jeffmw

We've always used passports. No need to bring birth certificates along. In general for cruising, while you don't necessarily need a passport to go on a cruise that starts and ends in the US, it's good to have one just in case if you're stopping anywhere out of the country.

Interesting. I've heard both -- that it's even further of an improvement on Oasis Class from a crowd management standpoint, and others like you who say they felt it was chaotic. I'll be on in December -- over Christmas no-less -- so I'll be interested to see how it is. If we don't like it, no problem, there are plenty of Oasis Class ships.

I wouldn't worry too much about that. A new boat like the Icon with high demand is at or near capacity most of the time. And I've been on plenty of ships at capacity during peak vacation periods and especially the newest ships do a great job of never feeling too crowded. If it didn't feel too crowded now for the person who commented, it won't in July.

I balked at people who said separating the pool areas is a big issue (families w/ kids of different ages have to split up on cruises -- it's just a reality) but if no one is spending time down there and everyone is up on the pool deck, that would suggest Royal needs to rethink how they can get more families with small children down to the Boardwalk. My assumption is that part of the ship being well-balanced from a crowd standpoint is assuming there are a sufficient amount of people on that deck. Here's the honest truth: The people on here and other cruise forums that constantly complain about children and their behavior simply have it out for kids. When you tell them they hate kids they get really offended and will insist 100x over that "I don't hate kids. I just hate misbehaving ones" or "I don't hate the kids. It's the parents' fault" but 90% of them don't have kids and are in denial that they just don't like them. They know it's Scroogey to get annoyed by the simple presence of any kid who isn't sitting nicely with their hands folded, but that's how they are and they can't help it. Coexisting with kids is part of cruising on Royal at this point.

There has to be more to this story or some reason why Icon pools are more likely to be shut down. This is the second post about pools being closed on Icon for these "issues", but there's no way suddenly there's this much more pooping in the pool. I've never even seen a pool closed on a Royal ship for poop or vomit (although I have seen it on Disney) and all we do is go on cruises during school breaks with thousands of kids. Of course I realize Icon is likely to have more kids and perhaps more first-time cruisers than other ships, but it's not such a higher percentage from Oasis ships during school vacation times that there'd suddenly be this massive uptick in incidents.

I don't think anyone rational has a problem with the entire practice, in principle. It's great for kids and a fun tradition overall. But moderation and common sense is the key here and we seem to be getting well beyond those measuring sticks. You can have 100 people each hiding 5 ducks. And you can have 5 people each hiding 50 ducks. But you can't have 100 people each hiding 50 ducks. The more passengers hiding more ducks, the more you have people looking for more creative places to hide them. I'm not sure how or where Royal would enforce this, but there just needs to be some limitations on 1) quantity brought onto the ship and 2) some areas that are off-limits.

It was great when everyone didn't know about it because a few people would bring ducks and, if you didn't know about the trend, it would be fun to find one. Now it's reaching the point where it's becoming too big of a thing so there are hundreds of ducks on every ship. There are some real Scrooges out there who really hate it. I'm not one of them. I love the idea and it's fun for kids. But there's a fine line between a fun little treasure hunt and dozens of people bringing what can sometimes be hundreds of ducks and there being ducks everywhere. Now, there are ducks from previous cruises visible in inaccessible places. I feel like, if it gets much bigger, Royal will have to do something to limit it. No idea how they would do it, but once ducks start being left everywhere and dropped into art installations and on top of elevators, etc., it goes beyond its original intention.

That's crazy. I've seen this happen on a Disney cruise but never on any Royal cruise I've been on. It is a huge pain when it happens. Sometimes there are legitimate accidents with kids (or adults) who wouldn't usually have an issue, but it shouldn't happen with kids who aren't potty trained. I feel like there used to be more of an emphasis on making sure there were no swim diapers in the pools and everyone understood the rules, but they don't seem to get enforce it or talk about it as much. I assume they will startup again now if it's an ongoing issue. I firmly believe Royal cruises, especially Icon, are meant for families and kids -- but this shouldn't happen.

