Royal Caribbean’s Icon class is three ships in service — Icon of the Seas (2024), Star of the Seas (2025) and Legend of the Seas (2026) — each 248,663 gross tons carrying 5,610 guests at double occupancy, making them the largest cruise ships in the world. The specifications are identical in every respect but one: Icon and Star each run to 20 decks, while Legend of the Seas has 18. Because the hulls are otherwise the same, the decision is about homeport and sailing date rather than about the ship.
Three ships, all 248,663 gross tons, all carrying 5,610 guests. On paper the Icon class is the most interchangeable set of hulls Royal Caribbean has ever built, and for once the paper is nearly right. Nearly — because one of the three is recorded with two fewer decks than the others, and that is the only specification that separates them.
Which Icon-class ship to book
Book on homeport and date. That is not a cop-out, it is what the numbers say. Icon of the Seas (2024), Star of the Seas (2025) and Legend of the Seas (2026) are each 248,663 gross tons carrying 5,610 guests at double occupancy. Identical, to the ton and to the passenger.
The one difference: Icon of the Seas and Star of the Seas are each recorded at 20 decks counting every deck aboard. Legend of the Seas is recorded at 18 passenger decks. Those are different counting bases, so it is not a clean two-deck gap — but it is the only place in the specification where the three hulls diverge at all, and it is worth checking the deck plan for your specific ship rather than assuming.
Book Icon of the Seas if you want the established hull. In service since 2024, it has had the longest to settle, and the operational wrinkles that come with a first-in-class ship have had time to be worked out.
Book Legend of the Seas if you want the newest. In service from 2026, the third of the class. Same tonnage, same capacity, newest fit-out.
A fourth is coming. Hero of the Seas is on order for 2027 at a planned 250,800 gross tons, which would make it the largest of the class. It is not in service and nothing about it is bookable yet, so treat any comparison against it as provisional.
What 248,663 tons actually buys
These are the largest cruise ships in the world. Not by a small margin — for context, our fleet overview puts the smallest Royal Caribbean ship at 73,817 gross tons. An Icon-class ship is more than three times that.
The size goes into variety, not space per person. This is the part people get wrong. A bigger ship carries proportionally more passengers; what the extra volume buys is somewhere to put them and more different things for them to do. You are not getting a quieter ship. You are getting a ship with enough venues that the crowd disperses.
The cost is time. Moving 5,610 people on and off a ship takes substantially longer than moving 3,114, and tender ports amplify it. On a seven-night sailing that is an irritation. On a shorter one it is a real share of the holiday.
And it limits where the ship can go. A vessel this size needs berth length and channel depth that most ports do not have, which is why Icon-class itineraries concentrate where they do. If the ports are the reason you are cruising, this is the wrong end of the fleet.
Icon versus Oasis, since everyone asks
The Oasis class runs from 225,282 to 236,473 gross tons carrying 5,400 to 5,734 guests. So an Icon-class ship is larger than every Oasis-class hull — by 12,190 tons over the biggest of them — while carrying fewer guests than Wonder of the Seas does at 5,734.
That is the interesting number in this comparison and it almost never gets quoted. More ship, fewer people. Whether that is worth choosing on depends entirely on whether the newest attractions matter to you, because the density difference is not large enough to feel on its own.
If you are weighing these two specifically, our Icon of the Seas versus Wonder of the Seas comparison goes through it properly rather than in a paragraph.
Reading the specification honestly
Gross tonnage measures enclosed volume, not weight, so it is the right figure for comparing how much ship there is. Guest counts here are at double occupancy — two per cabin — and a fully sold Icon-class ship carries more than 5,610 once the third and fourth berths go.
The Legend of the Seas deck count is the reason we check every hull separately rather than writing once per class. Three ships can match to the ton and to the passenger and still not have the same number of decks. If a figure matters to your booking, get it for the exact ship. The per-ship pages on our Royal Caribbean section carry them.
Common questions
How many Icon-class ships are there?
Three in service: Icon of the Seas (2024), Star of the Seas (2025) and Legend of the Seas (2026). A fourth, Hero of the Seas, is on order for 2027.
Are the Icon-class ships identical?
Almost. All three are 248,663 gross tons carrying 5,610 guests at double occupancy. The one real difference is deck count: Icon of the Seas and Star of the Seas each have 20 decks; Legend of the Seas has 18.
What is the biggest cruise ship in the world?
The three Icon-class ships share the title at 248,663 gross tons each. Hero of the Seas, expected in 2027, is planned at 250,800 tons.
How does the Icon class compare to the Oasis class?
Icon is 248,663 tons and 5,610 guests. The Oasis class runs 225,282 to 236,473 tons carrying 5,400 to 5,734, so Wonder of the Seas actually carries more guests than an Icon-class ship despite being the smaller vessel.
Which Icon-class ship should you book?
Since the three are the same ship in almost every measurable respect, book on homeport and date. The exception is if deck count matters to you, in which case Icon or Star gives you 20 rather than 18.
The Icon class is the easiest booking decision in cruising and the hardest one to research, because there is almost nothing to compare. Three ships, one specification, three homeports. Pick the port and the week.
The harder question is whether an Icon-class ship is the right ship at all, and we will give you an honest answer on that rather than the flattering one. If you are choosing a cabin, our cabin guide matters more on a ship this size than on any other.