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Carnival Legend Cruise Ship Photo Tour After Recent Refurbishment

By: Sherry Laskin · Updated On: March 8, 2024

These Carnival Legend photos were taken in Sitka, Alaska , shortly after the ship emerged from an extensive refurbishment. I was living in Sitka at the time, so when the cruise ship docked there, it was the perfect opportunity to see the new upgrades and additions. 

With nearly all guests off the ship (this isn’t the Caribbean), I was able to photograph almost every public space from the ship’s top to bottom, bow to stern, without waiting for people to move out of the frame. 

Timing was perfect; this was the last cruise of the season. 

Carnival Legend Cruise Ship Photos

Carnival Legend is the third ship built in the Carnival Spirit Class, launched in 2002. It’s now one of the smaller ships in the fleet with only 2,124 passengers.

As the ship’s name implies, Carnival Legend pays tribute to all sorts of legends, fact and fiction. You’ll find Merlin’s Casino, Golden Fleece Steakhouse, and Atlantis Lounge. There’s even a wall-size group photo of the greatest Hollywood superstar legends. 

Photo Tour: Beginning Outside at the Aft Sports Deck

Up on Deck 11 is where you’ll find the Sports Deck. The aft area of Carnival Legend is a multi-use basketball court. You can see the light blue walking/jogging track just outside the netting.

Forward Sports Deck

From where I’m standing in this photo, if you look back, you can see the Sky Deck (Deck 12) and the railing near the base of Carnival’s trademarked red funnel. To reach the Sky Deck from here, you have to go down one deck, cross the Sun Deck and then up two decks to get to the Sky Deck.

Carnival WaterWorks aft on the Sports Deck

Carnival Legend Sun Deck 

While not an official walking or jogging track, you can walk Carnival Legend’s Sun Deck all the way around. Here in Alaska, especially on a typical rainforest drizzly day, the lounge chairs were in neat rows. Sometimes in sunny and warm weather, passengers will move the chairs to their liking, making it difficult to walk the loop.

Just so you know, 3.5 laps around the entire Sun Deck is equal to one mile. 

From the Sun Deck you can see across to the other side of the Lido Deck. There are another set of pools, with a sliding glass dome cover if needed.

Golden Fleece Steakhouse

Also on the Sun Deck is Carnival’s signature Steakhouse. On Carnival Legend , it’s the Golden Fleece Steakhouse, again…another legend-based name. When I was onboard, there was construction going on so I couldn’t get inside for a photo. This pic is from Carnival.

Aside from the pools shown above, the Lido Deck has a lot of other venues and activities. Starting at the aft of the ship is the adults-only Serenity pool and lounge area.

In the Caribbean, this is a really great space to meet friends or just hang out and relax.

Moving forward on Lido Deck to the Buffet

As you walk towards the front of the ship from the Serenity Pool area, the first venue is the Unicorn Café. Yes, this ship is named “Legend” for a reason. 

My favorite places to eat are through the next set of doors

Unfortunately, they were closed, too.

And just across on the other side of Carnival Legend …

Walk a little further and you’ll find…

RedFrog Rum Bar

And the BlueIguana Tequila Bar . These bars are opened when people return from their day in Sitka.

Spa Carnival

Keep walking in the same direction and you’ll eventually bump into the Spa. The Thalassotherapy Pool is rimmed by treadmills and other exercise equipment. The view from here is pretty darn good. 

There’s a beauty salon, men’s grooming and of course spa rooms. With no one around to open a spa treatment room door, you can imagine they are just like any cruise ship spa treatment room. 

Carnival Legend Photo Tour now has to skip down four decks. The next decks, Panorama, Verandah, Empress and Upper are all staterooms. The only exception is Camp Carnival, located all the way to the front on Upper Deck. 

Main Deck 

The Main Deck is almost all staterooms, like the four decks above it. However,  all the way at the bow (the front of the ship) is where you’ll find the Follies Main Show Lounge. 

You can enter the Follies theater from Decks 2, 3 and 4.

Atlantic Deck Photos – This Deck is Busy 

Atlantic Deck is where much of the action aboard takes place. The Enchanted Forest Indoor Promenade is adjacent to Follies.

Holmes Library

Sherlock Holmes is indeed a legend and this library bears his name. With a nod to Holmes’ British heritage, the library is a mixture of dark wood, warm colors and cozy nooks for reading.

Wedding Chapel

Billie’s Piano Bar

For sure my favorite lounge on Carnival Legend . When I walked in, a passenger was playing Intermezzo on the beautiful grand piano. He was so good that I thought he must have been an onboard musician.

Next, I took a walk along the Hollywood Boulevard Upper Promenade.

More legends. If you’re an old movies buff, here are photos of greatest of Hollywood’s star legends. This photo below was taken at Louis B. Mayer’s request to celebrate MGM’s 20th birthday. Can you name all the movie stars? 

As I continued my walk towards the aft of the ship, I passed the row of Fun Shops and Cherry on Top candy store. Finally, I reached the Odyssey Foyer Lounge that leads to the main dining room, Truffles. 

Truffles’ doors were closed so here’s a Carnival photo of the dining room.

Down one more deck to the…

Promenade Deck – Deck 2

Here’s the lower level of Truffles (you can see the upper level in the photo). As I walked towards the front of Carnival Legend , on one side of the ship is Medusa’s Lair Dance Club.

Medusa’s Lair is a two-story dance club. This is the upper level. 

Alchemy Bar is on the other side. This place is always packed, especially on sea days. 

Carnival Legend Lobby

Smack in the middle of the ship on Deck 2 is the soaring Lobby. Sometimes called an Atrium, this is also the deck where on most occasions, especially Embarkation Day, passengers enter the ship. 

The bank of glass elevators is on the right. Definitely worth a ride up and down. 

Bonsai Sushi

As I kept walking towards the front of the ship, I knew the casino had to show up eventually.

Club Merlin Casino

Last but not least…two usually very crowded bars.

Dreamteam Sports Bar

RedFrog Pub –  Carnival’s signature watering hole. Live entertainment, too. 

Smaller, but certainly not lacking any typical Carnival amenities, Carnival Legend is one of my favorite ships in this cruise line. Especially if you choose one of Carnival Legend’s more unique itineraries.

READ:  21 Best Things to do in Sitka, Alaska in One Day  

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About Sherry Laskin

I'm the editor and creator of CruiseMaven.com, a solo traveler cruising the world without flying. I hope my articles and photos entertain, advise and inspire you to travel the world without flying. Take a breath...stop for a local meal and a glass of wine along the way.

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Carnival Legend Deck Plans & Reviews

Carnival Legend

Activities & entertainment

• Art Auction *
• Basketball Court
• Dance Classes
• Deck Parties
• Medusas Lair Dance Club
• Internet Cafe *
• Lip Sync Battle
• Evening Kids Programs *
• Fitness Center
• Fitness Classes *
• Club Merlin Casino *
• Gigabyte Video Arcade *
• Green Eggs and Ham Breakfast *
• Groove For St Jude *
• Helen of Troy Salon *
• Ice Carving Demonstrations
• Jogging Track
• Photo Portraits *
• Whirlpools (4)
• Seuss_A_Palooza Parade and Storytime
• Retail Shops *
• Spa Carnival *
• Spa Parties *
• Steam Room *
• The Holmes Library
• White Party
• Wine Tasting *
• Waterslides (2)
• Serenity _ Adults_Only
• Circle C _ Tweens Club
• Camp Ocean _ Kids Club
• Club O2 _ Teens Club
• Atlantis Lounge
• Comedy Shows
• Firebird Lounge
• Follies Main Lounge
• Live Nightly Music
• Odyssey Lounge
• Truffles Restaurant - Main
• Cherry On Top - Candies *
• Unicorn Cafe Lido Restaurant - Buffet
• BlueIguana Cantina - Mexican
• Guys Burger Joint - Pool Grill
• BlueIguana Tequila Bar - Pool Bar *
• RedFrog Rum Bar - Pool Bar *
• Legends Cafe - Coffee & Pastries *
• Salad Bar - Healthy Foods
• Bonsai Sushi - Sushi *
• Taste Bar - Light Bites
• Billies Piano Bar - Piano Bar *
• Pizza - Pizza
• Avalon Bar - Pool Bar *
• Alchemy Bar - Cocktail Bar *
• RedFrog Pub - Pub *
• Deli - Sandwiches
• Dreamteam Sports Bar - Sports Bar *
• The Golden Fleece Steakhouse - Steakhouse *
• Room Service *
• Excellent 28
• Very Good 34
• Terrible 13
• All languages ( 108 )
• English ( 108 )

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Carnival Legend Overview

Unlike the Holy Grail or the Fountain of Youth, the Carnival Legend is one legend we can vouch for. This 2,124-passenger ship seeks inspiration from some of history’s most compelling legends and gives you the opportunity to create your own legendary vacation memories. While onboard you’ll want to check out the Medusa’s Lair Dance Club or the Merlin Casino, and for dinner make sure you get a spot at The Golden Fleece Steakhouse. The Carnival Legend also has three pools and both a jazz and piano bar for your entertainment. 

• Passenger Capacity: 2,124 (double occupancy)
• Year Built: 2002
• Last Refurbished: 2021

Carnival Legend Cruise Destinations

Spanning 6 continents and countless countries ranging from Croatia to the Bahamas, Carnival Cruise Lines' list of destinations below is nothing short of inspiring. There's somewhere for the culinary enthusiast, the history buff, the beachside lounger and the rugged explorer. Destinations include, but are not limited to: the Bahamas, Northern Europe, Canada and New England, the Caribbean and the Mexican Riviera, just to name a few. You can follow the links to learn more about each particular destination.

Tundra expeditions and glacier visions—find your adventure with an Alaska cruise.

Cruise to the Caribbean for tropical weather and splendid beach-side excursions.

Fine wine, intricate arts and music, and cultural enrichment worth a thousand vacations: that’s what you’ll find on a cruise to Europe.

Volcano crater golf, dolphin encounters, helicopter tours and so much more—cruise to Hawaii.

Mexican Riviera

Cruise to Mexico, and discover a culturally rich region with everything from dune buggies to soothing string music.

Panama Canal

Mankind’s finest accomplishment sits among intriguing culture and natural splendor—cruise to the Panama Canal.

Carnival Legend Departure Ports

Carnival has ships home ported in cities across the U.S. making sure you’re never more than a car ride away from embarking on an unforgettable vacation. You can find Carnival ships in Charleston, New York, Long Beach and New Orleans. Ready to sail, call The Cruise Web to start your trip today!

Dover (London), England

Dover, with its striking white cliffs, is one of the most popular gateways to England. Take in the area’s natural beauty or head to nearby London to see more of England’s most popular attractions.

A cruise to Civitavecchia is a chance for you to hop a quick train to Rome and explore the enormous history through ruins, galleries and The Vatican museums.

