There’s still two months to go before the first paying customers climb on board, but Royal Caribbean officially took possession Monday of the world’s largest cruise ship, Icon of the Seas.

Cruise line officials joined leadership with the Meyer Turku shipyard along with about 1,200 employees in Turku, Finland, for the handover ceremony of the 250,800-gross-ton, 1,198-foot-long, 20-deck vessel that had its first steel cut 31 months earlier.

“Delivering Icon of the Seas represents all that can be accomplished with strong partnerships and a commitment to delivering memorable vacations responsibly, and we thank Meyer Turku and an incredible village of skilled partners for joining us on this journey,” said Jason Liberty, president and CEO of Royal Caribbean Group, the parent company to Royal Caribbean International along with Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises.

The ship has a distinct 363-ton glass-and-steel dome that was an engineering feat to get into place at the top of the vessel during construction. Called the AquaDome, it’s one of five new neighborhoods of eight total that mirror the approach taken on what is now Royal’s Oasis class of ships.

Icon of the Seas is about 15,000 gross tons larger than Wonder of the Seas, the most recent Oasis-class ship that currently sails out of Port Canaveral and is now bumped to No. 2 on the list of world’s largest cruise ships.

Icon actually has less passenger capacity based on double occupancy — 5,610 compared with Wonder’s 5,734. The size of the cabins and suites, though, gives Icon a maximum capacity of 7,600, which exceeds Wonder’s 7,084.

One more Oasis-class vessel, Utopia of the Seas, is due in 2024 and will also sail from Port Canaveral, while Icon has two sister ships in the works — the Star of the Seas due in 2025 and a yet-to-be-named ship in 2026. Icon of the Seas also becomes Royal’s first ship to use liquefied natural gas as fuel, a cleaner burning fuel that’s part of the cruise industry’s efforts to reduce emissions.

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“Welcoming Icon of the Seas to the Royal Caribbean family is a remarkable accomplishment years in the making for thousands of innovators, engineers, architects and designers,” said Royal Caribbean International President and CEO Michael Bayley. “Seven years ago, we had an ambitious idea to create the first vacation truly made for every type of family and adventurer; now, it’s in our hands, and in this final stretch, we’ll bring it all to life for the biggest debut in our history in January 2024.”

Icon of the Seas is set to sail from Finland to a shipyard in Cadiz, Spain, where it will continue to get some finishing touches ahead of a planned Dec. 23 transatlantic cross for its arrival in Miami. It will then sail a series of preview voyages before its first revenue cruise on Jan. 28 as it begins year-round alternating seven-night Eastern and Western Caribbean itineraries.

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Royal Caribbean has a tradition of building the world’s largest cruise ships. Even before the debut of Oasis of the Seas in 2009, it first achieved the record-holding title in 1987 with the Sovereign of the Seas, which was less than 1/3 the size of Icon with just over 73,000 gross tons. It held onto that title until 1990 before it jumped around ships for nearly a decade among Norwegian, Carnival and Princess.

It came back to Royal Caribbean with the debut of Voyager of the Seas in 1999 coming in at more than 137,000 gross tons, a little more than half the size of Icon of the Seas.

Sister ships Explorer of the Seas and Navigator of the Seas then inherited the title before Cunard Line’s Queen Mary 2 took it over from 2003-2006. Then Royal’s Freedom of the Seas took the title back with its more than 154,000 gross tons. Freedom’s sister ship Liberty of the Seas then held if from 2007 until Oasis of the Seas’ debut two years later.

Since then, the title has passed on to each Oasis-class vessel with incremental size increases starting with Allure of the Seas in 2010, Harmony of the Seas in 2016, Symphony of the Seas in 2018 and Wonder of the Seas in 2022.