Indy Sept 13-20

[jessw_2033]

My husband and I, along with our friends who were 1st time cruisers, are just off the Independence as of yesterday. This is my DH & I 5th cruise. We have cruised solely with RC on Freedom twice, Oasis & Allure. I was a bit nervous about this cruise after reading all the terrible reviews, so let me first say that this cruise was fabulous. No major issues or complaints. The ship is in great shape. The crew is constantly cleaning.

 

Day 1 was a bit hectic & we worried about the crowds & elevator wait times. This all got better the very next day. Sorrentos was open & serving their delicious pizza when we boarded. Their drink/soda machine was down all week so they served ice water & later served soda from 2 liter drinks. This was a bit of a bummer b/c 2 liter sodas just don't taste the same. Nothing we couldn't work around. We went shortly after eating to check our rooms. We had an oceanview balcony on deck 7. Room 7690. It was everything we remember from prior cruises & the room was actually a bit bigger than allure & oasis rooms. Tons of space! Our stateroom attendant was fair & nice enough. He didn't go above & beyond like others have but he got the job done. We only got towel animals on 3 of the 7 nights which was unusual for us & he failed to refill out breakfast room service request forms. Nonetheless, it didn't truly affect our cruise.

 

Day 2 was at sea. It was not nearly as crowded as we thought it would be. Plenty of deck chairs & we loved sun tanning on the deck below flowrider near the ping pong tables. No one was ever there. Our next fave place was St. tropez, the sun deck at the front of the boat above deck 12. We napped there daily & watched the sunset. Again, no one was ever there.

Day 3, was the day we ported in San Juan. We arrived there around 4 pm. To be honest, I hated arriving there so late. The tours RC offered were minimal. We ended up choosing a tour of old & new San Juan by bus. Our tour guide was fabulous & knowledgable. We ended up really enjoying it.

It was quite neat to see the ship lit up at port when we left San Juan at 11pm!

Now, I will say that I was cruising while pregnant. I'm quite early in my pregnancy, so I have all the typical cravings & nausea. No way better way to do it than while prego. Plenty of good food everywhere. We don't usually eat at windjammer...ever! But we are there frequently this trip. It was clean & spacey. Plenty of seats & plenty of food & fresh fruit. The room service for breakfast was also excellent. Always on time & always exactly how I ordered it. Including extra ice for my milk ;) Nothing better than eating breakfast on your balcony.

Also, another note about San Juan. You do have cell service, so all you parents who are dying to call & check on your babies at home or other personal business, this is a great time!

 

Day 4...St. Maarten! Ladies, if you are looking for jewelry, this is the place. I highly recommend sitting in on one of the jewelry seminars early on in the cruise. Super fact filled! And, coupons for free jewelry on the island. Our friends, first time cruisers, were looking for a diamond upgrade. Let me just say, Diamond Int'l is THE place. They got a heck of a deal! We ended up booking a tour. It was titled something like 3-wheeled open air adventure & beach tour. It was a blast! Imagine 3 wheeled cars speeding around the island & then stopping at theist beautiful beach & catered with lunch! So.much.fun!!

 

Let me cover the main dining room for a moment. Our experience is usually good. The reviews I read before the cruise really beat down the food in the dining room. Those reviews could not be farther off base. Every single meal the 4 of us ate was amazing. Our servers were great! I got 2 lobster tail on surf & turf night & I didn't even ask for it. We are Giovanni's one night for the Mystery dinner theatre. I thought the dining room food was equivalent. Although, my husband got the filet in Giovanni's & said it was amazing. I got the shrimp & it was good shrimp, but could have gotten that in the dining room & saved $100. The Mystery dinner show was cute & had wine flowing the whole night. My hubby loved it! There were a ton of empty tables every night in the dining room & it really bummed us out to see that. Our servers really depend on those tips, which we gave them extra of.

 

Day 5...St. kitts...I was not impressed. We had not been to this island before. The hagglers & taxi drivers in port were harassing. So much so that I mentioned this in my post cruise survey to RC. You couldn't just say no & they go away. They would keep following you. Not a good feeling. Our excursion was for 1pm & was a catamaran & snorkel trip. Super fun! The water is gorgeous & you can't go wrong with a little boat ride around the island.

