Icon of the Seas Family Infinite Ocean View Balcony Stateroom 9698

This post will share our review and lots of photos from our stay in a Family Infinite Ocean View Balcony Stateroom onboard Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas!

When we first saw all the new stateroom types on Icon of the Seas, this room stood out to us the most. Sure, we would have loved to experience a suite in order to access the suite-exclusive areas of the ship that looked incredible, but with two kids, the bunk beds were a must-try.

We were in Stateroom 9698, which is located on Deck 9 towards the aft. It was a really convenient spot near the elevators, which is always nice not having to walk a mile down the long hallways multiple times a day.

Size

• Total Stateroom: 335 sq. ft. (includes 50 sq. ft. convertible balcony)

Beds

• One Royal King bed (can convert into two twin-size beds)
• One double sofa bed
• Bunk bed with 2 twin beds

Occupancy

• Up to 6 guests

Stateroom Entrance

From the hallway, there is only one door for two staterooms. This is because these rooms were designed for families, especially families staying together in connecting rooms. You use your key to open the outside door and then walk into a foyer area with the two separate doors.

The benefit here would be if the two families knew each other, they could leave these doors open. We, however, did not know the family in the other room. The outside door can actually be locked from the inside. My first thought was “What if the other family accidentally locks the outside door from the inside and we can’t get back in?” We asked our stateroom attendant and all he could say was we would have to contact guest services to be let in. Yikes! Thankfully, this never happened to us, but the way he reacted when I asked told me that it has already happened (we were only on the 9th sailing!).

Family Infinite Ocean View Balcony Chalkboards

One fun feature about this area are the chalkboards. There are two chalkboards, one next to each room. This is a good way to communicate with each other your plans and locations throughout the ship if you knew each other. Since we didn’t know each other, we just thought we wouldn’t use them. Boy, were we wrong! There were kids in the other room and they would leave questions for our kids to answer, which they did and we would ask questions back. We never saw them, but this was a fun element of the trip for the kids to be able to “chat” with them.

Speaking of chalkboards, when you enter the room, you are greeted with a large chalkboard on the wall!

Kudos to Royal Caribbean for this idea. When we first booked this room, the photos showed a scrabble wall, which sounded so much fun. When we saw they changed to chalkboards, we weren’t sure how to feel about it. We get it, I’m sure the scrabble letter blocks would have mysteriously disappeared (free souvenir?) over time. But chalk? Sounds messy. Well, we found these chalkboard markers on Amazon in multiple colors that were PERFECT!

They left no chalkboard dust and it was like the kids were drawing on the wall. Royal only provided a few white chalk bits, so we were so glad we brought these. Their designs stayed intact throughout the week and when we were walking out on the last day, we took a wet washcloth and wiped it down easily.

No THIS is my kind of To-Do list!

Family Infinite Ocean View Bunk Beds

Turning left, the bunk bed area is sectioned off with a curtain.

This was a nice feature to provide privacy and block light and sound both ways.

Each bunk has its own tv and reading light.

The top bunk has a mini curtain, which was useful when my son, who was in the top bunk, still wanted the tv on but my daughter, in the bottom bunk, was sleeping.

The bottom bunk has large drawers underneath and the steps going to the top bunk have nooks for storage. I was grateful for the extra storage and the kids liked having spots for their stuff instead of it being out with our stuff.

Behind the steps, there is a cute reading nook with a cushy stool and light. My kids didn’t really use this spot because if they were lounging, they were usually laying down on the bed.

Family Infinite Ocean View Bathrooms

Turning right after going in the door, there are two bathroom doors. Yes, TWO bathrooms! But before you get too excited, it isn’t two full bathrooms, as it is just a way to separate the toilet and the shower.

In one bathroom, there is a toilet and sink/vanity. In the other bathroom, there is a shower and additional sink/vanity. This was another genius move by Royal. How many times are you waiting for someone else to finish showering before you can go in there and get ready? Or, dare I say it, someone goes to the bathroom and you do not want to go in there after to take a shower (this can also be helped with a little Poo-pourri!). With this setup, two people can accomplish tasks at the same time, resulting in quicker rotation and increased time efficiency. Time efficiency in the bathroom means more time having fun around the ship!

Starting with the first bathroom with the toilet.

Onto the second bathroom with the shower.

The shower itself had a decent amount of room, more room than the standard room showers on other ships, in my opinion. Here’s my then 9-year old for size reference.

It’s also nice to have a ledge.

Unfortunately, this leaves little room once out of the shower. The sink/vanity in this room is tiny, so we left this for hand-washing and teeth brushing and used the sink/vanity area in the other bathroom for getting ready.

