Our impressions of Indy, from first time RCI cruisers

[kctwinmommy]

So I kept notes on my phone while we were on our 8-night RCI cruise on the Indy. We left from Southampton, cruised to Oslo, Bruges, Hamburg, and Le Havre. It was my husband, myself, and our 13 year old son in room 8536. We've been on several cruises, mostly Carnival. So cruising in general is nothing new to us. We're not necessarily loyal to Carnival, it's just been the cruises we've mostly chosen because we cruise with friends. So yes, we're used to them, and there are things we like about them, but we found things we liked about RCI as well. As always, this is subjective, just our opinion, and for our cruise. :)

 

RCI Pros -

* We had great interaction with several crew members, we did trivia several times, had some good laughs, etc.. (James, Jarrod)

* Our son loved having the flowrider and the rock climbing wall

* We enjoyed the speed of service in the MDR. We had YTD dining and had made 6:15 reservations for every night we'd be at sea. We happened to still be back on the ship to eat on board as well when we were in port. We liked that you could reserve your same table for every night as well, so we had Natalia & Yanyan every night except once - they were great!! But I felt that we weren't rushed, or that the waitstaff wasn't overworked either. It was paced just right.

* Good room service

* The room layout was a little nicer, because there's actual space between the bed and the balcony doors. Enough that we could move the small coffee table over there, instead of the middle of the room.

* I liked that the hair dryer wasn't bolted down inside the drawer

* I liked how the vanity mirror in the bathroom had one side that opened, with shelves inside. As well as small cabinets on each side of the desk mirror with shelves too. Nice for storing sunglasses, batteries, etc...

* I really liked that there wasn't any receipt signing when getting sodas. I ended up getting the soda package, since 1 soda was $3+!! :o That is a rip off, IMO, but I figured at the $10/day price, I would drink at least 3, which I did. They even seemed to think our son had it too, so a couple of times they brought him sodas at dinner and never charged us.

* It was nice to have the bar right by the Windjammer buffet

* My husband liked the variety of sauces available. Yes, some of those are very British, so it made sense they were offered.

* It was good that there were 2 outlets on the desk in the room. We fried our power cord thing before we left, so it was good to have 2 outlets.

* Embarkation was very smooth and easy. We walked over around 11 a.m. from our hotel, deck 8 was supposed to be on at noon, and we were actually walking on by 11:45.

* The gentlemen working at the front of the Windjammer was always happy & singing, and reminding people to use the hand sanitizer before using the buffet. Unfortunately, we both still got a cold while on board. Luckily, not too bad, or too long.

 

RCI Cons -

* It's nice that Carnival has bathrobes in the room without asking. And while I list it as a con, it's partially a pro as well since when we asked for them, our room steward brought us 3, so included one for our teenage son.

* No movie channel/limited channels. I know, we should be out on the ship doing things. But our port days were very long, so our sea days were needed to recover. And we're not really drinkers, we don't go to the bars/clubs, so late at night, we like to just watch some TV. Carnival has a movie channel (1 regular, 1 kids movie) that runs a new 2 hour movie for 24 hours, changing every night at midnight.

* Several shows we wanted to watch were in Spanish

*Not a fan of the nickle & dime concept. We actually spoke with our cruisers who also aren't a fan of this. Paying for Johnny Rockets, the ice cream shop, the cupcake thing, etc... We didn't do any of the specialty dining for this reason either, although I recognize that all the lines charge for that experience. We live in a city with a large amount of steakhouses, so not something I want to pay for on a cruise.

* Did NOT like the bunk bed/pull down bed being above our bed! Our son climbed up there the first night and said "no way!" It makes too much noise and is somewhat a claustrophobic feeling. And then I hit my head on it the first night. He ended up being way more comfortable on the sofa.

* We felt that the cleaning carts were always in the hallways, the vacuum cleaners, etc... And yet it didn't appear as though our floor was every vacuumed. I also recognize that the ship is due for drydock - it needs it. It has a definite old appearance in many ways.

* The elevators were very slow and odd! They would skip floors. I heard other people complain about it as well.

* The Windjammer always seemed much more crowded and smaller. We often had a hard time finding a seat for just the 2 of us.

* Miss the self serve ice cream. I know they have the one machine, but I don't like cones, so it would be nice to have the dishes at least.

* The muster drill felt much more disorganized and long. They had a lot of people crammed into the one lounge and there was a guy hand writing room numbers on a little scrap of paper. I did like our last cruise on the Magic where they scanned everyone's card upon entering the theater.

* Left dirty plates in the hallways.

 

I'll have some other things that I'll put into my full review about the cruise itself. These were just all the pros & cons I had on my list. I thought it might be helpful for those who haven't been on one, but the other, of these lines. We did enjoy our cruise, we had a mostly good time. The ship is in definite need of a scrub down and sprucing up. I didn't feel that we saw that many people out and about cleaning, I felt I saw more on the Carnival ships we were on. But, we also didn't spend as much time on the decks like we do on a Caribbean.

[BillOh]

Good reading, thanks.

[Biker19]

We fried our power cord thing before we left, so it was good to have 2 outlets.

Good thing it happened there and not on the ship.:eek:

[kctwinmommy]

Good thing it happened there and not on the ship.:eek:

 

Yes, but we had 6 more days in the UK afterwards, so we really could have used it. Thankfully, our hotel in London had a great adapter we borrowed, with more than 1 port in it.