Indy 3/1/14 the good the bad and the ugly

[wolfganghowell]

Fear not, the Ugly is only our bellies and waistlines!

 

I had the greatest intention of doing a bang up review and then I realized. The first few days are a BLUR! And that is NOT due to the Drink Package! Feel free to ask away, I have the compasses at home (sorry).

 

First the disclaimers. We are DINKS, we are in our 50s but are in denial about that. ;) This was Cruise #22, we are Diamond Plus but fly under the radar on that.* We stayed in a Grand Suite - 1268, great location fyi, since you have a little bit larger balcony.

 

*In other words, we are NOT like the woman at Labadee who professed to all around her, "WE ARE DIAMOND PLUS." She directed it at me, which of course amused me to no end. I so wanted to say, "Yeah lady, thanks so are we and OUR card is Gold while yours is NOT." But my elementary school yard "my mom's better than your mom's days are over. :D

 

Coming up - Day One!

[wolfganghowell]

Embarkation

 

We stayed at Embassy Suites. Very nice and convenient. VERY busy breakfast - with 4 ships leaving that day, you almost had a Windjammer experience on land! We were going to do a cab to the port but a shuttle pulled up in front of us and offered to take us so away we went. We arrived around 11 am, proceeded quickly through the lines. Happily - the Priority line for Suites, Diamond, Emerald and Platinum was short and fast moving. The regular line was long but also seemed to be moving well. We were probably onboard close to 11:15 and were definitely not the first people on but it was not crowded.

 

We did the usual check of the dining room. Often we have issues. Not this time. We were traveling with friends and we were not only at the same table but in the area of the dining room we had requested. Next, we had prebought the drink package but had to go get the stickers. Our friends were buying it onboard. They had it set up in the Promenade and Benito (who turned out to be our wine steward/cocktail waiter in the MDR) took care of us. As Benito said as he handed us our cards with the sticker "Tick Tock Tick Tock."

 

Premium Drink Package: Here are my thoughts. We decided to the package because (A) we like adult beverages on vacation and (B) our itinerary fit well with getting our money's worth. Being back onboard by 1:30 on San Juan day and having Labadee as a port made this worthwhile for us THIS TIME. Had it been a "regular" itinerary where we would be off the ship 3-4 days, I would not have done it. We had NO issues getting service - if anything, we got better service. For example, the first day at the Pool Bar, we gave the bartender a $20 tip as a "HI, we are your new best friends this week." As a result, he kept pouring shots for us and getting us to try them. Man, some of those were tasty and I'm not much of a shot girl. Often, as we finished a drink they had another one ready for us. We also spent a lot of time in the casino ( more on that later! ) and after an hour or two the FIRST night, they would just bring us a drink without ever asking. That can be good or bad when gambling! :eek: BOTTOM LINE - For us, for this itinerary only the drink package worked. I don't see us doing it every cruise. For one thing, with Concierge Lounge access, we have drinks in there plus the drink coupons we receive. We also rotate between beer and mixed drinks so on the "beer" days, you are hard pressed to drink THAT much beer. If you are a wine drinker, you only need 6 glasses per day to "break even."

 

MORE TO COME

[wolfganghowell]

SAILAWAY - Great weather and happy vibe onboard. At 1 pm, the rooms were available so the carryon was unpacked (basically the toiletries so the bathroom was organized and DONE!) We received our bags quickly pre sailaway- we then proceeded to hang with our friends and bartender buddies at the Pool Bar. Just wonderful relaxation as we all started to de-compress from some stressful job situations.

 

Since the Drink Package made us less frantic to get our "free CL" drinks, we wandered a bit. Mr Wolf likes to hit the casino the first night to get the lay of the land. We spent a little time there pre-dinner. Met up with the friends for Dinner One.

 

MDR - As mentioned, our table was as requested. We had a lovely couple from England with us. Our servers were very kind. The food was fine. However (comma) service was agonizingly slow. I am not sure if this was a server issue or a kitchen issue. 90 minutes to 2 hours is just too much for us. Especially for an 8:30 dinner. We prefer it to be around an hour. We ended up in the MDR 4 nights, Giovannis 1 night, WJ 1 night and Chops 2 nights. However - there is definitely a STORY for the Chops nights.

