Live - Independence Italian Med (7/13-7/27) - European Vacation

[h20skibum]

Follow along with me, on this, our first trip across the pond.  For the next two weeks, plus, we are getting our first exposure to England, Spain, France, and Italy. 

 

It it is a good sign when you look out your window, and see your ship waiting for you. 

 

 

[grapau27]

19 minutes ago, h20skibum said:

Follow along with me, on this, our first trip across the pond.  For the next two weeks, plus, we are getting our first exposure to England, Spain, France, and Italy. 

 

It it is a good sign when you look out your window, and see your ship waiting for you. 

 

 

Following,looks like a nice day in Southampton.

They were handing out free champagne outside cafe promenade on our cruise in May.

Hope you have a brilliant cruise.

Edited July 13, 2019 by grapau27

[JamesEM]

Have a great cruise, following along.

[kernow]

Great to see a live review from Indy, I'll be following.

 

Are you at the Holiday Inn?

[sgmn]

Interested, hoping to book this cruise in September. The weather is lovely right now so hope it stays that way. Southampton is so convenient for parking, right outside the ship as your photo shows 

[Clarea]

3 hours ago, h20skibum said:

Follow along with me, on this, our first trip across the pond.  For the next two weeks, plus, we are getting our first exposure to England, Spain, France, and Italy.

...

 

 

Looking forward to this!

[h20skibum]

3 hours ago, grapau27 said:

 

Hope you have a brilliant cruise.

 

We hope we do.  No free drinks today.  We just boarded. 

 

3 hours ago, JamesEM said:

Have a great cruise, following along.

 

We hope to have one.  Thanks for following. 

 

2 hours ago, kernow said:

Great to see a live review from Indy, I'll be following.

 

Are you at the Holiday Inn?

 

Yes, we are at the Holiday Inn. Very convenient to the port 

2 hours ago, sgmn said:

Southampton is so convenient for parking, right outside the ship as your photo shows 

We enjoyed exploring Southampton.  Now it is time for the cruise to start. 

[h20skibum]

2 minutes ago, Host Clarea said:

 

Looking forward to this!

Glad to see you following along, Bob

[h20skibum]

So since we are sailing on the Independence, how about a little Independence Day fireworks. This video is one I took on June 30th, in a little town in Western Pennsylvania. 

 

The grand finale was sponsored by a company with a Royal Caribbean connection.  Can anyone guess what it is?

 

 

[jimbri]

Enjoy!

[h20skibum]

I can’t believe no one has ventured a guess on what the connection is between a company in a little town in western Pennsylvania, and Royal Caribbean.  I won’t give up the answer too soon, but I may hide the answer in one of the photos during the cruise. 

 

So so now is a good time to show where we are headed on the cruise. 

 

 

And our schedule. 

 

 

With a couple of sea days to begin, I will have time to catch up on our trip here, plus some of our planning.  

[zooma]

No clue what the mysterious connection is, but I see you're from the Fireworks Capital of America! (Have family in the area.) Read the festival was "saved" this year through local efforts and Zambellis probably did the show, but ... connection?

 

Have a great cruise! Will be following along.

[minnie00]

following

[little britain]

Beautiful day for a sail away!

 

Will be interested in your take on sailing with so many Brits!  Good luck ! 

[Cobbie48]

Did you walk from the Holiday Inn to the ship?  Staying early October.  

[little britain]

2 hours ago, Cobbie48 said:

Did you walk from the Holiday Inn to the ship?  Staying early October.  

It is right next door... a few hundred yards at most 

[Cobbie48]

17 minutes ago, little britain said:

It is right next door... a few hundred yards at most 

Perfect, thanks.

[LuCruise]

Love Independence.  It's a great "middle ship....not too large, not too small.  And what an amazing itinerary.  Looking forward to following along.

[Mandycakes88]

So excited to tag along 

[h20skibum]

Thanks, everyone. So on with the review. 

 

We booked this cruise when we were onboard the Allure in March, 2018, so about 16 months before.  I kept tracking prices, and they never went lower for our cabin category. I started then tracking flights from both Pittsburgh and San Francisco, because we were not sure where we would be in July   

 

Tracking as if we were going in 2018 gave me an idea of flight costs four months out, then I started tracking again for our actual dates. 

 

We knew, early on, that we would fly from San Francisco, so we ended up booking direct flights from there on Virgin Atlantic. Flight costs did go a little lower at about 3.5 months before the cruise, but then went back up. 

 

 

[h20skibum]

We were staying in the North Bay Area of San Francisco, so we travelled by bus to the airport, and our hour ride takes us across the Golden Gate Bridge.  

 

It is usually foggy, and this trip was no different. I did a short broadcast on Periscope, and here is a link.  I am doing a few from the ship, so if you want to see them, just search for @H20skibum on Periscope

 

https://www.pscp.tv/w/b_q8JzEzNzU1Mzc5fDFCUktqdnZnbmpqS3cuS1Q8CHNdEBVxf3-OM1ryf_qfMP2eBGOhxWFpM9Xj3g==?t=1s

 

Our flight on Thursday got us in to Heathrow about a half hour early. 

 

 

I prebooked our transfer from Heathrow to Southampton on National Express. They have busses running every two hours. 

 

The Southampton bus terminal is only a 15 minute walk to the Holiday Inn, which was our hotel. 

 

 

Then, it was off to explore Southampton. 

[h20skibum]

While exploring Southampton, we came across this restaurant. 

 

 

I am not sure about here, but in the States, we try to avoid slugs in our lettuce. 😂

 

But seriously, Southampton is a beautiful port city. I was surprised how few people there were on the streets.  Maybe that is because they were all at the pubs. 

 

 

Just past the Dancing Man (I hope that is right), we found the Platform Tavern. 

 

 

For those who know Jack (Sometimes Susan says I don’t know jack), this is supposedly where he secured passage on the Titanic, in the movie. 

[h20skibum]

A few more photos from around Southampton

 

Mayflower memorial 

 

 

Medieval Merchant house

 

 

The Duke of Wellington 

 

 

The Arcades

 

 

 

 

[kernow]

Glad you liked Southampton. 

 

Slug and Lettuce is a national chain, they do some great cocktails!

 

Enjoying the review so far.

[Crazy planning mom]

Following