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

[harryfat1]

Yes, the grain of sand is still in my left eye. My left corner away from the center is getting red now as I fear the sand is going to cause an eye infection soon.

 

Sigh. Not good. But can’t do much about it now. It’s not terribly painful, just uncomfortable at times. We will have to deal with it later next 2 days on sea days. Just more washing of the eye and eye drops.

 

Then we’re off to WJ for another breakfast.

 

It must have rained just recently as we saw a partial rainbow over the town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See that big yellow arch building in front of the cruise terminal? That’s where we will be going to meet up with the tour guide. About as simple as it gets. Walk to the yellow arches (not Golden Arches) and meet with the tour. Much easier than St. Maarten where you meet at the back somewhere, this is a straight shot.

Edited February 9, 2018 by harryfat1

[harryfat1]

WJ was pretty crowded at 7:45 as the ship docked at 7 AM with people getting off early to see the sights.

 

 

 

 

Now officially the time in port was to be 7 AM to 6 PM per the itinerary given when we booked the cruise, that would imply all aboard at 5:30 as there’s a typical 30 minute gap between the two. However, as we have a long ways to go before getting back to FLL and I think the captain wants an earlier start so the all aboard time was moved ahead by 1 hour.

 

Typically most people won’t care about losing the hour at the ports as most should be back by 4 but in case some people booked a customized tour that they pay by the hour and wants to be on the island longer, they may not be happy about it if they had plans for a longer stay in port. As I will discuss at the end of day 7, I think some people got messed up on the schedule and missed the boat/ship, literally.

 

I think my stomach/mouth wants that round pork thing (Canadian bacon) but my heart/cholesterol level says get the tomato instead. So I just settled for another picture of the meat instead of actually eating it.

 

[harryfat1]

Oh, I keep forgetting to take a picture of our water bottles until this last port day. Every morning that we had a tour planned, we brought up our water bottles to WJ and filled them upstairs.

 

For those that read my last year’s Freedom report, I talked about the idiots that wants to spread their germs to rest of ship by inserting their personal water bottle right under the dispenser and therefore contaminating the entire water supply (especially really cheap jerks with their not-supposed-to-be-reused- plastic water bottles).

 

Even though there is a sign right there at café promenade telling them NOT to do it, they ignore the sign. Guess idiots can’t read…

 

The better way to do it is bring your water bottle to WJ in the morning and just get those pre filled cups of ice water and bring back to your table and fill up your bottles that way. Much more sanitary this way. Especially on a sailing that has Noro virus scare hanging over it before we even board the ship (seems like so long ago, no?)

 

However, I do want to retell a story on one of the lunches at the WJ. As I was walking up to get something to drink, one boy, maybe under age of 10, walk up to the water area next to me and talking to his buddy, “I want something cold to drink but these drinks don’t look cold as there’s no ice”. He then stuck his finger into one of the drinks on the tray and said ”Yeah, I am right. It’s not cold” and both of them just walked away.

 

I looked at the water server in horror as in “Did you just see that”? He looked at me and shrugged and took out that cup from the tray. I am sure these incidents happens all the time. It just happened we caught that one but who knows clean your drink is next time you pick it up. I typically reach for a drink a bit further back and not the first one in the front - just in case...

 

[JamesEM]

Great rainbow photo.

[VPIcruiser]

Yeah, I ordered the banana split from kids menu. It comes with the typical 3 scoops of ice cream (see my picture in post 245 as I mentioned to Jim earlier). If you add 2 more scoops of sherbet, that's 5 scoops...

Oh, I was thinking they could get the sherbet instead of the ice cream. Five scoops would be a lot. :)

[bobmacliberty]

Hi, Bob,

 

Officially it was a 9 day cruise plus 1 day pre cruise. But we take a lot more pictures on port days than ship days just because there are more things to see and do.

 

Harry - I have an extra day on the graph to represent the disembarkation day and your trip home. On your 9 day cruise, this would be day 10. If you stay an extra day (like I think you did for your Allure trip), I added yet another day. You actually had two pre-days...your travel day that started in CA, and your day on Florida. The last "day" on each graph (with the uptick) is all the extra posts that happen after you officially get home in your story. There are always a lot of extra post asking questions and thanking you for your efforts.

 

I updated the graph now that you've officially started day 7. You were 30 posts ahead of my estimate for day 6, and the predicted total is now 1776. No pressure.

[Coralc]

Yes Bob. California people always lose a travel day at the beginning and end of their vacation cruises from Florida because of the long flights. The good thing about coming home is that it is earlier and we get our 3 hours back...but it is still a lost day. ;)

[cruisemeister8]

Also sand in the beach towels in the laundry room

 

Good point! The amount of sand tracked onto the ship must be enormous. Now we know you, Harry, will never be caught on a nickel and dime behind the scenes tour (unless you win it) but we've got to find somebody to find out this information for us!