 

Me and the friends spent some time in Bolero's dancing (great Latin band onboard) and then finishing up in the casino.

 

DAY TWO AND THREE COMING UP - COMBINED! Because dang it 2 sea days back to back become a BLUR. Why can't time at work pass as fast as 2 sea days????

[joand452]

Looking forward to the rest of your review -- sailing on the Indy for the first time -- very soon! :D

[wolfganghowell]

:) Thanks, thought I was talking to myself there for awhile!

 

Sorry my review is not witty and charming this time (if ever - ha). Trying to work and conjure up the vaca is challenging!

 

SO where were we? Ah yes - sea days. LOVE THEM. My fave morning activity is to ensconce myself in the Solarium and read for a few hours. BUT apparently there was a Chair Hog convention on this cruise. 8 am Sea Day One - towels and flip flops draped ALL OVER. I slunk over to a corner and found a waffle butt lounger. This makes me long for the days that people DID have to check out towels. Now that there is no penalty for not turning them back in, they have effectively become the Go To prop for chair hogs. I get it, people want a chair. Guess what? If you want it that bad, then plop your butt in it and USE IT. It irritated me that EVERY SINGLE SEA DAY, I could not find a decent spot to read. Rant over....maybe...

[wolfganghowell]

Sea Days - we just veg out. We hung at Pool Bar. Since my Solarium reading location was an abject failure and the temp was mild, I ended up in the Gold Card area by the Pool. A brisk wind kept us from getting warm which of course ended up with a small patch sunburn. Sigh - you'd think I would have figured that out by now!

 

Lunches these days were a quickie in WJ (acceptable) and the Tutti salad in the MDR. I keep forgetting that blasted salad bar and it is one of my favorite on board meals. In addition to our 2 days of laziness and laughter, here is our evening report.

 

First Formal Night - we just couldn't seem to gather the energy to dress up. So we decided if Raj the concierge could get us in Giovannis we would go there. If not, the Jammer. We did get Giovannis and it was MORE than enough food. Good grief, I do NOT KNOW HOW PEOPLE CAN EAT LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME. We live in Dallas, we have great restaurants everywhere but we only eat a "meal" 1-2 times a week. The rest is salads, light etc. While many have said the food quality on Royal has gone down, I have to say that MY experience is that it has improved. 3 had the filet in Giovannis and were very pleased, I had the chicken which was excellent. Our service was spot on. Night 3 was back in MDR, food was fine, service was slow, company was lovely.

 

EVENING ACTIVITIES THROUGHOUT THE WEEK- Schooner Bar. Egads he was dreadful. If you are over 70 and think cheesy piano player singing off key is entertaining then you would like this guy. I wish I could "unhear" the off key version of "What a Wonderful World" that was playing as I passed by one night. On second thought, I really shouldn't insult the over 70 crowd like that. My parents are 85 and 90 and they would have thought he was dreadful too. And one of them is half deaf! :eek:

 

Dog and Badger - supposedly there was someone there. All I can tell you is that 3 of the 8 nights we were in the vicinity, it was silent. And we heard from fellow passengers that the silence was better than the playing. I think the word depressing and the description "funeral dirge" were used as references.

 

Olive or Twist - we went up on the night they played jazz. It was fine. On a 1-10 scale, I would give them a 7. I know other nights seemed to rotate the musical acts.

 

We did see Rock The Boat in the Pyramid Lounge one night. Played a variety of rock from the 60s to 80s. Our generation music. Good job. Although there is something quite surreal to seeing geriatrics dancing to Queen's Fat Bottomed Girls. Definitely ROCK selections NOT pop - which was a first for us on a cruise. But again, this was our music so we were pleased.

 

The Caribbean band was average but we love having reggae at the Pool. They just seemed to be going through the repertoire with little energy. As mentioned, the Latin band was great.

 

MORE TO COME

 

Again, I am happy to answer questions or even give you snarky comments. I do have a snafu coming up for those of you that love cruise drama!

