Pictoral review of our Indy 03/29 cruise

Hi All,

Haven't done a review in a little while so i decided to do one of our cruise on the Independence of the Seas March 29th - April 6th.

There were 12 of us in total all from the west coast, San Diego, Los Angeles and San Fran. We booked last May with an online t/a who was offering a no deposit deal. In my family there are 4 of us so that saved me $1000 at the time so I said why not, lets book. I've always wanted to do the 8 night but its been way too expensive but this cruise was going to be for my daughters graduation from high school (well at least thats the excuse we made up for booking):D and the price wasn't too crazy.

Here we are in St Martin

So now it was trying to find flights from San Diego to FLL which wasn't easy, there are no direct flights and we didn't really want to drive up to LA so I kept looking for anything in Florida. Well the only thing that came up was a direct flight from San Diego to Orlando on Thursday for $142 everything else was well over $250 o/w to any airport in Florida. My daughters have always wanted to go to Universal Orlando so that would give us 1 day there and then a drive to FLL on Saturday. So we pulled the plug, Pricelined the Renaissance hotel in Orlando for $100, found a 15 passenger van on Costco for $200 for 3 the 3 days we needed it and still cheaper than buying a flight into FLL. Our 8 day cruise now turned into an 11 day adventure.:cool: There were 8 of us with the Orlando portion of the trip (us, gma and gpa and uncle and aunt) and the other 4 we met in FLL on cruise day.

On to Orlando.....

I'm excited! Can't wait! :)

We landed in Orlando and was pretty uneventful. Picked up the 15 passenger van for the 8 of us which I thought would be ok because we were going to have a lot of luggage, well the only issue was the back seat didn't fold down, so getting all the luggage in was very hard and we had to be very creative. We checked into the hotel, like I said we Pricelined the Renaissance at Seaworld which was a fantastic deal and a beautiful hotel.

Big beautiful Atrium as well as my beautiful daughters.

I know this is bad, but now I have to head to work, this will be a work in progress....:(

I'm excited! Can't wait! :)

Thanks Mike, I loved your Allure review and am reading your Victory right now as well.

Can't wait to hear the rest, we leave for the Indy next Friday!

I am following your review. I am trying to get as many RCCL reviews in as I can :)

Off Topic: I used to live in San Diego when I went to school and I miss it. I live in Austin now which is amazing but San Diego has my heart. Maybe I'll retire there. I still have about 25 years to go though...

Keep it coming , going on icy as a group of 14 in May

I am following your review. I am trying to get as many RCCL reviews in as I can :)

 

Off Topic: I used to live in San Diego when I went to school and I miss it. I live in Austin now which is amazing but San Diego has my heart. Maybe I'll retire there. I still have about 25 years to go though...

Ya its a great place to live, A little spendy but worth it. The really bad part is you have to fly a long way to go on a cruise :(

Here's a couple neat shots of San Diego from the plane on our way too Orlando

A Naval Submarine off the coast of Pt. Loma

Couple more shots of the Renaissance, if you're looking for a place to stay in Orlando, choose this hotel, close to everything and lots of nice public spaces.

I'll be on the Indy in 9 days so i am excited to read your review!

Friday morning it was off to Universal, we reserved the free shuttle (well its part of the $25 resort fee) the hotel offers for 10:30. We have been to Disney World a few years back and we have Disneyland an hour away from our home so the girls wanted to try Universal. They are huge roller coaster nuts and of course Harry Potter fans.

Universal like Disney has the City Walk which is full of shops and resturants and the biggest Starbucks I have ever seen:eek: (It has 7 registers, CRAZY) A few pics

The rest of our party

All kinds of great restaurants.....

But of course we chose Jimmy's place for dinner :D

We only spent a few hours at the park but it was fun

And of course the girls wanted to hit a roller coaster first thing. After a 2 hour wait we finally got on. It was worth it....

We hit up a few more rides then off to Harry Potter world. Just about all of are fans so it was neat to walk through it and go on some of the rides.

And you cant go there without the drink of the day!!

And the tourist pose in Jurassic Park:D

After our fun in the park, like I said we went to Margaritaville for dinner and then wanted to catch the shuttle back to the hotel but it never showed up, tha'ts another story, so we caught a van and went to Ron Jon to get some t-shirts and trinkets (we don't have Ron Jons in Cali so we have to hit them up when we can).:o Then back to the hotel and get ready for our long drive in the morning.

I'll be on the Indy in 9 days so i am excited to read your review!

You will have a great time! We did the 6 day last year and the 8 day this year. Well its off the bed and then work, so maybe a little bit more tomorrow night.

Saturday morning finally arrived, packed up the luggage and we were off by about 8am. We pretty much drove straight through on the Florida Turnpike, took us right at 3 hours with no traffic at all. After dropping everyone off at the terminal, then driving back to the airport to drop the car off and wait for a shuttle it was about 1pm before we got on the ship.

Embarkation was a breeze, we went through the priority line which this year was way shorter then the regular security line. (Last year they were both about the same) And on the ship we were in about 15 minutes.

There she is...

My daughter was excited :D

We were in port with 6 other ships including the Oasis and the Liberty

By the time we got on board our rooms were ready, so off we went. We originally booked the same rooms as last year, E1's on the hump deck 6 with my daughters in a PR room across the hall. Well after we booked I noticed PR room 6305 available, yes the Ben and Jerry's Sweet and a few E1's accross from it so I immediately called our t/a and had them switched. The girls were pumped to have ice cream all week and I was pumped to have access to the CL lounge :D

Lots of cow decorations and an envelope with 16 ice cream coupons and the whole CL notebook. Which I have to tell you was awesome!!

After checking out their room if was off to see ours. A week before final payment there was a huge price drop so instead of getting a refund we decided to upgrade to JR Suites for $60 more total per room. We had 3 JR Suites in a row, deck 10 1670, 1672 and 1674. It was pretty cool, we had our room steward open up the balconies so we had a very large space.

Here's our balconies opened up.

We all just stayed in our rooms for sail away. Very cool to follow all the other ships out.

Then our turn....

Thats awesome they were able to open up all of your balconies for you guys!!!

Sent from my iPhone using Cruise Critic Forums mobile app

Enjoying your review so far Indy is my favourite ship and will be on her again on May 17 for a cruise to the Norwegian Fjords

By the time we got on board our rooms were ready, so off we went. We originally booked the same rooms as last year, E1's on the hump deck 6 with my daughters in a PR room across the hall. Well after we booked I noticed PR room 6305 available, yes the Ben and Jerry's Sweet and a few E1's accross from it so I immediately called our t/a and had them switched. The girls were pumped to have ice cream all week and I was pumped to have access to the CL lounge :D

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lots of cow decorations and an envelope with 16 ice cream coupons and the whole CL notebook. Which I have to tell you was awesome!!

Great to see 6305 - we are booked in there sailing 4 weeks today to Norway - can't wait - glad to see all the benefits are still available

Thats awesome they were able to open up all of your balconies for you guys!!!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Cruise Critic Forums mobile app

Ya it was really nice. We did the same last year. They have no problems doing this on the Indy. Ive read that its hit or miss on the liberty.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Forums mobile app