 

So to anyone sailing in the near future ... Your Mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take the behind the scenes tour and find out for us ... what do they do with all the sand? Exactly how much sand is collected from the vacuums, the showers, and the laundry? Get the figures, the means of collection, and the disposal method for us and report back pronto! Harry will have this thread open for a while. And by all means, tell the tour guide that you are collecting this information explicitly to report back to CC. Anal people need to know..... ;p

 

Once we have the data secured, Bob can input it into his magical graphs, and we'll be able to figure out the percentage of sand tracked on board per person. Then the bean counters can go to work to figure out how much added operating cost all that sand causes based upon added weight, additional fuel consumption, and replacement cost of overworked machinery. Which, in turn, keeps the cost analysts employed trying to figure out how to minimize that expense by implementing a sand disposal station at the gangplank. By simply shaking your towels into a special bin, or wiping your shoes, pounds of sand can be captured before it comes on board. That should greatly reduce the impact on the ship's operating facilities. The savings realized by those reduced costs can then be funneled back into the guest experience to bring back perks that have been cut over the years. We'll call it the "Wipe Your Feet For Pillow Chocolates" campaign. It'll be a new shipboard revolution, all started by a single grain of sand means that, to most, means nothing (unless it's stuck in Harry's eye).

[bobmacliberty]

 

Once we have the data secured, Bob can input it into his magical graphs, and we'll be able to figure out the percentage of sand tracked on board per person. Then the bean counters can go to work to figure out how much added operating cost all that sand causes based upon added weight, additional fuel consumption, and replacement cost of overworked machinery. Which, in turn, keeps the cost analysts employed trying to figure out how to minimize that expense by implementing a sand disposal station at the gangplank. By simply shaking your towels into a special bin, or wiping your shoes, pounds of sand can be captured before it comes on board. That should greatly reduce the impact on the ship's operating facilities. The savings realized by those reduced costs can then be funneled back into the guest experience to bring back perks that have been cut over the years. We'll call it the "Wipe Your Feet For Pillow Chocolates" campaign. It'll be a new shipboard revolution, all started by a single grain of sand means that, to most, means nothing (unless it's stuck in Harry's eye).

 

Challenge accepted. I'll do just about anything to get pillow chocolates back. I will be on a ship in 6 days and I will see what I can learn. Maybe that's an unadvertised suite benefit...I can ask my room steward crazy questions and expect him/her to go find the answer. How much should I tip the steward if he/she comes back with an answer? :confused: Suite problems.

[harryfat1]

Harry - I have an extra day on the graph to represent the disembarkation day and your trip home. On your 9 day cruise, this would be day 10. If you stay an extra day (like I think you did for your Allure trip), I added yet another day. You actually had two pre-days...your travel day that started in CA, and your day on Florida. The last "day" on each graph (with the uptick) is all the extra posts that happen after you officially get home in your story. There are always a lot of extra post asking questions and thanking you for your efforts.

 

I updated the graph now that you've officially started day 7. You were 30 posts ahead of my estimate for day 6, and the predicted total is now 1776. No pressure.

 

Haha, classic case of form versus substance/quantity versus quality.

 

So the main goal isn't provide helpful info to future newbie cruise but to make sure we post more "stuff" in this trip report versus the previous standard. This sounds almost government like.

 

To get more post, people need to "mingle" more among yourselves and I need to stretch things out by picture per post.

 

Of course, the default answer is that if we don't meet the targeted goal, people can just email CC and request they get 2 months of credit off their annual subscription fee for the fat guy failing to meet expectation...

[harryfat1]

Yes Bob. California people always lose a travel day at the beginning and end of their vacation cruises from Florida because of the long flights. The good thing about coming home is that it is earlier and we get our 3 hours back...but it is still a lost day. ;)

 

Yeah, the 3 hour time zone change always tires me out on top of the 6 hour flight.

[harryfat1]

Good point! The amount of sand tracked onto the ship must be enormous. Now we know you, Harry, will never be caught on a nickel and dime behind the scenes tour (unless you win it) but we've got to find somebody to find out this information for us!

 

So to anyone sailing in the near future ... Your Mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take the behind the scenes tour and find out for us ... what do they do with all the sand? Exactly how much sand is collected from the vacuums, the showers, and the laundry? Get the figures, the means of collection, and the disposal method for us and report back pronto! Harry will have this thread open for a while. And by all means, tell the tour guide that you are collecting this information explicitly to report back to CC. Anal people need to know..... ;p

 

Once we have the data secured, Bob can input it into his magical graphs, and we'll be able to figure out the percentage of sand tracked on board per person. Then the bean counters can go to work to figure out how much added operating cost all that sand causes based upon added weight, additional fuel consumption, and replacement cost of overworked machinery. Which, in turn, keeps the cost analysts employed trying to figure out how to minimize that expense by implementing a sand disposal station at the gangplank. By simply shaking your towels into a special bin, or wiping your shoes, pounds of sand can be captured before it comes on board. That should greatly reduce the impact on the ship's operating facilities. The savings realized by those reduced costs can then be funneled back into the guest experience to bring back perks that have been cut over the years. We'll call it the "Wipe Your Feet For Pillow Chocolates" campaign. It'll be a new shipboard revolution, all started by a single grain of sand means that, to most, means nothing (unless it's stuck in Harry's eye).

