Royal Caribbean VP Vicki Freed offered up enticing details of the entertainment to come on Icon of the Seas in her most recent Coffee Talk webinar, at which her guest was Nick Weir, Royal Caribbean International’s SVP of Entertainment. On tap are redesigned high-action versions of the Aqua Theater show and a live, unique and modern production of The Wizard of Oz on the main stage.

“For 15 years, I’ve been so proud every single day to represent Royal Caribbean, but this takes it to a whole new level,” Weir said. “The theme of ‘Water Water Everywhere’ is exactly what you are going to feel,” from the overlook pods facing the water to the extreme sports above it.

Royal Caribbean “hopes to have many Icon-class ships in the future, but for this first one we thought why not make the venue the star?” he said. The totally redesigned Aquadome will host much of the action, including the main water show, which will feature “extreme sports with all sorts of new elements,” including a skateboarder.

For a creative team like his, the blank slate of the Icon offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Weir noted, and “we’ve been meeting since 2017 to talk about this. Normally you are handed a theater and then you find a way to put your show in the theater. But that’s not the case with the Aqua Theater on Icon. We created the show in 2017 and built the theater around the idea. That’s taking live theater into the movie business.”

The show, he promises, will be “the biggest ‘wow’ anyone has ever seen, not just at sea but in any theater anywhere in the world.”

Freed noted that Royal Caribbean is the only cruise line to offer entertainment across four stages: the theater, the air, the ice, and the aqua.

The new stage show, meanwhile, will be The Wizard of Oz, where Royal Caribbean will “take the best elements from the stage shows and iconic moments from the movie. It will be a version no one has ever imagined. And when that plane flies out over your head? Like in [Royal Caribbean’s current show] Inflight, imagine how you will feel when Dorothy in her bed flies out over the audience with the wicked witch on her tail.”

The onboard water park, meanwhile, has taken its cue from the success of the Thrill Water Park at Perfect Day at Coco Cay, with “jaw-dropping” over-the-water slides, some that accommodate family rafts.

And if you need a little boost, there will be “over-the-top milkshakes—incredible concoctions you can spike with alcohol.”

It’s always fun and educational—and sometimes quite rewarding, for prize winners—to listen in to Vicki Freed’s Coffee Talk webinars.

A sort of travel conference in an hour, the webinars were launched by Royal Caribbean senior vice president of Sales, Trade Support and Service as a way to keep in touch with, educate and inspire travel advisors during Covid. And even now that people are back to face-to-face, they have become such an institution that she continues to hold them, albeit just once a month.