Icon Of The Seas: Why Viral Photo Of Massive Cruise Ship Is Freaking Everyone Out

Earlier this week, the internet got its first look at a very big boat. When we say “big boat,” we mean gobsmackingly big. Massive. Five-times-the-size-and-weight-of-the-Titanic big.

The boat in question is the new “Icon of the Seas,” the world’s biggest cruise ship, set to join the Royal Caribbean fleet on Oct. 26. It will be ready for the public in 2024.

The liner ― which includes the biggest water park at sea, its own “Central Park,” eight “neighborhoods,” and 20 total decks ― has room for 5,610 passengers and 2,350 crew. It’s nearly 1,200 feet long and will weigh a projected 250,800 gross tons. Moving it is apparently the equivalent of trying to keep two of Toronto’s CN Towers afloat.

Here’s the rendering of the boat that’s going around:

The cruise ship is an impressive feat of engineering, but on Twitter and TikTok, people weren’t focusing on that. Instead, many talked about how uneasy its size made them feel.

Here’s a sampling of the scorn posted on Twitter:

• “This is human lasagna and the orcas are gonna FEAST”
• “That Icon of the Seas ship actually looks like hell on water. Just looking at the pictures gives me anxiety.”
• ″‘Five times larger and heavier than the Titanic’ is not a feature that makes anyone with sense want to get on board….”
• “Looking at that monstrosity of a cruise ship gives me anxiety. I cannot fathom being trapped on that in the middle of the ocean *shudder*”
• “I understand the physics of ships this size, but when I see them I simply don’t get the physics of ships this size. Also…holy biscuits is this thing terrible.”

One person even quoted Revelations 13:1! (“And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns, and blasphemous names on its heads.”)

It’s worth emphasizing here that the image going around the internet is a rendering. The “Icon of the Seas” looks considerably less trippy (and Candy Crush-colored, at least from this view) in a recent pic from a test run: