(Slightly less so) Cheapo dad's trip report on Independence of the Seas

[cruisemeister8]

Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus...

 

 

Costumed Santa, eh? You'd think that with all the retired senior gentlemen who love to cruise, the powers that be could find one of y'all with a white beard and comp you a room to play the part. Surely all those holiday premiums that Harry pays can cover it. ;) I hear tell that mall Santas make bank during the season. Can you imagine the perks for a real-bearded cruise Santa? :D Heck, let the guy ride free for the whole month! It would really up the WOW factor onboard!

 

Guys, if you want to apply, just email Miami and they'll get back to you right after they're done granting all the dining requests.

[harryfat1]

Costumed Santa, eh? You'd think that with all the retired senior gentlemen who love to cruise, the powers that be could find one of y'all with a white beard and comp you a room to play the part. Surely all those holiday premiums that Harry pays can cover it. ;) I hear tell that mall Santas make bank during the season. Can you imagine the perks for a real-bearded cruise Santa? :D Heck, let the guy ride free for the whole month! It would really up the WOW factor onboard!

 

Guys, if you want to apply, just email Miami and they'll get back to you right after they're done granting all the dining requests.

 

Oh, yeah, email Miami. By the time them and the ship have things all sorted out, they will have Santa performing the July 4 week...

[JamesEM]

Harry: Keep up the good work, really enjoying following along and hope you get better soon, you probably picked up the crud on your flight back home. Moving along, wife is a Gemini and the horoscope was spot on, unbelievable accurate. As for the WJ, that is my preferred place to eat, no wasted time (you are only on the the ship X hours, why waste them in the MDR waiting for your food), I like to graze, and I don't mind serving myself. Jim,

[Citymom92]

Oh my gosh! I just realized that I read your Freedom report a while ago, and immediately copied the basics from your Cruise Schedule Excel sheet to create my own schedule for our cruise on Grandeur this week! I LOVE it. I am extreme Type A too, and one of those people who happily read cruise reports for cruises that I am not currently scheduled to do and that Freedom report was a total revelation! It's already been said here I'm sure, but your reports are terrific, really the best on Cruise Critic. I love all the data, tracking and I can still see that you're having FUN. I'm not quite as handy with the numbers, but I'm a data nerd and love your info. And of course, it goes without saying that the photos are the icing on the cake. I'd read your reviews even without photos!

 

Also thank you so much for the emailed response for the cruise TA suggestion. I really appreciate it so much!

[Reader0108598]

At slightly after 2 PM, they made the announcement that the cabins were cleaned ahead of schedule and we can all have access now. Cool.

 

My default cabin type for Voyager and Freedom class is the Promenade view cabin. We just love them. Another thing I disagree with many of the folks at CC (come to think of it, what do I typically agree with the majority of the people on the boards?) Whatever. I digress. But for this cruise, I opted for the ocean view – which is my default for all other cruise ships as they don’t have PR cabins.

 

When I was booking the cabins, I saw the special deal the TA web site had for the oceanview cabins. Think they got some sort of “group discount deal” or whatever you call it. Being cheap and already feeling the pain of holiday cruise premium, I went for the OV cabins instead of PR cabins to save $360 total.

 

Cheapo dad needs to make up for the premium paid for the holiday cruise. On paper that sounds like value deal as you don't always see an oceanview cheaper than basic inside.

 

 

Another advantage of Royal Promenade cabin is you can see who is walking down below on deck 5. Such that if you meet some really obnoxious person from your roll call at Meet and Mingle (like yours truly that you want to punch but can't), if you have the RP cabins and sees them shopping below, you can just take your pants off and moon them from your cabin above by plastering your butt next to the cold window to show how you feel about them. Can’t do that in the regular inside cabin…

 

 

LOL you are two funny!!!! :)

[griffy116]

So as with all my previous trip reports, you folks get to see what I see daily for all the meals. Don’t you feel privileged? Just say yes as to humor me…

 

 

 

 

I like buffets in that it has a little of everything and that’s how I eat. I’m not the one type of food guy so I won’t eat downstairs at café promenade or Sorrento’s for lunch. I would go there for snacks but not lunch. For whatever reason, many people on CC have disdain for windjammer as I don’t see too many people say they like to eat there.

 

Anyway, I like it. No accounting for taste, even for CPAs. I like what I like, no need to apologize for it. I just wish more trip reports have positive attitudes about WJ. I know I will always champion for it as it’s not extra charge and had lots of variety.

 

For what it's worth, you have another WJ fan here. It's a tradition with us. The cruise doesn't begin until we have fought for a table in the WJ. I like being able to eat a variety. Once when my Grandson was a teen and had a friend sailing with us, I suggested they might prefer to go get pizza at Sorrentos for lunch and my daughter looked at me like I had just killed a kitten. I like to make my own salad and get a sample of several of the dishes so for me, I prefer the Windjammer.

[bobmacliberty]

Maybe other trip report writers more anal than me (don’t laugh, they do exist) can time how long their muster drills were and start to compile a master list for Bob the engineer to plop them in his magical graph of how long each ship’s muster drill is from the beginning of the horn blast to being dismissed. For example, Freedom might be 17 minutes and 25 seconds but Navigator is 16 minutes and 39 seconds and Harmony is 18 minutes and 3 second and so on to do a ranking to see how efficiently each ship runs its muster drill.

 

This info is a must read info on CC, no? Bob is eagerly waiting for the results every Friday afternoon...

Very interesting idea. I could start a thread titled, "All things Muster Drills". People could send me their Muster Drill times and I could keep an updated table. Nah...that sounds like too much work.

[bobmacliberty]

You, sir, have won the Message Board. Very well done. My SWAG "50% more" estimate for 9-night Indy vs 6-night Freedom wasn't too off-base.

Thanks. My wife however had a completely different opinion when she looked at my spreadsheet.

 

Doing my best Harry to get you to 2044!

[harryfat1]

Harry: Keep up the good work, really enjoying following along and hope you get better soon, you probably picked up the crud on your flight back home. Moving along, wife is a Gemini and the horoscope was spot on, unbelievable accurate. As for the WJ, that is my preferred place to eat, no wasted time (you are only on the the ship X hours, why waste them in the MDR waiting for your food), I like to graze, and I don't mind serving myself. Jim,

 

Yeah, I remember you telling me in the last Freedom cruise that you are a big WJ fan as we ate dinner there one night after coming back from the ruins late and missed lunch. Maybe we were too hungry that night but I thought WJ had really nice food.

 

The food seems better at dinner than lunch, right? At least at night, they have ice cream and crepes for dessert.

 

Next cruise, I plan to go to WJ at 6 PM to grab a bite of "appetizers" before the main dinner at 8 PM just to check out the food there for dinner. Something new to do to add to the next installment.

 

Harry

[harryfat1]

Oh my gosh! I just realized that I read your Freedom report a while ago, and immediately copied the basics from your Cruise Schedule Excel sheet to create my own schedule for our cruise on Grandeur this week! I LOVE it. I am extreme Type A too, and one of those people who happily read cruise reports for cruises that I am not currently scheduled to do and that Freedom report was a total revelation! It's already been said here I'm sure, but your reports are terrific, really the best on Cruise Critic. I love all the data, tracking and I can still see that you're having FUN. I'm not quite as handy with the numbers, but I'm a data nerd and love your info. And of course, it goes without saying that the photos are the icing on the cake. I'd read your reviews even without photos!

 

Also thank you so much for the emailed response for the cruise TA suggestion. I really appreciate it so much!

 

 

Oh, thank you very much for the high praise. I certainly don’t deserve it.

 

There are many great trip report writers out there. Others have better pictures while others have better literary references, the only thing my trip report stands out is that is overly long and have tons of low brow butt jokes.