[seb]

Very interested in your CHOPS report as we are on INDY at end of month and have the wine dinner and another evening at CHOPS already booked. Been reading some pretty negative things that "might" be on the way for CHOPS and would love to know your experience and if the menu has changed there yet.

 

Thanks

 

Steve

[dln929]

Thanks for writing and I'll definitely be following along. We were on the Indy two winters ago and loved her (the deck 7 corner aft definitely had something to do with that :D). I'm tickled pink that Rock the Boat is still playing. They're so funny. I don't think they could get through a performance without reminding us that they play "rock" not "pop." We thought they did a great job getting people up and dancing.

[wolfganghowell]

Here's the Chops report - what led to it is another story.

 

We ended up there the final 2 nights. Our service was excellent both nights. We requested the same waiter, Maurice, for night two. The filets were cooked to perfection and the sides were MORE than enough. The roasted potatoes - mmm. Those who had baked potatoes were very happy. The second night some at the table chose the halibut and were delighted with it. The mud pie and red velvet met with approval. Surprisingly, the creme brulee - not so much.

 

The wines available through the drink package were fine although they kept urging a bottle on us. One night, Raj sent a bottle to the table. Actually - let me interject here. BOTH nights in Chops were comped. For all of us. This is due to the Cabana Debacle - which I will get to eventually (drum roll please).

 

Another mention of Chops. Since we were in suites (gasp - don't hate us, we try not to flash those cards unnecessarily!), we could eat made to order breakfasts in here and also bring our lunch from Windjammer in here if we ate a relatively early lunch - which happened exactly once. But we ended up having about 4-5 breakfasts here - all excellent. Delicious omelettes and Mr Wolf enjoyed his Eggs Benedict immensely. A great perk!

[CruiseGirlKS]

Great review....can't wait to hear more! :)

[bugger832001]

My wife and I and friends were on that trip to. In the lounge we saw that couple that danced to everything they played, it was interesting.

[TigerLady]

Sounds like you are having fun.. Isn't that what counts?? lol

[wolfganghowell]

So....where was I? Ah - we are pretty much through Day 3. We really thought we would notice that "extra" day on an 8 day itinerary. Well folks, nope. It FLEW.

 

So now we come to Day 4, St Martin. We love St Martin. A good day for us is being lazy little beached blobs on Orient Beach. And that is what we did. The one dark spot is that the plumbing on almost the entire area of Orient was not working. You really don't like it when you ask where the potty is and they point at the water. Uhhhhh.....really? We stayed at Kon Tiki which was either destroyed and was being rebuilt or was just being rebuilt.

 

Day 5 - St Kitts. Our friends had a lazy day onboard. We did the Catamaran Sail and Snorkel through Royal. We enjoyed our excursion a lot. The catamaran was large and room for all. The crew was fun and friendly. The snorkeling - meh. Once you have snorkeled Belize or Roatan - really nothing is going to beat it. There were a lot of fish and it was an enjoyable time. We came back onboard and I had a massage in the spa. Yep, sales pitch at the end ate up a few minutes but I am always able to get out of it. I have a secret weapon - my job in the real world supplies me with all the goodies I want so I pull that out of my pocket when needed. ;) Massage was great though - I give it 3 snorts. You know those - you are about to fall asleep but the snort catches you so you don't completely miss the massage!

 

Day 6 - San Juan. We love San Juan. But why Royal has this port form 7 am to 2 pm is beyond me. You don't experience San Juan that early. The 4 of us voted that they should dump this and go to Labadee and spend the night there. Let everyone frolic, come onboard at 6 and then send them back out the next day. We would have adored 2 days at Labadee. But back to San Juan. We headed out around 10 am to make the pilgrimage to the Coach Factory Store. End result: new leather handbag, wallet and iphone case. $215. SCORE. Then it was the pilgrimage to Barrachina for pinacoladas and appetizers. Love Barrachina. Then back onboard.

 

Again a blurry afternoon - I think the usual vegging at Pool followed by a short nap. This was second formal night and we dressed up and went. Nice dinner - still too long. Interestingly, our Head Waiter never appeared so our poor overrun asst waiter had to take care of the lobster removal. First time I've had this happen. We did change into clothes we could breathe in after dinner!

