Royal Caribbean Welcomes Newest Icon Class Cruise Ship During Naming Ceremony in Port Everglades

A boatload of top Royal Caribbean travel advisors and guests spent their Veterans Day welcoming Royal Caribbean’s third Icon Class ship to the fleet.

From a CEO appropriately named Liberty to the ship’s godmother, retired U.S. Air Force General Lori J. Robinson – America’s first female combatant commander and former leader of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command – the patriotic theme served as a backdrop the official naming ceremony, as well as the first U.S. sailings of the largest ship in the Royal Caribbean fleet.  

Royal Caribbean Group chairman and CEO Jason Liberty thanked Robinson as “an incredible role model of service, a dedicated advocate for families, and for balancing careers. She’s seen the importance of bringing people together in the pursuit of shared purpose. Here aboard Legend, bringing people together to create their own connections is at the heart of the experience we try to create.”

The ceremony also served as both a look backwards – at what Royal Caribbean has achieved – as well as a look into the future.

At the ceremony, Royal Caribbean president and CEO Michael Bayley noted that “for the first Legend, the name is a part of the past—and for this Legend, the name is a promise for the future, for us to keep delivering the best vacations responsibly and to keep leading the Royal Caribbean Group as the vacation industry unfolds. That’s how legends are made.”

The third Icon class ship in the fleet, Legend of the Seas is an almost exact sister of Star of the Seas. But the latest and greatest has small but meaningful tweaks that really do make the customer experience just a little better. For instance, there are two new food experiences, the Hollywoodland Supper Club and Royal Railway — Legend Station. The offerings in the AquaDome Market are different, as well.

And for families, there are Family Suites and Infinite Family Staterooms with multiple bedrooms and bathrooms.

“Icon ships numbers 1 and 2 were great, but number 3 is the charm,” senior vice president of sales, trade Support, and service Vicki Freed told TMR over a Starbucks onboard. “We’ve tweaked the restaurants and the AquaDome – and even Shockwave (the show in the AquaDome) is more emotional, combining the music of  Vivaldi and Coldplay, and really marrying traditional and modern music.”

While declining to cite exact figures, Freed said bookings “are really strong” on this newest ship, which offers bragging rights as well as “a great value for the customer and a vacation that’s second to none.”

For travel partners, “we’re doing everything to help them: trainings, opportunities to visit the ships, and these three-night cruises that make it affordable for many travel advisors who paid to come. We’re seeing more and more travel advisors doing that, coming on with a team of 12 to learn the product and get the Instagram photos out. It’s really an investment in their career.”

“Royal Caribbean’s focus on the trade remains stronger than ever before,” Freed said. “Buying travel is confusing. A great travel advisor helps define and simplify the experience, and articulates the value proposition of this buying decision.”