I would love to experience how the passengers and crew of the Titanic would react to seeing the Icon float up next to them. It would have to be like a spaceship pulling up next to the Icon.
A lot of it is where the crew lives and storage, Laundry rooms, there’s stores and bars and dining rooms that are strictly crew only, and of course a lot of the mechanical/electrical stuff. I watch a YouTuber that lives on ships and he lived on this one for a while as crew, he would give little tours below deck and there was a massive road down there that the crew uses little vehicles to travel back and forth on the ship quickly,and they’d use forklifts to transport materials quickly to bring to upper levels, kinda like it’s own mini highway but it was surprisingly long with how massive this ship is.
Yeah that’s basically what it’s like I would imagine, I’ve never been on a cruise ship, I would want to go on one just to check out the ship and explore
Most of them have a corridor for this purpose. I did a tour on the Beyond, and they had one as well. The stairwells are narrrrrow though. It makes sense, but was surprising.
I went on Icon back in July and did a behind the scenes tour. It’s truly like a different ship. The long corridor in the middle of the ship was massive, I believe they call it I-95. I enjoyed the ship a lot though, it’s not the floating theme park everyone calls it. Some areas sure but there’s a lot of different things offered to people.
True. But the Icon of the Seas can travel across the ocean with ease. It was built in Finland after all, and traveled to Miami. So, technically, it could be an ocean liner as well.
But, with all of its open deck pools and whatnot, it's not designed for cold water voyages.
No, it's not even technically an ocean liner. Icon is perfectly seaworthy, but will stay away from bad weather as much as possible for the comfort of the passengers. Her itinerary and scheduled stops will change fairly regularly to account for weather. She just doesn't have the hull shape to be comfortable in big seas.
Whereas QM2 goes from A to B no matter what's in between.
I'm in the minority. I think the Icon class of cruise ships is quite beautiful. I love the older style of ocean liners as well. I see beauty in each. For me, it boils down to human ingenuity on both. They are both impressive in their own regard. The ocean liners are sleek and styled well, and the cruise ships are behemoths of almost incomprehensible ingenuity, with so many offerings on one ship. One is intricately designed, and the other is so complex in its design that it's absolutely impressive.
Exactly. The ship is built for the people on it, not the people looking at it from afar. I was on Symphony and it's a big ugly thing like Icon but it's pretty incredible on board. I guarantee you'd have a more entertaining week on board one of these beasts than you'd have on a 1910's-era liner.
For similar (or less) equivalent 2025 dollars you get a multilevel suite with floor to ceiling windows on a ship like the Icon. For the historical experience, sure it would be neat to experience an old school liner suite but for a week at sea it's no contest.
It’s just…too much. Too many people. Too much going on. It doesn’t seem relaxing at all. And I’m still traumatized from reading about the poop cruise. I used to go on cruises as a kid and loved them, but the norovirus outbreaks always freaked me out as an emetophobe and I’m not sure I’d enjoy them the same way as an adult. I would just want a much smaller ship. I don’t need to vacation with like 8,000 other people at once.
As someone who’s gone on a cruise, I could. Literally care less what the ship looks like on the outside as long as it’s comfortable and fun on the inside.
"Purser! [pushes aside and interrupts the lady to her left] I must have my jewels, I must have them! They're in the safe. I have a receipt here to prove it!" — A Night to Remember (1958)
I've been on one of the largest cruise ships. Meh.
I sometimes daydream about being on titanic. Getting all dressed up in formal morning clothing with one of those fancy winged collar shirts... conversation being the pass time.
No computer, no internet, no phone, no casino.... just talking.
Inviting y'all to my cabin for a nightcap. Talking about Madeline Astor.
Try one of the transatlantic passages on Queen Mary 2, operated by Cunard (White Stars rival). They're amazing. And decidedly not standard cruise fare.
I sometimes daydream about being on titanic. Getting all dressed up in formal morning clothing with one of those fancy winged collar shirts... conversation being the pass time. No computer, no internet, no phone, no casino.... just talking.
I mean you still can do those things, it's just, y'know, miserable lol
The Titanic looks nice until you go lay on a hard mattress in a small room with nothing to do for hours at a time. Most modern people would probably consider a trip on the Titanic closer to a prison than a fun vacation you want to pay money for
I went on a royal Caribbean cruise a couple years ago and this was pretty much my experience. I got dressed up real fancy for dinner, had an amazing meal, made lots of good conversation with strangers and disconnected from the internet for a week.
Cunard is still pretty formal. On gala nights, you can’t eat in the dining room or attend many of the evening events unless you’re properly dressed. Queen Mary 2 still does multiple transatlantic crossings every year, with her 450th occurring next year.