 

Before I go forward, we did see Love and Marriage show and right now I can't remember what night it was. It was fun. We had seen it in on tv before but never live. We did skip Quest this time - seen it and semi -participated about 4 times. If you have never done it, it is a must see. We also saw the Ice Show on Day 3. It was Strings. We all agreed it started out slow but once it got going, it was excellent.

[wolfganghowell]

Bugger, are you talking about Rock the Boat or Boleros? There were 2 couples in Boleros that were excellent salsa dancers. However, they were so serious about it that I didn't see any enjoyment or sense of fun from them. The beauty of dance is the passion and they appeared to be performing brain surgery. I give them a strong B+ for technical but the creative score is a C.

[bugger832001]

It was in the pyramid lounge, I also agree about the singer in the Dog and Badger he was not good, sat on the outside every day after dinner just to figure out where we go from here.

[bugger832001]

We to had trouble getting chairs around the pool. We were woundering at the pool, what were the Brazillians going to where to the pool this day lol.

[marcyjane]

Sea Days - we just veg out. We hung at Pool Bar. Since my Solarium reading location was an abject failure and the temp was mild, I ended up in the Gold Card area by the Pool. A brisk wind kept us from getting warm which of course ended up with a small patch sunburn. Sigh - you'd think I would have figured that out by now!

 

Lunches these days were a quickie in WJ (acceptable) and the Tutti salad in the MDR. I keep forgetting that blasted salad bar and it is one of my favorite on board meals. In addition to our 2 days of laziness and laughter, here is our evening report.

 

First Formal Night - we just couldn't seem to gather the energy to dress up. So we decided if Raj the concierge could get us in Giovannis we would go there. If not, the Jammer. We did get Giovannis and it was MORE than enough food. Good grief, I do NOT KNOW HOW PEOPLE CAN EAT LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME. We live in Dallas, we have great restaurants everywhere but we only eat a "meal" 1-2 times a week. The rest is salads, light etc. While many have said the food quality on Royal has gone down, I have to say that MY experience is that it has improved. 3 had the filet in Giovannis and were very pleased, I had the chicken which was excellent. Our service was spot on. Night 3 was back in MDR, food was fine, service was slow, company was lovely.

 

EVENING ACTIVITIES THROUGHOUT THE WEEK- Schooner Bar. Egads he was dreadful. If you are over 70 and think cheesy piano player singing off key is entertaining then you would like this guy. I wish I could "unhear" the off key version of "What a Wonderful World" that was playing as I passed by one night. On second thought, I really shouldn't insult the over 70 crowd like that. My parents are 85 and 90 and they would have thought he was dreadful too. And one of them is half deaf! :eek:

 

Dog and Badger - supposedly there was someone there. All I can tell you is that 3 of the 8 nights we were in the vicinity, it was silent. And we heard from fellow passengers that the silence was better than the playing. I think the word depressing and the description "funeral dirge" were used as references.

 

Olive or Twist - we went up on the night they played jazz. It was fine. On a 1-10 scale, I would give them a 7. I know other nights seemed to rotate the musical acts.

 

We did see Rock The Boat in the Pyramid Lounge one night. Played a variety of rock from the 60s to 80s. Our generation music. Good job. Although there is something quite surreal to seeing geriatrics dancing to Queen's Fat Bottomed Girls. Definitely ROCK selections NOT pop - which was a first for us on a cruise. But again, this was our music so we were pleased.

 

The Caribbean band was average but we love having reggae at the Pool. They just seemed to be going through the repertoire with little energy. As mentioned, the Latin band was great.

 

MORE TO COME

 

Again, I am happy to answer questions or even give you snarky comments. I do have a snafu coming up for those of you that love cruise drama!

 

Enjoying your review, where is the gold card are near the pool. Thanks

[CruisingCaraCat]

I'm glad to see your review. I have a related burning issue as I am going on the Allure in May (for the 5th time) and I am torn about getting the premium booze package. My wife doesn't drink much at all so when they decided only one person in the cabin had to get one it got me thinking.