Discover imaginative architecture, impressive Spanish dishes and beautiful excursions into nature when you cruise to Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia.

Explore Baltimore’s rich history and culture as you visit the local neighborhoods which are home to important world changing events. 

Galveston, Texas

Indulge in the local flavor with fresh Gulf shrimp, Galveston Bay oysters and pristine Gulf coast beaches as you relax in southern comfort in Galveston, Texas.

On a cruise from San Francisco you can experience all that the ‘City by the Bay’ has to offer, from its artistic, forward-looking culture to the beautiful coastline.

Tampa, Florida

Whether it’s a trip to the historical streets of Ybor, a day in the Florida Aquarium or a nice Cuban-infused meal, your time in Tampa will make you consider a longer stay.

Carnival Legend Deck Plans

Riviera deck, promenade deck, atlantic deck, empress deck, verandah deck, panorama deck, sports deck, carnival legend staterooms.

Balcony (7A)

An Obstructed View Balcony stateroom on Carnival Legend provides all the indoor amenities of a Carnival stateroom, as well as some of the outdoor ones as well, including your own personal outdoor space that's great for stretching out and relaxing.

Balcony (BL)

Any balcony stateroom, or better, depending on availability.

Balcony (8A)

Balcony staterooms were designed for maximum sea breeze and the most stunning views, so look to a balcony if you're looking to cruise aboard Carnival Legend. Any time you're in your room, you're just steps away from your own personal outdoor oasis, featuring the sort of sea view you can also feel.

Balcony (8B)

Balcony (8c), balcony (8d), balcony (8e), balcony (8f).

Balcony (8M)

Extended Balcony staterooms feature a larger balcony with more lounge-around room, more kick-back space, and all the Carnival stateroom amenities: a full private bathroom, Carnival Comfort Collection linens and just-a-call-away 24-hour room service.

Balcony (8N)

Balcony (8J)

Balcony (8k).

Balcony (9A)

Step into a Premium Balcony stateroom aboard Carnival Legend and it's easy to see exactly what you're getting: one seriously spacious stateroom. It's about more than just the room itself, you'll find... step onto your oversized balcony and you'll find that when there's a sea breeze in your hair, there's no limit to the relaxation you can have.

Balcony (9B)

Inside (4A)

An Interior stateroom is the most affordable way to cruise, and Carnival Legend's interiors are not just cozy, but are full of things you'd expect from any Carnival stateroom: a full private bathroom, Carnival Comfort Collection linens and just-a-call-away 24-hour room service.

Inside (4B)

Inside (4c), inside (4d), inside (4e), inside (is).

Any inside stateroom, or better, dependng on availability.

Inside (4K)

When is an Interior stateroom more than an Interior stateroom? When one comes with a floor-to-ceiling window, letting sunlight stream into your stateroom. Your room will also feature even more space, a sky view through that window of yours, plus a seating area to enjoy it from. (Note that the view will be obstructed.)

Oceanview (OV)

Any ocean view stateroom, or better, depending on availability.

Oceanview (6A)

Catch a glimpse of what's going by from your Ocean View stateroom aboard Carnival Legend, where you'll get views you won't find anywhere on land. Don't miss sunrise and sunset at sea - your comfy stateroom is the best way to experience these!

A Carnival Legend suite is the ultimate way to cruise. With more space for stretching out indoors, plus a large balcony for kicking back outdoors, try an Ocean Suite to experience private, luxurious relaxation. Ocean Suites also include VIP check-in, walk-in closet and bathroom with whirlpool.

A Grand Suite aboard Carnival Legend features even more space than the standard suite - plenty of room in your room! This stateroom is loaded for an unparalleled experience: VIP check-in, a huge balcony, and even a convenient dressing area with vanity.

Any suite, depending on availability.

As you step into a Junior Suite aboard Carnival Legend, you can't help but feel that you're stepping into full-size luxury in a smaller package. Featuring a standard-size balcony, in a Carnival Legend Junior Suite you'll find everything else there is to love about a suite, including VIP check-in, a walk-in closet... and even a whirlpool tub for relaxing.

Don’t get us wrong — a Carnival Legend Vista Suite stateroom is a lovely room with all the suite fixings. But the thing to see here is truly the view that your balcony affords you. A Vista Suite features a wraparound balcony that provides wide, stunning views when you’re outside, and a uniquely panoramic inside view thanks to a wall of windows that brings more of that outside inside.

Photo Gallery for Carnival Legend Cruise Ship

Imagine the fun that’s waiting for you on a Carnival Cruise. The drinks, the games, the sights and the sun! Take a look at this photo gallery to help you envision your perfect vacation.

Cherry on Top Candy Shop

Carnival Legend

Medusa Disco Bar

Serenity Bar on Carnival Legend

Top 10 Carnival Legend Cruises

• Carnival Legend 8 Day Exotic Eastern Caribbean Cruise Departing From Baltimore, Maryland (Apr 2024)
• Carnival Legend Carnival Journeys - Transatlantic Cruise Departing From Baltimore, Maryland (Apr 2024)
• Carnival Legend 8-day Mediterranean Cruise Departing From Barcelona, Spain (May 2024)
• Carnival Legend 9-day Spain Portugal & France Cruise Departing From Barcelona, Spain (Jun 2024)
• Carnival Legend 12 Day Iceland & British Isles Cruise Departing From Dover (London), England (Jun 2024 - Jul 2024)
• Carnival Legend 9 Day Britsh Isles Cruise Departing From Dover (London), England (Jun 2024 - Aug 2024)
• Carnival Legend 9-day Spain Portugal & France Cruise Departing From Dover (London), England (Aug 2024)
• Carnival Legend Carnival Journeys - 15 Day Transatlantic Departing From Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy (Oct 2024)
• Carnival Legend 7-day Exotic Western Caribbean Cruise Departing From Tampa, Florida (Nov 2024 - Mar 2025)
• Carnival Legend 6-day Western Caribbean Cruise Departing From Tampa, Florida (Nov 2024 - Apr 2025)

Learn More About Carnival Cruise Line

Accessibility

Learn about Carnival Cruise Lines' handicap accessible cruises and accommodations for guests with special needs or disabilities - including special staterooms, accessible elevators, dietary accommodations and more.

Savor dining aboard Carnival cruises, including Guy's Burger Joint, BlueIguana Cantina, Cucina del Capitano, Bonsai Sushi, the Asian Kitchen, Main Dining Room, Steakhouse, Pizzeria, Coffee Bar, Seadogs, Shake Spot and more.

Entertainment

Enjoy Carnival's onboard entertainment, including stage shows, Thrill Theater, game shows, comedy clubs, live music, DJs, seaside theater, karaoke and more.

Onboard Activities

Take advantage of Carnival's onboard activities, including WaterWorks water slides, pools, sports courts, ropes course, mini-golf, video arcade, sports bars, casino, duty-free shopping, bars and lounges, art gallery and more.

Service & Awards

Learn how Carnival takes care of your every need with an extensive list of onboard services by attentive, cheerful staff. Plus, view Carnival Cruise Lines' awards.

Spa & Fitness

Relax at Carnival's Serenity Adult Retreat, Cloud 9 Spa, fitness center, jogging track, beauty salon, yoga or pilates courses. Carnivals treatments include massages, body wraps, facials, thermal suites and more.

Special Events

From weddings to parties, celebrate your special events at sea with Carnival Cruise Line.

View Carnival's cruise ship staterooms, including suites, balconies, oceanviews and interior staterooms. Plus, Cloud 9 Balconies bring health and wellness to your room.

Youth Programs

Learn about cruising with children aboard Carnival. There's Camp Carnival for ages 2 - 11, Circle C for young teens and Club O2 for ages 15 - 17. Plus, Camp Carnival Night Owls will watch kids until 3 am.

Cruise Type

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Carnival Legend Decks and Cabins

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Carnival Legend cruise ship weighs 86k tons and has 1062 staterooms for up to 2549 passengers served by 961 crew . There are 12 passenger decks, 6 with cabins. You can expect a space ratio of 34 tons per passenger on this ship. On this page are the current deck plans for Carnival Legend showing deck plan layouts, public venues and all types of cabins including pictures and videos.

Carnival Legend

Last Drydock: Aug 2021

LIVE SHIP TRACKING

STATEROOM CABINS COMPLETE LIST BELOW

GRAND SUITE

Floor Diagram Similar to cabin 6207

Sleeps up to: 4 6 Cabins Cabin: 300 sqft (28 m 2 ) Balcony: 115 sqft (11 m 2 ) * Size may vary, see details below.

Click for    

 Accessible Info [+/-]

More info [+/-], deck locations, stateroom cabin features, important size information, stateroom cabin perks, more diagrams of this cabin type.

OCEAN SUITE

Floor Diagram Similar to cabin 6170, 6158

Sleeps up to: 4 34 Cabins Cabin: 275 sqft (26 m 2 ) Balcony: 85 sqft (8 m 2 )

VISTA SUITE

Floor Diagram Similar to cabin 4228

Sleeps up to: 3 8 Cabins Cabin: 245 sqft (23 m 2 ) Balcony: 220 sqft (21 m 2 ) * Size may vary, see details below.

JUNIOR SUITE

Floor Diagram Similar to cabin 4226, 4235

Sleeps up to: 4 2 Cabins Cabin: 275 sqft (26 m 2 ) Balcony: 40 sqft (4 m 2 )

PREMIUM BALCONY

Floor Diagram Similar to cabin 5241

Sleeps up to: 3 6 Cabins Cabin: 230 sqft (22 m 2 ) Balcony: 85 sqft (8 m 2 ) * Size may vary, see details below.

Floor Diagram Similar to cabin 5184, 5104

Sleeps up to: 4 626 Cabins Cabin: 185 sqft (17 m 2 ) Balcony: 40 sqft (4 m 2 ) * Size may vary, see details below.

Floor Diagram Similar to cabin 1210

Sleeps up to: 4 103 Cabins Cabin: 185 sqft (17 m 2 )

FULL WINDOW

Floor Diagram Similar to cabin 4136, 4120

Sleeps up to: 4 68 Cabins Cabin: 170 sqft (16 m 2 )

Floor Diagram Interior typical of cabins like 5275, 5104

Sleeps up to: 4 209 Cabins Cabin: 170 sqft (16 m 2 ) * Size may vary, see details below.

Carnival Legend Deck Page Menu

Click deck pictures to go to individual cruise deck plan pages where you can see all the public areas, venues and stateroom cabins categories for each deck.

Carnival Legend Quick Stats

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Carnival Legend Links

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Carnival Legend

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Disclaimers about ship ratings: A ship’s Health Rating is based on vessel inspection scores published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). If a ship did not receive a CDC score within 22 months prior to the calculation of its Overall Rating, its Health Rating appears as N/A; in such a case, the ship’s Overall Rating is calculated using the average Health Rating of all CDC-rated ships within the cruise line. All ship Traveler Ratings are based on ratings provided under license by Cruiseline.com.

