Legend of the Seas Review: A Family With Teens Onboard

Updated September 2026.

We walked to our ship. That is not a sentence I expected to write about a 250,000 ton cruise ship, but we were staying in Civitavecchia the night before, and door to door it took us half an hour, and that included stopping for photographs and getting lost a little. If we had not meandered we would probably have made it in under twenty minutes.

This was our third cruise as a family. Symphony of the Seas first, then Harmony of the Seas, and now Royal Caribbean’s Legend of the Seas, sailing Rome to Barcelona in the last week of July with stops in La Spezia, Marseille, Palma and Malaga. She is the third ship in the Icon class, built at Meyer Turku in Finland and handed over that June, which means that when we sailed her she was about a month old. She is tied with her two sisters, Icon and Star, as the largest cruise ship in the world, although Royal itself only ever claims biggest in the Icon class. Legend is longer than both of them by a matter of inches, which I am told matters to somebody.

The four of us at Civitavecchia, about twenty minutes after leaving where we stayed.

What follows is the whole ship, top down, from the point of view of a family with two teenagers. Where we did not go, I say so. There are a few places on this ship we never got into, and one promise I made on camera that I could not keep. What we paid, and how we booked it, is at the bottom.

If you would rather watch it, the full ship tour is here. Eighteen guest decks, eight neighborhoods, thirty eight minutes, filmed when she was about a month old. Everything below is the written version, with the things I got wrong on camera corrected and the family verdict I promised at the end of the video and did not actually deliver.

Stop thinking in deck numbers

This is the thing I wish somebody had handed me on day one, because a ship this size is genuinely confusing for the first day and a half. Royal Caribbean does not really want you thinking in deck numbers. They want you thinking in neighborhoods, and there are eight of them.

Pools and sun are up top. Thrills are at the back and up top. Central Park is deck eight. Everything for the little kids is deck seven. And the Royal Promenade is decks five and six. That is the whole ship in one breath.

Two practical things follow from that. There are twenty two elevators and they do not work the way you expect. You do not press up or down. You punch the deck you want into a screen outside and it tells you which car to stand in front of. It is faster once you get it, and it confuses everybody for the first day. And there is one staircase worth finding early: an indoor stair that runs from the Royal Promenade up into Central Park without ever waiting for an elevator.

One more thing about getting on and off, because it changes port to port and it affects something you might want to use. In Civitavecchia we came aboard straight into the Royal Promenade. In most of the other ports we went out and back through a door a few decks lower down. Malaga was the only place we used that same main gangway again, and in La Spezia the ship anchored offshore and we went in by tender. Here is the practical bit: when they are using the Royal Promenade to let people on and off, security blocks part of the running track on deck five. If you are a runner and you are in port, check before you go down, because you may not get the full loop that day.

La Spezia was the one port where the ship anchored offshore and we went in by tender.

If you are flying into Rome the night before, I would stay in Civitavecchia rather than in Rome. It is a real town, not just a pier, and you can walk to your ship in the morning with a coffee in your hand. We wrote up the dinner we had there the night before separately.

Thrill Island, and why nobody has slide footage

The top of the ship, at the back, is Thrill Island, and this is the one that sells the ship. Category 6 is the largest water park at sea, a little over 17,000 square feet. The slides launch from deck twenty and fall all the way down to deck sixteen. Royal Caribbean’s own number is six slides across five decks.

Pressure Drop is the one people talk about. Royal calls it the first open freefall slide put on a cruise ship, a 66 degree incline where the floor goes out from under you. Frightening Bolt is the one Royal calls the tallest drop slide at sea, at 46 feet, and it puts you through a full loop on the way down.

If you are planning around children, this is the part to write down. Storm Surge and Hurricane Hunter are the raft slides, three or four to a raft depending on the slide and who is riding, so those are the ones you do as a family. The two solo slides need 52 inches. The other three need 48. Royal Caribbean does not publish a minimum age, just height and weight.

