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Independence of the Seas - Review

CaribbeanH2OLover
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CaribbeanH2OLover

CaribbeanH2OLover

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Where was the Hot Dogs & Brats? Also I have my first Cruise coming up on RCCL and I know they don;t have the beer buckets like Princess. How much is domestic beer?

 

 

They were located at a bar by the pool. It was called Squeeze near the H2o zone. I do remember seeing brats there too. We've had beer buckets on RCI, not on this trip but have on other ships. We drank more Coronas, they were $4.75. Bud Light was $5.75 but they were 16 oz. we lucked out too. As gold members one perk was BOGO beer by the glass. They gave us a bottle of corona free.

 

It was interesting there were no limes on this cruise. Apparently there was a shortage and problem with their shipment. We had lemons in our coronas and key lime pie was served with a lemon wedge too.

 

 

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CaribbeanH2OLover

CaribbeanH2OLover

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I never saw a single thing removed from chairs around the pool on our sailing a couple of weeks ago. Nice to hear they are monitoring it now.

 

As for saving seats in the theatre.. We constantly had to do this....why you ask? Well it turns out that we had to drop our kids off in the kids program. If we went up together to do this, waited in line, and then got to the theatre, we could not get seats together any more. We had 3 families traveling together with a total of 11 children, so for all of the adults to drop the kids and then go and try to find seats for the 6 parents and 2 grand parents together, it would have been impossible. Holding seats was the only way possible.

 

The other issue I had with saving seats for shows occurred when we entered the theatre 45 minutes before the show to get good seats. We did so, but two of the ladies had to go use the washroom while waiting for the show to start. When they did so, we had another couple come and plop themselves into the two empty seats. When we told them that our wives were in the washroom, they tried to tell us that we could not save the seats for them. I know people get upset with some of us saving seats at times, but often there are reasons people do this (like the 2 I listed above)

 

 

I know what you mean. We ran into the same challenge. They really should come up with a better system.

 

 

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Kew Gardens Cruiser

Kew Gardens Cruiser

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Hi thanks for the great review. We were on the same sailing! I agree that service was outstanding and we really lucked out with the weather.

My only complaint was that there should have been more comedy shows. There was a comedian ( he was pretty funny) that did a little bit on the Welcome Aboard Show the 1st night and then we didn't see him again until day 5 for the adult show. I know there was a comedy juggler on the last night. The last few cruises I have been on there were comedy shows almost every night.

 

We went to Karaoke a few nights ( I just watch- I don't sing) and that was usually pretty enjoyable. One guy did a great rendition of Prince's "Kiss" in falsetto

 

We did see them putting notes on the saved chairs in the Solarium around 8:00 or 9:00 AM but didn't really see the deck attendant enforcing this in the afternoons.

There were a lot of younger people on this cruise since it was Spring Break for some colleges but they were generally not the over the top crazy party crowd. This is also the first cruise I saw a 1:00 AM curfew for children under 18

 

As far as dress code in the MDR, we had the late dinner seating on deck 3 and I think it was the most casually dressed that I seen for all of the RC Cruises that I have been on. On formal nights l think less than 50% of the men were wearing suits. I saw a lot of men wearing sports coats ( no tie) or nice polo shirts with khakis. Most of the women still got pretty dressed up though and I joked to my wife that I was having fun sitting in the Royal Promenade and watching all of the attractive women go by :)

 

As far as the ports Labadee continues to be one of my favorite ports of call. We also went over to Columbus Cove. We went to Tiki Beach for Grand Cayman but my wife thought it was nicer the last time we went to 7 Mile Beach. The water had a lot of rocks/ shells in it and the beach area itself was not very wide. We might try to go to the Royal Palms the next time we go to Cayman as the pictures looked nice

 

Overall we had a blast and I would definitely book Independence again

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Kew Gardens Cruiser

Kew Gardens Cruiser

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I have only been on the Oasis where we reserved our shows in advance. Curious if it is done like that on the Indy and other ships or how does it works?

 

On the Indy there was no reserving for shows. For the ice show they were handing out tickets ( There was a line the 2nd morning by Sorrentos Pizza and you had to pick which showtime you wanted) but all of the other shows were first come first serve seating. I think on Liberty of the Seas they have Saturday Night Fever which you need to reserve.

 

I don't think any of the other ships require reservations either ( other than Oasis/ Allure that is)

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Clarea

Clarea

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I have only been on the Oasis where we reserved our shows in advance. Curious if it is done like that on the Indy and other ships or how does it works?

Ships other than Oasis and Allure have theaters that can hold a much higher percentage of the number of guests, so those ships can have two performances per show, therefore there's no need for advance show bookings. These shows are timed to be convenient for the traditional early and late dining times.

 

Currently only Oasis, Allure, Freedom, and Liberty have advance show reservations, and the reservations on Freedom and Liberty are only for the ice show.

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CaribbeanH2OLover

CaribbeanH2OLover

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Hi thanks for the great review. We were on the same sailing! I agree that service was outstanding and we really lucked out with the weather.

