October 24, 2026
Some Category 6 Slides Are Closed on Icon and Star of the Seas. Here Is What We Know
Royal Caribbean confirmed in April 2026 that a few Category 6 water slides on Icon of the Seas and Star of the Seas are closed for maintenance, and guest reports since then say the closures change from sailing to sailing. Here is what is actually known, and how to plan around it.
Category 6, the six-slide waterpark on Thrill Island, is one of the headline attractions on Icon of the Seas and Star of the Seas, and for many families it is a reason to book the ship. Through 2026, though, guests on both ships have repeatedly found some of the slides closed, sometimes several at once and sometimes for an entire sailing.
Royal Caribbean addressed the closures in April 2026, confirming to Fox News Digital that a few slides on the two ships were closed for maintenance. The line did not give a reopening date, and it has not published a sailing-by-sailing list of which slides are running. Guest reports since April say the picture keeps changing. In one widely shared report from an Icon of the Seas sailing, a passenger said every slide but one was closed by Thursday, and that two slides never opened at all.
The reports most often describe multiple slides out of service at the same time, including the mat-racing slides and two of the tube slides. On another sailing, a guest described waiting an hour and a half to ride the two slides that were open. The common complaint is not only the closures themselves but that they were not disclosed before sailing, on ships where the waterpark is a headline feature in the marketing.
The closures sit in the shadow of a separate incident. In August 2025, an acrylic panel broke on the Frightening Bolt slide aboard Icon of the Seas and one guest was injured. Reporting on the closures describes them as unrelated to that incident, and Royal Caribbean has not publicly connected the two.
What it means for your sailing: if you are booked on Icon or Star of the Seas, do not count on all six Category 6 slides being open. Check the status board at the park entrance and the Royal Caribbean app on embarkation day, and ride the big slides early in the cruise, because guests report closures growing as the week goes on. Separate from maintenance, slides also close temporarily for wind and lightning, which is normal on any ship. If the waterpark is the main reason you are booking, that is worth weighing before you pay Icon-class prices.
