B2B. INDY 2/8 & 2/13. LIVE with trip report

Anxiously awaiting to board tomorrow for our first B2B on Independence. After multiple cruises on Indy we are happy to relax onboard and report and answer any questions over next two sailings. D+ Aft Jr Suite. QUESTIONS WELCOME!

Anxiously awaiting to board tomorrow for our first B2B on Independence. After multiple cruises on Indy we are happy to relax onboard and report and answer any questions over next two sailings. D+ Aft Jr Suite. QUESTIONS WELCOME!

We will board the Independence in april for a B2B and the transatlantic. Looking forward to your review. Have a great cruise!😄😄😄

Bon voyage.

Keith

Following along, have a great cruise.

Following....thank you for your review. Love a good read!

Looking forward to the reports.

Our itinerary for our B2B sailings on INDEPENDENCE 3/8 & 3/13

WEEK 1

Day 1 Fort Lauderdale

Day 2 At Sea

Day 3 Labadee

Day 4 Falmouth, Jamaica

Day 5 At Sea

WEEK 2 (changeover)

Day 1 Fort Lauderdale

Day 2 At Sea

Day 3 Belize

Day 4 Cozumel

Day 5 At Sea

PreCruise Stay

We arrived in FLL at 4:30pm eve of sailing. Used Uber to get to hotel (FANTASTIC). Claimed luggage and arrived at hotel within 10 mins! Fabulous hotel stay at the Renaissance. We were worried about Super Bowl crowd but staff handled it extremely well to make our pre cruise stay enjoyable!!!

DH fetched a case of water and our allotted 2 bottles of wine conveniently across the street, while I reserved prime seating in the lounge to watch the Super Bowl. Met a few excited fellow cruisers in the lounge. Renaissance hosted us well!! Definitely planning to return here next month for Oasis sailing.

Embarkation Day 1

At 11:30 called Uber and off to pier. Arrival at Pier 18 was total chaos! Not sure what Royal's issue is with this terminal. Maybe due to the Heavy Metal Bands charter on previous sailing. Passengers were lost, confused, complaining, pushing, and downright RUDE. Took us quite a while to actually find a porter to take our luggage. Finally, we entered the Suite Line which was backed up quite a while with people who were NOT in suites nor had any C&A status at all. What a mess! Apparently there were bands still playing into the wee early AM hours and Royal could not locate all the passengers to disembark efficiently. So we wait! Finally boarding process began at 12:30pm. Angry anxious passengers all made a mad dash to board. It was totally unorganized with no control from Royal officials.

Anyway once onboard, about 12:45pm, it was a sigh of relief to see our aft Jr Suite #7712. Beautiful large balcony with 2 loungers and 2 chairs with a small table.

We decided to grab lunch with the masses in WJ then tour the ship. What a disappointment to see a huge mess of staging equipment still being deconstructed and offloading by cranes. OMG! Passengers were so disappointed to have all this to encounter on the first day of long awaited vacation. The entire outdoor pool areas were completely closed including the pool bar and sky bar. We were told that these areas would not be open until a Day 2.

Determined not to let all this ruin our trip, we took advantage by exploring other areas of the ship. We booked our specialty dining BOGO for Giovanis Day 1 and Chops Day 2. Good deal!

During the muster speech, the captain announced that our departure would be delayed to 5:45 (no surprise) due to the equipment offload process.

We checked out the CL, which we were happy to learn that we did have access as D+ members. However the D+ lounge was nicer in our opinion. We spoke to some Pinnacle members who agreed that the embarkation was the worst they'd ever experienced.

At 7:00, we were still docked. Finally about 8:00pm we heard the engines fire up, and we watched her pull away from our window table in Giovanis.

Great dinner, a little casino time, then off to bed.

Looking forward to reading more :) I'm very excited!!!!!! We will be sailing Indy in 50 days!!! :)

I, too, am looking forward to hearing more. I board on 2/22.

Following, it's almost my turn :p

Will be following along. We're on the Indy in April[emoji2]! I've heard mixed reviews of Giovanni's , so happy to hear you enjoyed dinner.

Was it just the location of the D+ lounge that you liked better than the CL?

Our itinerary for our B2B sailings on INDEPENDENCE 3/8 & 3/13

 

Finally, we entered the Suite Line which was backed up quite a while with people who were NOT in suites nor had any C&A status at all. What a mess! .

i hope someone turned them away and not just let them trough!