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Carnival Legend

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Legends are made, not born, and we’ve made Carnival Legend even more deserving of its nameplate. This ship now packs some of the newest, greatest features you’ll find across the fleet.

If you’re looking to discover new legends, flip directly to the RedFrog Pub, featuring not only a mythical mascot, but actual drinks — plus Caribbean atmosphere by the gallon. Your heroic journey down the Green Thunder waterslide is a saga you’ll recount for ages. And Bonsai Sushi proves that you needn’t teach a man to fish for him to enjoy delicacies from the sea.

This ship, which pays tribute to some of the most enduring legends throughout the ages, still features classic Carnival Legend favorites. Take a dip in the Camelot and Avalon pools, wish for fortune at Club Merlin Casino, and taste something savory at Truffles Restaurant. There’s more than one way to dine at Lido Deck’s Unicorn Café, and at The Golden Fleece Steakhouse, the great multi-course meal is no myth.

Music lovers who go for the classics will love Billie’s Piano Bar. Kids will tell and retell their tale of their favorite vacation, spent hanging out and meeting new friends at one of three supervised youth areas. And adults can get lost in a good book, or just one another’s company, at the legendarily kid-free Serenity Adult Only Area… and then dance the night away at Medusa’s Lair Dance Club.

This is one vacation that’ll go down in your history books.

• 88,500 GT Gross Tonnage
• 2124 Guest Capacity
• 963 Length In Feet
• 930 Onboard Crew

INSIDE THIS SHIP

Just like a delicious cake, your ship is made of layers. Find out which fun ingredients — staterooms, dining, activities — go into each deck.

YOUR STATEROOM

Interior with window (obstructed view).

Every room includes:

• Dedicated stateroom attendant
• Soft, cozy linens
• Plenty of closet and drawer space
• In-room safe for valuables
• Stateroom climate control

Premium Balcony

Step into a Premium Balcony stateroom aboard Carnival Legend and it’s easy to see exactly what you’re getting: one seriously spacious stateroom. It’s about more than just the room itself, you’ll find… step onto your oversized balcony and you’ll find that when there’s a sea breeze in your hair, there’s no limit to the relaxation you can have.

Premium Balcony (Obstructed View)

Step into a Premium Balcony stateroom aboard Carnival Legend and it’s easy to see exactly what you’re getting: one seriously spacious stateroom. It’s about more than just the room itself… step onto your oversized balcony and you’ll find that when there’s a sea breeze in your hair, there’s no limit to the relaxation you can have. (Note that rooms of this type have obstructed views.)

Aft-View Extended Balcony

Aft-View Extended Balcony staterooms feature a larger balcony for more lounge-around room, more kick-back space… not to even mention some of the best stern-side views you'll find anywhere. Get ready to relax as you gaze upon the ship's gentle wake from your spacious balcony.

Extended Balcony

Extended Balcony staterooms feature a larger balcony with more outdoor lounge-around room, more open-air kick-back space… and back inside the room itself, all the comfort you expect with a great view and plenty of sunlight.

Balcony staterooms were designed for maximum sea breeze and the most stunning views, so look to a balcony if you’re looking to cruise aboard Carnival Legend. Any time you’re in your room, you’re just steps away from your own personal outdoor oasis, featuring the sort of sea view you can also feel.

Balcony (Obstructed View)

An Obstructed View Balcony stateroom on Carnival Legend provides all the indoor amenities of a Carnival stateroom, as well as some of the outdoor ones as well, including your own personal outdoor space that’s great for stretching out and relaxing.

Grand Suite

A Grand Suite aboard Carnival Legend features even more space than the standard suite — plenty of room in your room! This stateroom is loaded for an unparalleled experience: VIP check-in, a huge balcony, and even a convenient dressing area with vanity.

Amenities exclusive to suites:

• Priority check-in and boarding
• Priority Main Dining Room time assignment
• Priority debarkation at homeport, and ports of call requiring a water shuttle or with arrival times later than 9:30 Am
• Two large bottles of water
• Pillow-top mattress

Plus, every room includes:

Vista Suite

Don’t get us wrong — a Carnival Legend Vista Suite stateroom is a lovely room with all the suite fixings. But the thing to see here is truly the view that your balcony affords you. A Vista Suite features a wraparound balcony that provides wide, stunning views when you’re outside, and a uniquely panoramic inside view thanks to a wall of windows that brings more of that outside inside.

Ocean Suite

A Carnival Legend suite is the ultimate way to cruise. With more space for stretching out indoors, plus a large balcony for kicking back outdoors, try an Ocean Suite to experience private, luxurious relaxation. Ocean Suites also include VIP check-in, walk-in closet and bathroom with whirlpool tub.

Junior Suite

As you step into a Junior Suite aboard Carnival Legend, you can’t help but feel that you’re stepping into full-size luxury in a smaller package. Featuring a standard-size balcony, in a Carnival Legend Junior Suite you'll find everything else there is to love about a suite, including VIP check-in, a walk-in closet… and even a whirlpool tub for relaxing.

ONBOARD ACTIVITIES

Onboard dining.

• CruiseMapper

Carnival Legend deck plans

Deck layouts, review of facilities, activities, amenities.

Carnival Legend deck plan review at CruiseMapper provides newest cruise deck plans (2024-2025-2026 valid floor layouts of the vessel) extracted from the officially issued by Carnival Cruise Line deckplan pdf (printable version).

Each of the Carnival Legend cruise ship deck plans are conveniently combined with a legend (showing cabin codes) and detailed review of all the deck's venues and passenger-accessible indoor and outdoor areas. A separate link provides an extensive information on Carnival Legend staterooms (cabins and suites), including photos, cabin plans and amenities by room type and category.

Carnival Legend (2002-built, last refurbished in 2021 August, Fun Ship 2.0 in 2013) is the third of the four Spirit-class Carnival cruise ships - together with Miracle , Pride and Spirit , and the Costa 's Atlantica and Mediterranea .

Carnival Legend cruise ship deck plan shows a total of 1062 staterooms for 2124 passengers (max capacity is 2549) served by 930 crew-staff. The boat has 12 passenger decks (6 with cabins), 16 lounges and bars, 4 swimming pools (one with retractable glass roof), 4 outdoor Jacuzzis (large whirlpool hot tubs), 15 elevators.

Carnival Legend decks with passenger cabins have a total of 50 Suites, 632 Balconies, 167 Oceanviews, 213 Inside cabins, Self Service Laundromats (passenger use launderettes). Laundry facilities are at extra charge - $3,25 (per washer or dryer load) and $1,5 per box (detergent/water softener, dispensed from the vending machine in the room). Launderettes (open between 6:30 am - midnight) are located on all cabin decks. Each laundry room is equipped with 2-3 washers, 2-3 dryers, 1 ironing board/iron. All laundry machines are coinless (can be operated using S&S cards only). While the ship is in port, washing machines are closed (only dryers and irons can be used). Valet laundry service is handled through the cabin steward. Prices are per item - wash-and-press ($2 - $7,50), no dry-cleaning.

In 2021 (July-August) the ship entered drydock at Chantier Naval de Marseille ( Marseille France ) for regular maintenance and hull repainting (colors change).

In 2017, on the Australia-based Carnival Legend was introduced new kids programming, that includes new onboard activities, games, themed parties.

• On the ship were introduced an inflatable bocce court and giant-sized board games (Cranium, Trivial Pursuit, Guess Who).
• Another 2017 addition is the Cluedo (aka Clue) murder mystery game that is a group activity involving 2-6 players. At the beginning of each cruise, costumed characters present their alibis, and the players attempt to solve the crime mystery through clues given to them throughout the cruise.
• New themed entertainment events are the shows "80s Rock" (music-themed), "Glow Night" (fashion-themed) and "Lip Sync Battle" (a musical competition involving choreography, costumes, and stage sets).

Carnival Legend deck plan changes 2021 refurbishment review

During drydock refit 2021, to the ship were made some changes.

(deck 2) The Taste Bar was replaced with the Internet Cafe and the Shore Excursions desk was renamed Carnival Adventures.

(deck 3) The Holmes Library & Internet Cafe (17-seat, 24-hour venue) and the Wedding Chapel (30-seat venue) were replaced with a new video arcade The Warehouse. The Photo Gallery was renamed Pixels Gallery.

(deck 4) The Gigabytes Video Arcade (forward-portside) was replaced with The Cove (children-only breakout room for arts and crafts).

Carnival Legend deck plan changes 2014 refurbishment review

The list of deck plan changes after 2014's 2-weeks-long drydock (done in Freeport Bahamas ) includes:

• New Aqua Park "Carnival WaterWorks" with the "Green Thunder" waterslide (187 ft/57 m long, speed 25 mph / 40 kph), and the "Twister" waterslide (214 ft / 65 m long), plus kids splash zone with sprays, mini-racing waterslides, and the "PowerDrencher" bucket (water capacity 150 gallons / 568 litres).
• RedFrog Pub with the ThirstyFrog Red beer (draft brew, CCL's private label)
• Bonsai Sushi (sushi, sashimi, Japanese beers)
• Cherry On Top (candy store)
• (new entertainment options) "Hasbro, The Game Show" and "Playlist Productions"
• upgraded pools, upgraded fitness equipment
• new carpeting, tiling, wall coverings.

The boat's last wetdock (May 2-14, 2018) was in Portland Oregon USA (at Vigor Marine Shipyard) and included regular maintenance works.

"Carnival Hub" app

In February 2017, Carnival Australia introduced on Carnival Legend the "Carnival Hub" app. It provides information on the ship's daily scheduled activities onboard ("Fun Times" newsletter). Among the app's functions are:

• "favorites" - passengers can bookmark the events they like (shows, promotions, etc)
• real-time onboard account balance checking
• reminder for attending chosen events
• making onboard reservations and bookings (spa, dining/specialty restaurants, lounges, etc)
• cruise itinerary information (ports of call, searchable deck plans / with highlighted attractions)
• The Carnival Hub app (costs AUD 9) also has a "chat" function for connecting with your family and friends on the ship. The function automatically adds to a contact list all passengers traveling together. The unique ID number allows adding new friends to chat contacts.
• Booked passengers can download "Carnival Hub" online (for free), set up a profile, enter the next cruise date of departure, and the app starts to countdown. The app can also be downloaded while on the ship (for free).
• The ship's "Fun Times" newsletter on paper is also available but in a reduced-size format. This, along with the Carnival Hub's introduction results in around 50% reduction in paper usage.

Cruise ship Internet

In May 2016, Carnival Australia introduced faster and cheaper internet and social media Internet packages on the Australia-based ships Carnival Spirit and Carnival Legend. The improved internet access offers increased bandwidth and speed.