 

Hehe, I think SOMEBODY needs to go on a cruise soon...

 

This should be an open letter to RCI on helping them run their ships more efficiently.

 

In the older cruises we were on, they used to have the FREE behind the scenes tour of the kitchen area on Holland America. We went on those.

 

Yeah, that grain of sand was with me all day long on day 7. Just amazing one tiny grain can be so problematic.

 

I miss those chocolates as well. What cruise lines nowadays still have nightly chocolates? I haven't cruised with other lines for many years now so I have no idea on who is doing what anymore.

[harryfat1]

Great rainbow photo.

 

Thanks, Jim. I like it when the ship backs into the port as during breakfast, you can see out to the port that you will visit and it provides a better photo op.

[harryfat1]

OK, to the rest of the world this is Wednesday. To the cruisers on this sailing, it’s just day 7.

 

 

 

 

I like this old Bangles song even though today is not Monday per se as I forgot to include it earlier in the trip report:

 

 

[h20skibum]

 

 

 

I miss those chocolates as well. What cruise lines nowadays still have nightly chocolates? I haven't cruised with other lines for many years now so I have no idea on who is doing what anymore.

 

 

Harry,

 

Princess and Celebrity still have the chocolates on the pillows. At least they still did when we were on them last year. I had quite a collection of them from our 15 day Hawaii cruise out of San Francisco last April. That would be a close cruise for you to do. Of course, with 4 sea days each way, your picture count would be low for those days.

 

Enjoying your review.

 

 

 

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[RickinStl]

While I won't think about my clothes until Saturday, I'm off now to organize my electronics. Everything needs to be charged and properly stored in my camera bag. Priorities.

 

i pulled out my camera backpack today.. and thought.. I'm not cruising for 30 days.. but I'm still charging batteries for the DLSR lol

[harryfat1]

Harry,

 

Princess and Celebrity still have the chocolates on the pillows. At least they still did when we were on them last year. I had quite a collection of them from our 15 day Hawaii cruise out of San Francisco last April. That would be a close cruise for you to do. Of course, with 4 sea days each way, your picture count would be low for those days.

 

Enjoying your review.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

Hi, Mark,

 

Thanks for the info. Good to know some of the cruise lines are still keeping the old tradition.

 

Yeah, I know about that route from SF to Hawaii and back. My wife's other brother sailed on that the week we were in the Caribbean. We had a choice to join them or do our own sailing in the Caribbean. I passed on joining them.

 

I can't handle that many sea day, especially out in the open seas. I get motion sickness very easily. On some of the sea day pictures, you might see me with the sea bands on both of my wrists to help me from being sea sick. The Caribbean in December is pretty good most of the days so I don't always need them but out in the open seas with big waves, I would be tossing cookies.

 

I used to take the subway (BART) to work earlier in my career and if I don't sit in certain seats, I would get to work with headache and motion sickness. Not good.

 

So besides being bored on sea days, I need constant contact with terra firma to keep my head clear.

[harryfat1]

i pulled out my camera backpack today.. and thought.. I'm not cruising for 30 days.. but I'm still charging batteries for the DLSR lol

 

I thought if you charge the batteries too early, you will lose some of the charges as the battery sits until you use it? I try to charge them the weekend before the vacation but the battery experts out can chime in with their expertise on this.

[harryfat1]

Let me post the daily compass that nobody will read before I forget:

 

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[harryfat1]

I think I forgot to post the usual breakfast picture. So here it is

 

 

It was time to go back to cabin and get all the gears to get ready for one last port visit. Then head out to the Café Promenade to meet up with the brother in law and all 8 of us headed down to gangway on deck 1 and headed out.

 

Couple more pics of RP.

 

Now here is where the difference in viewing this on PC versus the phone comes in. On the PC where the monitor is in landscape shape, these portrait shape pictures have way too much white space on the side. But if viewed from my phone using the apps, this picture is perfect size and look.

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

We took the obligatory off ship pictures at the pier and walked over to the end where the yellow building is.

 

 

The Celebrity Equinox is docked next to us. Their towel system looks nicer in wrapping things up in a swirl fashion. I will point out another difference between the two when we come back later in the afternoon.

 

 

 

 

What's the name of our cruise line?

 

 

 

 

Can't walk by one without taking a picture of it

 

 

[harryfat1]

Walking toward the yellow arch building. The side fences are ugly but I guess they need it for safety reasons in case people want to climb on top of it

 

 

Meeting place for many tours, both ship based or independent tours

 

 

For this tour, we selected Thenford Grey. His company is well known in the Caribbean port of call section as well as on trip advisor. As a general practice, I cross reference both places when it comes to selecting a service provider for tours. If the company is highly rated in both places then I have confidence that I will be well taken care of during my visit.