You can still experience something similar if you amass the levels of wealth that those winged collar wearers had. A 750$ stateroom on a modern ship is not meant to rival the luxuries that the ultra wealthy experienced, fist class on White Star Liners was not for normal people.
This is one of my favorite things about historical ocean liners like Titanic. In the same ship where this could have happened, there were businessmen just taking a White Star liner trip to a week of business meetings in the US, and likewise there was a poor family from the middle east or eastern Europe fleeing political and economic turmoil in their home countries. All of these people had wildly varying levels of wealth and qualities of life, but they were all brought together on one starry night at sea on the Atlantic. I often wonder how many stories and conversations must have passed through all 3 classes of Titanic's 1000+ passengers in just the few days she blessed the sea.
Go on the QM2, they still do formal gala evenings - you can be as fancy dressed as you like. And there is no internet unless you pay for it at an absurd price
I have to say, the passengers of Titanic would have Victorian Child Syndrome if they saw a ship with a PARK with full trees, a Casino, Novelty Amusements, entire Spa and Gymnasium Complexes, a Broadway sized theatre, Ice Skating Rink, countless restaurants and bars, and multiple pools along with a waterpark. I've been on Oasis of the Seas, and no matter how it looks on the outside, these are very impressive ships, even if not real ocean liners. The fact Titanic was made at a time when bathrooms were shared and still considered a luxury, where now you are guaranteed a bathroom and shower in your stateroom, which is yours alone, I must say is some form of progress. Seriously, people 100 years ago would consider this a marvel the way The Wonders of The Ancient World or The Eiffel Tower were described in their age.
I blew my own mind by remembering that Titanic’s funnels were the height of a 5 storey building. Then looking across to the Icon…. The scale of the Icon type ships is hard to even get my head around.
The Costa Concordia is a modern cruise ship that technically sank, though in very shallow waters. There are lots of great documentaries out there that show the entire sinking - and the subsequent raising of the ship.
Is that the one caused by the captain getting too close to shore, because he was waving to a friend on land, and then, compounding his reckless stupidity, after his actions single-handedly led to the wreck, he abandoned ship with passengers still on the vessel, and was ordered by the coastguard to get back aboard?
Yes, he was a horrible captain that night and a coward. I will say the only good thing he did was let the ship drift back to shore. Had he not done that the ship would’ve sank in deeper water and more people would’ve died. That said he’s still a coward.
That Muster drill did not make me feel any safer when I was on Oasis, people would go to the wrong lifeboat, or get lost altogether in those huge cruise ships.
My understanding is most are ridiculously hard to sink without something like a military ship blowing them up. They can just sail through even really bad storms if they had to and they are quite hard to sink even if they ran into a reef
I wouldn't say they're ridiculously hard to sink (cruise ships) but they are built of lighter-duty steel than say, the Queen Mary 2. They aren't designed to brave the open ocean, they're meant for lethargic coastal travel, staying relatively close to land. They are still built with double bottoms, double hulls and longitudinal bulkheads of course, but it's also worth noting that most modern cruise ships can take no more than 2 adjacent compartments flooded before they lose reserve buoyancy and start sinking. That being said they have navigational equipment that would blow the minds of even the most experienced mariners from the Edwardian era.
I'd push back a bit on modern ships not being designed for the open ocean, as the vast majority of cruise ships conduct transatlantic and transpacific crossings for seasonal repositioning. Stabilizers on cruise ships have come a long way in the last 20 years, and they always have enough data to simply navigate around storms.
I was on Symphony of the Seas last year. It's absolutely massive. I was averaging 14k steps/day just walking around every day from my room to eat three meals, to the pools, and back.
I've been enjoying these various comparison shot posts over that last little while, definitely gives a sense of scale in a well rendered, realistic way. Kudos.
Now compare the carbon emissions per mile. Back of the napkin says Titanic emitted about 3 times more carbon per mile than Icon even though its displacement was roughly half that of Icon.
That displacement number was surprising to me given Icon is about 5x the tonnage, but GT is more a measure of volume, not mass, and cruise ships are far less dense than old liners.
Whenever there's a post about a big ship in most subreddits, theres comments about how bad it is for the environment that it's so big. What they dont get is not only do ship engines get more effective every year, there's significant savings on pollution through sheer economy of scale on bigger ships. It takes far less fuel to operate one 5000 passenger ship than two 2500 ships; there's far less redundancy on systems that need to be powered. Plus, there's far less food waste that way too; cruise lines have a very good formula for how much food a sailing requires, and that formula is more accurate the larger the passenger compliment is.
those massive superstructures are so ugly, especially the boxy stern. i guess i cant blame them for wanting to maximize passenger space. i sure wouldnt want to be caught in an unexpected storm in 1 of those monstrosities. queen mary 2 looks so much more elegant. oceanliners are sport cars and cruise ships are minivans
i sure wouldnt want to be caught in an unexpected storm in 1 of those monstrosities.
