There's something magical and a little creepy about walking through the Royal Promenade on the largest cruise ship in the world and being the only passenger. It's beautiful, and a site I will always treasure, but it also feels like something that should not be happening.
Cruise ships, especially a family-friendly wonder like Royal Caribbean's (RCL) Star of the Seas, are meant to be enjoyed by people. But, late-at-night on a pre-sailing for just a few hundred media and influencers, a late-night walk through the Promenade showed just the hint of future magic.
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A near clone of Icon of the Seas, Royal Caribbean's Star of the Seas sets a very high bar for upcoming efforts from Carnival, MSC, and even Norwegian when it comes to being the World's Greatest Family Cruise Ship.
Icon has all the bells and whistles:
- Innovative destination elevators
- An improved Aquadome Marketplace
- A true waterpark at sea
- An added adults-only pool, Swim & Tonic (which is now also adults-only on Icon)
- Spectacular views from the Pearl Cafe
- More to do than you can fit in a week.
In this video Dan Kline shares his experience on Star of the Seas in advance of their visit to the shop on a pre-inaugural revenue sailing on August. 23.
Royal Caribbean delivers on its promises
Transcript:
Meet Royal Caribbean’s Star of the Seas
Daniel Kline: Hello there, cruisers. I am Dan Kline, Editor-in-Chief of Travelhost. Next to me is Dennis Post, co-owner of Postcard Travel Planning.
We are going to talk about the biggest, the greatest, not technically the largest cruise ship in the world, Star of the Seas. Why not the largest?
Because I feel like all the cruise lines have gotten together and decided they're not going to make that claim anymore. If you notice at Celebration Quay, Carnival is not saying that's the largest pool. They're calling it a lagoon, so they're not stepping on Real Caribbean's claim.
So I think as an industry, there might be some agreements about kind of ending that. But Star of the Seas, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, is a copy, an exact copy of Icon. It has a little bit different art.
Everything else is pretty much the same. Now that's again, that's like saying, hey, that clone of Michael Jordan's pretty good at basketball. Ooh, but he might have a gambling problem.
What's the gambling problem on Star of the Seas? It's the same problem we had at Icon. The adult pool is a disaster.
It is called Hideaway. You have to walk down a flight of stairs to get there, something Amy Post right now and her new knee could not do. And when you get there, there's very few places to put your stuff.
I know something I complain about all the time, but there's no cubbies. There's few chairs. A lot of the chairs are in the direct sun, so you don't want to put your phone there.
And it's a beautiful infinity pool that, when I was there with six people, there were only 500 on board. It was great. I can't imagine what it's like with 6,000 people on board.
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A minor flaw, they fixed a little bit in now that these, the swim and tonic bar, which is a swim-up bar, is now adults only. But those bars are not that close to each other. So this is a family cruise ship, waterslides, things to do everywhere.
Rooms are spectacular. There are USB ports everywhere. They have not spared a detail.
And I think one of the things is when you see the top cruise ships, we were lucky enough. We were on Embassy World America. I was on Norwegian Aqua.
We're on Carnival Celebration right now. We've seen some of the greatest cruise ships in the world. And I think it's fair to say that Jason Liberty, Michael Bayley, Jay Schneider, the team over at Royal, they know how to design a cruise ship.
There's flow everywhere. It really, really works. You could be on four and end up in Central Park, and you don't feel like you've walked it.
So we're going to talk more about that ship. We're going to talk more about the ship we're on, Celebration, as we sort of go through our week here.
Until then, I am Dan Kline. He is Dennis Post. Come cruise with us soon.
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Make a free appointment with Come Cruise With Me's Travel Agent Partner, Postcard Travel, or email Amy Post at amypost@postcardtravelplanning.com or call or text her at 386-383-2472.