And here is the reason there is no point of view footage from inside any of these, including ours. You are not allowed to take anything down the slides with you. No phone, no action camera, nothing loose, and they will not let you take glasses or jewelry down either. They check at the top. So every slide video you have ever seen from a Royal Caribbean ship was shot by their camera, not a guest’s. I walked the whole park on a port morning instead, when everybody else was ashore.

The rest of Thrill Island is more than the slides. Crown’s Edge is part skywalk, part ropes course, part zip line, and it runs 154 feet above the ocean on the side of the ship. That one is a paid extra. There is a FlowRider surf simulator and that one is included. Adrenaline Peak is the rock climbing, and Lost Dunes is the mini golf, which on this ship they built around a volcano. When you come off all of it there are two places to land, Basecamp for food and drink, and Desserted, which is the milkshake bar, including, and I want to be clear I did not invent this, spiked milkshakes for the adults. One deck up on seventeen there is a full length netted sports court doing basketball, volleyball, pickleball and dodgeball.

Decks eighteen and nineteen are the suite neighborhood and I will be straight with you, we did not get in, because we were not in a suite. Up there is The Grove Suite Sun Deck with its own pool, its own whirlpool, swinging day beds and its own bar, plus an alfresco restaurant called The Grove. That is Star Class and Sky Class only. So I can tell you it exists. I cannot tell you what it is like, because we never saw past that door. The same goes for Coastal Kitchen, the suites only restaurant, which on this ship runs over two floors, sixteen and seventeen.

The AquaDome is the best room on the ship

Deck fifteen is the one you will spend your days on, and I want to start at the very front of it. The AquaDome is a glass dome over the front of the ship, and Royal Caribbean flew the whole thing on as one piece. Under it there is a waterfall, a food hall, a coffee bar, an observation lounge and a theater.

The waterfall runs down through the middle of the dome and changes color through the evening. The Overlook sits at the front of it.

At the front of the dome is The Overlook, an observation lounge that faces straight out over the bow. It is multi level and it has these raised pods around the edge with the view wrapping around you. This was our sail away spot. When we pulled out of a port, this is where we were.

The AquaDome Market is the free food hall under the same dome, six stands, and it is the part of this ship that is most different from Icon and Star, because five of the six are brand new on Legend. We ate there a lot. The full sit down review, all three of us working through the food and giving it marks, is its own article and its own video. Short version so you are not left hanging: it is good, it is free, and it is better than a lot of what you would pay for elsewhere on the ship.

Also under the dome are Hooked Seafood, which is a paid specialty restaurant, and a twelve seat private chef’s table called Celebration Table, which is the smallest restaurant on the ship. And there is Rye and Bean, the coffee bar up here, which I will come back to further down because it saves you money and almost nobody tells you.

At the back of the dome is the AquaTheater. The stage is a pool that changes depth, and the show they run in it is Shockwave, A Battle for the Beat, with high divers, aerialists, dancers and robots.

One tip: get in line early. We got in line about half an hour before it started and we got great seats. It was worth the thirty minutes.

The pools, and the one real complaint in this family

Chill Island is the pool neighborhood and it is stacked across three decks, fifteen, sixteen and seventeen. Royal Bay is the big one and it is the largest pool at sea, over 40,000 gallons, with loungers actually in the water and raised whirlpools around it. There is a second, quieter pool on the same deck called The Cove, more of a lagoon tucked against the side of the ship with day beds around it.

Across the whole ship there are seven pools and ten whirlpools, which is a genuinely absurd sentence to say out loud.

Now, the criticism. It did not come from me, it came from Josh, who is thirteen and has now done three of these ships, and I think it is the sharpest thing anybody in this family said all week. He filmed it himself, walking past Royal Bay on deck fifteen:

One thing I don’t love about the Icon class is they use this as their activities pool, as their main pool. They have an adults only swim up bar, they have another small pool, they have the Cloud 17, which is another small pool, and then they have the Hideaway pool and a few like kids’ little pools. But they have no actual sports pool, so then they have to use the main pool for the sports pool.

