Independence of the Seas 3/28-4/5

[iahawkfan21]

Hello all,

 

My wife and I just returned yesterday morning from an 8 night Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Indy. Loved the ship and had a great time. I'm working on getting a full review typed up while trying to simultaneously watch the NCAA final but I will try and have it up tonight. Also in the process of scanning in cruise compasses and photos.

 

In the meantime, if anyone has any questions, ask away and I'll try to answer as best I can. Will have more shortly!

 

 

Cody

[pam_1024]

Looking forward to your review and pictures. I have been on Freedom twice and love that class. Will be on Indy for the first time this Dec. Can't wait!

[shipshape sam]

looking forward to review and photos. We sailed Indy Dec'13.

[disneynan]

Just booked with Independence for spring 2016. Will be our first cruise with RCCL and our first one with the kids. Would love to read a trip report. Am especially interested in dining details and any info you may have about the teen clubs.

[iahawkfan21]

Just booked with Independence for spring 2016. Will be our first cruise with RCCL and our first one with the kids. Would love to read a trip report. Am especially interested in dining details and any info you may have about the teen clubs.

 

Unfortunately, it was just my wife and I, so I don't really have any info on the teen clubs. I do know that we had a heavy amount of kids and especially teenagers (someone said at least 1/4 of the ship, closer to 1/3) and most seemed entertained throughout the ship.

[disneynan]

Thanks.

[iahawkfan21]

Thanks everyone for reading, and as I said before, if you have questions please feel free to ask and I’ll answer as best I can. I would love to say there will be a “flow” to this review, but that’s not me. I’ll try to keep it somewhat composed and attempt to add in some photos if I can get them uploaded ok.

 

Background: My wife and I are both in our early 30s. I have cruised several times, mostly with Royal over the years, and just got my wife hooked a couple years ago. We are both Gold members with RCCL. We booked this cruise roughly two weeks out as we were having withdraw symptoms from our cruise on Freedom in November. Thankfully we live just south of Port Canaveral and about 2 ½ hrs north of Fort Lauderdale so we’re blessed with the ability to have easy travel.

 

Pre-Cruise: I had some Marriott rewards points building up, so rather than make the short drive the morning of, we decided to drive down the night before. We stayed at the Springhill Suites near the airport and cruise port. Great location, as it was right off I-95 and near plenty of food options. The hotel was very clean, had free breakfast, and free wi-fi so we were pleased. I really like Springhill Suites and try to stay in them where I can. We definitely would stay here again. We originally had parking reservations at Park N Go, but upon checking in, I found out they would let me leave my car there for $5 per day. They also offered a free shuttle to the port through KSA, and return trip was $10pp. Ended up being cheaper, so we cancelled with Park N Go.

We headed down the road to Miller’s Ale House for dinner. I like Miller’s as their food and drink prices are pretty good. Grilled chicken entrée, Fish N Chips, and a beer came to roughly $30 with tax and tip. Afterwards we headed down the street and did some shopping at Kohls, Ross, and a few other places as the Mrs wanted to pick up a few things for the house. Drove back to the hotel, and spent the rest of the night watching the NCAA tournament.

 

Embarkation Day: Woke up around 8 and headed downstairs for breakfast. Lots of cruisers, so the hotel was full but there was plenty of selections in the breakfast area. Afterwards, my wife forgot she had a $10 voucher for Kohls that had to be used that day and she forgot to use it last night, so back down the road to use it, and back around 11. Headed downstairs around 1145 and checked in for our shuttle. We were loaded onto the shuttle and departed just a little after noon. Got to the port around 1215, left our bags with a porter and jumped in line. One suggestion to others is to print all your documents out ahead of time and make several copies including luggage tags. We pre-tagged our bags and were off quickly, but we saw other families that had a dozen bags and no tags wait around for a significant amount of time. Anyways, the line looked manageable and we began the wait. The line quickly got extremely long behind us, and didn’t really seem to be moving too fast. Eventually they allowed a good bit of us to enter through the Suite/Elite line, and so we proceeded to the seating area there. Waited another 30 minutes or so and then went inside, jumped in the Gold line and got squared away in roughly 10 minutes. All told, from arriving to getting on board, it took us from 1215 until just after 2pm. Longest I’ve ever taken, but hey, we’re going on a cruise so I’ll live with it!

Past experience has shown us that the Windjammer is a hot mess on the first day, so we went to Café Promenade and just snacked on some stuff there. I also headed to the Champagne bar and got my first drink of many. Note- I got the Ultimate Package, my wife got no packages and they worked out just fine for us. I’ll cover that more later on. After eating, we headed to our room and dropped off bags. All our luggage managed to show up by 330pm which was a pleasant surprise. We hung out in the room for a bit, and then went to walk around the ship. We were on Freedom a few months ago, so knew the layout and that helped. Took a few photos, and headed to Muster Drill. Same old, same old drill. Went to Deck 12 forward to watch sail-away with a drink. Got changed and headed down to dinner. We had My-Time dining on Deck 5, but made a 6pm reservation for each night. There must have been something with being the first night, but service wasn’t the best. However, the food was good as always and didn’t detract from our experience. After that, we just asked to be moved and were accommodated going forward. Skipped the welcome aboard show and just walked around the ship, listened to music in a few places, got some drinks and went to bed around 11.

 

 

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[iahawkfan21]

I'm having some troubles with photo uploads and such so I'm just going to post the link to my Flickr album here:

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/132388709@N02/

 

I'm also going to try and post the Cruise Compasses for the whole trip before I continue. The basketball game is unfortunately taking most of my attention right now. :)

[C-Hill]

It's a great game, take your time with the review!