 

My problem is as a D+ I am wondering if it would be a mistake since I do drink 'some' in the CL and/or the DL during happy hour. That being said I do prefer an outside bar due to my drink preferences and I am kind of intrigued with trying different drinks.....problems, problems, problems :confused:

[bugger832001]

The gold card section is right next to the pool bar on either side as you go up the stairs to the sky bar

[wolfganghowell]

OMG Bugger - the Brazilians. We named them the Kardashians the first day. However, we did have a late American entry in the "pool area entertainment sweepstakes." The "darling" young American girl who dropped her glass bottle of Corona around and IN the pool. Thus forcing the Pool Deck to close the pool, drain it and search for the glass. A huge amount of trouble for the Deck Crew. Did she and her group appear embarassed or ashamed or even apologetic? NOPE. In fact, it appeared as if they treated the deck crew rudely. Did they stop carrying glass bottles? Nope. Where was lovely Mom and Dad? Watching. Mom FINALLY came and took a bottle away from one girl who then came over, took another bottle out of the bucket and went back out. One of the girls came to the bar to be served and yelled at the bartenders that she turned 21 the day before. Sorry no service - must be 21 before sailing. She was RUDE, then sent her older sister over to be rude and to buy her drink. Apparently sis had been buying her drinks all week but the bartenders caught on. They turned them down flat and then ignored them. The entire pool bar congratulated them. OK, so the girls were young and we have all been stupid at that age. But dear old Mom and Dad were there and were old enough to take control of the situation! Their bad behaviour caused the pool to be shut down for a good 2 hours on the last afternoon of the cruise. Selfish!

[wolfganghowell]

Jack, yeah I feel your dilemma. It was interesting not to feel compelled to rush to the CL. But we ended up there 7 of 8 nights for an hour or so. If you drink adult beverages other than beer especially during the day, you should come out ahead. They have priced it smart. Like I said, on an itinerary that does not include Coco Cay or Labadee we wouldn't have done it. It also helped that San Juan was basically a sea day when it came to drinking. ;)

[wolfganghowell]

Speaking of blurs, I think I am up to Labadee. <drum roll please> Ok, here is our "bad".

 

Let's go back a bit, shall we? We wanted a cabana. We wanted an OTW on Barefoot cabana. Badly. This was going to be our lazy day - to play cards, float, have a cabana "boy" bring us drinkies. We were looking forward to this. I bided my time and emailed Raj about a month before the cruise. He asked me to email about a week out. I sent my email 6 days before sailing. He responded confirming our Barefoot OTW cabana. SCORE! A few days into the cruise, Raj comes to us in the Lounge. He has a "situation". It seems a family wants 2 cabanas together and they don't have any left. Would we be willing to do this family a favor and move our OTW cabana to Nellies Beach? If so, since we are doing a favor not only will they comp us the cabana BUT they will give the 4 of us dinner in Chops not one night but 2 nights. Dang - they must REALLY want to make that family happy! We confer. It is an extremely generous offer and we are promised that the cabana is just as good, we will have the same view, same amenities, same access to lunch etc. So we agree.

 

Well........you know the old phrase "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished." We are the walking advertisement for it.

[wolfganghowell]

So we arrive at Labadee at 10. We don't completely rush since we have promised the "best" cabana with a bottle of champagne waiting for us. So we are off at 10:10. We walk to Nellies. Our name is not on the list. We have no cabana. The locals are NOT HELPFUL. They gather and speak in French and stare at the list. We are not the only people with problems. Another couple is not on the list. The charming woman previously mentioned marches up screeching that "they have 2 cabanas, she made her reservation a YEAR AGO and she is not giving up her cabana and she is not paying for 2 cabanas." To be helpful, I say, "Oh they will be able to take your charge off onboard." After all - she is yelling at the locals who have NOTHING to do with her problem and NO WAY to fix it. Hey - at least SHE is on the list, albeit twice. That's when she informs me that "she is Diamond PLus and they sail all the time and she knows they will take care of it." Well then lady if you are so smart, how did you manage to book 2 cabanas a year ago and NOT know you were charged twice for it. After all, when you book online, they charge you RIGHT THEN. ....but I digress....

