops that included a great sand bar and super warm water. We did a private tour for a few reasons, first because we were a big group, so it was definitely more economical and also more personal. Plus, the official cruise line excursion wouldn't have allowed our youngest family members because they claim that this excursion was a high impact activity. It wasn't. Anybody can do this as long as they can get into a boat. I think our tour guide must have been pretty new because she seemed kind of stressed out and disorganized. But overall, the excursion was cool. If you wanna do this day trip, you need to be off the boat right away in the morning. Between the time walking to the pickup drive time, the boat lunch and everything else, you'll have about one hour of buffer at the end on most port stops. That's fine, but you really don't wanna miss the boat in the afternoon. And here's an insider tip: you can't wear sunscreen when you swim in the bacalar lagoons, even if it's reef safe. So be sure to bring a long sleeve rash guard for everyone. Our next stop was Roatan Honduras. This is a great port if you like to snorkel or scuba dive, but beware that it gets really busy when the cruise ships are in port. We were quick getting off the boat and loading our van. Thankfully, the Coxen hole port is much more compact than Costa Maya, and it's actually kind of pleasant to walk around. We chose a beach day with snorkeling. We had a private driver- again because we were a group of 12, and he took us to the south end of West Bay Beach. Our driver was really nice and helpful. He tried to take us to the Paradise Beach Hotel, but it was already full, even though it was early, so we went next door to Henry Morgan. I would say the experience was good, but the prices for food are really high. Consider yourself warned. Our admission included shady chairs and we were in a decent spot to walk to the snorkeling. There was also a nice calm swimming area for the kids right in front of where we were seated. To get to the good snorkeling, you can walk past the little pier and then enter the water and swim out. The area that's safe for snorkeling is really large and roped off from boat traffic thankfully. The water's generally calm here, but you do need to swim out a little distance to start seeing corals and fish so I recommend bringing fins. A few of us also paid$25 cash each for a five minute boat ride just a little further out into the boating area, and we definitely saw some cool stuff. I got to swim with the spotted eagle ray for a solid 10 minutes, which was really special. Closer to shore, I saw huge green moray eel, which freaked me out. That is definitely my least favorite sea creature. We visited Roatan on a Tuesday, but now I've learned that those midweek days are absolutely packed with huge cruise ships. One day I wanna go back and stay at the Kimpton Grand Roatan over a long weekend because Friday, Saturdays and Sundays have almost no cruise ships. That's when the big ships are in port in the us. Oh, and here's a tip. Once you're back on the ship, don't miss the special sendoff from the port right before the ship sets sail. It's really fun to watch. If you don't have a balcony that faces the port, you can always go out to the running track on deck five, right by the pearl, to see. Our third port was Cozumel. This is my immediate family's second time on Cozumel, and for the second time, we were sort of disappointed. We opted to spend our day at Cabana Beach Club, which I really liked. It was great because it's not terribly expensive to rent a cabana, and it's a more laid back personal experience than you'll get at some of the other beach clubs on the island. We were really happy with the staff and facilities there, and it's right next to the Chankanaab Park. Guests at Cabana Beach Club are allowed to go back and forth have access to everything at the Nature Park, but not the other way around. Unfortunately, it was too windy to get in the water and check out the onsite snorkeling. Thankfully, we had a nice sandy patch so the kids threw the football and played with the sand toys that were provided by the beach club while us grownups strolled around to explore, lounged and enjoyed the reasonably priced food and drinks. But it was still disappointing to be there on a red flag day. Since this was our second time with a lot of wind on Cozumel, I think I'm giving up on visiting there in the winter. Now a practical note, we didn't bother with a private driver on Cozumel. When you get out of the port, just get in line at the taxi stand on the right side. They were able to provide a huge van for all 12 of us, and the price was a lot cheaper than getting a driver for the day. When we were ready to go back to the port, the beach club called the taxi back for us. It was all super seamless. Our last stop was Coco Cay. This is our second time visiting Coco Cay, which is Royal Caribbean's private island in the Bahamas. It was cooler and windier than we hoped for, but still sunny so we got off the ship. And honestly, it was a much better experience than the last time we were there. I think part of the reason our experience was so much better is because the crowds were a lot thinner. Some of the icon guests didn't get off because of the weather, and the other ship in port that day was a celebrity ship with fewer families. The other reason we had a better time is because we went in with a solid plan. Coco Cay has so many different areas and things to do, even if you don't pay for the add-ons. So you really need to strategize in advance with the other people in your group and be on the same page. A few of us wanted to snorkel, so we all started our day on Chill Beach, which is really close to the pier. I recommend bringing your own snorkel gear, and just swimming out to the platforms on the water, then you can explore from there back toward the rock walls. We saw plenty of fish at the fake shipwreck, and then along the rock walls too. In between, we also saw a few huge rays that were hiding under the sand, which was super cool, we'd never seen that before. All the kids, even my teen, had a lot of fun together in the afternoon with the water slides and