Great Times on Indy! ~ A Big Review With Lots of Pics!

[cruisin4dhr]

Grady,

As so many others on this thread have expressed, thank you for the time you've invested sharing this illustrated review. We will be taking our first cruise with RCCL on the Indy 8 night cruise on 3/15 after 4 Caribbean cruises on Princess. Your pictures show Indy to be a beautiful ship. I am looking forward to making comparisons. Looking out the window at the fresh snow from last night and hearing of more sub-zero temps for next week, our cruise can't get here quick enough. Thanks again. :)

[Folk Singer]

Your waterfall pictures are gorgeous!

 

 

Agree.:)

[kuddles14]

Grady, thank you so much for your review. My DH and I will be going on this cruise in April. I have one question. Where was the park n go? We are driving down and will be staying at the Fairfield Airport and Cruise Port hotel. ( I think that's its formal name). Or is it better to park at the port?

[PH8]

Super,fantastic,outstanding review Grady.......You did good!!:D:D

 

BTW-------never had seen a "gift" from room service before.That was pretty special.

[squadron]

Diamond Plus member in an interior, is this unusual ?

 

I have an interior booked for may 2014 and reading CC get the impression a lot of frequent sailors seem to look down on interior cruisers as a bit of a lower level passenger. This will be my first RCI cruise and hope I am wrong !!!

 

Have a fab cruise.

 

Dave.

 

Not diamond plus but I book interior - as a solo I'm paying double and because I spend so little time in the cabin I'm happy with it. Have had a balcony when with friends and found we didn't use it so isn't worth the money for me. First time cruisers shouldn't be turned off booking an interior if the price fits by those who think it would be "awful".

[IrishCC]

You folks are all in for a great time, she's an awesome ship. Stay tuned, I have a ton of pictures to post up.

I totally agree . . . we were on that cruise too and had the time of our lives!

[sunshine66]

Diamond Plus member in an interior, is this unusual ?

 

I have an interior booked for may 2014 and reading CC get the impression a lot of frequent sailors seem to look down on interior cruisers as a bit of a lower level passenger. This will be my first RCI cruise and hope I am wrong !!!

 

Have a fab cruise.

 

Dave.

 

I am a frequent cruiser and I prefer balcony but will sometimes do an inside cabin depending on circumstances and where I go. I actually wish I could do an inside cabin from a money perspective but I hate not knowing what time it is.. I don't look down, I envy!!

Enjoy your cruise..

[Dave85]

Grady, just spent my Saturday morning catching up on your usual outstanding review. :D You guys seem like a blast, hope our cruising paths cross some day! Can't wait for the rest of the review!

[DarthGrady]

Grady, thank you so much for your review. My DH and I will be going on this cruise in April. I have one question. Where was the park n go? We are driving down and will be staying at the Fairfield Airport and Cruise Port hotel. ( I think that's its formal name). Or is it better to park at the port?

 

If you're coming down on I-95, you'll get off onto I-595 which takes you directly into port Port Everglades. That will end in a construction area, Park-n-Go is to the left. You'll probably want to plug it into GPS, as that area is pretty congested. I'd visit their website before you go, you can get their address, check for any online specials, and probably join their "frequent parker" program to earn free days.

 

Whether or not to use them is purely up to you. You save money parking off-site, but it's obviously not as convenient as having your car right at the ship. Some folks like to be able to jump in their car and go. Pros and cons to both.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[DarthGrady]

Grady, just spent my Saturday morning catching up on your usual outstanding review. :D You guys seem like a blast, hope our cruising paths cross some day! Can't wait for the rest of the review!

 

Super,fantastic,outstanding review Grady.......You did good!!:D:D

 

BTW-------never had seen a "gift" from room service before.That was pretty special.

 

 

Thanks Dave and Kathy!

 

Kathy, I talked to some other D+ folks onboard, they also got those daily gifts. Must be something special they do on Indy.

 

 

Grady,

As so many others on this thread have expressed, thank you for the time you've invested sharing this illustrated review. We will be taking our first cruise with RCCL on the Indy 8 night cruise on 3/15 after 4 Caribbean cruises on Princess. Your pictures show Indy to be a beautiful ship. I am looking forward to making comparisons. Looking out the window at the fresh snow from last night and hearing of more sub-zero temps for next week, our cruise can't get here quick enough. Thanks again. :)

 

No problem! Glad you enjoyed it, have a great cruise!

