AskCruise.aiStart Your Search

Cruise lines · Mainstream

Royal Caribbean

The biggest ships afloat, and almost none of them near Britain.

Who Royal Caribbean genuinely suits

  • People for whom the ship genuinely is the destination: families, multi-generational groups and thrill-seekers who want to be fully entertained from morning to night. Nobody does on-board scale better, and on an Icon- or Oasis-class ship the port call is secondary to the ship itself.

When you'd be better off elsewhere

  • Anyone who does not want to fly, or who has a specific new ship in mind. What sails from Britain is not what is in the adverts.

  • Anyone who cruises to see places. With up to 7,600 people aboard, the ship is the event and the port is the interval.

What the ships are actually like

Enormous, and the class matters more than the name. Icon-class ships carry 5,610 guests at double occupancy, up to around 7,600 at full occupancy, with a FlowRider surf simulator and Absolute Zero, billed as the largest ice arena at sea. Oasis-class ships carry a similar scale of experience, including the long-standing Studio B ice rink. Both are built for an entirely different holiday than the older, mid-size ships in the fleet.

"The ship is the destination" is accurate. Whether that's a compliment depends on you

Read it as a resort holiday first and a cruise second, and everything else follows. Royal Caribbean builds more specialty dining, West End-scale entertainment and outdoor activity into one hull than you could work through in a week, and nobody afloat does it better. An Icon-class ship has a surf simulator and the largest ice arena at sea on board. That is genuinely extraordinary, and it is also the whole holiday.

So the question is not whether the ship is good. It is whether you want the ship to be the point. If you do, nothing else on this site competes and you will spend the fortnight grinning. If what you were actually picturing was stepping off into a city and coming home with a sense of somewhere, the same scale reads as a theme park you cannot leave. Both reactions are correct; they just belong to different people.

What the fare covers

Usually in the fare

  • Your stateroom and the main dining rooms

  • Most onboard activities and entertainment, including the rock climbing wall and the supervised youth programme

  • Basic drinks such as water, coffee, tea, juice and lemonade

Costs extra

  • Speciality restaurants

  • Soft drinks, alcohol and premium coffee, unless you buy a drinks package

  • Wi-Fi, charged by day and device or as a package

  • Spa, salon and fitness classes, and shore excursions

Read from the line's own website, October 2026. What a fare covers varies by sailing and by fare, so check your booking.

Tips and gratuities

Gratuities are not in the fare. A daily gratuity is added to your onboard account, so allow for it on top of the price shown.

A further service charge is added to drinks, spa and speciality dining. The daily gratuity can be changed at Guest Relations before you disembark.

Checked against the line's own website, October 2026.

Where Royal Caribbean sits

Class

Mainstream, on our ladder from Mainstream through Ultra-Luxury.

A sample sailing

Icon of the Seas, 7 nights: Eastern Caribbean from Miami, guide price from £1,150pp.

The ship in the advert almost certainly does not sail from here

35 of 3,434 sailings worldwide leave from a UK port (1% of the programme), from Southampton only.

Counted 4 August 2026 against live cruise-line inventory. Sailing counts move week to week.

Where Royal Caribbean boards in the UK

In the UK, Royal Caribbean sails from Southampton. Our guide covers who it suits, what actually sails and how to reach it.

Ready to sail?

See what Royal Caribbean actually has available

Answer in plain English and we'll show you real sailings, judged on fit, never on who pays us more.

Find my Royal Caribbean cruise

Other cruise lines