He kept going, and this is the part I would not have thought of:

Although they need a large pool, they can’t, I feel like, have people just leave the pool if they’re just enjoying sitting in the water, swimming, talking to their friends, family, just to do an aerobics class. To me, that just doesn’t seem fair.

Emily, who is also thirteen, added the other half of it. There are two swim up bars on this ship and both of them are adults only, and her point was that one of them should let kids in, because kids like to swim up to a bar too. Josh’s version of the same complaint was that he wanted a pina colada in the pool, non alcoholic, and there was nowhere he was allowed to do that. I had not registered any of this until they said it, and I think they are right. If your children are old enough to want the swim up bar experience and too young to be allowed one, that is worth knowing before you book.

Between the two pools there is Sprinkles, which is soft serve, and it is free. And a small practical one: there are refill stations around this deck. Bring a bottle from home. You will use it every day and it saves you standing in line at a bar for water. These are the ones our family carries, and as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.

Right at the back of deck fifteen is The Hideaway, the adults only one, eighteen and up. Royal calls that pool the first suspended infinity pool at sea, and to be fair to the other two ships in this class, that is a claim Icon earned first and Legend inherited. It hangs off the back of the ship somewhere between seventy and ninety feet above the deck below, with two whirlpools, its own bar and day beds you can rent. One quirk worth knowing, and it caught us out: you do not get in from deck fifteen. Royal Caribbean’s own deck plan says the entrance is through deck sixteen.

This end of deck fifteen is also where a lot of the food is. Windjammer Marketplace is the buffet and it is the same Windjammer you know from every other Royal Caribbean ship, included and enormous. El Loco Fresh is Mexican, grab and go, free, and there is usually a line, but the line moves. Next to it there is a bar called Cantina Fresca.

Central Park, and a sushi window that is new here

Deck eight is Central Park, and if you have sailed an Oasis class ship this will feel familiar. It is an open air garden in the middle of the ship, open to the sky, five decks high, with more than 30,000 live plants in it. Real ones.

At night, with the lights in the trees, it is the nicest place on this ship to have dinner.

The restaurants in here are where the money is. Chops Grille is the steakhouse. Izumi Hibachi and Sushi is the full sit down Japanese. Park Cafe is free, does bagels and made to order salads, and opens early, which matters if you have a port excursion.

And there is one in here worth knowing about if you have sailed Royal Caribbean before. Izumi in the Park is a walk up sushi window on the edge of the same restaurant. You order at the counter and eat it on a bench in the garden, no reservation, somewhere around eight to ten dollars an item, and I am going on memory there rather than a receipt. We tried it and it was genuinely good sushi. You will not find this one on Symphony or Harmony. It is one of the things that is actually new here.

Round the corner from the garden, past the elevators, there is Hollywoodland Supper Club, with Golden Age of Hollywood theming and a multi course dinner with live music through it. It is a paid extra and it is one of the two restaurants that only exist on this ship. It is easy to miss, because you do not walk past it while you are walking the park. For music and drinks in the garden there is Lou’s Jazz n Blues, a champagne bar called Bubbles, and the Trellis Bar. There is shopping in here too, Cartier, Omega, Breitling and TAG, and it is duty free, which is the reason people buy watches on ships.

Deck eight is also where the Ultimate Family Townhouse starts, the three story suite with its own slide inside it. We did not stay in it. Nobody I know has stayed in it. But it is here.

Surfside is the deck that decides your week

Royal Caribbean put everything for the under twelves on one level at the back of the ship. The pool, the splash park, the play structure, the arcade, the candy shop, the family buffet and a bar for the parents are all within about ninety seconds of each other.

And this is the Surfside Carousel, except the horses are rubber ducks. There is one dressed as the ship’s captain, one in aviator goggles, and instead of a bench seat there is a bathtub full of smaller ducks.

Ours had a look at it and moved on. They are past the age where a carousel holds them. But on our earlier cruises this was exactly the kind of thing that quietly ate twenty minutes at a time, and on a sea day, twenty minutes is worth a lot.

