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Independence Eastern July 19, 2015 Review


mickev99
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Hi everyone! I finally made myself sit down and finish my review of our cruise from over a month ago! We sailed the Independence out of Fort Lauderdale on July 19. It was Eastern with San Juan, St Maarten, and St Kitts.

 

I posted the daily compasses, the menu order, and a little bit of kid's stuff when I came back because the review was taking too long, so here's the link for that.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2243436

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So here is my attempt at a review of our extended family cruise this summer.

 

 

 

I’ll start off with introducing myself. I am 46, my husband is 51, and we have three girls, a 12 ½ year old, and identical twins that are almost 11. This will be our third cruise as a family, and we have had great times on both other cruises, one on NCL Jewel in December 2013, and then RCCL Freedom of the Seas in June 2014.

 

 

 

My reviews are linked below if you want more info, but here are the quick recaps. The first cruise was a gift from my parents to my family, my brothers and families, and my sister (her daughter couldn’t go) in December 2013. Unfortunately, one of my brothers, his wife, and son missed the boat because my brother packed all of their paperwork (passports, birth certificate) in a bag and accidentally checked it in at the port. We told them about it 5 minutes after he did it, but after 4 hours of them looking for it, they found it about 15 minutes after the boat took off. Very sad for all of us, but my Dad decided that he wanted to take us on another cruise to make up for it. We could only do it in the summer, so we couldn’t cruise out of New Orleans again like we had the last time unless we wanted to do Carnival (I haven’t sailed Carnival, so I am not going to say anything more about it, but I asked on FB numerous times and the overwhelming majority said Royal Caribbean was better). So we looked at itineraries out of Port Canaveral and decided on Freedom of the Seas in June of 2014. We had an amazing time. On that trip, my oldest brother decided not to come (I think he is crazy!), and my sister couldn’t come. We had so much fun that we decided to do it again this summer. We were looking for different ports, so chose this itinerary. Fort Lauderdale is a little further for all of us, but we really wanted to skip Royal’s private islands. I had been looking at the Bioluminescent Bay in PR, so since this had a night stop in San Juan, it was perfect. Plus 3 sea days worked out because my Dad has limited mobility and can’t really get off in the ports, so we wanted to be able to spend a lot of time with him.

 

 

So we decided to book this one late last year. Then we had some mishaps. My Dad broke his hip. Recovered and started Physical Therapy. He tore his Achilles tendon. Recovered and did PT and got a personal trainer. Then he broke his pelvis, this was 2 months before the cruise. Almost stopped the cruise, but he has recovered nicely. However, he still has trouble with balance and walking without a cane, but is doing well, considering.

So it’s my family, my parents, my oldest brother and his 17 year old daughter (who I love and would steal if I could), my other brother and his wife and their 13 year old son, and my sister (her husband couldn’t come and her daughter is with her dad* for the summer). My parents and oldest brother and his daughter live in Pensacola, we live in Atlanta, as does my sister, and my other brother and family live in Oregon, but they took most of the month off and spent it in New Orleans with friends, then ended up in Pensacola the week before the cruise. Since the ship sailed out of Fort Lauderdale, my family drove down from Atlanta on Friday afternoon, my two brothers drove down from Pensacola on Saturday with most of the luggage from the Florida crew, my parents, sis in law, niece and nephew flew down Saturday afternoon, and my sis flew from Atlanta on Saturday night.

We decided to take two days to get there since it is a 10 hour drive (although it was longer because getting out of Atlanta on Friday at 4pm added extra time, as Friday rush hour in Atlanta starts at 3pm on Thursday). We stopped in Ocala Friday night at the Sleep Inn. Nothing special, but we’ve stayed there a few times and they have a big room that accommodates our family of five nicely, 2 queens and a sleeper sofa, free breakfast, and they have always been clean and friendly. We got in at 11pm and were a little annoyed to find that they had left no sheets for the sleeper sofa, so my husband had to go downstairs and wait for someone else to be checked in before getting them. My husband likes to mountain bike, so he rode the trails on Saturday morning (the reason we chose Ocala as a stopping point), and then we drove the rest of the way down to Fort Lauderdale, arriving around 4pm. Note: If you are taking the turnpike, find something to eat BEFORE you get on the turnpike. There are limited places to stop, and EVERYONE is getting food at the same place since you don’t have many choices. It took about 30 minutes for us to get Subway for lunch, and it was basically our only choice.

 

 

We stayed at the Hyatt Convention Center on 10th/17th street. We used Hotelnparkingdotcom in advance to get a rate of $129 which included 10 days of parking, breakfast, free wifi, and it’s close to Total Wine and restaurants. Check in was a little hectic. When we got there, they didn’t have any information that we had already paid a deposit from hotelnparking, although they did have our reservations in the system. I showed them my printout with confirmation numbers (we had 4 rooms), but unfortunately it didn’t show the part where we paid a deposit. They mentioned that parking was $7 per day, but I told them that it was already included for each room. Also, they had a rate of $109 in the system, and the rate on their website was $189. They seemed very confused, but in the end, we got the rate of $109 and free parking for 2 cars (everyone else flew, but I booked all the rooms under hotelnparkingdotcom because it was cheaper than their website rate). My parents showed up from the airport as we were checking in and after discussing it, my mom realizes that she had disputed with American Express the deposits that hotelnparking had charged her card because she didn’t know what they were, she had forgotten that I had told her the dollar amounts that would be charged. That still doesn’t explain why Hyatt told us that hotelnparking doesn’t supply them with deposits anyway, especially since that was clearly stated on their website. Another issue was that we had reserved 1 room with a king and the rest with 2 doubles (they all had sleeper sofas), but they only had one double available, so we took it since we needed the extra bed to sleep all of us. All in all, it worked out. We had a few drinks at the hotel bar and then decided to go to dinner.

 

 

While we were deciding where to go to dinner (a lot of stuff within walking distance…Outback, an Italian Restaurant, 5 Guys Burgers, and more), my niece was super excited that she had seen Pollo Tropical on the way to the hotel and was determined to go there. I had never eaten there, and all she pretty much eats is fast food (and is very picky about trying anything new or different), so I wasn’t sure what we were in for. But I didn’t want to rock the boat, and my kids are not picky, we’ve always been good about them trying new things since they were very little, and there is very little that they don’t like. Since my car was the only one there at the time and it would only fit 5 people because of all of our luggage in it, my husband drove my mom, dad, and our 10 year olds while the rest of us walked since we would have to cross Federal Hwy, a really busy road. We ended up going the way the people at the hotel told us, then had to backtrack to get to a light to cross the street since I wasn’t risking my life with the traffic. It was fine, definitely a fast food type restaurant, which our family isn’t used to, but the food was okay and it was pretty fast service. Will I eat there again? No, but it was fine for one time.