My only complaint was that there should have been more comedy shows. There was a comedian ( he was pretty funny) that did a little bit on the Welcome Aboard Show the 1st night and then we didn't see him again until day 5 for the adult show. I know there was a comedy juggler on the last night. The last few cruises I have been on there were comedy shows almost every night.

 

We went to Karaoke a few nights ( I just watch- I don't sing) and that was usually pretty enjoyable. One guy did a great rendition of Prince's "Kiss" in falsetto

 

We did see them putting notes on the saved chairs in the Solarium around 8:00 or 9:00 AM but didn't really see the deck attendant enforcing this in the afternoons.

There were a lot of younger people on this cruise since it was Spring Break for some colleges but they were generally not the over the top crazy party crowd. This is also the first cruise I saw a 1:00 AM curfew for children under 18

 

As far as dress code in the MDR, we had the late dinner seating on deck 3 and I think it was the most casually dressed that I seen for all of the RC Cruises that I have been on. On formal nights l think less than 50% of the men were wearing suits. I saw a lot of men wearing sports coats ( no tie) or nice polo shirts with khakis. Most of the women still got pretty dressed up though and I joked to my wife that I was having fun sitting in the Royal Promenade and watching all of the attractive women go by :)

 

As far as the ports Labadee continues to be one of my favorite ports of call. We also went over to Columbus Cove. We went to Tiki Beach for Grand Cayman but my wife thought it was nicer the last time we went to 7 Mile Beach. The water had a lot of rocks/ shells in it and the beach area itself was not very wide. We might try to go to the Royal Palms the next time we go to Cayman as the pictures looked nice

 

Overall we had a blast and I would definitely book Independence again

 

 

We also noticed quite a few casually dressed in the MDR. When we checked in the agent told us there were 600 teenagers, not kids, just teenagers on our sailing. I didn't notice that many at all. We had a great group of passengers on our ship. We also liked the comedian the first night.

 

 

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stlipp

stlipp

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Last beer question. Do they have any other domestic Lite beer besides Bud? My wife seem to really dislike Bud Lite. More of a Coors Lite, Miller Lite or Mic Ultra drinker.

 

 

I have been on the Oasis and they have Mic Ultra (pounders), I sure hope all the ships have the same since we are goin on the Indy next

 

 

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CaribbeanH2OLover

CaribbeanH2OLover

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Please let us know which camera and lens you used for this cruise. I would also like to get a closest-up of Cuba.

 

 

The underwater pictures were taken with the Fujifilm FinePix Z33WP 10MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom. It also does videos under water. Nothing special but does a decent job.

 

All the others were taken with the Canon Rebel EOS. I'm not sure about the lens, it's the one that came with the camera. It's says Canon zoom lens EF-S 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS and 58mm. I hope that helps. I'm not a photographer just love to take pics. My family calls me the Kodak Queen.

 

We were surprised how close we were to Cuba. It seemed like less than a mile from the ship.

 

 

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CaribbeanH2OLover

CaribbeanH2OLover

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Disembarkation was a breeze. We did the self assist and left our cabin at 6:05. We were on deck 4 at 6:15 and there were about 50 passengers in line already. The line moved quickly until we got off. Since DD was with us they would not allow us to go down the escalator. We had to wait for the elevator. It took a while so 50 additional passengers were now ahead of us. When we reached customs there were only 3 agents and it took about 30 minutes in line. Once we got outside there were a ton of shuttles waiting to take us to our car and we were on our way.

 

 

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CRUISEFAN0001

CRUISEFAN0001

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Nice info.

 

We were on this same cruise with you....haven't had the time to begin to go through the 1450 photos taken yet here...had to travel for work the day after our return.

 

Just to add...we were lucky enough to join another poster here in a barefoot Beach cabana in Labadee...that was the frosting on the cruise cake.

 

Yes...the ship was great, the service outstanding, and the food among the best on any of our RCI cruises so far - the Windjammer in particular was a pleasant surprise in terms of food being the best ever there for us.

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CaribbeanH2OLover

CaribbeanH2OLover

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Nice info.

 

 

 

We were on this same cruise with you....haven't had the time to begin to go through the 1450 photos taken yet here...had to travel for work the day after our return.

 

 

 

Just to add...we were lucky enough to join another poster here in a barefoot Beach cabana in Labadee...that was the frosting on the cruise cake.

 

 

 

Yes...the ship was great, the service outstanding, and the food among the best on any of our RCI cruises so far - the Windjammer in particular was a pleasant surprise in terms of food being the best ever there for us.

 

 

I remember you from our roll call. Did anyone ever end up meeting after sail away? We didn't make it. Wow 1450 pictures! I hope you share some with us.

 

 

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CRUISEFAN0001

CRUISEFAN0001

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I remember you from our roll call. Did anyone ever end up meeting after sail away? We didn't make it. Wow 1450 pictures! I hope you share some with us.

 

 

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I'll work to share some as soon as I can get through them...hopefully over the weekend.

 

Missed any meet onboard as well...but did meet up with "Bigfeet" at Labadee thanks to him securing a very nice cabana.

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