(Slightly less so) Cheapo dad's trip report on Independence of the Seas

[harryfat1]

So after the muster drill, it’s time to go back to cabin to finish unpacking.

 

Then we noticed the ship started to sail around 4:30. It was time to head on up to deck 12 for the long awaited sail away pictures.

 

 

These kids don't care about any sail away party as they are too engrossed on the water play area. You can see in the background on upper right that Princess already sailed off. I think by default Princess always sails off earlier than Royal ships as I typically see them leading the ship parade to sea. Of course, Freedom is typically the last one out at 5:30 - barring any special circumstances that prevents a ship from sailing on time

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Downtown FLL in background

 

[harryfat1]

More pics:

 

 

 

Harbor Patrol boat zoomed in

 

 

 

[undercat]

 

You, sir, have won the Message Board. Very well done. My SWAG "50% more" estimate for 9-night Indy vs 6-night Freedom wasn't too off-base.

[undercat]

But before that, we had to do the mandatory muster drill. This one seems to be faster than the Freedom one for whatever reason.

 

I've only taken a handful of cruises, but this was the fastest muster of all of my cruises. I was pleasantly surprised.

[harryfat1]

I've only taken a handful of cruises, but this was the fastest muster of all of my cruises. I was pleasantly surprised.

 

Oh, good. It wasn't just my imagination that it was a fast muster drill.

 

I see from your signature that you are looking to the Navigator - is it the same time frame in late December for the 9 days ABC island cruise?

[undercat]

Oh, good. It wasn't just my imagination that it was a fast muster drill.

 

 

 

I see from your signature that you are looking to the Navigator - is it the same time frame in late December for the 9 days ABC island cruise?

 

 

 

That’s the one - December 21, 2018 - which I have subsequently discovered is the last cruise before Navigator’s scheduled dry dock in January 2019 (which could explain why the pricing wasn’t too bad IMO for a 9-night holiday sailing)

Edited January 8, 2018 by undercat

[harryfat1]

So I am taking pictures of the workers taking pictures of us.

 

 

One thing about having houses in these areas, you don’t have any privacy during the afternoon when all the cruise ships sail away with all the people zooming their cameras into your backyard. Maybe they are like the Maho Beach people with a surf board marking what time each cruise ship sails away so they can go inside and hide with curtain drawn or come out to take pictures, depending on their mood.

 

 

The famous rich person’s house with a flow rider in the back.

 

 

 

Wonder what happened to the house that used to be on the far left side of the picture? The place is now just an open lot.

 

 

Dude zipping past us to direct traffic ahead

 

[harryfat1]

More pics as we start to head out to seas:

 

 

 

 

The patrol boat is staying between us and the incoming traffic

 

 

After these 2 boats have gone by, the patrol boat is making a U turn to get ahead of us again

 

 

Folks swimming getting a bit of wave from the Indy

 

[LuvBotswana]

After reading your first 2 installments, I was eagerly waiting for this report. Yours is the only thread I enjoy reading on CC - very entertaining. Love the Antelope Canyon shot, BTW.

[harryfat1]

After reading your first 2 installments, I was eagerly waiting for this report. Yours is the only thread I enjoy reading on CC - very entertaining. Love the Antelope Canyon shot, BTW.

 

Thanks for the compliment. I appreciate you wanting to follow along for part 3.

 

I will have more rock pictures later in a week or two when my ADHD kicks in and gets bored of showing the 10th beach picture and wants to switch to rocks instead.

[harryfat1]

Last few pictures of FLL before the ship sails off to sea:

 

 

This one taken from the wife's cell phone. I just noticed sharp picture from Samsung phones compared to Canon camera pic above

 

 

Me and the boys

 

 

Zoomed in to some beach walkers below. Bet these people have no idea that their beach walking picture is being viewed from people on CC all over. So make sure you don't pick your nose or butt when you are outside as you never know some weirdo with zoom lens will capture it and upload to social media

 

 

One last shot of FLL. Be back in 9 days.

 

[Coralc]

Palm trees with skinny trunks don't give much privacy do they? (just a comment) As is this comment. Those look like houses from the 50's. Someone probably bought it as a teardown to build a McMansion. Just following along and enjoying. (no need to reply) :) If you have ever seen the houses along the San Leandro Marina, along Neptune Drive with water views. They are the same sort of ranch style, and worth a million+ now.

Edited January 8, 2018 by Coralc

[harryfat1]

So after the sail away, time to get back to cabin and decorate the cabin for the holidays. Many people really go ALL OUT to decorate their cabins. We are not as into it but we do enough to make our cabins and outside windows noticeable when we walk by. Much easier to spot your door when it’s decorated.