 

 

We dropped everyone else off back at the hotel and my mom, sis in law, niece, and husband went to Total Wine for the wine to take on the cruise. We had 6 rooms total, so that’s 12 bottles of wine that we got to take. We picked up an extra bottle of wine and a six pack of beer to drink at the hotel. The people there are really knowledgeable, it is definitely the place to go if you need wine for a ship that departs out of Port Everglades. We have them in Atlanta and frequent them often. There was a TJ Maxx next door, so of course my mom found something cute to buy.

 

 

We left the kids in my room and all the adults hung out in sis in law’s room. We debated about how to get to the port the next morning, as I had heard a cab was cheaper than the shuttle that charges $7 a person. We called a few cab companies, and they could only fit 4 people in each cab, so we would have had to have 4 cabs since there were 13 of us. Just too complicated so we booked the shuttle to take us at 11:00am (I had wanted 10:30, but they only had 10 and 11 available. My brothers finally showed up around 9:30pm. One went to bed, the other cracked open a beer (since we were hanging out in his room anyway). After I ragged on them for taking 12 hours to make a 9 hour trip, we all went downstairs to hang outside to drink a little, then off to bed. Seriously, I lived in Fort Lauderdale for 2 years after college and it NEVER took me that long to drive to Pensacola. They went to Jacksonville and down I-95 instead of the turnpike…pure craziness. Oh, then my sister’s plane didn’t get in until after midnight (she accidentally booked a 9:45pm flight instead of a 9:45am flight…make sure you are looking at AM and PM when booking flights, people!)

 

 

Before I get started on the actual cruise, I’ll let you know what our plans were for each port, because I am a crazy researcher and have spent waaay too much time on Cruise Critic taking in every bit of information I can find. By the way, thank you to everyone that does reviews and answers questions on here. We planned to do the Bio Bay in Puerto Rico. This is the first time we have ever booked an excursion through the cruise line, but with the start of the bay being a 90 minute ride each way, I didn’t want to risk something happening and missing the boat. It ended up being cancelled by RCCL, very disappointed in that. In St Maartan, we took a cab to Maho Beach to watch the planes, then Mullet Bay. In St Kitts, we used Royston Tours to go to Brimstone Fortress, Black Rocks, and South Friar’s Beach to snorkel. More details later, but I wanted to put a quick recap first.

 

 

Here's my family (our formal night picture).

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So my sister texts me at 7:30am to tell me that she can’t sleep, I was awake too. I agreed to meet her at 8:30 for breakfast and bring anyone in my room that wanted to come along. I took a quick shower, then took 2 of the kids with me (my 12 year old is already in teenage mode with not getting up until she’s dragged out of bed). Saw my oldest brother down there. Eventually everyone got up and we got packed and ready. Hubby had to get his bike out of one of the hotel’s conference rooms and unpack the luggage out of the car to fit the bike in there to leave it during the cruise. Once we got all of the luggage packed in the shuttle (that we had reserved the night before, I mention again), we went to get on the shuttle and there were about 4 seats left. Seriously??? We had specifically called for and reserved in advance a shuttle for 13 people to make sure we could all go in one, and I guess they were just letting anyone from the hotel get on it as we were waiting outside packing the luggage like they told us to do. Luckily, there was another shuttle pulling up so we split up and were able to fit, but just barely.

 

 

Getting off the shuttle was a bit chaotic since our group had two drivers. I had given my $35 for my family (not including tip, just the $7 per person charge) to my brother who was in the other shuttle, since our driver had said to give everything to the other driver. But I tipped our driver when he dropped us off. Then I walked over to the other shuttle (where our luggage was), and everyone was unloading the luggage and someone told me to tip the port luggage guy, so I did. When everything was unloaded and loaded, there was another port luggage guy who was asking for a tip and my brother was looking at me. I kept explaining to the porter that I had already given the other guy a tip, because he was the one loading when I walked over. If we had been on one shuttle (like we were supposed to), then this confusion wouldn’t have happened. My dad needed a wheelchair, so my mom, sister, and middle brother and family went with him, and my family and oldest brother and niece went to check in at the regular line. Check in was very quick and our agent was very sweet and efficient. Went upstairs straight onto the ship. We headed to the Windjammer for lunch and everyone ended up meeting us.

 

 

 

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We went to our room to find that most of our luggage was there, so we took it inside. We were all in interiors on Deck 8 except my parents who had a Junior Suite on Deck 9. Our family had two connecting rooms and we were originally told by the Travel Agent that the kid’s room was only for 3 (we had asked for a room that would fit 4 because my nephew enjoyed staying with my girls on the last cruise, but we were told there weren’t any connecting ones available). We were surprised to find out that there were two bunks. We asked my nephew if he wanted to stay there, and he happily said yes. Plus it gave my brother and his wife a room by themselves. We already had 3 kids connected to our room, what’s one more? We have looked at staying in a Family Promenade room or Family rooms, but with 4 females having to shower every day around the same time, having two rooms with 2 bathrooms was the best solution ever.

We decided to wander around a bit and ended up in the Pyramid Lounge where my kids were excited to find out that they had the entire dance floor to themselves to dance and do gymnastics.

 

 

 

We wandered around the ship, went to muster drill, then went to the helipad for sail away with my niece. I had missed sail away on our two previous cruises so I really wanted to do this and had heard the helipad was one of the better places to watch. It did not disappoint.