 

We're on the Independence in August so I'll wait with bated breath. Let's hope the game doesn't go to OT!

[bradleyk]

Watching the game also...

We are thinking of booking the Ben & Jerry's "Sweet" for a 4 day Independence sailing in April of 2016

[JuliaMS]

We were also on that cruise. We checked in early because our flight booked thru the cruise line arrived at 5:45 am. The computers were down and they had to do everything by hand. We were on board by 11:30. But, I heard many people talking about 3+ hour waits to check-in the during peak periods. Then even though I had put a credit card on my account when I did the online check-in and confirmed it on port check in I still got a notice onboard that I was on a cash account. When I went to guest services they said it was because we checked in when the computers were down.

[mickev99]

Just booked with Independence for spring 2016. Will be our first cruise with RCCL and our first one with the kids. Would love to read a trip report. Am especially interested in dining details and any info you may have about the teen clubs.

 

I am doing a 7 day Eastern on Indy at the end of July. I have 3 girls, ages 10, 10, and 12, plus my nephew is 13 and my niece is 17 and will all be with us. I will be posting compasses and kids/teen stuff when I get back if that will help!

[iahawkfan21]

Here is the link to the cruise compasses on google drive. For some reason, I'm having trouble getting stuff uploaded directly so this should work. It's late, so I'll have to finish up the rest of the review tomorrow.

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bx-jZ1zoQSYoflVFbHlHQnV4alhvYzdTcmo4YjhVcHpUaTRhcEdjVmNKQmVVdVcyeWFhcEE&authuser=0

[Peeker28]

Excited for your review. Just booked Indy for March 2016

[perfect match]

We will be boarding the Indy ourselves in just a few short weeks! I am excited to read your review. Already checked out your pictures on Flicker. Thanks for sharing them!

 

We understand about March Madness. We are a bit obsessed ourselves. :D

[kovhanperl]

I have been on Freedom twice and love that class.

[mickev99]

Here is the link to the cruise compasses on google drive. For some reason, I'm having trouble getting stuff uploaded directly so this should work. It's late, so I'll have to finish up the rest of the review tomorrow.

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bx-jZ1zoQSYoflVFbHlHQnV4alhvYzdTcmo4YjhVcHpUaTRhcEdjVmNKQmVVdVcyeWFhcEE&authuser=0

 

 

This link says I need permission? Anyone else? I rarely use my google email account, I just set it up when I switched internet providers, but then went back to my internet provider's one, maybe that's the issue? Can anyone help? Thanks!!

[iahawkfan21]

This link says I need permission? Anyone else? I rarely use my google email account, I just set it up when I switched internet providers, but then went back to my internet provider's one, maybe that's the issue? Can anyone help? Thanks!!

 

 

Sorry, that was my error. When I loaded the album, I forgot to change the permission settings. Hopefully it should be fixed now. Home from work, hope to get a little more of the review done tonight.

[tallnthensome]

We will be boarding the Indy ourselves in just a few short weeks! I am excited to read your review. Already checked out your pictures on Flicker. Thanks for sharing them!

 

We understand about March Madness. We are a bit obsessed ourselves. :D

My DW and I will be on there as well. I have two young girls and wanted to wait a couple weeks after spring break in hopes of a quieter ship with less kids .... even though I have mine! LOL! :) Thanks for the review hawkfan. Edited April 7, 2015 by tallnthensome

[nseit1974]

Just wondering what the entertainment was on the ship? We board on April 25th.

[mickev99]

Sorry, that was my error. When I loaded the album, I forgot to change the permission settings. Hopefully it should be fixed now. Home from work, hope to get a little more of the review done tonight.

 

Thanks, it works now! I just assumed it was my gmail since I rarely use it! Appreciate you doing it!

[iahawkfan21]

Just wondering what the entertainment was on the ship? We board on April 25th.

 

We didn't go to all the shows but from my recollection there were:

 

Ice Show (2 shows a day on 2 separate days, total of 4.)

Ventriloquist (special guy they brought on board)

Under the big top

Invitation to dance

Welcome aboard comedian

Late night comedian

Once upon a time (skipped as we've seen before)

Farewell show (didn't attend)

[disneynan]

I am doing a 7 day Eastern on Indy at the end of July. I have 3 girls, ages 10, 10, and 12, plus my nephew is 13 and my niece is 17 and will all be with us. I will be posting compasses and kids/teen stuff when I get back if that will help!

That would be fantastic - thanks! My children will be 15 and 17 when we cruise.

[stlipp]

We are going on the Indy May 3 and plan on getting a drink package, What did you think of the drink package? I keep reading that the bar service has went down hill and there are long lines at the bars for drinks and there is less waiters. I am curious what you noticed. :) Thanks!

[iahawkfan21]

We are going on the Indy May 3 and plan on getting a drink package, What did you think of the drink package? I keep reading that the bar service has went down hill and there are long lines at the bars for drinks and there is less waiters. I am curious what you noticed. :) Thanks!

 

I actually didn't encounter any issues at all really. I will get drinks from different bars, but typically try to stick to a couple. The folks there get to know you and service is always pretty good. My two main places were the On-Air bar on deck 3 (Patricia makes a mean Mojito!) and the Champagne Bar on deck 5. Champagne Bar was my main stop, and all three guys there (Joseph, Ivan, and Sidney) were awesome! They were also right outside our dining room (MTD on deck 5) so I would stop there right before dinner and get my wine it was convenient to our room as well. Even when they were busy, service was still pretty quick and they were great to talk to.

 

Pool & Solarium bars got busy once in awhile, but not too bad. Didn't see tons of folks walking around taking orders, but that was no big deal for me. I didn't completely use the whole value of the package every day, but it worked for me.