Welcome to the Royal Caribbean Blog podcast,

we can look into the world of Royal Caribbean cruising.

I'm your host Matt Hodgeberg and this is episode where 500 and 25.

I am back from the very first sailing of Royal Caribbean's icon of the seas and today I've got a full

review of what my cruise was like, what really stood out and what you should know about going

an icon to the seas.

Here we go.

One of the downsides, I guess, of covering Royal Caribbean as in depth as we do here,

Royal Caribbean blog, is I feel like sometimes it takes the excitement and surprise out of the

air. There's pros and cons, everything in life. And while I absolutely still love going on a crease,

I really got excited for ICOT in the last couple of days leading up to it.

You know, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect with ICON.

I mean, I had been living and breathing ICON of the seas, you know,

certainly for the last year plus.

Ever since Royal Caribbean announced the details in October of 2022,

you know, I was really in line with everything that they were announcing.

So I knew about so many of the features and things that were there.

So when it came time to actually go on ICON, I wasn't sure what to expect.

When I got on the cruise, I think my initial reaction, especially after the first couple of days, was some of the parts of the experience really added up quickly.

And I became really impressed by icon.

Like I knew about so many of the things, whether it was dueling pianos, the new wider promenade, Pearl Cafe, Surfside, Thrill Island. Like, I knew about all these features. And there was nothing that, like, I got on board. And I was like, wow, I can't believe they put it on here. But seeing them all together in tandem, it really created a cruise experience that by the end of the sailing, when it was time to get off the ship and I was thinking, oh, what's my next cruise? So I don't get, you know, too depressed about getting off a cruise.

I thought, oh, it's a lure of the season.

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