 

 

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Afterward, we went upstairs to sign the kids up for Adventure Ocean. My girls really enjoy being around each other since they are so close in age (my oldest is just 19 months older than the twins) and had told us that they didn’t want to go to AO on this trip. We had planned to let them stay in the room in the evenings if they didn’t want to go out with us and give them my phone and take my husband’s so we could text each other, and they would not be allowed to leave the room without letting us know (and one of us would meet them out). Did a ton of research on how to text onboard without wifi, contacted Verizon, etc, etc. However, it never worked. We couldn’t get texts to go through. Anyway, we decided to go ahead and sign them up for AO in case they changed their minds. The groups are ages 9-11 and 12-14 and 15-17. Last summer they were 9, 9, and 11, so were in the 9-11 group. Now they are 10, 10, and 12, so my oldest would be moving up to the “Teen” group. I have heard many things about the teen club vs. AO, plus my nephew was 12 years old during the last cruise and was in the teen club. Things I have heard and observed are that it is not very structured, if there aren’t enough teens that show up, they don’t have the activity, they wander around the ship unsupervised quite often, and they get grouped with the 15-17 year olds sometimes. My husband and I aren’t comfortable with any of that. Our 12 year old is almost 5’5”, so she looks much older than she is. She is also a pleaser and a follower to an extent. Once she gets a close group of friends, she becomes a leader, but is shy when she first meets new people. We were not comfortable with her wandering the ship….we trust her but there are too many things that can go wrong…too many places for someone to be taken to and not heard. Luckily, she brought up that she wanted to be grouped with her sisters before we even had to raise any of our concerns with her. We went to the 9-11 room (this was actually the 6-8 ages room, the 9-11 room was locked, no signage telling us to go to the other room, we just figured it out after a few minutes. Maybe you can post a sign to make it easier next time, Royal Caribbean??) Anyway, I filled out the paperwork for all 3 of them, then went into the line to sign them up. I ended up with the one person I really didn’t want…I had heard her speak to another parent and didn’t appreciate the tone of voice she used and that she was not forthcoming with information (he asked when they were open and she said 9am to 10pm, then he asked what they do for lunch for the kids, then she said, they close from 12-2…same thing with many other questions he asked. She just seemed to be a jerk about it…just give him the information in full instead of making him continue to ask questions when you give him half truths). So I mentioned to her that one of my girls was 12 but her sisters were 10 and could she move down to the 9-11 group because she wanted to be with her sisters and we (her parents) weren’t comfortable with her being around older teens and not structured, etc. She asked if my 12 year old was there, so I had her come over. This part annoyed me. She told my daughter about all the things she would miss if she wasn’t in the teen club…ice skating, ice cream, etc, etc. We were already going to do all of that together as a family anyway. I didn’t like that she didn’t just ask her if she wanted to be with her sisters, she continued to try to persuade her to go in the older group. I know my child better than some chick who just met her. She agreed to put her in the group with my other girls in the end, but my kids never ended up going.

 

 

Then the girls wanted to go swimming so we walked around and ran into my sister and brother. My hubby stayed with them while I took the girls to the H20 Zone. They had soft serve ice cream from the machine, of course. Then we all went back to get ready for dinner.

 

 

We had My Time Dining and had made reservations for 6:30 tonight. Tonight’s theme was Mojo. Took our bottle of wine and they opened it with no problem. We originally were going to share the wine between me, hubby, sis, brother, and sis in law, but brother and sis in law decided to get the drink package, so we only needed one bottle for 3 of us at dinner. I started out with the Eggplant Artichoke Tart with marscapone, it was okay but not a lot of flavor. I also got the Caesar salad, which was very good. For dinner I was between the horseradish salmon and the seafood spaghetti. I got the salmon and tasted the spaghetti from one of my kids. The salmon was a little dry, but the flavor was good. Spaghetti was good also. I had the carrot cake for dessert and it was good, but my sister had the crème brulee and it was by far my favorite dessert of the entire cruise. Our waiters were wonderful and told us that we would be at that table for the duration of the cruise and to let them know if we needed to be finished with dinner at a certain time any evening. We told them that we wouldn’t be there on Tuesday night since it was the evening port in San Juan.

 

 

 

Oh, I forgot to mention that was we were going into the dining room, my brother handed me a note that he had gotten in his room and it said that the Bio Bay tour was cancelled by the tour operator due to operational reasons. I was so disappointed! This was the main reason that I had chosen this itinerary. Oh, well, what can you do? The odd thing was that none of the rest of us ever got the notice that it was cancelled, so luckily my brother showed it to us, and I was the one that booked everyone from my RCL account.

 

 

 

After dinner, we decided to do ABBA trivia in Schooner’s. I don’t remember what happened, but hubby and the girls and I made it down there as they were starting, and no one else showed up until they were halfway through. We didn’t win, enough said. We weren’t interested in the Welcome Aboard Show or the outdoor movie (The Avengers), so we headed to the Promenade to get a good seat for the Parade that would be starting a little after 10pm. We got tables outside of Dog & Badger Pub and had a great view of the Parade, which the girls really enjoyed.

 

 

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After that we all went to Karaoke. Originally, hubby and I were concerned about taking the kids there, we thought they would be bored, but they had a blast and asked to go back every night. My brother dedicated a song (That’s Life by Frank Sinatra) to my dad and my sis in law sang “Rapture” (Blondie). My sis and sis in law sang a duet, I think it was “I got you, babe”, it was pretty funny because my sis in law signed her up without her knowing, and they announced them right as sis was coming back from the bathroom, so it was a surprise for her. There were some good performers and some bad performers, but I give kudos to anyone who can get up in front of an audience and sing. I sang quite a bit, but it was from my chair at a very low volume. The last performance was a big group of people singing “Firework” by Katy Perry, so sis, sis in law, and myself ran up towards the end and danced with them. It was fun and we went back to our rooms and crashed out.

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MONDAY, DAY 2: SEA DAY

 

We had talked about meeting my parents in the MDR for breakfast at 9:00, since they are only open from 8-10, but when I woke up around 8:45, one of my twins was the only other person awake. I called my mom and told her that the two of us would be there and we would see if we could grab anyone else. No one else wanted to get up, so hubby would just take them up to the Windjammer later. Breakfast was really good, I much prefer the MDR over the Windjammer (especially for breakfast), but it’s only open until 10am, and we are usually late risers. I love that you can order from the menu and also get stuff off the buffet. I ordered French Toast, but actually like the French toast from the buffet part a lot better. I later found out that the WJ didn’t have French toast at all, so not thrilled with that on the other days when we ate there, it’s my favorite. The buffet had a nice selection of bacon, sausage, eggs, French toast, hash browns, oatmeal, cereal, fruit, etc. The eggs were tasteless in the MDR and in the WJ.

When we got back to the room from breakfast, everyone in our rooms were still sleeping, so we got them up and going so they could get some breakfast. Cassidy and I went to guest services to get an extra key card for my nephew, then headed up to my parent’s room to hang out on the balcony.