• The "value package" (cost AUD 30 per day) offers unlimited Internet.
• The faster "premium package" (cost AUD 50 per day) allows passengers to make Skype video calls.
• The new "social media package" (c0st AUD 15 per day) offers unlimited access to Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter.

Deck layouts

Deck 01 - riviera-cabins, deck 02 - promenade-lobby-casino-dining1, deck 03 - atlantic-shops-dining2, deck 04 - main-cabins-kids, deck 05 - upper-cabins-kids, deck 06 - empress-cabins, deck 07 - verandah-cabins, deck 08 - panorama-cabins-bridge, deck 09 - lido-pools-spa-serenity, deck 10 - sundeck-teens-waterslide, deck 11 - sports-waterworks, deck 12 - sky.

Carnival Legend deck plans are property of Carnival Cruise Line . All deck layouts are for informational purposes only and CruiseMapper is not responsible for their accuracy.

News | Baltimore-bound cruise passengers arrive in…

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e-Pilot Evening Edition

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News | Baltimore-bound cruise passengers arrive in Norfolk

NORFOLK — It is safe to say that most of the Carnival Legend cruise passengers did not think their vacation would end this way.

The sun had not yet risen as the cruise ship — which departed Baltimore’s port several days ago — docked at 4 a.m. Sunday at the Half Moon Cruise and Celebration Center. Downtown was quiet, many still asleep or attending a sunrise Easter service, as an impressive fleet of charter buses circled the cruise center. By 6:45 a.m., the ship’s passengers were working on their next phase of travel. For many, that meant a four-hour bus ride back to Baltimore.

Ships typically return to the port from which they leave, but when disaster struck midway through the cruise, staff had to work fast to find a port available to receive vacationers. The solution: Norfolk.

During the trip, officials closed the Port of Baltimore to all incoming and outgoing ship traffic after the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed early Tuesday morning when it was struck by a container ship. The bridge carrying Interstate 695 collapsed in moments, sending several vehicles into the Patapsco River.

Last week, Carnival Cruise Line announced the ship will operate out of Norfolk, and Royal Caribbean’s Vision of the Seas will do the same. Each ship can carry more than 2,000 people.

Lines of sun-kissed cruise-goers towing suitcases began to form as the sun crested over the horizon, many donning Carnival-themed attire and fresh sunburns.

The weather Sunday morning in the Mermaid City was likely much different than conditions they were enjoying in the Bahamas just days ago. Cab drivers parked alongside buses, waiting on customers, and some spoke to each other about how Sunday was likely to be a money-maker as cruise passengers opted to rent cars or fly back to Baltimore instead of braving the bus ride.

Sandy Crow, of Manassas, and her sister Kathy Grant, stood outside Nauticus, waiting for Crow’s husband to pick them up. Crow said she heard about the bridge collapse from another passenger.

“What a tragedy,” she said.

Crow said she has been to Norfolk before, highlighting the Norfolk Mac and Cheese Festival, and the two had been celebrating a sisters’ trip together over the past week. After finding out about their future arrival in Norfolk, Crow said driving home was the preferred option.

“The captain and the whole crew was so good communicating with us. Within a day, we knew we where were going to be. It was all handled beautifully,” Crow said. “It’s about three hours (to Manassas). It’s better than taking a bus for four or five hours, and then it would be another two hours. My husband just said, ‘I’ll just drive down there.'”

As cruise ships reroute to Nauticus, the Port of Virginia is ready to receive diverted cargo traffic from the Port of Baltimore. The collapsed bridge blocks the only channel in and out of the port on the Patapsco River.  The port will be unable to receive shipping traffic until the channel is cleared , and stands to lose an estimated $15 million per day in economic activity.

Some passengers who spoke to The Virginian-Pilot said they heard the news of the tragedy from the captain, and the crew handled it the best they could. Despite the tragedy, many said the trip was still a good one although it is ending differently than they had originally planned.

For other passengers, the trip does not even end in Baltimore. Jackie Plum and her family took their Spring Break trip out of Baltimore, but they are actually from Michigan.

“When they announced that the the bridge collapsed, I think the cruise ship handled it really well. They made it as stress free as possible,” she said. “We kind of changed our plans at the last minute because so (the reroute) is adding, like, an extra four hours to our drive. Now, we have to go four hours back to Baltimore and then eight hours to Michigan. We were trying to get off the ship as fast as we can, and at the last minute, we decided to rent a car at the airport.”

For the foreseeable future, Norfolk will be welcoming more passengers, including a Royal Caribbean cruise later this week on April 4.

“You know what? Stuff happens,” Crow said. “The only thing I’m upset about is people lost their lives.”

Eliza Noe, [email protected]

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Carnival's Legend ship docks in Norfolk in wake of Baltimore's Key Bridge collapse

By Adam Thompson

Updated on: March 31, 2024 / 8:32 PM EDT / CBS Baltimore

BALTIMORE - Carnival cruise line's Legend docked in Norfolk, Virginia, on Sunday following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore last week.

The ship left for its voyage out of Baltimore on Sunday, March 24.

On Tuesday, a cargo ship collided with the Key Bridge, knocking it down and sending eight construction workers into the Patapsco River. Two were rescued, the bodies of two others were recovered and four more remain missing and are presumed dead.

The Port of Baltimore has been suspended for ships and vessels while crews clean up the channel.

Maryland was given $60 million of Emergency Relief funding for the cleanup efforts, which is currently underway . 

The port is the  ninth-busiest  in the United States, according to Census data, and handled more than $80 billion in imports and exports last year, the most in 20 years. It is also home to Royal Caribbean, Carnival and Norwegian  cruise lines .

Directly, the port supports 15,300 jobs, while another 140,000 in the area are related to port activities. The jobs provide a combined $3.3 billion in personal income, according to a CBS News  report . 

Cruise Lines International Association , the largest cruise industry trade association, says 12 cruise ships made 115 trips through Baltimore in 2024. And in 2023, about 444,000 cruise passengers moved through the port, the 29th largest in the U.S.

Ragina Ali, a representative of AAA, was on the Legend and sent WJZ photos of the end stop in Norfolk. The passengers were given bus rides back to their cars at the Port of Baltimore.

I was raised in Ohio, but made stops in Virginia and North Carolina, before landing in Maryland.

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Carnival Legend cruise passengers react to ship being rerouted after Baltimore’s bridge collapse

C arnival Legend cruise passengers have shared their reactions to the trip being rerouted, after the collapse of the Francis Key Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore , Maryland.

Following a trip to the Bahamas, the cruise was set to end on 31 March, with the ship initially docking in Baltimore, Maryland. However, after the Key Bridge collapsed on 26 March , Carnival Legend’s ship was rerouted, before being docked in Norfolk, Virginia, on 31 March.

As noted on Carnival Legend’s official website , passengers were then provided with a complimentary bus service back to Baltimore. The cruise’s next seven day trip – set to begin on 31 March – will also leave from and return to Norfolk. The following trips will abide by this strategy, instead of being operated in Baltimore, and passengers have been made aware of the change.

“We appreciate the pledge made by President Biden today to dedicate all available resources to reopen Baltimore Harbor to marine traffic as soon as possible,” the president of Carnival Cruise Line, Christine Duffy, said in a statement. “As those plans are finalised, we will update our future cruise guests on when we will return home to Baltimore, but in the meantime, we appreciate the quick response and support from officials in Norfolk.”

According to 13 News Nows , about 2,6000 guests docked in Norfolk on 31 March, following their trip to the Bahamas. With the help of 70 different buses, passengers were then driven back to Baltimore.

Speaking to the publication, many cruise passengers reflected on how they felt when they first left Baltimore, before the bridge collapsed.

“We had to go under that bridge right,” said passenger Viktoriia Aldred. “The bridge looked amazing and you go under the bridge and you’re like: ‘wow.’”

Passenger Dave Smiddy also recalled that when the cruise ship first left the city, he even stood on the deck to take pictures of the bridge. “We were all on deck underneath it when we left,” he explained.

Baltimore native and cruise passenger Michael Lukoski noted that while on the ship last week, he heard the heartbreaking news about the bridge collapse.

"When I got the news Tuesday morning, it was absolutely… you couldn’t believe it. You know what I mean? I was woken up saying there was a bridge collapse and it was like: ‘no way,’” he said.

After acknowledging how “surreal” it would feel for him to return to Baltimore after the bridge collapse, Lukoski expressed his gratitude for the Carnival Legend cruise line for helping him get home.

“I thank the good folks in Norfolk for getting us home,” he said. “We’re Baltimore, we’re strong.”

The senior cruise director of Carnival Cruise Legend, John Heald, took to Facebook on 28 March to address how the cruises are going to be leaving and returning from Norfolk, instead of Baltimore.

In the comments of his video, many people said they were on the Carnival Legend ship that was rerouted to Norfolk on 31 March, and praised the company for how it handled the situation. Meanwhile, other people applauded Heald for being so vocal with upcoming cruise passengers about their itinerary changes going forward.

“On the Legend now and the issue has been handled exceptionally well and quickly. Thank you to the leadership and the crew here on board,” one wrote.

“We appreciate the efficiency of all of the carnival and sincerely feel for Baltimore! This example is why we stay committed to only Carnival!” another added.

A third commented: “Carnival is doing a great job of keeping us posted on what is going on. They are very very helpful with all they do for their customers and workers. Thank you John.”

Carnival Legend isn’t the only cruise line that’s changing its operations in light of the bridge collapse. On 28 March, Royal Caribbean announced that its “Vision of the Seas” ship will not be embarking from Baltimore on 4 April anymore. Instead, it will be embarking from Norfolk, Virginia, on 4 April, and returning to the city on 12 April.

Passengers that were set to embark in Baltimore on 12 April will now be embarking in Norfolk. The itinerary for that trip has also been revised, with passengers skipping their visit to Nassau and returning to Norfolk on 19 April, one day earlier than planned.

Baltimore officials have now opened a temporary shipping route around the wreckage of the Francis Key Scott Key Bridge, in a bid to get trade and movement of goods in and out of the city. Captain David O’Connell described this as “an important first step along the road to reopening the port of Baltimore”.

The first section of the collapsed bridge was removed from the Patapsco River over the weekend, marking an important step towards removing the wreckage and getting the crucial port back up and running. After removing a 200-tonne segment, workers are now focusing on lifting a section of the bridge while leaving the crumpled part resting on the bow of the Dali container ship.

The Independent has contact Carnival Legend for comment.

The Independent is the world’s most free-thinking news brand, providing global news, commentary and analysis for the independently-minded. We have grown a huge, global readership of independently minded individuals, who value our trusted voice and commitment to positive change. Our mission, making change happen, has never been as important as it is today.

Crying Myself to Sleep on the Biggest Cruise Ship Ever

Seven agonizing nights aboard the Icon of the Seas

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MY FIRST GLIMPSE of Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas, from the window of an approaching Miami cab, brings on a feeling of vertigo, nausea, amazement, and distress. I shut my eyes in defense, as my brain tells my optical nerve to try again.