The water on this deck splits three ways. Splashaway Bay is the kids’ water park with dunk buckets and mini slides. Baby Bay is the toddler splash pool. Water’s Edge is the family pool. If you have a toddler, the rule that matters is that Splashaway Bay riders have to be fully potty trained and its slide needs 42 inches. Baby Bay is the one for diapers.

Playscape is the climbing and sliding structure and they redesigned it for this ship. There is an arcade in here, the second on the ship. For food, Surfside Eatery is the family buffet, Surfside Bites is a walk up window doing burgers and popcorn chicken in the afternoon, Sugar Beach is the candy shop and ice cream, and there is a Sprinkles down here too. Two more worth naming: Pier 7 is a paid specialty restaurant doing beachside California food, and The Lemon Post is a bar with a kids’ menu, which is a small idea that makes a real difference, because you can get a drink without leaving your children somewhere else.

There is also a kids’ block party they run down here called Quack Bash, with music, face painting and the ducks again. We did not go to it, so I cannot tell you what it is like, but if you have little ones that is the thing to put in your calendar on a sea day.

And while we are on ducks. If you have never cruised, this will sound made up. People bring little rubber ducks from home, hide them around the ship, and other people find them and re hide them. There is no prize. That is the whole game. Our two spent an embarrassing amount of the week on it, and I found one on a ledge on the last day.

One of the hidden ducks, found and photographed before it was hidden again.

This ship does not have a comedy club

On deck six, Legend has a restaurant called Royal Railway, Legend Station. It is an immersive dinner inside two train carriages, twenty four people per car, five courses themed around the old Silk Routes. It looks incredible and it is unique to this ship.

And it is built in the space where, on Icon of the Seas and Star of the Seas, the comedy club is.

Legend of the Seas does not have a comedy club. The Attic is not here. Royal Caribbean confirmed it. Comedy on this ship is itinerary dependent, there were comedy acts announced for the transatlantic crossing, and there may be some folded into the America’s Got Talent show. But on a normal sailing there is no comedy venue and no comedy show.

If you are a couple who books a cruise and does the late adults only comedy set every night, this is the ship where that does not happen. Nobody puts that in a review. So there it is. We walked past Legend Station most days and never ate there, so I cannot tell you whether the food matches the room. That one is on my list for next time.

What we did in the evening instead

Directly across from Legend Station there is Dueling Pianos, and that turned out to be our thing. Two red grand pianos facing each other, piano keys running up the columns, and it sits directly above the karaoke room on deck five.

Almost every night, once the day’s activities were done, this is where we ended up. Two players, requests from the room, and it was entertaining every single time.

Josh filmed his own summary of one of those nights, and it is a better advert for the room than anything I would write:

I had to sing a little solo. My sister did a bunch of jumping jacks with my parents. It was so fun. We’ve been there the past two nights. It’s one of those things that’s like, you have to come.

The rest of deck six is bars and children. Schooner Bar is the nautical piano bar that is on nearly every Royal Caribbean ship and Boleros is the Latin one. There is a Crown Lounge up here, the one you get into once you have sailed with Royal Caribbean enough times. At the back of the deck are Playmakers, the sports bar with a wall of screens and an arcade behind it, and Adventure Ocean, the kids club. Royal Caribbean runs that from six months in the nursery, with the supervised groups from three to twelve in separate spaces rather than one big room, and thirteen to seventeen getting Social020, which is theirs alone. Also on this deck is the Royal Escape Room, which runs two experiences, Sugar Fix and Prohibition Break, sixty minutes each and both a paid extra. I have now been on three cruises without doing an escape room on any of them, which has stopped being an oversight and become a bit of a running joke in this family.

The Starbucks that is not in your drinks package

Deck five is the main level of the Royal Promenade, a long indoor street and the spine of the ship. The food down here is simple, because there is basically one restaurant: Sorrento’s. It is the pizza, it is free, and it is open late, which is the single most useful fact in this article if you have teenagers.

