Independence of the Seas- Nov. 28 Photo Review!

[cjefffg24]

We sail away 3 weeks from today and your review has been so wonderful in helping us plan and get familiar with the ship. So sad to see it ending...Thanks again!

 

Can you tell me if you saw anyone wearing jeans or shorts in the dining room on casual nights?

[mcchane1]

Thirteen weeks from today we are on this same cruise. I love seeing your review and pictures, the excitement it building. And oh ya,,,,,,,GO HAWKS!!!!!

[Tobleronebar]

Thanks for the review....really enjoying it so far! Will be sailing the same itenerary on the Independence in 10 weeks!

 

This review is getting me more excited for our cruise! 10 weeks, 61 days can't wait till we are counting down in hours!

[FLSteve11]

Boy, I hope the OP gets to continue the review after the trauma of that Bowl game! *sly grin*

[the_lovely_voyage]

Boy, I hope the OP gets to continue the review after the trauma of that Bowl game! *sly grin*

 

Oh, ouch.

That's alright, I'm still holding on to a perfect regular season from 2015.

 

I'll get back to the review tomorrow!

[the_lovely_voyage]

We sail away 3 weeks from today and your review has been so wonderful in helping us plan and get familiar with the ship. So sad to see it ending...Thanks again!

 

Can you tell me if you saw anyone wearing jeans or shorts in the dining room on casual nights?

 

Still have a day and a half of review to go, I'll crank that out soon!! Thanks for reading this far! Enjoy your cruise in a few weeks!

 

I wore nice darker denim jeans to the MDR a night or two, as did my fiancé. We don't recall seeing shorts, however.

[the_lovely_voyage]

Thirteen weeks from today we are on this same cruise. I love seeing your review and pictures, the excitement it building. And oh ya,,,,,,,GO HAWKS!!!!!

 

GO HAWKS! I'm so glad you're reading the review, reading them always helps me get extra excited. Enjoy your trip!

 

This review is getting me more excited for our cruise! 10 weeks, 61 days can't wait till we are counting down in hours!

 

Awesome! Thanks for reading! I'm almost at the double digit dance for my next cruise, but counting hours is the best!

[the_lovely_voyage]

Day Four- Falmouth, Jamaica:

After getting dropped off inside the Falmouth port area, we did a little more shopping. I really dislike how workers in the shops stand right next to potential customers while they’re shopping. I was seriously considering buying something from two different shops but ended up leaving because the staff were being really pushy and trying to show me other items or “help me” shop. Even after trying to politely decline the help or other items, they still hang around, and it just REALLY bothers me. The four of us headed to Margaritaville to look around and say we’ve been there. We were going to get a drink, but having unlimited already-paid-for drinks on the ship and seeing a $10+ price tag on these drinks was a no brainer and we got back on board. It was then that we told my parents that we wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening to ourselves, since the four of us had spent A LOT of quality time together the past few days. Once we stopped back at the room to drop our souvenirs off, my fiance and I grabbed a drink and watched the Allure sailaway. It was cool to see it so close to us, and I took a handful of photos of the “floating apartment complex” as my fiance calls it.

 

 

 

A quick snap of Falmouth:

 

We hung out on deck for a little while before changing into nicer clothes. My fiance and I arrived at the Alhambra Theatre to see the 6pm showing of Grease at 5:25pm-ish. We were able to get a really good seat exactly where we wanted, and we both brought out books to kill time before the show starting. I don’t know for sure what time the show was over, but I think it was just after 7:30, so definitely not much longer than 1.5 hours. As I said in one of my earlier posts, I love theatre. I saw Grease in a Chicago theatre and my high school performed the show as well. I absolutely loved the show onboard Indy and am so glad we saw it. Sure the play was cut down from its normal run time, but for a free off-broadway show, it was amazing.

 

The MDR with Christmas decorations:

 

We booked it to the MDR to eat dinner, and were seated in Ruth’s section again, the waitress we had the night before. She took time to talk to us, told us a few stories about her early days in the dining room 20 years ago, and was exceptional with her service. I had the lobster tail and it was delicious, and thankfully Ruth cut it open for me since it was only my second time having lobster and I’m no pro. After dinner we went to the Dog and Badger Pub to have a few drinks and watch a football game. It was packed when we arrived but we were able to squeeze in a corner and find seats. We had a great conversation with a couple next to us and had a fun few hours in the pub. We went to the Labyrinth club afterwards and things got a little fuzzy after that, but I know we had a really awesome time and danced for quite a while. The music was definitely way better this night than the first night we tried it, and I didn’t want the party to stop.