The ship makes no sense, vertically or horizontally. It makes no sense on sea, or on land, or in outer space. It looks like a hodgepodge of domes and minarets, tubes and canopies, like Istanbul had it been designed by idiots. Vibrant, oversignifying colors are stacked upon other such colors, decks perched over still more decks; the only comfort is a row of lifeboats ringing its perimeter. There is no imposed order, no cogent thought, and, for those who do not harbor a totalitarian sense of gigantomania, no visual mercy. This is the biggest cruise ship ever built, and I have been tasked with witnessing its inaugural voyage.

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“Author embarks on their first cruise-ship voyage” has been a staple of American essay writing for almost three decades, beginning with David Foster Wallace’s “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” which was first published in 1996 under the title “Shipping Out.” Since then, many admirable writers have widened and diversified the genre. Usually the essayist commissioned to take to the sea is in their first or second flush of youth and is ready to sharpen their wit against the hull of the offending vessel. I am 51, old and tired, having seen much of the world as a former travel journalist, and mostly what I do in both life and prose is shrug while muttering to my imaginary dachshund, “This too shall pass.” But the Icon of the Seas will not countenance a shrug. The Icon of the Seas is the Linda Loman of cruise ships, exclaiming that attention must be paid. And here I am in late January with my one piece of luggage and useless gray winter jacket and passport, zipping through the Port of Miami en route to the gangway that will separate me from the bulk of North America for more than seven days, ready to pay it in full.

The aforementioned gangway opens up directly onto a thriving mall (I will soon learn it is imperiously called the “Royal Promenade”), presently filled with yapping passengers beneath a ceiling studded with balloons ready to drop. Crew members from every part of the global South, as well as a few Balkans, are shepherding us along while pressing flutes of champagne into our hands. By a humming Starbucks, I drink as many of these as I can and prepare to find my cabin. I show my blue Suite Sky SeaPass Card (more on this later, much more) to a smiling woman from the Philippines, and she tells me to go “aft.” Which is where, now? As someone who has rarely sailed on a vessel grander than the Staten Island Ferry, I am confused. It turns out that the aft is the stern of the ship, or, for those of us who don’t know what a stern or an aft are, its ass. The nose of the ship, responsible for separating the waves before it, is also called a bow, and is marked for passengers as the FWD , or forward. The part of the contemporary sailing vessel where the malls are clustered is called the midship. I trust that you have enjoyed this nautical lesson.

I ascend via elevator to my suite on Deck 11. This is where I encounter my first terrible surprise. My suite windows and balcony do not face the ocean. Instead, they look out onto another shopping mall. This mall is the one that’s called Central Park, perhaps in homage to the Olmsted-designed bit of greenery in the middle of my hometown. Although on land I would be delighted to own a suite with Central Park views, here I am deeply depressed. To sail on a ship and not wake up to a vast blue carpet of ocean? Unthinkable.

Allow me a brief preamble here. The story you are reading was commissioned at a moment when most staterooms on the Icon were sold out. In fact, so enthralled by the prospect of this voyage were hard-core mariners that the ship’s entire inventory of guest rooms (the Icon can accommodate up to 7,600 passengers, but its inaugural journey was reduced to 5,000 or so for a less crowded experience) was almost immediately sold out. Hence, this publication was faced with the shocking prospect of paying nearly $19,000 to procure for this solitary passenger an entire suite—not including drinking expenses—all for the privilege of bringing you this article. But the suite in question doesn’t even have a view of the ocean! I sit down hard on my soft bed. Nineteen thousand dollars for this .

The viewless suite does have its pluses. In addition to all the Malin+Goetz products in my dual bathrooms, I am granted use of a dedicated Suite Deck lounge; access to Coastal Kitchen, a superior restaurant for Suites passengers; complimentary VOOM SM Surf & Stream (“the fastest Internet at Sea”) “for one device per person for the whole cruise duration”; a pair of bathrobes (one of which comes prestained with what looks like a large expectoration by the greenest lizard on Earth); and use of the Grove Suite Sun, an area on Decks 18 and 19 with food and deck chairs reserved exclusively for Suite passengers. I also get reserved seating for a performance of The Wizard of Oz , an ice-skating tribute to the periodic table, and similar provocations. The very color of my Suite Sky SeaPass Card, an oceanic blue as opposed to the cloying royal purple of the standard non-Suite passenger, will soon provoke envy and admiration. But as high as my status may be, there are those on board who have much higher status still, and I will soon learn to bow before them.

In preparation for sailing, I have “priced in,” as they say on Wall Street, the possibility that I may come from a somewhat different monde than many of the other cruisers. Without falling into stereotypes or preconceptions, I prepare myself for a friendly outspokenness on the part of my fellow seafarers that may not comply with modern DEI standards. I believe in meeting people halfway, and so the day before flying down to Miami, I visited what remains of Little Italy to purchase a popular T-shirt that reads DADDY’S LITTLE MEATBALL across the breast in the colors of the Italian flag. My wife recommended that I bring one of my many T-shirts featuring Snoopy and the Peanuts gang, as all Americans love the beagle and his friends. But I naively thought that my meatball T-shirt would be more suitable for conversation-starting. “Oh, and who is your ‘daddy’?” some might ask upon seeing it. “And how long have you been his ‘little meatball’?” And so on.

I put on my meatball T-shirt and head for one of the dining rooms to get a late lunch. In the elevator, I stick out my chest for all to read the funny legend upon it, but soon I realize that despite its burnished tricolor letters, no one takes note. More to the point, no one takes note of me. Despite my attempts at bridge building, the very sight of me (small, ethnic, without a cap bearing the name of a football team) elicits no reaction from other passengers. Most often, they will small-talk over me as if I don’t exist. This brings to mind the travails of David Foster Wallace , who felt so ostracized by his fellow passengers that he retreated to his cabin for much of his voyage. And Wallace was raised primarily in the Midwest and was a much larger, more American-looking meatball than I am. If he couldn’t talk to these people, how will I? What if I leave this ship without making any friends at all, despite my T-shirt? I am a social creature, and the prospect of seven days alone and apart is saddening. Wallace’s stateroom, at least, had a view of the ocean, a kind of cheap eternity.

Worse awaits me in the dining room. This is a large, multichandeliered room where I attended my safety training (I was shown how to put on a flotation vest; it is a very simple procedure). But the maître d’ politely refuses me entry in an English that seems to verge on another language. “I’m sorry, this is only for pendejos ,” he seems to be saying. I push back politely and he repeats himself. Pendejos ? Piranhas? There’s some kind of P-word to which I am not attuned. Meanwhile elderly passengers stream right past, powered by their limbs, walkers, and electric wheelchairs. “It is only pendejo dining today, sir.” “But I have a suite!” I say, already starting to catch on to the ship’s class system. He examines my card again. “But you are not a pendejo ,” he confirms. I am wearing a DADDY’S LITTLE MEATBALL T-shirt, I want to say to him. I am the essence of pendejo .

Eventually, I give up and head to the plebeian buffet on Deck 15, which has an aquatic-styled name I have now forgotten. Before gaining entry to this endless cornucopia of reheated food, one passes a washing station of many sinks and soap dispensers, and perhaps the most intriguing character on the entire ship. He is Mr. Washy Washy—or, according to his name tag, Nielbert of the Philippines—and he is dressed as a taco (on other occasions, I’ll see him dressed as a burger). Mr. Washy Washy performs an eponymous song in spirited, indeed flamboyant English: “Washy, washy, wash your hands, WASHY WASHY!” The dangers of norovirus and COVID on a cruise ship this size (a giant fellow ship was stricken with the former right after my voyage) makes Mr. Washy Washy an essential member of the crew. The problem lies with the food at the end of Washy’s rainbow. The buffet is groaning with what sounds like sophisticated dishes—marinated octopus, boiled egg with anchovy, chorizo, lobster claws—but every animal tastes tragically the same, as if there was only one creature available at the market, a “cruisipus” bred specifically for Royal Caribbean dining. The “vegetables” are no better. I pick up a tomato slice and look right through it. It tastes like cellophane. I sit alone, apart from the couples and parents with gaggles of children, as “We Are Family” echoes across the buffet space.

I may have failed to mention that all this time, the Icon of the Seas has not left port. As the fiery mango of the subtropical setting sun makes Miami’s condo skyline even more apocalyptic, the ship shoves off beneath a perfunctory display of fireworks. After the sun sets, in the far, dark distance, another circus-lit cruise ship ruptures the waves before us. We glance at it with pity, because it is by definition a smaller ship than our own. I am on Deck 15, outside the buffet and overlooking a bunch of pools (the Icon has seven of them), drinking a frilly drink that I got from one of the bars (the Icon has 15 of them), still too shy to speak to anyone, despite Sister Sledge’s assertion that all on the ship are somehow related.

Kim Brooks: On failing the family vacation

The ship’s passage away from Ron DeSantis’s Florida provides no frisson, no sense of developing “sea legs,” as the ship is too large to register the presence of waves unless a mighty wind adds significant chop. It is time for me to register the presence of the 5,000 passengers around me, even if they refuse to register mine. My fellow travelers have prepared for this trip with personally decorated T-shirts celebrating the importance of this voyage. The simplest ones say ICON INAUGURAL ’24 on the back and the family name on the front. Others attest to an over-the-top love of cruise ships: WARNING! MAY START TALKING ABOUT CRUISING . Still others are artisanally designed and celebrate lifetimes spent married while cruising (on ships, of course). A couple possibly in their 90s are wearing shirts whose backs feature a drawing of a cruise liner, two flamingos with ostensibly male and female characteristics, and the legend “ HUSBAND AND WIFE Cruising Partners FOR LIFE WE MAY NOT HAVE IT All Together BUT TOGETHER WE HAVE IT ALL .” (The words not in all caps have been written in cursive.) A real journalist or a more intrepid conversationalist would have gone up to the couple and asked them to explain the longevity of their marriage vis-à-vis their love of cruising. But instead I head to my mall suite, take off my meatball T-shirt, and allow the first tears of the cruise to roll down my cheeks slowly enough that I briefly fall asleep amid the moisture and salt.

I WAKE UP with a hangover. Oh God. Right. I cannot believe all of that happened last night. A name floats into my cobwebbed, nauseated brain: “Ayn Rand.” Jesus Christ.

I breakfast alone at the Coastal Kitchen. The coffee tastes fine and the eggs came out of a bird. The ship rolls slightly this morning; I can feel it in my thighs and my schlong, the parts of me that are most receptive to danger.

I had a dangerous conversation last night. After the sun set and we were at least 50 miles from shore (most modern cruise ships sail at about 23 miles an hour), I lay in bed softly hiccupping, my arms stretched out exactly like Jesus on the cross, the sound of the distant waves missing from my mall-facing suite, replaced by the hum of air-conditioning and children shouting in Spanish through the vents of my two bathrooms. I decided this passivity was unacceptable. As an immigrant, I feel duty-bound to complete the tasks I am paid for, which means reaching out and trying to understand my fellow cruisers. So I put on a normal James Perse T-shirt and headed for one of the bars on the Royal Promenade—the Schooner Bar, it was called, if memory serves correctly.

