Six months before its maiden voyage, Royal Caribbean’s massive new ship, the Icon of the Seas, is already generating an incredible response – and when you take a look at the pictures, that’s absolutely zero surprise.
The ship is reportedly five times bigger than the Titanic, boasting 20 decks. Coming in at 1,198 feet (365 metres) long and 250,800 tons, the cruiseliner will be able to hold more than 7,000 people.
It’s area is split into eight themed “neighbourhoods”. It will have a surf simulator, dozens of restaurants and bars, and the largest swimming pool and water park at sea – and even includes a miniature Central Park.
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Renderings of the vessel are making the rounds again on social media, following news late last month that it completed its first sea trials in the ocean.
And along with the hype, there’s been an almost-inevitably round of online haters.
Even though the cruise’s inaugural trip is nearly sold out, pointing to a feverish demand for the whimsical new ship, there’s an entire population of social media users who find the monstrous boat anxiety-inducing – especially in light of the Titan sub’s fatal implosion last month.
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Twitter users have taken to the platform to share their disdain for the big boat, with some calling it “hell on water” and “human lasagne”. Another person called it “the Candy Crush version” of the underground world in Silo a dystopian drama series on Apple TV+.
Elisabeth Morray, a psychologist and VP of clinical operations at Alma, told HuffPost that the rendering could be unnerving for people.
“As human beings, we are hard-wired to pay attention to our safety,” she told HuffPost. “We intuitively want to feel that we could escape from a threat if we needed to, and there are lots of identifiable threats to our safety that might be triggered by this image.”
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Photos of the cruise ship show a significantly more toned-down version than the early rendering. Royal Caribbean has spent days running “preliminary tests” to ensure the ship is ready to sail.
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