Icon is a theme park on the ocean. If having a quiet, serene area for just adults is a major factor in selecting your cruise, you're best off going on a different boat. It's the old Ricky Gervais joke of going into a coffee shop and spotting a flyer for guitar lessons and getting pissed off and screaming "I don't want guitar lessons!!" Icon simply isn't for you. If you're on that ship and you're upset about kids making noise, that's not Royals fault. They've been telling you over and over that's what Icon is. Icon isn't for people who want a relaxing, adult vacation. There are entire cruise lines for that.

That's a fair point. Obviously there's less regular need to move between the adults-only area and the waterpark than the waterpark and the splash park. But it seems to be a lot more complicated than that. For example, what then do you do with all the Boardwalk balcony rooms? That's a couple hundred rooms that would look out over the adults area. I don't think the adults looking to get away from children would enjoy having dozens of kids in rooms above them staring down and making noise, and you definitely can't make all those rooms adults only. So, my guess is putting the adults area there was an impossibility that would've demanded a redesign of the whole ship. They spend years designing these things, so there's rhyme and reason to everything and logistical things we don't know about.

#1 - I don't think they're ever going to install nets. While these incidents make news, I don't think suicide rates are any higher on cruise ships than anywhere else (in fact, they're probably lower). It's not a cruise ship problem. It's a mental health problem. #2 - Not to be morbid, but to be fair to our friends in the animal kingdom, my assumption is anyone jumping off a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean would probably drown. Sharks are out there, for sure, but they're not typically aggressively hunting humans.

I did think about this when I first saw the design. The objective was to split up the usual high-traffic areas to prevent anywhere from being too crowded -- which it does a great job of -- but for anyone with kids of split age groups, this does present an issue. But... these ships are increasingly built to be like theme parks with distinctly different areas. And if you've ever been to Disney or any other type of theme park or water park with kids of different ages (where one wants to ride coasters while the other wants to meet Cinderella, or one wants to be in the kiddie pool while the other wants to go on slides), you know you either need to split up or compromise. To me, it's not that different from any other Royal boat where there are things to do all over the ship. I often find myself going with one kid to karaoke while my wife takes the other to play sports. Then there are times when we say to one of them, "too bad, we're going to stay together and spend time as a family now." It's just a reality of being on a massive ship with a million things to do. I've gone on cruises with just my family of 4, to groups as big as 5 families, all with kids of various ages. It's hard and perhaps even unrealistic to keep everyone together on a cruise when there's so much to do.

I constantly wonder this also when I see the prices for the largest suites on Royal ships. I love cruises, but if I had a $30k+ budget to spend on a week's vacation for my family of four, there's no way I'm going on a Royal Caribbean cruise. For that kind of money, you can go just about anywhere in the world, stay at a 5* hotel, and eat at Michelin star restaurants every night.

Assuming we operate under the dastardly capitalist assumption that a product is worth whatever people are willing to pay for it, Disney realized it had underpriced it's vacations for decades and jacked everything up over the past 10 years or so. Disney went from -- in the 80s and 90s -- being a vacation most families could afford, to something comparable to a cruise or resort vacation, to a trip difficult for a family of 4 to pull off for less than $8k+. The cruise industry is now realizing the same thing. Why offer something for $6k if you can sell it for $9k and people will still pay it? If Icon is the high-end Royal experience that competes with Disney World, why shouldn't it cost about the same as a week at Disney World? I keep saying, we are all in for disappointment over the next several years. Royal's prices are going up by significant %s, and they won't be going back down. This is the new pricing standard. The budgets we are accustomed to for our vacations are obsolete.

If the buttons were reduced to make them less sensitive, I can't imagine what they were like before. As it is now, if you're within 6 inches of the button is lights up. As I said, on easily 95% of the elevator trips I took there were buttons accidentally hit either by people while I was on it or by people who had just gotten off. If it was more sensitive before, you must've not even been able to stand in the elevator without setting them off.