I sat at the bar for a martini and two Negronis. An old man with thick, hairy forearms drank next to me, very silent and Hemingwaylike, while a dreadlocked piano player tinkled out a series of excellent Elton John covers. To my right, a young white couple—he in floral shorts, she in a light, summery miniskirt with a fearsome diamond ring, neither of them in football regalia—chatted with an elderly couple. Do it , I commanded myself. Open your mouth. Speak! Speak without being spoken to. Initiate. A sentence fragment caught my ear from the young woman, “Cherry Hill.” This is a suburb of Philadelphia in New Jersey, and I had once been there for a reading at a synagogue. “Excuse me,” I said gently to her. “Did you just mention Cherry Hill? It’s a lovely place.”

As it turned out, the couple now lived in Fort Lauderdale (the number of Floridians on the cruise surprised me, given that Southern Florida is itself a kind of cruise ship, albeit one slowly sinking), but soon they were talking with me exclusively—the man potbellied, with a chin like a hard-boiled egg; the woman as svelte as if she were one of the many Ukrainian members of the crew—the elderly couple next to them forgotten. This felt as groundbreaking as the first time I dared to address an American in his native tongue, as a child on a bus in Queens (“On my foot you are standing, Mister”).

“I don’t want to talk politics,” the man said. “But they’re going to eighty-six Biden and put Michelle in.”

I considered the contradictions of his opening conversational gambit, but decided to play along. “People like Michelle,” I said, testing the waters. The husband sneered, but the wife charitably put forward that the former first lady was “more personable” than Joe Biden. “They’re gonna eighty-six Biden,” the husband repeated. “He can’t put a sentence together.”

After I mentioned that I was a writer—though I presented myself as a writer of teleplays instead of novels and articles such as this one—the husband told me his favorite writer was Ayn Rand. “Ayn Rand, she came here with nothing,” the husband said. “I work with a lot of Cubans, so …” I wondered if I should mention what I usually do to ingratiate myself with Republicans or libertarians: the fact that my finances improved after pass-through corporations were taxed differently under Donald Trump. Instead, I ordered another drink and the couple did the same, and I told him that Rand and I were born in the same city, St. Petersburg/Leningrad, and that my family also came here with nothing. Now the bonding and drinking began in earnest, and several more rounds appeared. Until it all fell apart.

Read: Gary Shteyngart on watching Russian television for five days straight

My new friend, whom I will refer to as Ayn, called out to a buddy of his across the bar, and suddenly a young couple, both covered in tattoos, appeared next to us. “He fucking punked me,” Ayn’s frat-boy-like friend called out as he put his arm around Ayn, while his sizable partner sizzled up to Mrs. Rand. Both of them had a look I have never seen on land—their eyes projecting absence and enmity in equal measure. In the ’90s, I drank with Russian soldiers fresh from Chechnya and wandered the streets of wartime Zagreb, but I have never seen such undisguised hostility toward both me and perhaps the universe at large. I was briefly introduced to this psychopathic pair, but neither of them wanted to have anything to do with me, and the tattooed woman would not even reveal her Christian name to me (she pretended to have the same first name as Mrs. Rand). To impress his tattooed friends, Ayn made fun of the fact that as a television writer, I’d worked on the series Succession (which, it would turn out, practically nobody on the ship had watched), instead of the far more palatable, in his eyes, zombie drama of last year. And then my new friends drifted away from me into an angry private conversation—“He punked me!”—as I ordered another drink for myself, scared of the dead-eyed arrivals whose gaze never registered in the dim wattage of the Schooner Bar, whose terrifying voices and hollow laughs grated like unoiled gears against the crooning of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”

But today is a new day for me and my hangover. After breakfast, I explore the ship’s so-called neighborhoods . There’s the AquaDome, where one can find a food hall and an acrobatic sound-and-light aquatic show. Central Park has a premium steak house, a sushi joint, and a used Rolex that can be bought for $8,000 on land here proudly offered at $17,000. There’s the aforementioned Royal Promenade, where I had drunk with the Rands, and where a pair of dueling pianos duel well into the night. There’s Surfside, a kids’ neighborhood full of sugary garbage, which looks out onto the frothy trail that the behemoth leaves behind itself. Thrill Island refers to the collection of tubes that clutter the ass of the ship and offer passengers six waterslides and a surfing simulation. There’s the Hideaway, an adult zone that plays music from a vomit-slathered, Brit-filled Alicante nightclub circa 1996 and proves a big favorite with groups of young Latin American customers. And, most hurtfully, there’s the Suite Neighborhood.

I say hurtfully because as a Suite passenger I should be here, though my particular suite is far from the others. Whereas I am stuck amid the riffraff of Deck 11, this section is on the highborn Decks 16 and 17, and in passing, I peek into the spacious, tall-ceilinged staterooms from the hallway, dazzled by the glint of the waves and sun. For $75,000, one multifloor suite even comes with its own slide between floors, so that a family may enjoy this particular terror in private. There is a quiet splendor to the Suite Neighborhood. I see fewer stickers and signs and drawings than in my own neighborhood—for example, MIKE AND DIANA PROUDLY SERVED U.S. MARINE CORPS RETIRED . No one here needs to announce their branch of service or rank; they are simply Suites, and this is where they belong. Once again, despite my hard work and perseverance, I have been disallowed from the true American elite. Once again, I am “Not our class, dear.” I am reminded of watching The Love Boat on my grandmother’s Zenith, which either was given to her or we found in the trash (I get our many malfunctioning Zeniths confused) and whose tube got so hot, I would put little chunks of government cheese on a thin tissue atop it to give our welfare treat a pleasant, Reagan-era gooeyness. I could not understand English well enough then to catch the nuances of that seafaring program, but I knew that there were differences in the status of the passengers, and that sometimes those differences made them sad. Still, this ship, this plenty—every few steps, there are complimentary nachos or milkshakes or gyros on offer—was the fatty fuel of my childhood dreams. If only I had remained a child.

I walk around the outdoor decks looking for company. There is a middle-aged African American couple who always seem to be asleep in each other’s arms, probably exhausted from the late capitalism they regularly encounter on land. There is far more diversity on this ship than I expected. Many couples are a testament to Loving v. Virginia , and there is a large group of folks whose T-shirts read MELANIN AT SEA / IT’S THE MELANIN FOR ME . I smile when I see them, but then some young kids from the group makes Mr. Washy Washy do a cruel, caricatured “Burger Dance” (today he is in his burger getup), and I think, Well, so much for intersectionality .

At the infinity pool on Deck 17, I spot some elderly women who could be ethnic and from my part of the world, and so I jump in. I am proved correct! Many of them seem to be originally from Queens (“Corona was still great when it was all Italian”), though they are now spread across the tristate area. We bond over the way “Ron-kon-koma” sounds when announced in Penn Station.

“Everyone is here for a different reason,” one of them tells me. She and her ex-husband last sailed together four years ago to prove to themselves that their marriage was truly over. Her 15-year-old son lost his virginity to “an Irish young lady” while their ship was moored in Ravenna, Italy. The gaggle of old-timers competes to tell me their favorite cruising stories and tips. “A guy proposed in Central Park a couple of years ago”—many Royal Caribbean ships apparently have this ridiculous communal area—“and she ran away screaming!” “If you’re diamond-class, you get four drinks for free.” “A different kind of passenger sails out of Bayonne.” (This, perhaps, is racially coded.) “Sometimes, if you tip the bartender $5, your next drink will be free.”

“Everyone’s here for a different reason,” the woman whose marriage ended on a cruise tells me again. “Some people are here for bad reasons—the drinkers and the gamblers. Some people are here for medical reasons.” I have seen more than a few oxygen tanks and at least one woman clearly undergoing very serious chemo. Some T-shirts celebrate good news about a cancer diagnosis. This might be someone’s last cruise or week on Earth. For these women, who have spent months, if not years, at sea, cruising is a ritual as well as a life cycle: first love, last love, marriage, divorce, death.

Read: The last place on Earth any tourist should go

I have talked with these women for so long, tonight I promise myself that after a sad solitary dinner I will not try to seek out company at the bars in the mall or the adult-themed Hideaway. I have enough material to fulfill my duties to this publication. As I approach my orphaned suite, I run into the aggro young people who stole Mr. and Mrs. Rand away from me the night before. The tattooed apparitions pass me without a glance. She is singing something violent about “Stuttering Stanley” (a character in a popular horror movie, as I discover with my complimentary VOOM SM Surf & Stream Internet at Sea) and he’s loudly shouting about “all the money I’ve lost,” presumably at the casino in the bowels of the ship.

So these bent psychos out of a Cormac McCarthy novel are angrily inhabiting my deck. As I mewl myself to sleep, I envision a limited series for HBO or some other streamer, a kind of low-rent White Lotus , where several aggressive couples conspire to throw a shy intellectual interloper overboard. I type the scenario into my phone. As I fall asleep, I think of what the woman who recently divorced her husband and whose son became a man through the good offices of the Irish Republic told me while I was hoisting myself out of the infinity pool. “I’m here because I’m an explorer. I’m here because I’m trying something new.” What if I allowed myself to believe in her fantasy?

“YOU REALLY STARTED AT THE TOP,” they tell me. I’m at the Coastal Kitchen for my eggs and corned-beef hash, and the maître d’ has slotted me in between two couples. Fueled by coffee or perhaps intrigued by my relative youth, they strike up a conversation with me. As always, people are shocked that this is my first cruise. They contrast the Icon favorably with all the preceding liners in the Royal Caribbean fleet, usually commenting on the efficiency of the elevators that hurl us from deck to deck (as in many large corporate buildings, the elevators ask you to choose a floor and then direct you to one of many lifts). The couple to my right, from Palo Alto—he refers to his “porn mustache” and calls his wife “my cougar” because she is two years older—tell me they are “Pandemic Pinnacles.”

This is the day that my eyes will be opened. Pinnacles , it is explained to me over translucent cantaloupe, have sailed with Royal Caribbean for 700 ungodly nights. Pandemic Pinnacles took advantage of the two-for-one accrual rate of Pinnacle points during the pandemic, when sailing on a cruise ship was even more ill-advised, to catapult themselves into Pinnacle status.

Because of the importance of the inaugural voyage of the world’s largest cruise liner, more than 200 Pinnacles are on this ship, a startling number, it seems. Mrs. Palo Alto takes out a golden badge that I have seen affixed over many a breast, which reads CROWN AND ANCHOR SOCIETY along with her name. This is the coveted badge of the Pinnacle. “You should hear all the whining in Guest Services,” her husband tells me. Apparently, the Pinnacles who are not also Suites like us are all trying to use their status to get into Coastal Kitchen, our elite restaurant. Even a Pinnacle needs to be a Suite to access this level of corned-beef hash.

