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8 Day Independence Review with Pictures

Kcjarvis

By Kcjarvis,
in Royal Caribbean International

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Kcjarvis

Kcjarvis

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Is the ferry service over to Nevis pretty reliable? Having been to St. Kitts this past March I was thinking about going over to the other island on our upcoming stop and I'm not so sure that I want to do a ship sponsored tour. I would imagine that once arriving at Nevis there are tour operators and taxi drivers like at every other port looking to pick up customers?

 

Yes - there are 3 ferry companies. They run on schedule. Don't buy a roundtrip ticket, they are not honored between companies. Also only one company has a return schedule posted in St Kitts. Alot of people on our cruise got scared and came back at 1pm instead of 4pm.

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Kcjarvis

Kcjarvis

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Hi Ken & Paulette!! I met you ( I think) on the Liberty cruise Nov.10...hope you enjoyed the cruise..how would you compare the IOS to the Liberty? I heard she has not gotten the Oasis upgrades yet...we wanted to try this 8 night cruise because we are sick of the same Eastern/Western routes on the big ships AND we prefer Eastern over Western....nice review so far!!!

 

Big Al

 

Hey Big Al - I'm sorry we didnt meet on Liberty. We had to cancel at the last minute due to Hurricane Sandy. Liberty is far superior!!!!!!!!!!! I will outline in my summary.

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Verfai

Verfai

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Took a $7 pp taxi to Orient Beach which was very very rough!!!!!

 

8286637986_1f54bfaa11_z.jpg

 

8285596321_bca874e4a9_z.jpg

 

May I ask what you mean with "very rough", unless I misunderstood and its about the sea :D? Also was it easy to get a taxi back to the ship?

Thanks in advance! :D

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Kcjarvis

Kcjarvis

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May I ask what you mean with "very rough", unless I misunderstood and its about the sea :D? Also was it easy to get a taxi back to the ship?

Thanks in advance! :D

 

HAHAH good catch - Taxi was great, Sea was rough. There were a number of taxis waiting to take people back to the port

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Kcjarvis

Kcjarvis

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Hey KC, enjoying your pics and review. I see my wife in your CC pic. Nice cabin. We talked to you at the slot pull, we retired from the same company you are working for. It was very nice chatting with you.

 

Hey - How are you? It was a pleasure meeting both of you

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wantocruisemore

wantocruisemore

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Please let us know what happened with the cabana at Labadee. We have one reserved for the Indy in March.

 

I'm now dreading Pier 29 embarkation but we are flying in the morning of the cruise (not my idea, friends traveling with us could not come in the day before and it is a direct flight) and will get there about noon. Maybe the crowds will be better by then?

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seetosea

seetosea

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Yes - there are 3 ferry companies. They run on schedule. Don't buy a roundtrip ticket, they are not honored between companies. Also only one company has a return schedule posted in St Kitts. Alot of people on our cruise got scared and came back at 1pm instead of 4pm.

 

We had anticipated taking the ferry over, but when we got to the booth we only saw one sign and it looked as though there would only be one ferry returning at 1 so we got scared and decided not to go. We didn't realize there was more than one company. Had we known there were other ferries at different times, we would have gone. Thanks for the information.

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Kcjarvis

Kcjarvis

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At the end of the day, any day on an RCCL ship is a great day.

 

We did have a few issues:

 

1) The Cabana – On Thanksgiving Day, which was the day the Transatlantic started, I emailed the Concierge requesting an over the water Cabana. I received no response. On Dec 5th, I emailed the Concierge requesting an over the water Cabana. No response. On Thursday, Dec 6th, I received the Welcome Aboard email from the Concierge, which I promptly responded too asking for… guess what??? an over the water Cabana. No response. When we boarded, the first thing I did was call the Concierge, who indicated he received my email and that he had put us on the list, and that we would have the cabana. That evening in the lounge (Olive or Twist), Raj confirmed once again that we had the cabana. When we arrived at Barefoot Beach, we were informed we were not on the cabana list. Luckily, Roberto, the Barefoot Beach Manager, who we have known for many years, thanks to a number of trips to Labadee, took control of the situation and got us a beach side cabana. We counted 4 other groups, including one woman, who had some very choice words for Raj, having the same issue and not receiving cabanas. If Raj or any other Concierge cannot manage the Cabanas, please move to the Nellie beach model and have the Barefoot Beach cabana reservations added to the shore excursion website.

 

2) Our suite attendant – Aly was a very nice guy, however his service was hit or miss. There were a number of times he didn’t empty the garbage in the bathroom, we ran out of toilet paper 3 times, he never swept the balcony, so you couldn’t walk outside without shoes on, he never removed and replaced used glasses, we ran out of water in our fridge 3 times, he would never replace the laundry bags, our toilet had a strong urine smell, and finally he neglected to clean our room one morning claiming he had a meeting ???? (We reduced his tip by 25%)

 

3) Bar service – Sadly, the ship had no Guava mix, which is my favorite cruise ship drink. The Windjammer Bar and The Olive or Twist guys were great. Overall, the drinks were either very good or no so good. (Examples: hot wine & battery acid margaritas) Interestingly enough, when we boarded, we were told at Bolero’s, we could not have a caipirinha, because they can’t serve lime while docked in Florida. We had never heard that before. We went to the Sky Bar and ordered a drink that came garnished with…….LIME.