Family Infinite Ocean View Main Room

Entering the main room, on the left, there is a decently sized desk with several drawers for additional storage.

Here’s a picture of the location of the blowdryer because for some reason, every single review I saw before going made sure to feature the blowdryer as if it was some treasure chest that you have to hunt for and celebrate when found. I saved you from hunting, you’re welcome 🙂

The cooler fridge has its own compartment.

To the right, there is a couch and closet area. The couch can convert to a bed, but we never needed it and don’t have any photos of it made up that way.

The closet was a decent size, but I would have liked some shelves instead of two hanging sections. Kids for size. 😀

The bins at the bottom were great to store our shoes and random things, but they made the loudest, awful sound when pulling them in and out. We avoided putting our sneakers in there because we would need them to work out early in the morning and didn’t want to wake the kids up with the noise. My son will sleep through a tornado, but my daughter would wake up for sure.

On the side of the closet, there is a narrow shelf area. Not wide enough for anything substantial, but a nice little spot for little things.

This is also where the tiny safe is. We put a piece of paper in there for size reference. No laptops or large ipads going in here!

Walking further into the room, you’ll find the bed and tv. We had the single queen bed configuration. I don’t recall if there was a choice when we booked, but wanted to call that out.

Each bedside has a table AND USB charger spots! We always have the hardest time charging everything in most rooms. Usually only one side has a charging spot and we have to use an external battery to charge at night, but this time we could both charge our phones next to us at night.

To each side of the tv, there are corner shelf nooks, great for quick grab things that you don’t want taking up table space.

Family Infinite Ocean View Balcony

Now for the main event! The “balcony”!!

Icon of the Seas is the first Royal Caribbean ship to utilize this concept. Instead of a door to get out to the open balcony, the inside area of your room is extended, with a sitting area and table, and the top portion of the window comes down to enjoy as a balcony. You can sit and enjoy the view while still in the air-conditioning.

You can enjoy a balcony without having to open and close the door.

Balcony doors can be loud. Additionally, I liked being able to enjoy the balcony features while still being with my family if they were still inside. With a standard balcony, if you are the only one out there, you can sometimes feel alone.

Don’t get me wrong, that is sometimes a good thing, but not something I always want. If you do want to be alone, you can close the curtains! We also felt like there was more privacy. You couldn’t really see in the neighboring rooms even if you leaned out as far as you possibly could. Outdoor balconies also have cracks in the separators so you can see through them, but that isn’t a factor here.

One downside is the same as leaving your door open on a regular balcony room, when your balcony window is down, the air-conditioning is off. In hotter months, it would be best to not leave it open for extended periods of time, unless you are comfortable with just the ocean breeze. During cooler months, not a problem!

The room control unit is by the stateroom entrance door. It’s a very nice new feature, but we had the stateroom attendant give us some tips, which we were glad we did because he told us something that very first day that others didn’t know and we had to share it in our Facebook Group. DO NOT use Sleep Mode! He said using sleep mode turns off the air-conditioning. Others were saying how hot the rooms were and when we told them this tip, they were so grateful! Why wouldn’t you want A/C while sleeping??

Family Infinite Ocean View Balcony Safety

The balcony felt very safe, both to operate and to have my kids around. There are buttons on the wall to operate the window. They are pretty high up, so little ones can’t reach them on their own. Also, when closing the window, if something or someone is blocking, it will stop immediately, even if you are holding it down. We had my son rest on it as if he was looking out and it would not move to close while he was there.

It was also comforting being together in the room with them still being able to enjoy the view.

Overall Thoughts on the Family Infinite Oceanview Balcony Stateroom

We absolutely loved this room! It was almost like staying in a suite with the extra space, but even in some suites we can feel cramped as our kids get bigger (why do they keep growing so fast!?) but we aren’t quite ready to start buying two connecting rooms. The bunk beds were PERFECT, both kids fit in theirs and they didn’t have to sleep together or with us, on an inflatable mattress or on an uncomfortable couch that gets rolled away every day. They had their own separate space that felt like theirs, that they could set up how they wanted without being in the way.

I’ve seen mixed reviews of this type of balcony and I can see all points as valid. Our opinion? We really enjoyed it. Can you tell?

Well, I guess everyone looks happy when they’re arriving at Coco Cay, but you get the point.

Sometimes I feel like I don’t utilize a balcony enough when we have one. That was not the case this time. Every morning, we enjoyed our post-run/walk morning coffee and grab-and-go breakfast snack in that spot before the kids woke up. It was nice being able to glance over at any random moment and see a full view of the ocean.

Would we stay in a Family Infinite Ocean View Balcony again? Absolutely, yes!

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