Just off Independance of the Seas- 3 night taste of Paris and Bruges report

[SquishTheWhale]

1 hour ago, transam84 said:

Thanks so much for the excellent and balanced review. I am planning a cruise for a music group I belonged to and we were able to secure the pyramid lounge on Indy for 3 private events in Nov 2019. Not an easy task, but my friend who I am working with managed the impossible. Although I am very excited I was concerned about some of the reviews with crowding issues, bad food and wild drunken crowd. Since a lot of people are depending on me, I have been concerned. Although we are looking to have fun, since our cruise group is about music, we are a group mainly 40s to 60s so we are old, lol. But the ship sounds and looks great and perfect for what we are looking for. Thanks again.

 

There was so many people in that age range having a blast so I'm sure you will too!

Everyone we spoke to thought the food was excellent so no need to worry on that account. I do have food pictures, should have time to post them tomorrow!

[SquishTheWhale]

The most important thing- food pictures!

 

Menu from night 1

 

 

Baked french onion soup, this was delicious

 

Asian seafood soup, I did not try this but DH said it was nice

 

 

 

[SquishTheWhale]

Having to switch to external image upload as apparantley I've already hit the forum upload limit!

 

Roasted beef striploin. You could have this medium-well or medium-rare. I asked for it medium-well but as you can see I was brought the medium-rare! 6 months ago I would have sent this back but I have been getting more into rarer meat latley. This was delicious but there was too much of it- I could have done with just one slice. I left the very rare bits in the middle (more rare-rare than medium rare)

 

 

Strip steak from the always available menu. DH loved this

 

 

Strawberry cheesecake from the always available menu. This was light and delicious

 

 

Warm hazelnut chocolate cake

 

 

Edited November 2, 2018 by SquishTheWhale

[SquishTheWhale]

Formal night dinner, forgot to take a picture of the menu!

Fried camembert, very nice and gooey

 

 

Some kind of bisque, DH enjoyed

 

 

Beef wellington, DH also liked this

 

 

DH also asked for some of the pasta on the side- I think this was a cheese ravioli in butter sauce with mushrooms. I warned him they would just bring him a full portion and of course that's what they did. It was very rich and very good.

 

 

Chicken schniztel, was okay but maybe not the best choice as a little plain

 

 

Baked alaska, delicious smokey taste on the top

 

 

DH had apple pie off the always available menu, he loved this. It had a caramelised crust on top

 

[SquishTheWhale]

Last nights menu

 

 

To start I had the chicken consomme, this was nice but a bit like drinking chicken stock

 

 

DH had seafood ceviche. He wanted to compare this to one we had in Miami. Miami won and I am not surprised- we were on a food tour and stopped at somewhere that was famous for good ceviche! But he still enjoyed this

 

 

For main we both had the chicken parmigania, this was a mistake on my part as I couldn't decide what to order so just panicked and ordered the same as DH. The mistake being that it was very similar to the chicken schnitzel from last night, not that it was bad. I should have had the pork as the lady next to us had it and it looked lovely.

 

 

For dessert I had the chocolate cake from the always available menu. I liked this but would choose the cheesecake over it

 

 

DH had the chocolate bread and butter pudding, he was glad this was small as it was very rich!

 

[kernow]

Those menus look far nicer and more varied than any others I've seen posted lately, maybe they are aimed more at the British market. Would love to see them on our Jewel TA next week.

 

Julie

[SquishTheWhale]

57 minutes ago, kernow said:

Those menus look far nicer and more varied than any others I've seen posted lately, maybe they are aimed more at the British market. Would love to see them on our Jewel TA next week.

 

Julie

 

I would suspect that at least the pies and currys were put on there for the British market

[SquishTheWhale]

Some breakfast pics:

 

 

 

 

 

Lunches in the buffet

 

Some chinese food

 

 

Pie, roast beef and mash- this was all absolutley gorgeous

 

 

Buffet desserts- the chocolate mousse was okay, the cake tasted literally of nothing

 

 

Promenade cafe photos

 

 

 

 

Sorrentos

 

 

And finally, some waffles in Bruges!

 

[transam84]

Thanks so much for the food pictures. Everything looks absolutely delicious! I think I was worried for nothing!

[crystalspin]

What exactly did you do in Bruges? We are (I am) torn between a HAL ship's tour to Ypres (Flanders Field) and one being organized on the Roll Call -- that is long and packed with little 'down' time but seems to have mostly city/architecture things...

[SquishTheWhale]

2 hours ago, crystalspin said:

What exactly did you do in Bruges? We are (I am) torn between a HAL ship's tour to Ypres (Flanders Field) and one being organized on the Roll Call -- that is long and packed with little 'down' time but seems to have mostly city/architecture things...

 

We did the RCI tour 'Bruges tour with free time' which included a walking tour, boat tour and 3 hours free time. We thought it was excellent, we had plenty of time by ourselves and the tour was comprehensive. We didn't want an all day tour without free time as we wanted to go in the chocolate shops. The tour covered the major landmarks, more history based than architecture.

I guess it depends what you are interested in seeing- we really wanted to see Bruges itself so I didn't look at Ypres etc.

Edited November 3, 2018 by SquishTheWhale

[crystalspin]

I need to look again and see if HAL has something like that.