GJ_123

So jealous, we really want to go on Icon again or Star! Hopefully this helps this my general thoughts of the experience we had on Icon. We were on the 5th sailing in February last year. The food options are great and a huge upgrade from the Oasis Class ships:- We loved the Aquadome Market! The Asian and Mediterranean options especially. Just a nice chilled out area to eat and it's actually open until a decent time! So if you want to eat late you can. I have heard it can get really busy but we didn't experience this. The Aquadome area itself is also stunning and a great place to sit and admire the view.- The Pearl Café is a huge upgrade over the standard Café Promenade on other classes, especially the breakfast items. They do a breakfast muffin which tasted very similar to McDonalds and it was lovely. The yoghurts with granola at breakfast time were great too. Admittedly, the Pearl Café was sometimes very busy and had long queues.- Pier 7 in the Surfside area was also very nice. You have to pay a surcharge but it wasn't too costly. The food was very high quality and we meant to go back, but only managed to go once highlights here were the Shrimp Tacos and the Club Sandwich. I'm sure you've read about Empire Supper Club. For us it was a unique experience, but a mixed bag... Very surprisingly, we thought a lot of the food was underwhelming. The overall atmosphere/occasion was very well done and it does feel like an exclusive event. The live band were excellent and really added to the atmosphere, and they engaged well with the diners. We wouldn't go back though. It was nice to try once but it's not worth nearly $500 for 2 people. It was actually over $500 in the end as we also left a cash tip.In terms of new bars we loved Lemon Post! The cocktails and fruit juices are great. For a cocktail I would recommend Shade Thrower and for non-alcoholic the Tropic Blast Lemonade. Rye & Bean (in the Aquadome area) is another Icon Class exclusive with coffee themed cocktails, we tried a couple but they weren't for us. You can also get standard coffees as well and it can be easier to get a coffee there when the Pearl Café is busy... bit of a tip. Another excellent addition is the adults-only Hideaway on Deck 15. It has a bar and pool. It's a nice area and we sat up there a few times (although perhaps a bit smaller an area than you'd imagine). The Castaway Spritz is a delicious cocktail, would highly recommend it.The only downside I would say with Icon Class compared to Oasis is that I like the Boardwalk much more than Surfside... Surfside feels like a missed opportunity and is completely unutilised at night which seems like a strange decision from RC, one of the best parts of the Boardwalk is how lively it is at night. Also prefer the location of Playmakers on Oasis Class ships, outdoor on the Boardwalk. Personally, I would have tried to find a way to put Playmakers in Surfside. Although Playmakers on Icon has vastly more beers/ciders on draft which is great. They even have Twisted Tea on draft! It's also a massive bar, so there's never an issue finding a seat (which is a common problem on the Oasis Class ships). I was a tad surprised/disappointed that the ship didn't have a Mason Jar like Wonder, but it must just not be a feature of Icon Class.

Hooked is very nice, we have been 5 or 6 times. The surf & turf is excellent. If you go for lunch I'd recommend the lobster roll.

Definitely like that it has a Mason Jar had that a couple of times on Wonder, the food is really nice there too. It was one thing I was a bit surprised Icon didn't have but they must just want to keep it for the newer Oasis Class ships.

Everything you've mentioned is shocking and very surprising. Never experienced anything like that in 15+ cruises. I would have been straight to Guest Services if I experienced an attitude like that.

How did you find Utopia? We are thinking about sailing in January.

Yes it seems like they are: Diamond Tier Status Upgrade (caesars.com) From my understand you need to physically show your MGM card at the Rewards desk in person, did you have to do that? Yes, we last visited about 10 years and it was very expensive back then!! Maybe for the best we are only going for 2 nights

Out of the ships I've been on... Wonder for Oasis Class and it's not even close. Everything ran as clean as a whistle and really liked Mason Jar. Love that it has a Hooked as well. I understand Quantum/Quantum Ultra are different classes but I found Odyssey to be a huge upgrade over Anthem. Just much cleaner and more modern feeling, wasn't keen on Anthem at all. For questions 2 & 3 Has to be Icon Class/Icon of the Seas... just incredible. The Promenade area is unbelievable and even bigger than it looks in pictures. I absolutely loved the Food Market, the Asian and Mediterranean especially. Just a nice chilled out area to eat and it's actually open until a decent time! So if you want to eat late you can. Also loved Lemon Post! The cocktails and fruit juices are great. The Pearl Cafe is a huge upgrade over the standard cafe on other classes, especially the breakfast items. The only downside I would say compared to Oasis Class is that I like the Boardwalk more than Surfside... Surfside feels like a missed opportunity. Also prefer the location of Playmakers on Oasis Class ships, outdoor on the Boardwalk.

Have already done it It was so straightforward my membership was changed to Gold within minutes. They let me know that self-parking and valet are free! An amazing perk as valet parking I think is $40 per day.

Thanks I'll have a read of this

Thanks, that's really helpful. I could email their rewards support and ask We will have a car so either free self parking or valet parking would be really useful to us. Did you find use of any other perks with the tier match?

