Star of the Seas

Star of the Seas is the second Icon-class ship, and the useful thing to know about her is the gap between her and the first. Meyer Turku handed Icon of the Seas over in November 2023; Star followed on July 10, 2025, which gave Royal Caribbean roughly eighteen months of watching a wholly new class of ship being used by real passengers before Star’s interior was finished. She is not a prototype. She is the revision.

She entered service on August 16, 2025 with a four-night showcase sailing out of Port Canaveral, was christened there on August 20 and ran her formal maiden voyage (seven nights to Cozumel, Costa Maya and Roatán) on August 31. The christening had its own small drama: Diana Ross had been named godmother in June and withdrew hours before the debut, and the ship was named instead by Kellie Gerardi, a research astronaut and the ninetieth woman to have flown to space.

What the year of notes changed

Nothing structural, which is the point of building a class. The hull, the eight neighborhoods and the engineering are Icon’s: about a quarter of a million gross tons, 1,197 feet, six dual-fuel Wärtsilä generators burning liquefied natural gas, three azimuthing Azipods, fuel cells and a shore-power connection. Where the two ships differ is in the fittings, and the differences read like a list of complaints being answered.

The supper club changed identity, Lincoln Park on Star, 1930s Chicago, against Icon’s 1920s New York Empire. The AquaDome Market swapped three of its stalls for La Cocinita, Pig Out BBQ and Mai Thai. The entertainment is entirely different: Back to the Future: The Musical in the Royal Theater, SOL on the ice at Absolute Zero, and Torque, a circus show, in the AquaTheater.

The more telling changes are smaller. Deck 15 lost Icon’s bungee loungers, rope swing and small ropes course, and got more loungers and another hot tub instead, ten to Icon’s nine. Surfside, the family neighborhood, was stretched to hold children up to about ten rather than topping out at six. Adventure Ocean added deliberately analog activities, which is a direct response to guests saying the youth program had gone too far toward screens. None of that makes a press release, and all of it is what a second hull is for.

What is aboard

Eight neighborhoods: Royal Promenade, Central Park, Chill Island, Thrill Island, AquaDome, Surfside, The Hideaway and the Suite Neighborhood. Seven pools and six waterslides across 2,805 staterooms.

The two attractions people book for are both in Thrill Island. Category 6 is the waterpark: six slides, including a drop slide, a pair of mat racers and family raft slides. Crown’s Edge is harder to categorize: part skywalk, part ropes course and part thrill ride, walked 154 feet above the water on the side of the ship, with a moment where the floor gives way and you swing. Alongside them are the Adrenaline Peak climbing wall, a FlowRider and a sports court.

Royal Bay in Chill Island is the largest pool at sea by Royal Caribbean’s count. The AquaDome caps the bow, a glass dome that is a dining hall and a view by day and a high-diving theater with a waterfall by night. The Hideaway hangs an adults-only infinity pool over the side of the ship. Surfside is the family quarter, with its own pools, a carousel and an arcade. The Pearl, the kinetic sculpture in the Royal Promenade, carries around 3,500 tiles and on Star they light in full color.

Where she actually sails

One thing, over and over. Every scheduled sailing is seven nights, round-trip from Port Canaveral, and every one of them calls at Perfect Day at CocoCay. That is the whole program from August 2026 through April 2028: no repositioning, no European season, no second homeport.

What varies is the other half of the week. The eastern rotation runs to Charlotte Amalie in St. Thomas and Philipsburg in St. Maarten; the western goes to Cozumel, Costa Maya and Roatán. A handful of sailings substitute Samaná, San Juan, Basseterre or Labadee. If you sail her twice a year apart you will see the same private island twice and a different Caribbean either side of it.

Port Canaveral is the reason for all of it. Royal Caribbean has built the Icon program around a terminal an hour from Orlando, on the assumption that a large share of guests are combining the ship with the theme parks, and the seven-night week with a fixed CocoCay call is the itinerary that fits that plan best.

Who she suits

Families, and it is not close. The waterpark, Surfside, the youth program and the sheer count of places to eat are aimed squarely at households with children, and Star is the version of that ship with the rough edges filed off. If you were considering Icon and the fares are similar, there is no argument for the older hull.

She also suits people who want the newest thing and are willing to pay for it. Fares here start meaningfully above the rest of the fleet, and the ship is sold on being the current state of the art rather than on where she goes.

She is the wrong ship if the Caribbean is what you are buying. Seven nights with two or three calls, one of them a private island, is a light itinerary by any standard, and there are older and cheaper Royal Caribbean ships running richer port lists out of San Juan and Fort Lauderdale. She is the wrong ship if you want quiet, 5,610 guests at double occupancy and closer to 7,600 when the third and fourth berths fill, and the neighborhoods spread that out without making it disappear. And she demands planning. The shows, the specialty tables and Crown’s Edge are booked out well before sailing; if you like deciding what to do on the morning of, this ship will annoy you.