 

As the comedian on the last night was saying, he saw some guy walking aimlessly up and down the hallway the other night. He asked the guy what he is up to and the guy replied, “I lost the Garfield sticker on my door and now I can’t find my way back to my cabin as that was the only way I remember where the cabin is. So I am now homeless and sleeping in the glass elevators but at least I know what day of the week it is…”

 

 

 

 

 

As my son is decorating the window, I took a picture of him doing so. He asked, "So is this going to be on CC?" Yeap...

 

[harryfat1]

All righty then. What’s next?

 

Unlike the Freedom where you just walk into any ice show, the Indy has a ticket system. As this is the premium “holiday sailing”, they have a special holiday skating program for us set to holiday music. But you have to decide on the time and date on which of the 4 shows you want to attend and then head out to Studio B at the assigned time to get the tickets. If you don’t have tickets, you will be at the stand by line that grants you access 5 minutes prior to the show.

 

So we headed over to deck 3 and stood in line for the tickets. What I find fascinating is they print the time of the shows on 1 piece of paper for each line (there were 2 lines). They give it the people in line and after you have decided on what time you want, you are asked to pass that piece of paper back to the next person and so on with the process repeated hundreds of times as the one piece of paper are passed along.

 

Now given the ship is super sensitive to Noro as discussed previously, is that a good thing to do? There were NO washy washy people there to sanitize anyone’s hands and the piece of paper is being passed to everyone. Given that they spam EVERY cabin with tons of spa and Diamond International and liquor ads, they could easily print out few extra pages and maybe put that piece of paper on a post 50 feet ahead for people to read without touching a common piece of paper.

 

[harryfat1]

After getting the tickets, its time to do what we all do on cruises – EAT. Our dinner is 8 PM as 5:30 is too early. As with Freedom last year when she came back from Europe, Indy had a different dinner time when she came back from Europe in October. She was still at the later European dinner time of 6 and 8:30 and that was what was shown on the web page when you select dinner.

 

Then about one month prior to sailing in November, someone from our roll call noticed the time got changed to 5:30 and 8. The time switch works for us as we can eat afternoon snack or have late lunch after a long day of tours on port days. So if you sail on any of the ships after they come back from Europe, keep a sharp eye on when is your dinner time.

 

They DO NOT, repeat DO NOT, email you to let you know they changed your dinner time from 8:30 to 8 (they only email you sell you something). It just magically gets adjusted in your cruise document. Part of the cruise fairy work at night. So look for that daily if you cruise during November to December time frame for ships that just finished TA, as was Freedom and Indy. Not saying your sailing will automatically change but keep an eye out for it few weeks after the ship comes back.

 

At any rate, it was time to head for café promenade and grab some scones. For those reading this and not familiar with Royal, the food at the café is free but the specialty drinks are not. Confusing, eh? We got pretty addicted to the scones as they were pretty good and had different flavors of the day the remainder of the cruise.

 

Veteran Royal cruisers will tell you they had much better food at the cafe years ago. Guess someone can compare the food now versus what I posted on the Allure back in 2014 to see the difference.

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

OK, after stuffing our faces, time to head back to the cabin to shower and be ready for the welcome show. The show itself was “meh” as are all welcome shows. Only took one picture. Nothing to write home (or on CC) about.

 

Overall, was not impressed with the overall quality of entertainment on the ship. Maybe I was expecting more as cheapo dad had to break bank to go on the cruise. But like food, entertainment is subjective so it's personal preferences...

 

[harryfat1]

OK, dinner time. Day 1 dinner at MDR is always challenging with long lines with people going on wrong deck (3 instead of 4 or vice versa) or can’t find their table as they didn’t check in the afternoon. But since we spent so much time arguing over the table from earlier, we could walk to the table with our eyes blind folded.

 

We met Jesus and Simona and sat in the big table for 8. You folks will just have to take my word for the table size and placement as I only have pictures of the place with my brother in law and his kids in them so I can’t post those.

 

Now I typically am not a menu photographer as I suck since the menu is heavy and hard to hold with one hand and take picture with the cell phone and trying NOT to have any shadow from phone or hand over it. Not easy.

 

The only reason I started taking pictures is last year some people asked me about the dinner menu and I had no idea what night was what. I don’t associate the “Jasmine” menu to be with this food versus the Saffron menu to be with that food. I like to memorize numbers like 116% occupancy rates instead. Menu is menu. I will select when I see it but people wants to know the menu order instead of occupancy rate (don’t understand that part) but I guess having the menu will help me remember the dish I photographed.

 

See how I sucked? Can’t even line up the menu in my pictures.

 

For those that are tracking the menu name, first night is chives.

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Palm trees with skinny trunks don't give much privacy do they? (just a comment) As is this comment. Those look like houses from the 50's. Someone probably bought it as a teardown to build a McMansion. Just following along and enjoying. (no need to reply) :) If you have ever seen the houses along the San Leandro Marina, along Neptune Drive with water views. They are the same sort of ranch style, and worth a million+ now.