spray structures at Splash Away Bay. Seriously, I don't think I've ever seen that much water spraying everywhere in my entire life. It's really impressive. There are three water slides at Splash Away Bay: one really wide one that a parent and child can do together, a set of three racing slides and a twisty slide, which the staff let me go on a few times, thank you very much. Last time we went to Coco Cay, we eventually met up and spent a lot of time at South Beach, which has parts that are really active and sports oriented, but other parts that are quieter and offer lots of chairs and space. The Oasis Lagoon on Coco Cay is the largest freshwater pool in the Caribbean, so that's a great option if you like pools more than beaches. There are plenty of free eateries where you can get everything from tacos and hot dogs to barbecued chicken and soft serve. Of course, there's paid stuff too, like the super expensive thrill water park- that's what they put in all the pictures- and the Coco Cay Beach Club. But honestly, I don't think you need to spend the money on those things unless you really want to. For our cruise, the thrill waterpark barely dropped under$200 per person, so we didn't even consider it. I know this sounds crazy to say, Coco Cay was one of my two favorite ports on this cruise, along with Roatan. It's just such a great, easy beach day with kids since there's no transportation involved, as long as you have a plan and everyone's on the same page. The first time we visited Coco Cay, we let the kids move around too much and it was really hard to keep schlepping stuff and looking for each other on different parts of the island. This time we stayed together and much more focused and it made all the difference. Let me share a few practical tips for Icon of the Seas before we wrap up. First wifi, because it's 2026 people. I purchased the wifi package for one person with four devices rather than four people with one device each. It works out way cheaper that way. It was nice to have, especially when someone needed to connect with a family member back home. But I'll say that sharing the wifi codes got sort of confusing at times because we had five people for four codes, and there's no way to see who's using a code at any given time and decide who you're gonna kick off. Second, our room location on decade was absolutely perfect for us: near Central Park, Surfside and the elevators. I'd choose this exact same location again and I'd definitely choose a traditional balcony over an infinite balcony for a warm weather sailing like this one, but it's worth spending time to study up on the different room types before you book Icon, star, or Legend, because there are so many different options now. You can choose a balcony or window room that looks to one of the interior neighborhoods rather than the ocean, or you can choose a few different ocean view suites or family sized rooms that give you extra space. Depending on your budget, there's something for everyone. Third, if you're traveling with someone who has mobility challenges, you might wanna bring your own lightweight travel wheelchair if possible. Royal Caribbean provides free wheelchairs at the home port, but you can't take them out on excursions. We brought one for grandma and I'm so glad we had it, especially for the crazy long walk in Costa May. So who is Icon of the Seas right for? I think it's perfect for families with a wide range of ages and interests because there's really something for everyone. It's also great for multi-generational groups, since it's easy for grandparents to navigate and enjoy. It's not the best choice if you want an intimate, boutique experience. And honestly, the ports on this Western Caribbean itinerary weren't my favorite, but that's more about the itinerary than the ship itself. All these ships run multiple itineraries. So if you have flexibility, you can pick a week When it goes to destinations that you're more interested in. We preferred the Eastern Caribbean itinerary that visited St. Thomas and St. Martin, for example. Would we cruise Icon of the Seas again? Absolutely. In a heartbeat. I'd choose the same Deck 8 ocean View balcony near Central Park again, I'd pick one specialty dining option to try out and I'd bounce around all the fun music venues and see all the shows except the effectors. And if everything in this review sounds good, you don't have to limit yourself to Icon of the Seas. Its siblings, star of the Seas and Legend of the Seas should offer nearly identical experiences. Between those three ships. They cover the three major Florida ports and a variety of itineraries. Legend will even be doing the Southern Caribbean itinerary we wish we could have done starting later this year. The other piece of the question is,"is icon of the seas worth the price?" I'll say that icon and its siblings are not cheap ships to sail on, especially over school breaks. If you wanna save money, try to be flexible with your dates and open to any of the three ships. I checked prices for next winter break out of curiosity and legend was actually the cheapest of the three, despite being the newest; it hasn't even started sailing yet. Right now you can snag a week in an ocean view balcony on any of the three ships for under$1,000 per person. If you book far enough ahead and you aren't picky on dates or ports, but peak dates can be more than double or even triple that depending on what type of room you're picking. So that's our icon of the sea experience. I know that was really long, but we loved so much about the ship: the neighborhood layout, the incredible variety of dining and entertainment, the state room set up, and especially how well it worked for our big group. If you want more details, photos and links, head over to thefamilyvoyage.com, where I'll have an in-depth written review. You can also find tons of other destination goods, travel tips, and family travel resources there, including my favorite tips for cruising. Thanks so much for listening to Family Travel unpacked. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you could leave a review wherever you're listening or share it with a friend who's considering a cruise. Safe travels!