Icon of the Seas Review: Two days at sea on the world’s biggest ship

It was sometime in 1997 that I was first introduced to the idea of an ocean cruise – by Rose, Jack, and James Cameron. They opened a window into the jazzy delights of what was then a preserve of the wealthy or those seeking unique journeys that stood apart. People I personally knew were still travelling only to the hills and the beaches. The wilderness of the ocean was unchartered territory.

For decades, what lingered in my memory from the movie wasn’t the grandeur of the ship as depicted in it, but the image of a besotted young couple surrendering to the wind at the ship’s edge, the strains of a love ballad, and the final fate of the passengers. The tragic end made sure that I’ll never put a luxury jaunt at sea on my bucket list, until an opportunity recently came unbidden to get onboard a behemoth in steel called Icon of the Seas.

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For someone who dreaded the sheer thought of spending seven sedentary days at sea, with sickness to boot, it was a moment of quandary — to go or not to go? But as life would have it, some serendipitous moments cannot be dodged, and I found myself checking into the world’s biggest ship on a warm summer morning in Miami for an eastern Caribbean sea tour.

Entering the Floating City

The journey that should have ideally started with anticipation and excitement started with a bonafide bummer. I had conjured in my mind the image of a gleaming giant looming over the port as I arrived, but to my utter disappointment, I didn’t get even a glimpse of it as we queued up at the entrance. Later I gathered that mammoth ships like these dock at specialised cruise terminals designed for passenger processing, luggage handling, and security at the port of embarkation.

Thus, without a clue about what we were getting into, we boarded via an enclosed gangway that lead directly into the terminal, bypassing the full exterior view of the ship. We would have to wait until we docked at the open pier in Saint Martin, our first port of call two days later, to capture the full expanse of the floating haven of leisure and luxury.

With cruises now having become commonplace among avid travellers, I had received a range of responses about the experience from people who had already been there and done that. From “boring” to “exhilarating” to “a good one-time experience”, their diverse voices made me additionally curious, and truth be told, slightly antsy too.

It would take three nights and two days for the ship to make its first landfall and for me to walk on earth again. It wasn’t a pleasant thought. What if, in the middle of the sea, on a moonless night, I suddenly felt homesick and seasick, and I was driven to the deck rail where I would retch and rant, resisting the urge to leap into the nothingness in front? What if we crossed an evil hurricane’s path and the ship rocked violently, with alarms blaring and passengers scrambling for safety, a la Titanic?

Entering the world of the ship

The anxieties of the mind were quietened as soon as we entered the Royal Promenade of the Icon of the Seas, and for the first time, the ship’s famed vastness felt less intimidating and more welcoming. I remembered someone telling me once, “it’s like being inside a mall,” and realised how further from truth the statement was. Even for someone from Dubai, accustomed to malls of the most exotic kind, that first brush with the promenade felt like stepping into a chimerical world waiting to be discovered, peel by peel.

Pinning the expanse of 20 decks that can accommodate up to 7600 passengers at maximum capacity was The Pearl, an art installation comprising over 3000 panels. Its changing colours added vibrancy to the space already throbbing with the uncontained excitement of a multitude of passengers, who at once found the curved, marble staircase beneath The Pearl an Instagram-worthy spot they wanted to capture in their frames. Interestingly, I learnt later that a man went on his knees and proposed to his sweetheart there during the course of that week, making it a floating monument of love.

What followed was a revelation of a realm of 15 wondrous gastronomic havens sprawled over the two decks of the promenade. It wasn’t a hub of mere restaurants or eating joints; they were reimagined dining concepts. From a 1920s-style jazz supper club to a bustling food-hall, a seafood shack straight out of New England to a trattoria that smelled of baked Italian delights, I was left in rapt wonder. For someone who had imagined a cruise to be a floating abode of idleness, where time would drag, or worse still, the assorted crowd would feel oppressive, it was a revelation and the beginning of a week full of boundless mirth and unexpected calm.

A week of discovery and delight

I went footloose across the length and breadth of the ship watching spectacles of myriad kinds. I watched couples heighten the festive vibes in a Mexican restaurant, their salsa moves keeping time with the Spanish music of a live band. I spent nostalgic evenings at Central Park sipping a beverage and listening to jazz and country music. I lounged at the Thrill Island, with a waterpark billed as the largest at sea, watching from the sidelines as others hurled themselves into adventure – down six-storied water chutes, across dangling ropeways that mocked gravity, plunging onto waters that tossed them like rag dolls. Some joys come when you participate, and some others come from mere witnessing. Being faint-hearted and disinclined to do the acts myself, my joy was of the second sort — to bear witness to how people in the world let themselves be stoked by a sense of adventure and lack of fear.

On most days, I dug in like a famished trekker every time I sat in the sprawling, glass-walled buffet restaurant, Windjammer, that boasted cuisine of every imaginable kind. On some afternoons, I merely let a bowl of salads satiate me as I watched the sea unfurl before me during a quiet, me-time by a glass window there.

And then there were the evenings in the Main Dining Hall where it was less of an eating experience and more of ritual. Imbued with soft lighting spilling out of crystal chandeliers and waiters who moved with balletic grace, I soaked in the almost ceremonial experience of dining, surrendering to curated menus and other special fare the chef arranged to indulge us. Eating and drinking seemed like the only purpose of living during those seven days.

The Lion King on Broadway might have been a landmark experience, but what truly took my breath away was watching The Wizard of Oz in the Icon of the Seas’ Royal Theatre. That is a show I would gladly put my money on again, if I had to. It nullified whatever little disappointment I might have felt at the other aqua shows that claimed to be spectacular and futuristic, but somewhere fell short of my expectations.

As the journey unfolded, the idea of junketing for a week at sea shifted from insipid to inspiring. The days were filled with celebrations of life switching between the casualness of shorts, tees and sandals, and the polished attires of ‘dress your best’ evenings. The nights were dotted with silent reminders of the immensity of the ocean, the quiet that only the sea can offer, and the humbling awareness of how small one is against such vastness. From spotting lights in distant ships and gazing at the stars from the balcony of my spacious stateroom to waking up to the view of quaint eastern Caribbean towns floating into our window frames, each moment unfurled like a gentle revelation, reminding me how varied and alive the world can feel when seen from a fluid perspective.

Final reflections

Sailing on the world’s largest cruise ship, with its distinctive split-superstructure design, might have added to the experience that many smaller ships on shorter trips might not offer, but I must say this, a voyage of this kind that straddles the two vast blues – of the sea and the sky – is less about the size of the vessel and more about the gates it opens to the scope of travel, leisure and life itself. It’s one that can escape bucket lists, but not the trails of a heart smitten with wanderlust.

Fun fact: Seasickness during a cruise is a fallacy, although you could carry some tablets, just in case you felt the motion beneath your feet and jitters in your belly. 

wknd@khaleejtimes.com