[the_lovely_voyage]

Day Five- December 2, 2016- Day at Sea Cruise Compasses

 

 

 

[dcgrumpy]

Enjoying your review and compasses.

 

Do you happen to have photos of any of the menus?

[kevinyork]

Independence was our first ever cruise ship journey and its wonderful to see guests new to her bing wowed.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[the_lovely_voyage]

Enjoying your review and compasses.

 

Do you happen to have photos of any of the menus?

 

I do! All of them, except maybe the first night. I was going to post those after my daily reviews were done

[dcgrumpy]

I do! All of them, except maybe the first night. I was going to post those after my daily reviews were done

 

Thanks. I'm trying to finalize which nights we're eating in the MDR.

[FLSteve11]

Oh, ouch.

That's alright, I'm still holding on to a perfect regular season from 2015.

 

I'll get back to the review tomorrow!

 

Yes, thought the game would be closer.

 

Love the review though! Great job with it, and love the pictures. It's been a lot of fun following it.

[Quietgirll]

We leave Monday for this same itinerary on this same ship- I'm getting so excited!!! Thank you!

 

 

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Edited January 6, 2017 by Quietgirll

[Gradelady]

Going on a 5 night cruise at end of March. What night is Grease playing? Does it play more than once on a 5 night cruise?

[Brandywine_101]

OMG this is so awesome! My husband and I are going on this ship next month, but our destination is Cozumel, Mexico. Unfortunately our itinerate doesn't have a private island stop (we LOVED Coco Cay). I've always wanted to go to Labadee and was so hoping it was on the itinerary, but as our cruise is free (used a MyVEGAS reward) I'll be perfectly happy without it! Maybe we'll see Labadee on our next cruise. Anyway, your review definitely, definitely gives me ideas of what to plan for our five days. Thank you so much for posting the compasses! I'm so looking forward to your wrap up and so glad you had a great time!

[easyboy]

Thanks for sharing those Compass

[fhp123]

I'll be cruising with you Brandywine 101.

[Brandywine_101]

I'll be cruising with you Brandywine 101.

 

 

Oh Great!!! Hope we can set up a meet and greet!

 

 

Upcoming

 

Royal Caribbean, Indy OTS, 5ngt Anniversary Cruise, Mexico - Feb/2017

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Past Sailings

 

Royal Caribbean, Liberty OTS, 7ngt Anniversary Cruise, Jamaica - Feb/2016

 

Royal Caribbean, Enchantment OTS, 4ngt Anniversary Cruise, Bahamas - Feb/2015

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[MissSparky]

We sail away 3 weeks from today and your review has been so wonderful in helping us plan and get familiar with the ship. So sad to see it ending...Thanks again!

 

 

 

Can you tell me if you saw anyone wearing jeans or shorts in the dining room on casual nights?

 

 

 

My husband and I will be on this cruise as well.

[Brandywine_101]

My husband and I will be on this cruise as well.

 

 

Then we're all gonna have to get a drink together! If you haven't done so yet, please join the rollcall for February 11 sailing so we can all plan a meet and greet.

 

 

Upcoming

 

Royal Caribbean, Indy OTS, 5ngt Anniversary Cruise, Mexico - Feb/2017

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Past Sailings

 

Royal Caribbean, Liberty OTS, 7ngt Anniversary Cruise, Jamaica - Feb/2016

 

Royal Caribbean, Enchantment OTS, 4ngt Anniversary Cruise, Bahamas - Feb/2015

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[MissSparky]

Then we're all gonna have to get a drink together! If you haven't done so yet, please join the rollcall for February 11 sailing so we can all plan a meet and greet.

 

 

Upcoming

 

Royal Caribbean, Indy OTS, 5ngt Anniversary Cruise, Mexico - Feb/2017

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Past Sailings

 

Royal Caribbean, Liberty OTS, 7ngt Anniversary Cruise, Jamaica - Feb/2016

 

Royal Caribbean, Enchantment OTS, 4ngt Anniversary Cruise, Bahamas - Feb/2015

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Oops, I may have misunderstood... I thought it said 3 weeks from Jan 2...

We are sailing Jan 23.

 

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[Brandywine_101]

Oops, I may have misunderstood... I thought it said 3 weeks from Jan 2...

We are sailing Jan 23.

