Icon of Seas - general thoughts

 We have been on Wonder of the Seas last year with the same itinerary. In general, we like Icon a little better although Port Canaveral is more convenient for us to drive to than Miami. I will say it was a beautiful view from Miami port.

Pools and hot tubs and slides - I found them to be a little less crowded than Wonder maybe because there are more. We enjoyed being in the shade behind El Loco Fresh. We found plenty of pool chairs in the shade even at 10:30 on a sea day on Icon. The slides had long lines after 10:30am. We liked eating El Loco Fresh for lunch and Sprinkles ice cream was nearby. I liked several hot tubs and small pools had ocean views. We saw a whale one day on the way to St. Maarten!

Nice view of ocean from the small pool

Not too crowded in the morning

Nice loungers in the pool to watch your kids swim

Our favorite spot we got on last sea day right by hot tub and El Loco Fresh in the shade

Central Park - our room was on this floor, so we strolled there every day looking for and hiding ducks. It’s a beautiful space and we would like to maybe even have dinner here on a future cruise at a specialty restaurant.

Duck hunting!

Another duck!

Saw the cruise director one night while strolling

Beautiful and quiet at night

No crowds here at night

Surfside - this is a cute space, but I think geared for younger kids. We went to the pool one day and it does have nice aft views. There’s a carousel and arcade and play area. They have a little buffet geared for kids, but some adult food and ice cream. There’s even a little slide to go from one floor to the next.

Aft pool

View of the pool

Slide

Carousel at Surfside

Food options at Surfside

Royal Promenade - nice and wide with spots with ocean views. Sorrentos is here and their pizza is great. We enjoyed the Dueling Pianos and Karaoke Bar. Went duck hunting and hiding here pretty often. Here is where the Pearl is also.

The Pearl

More ducks! 

Ships Ahoy parade

Ships Ahoy Parade

Fun confetti at Ships Ahoy Parade

Food - MDR - We ate here every night. Food was fine. Some dishes were very good, some just okay. Service was good. We had 5pm seating on deck 3 and could see the ocean from our seat. We were out by 6:30 every night. We had the roast beef sandwich from Park Cafe one day and it was good. El Loco Fresh we enjoyed for lunch. We did grab a crepe one day from Aquadome and it was good.

Escargot available several nights

Fried shrimp

French onion soup - available several nights

Kids every night chocolate ice cream

Kids every night chocolate chip cookies

Tiramisu

Lasagna - good

Roast beef sandwich - Park Cafe

Chicken Cordon Bleu and Lobster

Beef tenderloin

Chicken fingers

Kids pasta

Activities - We enjoyed the mini golf, ping pong and rock climbing wall. Kids never did the Flow rider or the zip line thing. We loved getting towel animals a few nights. Loved hiding and finding ducks. Loved getting ice cream and just hanging as a family.

Hiding ducks

Ping pong room

Chilling on the swing

More ice cream!

Fun towel animals

Our spacious room

More towel animals

The piano guy - we saw him a few places

Yummy make your own waffles in Windjammer

Rock climbing

More ice cream

Fun rock climbing

Coco Cay -We got the Thrill Water Park passes. In early morning lines were okay, but got longer. Kids liked the slides. They also liked the obstacle course, rock wall in pool and wave pool. Late afternoon the lines got shorter again. 

We also snorkeled a bit at Chill Island. We saw several fish near the rocks. We brought our own snorkel gear. 

We also enjoyed the mozzarella sticks and son had a fried chicken sandwich at the snack shack. 

St. Thomas port Icon of Seas

 Last year on Wonder of the Seas we booked a private jeep tour with Sunfari. It was a great day and we visited Emerald Beach, Magen’s Bay and saw sea turtles and Coki beach and saw tons of fish. We were on our way to Sapphire beach when our jeep broke down. They did get us a taxi back to port, but I wasn’t that impressed with the jeep breaking down.

This year we booked a private jeep with Island Buddy. Our driver, Kirl, picked us up right in the port. He had Sprite and water for us as we requested.

Our jeep for the day

We headed to Brewers Bay first on the hunt for sea turtles. We found one almost immediately. We had gotten off the ship as soon as we were allowed so it was not crowded here yet.

Sea turtle at Brewers Bay

Brewers Bay

We had several short stops after this for views and then went to an off road stop where you need 4 wheel drive. There was a deserted sugar mill factory we explored a bit and saw a beautiful beach that had no other people there!

Short hike

Deserted sugar mill

Beautiful beach with nobody else!

Beautiful beach

We then headed to Mountain Top. We got some ice cream and took a quick photo before moving on. We visited here last year and did some shopping in their large store.

Beautiful views from Mountain Top

We then went to lunch at a cute place at Hull Bay. It was not crowded and the food was good. We ate at these cute swings.

Cute lunch spot at Hull Bay

After this we headed to Coki beach. The beach was pretty crowded, but we were able to rent one chair to put our things on. The water was really rough today with a strong current, so the snorkeling was not as good as last year. The fish tend to be near rocks and it was so rough we were nervous to get too close. But we did see some fish and bought the dog biscuits to feed them.

Lots of fish at Coki Beach

This was a pretty full day. We got back to the ship about 30 minutes before all aboard. One tip I did bring microfiber towels from home that dry quicker than the ship towels and pack lighter. We take these on our port excursions. We also bring our own snorkel gear.

That night we had dinner in MDR and saw the show Mo5aic. It’s an acapella group that were pretty good. We also went to Family Feud and we all enjoyed watching it. We also watched Truth or Consequences game and I would not want to volunteer for that - they smashed eggs in people’s heads.