Utopia of the Seas- Where the Party Never Stops
The Utopia of the Seas, which set sail for the first time in July of 2024, is currently Royal Caribbean’s newest ship. It is not as big as the Icon of the Seas but it certainly isn’t small. At double capacity, Utopia can hold 5,668 passengers and 2,290 crew making it the second largest cruise ship in the world. As the sister ship of Wonder of the Seas, it has a lot of similarities to Wonder, but it also has some aspects brought over from Icon’s revolutionary design. Additionally, it has some key design choices that set it apart from all other cruise ships.
As with Wonder of the Seas and the other Oasis Class ships, Utopia has seven great neighborhoods set up throughout the ship. It has the same great Boardwalk with the aqua theater, Playmakers, and carousel. Central Park is in its usual place with all of the real plants, and specialty dining. It has the sports deck with the Flowrider, zipline, playscape, mini golf, basketball court and big purple slide. You will find Entertainment place that consists of the casino, studio B and comedy venue. As well there is the Pool Deck, the Kidz Zone, the Spa and the Promenade. If you have sailed on an Oasis Class ship before, you will feel very comfortable with the design of Utopia of the Seas. We love the Oasis class of ships and really appreciate how the different areas help to make the ship seem less crowded.
There are some little differences in its design that help Utopia of the Seas to stand out. One major addition that is only available on Utopia is the Royal Railway. The Royal Railway is a virtual train car where you can sit in a booth and experience how it might be like to ride in a dining car on a passenger train. There are virtual windows that show you moving through the old west (a theme that could possibly be changed in the future), and it has a rumble system in the seats so you feel like you are actually riding on a train. It was designed for a dinner experience, which comes with a high price tag and has very limited availability as the train car only fits about 32 passengers. They have since added a whiskey tasting experience, which Chris and I were able to do and really enjoyed it. We probably wouldn’t do it again and wonder if it will lose its appeal over time, like the Bionic Bar has.
Utopia has made some other smaller but smart choices to help increase the enjoyment of its passengers. For example, up at the sports deck, instead of a regular bar, they have a slushy hut where you can get alcoholic or non-alcoholic icee beverages. On the boardwalk, they have a store next to the candy store filled with merchandise just for kids. In Central Park, they have put the Izumi and Hibachi restaurant, including the Izumi To Go, which was introduced on Icon. Wonderland was taken off of this ship and Giovanni’s was put in its place so that you can sit outside overlooking the Boardwalk while enjoying your wine and pasta. There is a non-smoking casino, which is a nice addition. And, the Bionic Bar was replaced by The Pesky Parrot, which is a fun plussed version of the tiki bar found previously on some of the ships. Those were just some of the differences that stood out most to us.
Another thing that is different about Utopia of the Seas is not just how the ship is designed but the vibe of the ship and how the cruises are set up. With the tagline of “The Biggest Weekend”, Utopia of the Seas currently only does 3 and 4 night sailings. And, for each sailing, they try to amp up the music, the energy, the nightlife etc. so that it seems like one big party. My guess is that they decided to do this for two reasons. One, they wanted to compete with the party vibe of Carnival Cruise Lines (think all of the fun, without any of the fist fights). Second, they wanted to give families the opportunity to try out a shorter cruise on one of the newer ships. The problem that we found with this effort to make the ship a party ship is that it alienates the passenger who simply wants to chill on a cruise. In the Facebook group for our cruise, there were at least a dozen people wanting to know where they could go to get away from the “noise”. It seemed like almost everywhere you went there was loud music playing. Along with that, the production shows (with the exception of the ice skating show) were so loud that our son needed headphones to dampen the sound and my mom who is hard of hearing needed to take her hearing aids out. The ship was a lot of fun but not super relaxing.
I need to briefly mention the entertainment found on board the Utopia of the seas. We were able to attend all of the main productions and enjoyed all of them with the aqua show standing out the most. Like with Wonder and Icon, we discovered that there was a lot of great talent on their ship. Perhaps, so much was put into making the entertainment on Icon and now Star of the Seas, which will set sail for the first time in the fall of 2025, so fabulous that less effort was
As we were on our way back to Roswell from the port, we were reflecting on our cruise. We had a really nice time overall experiencing everything, especially all of the new things that Utopia had to offer. But, we found that the cruise seemed sort of rushed, not super relaxing and that there were a handful of things that we normally do on a cruise that we didn’t have time to get around to doing. We have been on 4-night cruises many times before and usually come off the ship feeling like 4-nights was a sufficient amount of time to be on vacation. This was not the case with our Utopia of the Seas cruise, instead we found ourselves wishing we had three more days on board. I’m not entirely sure why this is the case (it could be that we were cruising with our kids and needed to appeal to their interests as well), but it might just have to do with us wanting to experience so much of the new things that Utopia has to offer that we just didn’t have time to just chill. Perhaps if we were to cruise on Utopia again we would be able to chill a bit more and just enjoy what we love most about cruising.
Have you been on Utopia of the Seas yet? If so, what do you think about the ship and the vibe they are going for? If not, does this sounds like a ship that you would like to cruise on with your family? Either way, let me know so I can help you and/or your family plan the perfect vacay.