One correction I owe you, because I said it on camera. I called Sorrento’s twenty four hours in the video. I cannot back that up. Royal’s own page for this ship says late night pizza rather than around the clock, and the Icon class hours I can find run to roughly two in the morning. Late enough to solve the eleven at night problem with teenagers, which is the part that actually mattered to us, but not around the clock, and I would rather correct myself here than let you plan a four in the morning slice.

And there is a Starbucks right here on the Promenade, more or less the first thing you walk past when you come aboard, directly across from The Pearl. I want to be specific about this one, because it is not what you usually get on a ship. This is not a kiosk with four drinks on a board. It is a full Starbucks with most of the menu you would get on land.

But here is the bit that actually saves you money, and almost nobody tells you. That Starbucks is not included in any drinks package. It does not matter which one you bought. It is a licensed Starbucks, so you are paying out of pocket every time. Rewards are a half measure too. You still earn a star on a registered card, but the in store benefits and coupon redemptions do not work on board, so you can collect and you cannot spend.

The ship’s own cafes serve the same Starbucks drinks, and those are included. Pearl Cafe, one deck up on six, and Rye and Bean, up in the AquaDome on deck fifteen. Same espresso, same cappuccinos, same lattes. On a drinks package, those are covered. So if you have the package, walk up one flight to Pearl Cafe and it is free. If you have not got the package, the Starbucks is right there and you pay. Either way, now you know which is which.

The Pearl, and the pub full of dogs

In the middle of it all is The Pearl. A sphere, three decks tall, covered in LED panels that light up and animate. On this ship they rebuilt it. Icon and Star have a version made of white kinetic panels. Legend’s is 627 LED panels with over a hundred minutes of content in it.

At night people just stop and stand under it, which I did more than once.

The Pearl from the Promenade floor, with the ship’s own Legend letters in front of it.

Karaoke is on this deck and it has private rooms as well as the main one, so you can humiliate yourself in public or in private. And there is the pub, which is the one thing on this ship I cannot give you a straight name for. I called it Ale and Arrow in the video, because that is the name in circulation. Royal’s own page for Legend lists it as nothing more specific than an English pub, one review of this ship calls it Ale and Anchor, and the deck plan sites have it as a name that actually belongs to Star of the Seas. The menu in my own photograph from the room reads THE PUB, superior quality spirits, and that is the only source I have that was physically on this ship, so that is the one I would trust. Whatever it is called, there is live music every night we walked past it, proper beer, and the whole room is covered in framed portraits of dogs. I have no explanation for the dogs. I just really liked them. The bar at the bottom of the atrium is the 1400 Lobby Bar, and it is the one you will walk past more than any other, because it sits right where everybody funnels through.

The shopping down here has changed on this ship. They have swapped a lot of the fine jewelry out for the things people actually buy on vacation with children. Jellycat, blind boxes, Funko. There is the Royal Shop, which is the ship’s own merchandise, t shirts and hats, and on our sailing they had collaborations with a few brands you would recognize, so there were collab pieces you could only get on board. And then there is The Collection, which is the high end handbags.

Every so often the whole Promenade turns into a parade. This is Voyage to Adventure, with floats, dancers, stilt walkers, a flamingo about the size of a car, and the floor lit up underneath the whole thing. You do not need a ticket, you just need to be standing there when it starts. If you take one piece of planning advice from this article, it is this: check the app for when the parade runs, and be on deck five for it.

The gym is on this deck and runs up into deck six. Full weight floor, a wall of cardio machines looking out at the ocean, a separate studio for classes. It is included and it is open long hours. This is also the deck for the boring but essential things: guest services, Next Cruise if you want to book while you are aboard, and the Crown and Anchor desk.

There is an older Legend of the Seas in a glass case

There is a glass case on the Promenade with a ship model in it, and I nearly walked past it. That is not this ship. That is the first Legend of the Seas, launched more than thirty years ago and in service the year after, built at Saint Nazaire in France.

Royal Caribbean sold her about a decade back and she is still sailing right now as Marella Discovery 2. Only two ships have ever carried this name, and both of them were Royal Caribbean’s. So they put the old one in a box in the middle of the new one.

