Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise ship, heads to the dock during its first arrival into PortMiami on Jan. 10, 2024.
The world’s largest cruise ship set sail from Miami, Florida over the weekend, embarking on a seven-day island-hopping trip through the tropics for its maiden commercial voyage.
Onlookers gathered Saturday as Royal Caribbean International’s behemoth — named the Icon of the Seas — left the Port of Miami to great fanfare.
Complete with eight “neighborhoods,” seven swimming pools, six waterslides and a total of 20 decks, the ship embarked on its inaugural cruise seeking to capitalize on surging travel demand.
Remarkably, the ship is roughly five times the size of Titanic and has a maximum passenger capacity of 7,600.
It cost $2 billion to build, measures nearly 1,200 feet (365 meters) from bow to stern, and weighs 250,800 metric tons.
At a briefing earlier in the month, Royal Caribbean Group CEO Jason Liberty described the Icon of the Seas as the “biggest, baddest ship on the planet.”
The launch of the giant floating resort has sparked renewed concerns about the environmental impact of cruise tourism.
The ship is built to run on liquified natural gas, which burns more cleanly than other conventional marine fuels but contains high levels of methane.
World’s largest cruise ship sets sail from Miami
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