Symphony is a nice ship, very clean and modern. Also has a Playmakers (unlike Allure) which is a big plus if you like having somewhere to watch live sport. The staff are great everywhere but they treated us so well in Playmakers, the food is nice there too. Also, make sure to remember that breakfast at Johnny Rockets is free! The main downside for me is how much they've cut down the buffet selection at Windjammer. We found dinner very boring/repetitive and also no hot pudding! That was very bizarre, we were last on Symphony in April I don't know if they've corrected that now. I found at dinner time at the buffet I barely ate anything due to the poor selection, I would recommend going to a speciality restaurant for dinner if you can. Symphony also has a Hooked! Which is really nice.

Hello, My wife and I are staying a couple of nights in Vegas next month and are quite excited that MGM Rewards do a tier match with C&A, so immediately we are Gold members. I just wondered if anyone has had any experience with this, and if there are any tips/suggestions on how this can benefit us while we are there, possibly something we might miss? A couple of specific questions I had... will we get the $100 dining credit, or do you physically need to have achieved 75k tier points to get this? Also, I noticed on some sites it mentioned free valet parking, is this correct? The tier match seems very beneficial as resort fees are also waived (this alone will save us $113!). So if you are planning to go to Vegas and have a decent amount of Crown & Anchor points it's worth checking out!

Is there no clarification on what exactly the paperwork issue was?

We really liked the infinite balcony on Icon because when we get a balcony we don't particularly like sitting outside anyway, we just like the breeze coming into the room. So we kind of preferred the room feeling a bit better. But if you enjoy a balcony I can see how some people wouldn't like it. It's pretty much a window rather than a balcony haha.

Great to read so much detail, thanks for sharing this. We have ESC booked and are going in a couple of weeks time. Really looking forward to it

Amazing The Diamond drinks really are a great benefit. My wife and I aren't huge drinkers so the 4 drinks a day is perfect for us, and such a big saving. Sometimes we don't even use them. If that's the case we just grab a few apple/orange juices from the cafe at the end of the night. Remember, the smoothies/juices at the Vitality Spa are also included with your Diamond drinks

We have reserved it

We have turned up to ports early many times, and it's never been an issue.

When you reach Diamond (80 Crown & Anchor points) you receive 4 daily drinks vouchers, which can be used for any drink up to $14 (if it's more you just pay the difference). 4 drinks a day each is generally plenty for me and my wife so we wouldn't bother with the drinks package. Prime and Signature are Club Royale casino statuses. Points are earned between April-April. You need 2500 casino points during that timeframe to reach Prime (which makes you Prime for the following year). The best way to earn points is via the slot machines (it would be extremely hard to earn 2500 points through tables unless you spend an absolute fortune!). If you are Prime you get free drinks in the casino when the casino bar is open (just have to show them your sea pass) and you also get a free annual cruise which you can book around April. You also get other casino free cruise offers which you can check on the Club Royale website (normally US sailings). The next tier after Prime is Signature which is 25k points. My wife is currently Signature and sitting on around 40k points. That brings a few more benefits like you get one free internet device for any sailing you do while being Signature. There is one tier above that which is Masters (100k+ points). I've attached a screenshot showing Club Royale benefits.

Haha I have noticed this too. On Navigator the casino bar staff always pocketed cash tips themselves right away. I sometimes wonder if it's how well the staff get on with each other. If they get on and are all friendly together I wonder if they put all the tips in a jar and split at the end of the night. We were on Symphony last year and the casino bar staff all seemed really close and friendly with each other, and they put all the tips in a common area. I suppose different staff will prefer to do it a different way.

Ahh that's interesting. I watched a few vlogs on YouTube and did notice the ship was particularly quiet, so that explains it if they were running under capacity. Do you know roughly how many guests will be on in 2 weeks time? I can see online that there are loads of 4 occupancy balconies left. Maybe not the most popular time of year for families.

Thank you, loads of information here which is really helpful. Will take on board what you've said about booking shows. I notice we still can't pre-book things like the theatre and the comedy club and the cruise is 2 weeks away! Can you pre-book things like this, or does it have to be done on board? Did you go to Empire Supper Club? We have that reserved, expecting big things from that considering the cost. Did you notice if Playmakers actually has on draft everything it says on the menu? We were recently on Navigator and it said on the menu they had something like 8 beers on draft and in reality they had like 2 or 3, which was disappointing. We have an infinite ocean view balcony booked which will be interesting to see, I do wonder though if it really is a 'balcony' or just a bit of a bigger room with virtually a window Sorry to ask so many questions, how was the free merch/gifts? They looked pretty cool. Do you know if any of them are available to buy on board on future sailings? Or maybe just exclusive as gifts for the inaugural sailing.

Thanks it's appreciated, I'll have a look

Just out of curiosity I wanted to ask anyone who did the Icon inaugural sailing (or is onboard just now), HOW WAS IT?? We are going on in a few weeks time, never been so excited for a cruise ever. It looks incredible. Did it match your expectations, or exceed it? Do you have any tips/suggestions for anyone that's going on soon? What are the main things you liked? Is there anything you disliked? I'd love to know!

You must like Anthem to have been on it 4 times! Personally I had a really bad experience on Anthem, we sailed on it last February. It was definitely the most unclean ship I've seen for Royal Caribbean, a lot of corridors had a bad smell. I also just found a lot of the staff uninterested and didn't feel much effort, which is really unusual for RC. From this experience I don't think I would sail on it again. We have sailed Odyssey and felt the Quantum Ultra was a huge upgrade. Maybe we just had a bad experience and it's normally better?