Skipper has a job title

Deck five is also the running track, which wraps the whole ship outdoors, both sides and right around the bow. And on one of the sea days, this was on it.

That is Skipper. She is the ship’s Chief Dog Officer, and I want to be clear that this is a real job title on a real cruise ship.

Royal Caribbean started this with Icon of the Seas, where the dog is called Rover. Star of the Seas has Sailor. When Legend came out they took name suggestions from fans, and Royal’s own chief executive picked the winner, which he described as an exhaustive process involving a distinguished panel of himself. Skipper is a golden retriever and she lives aboard full time as the ship’s family dog. So if you sail this ship and you see a golden retriever sitting on the running track at eight in the morning, that is not somebody’s pet. That is crew.

Our two spent a good part of one morning trying to find her, which is how we learned from one of her handlers that she is still a puppy and sleeps around eighteen hours a day. If you want to improve your odds, the running track and The Overlook are where people kept seeing her.

Vika found her on the running track, which is where most people seemed to.

A Broadway musical is included in your fare

Down the middle of the ship, decks four and five, is the Royal Theater, about 1,200 seats across two levels. What they run in there is a full Broadway musical, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Not a medley, not a tribute. The actual show, in a room on a ship, included in what you paid. Both of our kids sat through the whole thing, which I would call the review.

The Royal Theater filling up, and the candy garden set once it starts. This is the whole show, not a medley.

One thing though. It says reservations required and it means it. Book it in the app before you sail. Show reservations open on the first day of the month before you sail.

The same theater does a headliner slot. On our sailing that was Machine de Cirque, a circus company out of Quebec, and it is exactly what it sounds like: acrobats, aerial work, and a man on a bike doing things a bike should not do. Since we sailed, Royal Caribbean have put America’s Got Talent LIVE into this room. It is the first time the Got Talent format has been done at sea. We did not see it, so I cannot tell you whether it is any good, but if you are sailing her now, that is what is in this theater.

Behind the theater there is an ice rink, and not a small one. Absolute Zero is the largest ice arena at sea, around 800 seats. The arena is on deck five and we went in from deck six. During the day they open it for skating. At night they run a show on it called Fusion. They also run laser tag on the rink, which we did not do.

This one is Fusion, the ice show at Absolute Zero, not the musical.

The main dining room runs three levels, five, four and three, and it is included. You either take an early fixed seating or a late one, or you do My Time Dining and book it when you want it. We ate most of our dinners in here. Different menu every night, and you can order more than one of anything, which nobody tells first time cruisers. If you cannot decide between two starters, have both. Nobody blinks.

Three nights in the main dining room. Different menu every evening, and you can order more than one of anything.

Decks three and four are the casino, and this is another Legend first. Casino Royale here is Royal Caribbean’s first two story casino, running across two decks joined by a staircase. The part that actually matters for a family is that the deck three level is non smoking, and that is new. On the previous ships in this class you got one casino and you got the smoke with it. Also down here is the Music Hall across decks three and four, doing cover bands, DJs and pool tables, and the medical center, which is on deck three and staffed around the clock.

The one part of the ship we never went into

I said at the start of the video that we would look at the spa. We did not go in. Not once, all week.

So I can tell you what is in there. The Vitality Spa runs across decks twelve and fourteen with a spiral staircase between the two levels, and on fourteen there is a blow dry bar called To Dry For that also, for reasons I cannot explain, serves champagne. There is a separate teen spa on twelve called Y Spa, thirteen to seventeen, doing facials, hair and nails. What I cannot tell you is whether any of it is any good, because we never booked a single thing in it. That is the truth of a week with two kids on a ship with a water park on it.

The cabin decks are nine through twelve and they are almost entirely staterooms. One thing you will notice walking those corridors, and it is the same on every Royal Caribbean ship, is that people decorate their doors. The doors are metal so magnets stick, and by day two half the hallway has somebody’s name on it. If you are bringing children, throw a set of magnets in your bag. It costs nothing and it makes finding your own door a lot easier at eleven at night. And there is no deck thirteen. Royal Caribbean skips it, the same as most of the industry.