 

Day 5 & 6 were at sea. Always found a chair for the 4 of us, never a problem! The pool was rarely full which was a first for us.

 

Our all time fave thing to do on the ship is play bingo. We won 3 years ago on Allure & the prize was an upgrade to the grand loft suite. Yes, the 2 story suites that are quite costly. As you can imagine, that really got us hooked on bingo. The hosts are usually so much fun & active. This time, not so much. The Hispanic host could barely be understood. She was bossy to the other crew working with her. The prices to play had gone up & we experienced several technical difficulties during the game. Also the pay out was so little compared to the price we paid to play. Not sure we will continue with this trend. There wasn't even a session to win a free cruise...??

 

Disembarking was a nightmare. We always elect to do the self assist early wAlk off. Never had problems & always walked off with no lines in matter of minutes. This time, the entire cruise, the staff was pushing everyone to do the self assist walk off. It was insane, & I even thought we might miss our flight at one time. Ended up, we didn't.

 

Shows--they were fab! The dancing one seemed to go on & on, but there was obvious talent. Once upon a time=must see!

 

To sum up, this is a fabulous cruise. Go into it with no expectations. Ours were exceeded b/c the reviews really hade worried. If you have any questions or would like to see more pics, email me. I would be happy to share. This site is hard to figure out the upload pic feature.

 

[ATTACH][/ATTACH]

Jessica

jessw_2033@hotmail.com

[MR LED]

Thanks for the wonderful review. I was also nervous about all the negative reviews about the IOS. So glad you had a fabulous time.

[Ren1216]

Jess -- thank you for sharing your thoughts on your recent Indy sailing! We are due to board Indy in 3 weeks and I, too, have been reading a good amount of negative stuff lately. It's really nice to finally read something that's mostly positive. I'm also glad to hear that your Mystery Dinner experience was decent, as we've made reservations to try it for the first time.

 

I have a question.

 

The catamaran & snorkel trip you did in St Kitts, was this a RC excursion? I ask because a couple in my group have booked this excursion and I'm sure they would be pleased to hear this positive (and current) feedback about it. TIA

[dizneefreak28]

Our trip on IOS is just two months away. I was getting worried also! Glad you had such a great time!

[jessw_2033]

Yes, the catamaran & snorkel trip was booked through RC. Hope you all have a fab trip!

[CruisinBarb63]

Thank you for the wonderful review. It has been 30 years since my last cruise and it will be the first for my girls when we board the Indy next month. I wasn't at all worried about the reviews as any day on a cruise with people taking care of cooking, cleaning and the like is a better day then...well, just about any day!

 

My concern was the issue you mentioned about disembarking. This has been my greatest worry and that doesn't change after reading your review. Our flight is at 10:35 from FLL and I am incredibly concerned. We knew we were going to be cutting it close but our only option was a flight much later in the day that included a long layover. Since we need to be back to work and school on Monday, we took the chance with an early, direct flight. Looks like we will have to be in line when the ship docks.

 

Thank you again for the positive, exciting review!

[dcgrumpy]

Thank you for the wonderful review. It has been 30 years since my last cruise and it will be the first for my girls when we board the Indy next month. I wasn't at all worried about the reviews as any day on a cruise with people taking care of cooking, cleaning and the like is a better day then...well, just about any day!

 

My concern was the issue you mentioned about disembarking. This has been my greatest worry and that doesn't change after reading your review. Our flight is at 10:35 from FLL and I am incredibly concerned. We knew we were going to be cutting it close but our only option was a flight much later in the day that included a long layover. Since we need to be back to work and school on Monday, we took the chance with an early, direct flight. Looks like we will have to be in line when the ship docks.

 

Thank you again for the positive, exciting review!

 

We did self disembark 2 weeks ago. We got in line around 7:00am. I don't know the exact time we got off but we were eating breakfast on the beach by 8:45 after waiting for the rental car shuttle and picking up our rental. Hopefully you'll be fine if you get in line as early as possible.

