Italian Med on the fabulous Independence Of The Seas!

[dleafy]

The wife and I have just got off the Independence of the seas following our two week Italian Med cruise and I thought I’d pass on a few comments.

Normally, when I start these things they end up sounding a bit negative, , so I’ll just start by saying it was a fantastic cruise and we loved it.

 

We drove down from Newcastle the day before and stayed at the Premier inn West Quay, about 500 yards from the port. The hotel was spot on for what we needed (£45 for one night) and got £5 a day parking in the car park behind. £75 for the 15 days, cheaper than £136 at the port!

 

We got the email that everyone gets about turning up at the port at a certain time. (12.15 for us).

We arrived at 11.30 & sailed through. By all accounts nobody encountered any issues at all..........very smooth!

 

We did the Eastern Caribbean on Indy 3 years ago & so knew all about this fantastic ship. Once on board, we headed to the windjammer for the usual dog fight!

To be fair, the food in the windjammer was excellent throughout the cruise.

 

The food on Indy has been well and truly trashed on here plenty of times, but for the life of me I can’t understand why?

We normally had room service for breakfast & tipped a few $$. We ate lunch in the windjammer and had all our evening meals in the main dining room.

We were My Time Dining & turned up between 6.15pm – 7.00pm most nights. If there was a short wait, we’d go put the lottery on in the casino and have a few games of roulette.

Surprisingly, I didn’t win the lottery, but did win the second chance draw ($20 free slot play & a tee shirt).

Our waiter Fernando & his assistant Gene were brilliant & sang us a few songs.

 

I honestly struggle when I hear that people did not like the food on this ship. We thought it was fantastic. If I ever received anything that was cold or unappetising, I would have sent it back, but everything was perfect!

We did encounter one guy on board who wasn’t overly fussed on the food, but after talking to him for five minutes he seemed the type to twist on 21 so I didn’t give his negative review much credence. He complained that he hadn’t seen a Yorkshire pudding or a roast potato on offer & was quite surprised that I had had both that very evening!

 

We didn’t pay for any of the organised excursions as they seemed extortionate to us.

Gibraltar was a walk off, where we got a couple of bottles of Smirnoff vodka for £6.25 per bottle.

Ajaccio was a beautiful little town which we just wandered around stopping for a coffee and a beer.

Incidentally, we found free Wi-Fi everywhere without problem. Every cafe/bar had it (password protected generally).

We always checked that the Wi-Fi worked prior to buying a coffee though!

 

Rome was absolutely fantastic. The whole place was an open air museum.

Instead of paying the $200 each for the excursion, we walked to the train station at Civitavecchia & got the train to Rome.

The journey took about 55 minutes & cost €12 return. This covered all buses and metros in Rome (excellent value).

We got off at S. Pietro and went to the Vatican, then got the bus to the coliseum, then walked to the Trevi fountain & the Spanish steps.

We got the train back to Livorno from the Central Termini.

A great day out & highly recommended.

Another thing that surprised me about the trip was just how cheap all of the local bars, restaurants & shops were. I expected prices to be high but was more than pleasantly surprised.

 

For us, Pisa was one of the highlights of the trip. The free port shuttle bus dropped us at the centre of Livorno. We then got the No1 bus to the train station. The driver waved us on and wasn’t interested in taking payment for tickets. We then paid €6 return for a train ticket to Pisa. We had been advised to get the bus from the Pisa train station to the leaning tower but read at the last minute that the walk was better. This was excellent advice. The walk was about twenty minutes and passed through one of the most beautiful towns we have ever seen.

Another tip is to go straight to the local Tourist information office in every town for the free map and info. In Pisa, it’s about 200 yards from the train station on the left hand side.

The Tower was out of this world and of course we got the photos holding it up!

 

Toulon was the only port which we didn’t bother getting off for. I checked it out before hand & couldn’t find much to do there (especially after Ajaccio, Rome then Pisa.

When we found out we were docked across the bay & had to pay €18 each for the ferry we decided not to bother.

Most people we spoke to afterwards hadn’t rated it at all and had spent less than an hour there before returning to the ship!.....maybe next time!

 

Cadiz was ok. We had a wander around started to think that a few ports were thrown in to make up the numbers. After Rome & Pisa, which, let’s be honest was why most people chose this cruise, Cadiz was a little tame.

