How the Icon of the Seas became the Ultimate Family Vacation

When Icon of the Seas was labelled as the 'ultimate family vacation', they really meant it.

The world's largest cruise ship, which took its maiden voyage last month, has something for everyone - especially families. 

From three-floor suites with a slide between levels to a dedicated neighbourhood for kids under six and the largest waterpark at sea, this is Royal Caribbean's most family-friendly ship to date.

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The neighbourhood

Let's start with Surfside, a dedicated neighbourhood for the travellers who Royal Caribbean identified to be on board the most: under-sixes and their parents.

There's a carousel, a mini waterpark, a lolly shop, a slide, and even a baby pool for kids who aren't yet toilet trained.

Of course, so the adults can enjoy it too, there's a bar and infinity pool located within line of sight to the kids' play areas. The menu has plenty of mocktails too, so kids can get involved.

Erin Stransky, family strategic operations for Royal Caribbean International says that the team noticed that despite offering many kids' and teens' clubs across their fleet of ships, most families preferred to stay together rather than split up. They're on holiday as a unit, after all. 

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So even though there are still activities for kids only, plus on-call childcare, the focus on Icon is around creating memories together. 

Surfside also has two eateries, a kid-friendly buffet with pizza, chicken nuggets (which I, an adult, enjoyed multiple times), and a dessert stand. For more of a sit-down meal, the specialty restaurant offers tacos and sandwiches, where kids under 12 can eat free. 

Don't leave without picking up some churros from the dessert stand.

The suites

When it came to designing the rooms, Royal Caribbean didn't want to just stick kid-sized beds in regular cabins. For the Icon, they introduced new categories of staterooms that were designed specifically for families.

Every family room is designed with little kiddies in mind, for everything from towel hooks to the decor. And they're located in areas of the ship where there's less likely to be any noise at night.

And they were road-tested, too. Before suite construction on the ship began, they built replicas of what each room would look like in a warehouse and invited families of employees to come stay in them for a couple of days, and report back on what worked and what didn't.

"Until you live in a space, you don't realise what you're missing," Jennifer Goswami, senior manager of product development at Royal Caribbean International, told 9Travel.

Teens

Goswami says that finding a way to placate and entertain teens - who notoriously love to do their own thing - was a struggle.

"What we were seeing on some of our Oasis Class ships was literally teens hanging out in staircases," she said to press on board the Icon.

They realised that while teens like to have a space to meet up and play video games, they don't necessarily want to be confined to one 'teen' area of the ship. 

So the teen-centred activities - like a waterpark takeover, laser tag, and midnight ice skating - were shifted to be located all over the Icon. Teens scan a QR code to access their itinerary for the day, and can go from there.

The teen club space is also very incognito; I was on board for six days and never saw it . This is designed to give teens an area to chill without being too close to their (embarrassing) parents. "We don't want adults just to be able to wander in and take over," Stransky said.

These family-friendly tweaks aren't just going to be a part of the Icon of the Seas - in fact, everything that the cruise line learned from this ship will be implemented across the rest of their fleet in the coming months and years.

So if you're after a family vacation where you don't have to stress over where to eat, what to do, and how to get around, perhaps a cruise - maybe even on the Icon - is truly your best bet.

The writer was a guest of Royal Caribbean.