The world’s next largest cruise ship can float. Royal Caribbean’s Star of the Seas, which will debut out of Port Canaveral next summer, managed the feat during a construction milestone last weekend.

The sister ship to the current title holder Icon of the Seas, which debuted out of Miami this past January, was in dry dock until shipbuilders at the Meyer Turku shipyard in Turku, Finland, flooded the holding area with 92 million gallons of water during a nine-hour endeavor.

Construction will continue with the ship now afloat at the yard at the outfitting pier before venturing out for sea trials and eventual transatlantic crossing ahead of an August 2025 debut from its Orlando-area homeport.

“Float out really marks the beginning of the next phase, where the fun really begins,” said Jennifer Goswami, Royal Caribbean’s director of product development. “This is when you’ll see the interior come to life.”

Shipyard and cruise line employees marked the occasion 19 months into the ship’s construction, the second of four announced Icon-class vessels that will each be incrementally larger than their sister ships. Icon of the Seas comes in at 248,663 gross tons, which was about 15,000 more than the six existing Oasis-class vessels, five of which had previously held the title for world’s largest cruise ship.

Star of the Seas will have a 5,610-passenger capacity based on double occupancy, but will approach 8,000 passengers plus 2,350 crew at full capacity.

Much of mass of the ship comes from the 367-ton, 82-foot-tall, 164-foot-wide, glass-and-metal dome that makes up the most notable of the ship’s eight neighborhoods, the AquaDome, that sits atop the bow of the ship.

It took eight months to assemble the dome on the ground with its 673 glass and 712 aluminum panels before being hoisted this past July atop the ship with a custom, 155-ton rig outfitted with 1,640 feet of suspension cables.

Royal Caribbean gives 1st look at Port Canaveral-bound Star of the Seas

It’s the signature space on board the Icon class that houses the AquaTheater, found on Oasis-class ships outside on the aft of the ship.

The Icon class also features more than 40 food and beverage options with Star of the Seas mostly mirroring the venues found on Icon of the Seas, except Icon’s Empire Supper Club themed to 1920s-era New York will become the Lincoln Park Supper Club themed to 1930s-era Chicago.

The ship’s maiden voyage is Aug. 31, 2025 out of Port Canaveral with seven-night alternating Eastern and Western Caribbean itineraries on tap. When it arrives, it will sail alongside Royal’s newest ship this year, Utopia of the Seas, which debuted this summer doing three- and four-night Bahamas itineraries.