Floating on air, Royal Caribbean International and thousands of workers celebrated the new Star of the Seas floating one step closer to its highly anticipated debut. The next combination of the best of every vacation reached a major construction milestone as it floated for the first time, a moment marked less than one year ahead of its mic-drop introduction at one of the world’s top travel destinations, Port Canaveral (Orlando), Florida, in August 2025. Next up, the new vacation enters the final stages of construction.
To kick off the milestone, a ceremony – a maritime tradition, complete with a shot from a cannon – took place in the Meyer Turku shipyard in Turku, Finland, to celebrate 19 months (and counting) of hard work put in by the thousands behind Star’s construction. Then, the proverbial floodgates opened to fill the dry dock with 92 million gallons of water – an overnight process that took nearly nine hours. Star was then floated out of the dock and into the outfitting pier, where it will continue to take shape inside and out.
Royal Caribbean will double the world’s best vacation count with Star, bringing new twists and acclaimed experiences introduced by Icon of the Seas to the greater Orlando area. Across eight neighborhoods that are destinations in themselves, there are ways for every type of family and vacationer to make memories, from thrills like six of the fastest and tallest waterslides to 40-plus ways to dine and drink and the Surfside neighborhood designed for young families. And it’s all combined with seven nights of island hopping to idyllic destinations like the cruise line’s Perfect Day at CocoCay in The Bahamas.