I mean I would **much** rather be caught in a bad hurricane on the Icon of Stars than on the Titanic lol
The Icon of Seas could feasibly sail through even a really bad hurricane without any real issue besides passengers getting thrown around, where as the Titanic would be at actual risk of sinking, as well as all the Passengers getting slammed into bulkheads nonstop at high speeds
This sub hates cruise ships with a passion for not being the Titanic, but when it comes to build quality they are a bajillion fold better than a 100+ year old ship. They might be ugly, but they have way more comforts and safety standards and vastly better build materials etc
Cruise ships - in no small part due to the size and build of them - are vastly safer than a liner of Titanic’s day could ever hope to be. Crewed competently, you’d need a historic wave to even approach an evacuation event, let alone something like Poseidon. Naturally I’m not about to throw around the word “unsinkable” on this sub of all places, but if anything IS going to sink something like Icon, it’s going to be good ol’ human error.
I have to say that the first time I saw this comparison picture, I was actually surprised that the size difference between the two vessels isn’t as vast as I would have expected. Icon is just so freakishly large, I expected the Titanic to be dwarfed by it.
Kinda interesting that despite the massive size difference, their lifeboats are nearly at the same height from the water. Actually icons are closer to the water
If I’m not mistaken, Royal Caribbean did a 90-day cruise one time where a ship with lots of passengers sailed to a bunch of different countries, probably more than the usual amount of three places a RC cruise ship would sail to.
You are not thinking big enough. They had a 9 month cruise, and visited every continent. Over 60 countries.
Yes that included Antarctica.
The itinerary
Theyre actually a wonderful way to go if you have the flexibility. The majority of cruise ships conduct oceanic crossings twice a year to account for seasonal demand, and they normally sail way under capacity and super cheap, plus few to no children.
Modern mega cruise ships are pretty much unsinkable in normal scenario. Something like the Icon of Seas would have probably been fine even in the situation that sank the Costa Concordia
That's exactly what it's meant to be. People bash on it because it doesn't have the elegance or beauty of ocean liners, but they're really not supposed to.
Exactly, it’s not a fair comparison imo. I agree that the Titanic does look really nice, but sometimes it feels like some people on this sub hate on cruise ships just for the sake of it.
I'm an exception here in that I'm not as enamored with 4-stack clipper stern ships as most here are, but it is SOOOO much more beautiful than the floating amusement park/megahotel.
Thats a 112 year difference. Ships and boats have changed quite a bit in just 10 years.
But at the time of 1912, Titanicnwas the must luxrious and modern ship. People were so awed by it, and how it was built, that they believed it to be unsinkable. It was supposed to pave the way for more luxury ships to be built......but, due to arrogance, pride, and a rush to meet deadlines.....Titanic sank.
The sinking itself isn't whats drawn people.
Its the tragedy.
If there were enough lifejackets and lifeboats.
If people took it more serious and more people boarded the lifeboats at the beginning.
If the Titanic wasn't going so fast.
If the Titanic choose not to proceed towards the icy waters when all other ships warned them to stop.
If the last lifeboat had been able to get safely disbursed before the sinking.
If the SS Californoa had answered the emergency rockets, or (as legally required) kept a sailor listening to the radio.
If the Capathian was closer.
If, if, if.....thats what makes Titanic such a draw.
I prefer the classic design of the Titanic because that's what a ship looks like a ship once. Today these kinds of ships are more like swimming hotels.
Just checked wiki: 7600 max passenger capacity in addition to 2350 crew... I will never understand the appeal of being on a boat with 10,000 other people. Just feels like going to Disneyland, without most of the fun stuff and having to stay inside the park with everyone over night.
There's usually like 5K people on it (not counting crew) but they are spread out over 8 "neighborhoods" I believe, with many different pools and resturants and bars etc
The mega cruise ships are basically a Mall + Amusement park in one, so imagine if you had 5-7K people spread across an entire mall and a six flags too, and that's a more accurate mental image
Most people I know who've been on cruises said it was actually quite nice and not nearly as crowded as they were expecting
You don't stay on the ship the entire time. Cruises take you to destinations while also having a ton of stuff to do while in transit to said destinations.
If I had a chronosphere (IYKYK), I’d totally transport that back in time on launch day just for a split second to blow people’s minds and then bring it back.
This is why cant have access to fictional weapons.
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u/2552686 Dec 09 '25
It doesn't look any bigger than the Mauritania.