 

After breakfast was finished, we decided to grab my niece and head up to mini golf, then watched boogie boarding on the Flow Rider for a while. That was entertaining. It is crazy windy up there, so if you have long hair, make sure you pull it back. We planned to go to the Meet & Mingle at 11:45, but totally lost track of time, then it was too late. So we decided to have lunch in the Windjammer and ended up meeting almost everyone up there. Hubby, kids, me, niece, sister, and my mom decided to go to the H20 zone. We actually got chairs together, but later discovered it was because it was crazy windy and not very sunny over there. Everyone was on the other side because it was warm and not nearly as windy, but there were no chairs. My brother and sis in law later came and found us and sister and niece went over there. Kids wanted to splash around in H20 zone so we stayed. The kids got a ridiculous amount of soft serve ice cream, every time I turned around they had another cone. Oh well, it’s vacation. Eventually we headed to the room to get showered and ready for dinner (again, loving having two bathrooms).

 

We had decided to do formal portraits with the entire extended family after dinner, but we were running a little early, so we decided to go get a family portrait before dinner. The menu theme was Saffron. I had the scallop appetizer and the tenderloin for dinner, delicious!! Strawberry cheesecake for dessert, it was okay. Definitely not a NY cheesecake. Then we walked out to do family portraits. The place right outside the MDR would only let you have up to 5 people, so we go in line to take a picture of the grandkids while a couple people split out and stood in two different VERY LONG lines. The one at the stairwell wasn’t our first choice (we wanted the bridge at the promenade), but it opened up first, so we took it. It was HORRIBLE! The photographer was in one place, there was a while screen next to him (but not directly next to him). He finally got us all situated and told us to look at the white screen. When we saw the picture, we had no idea how he was allowed to be a photographer. It was so loud, some of the kids were looking at him, some were looking at the white screen…just really bad. And the ones looking at the white screen looked like we were looking in the wrong place. These photographers have a digital camera and can see the photos before we leave, what is wrong with them? For the insane prices they charge, you’d think they would want to get a halfway decent photo. Oh well, there’s always Friday night.

 

The show that night was Invitation to Dance, and my mom and I love Dancing with the Stars (and my kids occasionally watch it, especially when there is a person from a Disney show on there). So Mom, niece, my kids, and I went to the 9:00 show. Holy cow, it was crowded! We managed to find 3 seats in one row and 3 seats almost directly behind. People in front were saving around 30 seats and it was almost showtime, so that was frustrating. Hubby decided to go back to the cabin and take a nap, and then we’d head to Karaoke later. We all really enjoyed it. After the show, we took the girls to get milkshakes at Johnny Rockets, went back the room. Kevin was still sleeping, and even though he had said to wake him up and go to karaoke, that bed looked so inviting. I was exhausted. We ditched Karaoke (which proved to be another great night with my bro and sis in law singing, sorry that we missed it, but really needed the sleep).

Edited by mickev99
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TUESDAY, DAY 3: SEA DAY & PUERTO RICO EVENING STOP

 

So our Bio Bay excursion for tonight had been cancelled. Seriously, I was really upset. I basically had chosen this itinerary for the nighttime stop in San Juan because I wanted to go to the Bio Bay. Another reason I was upset was because I hadn’t researched anything else to do, and I like to go to ports with a plan….not a minute by minute plan, but at least some sort of itinerary. Now I had nothing planned and no wifi to figure it out.

Anyway, time to enjoy the day and just go with it. The ship didn’t dock until 4:00 and clearance was scheduled for 4:30, so we had most of the day to hang out on the ship. We went to breakfast in the MDR with my parents and niece. I really enjoyed the MDR so much better than the Windjammer for breakfast.

 

 

 

After breakfast, we had to go get a key card because hubby’s stopped working. Went back to the room to get swim suits on to go out by the pool, but the kids didn’t want to go. Hubby and I weren’t staying in an interior room on such a gorgeous day, so we left them there. We told them they were not allowed to leave the room until we came back, and they still decided to stay. I told them if they broke the rules then they would go to the Kid’s club at every available moment that they weren’t with us. I know, silly that they kid’s club is a punishment, but they really didn’t want to go. Ok…this was their one and only test and chance for the ship to see if they would follow the rules. They weren’t getting another chance. Hubby thought they looked like they were up to something, but, seriously, these kids are always up to something, LOL. We ran into Mariah and went up to the top deck because there were no chairs anywhere downstairs. It was really windy, I guess that’s why there were soooo many chairs up there. I really don’t remember it being so windy on our cruise last year. Niece eventually went downstairs, and after a little while, we followed suit. We found bro, sis in law and niece down there. They had two chairs and were using those and sitting in the pool at the edge, so we put our stuff down to hang out. Then I see my mom and my 3 kids. Apparently they had called her room asking her to rescue them and take them to the pool. She said she would put her swimsuit on and come down and get them. Then she called them back and told them to come up to her room instead, since she was on a higher floor and closer to the elevators. They told her they couldn’t leave the room. Score one for following the rules! Although they could have gone up there, but I admire them for listening. They were afraid that if we came back and they weren’t there, we would be worried. Guess I should have told them them could go up to Nanna and Papa’s if they left a note. Oh well, I’m not complaining. Anyway, I was getting hungry and luckily they had a buffet outside, so that worked. Didn’t have to get dressed and go to the restaurant or Windjammer. It was pretty good…grilled chicken and ribs, macaroni or potato salad (I honestly can’t remember which one), some fruit. We hung out there the rest of the day until it was time to get showered to go into town.

 

 

 

We showered and had planned to go to the helipad to watch us sail in to San Juan, but when we got there, it was roped off due to high winds, so we had to watch from the side.

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Getting off the ship was insanely unorganized. We hung out in the Promenade until we could disembark, eating pizza and sandwiches from the Café. They never really announced where to exit, so we followed the crowd. We soon found out that this crowd was comprised of the people that had ship excursions. Of course, I had to mention to the guy that I had scheduled a ship excursion, but they cancelled it….So we turned around and went to the other end of the ship and took the elevator down and then got on the stairs. Crazy crowded. At one point, someone told us that we had to go to the other end of the ship, but considering we had just come from there, we weren’t trekking back, so we just followed the line and we finally got off! We divided into two groups because my family plus my mom and niece wanted to make sure we got some shopping time in, and the rest wanted to go wander around and look at some churches. We stumbled upon a lady under a small tent making jewelry…beautiful and inexpensive. We bought a ton of stuff from her, then she told us that there was a free trolley that took you around San Juan, but it stopped running at 6:00. She showed us where to go and we waited a few minutes for it to come around. Once we got up to the Castle, we hopped off to check it out. It was closing in 10 minutes, but the outside of it had amazing views, so we took some pictures and wandered around.

