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“Delayed” Short review Independence (with pictures) March 15 2014, 8 night Eastern

Verfai

By Verfai,
in Royal Caribbean International

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Verfai

Verfai

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Hey all, finally got round to starting a review of our latest sailing on Independence of the Seas, March 15 2014.

 

I will let the pictures speak for themselves, as I don’t really see the point in doing a detailed blog style review, you probably won’t read it and skip straight to the pictures ;) lol…No offence, just I do the same :D.

 

I will tell you what we did as excursions and what we liked and disliked on this ship and that starts with a short short short intro that staaaaaarts now….

 

First who are we, we are a couple in our early 30s from Flanders in Belgium, this was our seventh cruise, all except one on Royal Caribbean, one on NCL’S Epic.

 

This was our second visit to the Caribbean, we did an eastern last year on the Allure and disliked the ship (read the review in my signature if you want to know why)…Which is one of the reasons we rebooked an eastern as we loved the cruise and the islands but not the Allure (to big), but than this time around on a Freedom class, the Independence.

 

We fell in love with cruising on the Liberty so we absolutely love that class of cruise ship! The other reasons for booking this cruise was my girl’s birthday on March 17th, she wanted to do a special thing this year and we had friends travelling with us whom were looking at the same period, price wise for the 8 nights this was a great deal.

 

We flew in from Brussels to Miami through Heathrow where we were almost off to a bad start as fog totally screwed up the airport…Cancelations where being called all over the departure board, luckily the daily Miami flight wasn’t. So after a 2h delay and a 9h40m flight we arrived in the sunny Miami. We stayed for two nights at “The Hotel” on Collins avenue, lovely hotel for a short stay, lovely pool roof I could stay there forever and look at the ocean.

 

Here starts the cruise, the good and the bad :

 

We arrived at the cruise terminal at 12 noon, got checked in and on the ship within 15min a new record…There really was no line what so ever for the Platinum and above check in…So that was a good thing.

 

Ship, looking beautiful, well maintained and very clean…

 

We had the ultimate drink package and LOVED it, we really could get everything on the drink menu’s that we wanted. Poor’s where very decent, not once did we get the feeling we were getting watered down drinks (contra dictionary as to NCL way of crappy working)…Sometimes we even had a feeling the drinks where to strong…You also get no better or worse service with the package, as you don’t get a bill slip, so extra tipping is nearly impossible unless you carry cash. On that note, we really never saw a lot of people tip extra whom had the package. We would take the package again on our next cruise.

 

We did Giovanni’s table one night, as this was a specialty restaurant we had not tried yet, menu looked good and so did the food, however due to a VIP table present in the room (loads of loud obnoxious people and some officers in the company) whom were getting all the attention from the wait staff and priority service, this made that we were in the place for more than 3h!? We as Europeans love to dine late and long, but that was too much. Plus as an added bonus, our food arrived luke warm…So a disappointing experience especially due to others getting better service…That just disgusts me (yes we did complain).

 

Another mayor dislike was that this cruise missed some of the normal to be expected Royal Caribbean atmosphere…Our two friends traveling with us never sailed on RCI before, so we made a lot of fuss about the things that go on onboard, like for example the captains reception…On this cruise the captain came on the NON moving bridge (the thing was down the entire cruise) did a 5 min speech about himself and a small introduction of the his senior staff…Where was the thing about the nationality’s onboard, the jokes what Freedom class in an inch bigger or newer, having a joke with the cruise director and other staff!? Non was present, same with the 70s night started and over in about 20min…We had these on LOS that lasted longer than the stated time and loads of fun…Here the cruise director staff was non present, at least not that we saw. I don’t care who the CD is, but this guy was real quiet, don’t even remember his name, his assistant did a waaaaay better job and a lot of the diamond and above CC members where showing the dislike for the CD...We experienced the good type of entertainment plenty of times, so we know they can do better, but first timers I think where really asking questions if this was it or not.

 

On the note of the diamond and above members, there where soooo many onboard this cruise that the diamond lounge was to small, they closed off a part of the Olive or Twist bar around 5pm for the people in the diamond and above tier…A lot of people were shocked they had to leave there seat in the bar for other, understandable.

 

Also, the ship turned into a ghost ship after 10pm, seams we had a lot of early sleepers this cruise…Party’s did continue in the night club, but there too, they shut the place down at 2am even when packed with people!? I felt like being 16 again in some town hall high school party where there was a town curfew that switched on the lights automatically at 2am…They did the same thing, lights on and bar grills closed…This is the first time on all 6 RCI cruises we experienced this.

 

Dancing under the stars was on life support, but the Absolute 20 party afterwards in the solarium was great fun

 

And (the last one) my complaint every single time, those Rambo rent a cop security personal…Pfffff, I really dislike this policy on Royal Caribbean, it really makes me feel like stepping on a prisoner ship every single time…We were next to a HAL on day at port, those people were not strip searched when they reborded the ship.

 

For the rest we really don’t have a lot to say…It was a great cruise, lots of great bar staff that went out of there way.

 

We met some great people again, mainly thanks to this site

 

As for excursions, except for in Sint Maarten we booked them all via Royal, feel free to ask more info if you want.

 

In Sint Maarten, we went back to Orient Beach, just grabbed a taxi and relaxed at the beach (both sides but we do prefer one side above the other)

 

In Saint Kitts, we did the 4x4 rain forest and beach end tour, this was wonderful, I’ve been to a lot of places in my life, but never to a rain forest, we absolutely loved it, pictures later, the hotel where they drop you off at the end was a little disappointing, not really a nice beach.

 

In San Juan, we visited the Bacardi museum, it was nice to have been there, but I would not really recommend it…On the tour itself you are not allowed to take pictures everywhere.

 

At Labadee, we did the snorkel safari, nice to do, gives you the opportunity to take some great pictures, get an underwater camera when you do this.

 

On all the tours we got complementary rum punches, be sure you have a decent breakfast or you will regret it, it hits your stomach hard those home brew things ;).

 

We did the Fort Lauderdale by bus and water airport drop off to end the cruise, this was also nice to see, Fort Lauderdale has some interesting housing projects LOL

 

Pictures to follow, thanks for reading!

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