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Edited February 1, 2014 by DarthGrady

[DarthGrady]

Agree.:)

 

Thanks to you both!

 

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[kuddles14]

If you're coming down on I-95, you'll get off onto I-595 which takes you directly into port Port Everglades. That will end in a construction area, Park-n-Go is to the left. You'll probably want to plug it into GPS, as that area is pretty congested. I'd visit their website before you go, you can get their address, check for any online specials, and probably join their "frequent parker" program to earn free days.

 

Whether or not to use them is purely up to you. You save money parking off-site, but it's obviously not as convenient as having your car right at the ship. Some folks like to be able to jump in their car and go. Pros and cons to both.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Thank you

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[submariner755]

I don't, but I can't imagine they're very much, maybe a couple bucks each.

 

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

On Allure last week, they were around 5 dollars, however they did have mini- cupcakes for like $2.50 and cake pops for like $1:50. I'm assuming it'll be the same fleet wide. A cupcake decorating class was $25. Hope this helps !

[submariner755]

A submarine in port with us at SJ

 

 

The motorcycle group loading their bikes

 

 

 

Thanks for the picture of the submarine. It is definitely an older 637 class. As you can probably guess by my handle that this use to be my main ride to the Caribbean. Needless to say, I prefer to ride in a cruise ship.

[DarthGrady]

Thanks for the picture of the submarine. It is definitely an older 637 class. As you can probably guess by my handle that this use to be my main ride to the Caribbean. Needless to say, I prefer to ride in a cruise ship.

 

No problem! I definitely had to take one, its not often that most of us get to see one up close.

[DarthGrady]

Day 8, Labadee:

We woke up late, but were still able to make it to the good breakfast in the dining room. Most of the food was good, but the Eggs Benedict was just so-so. That’s pretty well par for the course with RCI, they just can’t seem to get that dish right.

I did not go ashore this day, but the weather was very nice for those who did. The Explorer of the Seas was originally supposed to be with us in port, but did not make it due to a noro virus outbreak. This caused the private resort to be much less crowded, which I think in turn enticed more of our passengers to go ashore. With a nearly empty ship, I was able to get a lot of pictures that I had needed for this review.

With my photography session complete, we went up to the Solarium for some pool and hot tub time. The Freedom Class Solarium is my favorite pool area of any ship. The Radiance Class also has a nice Solarium, but they have only one small hot tub and for some reason the glass roofs are never opened. So getting back to Indy’s Solarium, there is no glass roof and two huge (cantilevered) hot tubs. There is a large pool (fresh water, yay!) with a swim up bar in the middle and plenty of lounge chairs and tables.

We had a good lunch in sparsely populated Windjammer. The only time I can abide the buffet is on days when the ship empties out. Otherwise it’s a mess of folks dodging (and sometimes trampling) each other for sub-par cafeteria food.

My daily trip to the gym was followed by some time in the steam room since the sauna’s state of disrepair continued unabated. We had a few drinks in the DL/CL before having a good dinner in the dining room.

We hurried the pace at dinner and skipped the cigar lounge in anticipation of attending The Quest game show. For those that have never seen one, The Quest is sort of an adult-oriented scavenger hunt that is played by teams of varying size within the theater. The Cruise Director gives out a “quest” that the teams must do to win points. As an example: “show me your team number and a piercing not in the ear”.

Normally this is a fun, and sometimes wild event. Unfortunately Joff Eaton’s version of The Quest is pretty lame. He never gave the disclaimer that kids needed to leave, which sets the tone that the game is for adults. He then instated a two foot zone of exclusion around himself, violation of which resulted in lost points. The whole show just seemed very controlled and boring. A far cry from the crazy free-for-alls that we used to see during the weekend cruises on my beloved Monarch.

The Quest snooze-fest was really an allegory for Joff’s style as a whole. The guy seemed nice enough, and he does all the basics, but that was it. He was never very entertaining or memorable. I still vividly remember Graham Seymour’s hilarious morning show, his stand up comedy and his musical talent. But I will remember nothing about Joff, save the boring Quest.