“We’re just baby Pinnacles,” Mrs. Palo Alto tells me, describing a kind of internal class struggle among the Pinnacle elite for ever higher status.

And now I understand what the maître d’ was saying to me on the first day of my cruise. He wasn’t saying “ pendejo .” He was saying “Pinnacle.” The dining room was for Pinnacles only, all those older people rolling in like the tide on their motorized scooters.

And now I understand something else: This whole thing is a cult. And like most cults, it can’t help but mirror the endless American fight for status. Like Keith Raniere’s NXIVM, where different-colored sashes were given out to connote rank among Raniere’s branded acolytes, this is an endless competition among Pinnacles, Suites, Diamond-Plusers, and facing-the-mall, no-balcony purple SeaPass Card peasants, not to mention the many distinctions within each category. The more you cruise, the higher your status. No wonder a section of the Royal Promenade is devoted to getting passengers to book their next cruise during the one they should be enjoying now. No wonder desperate Royal Caribbean offers (“FINAL HOURS”) crowded my email account weeks before I set sail. No wonder the ship’s jewelry store, the Royal Bling, is selling a $100,000 golden chalice that will entitle its owner to drink free on Royal Caribbean cruises for life. (One passenger was already gaming out whether her 28-year-old son was young enough to “just about earn out” on the chalice or if that ship had sailed.) No wonder this ship was sold out months before departure , and we had to pay $19,000 for a horrid suite away from the Suite Neighborhood. No wonder the most mythical hero of Royal Caribbean lore is someone named Super Mario, who has cruised so often, he now has his own working desk on many ships. This whole experience is part cult, part nautical pyramid scheme.

From the June 2014 issue: Ship of wonks

“The toilets are amazing,” the Palo Altos are telling me. “One flush and you’re done.” “They don’t understand how energy-efficient these ships are,” the husband of the other couple is telling me. “They got the LNG”—liquefied natural gas, which is supposed to make the Icon a boon to the environment (a concept widely disputed and sometimes ridiculed by environmentalists).

But I’m thinking along a different line of attack as I spear my last pallid slice of melon. For my streaming limited series, a Pinnacle would have to get killed by either an outright peasant or a Suite without an ocean view. I tell my breakfast companions my idea.

“Oh, for sure a Pinnacle would have to be killed,” Mr. Palo Alto, the Pandemic Pinnacle, says, touching his porn mustache thoughtfully as his wife nods.

“THAT’S RIGHT, IT’S your time, buddy!” Hubert, my fun-loving Panamanian cabin attendant, shouts as I step out of my suite in a robe. “Take it easy, buddy!”

I have come up with a new dressing strategy. Instead of trying to impress with my choice of T-shirts, I have decided to start wearing a robe, as one does at a resort property on land, with a proper spa and hammam. The response among my fellow cruisers has been ecstatic. “Look at you in the robe!” Mr. Rand cries out as we pass each other by the Thrill Island aqua park. “You’re living the cruise life! You know, you really drank me under the table that night.” I laugh as we part ways, but my soul cries out, Please spend more time with me, Mr. and Mrs. Rand; I so need the company .

In my white robe, I am a stately presence, a refugee from a better limited series, a one-man crossover episode. (Only Suites are granted these robes to begin with.) Today, I will try many of the activities these ships have on offer to provide their clientele with a sense of never-ceasing motion. Because I am already at Thrill Island, I decide to climb the staircase to what looks like a mast on an old-fashioned ship (terrified, because I am afraid of heights) to try a ride called “Storm Chasers,” which is part of the “Category 6” water park, named in honor of one of the storms that may someday do away with the Port of Miami entirely. Storm Chasers consists of falling from the “mast” down a long, twisting neon tube filled with water, like being the camera inside your own colonoscopy, as you hold on to the handles of a mat, hoping not to die. The tube then flops you down headfirst into a trough of water, a Royal Caribbean baptism. It both knocks my breath out and makes me sad.

In keeping with the aquatic theme, I attend a show at the AquaDome. To the sound of “Live and Let Die,” a man in a harness gyrates to and fro in the sultry air. I saw something very similar in the back rooms of the famed Berghain club in early-aughts Berlin. Soon another harnessed man is gyrating next to the first. Ja , I think to myself, I know how this ends. Now will come the fisting , natürlich . But the show soon devolves into the usual Marvel-film-grade nonsense, with too much light and sound signifying nichts . If any fisting is happening, it is probably in the Suite Neighborhood, inside a cabin marked with an upside-down pineapple, which I understand means a couple are ready to swing, and I will see none of it.

I go to the ice show, which is a kind of homage—if that’s possible—to the periodic table, done with the style and pomp and masterful precision that would please the likes of Kim Jong Un, if only he could afford Royal Caribbean talent. At one point, the dancers skate to the theme song of Succession . “See that!” I want to say to my fellow Suites—at “cultural” events, we have a special section reserved for us away from the commoners—“ Succession ! It’s even better than the zombie show! Open your minds!”

Finally, I visit a comedy revue in an enormous and too brightly lit version of an “intimate,” per Royal Caribbean literature, “Manhattan comedy club.” Many of the jokes are about the cruising life. “I’ve lived on ships for 20 years,” one of the middle-aged comedians says. “I can only see so many Filipino homosexuals dressed as a taco.” He pauses while the audience laughs. “I am so fired tonight,” he says. He segues into a Trump impression and then Biden falling asleep at the microphone, which gets the most laughs. “Anyone here from Fort Leonard Wood?” another comedian asks. Half the crowd seems to cheer. As I fall asleep that night, I realize another connection I have failed to make, and one that may explain some of the diversity on this vessel—many of its passengers have served in the military.

As a coddled passenger with a suite, I feel like I am starting to understand what it means to have a rank and be constantly reminded of it. There are many espresso makers , I think as I look across the expanse of my officer-grade quarters before closing my eyes, but this one is mine .

A shocking sight greets me beyond the pools of Deck 17 as I saunter over to the Coastal Kitchen for my morning intake of slightly sour Americanos. A tiny city beneath a series of perfectly pressed green mountains. Land! We have docked for a brief respite in Basseterre, the capital of St. Kitts and Nevis. I wolf down my egg scramble to be one of the first passengers off the ship. Once past the gangway, I barely refrain from kissing the ground. I rush into the sights and sounds of this scruffy island city, sampling incredible conch curry and buckets of non-Starbucks coffee. How wonderful it is to be where God intended humans to be: on land. After all, I am neither a fish nor a mall rat. This is my natural environment. Basseterre may not be Havana, but there are signs of human ingenuity and desire everywhere you look. The Black Table Grill Has been Relocated to Soho Village, Market Street, Directly Behind of, Gary’s Fruits and Flower Shop. Signed. THE PORK MAN reads a sign stuck to a wall. Now, that is how you write a sign. A real sign, not the come-ons for overpriced Rolexes that blink across the screens of the Royal Promenade.

“Hey, tie your shoestring!” a pair of laughing ladies shout to me across the street.

“Thank you!” I shout back. Shoestring! “Thank you very much.”

A man in Independence Square Park comes by and asks if I want to play with his monkey. I haven’t heard that pickup line since the Penn Station of the 1980s. But then he pulls a real monkey out of a bag. The monkey is wearing a diaper and looks insane. Wonderful , I think, just wonderful! There is so much life here. I email my editor asking if I can remain on St. Kitts and allow the Icon to sail off into the horizon without me. I have even priced a flight home at less than $300, and I have enough material from the first four days on the cruise to write the entire story. “It would be funny …” my editor replies. “Now get on the boat.”

As I slink back to the ship after my brief jailbreak, the locals stand under umbrellas to gaze at and photograph the boat that towers over their small capital city. The limousines of the prime minister and his lackeys are parked beside the gangway. St. Kitts, I’ve been told, is one of the few islands that would allow a ship of this size to dock.

“We hear about all the waterslides,” a sweet young server in one of the cafés told me. “We wish we could go on the ship, but we have to work.”

“I want to stay on your island,” I replied. “I love it here.”

But she didn’t understand how I could possibly mean that.

“WASHY, WASHY, so you don’t get stinky, stinky!” kids are singing outside the AquaDome, while their adult minders look on in disapproval, perhaps worried that Mr. Washy Washy is grooming them into a life of gayness. I heard a southern couple skip the buffet entirely out of fear of Mr. Washy Washy.

Meanwhile, I have found a new watering hole for myself, the Swim & Tonic, the biggest swim-up bar on any cruise ship in the world. Drinking next to full-size, nearly naked Americans takes away one’s own self-consciousness. The men have curvaceous mom bodies. The women are equally un-shy about their sprawling physiques.

Today I’ve befriended a bald man with many children who tells me that all of the little trinkets that Royal Caribbean has left us in our staterooms and suites are worth a fortune on eBay. “Eighty dollars for the water bottle, 60 for the lanyard,” the man says. “This is a cult.”

“Tell me about it,” I say. There is, however, a clientele for whom this cruise makes perfect sense. For a large middle-class family (he works in “supply chains”), seven days in a lower-tier cabin—which starts at $1,800 a person—allow the parents to drop off their children in Surfside, where I imagine many young Filipina crew members will take care of them, while the parents are free to get drunk at a swim-up bar and maybe even get intimate in their cabin. Cruise ships have become, for a certain kind of hardworking family, a form of subsidized child care.

There is another man I would like to befriend at the Swim & Tonic, a tall, bald fellow who is perpetually inebriated and who wears a necklace studded with little rubber duckies in sunglasses, which, I am told, is a sort of secret handshake for cruise aficionados. Tomorrow, I will spend more time with him, but first the ship docks at St. Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Charlotte Amalie, the capital, is more charming in name than in presence, but I still all but jump off the ship to score a juicy oxtail and plantains at the well-known Petite Pump Room, overlooking the harbor. From one of the highest points in the small city, the Icon of the Seas appears bigger than the surrounding hills.

I usually tan very evenly, but something about the discombobulation of life at sea makes me forget the regular application of sunscreen. As I walk down the streets of Charlotte Amalie in my fluorescent Icon of the Seas cap, an old Rastafarian stares me down. “Redneck,” he hisses.

“No,” I want to tell him, as I bring a hand up to my red neck, “that’s not who I am at all. On my island, Mannahatta, as Whitman would have it, I am an interesting person living within an engaging artistic milieu. I do not wish to use the Caribbean as a dumping ground for the cruise-ship industry. I love the work of Derek Walcott. You don’t understand. I am not a redneck. And if I am, they did this to me.” They meaning Royal Caribbean? Its passengers? The Rands?

“They did this to me!”