We were in 14632, deck fourteen, category D2, an ocean view balcony, and we booked two of them side by side, one for Vika and me and one for the kids. Two things worth knowing: that room sleeps three, not four, and the couch is the third bed. And deck fourteen sits directly underneath the pool deck, which I know is the thing people worry about. Door closed, we heard nothing all week. Door open, you hear the deck chairs. The full cabin review is a separate piece, including where four suitcases actually go.

What this ship costs, and what you get without paying

We paid for our own cruise and nobody paid for this review.

Here is the number. Two category D2 ocean view balcony cabins side by side, four of us, Rome to Barcelona in the last week of July, which is peak. $4,396.22 a room, and we took two, so a little under nine thousand dollars for the family before we had spent anything on board.

And here is the part I would actually tell a friend, because it is the bit nobody puts in a review. We booked through Costco. They put a $320 gift card on each room, and we had two rooms, so $640 came back to us. It does not come off the fare up front. It lands by email as a digital card once you have finished the cruise. Take it off what we paid and the week comes in a little over eight thousand one hundred instead.

And that is before the card. If you pay with the Costco Anywhere Visa, Costco’s own page puts eligible travel including Costco Travel at three percent back, and there is travel coverage attached to the card as well. I am not going to list what that coverage actually covers, because card benefits get quietly rewritten and mine is not necessarily yours. Read your own benefits guide before you lean on it for anything. The point is just that the gift card is the visible part and it is not the whole of it.

We booked our last cruise the same way, and that time they added a dinner at Chops Grille on top of the cards. Chops is the steakhouse in Central Park and it is one of the paid restaurants on the list below, so that was a real saving rather than a token one.

I am not going to tell you Costco is always the answer, because I have not priced every option every time. What I will say is that for the way we book, it has made a lot of sense against going through a travel agent, and it has paid us back on both of the sailings we have used it for. If you are a member already, get a quote from them before you book anywhere else.

What that fare is worth to you depends on when you book and which cabin you take, and ours will not be yours. So the more useful line is the one between what is included and what is not, because that part does not move.

Included, no package needed: the main dining room, the Windjammer buffet, the AquaDome Market, Surfside Eatery, Sorrento’s pizza late into the night, Park Cafe, El Loco Fresh, Pearl Cafe, the Sprinkles soft serve, water, brewed coffee, tea, iced tea, lemonade and juice. The Broadway show, the ice show, the aqua show and the headliner. The FlowRider, the water park, the pools, the gym, the running track and Adventure Ocean from age three up.

Not included: the standalone Starbucks on the Promenade, in any package. The specialty restaurants, which are Chops Grille, Izumi, Hooked, Pier 7, Giovanni’s, Hollywoodland Supper Club, Royal Railway and Celebration Table. Crown’s Edge. The escape rooms. The nursery, for under threes. Day beds at The Hideaway. And the spa.

Do you need the drinks package? It depends entirely on you, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. What I will say is that with water, coffee, tea, lemonade, juice and soft serve all free without any package, and refill stations around the pool deck, you never have to buy water. Is the free food good enough? Yes. Between the main dining room, Windjammer, the AquaDome Market, Surfside Eatery, Sorrento’s, Park Cafe, El Loco Fresh and Pearl Cafe, you could sail a whole week and never pay for a meal and eat well. We did pay for some, and I would do it again, but you do not have to.

Questions families ask about Legend of the Seas

What did a week on Legend of the Seas cost us?

$4,396.22 a cabin, and we took two side by side for the four of us, so a little under nine thousand dollars for the sailing before anything we spent on board. That was a category D2 ocean view balcony, Rome to Barcelona, the last week of July, which is peak. We booked through Costco, which put a $320 gift card on each room, so $640 came back to us by email after the cruise and the real cost of the week landed a little over eight thousand one hundred. Pay with the Costco Anywhere Visa and there is more on top of that, because Costco’s own page puts eligible travel at three percent back. Your fare will not be ours, because cruise pricing moves with the calendar and the cabin, but that is the number from our sailing.