 

4) Room Service – messed up our order 3 times and had to continually go back and get the missing entrée.

 

5) Diamond / Concierge Lounges – With 1100 Diamond and above on board, the events were packed. (Not the ships fault.) We prefer the smaller intimate venues where you can really connect with people. I also noticed a lot of people being obnoxious about the number of cruise points they had and the fact they were doing back to backs. Please don’t let Crown and Anchor status define who you are!!!!!

 

6) Cruise Critic events were great!!!!! Slot pull / Cabin Crawl / M&M

 

Overall – In my opinion, it is not fair to judge Indy against Oasis and Allure, however if we compare Indy to its Freedom Class sisters, Indy loses by a mile!!!!!! Liberty and Freedom are managed to a higher standard with a greater attention to detail and their crews make things happen, don’t make up excuses and don’t lie to customers. That was not my experience on Indy.

 

Scoring – Liberty 100, Freedom 98, Indy 75

 

Shout out to our cruise buddies Kevin and Randy, Capt. Remo & the Safety Team and the wonderful Adventure Ocean Team.

 

 

We remain Loyal to Royal, but will not go on Independence again (until things improve)

 

This is Ken Jarvis and I approve this review….

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Kcjarvis

Kcjarvis

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Any chance that you intend to let RCI know your overall assessment of Indy compared to Freedom and Liberty? It might help those of us you will be following you aboard.

 

Absolutely, I'm am waiting for the post cruise email survey.

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redwings1958

redwings1958

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Great Review: IMHO, Never had a "bad" cruise, just some that were not as good as others. Don't drink a lot, so the missing guava doesn't bother me. Same with room sevice, don't really use it. The CAbin attendant issue is INEXCUSABLE!! I might've given him only 50%. Emabrakationn, I guess I'm a little spoiled, because our last 2 out of Miami and SJU went so smoothly, we were thru check-in in 15 minutes. But xmas time is different, with so many newbies and fams that are clueless

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nbsjcruiser Great Review Rare

nbsjcruiser

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At the end of the day, any day on an RCCL ship is a great day.

 

Overall – In my opinion, it is not fair to judge Indy against Oasis and Allure, however if we compare Indy to its Freedom Class sisters, Indy loses by a mile!!!!!! Liberty and Freedom are managed to a higher standard with a greater attention to detail and their crews make things happen, don’t make up excuses and don’t lie to customers. That was not my experience on Indy.

 

This is Ken Jarvis and I approve this review….

 

Thanks for the reviews and pictures. We're doing an 8 day on the Indy in March. One thing I find about the ship crew is, sometimes they are great, sometimes not so great. They can be hit or miss sometimes. For example, we did the Majesty in 2011. The crew was ok, no complaints but they weren't what I would call in my top 5 or anything. This year we did the same itinerary and ship again but the crew was fantastic.

 

We ran into a similar situation a few years ago. Went on the Radiance 8 day and had a great time. Probably the best crew we ever had up until the Majesty this year. A year previous we did the Navigator and the crew was dead. All they did was push bingo 2 and sometimes 3 times a day. Previous to that, we were on the Explorer and the CD (Gordon can't remember his last name) was amazing. He kept the CD staff hopping and there was always something going on.

 

So it can be hit or miss. Here's hoping that for us they'll have a few things ironed out by March. Thanks again for the review.

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BillOh Holiday Sharing Rare

BillOh

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I pick up the phone and program 2 wake up calls - 4:45am and 8:30am, one to watch Oasis, Indy and Liberty sail in, and one to high tail it back to the airport to rescue the missing suitcase and my vacation :-)

 

 

I like to say that I can learn something in every review, that's probably why I read almost all of them. I never thought of doing two wake up calls using the phone activated system most hotels use. I would be afraid one would overwrite the other. If I end up in a port facing room at the 66, I may consider doing the same thing.

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Cheerysmom

Cheerysmom

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Thanks for the review. I was on the Indie Dec 5-8 3-day and had a very similar feeling about her. She is not my favorite of the fleet. Just little things - the decorations were not as nice, the staff seemed overworked and understaffed. Raj was a nice man, but he couldn't do much to help with reservations or anything else. We also couldn't have a lime for our Coronas at the Schooner bar while in port . .. we were told it had to do with having just come back from Europe. In fact EVERYTHING was blamed on the "transition" from Europe to US . . . but I do agree . ... any day on a ship beats anyother day at work.

 

But my next cruise will not be on the Indie.

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