Why won't the world's largest cruise ship be as crowded as you fear?

There's one thing that can make or break a cruise ship experience, and it's not the dining, entertainment, or cabins.

It's flow.

I'm talking about passenger flow, the ability for guests to move through a cruise ship unimpeded by crowded bottlenecks or dead ends. And when you're building Icon of the Seas, the world's largest cruise ship, slated to carry 5,610 passengers at double occupancy (up to 7,600 at maximum capacity), you need to pay extra attention to where people will congregate and how they'll move from point A to point B throughout the 20-deck ship.

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Fortunately, Royal Caribbean's ship design team is experienced when it comes to flow.

The internet has been freaking out about the size of the ship, and the assumption of many people who have never sailed on a giant cruise ship is that thousands of people stuck together on a huge floating resort will make people feel uncomfortable everywhere. They imagine a vacation dominated by waiting lines, stuffy spaces crowded with people, and the inability to find a quiet place for yourself.

While certain parts of the ship will be busy (the pool deck on a sea day is never quiet on large, mass-market ships), Icon of the Seas passengers won't feel like they're fighting for seats, tables and clear paths every day. Minute of the day. The ship is designed to easily carry passengers across decks, connect major public areas and eliminate dead ends.

“We had to do our best to make it seem like there wasn't a lot, or when you put 7,000 guests in there, it would be stressful,” Jay Schneider, Royal Caribbean's chief product innovation officer, told TPG during the conference. Interview on board Icon of the Seas. “And that took us to some really defining decisions.”

Here's what he told us about what his team did to create a massive cruise ship that won't feel as crowded as you fear.

Guest flow

Schneider and his team are keen to study other cruise ships, such as Royal Caribbean and its competitors. “I think the place where ships often feel stifled, cramped and closed is the influx of guests,” he said.

“Cruise ships continue to create dead ends for people who can't get around them, and we've been really focused on not doing that.” [on Icon of the Seas]. “You can get from Deck 2 to Deck 8 in the heart of the ship without having to touch the elevator if you don't want to.”

I experienced this easy flow on board the Icon of the Seas ship during the cruise A sneak peek at the ship this week before its maiden sailing (although there were hundreds, not thousands, of people on board). When you're in Surfside, the ship's family area, it's easy to walk up the stairs to Central Park, the ship's outdoor promenade area, or down to the mall-like indoor Royal Promenade. You don't feel lost because the neighborhoods are distinct, and you can move between them easily.

To assist with guest flow, Icon of the Seas offers multiple options for moving between decks in the main quarters. The Royal Promenade's multiple staircases allow you to switch floors in multiple places, not just at either end. In two places on the ship — the drop down to Surfside from Deck 8 and between two levels of the Chill Island pool deck — you can slide between decks.

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Icon of the Seas also has a new elevator system, where instead of entering any available elevator and selecting a floor once inside, you use the touchpad to select your floor and are then directed to one of 12 elevators in the lobby. The amount of research that went into this plan is amazing.

Schneider sent team members to observe people using this new elevator technology in high-rise office buildings and on other cruise ships that used it. Then they ran their own tests.

“We built a replica of the elevator lobby on Symphony of the Seas,” Schneider said. “We did a live simulation for guests through two different simulations. We modified one sail and then came back months later with a new simulation. We had a few hundred guests because elevators play a major role in that flow. That's where technology came in to help make that meaningful for us.” “

The team felt that although the technology was not intuitive to many guests, it made a huge difference. Ultimately, “we went with it because flow is so important.”

But, again, the line was smart about how to make moving around the ship seamless. “We will be greeted on decks 5 and 6 and the Windjammer” on the first day of the cruise, Schneider explained. “We'll have someone explain to you on the first day what it is because we've learned in our testing that after the first day, everyone has it and we didn't want to put that cognitive burden on them.” [to figure out the new system] On the guest.”

As a side note, one of the barriers to smooth flow on cruise ships is often teens gathering in the stairs. We spoke to members of the Royal Caribbean product team who told us how they held several focus groups with teens to figure out how best to provide hangouts and what activities they were most likely to attend to get them on and off the elevator stairs to specific areas of the ship.

The result is that more teen activities will take place around the ship rather than the teen lounge, taking over adults-only spaces like the Hideaway or Izumi's teen teppanyaki dinner.

Related: The Ultimate Guide to Royal Caribbean Cruise Ships and Itineraries

Opening of the Royal Walk

The Royal Promenade is the main route to public areas across many of Royal Caribbean's larger ships. The interior often looks like a mall, with storefronts and restaurants lined up along an artificially lit, windowless corridor. It's often your first step on board into this noisy, chaotic space, and the impact can be overwhelming. on Oasis class ships feature promenades two decks high, the upper deck ending before reaching the other side of the ship.

At Icon, Royal Caribbean set out to open up the Royal Promenade to make it lighter, more spacious and improve feel and flow. Schneider said there were three main factors that led to the success of the space.

The first is the Pearl, which is a spherical structure in the middle of the Corniche with a staircase inside it. It looks like an art installation, but it is actually the structural support of the ship. It replaces the steel hull that holds most ships in that area and bears the load, so that the ship's amidships can be lined on either side with windows overlooking the sea. The effect brings more light into the space to get rid of that dark feeling.

The second is to remove the cabins from above the Royal Corniche. “For the first time, you won't find any luxury rooms on any of the Royal Promenade,” Schneider said. “This is how we get a full 360-degree mezzanine, and this is also how we create a more spacious feeling.”

Without inward-facing cabins overlooking the promenade, Royal Caribbean could repurpose that space to make the upper deck extend entirely from bow to stern. The result is that the person standing on the promenade does not feel trapped by all the cabins looking down, and passenger flow through the space is aided because people can cross on two levels, with multiple stairs, as well as banks of elevators at both ends to move between levels.

The latest change is that “all storefronts — except for retail stores, which must be closed — are open.” The Point and Feather pub does not have a wall on the Promenade side but is open to traffic. Giovanni's Italian Restaurant is a completely open space that you can wander upstairs. Again, this creates a feeling of openness and allows people to move freely between corridors and spaces without creating bottlenecks at entrances.

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Self-contained neighborhoods

Schneider didn't mention the Icon neighborhood concept in terms of guest flow, but Linken d'Souza, Royal Caribbean's vice president of food and beverage, gave us some insight into how Icon of the Seas was designed with ease and comfort in mind.

“With all the neighborhoods, we thought about how to make it relevant,” he told us. This means that in the ship's main quarters, guests will find dining options, so they don't have to leave and go down to the Windjammer Marketplace buffet with everyone else. They can find options wherever they are.

For example, in Surfside, a neighborhood geared toward young families, you'll find three restaurants: Surfside Eatery buffet, Surfside Bites for quick kids' meals, and Pier 7, a casual specialty restaurant where kids eat free, but parents can enjoy elevated lunch and dinner specials. No one should travel across the ship when hunger strikes.

Home to all the adrenaline-pumping offerings (water park, ropes course, rock climbing wall), the Thrill Island neighborhood includes Basecamp, which serves comfort food like burgers and chicken sandwiches, and the AquaDome has AquaDome Market, a five-place food court and specialty restaurant, Hooked Seafood.

By giving guests reasons to stay in one place, there will be fewer people constantly crossing the ships and crowding the elevators and hallways.

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