 

 

We also had a wonderful time. We had MTD and found service in the MDR slow, but that was our only complaint all week.

[jessw_2033]

You should be fine with that flight time. Our flight was at 9:45 & we made it there on time b/c the airport is so close to the pier. Just be ready to disembark at the scheduled time! It stressed me out majorly b/c we had never encountered such long lines for that.

[dleafy]

Thanks for your review.

We've been on Indy twice, both in Europe and the Caribbean.

We've absolutely loved both trips. Indy is a fabulous ship with a great crew.

Maybe they bounced off us, as we were upbeat the whole time (why would you not be?) and had a ball.

 

Cheers

 

Davy !!!

[robin13]

I was also on this cruise and rated it an 8 out of 10. This was my 2nd time on the ship as I sailed originally in 4/14. I totally agree with you about most everything but the pool seating. If you didn't care to sit near the pool then you were fine but I like to sit by the pool as I get very hot and then want to cool off. I had to get out there at 9:30 am every morning in order to do that. There was one day that I got there at 10:30am and not even one lounger to sit in. I had to go upstairs and wait 2 hours for it to clear out a little. This cruise was sold out and I could tell as there were people everywhere. I had a fantastic time but it was very hot and humid and would probably not sail again in September in the Caribbean.

[readyk]

I was also on this cruise. my plane left at 11:50 was at the airport before 10 and I had number 14. you will be fine just make sure you have a low number. Take a taxi it was only 12 dollars for the 2 of us. my friend took the bus and they charge 33 dollars. The food and service was great. The drink package was never a problem. St. kitts is cheaper for cigarettes and liquer. Love the cruise and staff

[gilby]

We were also on the cruise, we actually did B2B. Out of 14 days we received 4 towel babies, which I was disappointed, but our stateroom attendant was great. We did notice that there was a lot of empty deck chairs and everyday we got 4 towels and on the last day the towel attendant said we have a 30 minute towel policy if your chair is unattended. Ok, but we lay out in an area that is not used by many and besides there were tons of empty chairs all along the ship. I was disappointed we had 2 sea days the last leg of our cruise and they did not utilize the outdoor movie screen. All they played was there slide show of beach pics. Ok many of us would like to watch a movie during the day to pass the time away. I do feel that the entertainment is taking a hit and they are spending more money into entertainment on the Oasis class and Anthem class and the older ships are getting the so so entertainment. I found the activities from 7:30 to the 9:00 show very limited. We are not big drinkers and you can only look at the shopping so long and would find our selves back in our room until showtime.

[jessw_2033]

Yes! I totally agree about the outdoor theatre & forgot to mention that. They played terminator twice in the last day, wth!? I did like seeing football playing late in the afternoon, but a late night movie would have been perfect. Some nights there was literally nothing going on & you can only see Quest once or twice without it getting old!

[leosmom08]

Thank you very much for your review. We are boarding Indy in less than three weeks!

[tOSUSteve]

We also were on this sailing. Getting a chair on pool level at either the adult pool or regular pool was difficult in the AM. One day we just went to the kid pool and easily found a spot. If you don't mind sitting on deck 12, then there is no problem.

 

Windjammer was crazy busy when we boarded, we were on board pretty early around 11:45 or so. We waited until about 1:45 & went back & was able to find a seat.

 

We got in line to disembark at 7:00 & were in a taxi at 8:10. There were A LOT of people using self-assist to disembark.

[cavemom]

Sailing in a few weeks...6 night caribbean (Jamacia/Caymans if that makes a difference) you mentioned a murder mystery...is that every night? What time? What night is the Lobster? I want to start making dining reservations. I didn't realize the MM was part of the Italian restaurant and if I book something else on lobster night my 13 yr old will never forgive me! Also is there a dance party one night? I think I saw theme as 70s.. do a lot of ppl dress up? Thanks for any info...1st time with RC.. can't wait!

[kford0405]

Thank you for the awesome review Jessica. We are boarding IOS this Sunday and I am very excited. Your review was very helpful answering some of my concerns. We have an 11:30 am flight on the way back and plan to self assist to disembark.