 

 

 

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Then one with my mom:

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Then one with my mom and her granddaughers:

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Then we walked back into town and found a cute little shop where the kids bought what they wanted as souvenirs. We asked the owner for a dinner recommendation. She suggested Puerto Rico Café, which was just down from her on the way back to the ship. It was very small, but they accommodated us after a short wait. Sangria and margaritas were delicious, as was the food (although it took forever for our food, at least 30 minutes, but it was probably longer). We decided to head back to the ship, saw parrots on the way (that of course they wanted to charge you for to put them on your shoulder, we passed). Then some guy on the street started playing music on a boom box (those of you under 30 probably have no idea what a boom box is, LOL). He was using spray paint on a large piece of posterboard. We stayed until he finished, and he had gathered a large crowd. Very cool. He sprayed colors all over it, then sprayed it all over with black, then used tools to scrape the black off and made a poster of New York. My 12 year old is obsessed with Paris and New York, so she was super excited when he said he sold them (we had tipped him as well). He originally wanted $40 for it, but took $30.

 

 

 

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We headed back to the ship, took some wine to my parent’s balcony and watched sailaway, then to bed.

Oh, the dinner them was Sage, but we didn’t eat on the ship. The Show was a comedy and magic show at 9:45, but we didn’t make it back on board in time.

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WEDNESDAY, DAY 4, ST. MAARTEN

 

Today we were in St. Maarten from 10-7, but we planned to be back and ready for dinner by 6. We planned to get off the ship as soon as possible and take a cab to Maho Beach, then possibly head to Mullet Bay if we wanted to. Then, of course, shopping. We ate breakfast in the Windjammer, got our towels from the pool, and then met in the computer/internet area until they made an announcement that we were cleared and could head off the ship. DON’T DO THIS!! We waited and waited, and finally my niece and I said, let’s just go down and see. Yep, we had cleared already and tons of people were already off the ship. Kind of annoying. We never heard an announcement. We finally headed off the ship to find a cab. It was easy and we found a van that fit all of us (my parents didn’t come) and it was $8 per person one way. It was a little bit of a drive, and by the time we got there, we had just missed a big plane, and the next big plane was coming at 12:50. I was shocked to see how tiny the strip of sand at Maho Beach was. We immediately decided we wanted to go to Mullet Bay later. The driver dropped us off at Sunset Bar, told us he would take us to Mullet for no additional cost, just to come back there when we were ready. There really wasn’t an easy way to get to the sandy area of the beach. There were huge rocks that butted right up to the waves, and there was very little space on the road to walk. Hubby was concerned about the kids walking on the tiny bit of road with cars coming through there, so he told us to walk over through the water on the rocks. DON’T DO THIS!! (See, you get all my helpful hints so that you don’t make these same mistakes)! By the time we got to the beach, the kids were soaking wet, as well as a few towels. Didn’t help that hubby walked to the beach by himself with a beer and we all had our backpacks, towels, and beach bag, grrrrr!!!

 

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Anyway, we decided to plop down smack dab in the middle to get a good view of the planes going right overhead. Everyone else went over to another area to get chairs and an umbrella. I had no interest in that, I was here to see the planes and I wanted to be right under the action! We swam, watched a ton of planes fly overhead, had a few drinks, snorkeled…just had a really nice day.

 

 

 

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There were a few planes that took off, and hubby took one for the team a few times, getting video of them. After getting battered by flying sand from the first one, the rest of us ran into the water each time a plane was getting ready to take off. It was funny, things were flying, hats ended up in the water, etc. So it’s about 12:25 and I am ready for another drink. I’m thinking, we have 25 minutes until the big plane comes. Granted, we had seen many planes, but not a huge one. I walk over, wait forever for a drink, and wouldn’t you know it, the darn plane flies over about 12:35. Since when are planes ever early???? The next one wasn’t until after 3 and we really didn’t want to stay that long, so we headed to find our driver. Turns out my oldest brother had been sitting at the bar the whole time.

 

 

 

It took us a few minutes to find our cab driver, then we were on our way to Mullet Bay. Once we got there, I stopped to take a few photos of the kids, and by the time I walked up, everyone else had talked to a guy with a “restaurant” where we decided to eat. It was basically a gazebo with a grill. We got burgers and hot dogs. It was fine, but I would have rather walked the other way to find Rosie’s Ribs (that I had read about before the trip) or somewhere else.

 

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Then we all went out to the beach. The water was absolutely amazing…I mean just gorgeous! I am a beach snob. I grew up in Pensacola Beach with the gorgeous sugar white sand that squeaks when you walk. When I moved to Fort Lauderdale after college, the first time I went to the beach, I did not want to lay on what looked like dirt. So it takes a lot to impress me when it comes to beaches. But Mullet Bay totally impressed. The water was clear, the sand was soft and white….it was really nice. We all had a great time swimming and hanging out for most of the day.

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My nephew, I can't believe he let me take his picture!

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Hubby started throwing the girls in the air and this is one of my favorites:

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WEDNESDAY, DAY 4, ST. MAARTEN, continued

 

 

When we started to head back, the taxi driver made us take about 15 minutes to rub the sand off of our feet. We were pretty crowded in the van, but he picked up two women that were friends with him to drop them off on the way to Philipsburg. They were so sweet and I mentioned that we should try to get my Dad some pepsi to take him back (my mom had asked me to bring some to him the night before). Apparently they only have coke on the ship and he wanted pepsi, or maybe I have that reversed. I don’t drink sodas, but my dad sucks them down constantly, and there’s nothing I can say to help him drink water instead of sodas. Anyway, my brothers were saying that he didn’t need them (which we all know), but seriously, he’s going to drink cokes on the ship or the pepsi we bring him. He paid for the entire cruise for us, I think we can take a few minutes to get some pepsi. The ladies insisted we stop at a store and my brother runs inside and gets some. Then he drops the ladies off and then drops us off in Philipsburg in a little straw market area. Perfect, we’ll run through here, get some souvenirs and then get to the port. We found some cute things, then started on our way back towards port. It was a longer walk (and a little more confusing) than we expected, but it was a nice walk. What’s funny is at some point some girls started following us and we had to let them know that we really didn’t know where we were going. We all had a good laugh and made it back to the ship in time for showers before dinner.