 

I don’t think I can read my own trip report without photos. That is like reading tax code on how to do something. That sounds like work. Nah…

 

Glad the TA info in email is helpful. That's really the point of this vacation forum - to help others' vacation be 0.02% better. Not the petty arguments you see at other posts.

 

Have a great upcoming cruise this week. What you doing reading this TR? You should be packing and looking at the ports and excursions...

[harryfat1]

LOL you are two funny!!!! :)

 

That’s the sophisticated humor I aim for in my TR.

 

It will come as no surprises that one of my favorite comedy series in life is Benny Hill. Three stooges would be a close second. So that tells you what my maturity level is…

 

As my trip report writing level decreases, I have to increase the cheap butt level humor to compensate. So Bob the engineer can have a new target to track – how many butt jokes I toss in per 100 postings. We will call it the BRPP (Butt Reference Per 100 Posts) indicator. In theory the higher that level is, the lower the quality of actual report writing as these 2 should be inversely proportional.

[harryfat1]

Very interesting idea. I could start a thread titled, "All things Muster Drills". People could send me their Muster Drill times and I could keep an updated table. Nah...that sounds like too much work.

 

Thanks. My wife however had a completely different opinion when she looked at my spreadsheet.

 

Doing my best Harry to get you to 2044!

 

Yeah, that’s probably something the ship is tracking for HQ as part of the safety director in Miami is monitoring. So sounds too much like work.

 

How about tracking the BRPP instead (see above)?

 

Oh, no need to sweat the 2,044 mark. Heck, if I really want to drag this sucker out, I will just post 1 picture per post instead of cramming 6 into 1 post. If I do that, we could be looking at 5,000 posts?!;p

 

Think all the viewers will be pretty upset when they have to click "next page" when viewing it with 1 photo per page...

[sissyfromcab]

I had always thought the Indy & Freedom uses terminal 29 but someone from our roll call found in the Port Everglades web site few days before sailing that we were using the bigger terminal 18 reserved for the Oasis class ships. Woo hoo. I like terminal 18 more compared to 29 as it’s bigger and has nicer seating area. But I knew when we came back, it would be at terminal 29 as we came back on a Saturday and terminal 18 reverts back to the Oasis class ship.

 

I never did find out what happened to passengers that parked their cars at terminal 18 to embark the ship, how do they get back their when they stepped off the ship the following week at 29? I assume there would be a bus shuttle to move people over?

 

It is always exciting to see “your ship” in person the first time. After unloading the van, we gave the luggage to the porters (make sure to tip them).

 

 

We were on this cruise with you and parked at the port. The parking garage we used was in between the two terminals, so there was a (free) shuttle bus provided by the port. It was a less than 5 minute drive, but I wouldn't have wanted to walk it!

[harryfat1]

We were on this cruise with you and parked at the port. The parking garage we used was in between the two terminals, so there was a (free) shuttle bus provided by the port. It was a less than 5 minute drive, but I wouldn't have wanted to walk it!

 

Thanks for the update.

 

I knew there was one woman that was trying to get her bearings at the terminal when we walked out of customs as the area didn't look familiar to her since we boarded the ship on terminal 18. I can imagine some first timers would be confused if they had to park the car and boarded at 18 and got off at 29.

[harryfat1]

Now that the shops are opened, it was time to make a first visit to the shops. For those that have read my previous installments, you will know that I associate shopping with visiting uncle in prison. This all started when I read trip report after trip report from people here at CC but very few people talk about taking pictures with the ship board photographers or shopping.

 

Having cruised previously, I now those are integral part of the cruise experience. But guess they are not as “cool” events to discuss as the specialty dining or the all access tours. It’s like having a crazy aunt locked in the basement or uncle in prison in the tainted family tree but everyone knows exists but no one never talked about at the family gatherings. But I have no such issues. So whenever I shop, I will say it’s visiting uncle in prison and when I talk about ship board photography, it’s visiting the crazy aunt locked in the basement.