Back on the Icon, some older matrons are muttering about a run-in with passengers from the Celebrity cruise ship docked next to us, the Celebrity Apex. Although Celebrity Cruises is also owned by Royal Caribbean, I am made to understand that there is a deep fratricidal beef between passengers of the two lines. “We met a woman from the Apex,” one matron says, “and she says it was a small ship and there was nothing to do. Her face was as tight as a 19-year-old’s, she had so much surgery.” With those words, and beneath a cloudy sky, humidity shrouding our weathered faces and red necks, we set sail once again, hopefully in the direction of home.

THERE ARE BARELY 48 HOURS LEFT to the cruise, and the Icon of the Seas’ passengers are salty. They know how to work the elevators. They know the Washy Washy song by heart. They understand that the chicken gyro at “Feta Mediterranean,” in the AquaDome Market, is the least problematic form of chicken on the ship.

The passengers have shed their INAUGURAL CRUISE T-shirts and are now starting to evince political opinions. There are caps pledging to make America great again and T-shirts that celebrate words sometimes attributed to Patrick Henry: “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.” With their preponderance of FAMILY FLAG FAITH FRIENDS FIREARMS T-shirts, the tables by the crepe station sometimes resemble the Capitol Rotunda on January 6. The Real Anthony Fauci , by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appears to be a popular form of literature, especially among young men with very complicated versions of the American flag on their T-shirts. Other opinions blend the personal and the political. “Someone needs to kill Washy guy, right?” a well-dressed man in the elevator tells me, his gray eyes radiating nothing. “Just beat him to death. Am I right?” I overhear the male member of a young couple whisper, “There goes that freak” as I saunter by in my white spa robe, and I decide to retire it for the rest of the cruise.

I visit the Royal Bling to see up close the $100,000 golden chalice that entitles you to free drinks on Royal Caribbean forever. The pleasant Serbian saleslady explains that the chalice is actually gold-plated and covered in white zirconia instead of diamonds, as it would otherwise cost $1 million. “If you already have everything,” she explains, “this is one more thing you can get.”

I believe that anyone who works for Royal Caribbean should be entitled to immediate American citizenship. They already speak English better than most of the passengers and, per the Serbian lady’s sales pitch above, better understand what America is as well. Crew members like my Panamanian cabin attendant seem to work 24 hours a day. A waiter from New Delhi tells me that his contract is six months and three weeks long. After a cruise ends, he says, “in a few hours, we start again for the next cruise.” At the end of the half a year at sea, he is allowed a two-to-three-month stay at home with his family. As of 2019, the median income for crew members was somewhere in the vicinity of $20,000, according to a major business publication. Royal Caribbean would not share the current median salary for its crew members, but I am certain that it amounts to a fraction of the cost of a Royal Bling gold-plated, zirconia-studded chalice.

And because most of the Icon’s hyper-sanitized spaces are just a frittata away from being a Delta lounge, one forgets that there are actual sailors on this ship, charged with the herculean task of docking it in port. “Having driven 100,000-ton aircraft carriers throughout my career,” retired Admiral James G. Stavridis, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, writes to me, “I’m not sure I would even know where to begin with trying to control a sea monster like this one nearly three times the size.” (I first met Stavridis while touring Army bases in Germany more than a decade ago.)

Today, I decide to head to the hot tub near Swim & Tonic, where some of the ship’s drunkest reprobates seem to gather (the other tubs are filled with families and couples). The talk here, like everywhere else on the ship, concerns football, a sport about which I know nothing. It is apparent that four teams have recently competed in some kind of finals for the year, and that two of them will now face off in the championship. Often when people on the Icon speak, I will try to repeat the last thing they said with a laugh or a nod of disbelief. “Yes, 20-yard line! Ha!” “Oh my God, of course, scrimmage.”

Soon we are joined in the hot tub by the late-middle-age drunk guy with the duck necklace. He is wearing a bucket hat with the legend HAWKEYES , which, I soon gather, is yet another football team. “All right, who turned me in?” Duck Necklace says as he plops into the tub beside us. “I get a call in the morning,” he says. “It’s security. Can you come down to the dining room by 10 a.m.? You need to stay away from the members of this religious family.” Apparently, the gregarious Duck Necklace had photobombed the wrong people. There are several families who present as evangelical Christians or practicing Muslims on the ship. One man, evidently, was not happy that Duck Necklace had made contact with his relatives. “It’s because of religious stuff; he was offended. I put my arm around 20 people a day.”

Everyone laughs. “They asked me three times if I needed medication,” he says of the security people who apparently interrogated him in full view of others having breakfast.

Another hot-tub denizen suggests that he should have asked for fentanyl. After a few more drinks, Duck Necklace begins to muse about what it would be like to fall off the ship. “I’m 62 and I’m ready to go,” he says. “I just don’t want a shark to eat me. I’m a huge God guy. I’m a Bible guy. There’s some Mayan theory squaring science stuff with religion. There is so much more to life on Earth.” We all nod into our Red Stripes.

“I never get off the ship when we dock,” he says. He tells us he lost $6,000 in the casino the other day. Later, I look him up, and it appears that on land, he’s a financial adviser in a crisp gray suit, probably a pillar of his North Chicago community.

THE OCEAN IS TEEMING with fascinating life, but on the surface it has little to teach us. The waves come and go. The horizon remains ever far away.

I am constantly told by my fellow passengers that “everybody here has a story.” Yes, I want to reply, but everybody everywhere has a story. You, the reader of this essay, have a story, and yet you’re not inclined to jump on a cruise ship and, like Duck Necklace, tell your story to others at great pitch and volume. Maybe what they’re saying is that everybody on this ship wants to have a bigger, more coherent, more interesting story than the one they’ve been given. Maybe that’s why there’s so much signage on the doors around me attesting to marriages spent on the sea. Maybe that’s why the Royal Caribbean newsletter slipped under my door tells me that “this isn’t a vacation day spent—it’s bragging rights earned.” Maybe that’s why I’m so lonely.

Today is a big day for Icon passengers. Today the ship docks at Royal Caribbean’s own Bahamian island, the Perfect Day at CocoCay. (This appears to be the actual name of the island.) A comedian at the nightclub opined on what his perfect day at CocoCay would look like—receiving oral sex while learning that his ex-wife had been killed in a car crash (big laughter). But the reality of the island is far less humorous than that.

One of the ethnic tristate ladies in the infinity pool told me that she loved CocoCay because it had exactly the same things that could be found on the ship itself. This proves to be correct. It is like the Icon, but with sand. The same tired burgers, the same colorful tubes conveying children and water from Point A to B. The same swim-up bar at its Hideaway ($140 for admittance, no children allowed; Royal Caribbean must be printing money off its clientele). “There was almost a fight at The Wizard of Oz ,” I overhear an elderly woman tell her companion on a chaise lounge. Apparently one of the passengers began recording Royal Caribbean’s intellectual property and “three guys came after him.”

I walk down a pathway to the center of the island, where a sign reads DO NOT ENTER: YOU HAVE REACHED THE BOUNDARY OF ADVENTURE . I hear an animal scampering in the bushes. A Royal Caribbean worker in an enormous golf cart soon chases me down and takes me back to the Hideaway, where I run into Mrs. Rand in a bikini. She becomes livid telling me about an altercation she had the other day with a woman over a towel and a deck chair. We Suites have special towel privileges; we do not have to hand over our SeaPass Card to score a towel. But the Rands are not Suites. “People are so entitled here,” Mrs. Rand says. “It’s like the airport with all its classes.” “You see,” I want to say, “this is where your husband’s love of Ayn Rand runs into the cruelties and arbitrary indignities of unbridled capitalism.” Instead we make plans to meet for a final drink in the Schooner Bar tonight (the Rands will stand me up).

Back on the ship, I try to do laps, but the pool (the largest on any cruise ship, naturally) is fully trashed with the detritus of American life: candy wrappers, a slowly dissolving tortilla chip, napkins. I take an extra-long shower in my suite, then walk around the perimeter of the ship on a kind of exercise track, past all the alluring lifeboats in their yellow-and-white livery. Maybe there is a dystopian angle to the HBO series that I will surely end up pitching, one with shades of WALL-E or Snowpiercer . In a collapsed world, a Royal Caribbean–like cruise liner sails from port to port, collecting new shipmates and supplies in exchange for the precious energy it has on board. (The actual Icon features a new technology that converts passengers’ poop into enough energy to power the waterslides . In the series, this shitty technology would be greatly expanded.) A very young woman (18? 19?), smart and lonely, who has only known life on the ship, walks along the same track as I do now, contemplating jumping off into the surf left by its wake. I picture reusing Duck Necklace’s words in the opening shot of the pilot. The girl is walking around the track, her eyes on the horizon; maybe she’s highborn—a Suite—and we hear the voice-over: “I’m 19 and I’m ready to go. I just don’t want a shark to eat me.”

Before the cruise is finished, I talk to Mr. Washy Washy, or Nielbert of the Philippines. He is a sweet, gentle man, and I thank him for the earworm of a song he has given me and for keeping us safe from the dreaded norovirus. “This is very important to me, getting people to wash their hands,” he tells me in his burger getup. He has dreams, as an artist and a performer, but they are limited in scope. One day he wants to dress up as a piece of bacon for the morning shift.

THE MAIDEN VOYAGE OF THE TITANIC (the Icon of the Seas is five times as large as that doomed vessel) at least offered its passengers an exciting ending to their cruise, but when I wake up on the eighth day, all I see are the gray ghosts that populate Miami’s condo skyline. Throughout my voyage, my writer friends wrote in to commiserate with me. Sloane Crosley, who once covered a three-day spa mini-cruise for Vogue , tells me she felt “so very alone … I found it very untethering.” Gideon Lewis-Kraus writes in an Instagram comment: “When Gary is done I think it’s time this genre was taken out back and shot.” And he is right. To badly paraphrase Adorno: After this, no more cruise stories. It is unfair to put a thinking person on a cruise ship. Writers typically have difficult childhoods, and it is cruel to remind them of the inherent loneliness that drove them to writing in the first place. It is also unseemly to write about the kind of people who go on cruises. Our country does not provide the education and upbringing that allow its citizens an interior life. For the creative class to point fingers at the large, breasty gentlemen adrift in tortilla-chip-laden pools of water is to gather a sour harvest of low-hanging fruit.

A day or two before I got off the ship, I decided to make use of my balcony, which I had avoided because I thought the view would only depress me further. What I found shocked me. My suite did not look out on Central Park after all. This entire time, I had been living in the ship’s Disneyland, Surfside, the neighborhood full of screaming toddlers consuming milkshakes and candy. And as I leaned out over my balcony, I beheld a slight vista of the sea and surf that I thought I had been missing. It had been there all along. The sea was frothy and infinite and blue-green beneath the span of a seagull’s wing. And though it had been trod hard by the world’s largest cruise ship, it remained.

This article appears in the May 2024 print edition with the headline “A Meatball at Sea.” When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.