 

 

My sis in law leading the way:

 

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There's the ship...we just can't figure out how to get there!!

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Tonight’s menu was Pomodoro. I had Sea Scallops and Chorizo appetizer (YUM!) and Rigatoni with Proscuitto as well as Rosemary Lamb Shank, both were delicious. We decided to go to trivia again tonight, it was classic rock tunes....again, no one else showed up, but hubby and I did pretty well. Our kids wanted to go to another trivia game in On Air, so after we finished, we went to find them and remembered that there was ice skating tonight for the first time since we started cruising, and the girls had been dying to go (we had gone on the Freedom and they really enjoyed it). We went back to the room to change into long pants and ran into Mariah on the way down. She wanted to go ice skating, too but didn’t have pants. We went there and asked them and they said they had pants for her. We stayed until they closed, about 9:45.

 

 

 

My adorable niece:

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My 12 year old being goofy:

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My almost 11 year olds in motion:

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Then niece went to go find her friends, we went back to the room and changed, and went upstairs and got milkshakes from Johnny Rockets. I decided I wanted a cupcake from Cupcake Cupboard instead, so we went down to the Promenade. I should have gotten the milkshake. We have some really good specialty cupcake places in Atlanta, so the cupcakes on the ship were really a disappointment to me. While we were enjoying our snacks, we saw my nephew and then my parents and sat down together. Then sis and sis in law walked up and we found out that they had all gone down to Guest Services to try to get a scooter for my dad and that’s why they didn’t make it to trivia. He was just having a hard time walking very much without running out of breath. They had said they had one, but then the battery didn’t work and they didn’t have any extra batteries and couldn’t charge it.

 

 

 

We hung out for a while and then ended up going back to the room to sleep. We had an early morning in St Kitts the next day.

Edited by mickev99
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THURSDAY, DAY 5, ST KITTS

 

We were in port today from 7-5 and had an excursion planned with Royston Tours and planned to meet him between 8:15/8:30. Because of that, and the fact that my kids (and hubby) are not early risers, I decided to run up to the Windjammer and grab some stuff and bring it down to the room to eat. We had gotten room service on the Freedom and it was horrible. Plus we had brought granola bars with us for excursions, so we would have stuff to snack on. I knew exactly what I wanted to see on this island….Brimstone Fortress, Black Rocks, and South Friar’s Beach. I had researched many companies and was between Royston and Thenford Grey. They both had wonderful reviews and said that ours would be a private tour since we had such a large group and that they would do anything we wanted to do, so it came down to price. Royston gave us a much better price that also included lunch, so we decided on him. Originally it was going to be 9 people, with a possible 10 if my older brother went because he wouldn’t commit. Then when my sis later booked the cruise, she wanted to go, so I emailed Royston and upped to 10 or 11. About a month or two before the cruise, my parents decided them might want to come and do part of the sightseeing, so I emailed Royston to make sure his van would accommodate 13 people, and he said that would be fine, he would put us with another driver, Ashton, who has a larger van. Well, I’m not sure what happened, but when we got to the port, he seemed surprised that we had 13 people and Ashton wasn’t even there. So he got on the phone to get him and then apparently he had another small group for a tour, and I saw him talking to them but I’m not really sure what he told them or what happened. It sounded like the woman was a little disappointed, but I couldn’t hear what was going on. Anyway, we finally go out to the area where the vans are and he tells us we will have an air conditioned van with Ashton driving and also an open air van that Royston would be driving. What’s odd is that later on, we saw the inside of the van and all of us could have fit inside there, so I’m not sure why we ended up using both vehicles. Either way, my family and niece ended up in the open van and everyone else went in the a/c van. We had a great time.

 

Before Royston showed up, the guys with the monkeys came over and started putting the monkeys on my kids, who of course loved it. Then they asked for money of course. It all happened so fast we really couldn’t even stop them. They are very aggressive. But the girls enjoyed it.

 

 

 

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Hubby was NOT thrilled!

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Royston is a very “adventurous” driver, pulling over to the edge of the road a few times to show us stuff. We drove around and ended up at Romney Manor. We had already told him we wanted to have plenty of time for snorkeling, so we really didn’t care too much about Romney Manor and the batik factory. He drove us in to show us the gardens, we got out for a little while and shopped from some people who had some pretty hand carved wooden art. Then back in the car to drive through really quickly and headed to Brimstone Fortress. Along the way, he pointed out all kinds of things. Sandy Bay Beach, where the water looked reddish brown because of all of the seaweed, Dieppe Point, the area where you can see the Atlantic on one side of a mountain and the Caribbean on the other side. Brimstone Fortress was very cool. Royston told us we only had to climb 27 steps…but the steps were huge! It was beautiful up there.

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THURSDAY, DAY 5, ST KITTS, continued

 

 

Then on to the Black Rocks, which was amazing, but very frightening with kids walking so close to the edge. However, in full disclosure, I am a major chicken, so it probably wouldn’t be as scary to most people. It was absolutely amazing. They also had a few booths with people selling stuff so the girls picked out some stuff after much time of going back and forth.

 

 

 

My oldest brother:

 

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The rest of my family...we'll just photoshop me in later...I was too chicken to go over there:

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Royston trying to give me a heart attack:

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Then we were off to the beach with a stop for food first. Royston stopped to get us food, and it was actually a little booth along the side of the road that had the looks of a lemonade stand, but the chicken wings that we got were absolutely delicious. We sat down and ate, then my parents and older brother went back and did a little shopping, then went back on the ship.

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THURSDAY, DAY 5, ST KITTS, continued

I had read that there was good snorkeling at South Friar’s Beach, and that they sand was black and beige, so I thought that would be a nice change. The sand was cool looking, but really sticky and hard to get off. The girls ended up covering themselves and making a mud bath spa. We did a little snorkeling and unfortunately sis in law stepped on a sea urchin, so she sat on the beach the rest of the time. Yikes, it looked terrible. It ended up feeling better by the time we left. We just hung out in the water and had a good time. It was overcast all day and the sun never fully came out, but it was a beautiful island.