Is Legend of the Seas good for teenagers?

Yes, but not for the reasons the brochure gives. Ours are both thirteen, which is the first year of Royal’s teen band, and they are past Adventure Ocean and past the carousel, so the things that carried the week for them were Category 6, the free pizza on deck five running late, the rubber duck hunt, and Dueling Pianos on deck six almost every night. Social020 is there for thirteen to seventeen and I cannot tell you what it is like inside, because neither of them chose to use it. The two real gripes came from them rather than from me and both are in the pools section: no dedicated sports pool, so the main pool gets taken over for activities, and both swim up bars are adults only.

What deck is the Hideaway pool on?

The pool sits at the back of deck fifteen, but you do not walk in from deck fifteen. The entrance is on deck sixteen, which caught us out and is not obvious from anything posted around the pool itself. It is adults only, eighteen and up.

Is Legend of the Seas too big?

She is tied with Icon and Star as the largest afloat, and it never felt crowded, and we sailed the last week of July, which is peak. I think the reason is the neighborhoods. Five thousand people spread across eight distinct areas does not feel like five thousand people.

Does Legend of the Seas have a comedy club?

No. The Attic is not on this ship. The space it occupies on Icon and Star is Royal Railway, Legend Station here. Royal Caribbean has confirmed that comedy on Legend is itinerary dependent, so on a normal sailing there is no comedy venue and no comedy show.

Is the Starbucks on Legend of the Seas included in the drinks package?

No. The standalone Starbucks on the Royal Promenade is a licensed store and is not included in any Royal Caribbean drinks package, and you cannot use Starbucks Rewards on board. Starbucks drinks served at the ship’s own cafes, Pearl Cafe on deck six and Rye and Bean on deck fifteen, are included with a drinks package.

What are the height requirements for the Legend of the Seas water slides?

In Category 6, the two solo slides need 52 inches and the other three need 48. Royal Caribbean does not publish a minimum age, only height and weight. Down on Surfside, the Splashaway Bay slide needs 42 inches and riders have to be fully potty trained. Baby Bay is the one for diapers.

How does the kids club work on Legend of the Seas?

Adventure Ocean runs from six months in the nursery, with supervised groups from three to twelve in separate spaces rather than one big room, and thirteen to seventeen getting Social020, which is theirs alone. It is included apart from the nursery, which is a paid extra. Our two are past that age now, so I cannot tell you what it is like inside, but the structure is there.

Which deck should you book on Legend of the Seas?

Deck fourteen, midship, which is what we had. You are one elevator ride from the pool deck and a staircase from everything else. We heard no noise from the pool deck above us with the balcony door shut.

How early do you need to book the shows?

Reservations open on the first day of the month before you sail, and they are strongly recommended rather than strictly required. Do it in the app. The Broadway show says reservations required and it means it.

Is there a deck 13 on Legend of the Seas?

No. Royal Caribbean skips it, the same as most of the industry.

Would we sail her again

Yes, and I would book the same cabin, two rooms side by side on deck fourteen.

The thing I would tell you is that this does not feel like a ship. It feels like a small town that happens to be floating, and the eight neighborhood idea is not marketing, it is the actual reason five thousand people fit on board without it feeling like five thousand people. For a family the case is fairly straightforward. Everything for young children is on one deck. There is a Broadway musical, an ice show and a water show, all included. There is a water park that is genuinely the biggest at sea. And the free food is good enough that the paid food is a choice rather than a rescue.

What I would flag before you book, and I would rather say it here than have you find it yourself. There is no comedy club, and if that is part of your cruise routine, know it going in. The suite spaces up top are properly walled off, so if you are not in a suite then four of the nicest areas on the ship are not yours. Both swim up bars are adults only, which our two had strong feelings about and which I think is a fair complaint. And a brand new ship means everything is perfect and nothing is worn yet, so ask me the same questions in five years and I might answer differently.

The one change we would make is doing the water park on the first sea day rather than the last.

Legend of the Seas Review, What Royal Caribbean’s Newest Ship Is Like With Two Teenagers