An Iconic Cruise: Iconic Entertainment
ust as with everything else, news about the entertainment on Icon of the Seas was super hyped up. What would the main shows be, what would the theme of the aqua show be, would there be an ice skating rink and how would it be themed? When it was announced that Icon would get its own musical version of The Wizard of Oz, everyone was excited as this sounded really fun and unique. Because we wanted to let the ship get all of its kinks out, especially with the entertainment, we booked a cruise that would be 10 months into its inaugural season. There was still one show that was not quite ready for primetime but we got to see everything else, and we were not disappointed.
In December of 2022, we were fortunate enough to go on a week long cruise on Wonder of the Seas, which was at the time Royal’s newest and biggest ship. On board Wonder, we experienced what I called the best in entertainment amongst all cruise lines and maybe even better than what we can find on land. We found the same to be true on Icon. The shows, production, talent and variety of entertainment was top notch. Because we attended some behind the scenes events and Q & As with the entertainment staff, we learned a bit more about the whole process. In fact, the lead in the Wizard of Oz show was not only new to cruising entertainment but this was, in fact, her first major job since leaving theater school. And, she was amazing!! The ice skating captain told us that he had been skating since he was 10 years old. The variety and caliber of talent on board was incredible and perhaps explains one reason that the cost of cruising is so high.
For the main show in the Royal Theater, they took the Wizard of Oz movie and adapted it to a 95 minute stage show, complete with full length LED screens, a Jim Henson Toto puppet, and a flying apparatus that allows them to fly objects from the stage over the audience’s heads. To perform the music, they actually had a string section, the only one known to be on the mainstream cruise lines, as well as a full and hugely talented band. So they could highlight all of this talent, they had the orchestra visibly split on both sides of the stage. For us, it was fascinating to watch the conductor direct all of the music and see how hard the musicians work throughout the production. The musical was so fun to watch (we actually saw it twice) and got us super hyped for the movie Wicked that would soon be released. I definitely feel that their production was, for sure, as amazing if not more so than what you can find on a Disney cruise and as entertaining as seeing a musical on Broadway.
For both the aquatheater and the ice skating rink, improvements were made so that the performances and the performers would be less affected by weather and other constraints found on previously built cruise ships. In the aquatheater, we got to see slack line performers, synchronized swimmers, high divers, dancers, aerialists and even skateboarders. The show in the aquatheater was amazing, as usual, and it was neat to see what they could do with the new design of the space. I will say that it was not my favorite show that I have seen (Aqua80 on Oasis wins that prize), and also, a first for us, the show was overshadowed by the show in the Royal Theater. While the ice skating show has never been our favorite, we saw two ice skating shows (the second show was geared more towards kids) and enjoyed both. The immense talent of the skaters was apparent and it was cool to see everything that they could do with their advanced technology, such as with the lighting and drone use.
More than all of the fun water slides, numerous pools, cool and new eating spots, we really found that the entertainment was what made our cruise on Icon so incredible. While we weren’t really planning on booking on Star of the Seas (Icon’s sister ship that will launch next year), we learned that they are planning on putting on Back to the Future as their main stage show. Knowing that they have the talent and capabilities to make this as awesome as a Broadway production, we are now intrigued and are planning to find a cruise on Star once they have released the rest of their 2026 bookings. Would you like to join us?