 

 

 

The Spa at South Friar's beach:

 

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Here are some more random pics from the island:

 

 

Did I mention there was some adventurous driving?

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Here is where you have the Atlantic on one said and the Caribbean on the other:

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This is Sandy Bay, that's seaweed in the water and on the beach:

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I loved this! Can you see the cats laying by the shed and the "no dogs allowed" sign?

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THURSDAY, DAY 5, ST KITTS, continued

 

 

Royston dropped us off at the port and we did a little more shopping, then ran to the boat with about 15 minutes to spare before all aboard time. There was a long line to get onto the ship, so we were by no means late.

 

 

Family photo:

 

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Family photobombed by brother:

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Photobombed by sis in law:

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One thing that bothered me about today was that the Welcome Back Party for Crown & Anchor members was scheduled at 5:15 today. There was no way we could be in port until we had to get back and then shower and make it to this party on time, not with 4 females in the room. We had 3 full sea days, why in the world couldn’t they schedule this party on a sea day? It’s like they really didn’t want a lot of people to show by scheduling it at this time. I was really disappointed that we didn’t make it.

 

 

Showered and dinner. Tonight’s menu was Pimiento. I had the Rice and mushroom balls…so good, I should have ordered 3 of them, then I wanted to try the roasted garlic soup, it was fine. Then I had the garlic tiger shrimp, which was a pretty small portion, and tasted my mom’s eggplant parmesan, both were very good. Then I had the tiramisu for dessert.

 

 

 

Tonight was 70’s night and my sis in law wanted to dress up 70’s style. I am not a person that likes to draw attention to myself, I am pretty much an introvert. So sis in law has a crazy silky outfit that she got at a vintage shop that probably was from the 70’s and my sis dressed up in a big collared shirt and some polyester pants. I kept explaining that no one dresses up except the dancers, but they are crazy. So we headed straight down to Dog & Badger Pub to get a table early because we knew it would get packed. Hubby and the girls wanted to mellow out in the room for a while and said they would come down before the show started. We drank for a while and then it started getting really crowded and I went to use one of the phones by the elevator to call and tell him to come down or else he wouldn’t make it through the crowd. He ends up bringing only one of the kids because the other two fell asleep and didn’t want to wake up. We had a good time and danced a little.

 

 

My dad:

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Then sis, sis in law, and me decided to continue the party and find somewhere to dance. We tried the Labryinth (we were way too old for that), and ended up in Olive or Twist, then went and laid around by the pool and chatted. Time for bed again. Tomorrow was a sea day so we could sleep in.

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DAY 6, FRIDAY, SEA DAY

 

We slept in a little and then went to the Windjammer for breakfast. Today was a sea day so it was spent playing mini golf, shuffleboard, watching people on the flowrider, hanging out in the Promenade, hanging out at the pool.

 

 

 

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They scheduled the ice show depending on your muster station, and ours was today at 4:00. I thought they would be scanning your seapass to make sure you were at the correct show, but they just waved us right in. Ours was the last show of the week (there had been 3 others), so I’m not sure what the procedure was at the others or if you could just walk right in. The paperwork said that if there were still seats about 5 minutes before the show, then anyone was welcome, but we were there about 25 minutes before the show started. It was a fantastic show. I can’t believe what they can do, especially on that small piece of ice.

 

 

 

Dinner was Jasmine, and it was formal night. We had our family picture taken before dinner, then headed in. We were planning to retry the entire family photo after dinner. I had creamed mushrooms in puff pastry for an appetizer…yum! Then I had lobster and also ordered the prime rib because I love both. They were good, I would have preferred my prime rib to be a little more rare, but it was fine. I had ivory chocolate mousse for dessert, it was fine. Then it was time for formal photos. We stood in line at the bridge and when we got there, the photographer told us we couldn’t have more than 10 people. I proceeded to tell her that we had more than that when we did the exact same picture on the Freedom last year, but she insisted it was for safety reasons. Which doesn’t make any sense at all since there is nothing posted to stop tons of people walking over or standing on the bridge at any other time of day. Oh well, we decided to do one of just the adults since we already had one of just the grandkids. Afterward, my mom, niece, and kids and I wanted to see Once Upon a Time, the production show. We had missed it on the Freedom the past summer and I thought my kids would enjoy it, plus I love Broadway type shows. We all really enjoyed it. Afterward, we went up to Olive or Twist and hung out and the kids went back to the room. After a while, we decided to play games in Cloud Nine. I went to grab the kids and we played SkipBo (they had a selection of games, but we had brought skipbo and uno with us). It was hubby’s first time ever playing, and he ended up winning. Then off to bed. It was a really nice day hanging out with everyone.

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DAY 7, SATURDAY, LAST SEA DAY, BOOOO!!

 

We woke up and met almost everyone at breakfast in the MDR. It was chocolate day, which really just meant that they poured chocolate syrup on the pancakes (that was the only thing chocolate from the menu that we ordered). I tried to get a chocolate croissant, but they only had one in the basket and never brought me one. Oh well. I got some stuff from the buffet and an omelet to add some protein in. It was good. Then we decided we had better go buy our photos before we forgot so we all headed over there. Our photo from Friday night was much better than Mondays, so we bought a few. $23 per photo, which is just insane, but we had our Gold member “buy one, get one half off” coupons, so we used those to get 4 pictures.

Then hubby and the kids and I went to play a few games of shuffleboard, then met everyone for lunch at Johnny Rockets. It was really busy that day, but we had a lot of fun squeezing into two outside booths.

 

 

 

As soon as we finished, we rushed to the room to get long pants on and went ice skating until they closed. Sis in law wanted to go with us, and the kids really enjoyed it. Afterward, hubby decided he wanted to go rock climbing and we didn’t have a whole lot of time left before they closed, so we changed and rushed up there. Both of my 11 year olds did it as well, I’m so surprised my 12 year old didn’t, she is a daredevil. They climbed a few times, I was surprised it wasn’t crowded since it was a beautiful day.

 

 

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We went to the Flowrider and watched some people wipe out on stand up surfing, then back to the room for showers and one last dinner.

Dinner menu tonight was Shiitake. I have to say it was my least favorite of all nights. I had the spinach dip for an appetizer…runny and not much flavor. I also tried the beef carpaccio…eh. I had the chicken gyoza as an entrée, and it was delicious, but very small, so I decided to try the stuffed shells as well…wish I had gotten another order of the gyoza. Dessert was crème brulee again. It was also my sister’s birthday, so they put a candle in her dessert and sang to her.