Going on the 22nd sailing, also on a Monday and hope terminal 18 is in use then as well.

Following along! Sailing in November and I can't get enough of the reviews!

Following along. Enjoy your cruise. So great to be able to do a back to back.

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Can you check and see if they are offering the D+ discount on the beverages packages? Buying them regardless, but would be nice if they are offering the discounts.

I will be boarding on Saturday :) were there any discounts the first night at any of the speciality dining?

Following....looking forward to hearing about the ship and the second week of your cruise..

Diamond lounge

Yes, the location is better. Deck 14, with both indoor and outdoor seating and great views. CL is mid ship with no windows and smaller. Service is great in both lounges, same drinks, same food. But we sort of 'hit it off' and preferred the company and service in the DL. We have always been greeted by name etc.

Please tip these servers!! They work hard for what they do!!

Have not yet seen any discounts on Drink Packages. But with the lounge access and nightly beverage vouchers that are preloaded on our SeaPass cards, we did not justify the value of a package purchase.

Specialty Dining

The only discounts we've seen on dining is if you purchase a 2,3,4,5 Night Package (same as offered on RCI online precruise purchase). We used our BOGO C&A offer for first two nights. We at at 8:00pm and was not busy at all.

I will be joining you on your second leg! We can't wait to get on vacation! I hear nothing good about getting on or off the Indy- not sure why they can't figure it out by now! Let us know how the seas and weather are. I'm trying to pack and can't decide on what to bring! Is the MDR "over air conditioned" or will we be ok in short sleeve dresses? I'm also a serious tea drinker. If you are in the Cafe on deck 5 can you confirm if they have a boiled water spout that you can get tea all day long (bringing my own tea bags). Also if you are uploading any photos would you pretty please take a pic of the Cafe menu posted on wall so we know how much specialty teas and coffees are. Enjoy your vacation and can't wait to hop on Indy on Saturday

Beautiful Sea Day! Hit the D lounge for coffee to bring back to enjoy on our balcony! Feeling lazy, we again opted for the WJ for breakfast. If you can get there before 9:00am, you can usually beat most of the sleepers.

Went to the fitness center about 10:00am, not crowded at all. Then we decided to take our big challenge of the day, trying to find lounge chairs on pool deck. After a couple of laps around the pool, we located two side by side chairs on the upper deck. SCORE! Prime location overlooking poolside activities. Yes, remarkably Royal somehow managed to restore the pool area from last week's destruction. We watched poolside Bingo and the Bellyflop Contest.

We skipped lunch and decided to go to the DL for early cocktails and snacks.

Went to Chops for dinner which again, was not crowded. Maybe because of formal night. We ordered the Onion Soup. DELICIOUS! I wished I had just ordered 2 bowls of this. Scallop appetizers were just okay. We both ordered the fillet medium rare. Mine was actually RARE and DH's was MEDIUM+. Very inconsistent. DH was very pleased with the coconut ice cream for dessert. Overall we preferred Giovanni's steak and meal to that of Chops.

Many activities this evening. Did not go to the Shows, but we heard good reviews.

FYI, the wifi is very slooooowwww! So I will post photos, menus, and compasses when I return home to faster wifi. We did feel like we got a deal on the internet package. Since we were in port until late the first night, we waited until after midnight to buy our internet package. It was $100 for the remaining 4 days. Our D+ discount was $80 OFF. So basically we got internet for the whole cruise for $20. DEAL!

We have now just docked in Labadee, so will report Day 3 later.

Our itinerary for our B2B sailings on INDEPENDENCE 3/8 & 3/13

Determined not to let all this ruin our trip, we took advantage by exploring other areas of the ship. We booked our specialty dining BOGO for Giovanis Day 1 and Chops Day 2. Good deal!

 

Was the dining BOGO due to your D+ status?

This sounds like a deal for the internet , even if it is very slow , did they let you combine D+discounts to buy the four days $80 off?

Thank you for posting I am sailing with my wife and daughter on the Mar 7th 5 day and would like to take advantage of this deal , glenn

It was $100 for the remaining 4 days. Our D+ discount was $80 OFF. So basically we go

Looking forward to following along...we will be in Haiti and Cozumel in April....