 

Lisbon was a port we had been looking forward to because we had wanted to visit the zoo. This turned out to be a fantastic day too. We thought the zoo was going to be huge but it was actually quite small. This made it very easy to get around everything, including the shows in around 3 hours. Can’t recommend this highly enough!

 

The zoo was a little more of a challenge to get to as I hadn’t done any preparation regarding transport.

The tour guides & taxi drivers at the port were understandably shy about helping us and told us that the nearest metro was about a 45 minute walk away....which it was!

However, what they failed to mention was that there was a train station (Alcantera) about 300 yards from the port gate which took you 2 stops for €1.75 return to the metro interchange. Here we got a €6 return ticket to the zoo. We had to go one stop on the yellow line before changing to the blue line. The zoo was about 7 stops away and across the road from the station.

 

The last port was Vigo. It was very hilly if you didn’t know your way around to avoid them. We had a coffee (they brought cake), then I had a beer (they brought a ham sandwich) and charged for neither. As I said, we found everywhere to be very reasonably priced. Other than having to put our metro ticket in the barrier at Lisbon, we were never asked for tickets anywhere and often rode buses without them. They just didn’t seem interested in selling them?

 

Naturally there were a lot of people on board ship who had bought packaged excursions and most people were happy to admit that they did so out of fear of being left behind. This is understandable for the elderly and those with young children.

However, it is very easy to get around in Europe and I have to say that everyone we encountered for help was happy to do so. As my Mam used to say....”you won’t get lost as long as you’ve got a tongue in your head”.

 

Our cruise director was once again Joff Eaton. Again, I have heard criticism of him on here, but we think he is superb. He is very funny and extremely engaging with the guests. He is switching to Anthem and we probably will too. They appear to be grooming Tim to take over..............Hmmmmm.

 

Finally got to use the gym on board this time and loved it. They have everything you could need.

 

Loved the shows too, especially the comedians. (Except the improv guys.....oh dear!).

 

Spent a few hours in the casino every night at the roulette machine and happy to say we lost less than $50 the entire cruise. Great value for money considering the entertainment we had.

Met some great people on this cruise who helped to make it one of the best cruises we’ve had.

I have to say that after cruising the Caribbean a few times, I was a bit apprehensive about touring Europe, but ended up loving it. The lack of Jet lag helped.

 

There’s loads more I could write but I’m sure everyone gets the gist of things.

 

Cheers

 

Davy !!!

[delirious9876]

So pleased you had a great trip :-)

 

Some of my family were on there with you and had a fabulous time as well.

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the report!

[Paddcomp]

Thanks for the cruise review. Always good to read a positive review.

We're on Explorer OTS Aug 2015 in the Med, so good to hear that you can DIY shore excursions.

 

Thanks

[Alysia]

Thank you for such a positive review of the Independence of the Seas. After reading all the negative ones this one really makes me feel better since we are on the 7/12 cruise.

 

Do you remember who the piano player was in the Schooner bar or the guitar player in the pub?

 

Very happy to hear that you had a great time! Safe travels home.

[dleafy]

Hi,

For the life of me I can't remember the name of either right now.

They were both very talented and had a very faithful following. Both places were always busy.

[rwright261]

Brilliant, thanks for the review.

 

Can't wait it sail Indy in a few weeks.

 

Glad you had a fabulous trip :)

[cat777]

Great to hear some good reviews for the Indy, was starting to worry a little after reading some negative threads, not just on here but other forums. I suppose you can't please everyone but sometimes it seems that people are negative for the smallest of things:(

 

Glad you had a great time

Thanks

Jo:)

[beryl patricia]

Thanks for a great review - less than two weeks before it's our turn !

 

We did Pisa last year and we did the walk too I agree absolutely lovely.

[dleafy]

Thanks for a great review - less than two weeks before it's our turn !

 

We did Pisa last year and we did the walk too I agree absolutely lovely.

 

Pisa is a lovely little place and after a full day in Rome was a great alternative to another full day in Florence..........Maybe next time. :)

[jennywren46]

The piano player in the schooner bar was Simon John and the pub was Phil Bond. I haven't got a good memory just looked it up on the cruise compass for our sailing on may31st. Lol have a great time I'm jealous wish I was back on her .