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We headed back to the room to finish packing since our luggage had to be in the hallway by 11pm. Then we all met in Olive or Twist for a quick drink and then headed down to one final karaoke round. Tonight was definitely the night for karaoke, and thank goodness we got there early to get seats…it ended up being packed, and we literally had to fight off people when one of our group got up to sing or go to get a drink or go to the bathroom. I am not kidding. Hubby went to get a drink at one point and I put my hand on his seat immediately. The next thing I know I see a woman practically running over reaching out to grab the chair, and I said, “this is taken, he’s at the bar getting a drink”. Later I found out that the woman had seen him walk up, asked him if he was leaving (even though he was clearly at the bar where she was), he told her no, but she immediately made a beeline for the chair. People are just crazy and rude. There was a cute girl who had been there the first night and she is an Elsa impersonator in Texas and wanted to sing Let it Go, but they didn’t have it. So she invited my girls and some other kids up to sing acapella with her. It was very cute. Sis in law sang again, sis and sis in law did a duet, and then this one guy sang Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, but like he was mad the whole time. It was awesome! Even the guy running it was on the floor cracking up. He was sooo good. Unfortunately my phone was filled up at that point so it only recorded a small portion. There were some really good singers (and some not so good, but hey, I’m not one to talk since I didn’t get up there and do it).

By the time it was over, it was around 1am, so we all headed back to the rooms to go to sleep and get ready to leave this glorious ship!

 

 

Me and my sis:

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SUNDAY, DISEMBARKATION

 

Went to breakfast in Windjammer, then headed back to the room to get the last little things packed. Our time to disembark was supposed to be 9:30, but they were running really late. About 10:00 they made an announcement for the 9:15 group to disembark, so we were hoping ours would come up soon. The next announcement about 15 minutes later said “every group has been called, please disembark”. NOOOO, not every group had been called, there were groups after us and we hadn’t even been called. So of course it was a total nightmare and took FOREVER to get through the line. We had so much luggage that as soon as I saw a porter I snagged him. TIP: Even if you don’t need a porter, it’s worth the tip, we cut ahead of a lot of people that had gotten their own luggage and were in line….I guess that’s the way it works, I don’t know but I just followed him and saw another porter and group of passengers next to us. Apparently the two end sections are for porters. Took a taxi back to the hotel where we had left our car at the hotel and headed out for the LONG drive home. Everyone else was flying home.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS:

 

I absolutely loved this vacation. Our room steward was great, our waiters were great. The cruise director, Leigh, was just hilarious! He did a cute video on the tv about what he does all day to Loverboy’s “Working for the Weekend” and my kids watched it over and over. I laughed every time he was announcing a show. The ship was nice, easy to get around, had a lot of fun things to do. I was so happy that our kids are older and mature enough to hang out with us, and actually WANTED to hang out with us. I was worried about what they would do since they didn’t want to do the kid’s club, and we weren’t comfortable with them wandering the ship without us. It was a really nice family vacation.

 

 

Now, as far as 3 port days and 3 sea days….3 sea days was too much, we won’t do that again. I don’t sail for the ship, I sail because it’s an easy way to see many parts of the world.

 

 

I do love the layout of the Freedom class ships, I absolutely love the Promenade area. It was a big ship but never seemed crowded (except trying to get a seat at the shows).

 

 

 

However, our next cruise is going to be on Norwegian. Fort Lauderdale was a hike for everyone, and New Orleans is so much easier for my bro’s family to fly from Portland (Southwest), and such a short drive for my parents and other brother from Pensacola. Royal doesn’t sail out of NOLA, so we have booked a cruise out of there in December on NCL. It’s the same itinerary as the first one that my bother and family missed, but I have already planned for new things in 3 of the 4 ports. Plus they are offering the drink package free and $100 OBC per room, and our travel agent got us more OBC….can’t beat that. I definitely hope to go back to Royal Caribbean again soon, I have really enjoyed both of their ships that I've been on. Pretty much if someone else is cooking and cleaning for me, I can be happy on any ship!!

 

 

That’s it, hopefully you gained a little bit of insight about this ship, and now I have a review that I can put in my scrapbook to remember my cruise by!

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Great review - thanks for taking the time to do it :)

 

I am on the Indy for 10 nights in November and really looking forward to it.

 

Although we are on a western itinerary, I loved your pics of Mullet Bay - it is by far our favorite Caribbean beach!

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Great review - thanks for taking the time to do it :)

 

 

 

I am on the Indy for 10 nights in November and really looking forward to it.

 

 

 

Although we are on a western itinerary, I loved your pics of Mullet Bay - it is by far our favorite Caribbean beach!

 

 

Oh my gosh, I was so impressed. I could have spent all week there!! I had so many other pictures that I wanted to post but it would only let me post 6 pictures on each comment and I didn't want to drag it on.

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Thank you for this review for everyone to see. It was spot on. I was on the same cruise as you. I loved the cruise and I am loyal to royal, but there were a few things that they needed to tighten up such as the disembarking at ports. Seemed unorganized to me. As well as leaving the ship to go home, never saw it like that at a port before it was crazy. Overall great ship, amazing cruise director and activities manager. They are the families favorite. Loved the morning show a must watch if your on the ship with Frankie and Leigh.

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Oh my gosh, I was so impressed. I could have spent all week there!! I had so many other pictures that I wanted to post but it would only let me post 6 pictures on each comment and I didn't want to drag it on.

 

Oh, forgot to mention - the ribs at Mullet Bay are amazing, be sure to try them next time ;)

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Hi. We are considering an RCI cruise next year - our first with RCI. I was wondering if there are any free shuttles.

 

As an example, one of the possible destinations is Bilbao, which is actually Getxo, about 20 miles away - do they provide a free shuttle there (or ever ?)

 

Many thanks,

 

Paul

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Hi. We are considering an RCI cruise next year - our first with RCI. I was wondering if there are any free shuttles.

 

 

 

As an example, one of the possible destinations is Bilbao, which is actually Getxo, about 20 miles away - do they provide a free shuttle there (or ever ?)

 

 

 

Many thanks,

 

 

 

Paul

 

 

I didn't even know where those places were, I had to google, LOL. I've only done the Caribbean so I have no idea. You might want to check the port of call boards for help. Sorry!!

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