 

Sent from my SM-G920W8 using Forums mobile app

 

 

No worries, still I'm sure there'll be a M&G for that date. Enjoy!!

 

 

Upcoming

 

Royal Caribbean, Indy OTS, 5ngt Anniversary Cruise, Mexico - Feb/2017

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Past Sailings

 

Royal Caribbean, Liberty OTS, 7ngt Anniversary Cruise, Jamaica - Feb/2016

 

Royal Caribbean, Enchantment OTS, 4ngt Anniversary Cruise, Bahamas - Feb/2015

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[the_lovely_voyage]

Day Five- December 2, 2016- Day at Sea

 

Unfortunately I wish I had much more to report about our last day at sea, but given the previous night’s club events, I was in bed until early afternoon. When I was finally up and about, my fiance and I spent a little time in the Solarium reading on a few beach chairs, and went to several trivia events in the Schooner Bar. The afternoon was pretty relaxing and we didn’t do much else that’s noteworthy.

 

The four of us got together for dinner in the MDR and unfortunately weren’t sat in Ruth’s section. We didn’t think to ask and it wasn’t a huge deal, but it would’ve been nice to have another dinner under her service. Our servers this last night weren’t the fastest or most attentive either, so that was sort of a bummer. We talked about the vacation and our likes and dislikes, which was nice to review for our own purposes. Since it was the last night, my fiance and I splurged a little bit on the food and he ordered two entrees and everyone ordered two desserts. (To be fair, key lime pie is a must, but there were some other really good options as well).

 

My fiance ordered the Lamb Shank and was very excited about the giant bone sticking out of it:

 

After dinner, my fiance and I went to the Ice Skating Rink to try it out, since we hadn’t gotten around to it but had never been on a ship with one before, so we wanted to make sure to cross it off the bucket list. We gave our names for the next session that was available, signed the waivers, received our tickets, and went back to the OnAir Bar to sit and wait for our time to be ready. A note about the OnAir bar- we NEVER saw it open. Granted, we only went into the area it was in mabe 3 or 4 times, but there was never any staff working, cleaning, setting up, etc. The Cruise Compass does say that there’s workshops during the day and karaoke at night, so I’m sure it gets used, but don’t count on it being a regular bar to grab a drink at.

 

When it was our time to ice skate, we all returned to the rink, my parents sat in the stands and we went down the steps, handed our tickets and showed our room cards to a staff working at the skate area. We each got our skates and had to grab a helmet out of the tubs. Honestly I wasn’t too thrilled about the helmet thing, health wise. I have no idea if they clean out the helmets with sanitizing wipes or spray or anything in between uses. I work in the realm of elementary education; I’m definitely aware that lice is a thing and not a pleasant one, and I’d like to avoid getting it. Maybe they do clean the helmets, and I totally get the point of having them to keep people safe, but it’d be nice to KNOW that they clean them or to be able to clean them ourselves. Something to mitigate the risks, at least. We got on the ice and skated probably for 20 minutes. We’re no pros, but have skated many times before and quickly remembered the hang of it. It’s sort of a challenge to skate around little kids trying it out for the first time or adults who need to hang on to the rail. We’re not judging, we were both new to skating at some point too, it’s actually more of a safety factor of making sure we don’t run into anyone who just stopped in the center or the skating lane or suddenly fell down. Overall we had fun and it’s pretty crazy to say that we have ice skated in the middle of the ocean on a Caribbean cruise.

 

Trying to stand still for a quick picture. The helmets are a true fashion statement:

 

We all went to the 70’s Party on the Royal Promenade and it was fun for a little while, but nothing I’d necessarily go see again. It was pretty crowded and the music wasn’t our thing, so we stayed about 10-15 minutes then wandered off to find a drink. We also had to pick up a few photos from the Photo Gallery that we had previously ordered earlier that day, so we headed down there around 10:10. We were told they weren’t ready yet and to come back around 10:45. Not too bad, so we wandered around a little bit and came back when they suggested. Upon our return they said the pictures were still not ready, and it shouldn’t be too much longer. My fiance went to our room so my parents and I sat in Boleros and listened to the music and talked. We headed back to the photo gallery around 11:30 and one of the photos we ordered was ready, but not the other one. One of the workers finally went down to the print shop and came back about 15 minutes later with our second photo. I think it was just after midnight by the time I got to my room. It was incredibly frustrating that the lack of communication, timing, and disorganization occurred but I must commend the staff on staying patient and willingness to help.