 

45 minutes of NOTHING goes by. We send the guys to Barefoot Beach to see if they can find someone anyone who will DO SOMETHING. Hey - the clock is ticking. We have to be back onboard at 4:30 ish. At 10:10, we expected to be sitting in that cabana by 10:20. We could see them! Another 20 minutes of NOTHING and now the red headed irish girl is getting irked. I get mistakes happen, I don't get NO help. So I tell the local that although I know this is not HIS fault, I want to speak to someone in charge NOW. They take me on a cart to Barefoot where I see a flustered Raj. Apparently the guys just left and we have a cabana. The list was wrong.

 

All is not yet well....

[wolfganghowell]

Our cabana could technically be called OTW. It does have a ladder into the water. However, it faces the beach of people. Where's that great view of the water, the ship, the mountains? Oh it's to our right - we now have the worst OTW cabana. And it's crowded. Now, we had never been to Labadee and I did my due diligence, I knew this beach was more crowded. BUT we were right off the beach, no privacy.

 

 

We now have a very surly supervisor watching us. Raj feels terrible and to his credit, he had a rough day with many other cabana problems. I feel for the guy and he did so much to make us happy again...eventually. We take our floaties and go to Barefoot Beach. Surly Supervisor tells us we can't go there. Uhh...yeah we can. This is the one time where we enjoyed flashing that gold card. We had access to that beach based on the card, you don't have to have a cabana. So we ended up schlepping over there when we wanted to float and eat lunch.

 

BUT the story is not over. The location of the cabana was so lousy that Mr Wolf went back to Barefoot to tell Raj that we never would have accepted this cabana - that the location is not what he promised. We ended up moving again to another one that sort of faced the ship and the water. It was fine. For the less than 4 hours that were left to us. Raj told us to order anything we wanted, even if it wasn't on the drink package, he would take care of it onboard. We were thinking bottle of champagne or at the worst, a bucket of beer. Nope - our attendants refused since we were on the drink package even when we told them to go ahead and charge us. We could only do the one drink at a time.

 

Now, I realize that some of you may think - oh poor you NOT. I get it. But -

 

We felt like we got conned out of our lovely cabana to accommodate someone else. Yes, it was now free. But honestly, that was not the point with us. The cost was $125 per couple - it wasn't a big deal. Yes we appreciated the generosity of the offer but that alone did not make us accept it. We actually enjoyed the fact that by helping someone else, we were also receiving a benefit. Had we known what we know now, we would have said, Sorry we aren't changing, sorry those people can't have a cabana but we reserved it first. Selfish, well perhaps. But poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine? Right?

We would rather have paid for the cabana and enjoyed the beach and view we originally had than dealt with losing 2 hours of relaxation and fun plus the attitude of the locals.

 

On the positive side, our cabana attendant was very gracious and was not involved so of course we made sure to tip him and thank him for his service. He was great. Back onboard, we filled Raj in on the disappointments of the day. Raj is a great concierge and the sign of that is when things go bad, how do you handle it? It's easy to be great when nothing goes wrong! He worked very hard to bring us back to being happy. We couldn't get back the wasted time but he came up with a little resolution for us that I felt was fair. I won't share it here but it was a credit for all of that again, money was not the objective and we actually did NOT ask for credit. But I felt as a customer service issue, Raj did what he could within his power to show his empathy for our disappointment. I also think he told Chops to treat us well because they DID.

[wolfganghowell]

Last sea day - again, I skipped breakfast in the vain hope I could find a Solarium spot. Come on people, I am reading Gone Girl. I need to get through it before the movie comes out! Maybe 10 people in there but every chair covered.

 

Note to Royal - bring back the towel charge. Maybe that will get the chair hogs back under control. Or else have the deck patrol actually patrol.

 

Other than this, lovely day at sea. We are depressed. It seems to all of us that 8 days went by faster than 7. We have no idea how or why this happened. Maybe alien abduction? Something.

 

Disembarkation - easy peasy. We actually hung out on board as long as possible since our friends flight wasn't until late and ours was 12:45. Considering the airport was horrible - nowhere to sit or eat inside the terminal it was a wise choice.

 

One more story to come - the Casino. Also known as "the evening's activity venue".