 

For those that are into shopping, do note that the Indy gift shop is technically not owned by Royal. We talked to the gal working there and she told us that. Which explains the merchandises they have on the Indy is almost promoting the ship’s name and much less Royal.

 

Especially disappointing since we have been collecting ship shaped Christmas ornaments from previous cruises with the thought of starting our own fleet but Indy doesn’t have that. Only a big round ornament for 9 dollars. The promotion they have is if you buy more than $40 at the gift shop on logo stuff, you get the free ornament. So be sure to group your purchases. But also be sure to buy before last day as we got the free ornament on the first round of purchase earlier on the cruise but by last day, they already gave away all the ornaments.

 

As I have no more pictures time stamped for the 21st, I will assume we went back to cabin and slept. Old man memory isn’t what it used to be. Now if it’s not on a picture, I don’t remember doing it. Sigh. Part of being old.

 

(This concludes day 1 of the trip report)

[BillOh]

That’s the sophisticated humor I aim for in my TR.

 

It will come as no surprises that one of my favorite comedy series in life is Benny Hill. Three stooges would be a close second. So that tells you what my maturity level is….

 

 

Too bad you can't embed sound files in reviews. So for now, I just plant bad grammer and misspelled words for people to find.

[Biker19]

Think all the viewers will be pretty upset when they have to click "next page" when viewing it with 1 photo per page...

and some, whose pet peeve is folks who quote a very lengthy post with lots of pictures, would appreciate it.

[suesnake2002]

and some, whose pet peeve is folks who quote a very lengthy post with lots of pictures, would appreciate it.

This is why i love taptalk(learned this on cc), just one long page that hoes on forever

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

[dani negreanu]

and some, whose pet peeve is folks who quote a very lengthy post with lots of pictures, would appreciate it.

^ + 1

[Clarea]

^ + 1

+ 1000!

[CTCruiser76]

+ 1000!

+1001

[cloud7cruise]

So for the first night, since I haven’t cruised in over a year, I opted for the more traditional cruise dishes. Escargot/French onion soup/Steak Diane. The other food pictures are what my son ate.

 

 

 

 

 

Your French Onion Soup likes a heck of a lot better than the one that I got on the Freedom last year. That one was basically onion soup with a piece of bread with a little bit melted cheese thrown on top of it. It was not oven baked. I was also trying to stick to the proven choice which didn't work out. The fact that I remembered it shows you how bad it was.

[harryfat1]

+ 1000!

 

+1001

 

Haha, you guys are too funny.

 

So do I hear 1002? or 1003?

 

Maybe we can do a New Year's count UP instead? So if everyone chimes in and add one to the count and get the post count up as well, we will get to the magical post count of 2,044 without me writing another word or post another picture!

 

This would literally be the trip report that writes itself...

[Jarmo]

+1004

[harryfat1]

Your French Onion Soup likes a heck of a lot better than the one that I got on the Freedom last year. That one was basically onion soup with a piece of bread with a little bit melted cheese thrown on top of it. It was not oven baked. I was also trying to stick to the proven choice which didn't work out. The fact that I remembered it shows you how bad it was.

 

Yeah, I was surprised by this presentation versus what I had seen before. I wanted to say I had it on the Freedom as well but I can't seem to find that picture. I might have seen the similar presentation on the Allure. Now I need to spend time looking for it.

 

I like French onion soup. It's different with the cheese and the bread inside. Gives a different texture feel compared to the other soups but the salt content is a tad too much for me on a nightly basis so I only had it once, I believe.

 

I see you were very good at trimming your response with only the pertinent picture and not add in other extra food pictures not part of the discussion - not with all the "pet peeve" people now ready to pounce on anyone doing so. Hope that doesn't scare or intimidate others from quoting going forward...