Icon of the Seas stunner: You won't believe how full the world's largest cruise ship is sailing
Thinking of booking a cruise on Royal Caribbean's new Icon of the Seas? Get ready for monster crowds.
The world's largest cruise ship is sailing at a stunningly high level of occupancy, a top Royal Caribbean executive revealed Thursday.
Speaking to Wall Street analysts during a conference call to discuss quarterly earnings, Royal Caribbean CEO Michael Bayley said the 6-month-old vessel is averaging a 132% load factor on sailings — that is, its cabins are 132% full.
That's a massively high number that essentially means that every cabin on the ship on every sailing is currently being occupied by at least two and sometimes three, four or even five people.
By comparison, the average load factor for ships operated by Royal Caribbean Group brands has been running at 108% in recent months, according to data released Thursday by the company.
Related: Yikes! Does Icon of the Seas really cost that much?
Cruise ships can have occupancy levels above 100% when cabins are filled with more than two people. Most cabins are built for two people, and that's the number of occupants that a cabin has to have to be considered fully occupied, according to the accounting standards used by cruise lines. But cabins on some ships also have pullout sofa beds and pull-down bunks that allow for extra passengers — usually children. When some of them are occupied, that can boost a ship's reported occupancy numbers above 100%.
"We're just delighted," Bayley said of the sky-high load factors on Icon of the Seas.
Bayley has called the ship the most successful vessel in the history of the company.
The unusually high load factor for Icon of the Seas likely means the ship is sailing with a huge number of children on board, who are packing into cabins with their parents instead of staying in separate rooms.
That would make sense, as Royal Caribbean has marketed the vessel as the ultimate family vacation destination. It was built with an unusual number of family-friendly attractions, including a new-for-the-line outdoor "neighborhood" called Surfside, dedicated to families with young children.
Icon of the Seas also features the largest water park ever built on a cruise ship, with a record six decktop waterslides. It has seven pools and all sorts of other family-friendly attractions, including a rock climbing wall, surfing pool, miniature golf course, sports court, escape room, ice skating rink and sprawling kiddie play areas.
In addition, Icon of the Seas has a lot more cabins that have extra bunks to accommodate families with children than earlier Royal Caribbean ships.
At 248,663 gross tons, Icon of the Seas is more than 5% bigger than the biggest cruise ships that were sailing before it debuted — all of which were Royal Caribbean ships, too.
Icon of the Seas is designed to hold 5,610 passengers at double occupancy — that is, with two people in every one of its 2,805 cabins. But a load factor of 132% means that its actually sailing with about 7,400 passengers on every voyage, on average. That is far higher than any other cruise ship that has ever sailed.
Royal Caribbean's next-biggest cruise ships, Utopia of the Seas and Wonder of the Seas, can only hold about 7,000 passengers with every berth filled, including pull-down bunks and pullout sofa beds.
Could the massive number of people on Icon of the Seas affect the passenger experience? Bayley suggested that wasn't the case.
In his remarks to Wall Street analysts, he noted that the massive load factors were being accompanied by very high customer satisfaction scores for the ship.
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