Late in the evening we stopped into the dance club for (lots of) drinks, and then went to Sorrento’s for late night pizza. The clocks rolled back an hour this night, so the crew couldn’t pull any tricks on us. We enjoyed every slice of our late night snack.

The Windjammer

Chops

[DarthGrady]

The video arcade

 

 

Fuel teen club

 

 

[DarthGrady]

Johnny Rockets

 

 

 

The main theater

 

 

[DarthGrady]

Moving down to deck 4:

 

Boleros Lounge

 

 

The photo gallery

 

 

Casino Royale

 

[DarthGrady]

The Schooner Bar

 

 

 

 

[DarthGrady]

Another "gift". I didn't try it, it smelled like cat food.

 

 

The wait staff in the MDR.

 

Some really awesome stairwell art. Yes, those are TIE fighters battling ships of the line.

 

Atrium art, this is made entirely of spools of thread

 

More atrium art

[DarthGrady]

Day 9, At Sea:

Our final day onboard started very late, so we had breakfast at noon in the dining room. They were calling it lunch. The service was incredibly slow, and the chicken sliders weren’t very good. At least they had the salad bar, which is always one of my favorite cruise ship meals. In the afternoon we spent some more time in the Solarium pool and hot tub. I then drug myself to the gym for one last workout.

In the afternoon we did a pub crawl with our fellow Cruise Critics. We started at the pool bar; I had a Strongbow hard cider. The next stop was supposed to be the Solarium Bar, but the bartender was working fairly slowly so we went to the Sky Bar instead. At the Sky Bar I had yet another Strongbow, they are delicious. The Plaza Bar (in the Windjammer) was closed, so we next stopped at the Dog and Badger pub on the promenade. I had a Magners Cider there, but I think I prefer the dry taste of Strongbow. We all watched our final sunset at the heli-pad before heading to the Schooner Bar. I had another Strongbow there before going back to the room to get dressed for dinner. It was a great pub crawl, and a fun way to spend the last afternoon with our new Cruise Critic buddies.

We had drinks in the DL/CL one last time and bid farewell to the new friends we’d met up there during the week. Our final dinner in the dining room went well, the pasta and steak dishes were both good. After dinner I stopped by the Connoisseurs Club for one more cigar with the nice folks in the lounge. I said goodbye to the cruise critic folks in the night club and then went back to the cabin to finish packing.

Indy at sea

The On Air Lounge. It was hard getting pictures in here since the art auction people have decided to annex it as additional display space. I couldn't even get shots of the neat foyer area outside with the RCTV display, it was entirely clogged with art auction stuff. That, along with all the PA announcements, made the art auction staff my least favorite team onboard.

Studio B ice skating

Some towel animals

[DarthGrady]

Conclusion:

We skipped breakfast on the last morning and debarked the ship at 7:00. There was no crowd at all, and we walked right off with our luggage. There was also no line at Customs, so we were in the parking lot in about ten minutes. We waited longer for the Park-N-Go shuttle than we did for the entire disembarkation process. By 7:45 we were on the road back home.

This cruise was mostly excellent. My only (minor) complaints were the inconsistent food quality, a fairly dry Cruise Director and way-too-numerous P.A. announcements. RCI should really take a lesson from Celebrity on how to handle PA announcement. That is, there should be very few. I don’t need the Cruise Compass read to me! I get it both in my cabin and now on the electronic displays. I also don’t need to hear about bingo, art auctions and jewelry sales. It makes the atmosphere on board seem cheap, like a constant sales pitch. It’s as if the ship were a floating K-Mart

Taken as a whole it was a great time. The itinerary was nice, with a good mixture of port and sea days. The crew was friendly and attentive and the ship was in excellent shape. I would definitely consider this cruise again, and highly recommend it. We are planning on booking the Brilliance for March 20th, so I’ll be looking forward to that.

 

Night shots on deck

 

 

 

 

[#55worktoplay]

Your pictures were great and those waterfalls were the best. I just have one question for you, were people allowed to bring their motorcycles on the ship?

[DarthGrady]

Well that's it! Thanks for following along everyone! I'll be monitoring the thread in case anyone has any questions.

Edited February 2, 2014 by DarthGrady