 

Hi, Patti,

 

I'll respond just to say hi as I have a full blown cold from few days ago with stuffy nose and coughing and today is just sitting around in sweat pants and taking meds and not thinking of leaving my computer. So that's how I am able to plow through almost all of day 1 info as I am just vegging in front of the computer. The writing pace will slow down during the weekday when I have work and real life issues to deal with so it's at least good thing to chat with someone as I just look at pictures and plopping bunch of non nonsensical words to string the pictures together.

 

Sometimes it gets boring to just go rambling on with my own story as it then becomes a monologue so good to talk to folks while taking a break.

 

There's the philosophical question of if a tree falls in the forest but nobody hears it, does it make a sound? Conversely, if one writes a trip report but nobody is around to read it, does it becomes a personal diary instead? Questions like this keeps me awake when I can't sleep on red eye flights from people watching TV in front of me...

[harryfat1]

So for the first night, since I haven’t cruised in over a year, I opted for the more traditional cruise dishes. Escargot/French onion soup/Steak Diane. The other food pictures are what my son ate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They called this one "Steak Diane". Don't know how it got its name. Maybe the chef's name is Diane (Just Google it. Guess it's a fairly popular steak dish. Didn't know as I am not a foodie. Normally seldom have red meat at home as trying to eat less bad food but ate much more as it's vacation)

 

 

The steak with brandy sauce and mushroom smelled really good and tasty as well. Check it out if you see this on your cruise.

 

 

Other people at the table had the shrimp cocktail:

 

 

And fish:

 

[harryfat1]

Since we had 2 kids at the table, we also had access to reading what is on the kids menu. The brownie got some decent comments in the past so I suggested that for the girls. My wife got the crème brulee and I opted for the kid’s banana split. Pretty boring as selection goes but it’s the first night, no need to go aggressive. Go with the tried and true.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SherriZ366]

Palm trees with skinny trunks don't give much privacy do they? (just a comment) As is this comment. Those look like houses from the 50's. Someone probably bought it as a teardown to build a McMansion. Just following along and enjoying. (no need to reply) :) If you have ever seen the houses along the San Leandro Marina, along Neptune Drive with water views. They are the same sort of ranch style, and worth a million+ now.

I think that lot with nothing on it is a tear-down. Look at some of the 2 story houses further along the row -- guess when the new house is built, it will be worth about 4 million instead of 1 or 1+.

[harryfat1]

After dinner, it was time to head out to the Royal Promenade to see the tree lighting ceremony. Anyone that read my last year’s experience on the Freedom will remember I thought very lowly of Freedom’s presentation of Santa’s arrival. Don’t know if it’s the Indy that knows how to do things better or overall Corporate marketing people sent out a memo to help ships be better organized. Whatever the case, this year’s Santa arrival and tree lighting was much better. More elaborate. Belter organized. Better attended by senior staff.

 

Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus...

 

 

Where's Rudolf?

 

 

 

 

"Snow" in the RP

 

 

 

[hisokaomi]

After dinner, it was time to head out to the Royal Promenade to see the tree lighting ceremony. Anyone that read my last year’s experience on the Freedom will remember I thought very lowly of Freedom’s presentation of Santa’s arrival. Don’t know if it’s the Indy that knows how to do things better or overall Corporate marketing people sent out a memo to help ships be better organized. Whatever the case, this year’s Santa arrival and tree lighting was much better. More elaborate. Belter organized. Better attended by senior staff.

 

Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus...

 

 

Where's Rudolf?

 

 

 

 

"Snow" in the RP

 

 

 

Great photos, keep it going! :-)

 

6 times cruising on RCL and more to come...

[harryfat1]

Great photos, keep it going! :-)

 

6 times cruising on RCL and more to come...

 

Singapore, eh? I never had anyone from Singapore follow my trip reports in the past. Thanks for the compliment

[harryfat1]

THE MAN has arrived at RP.

 

Note all the ship brass were at the bridge waiting for him. None of this occurred on the Freedom. Don't know if it's difference between ships or improvement from year to year or it's the "special holiday sailing" whereby you are paying extra for these photo ops. Other people that have been on other holiday cruises are welcome to chime in and provide photos as I don't know the answer to my own question.

 

 

EVERYBODY get your cell phones out...

 

 

A whole lot of people at the RP. Also note the family in the PR cabin to the right of the picture. BEST place to be with little kids as you don't have to worry about them being trampled over. Get your RP cabin if you have little ones and wants to watch these events.

 

 

Ship's top brass all on hand for this event:

 

 

Tree before it's lit:

 

 

After it's Lit. If you think about it, do you REALLY need to take a picture at the very first moment it's lit? The dang tree will be there for next 8 plus days. It's NOT going anywhere and you will have a clear shot tomorrow morning when everyone is gone. But we all get caught up in the moment so we go with the flow: