Independence of the seas 13th April Live Report

This will be our 3rd cruise and like the last 2 I will be doing a live blog / trip report whilst onboard.

We have spent the last 2 nights in Miami after flying in from the UK on Tuesday.

After checking the MarineTraffic app, we have seen that ship is currently docked at terminal 25 at Port Everglades so we plan to get an Uber from our hotel down to the port. Our planned arrival time at the port will be around 11am which we know is a bit early, but we are happy to wait to board the ship, rather than just sat waiting around in the hotel.

I will be uploading all the menus from bars and restaurants and will upload these to:

http://www.BourkeBlogs.com/iotsmenus

I'll also upload all the cruise compasses from the 15 night sailing to:

http://www.BourkeBlogs.com/iotscruisecompass

In addition I will be uploading a number of videos from the cabin, ship etc throughout the cruise, assuming the internet we have purchased will be reliable.

If anyone has any questions or something you want to find out, let us know and we will do our best to answer.

Indy was our favorite cruise and ship so far. We have Freedom booked for December as we love the size of the ship and the adult solarium area. Hope you have great weather! Can't wait for your review.

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Here's a quick update on the boarding process.

It took around 45 minutes from our hotel in Miami to do the port. There was a queue to get into the port through security where the Uber driver was asked to provide ID, we weren't asked for ID just if we we had any weapons on us, which unsurprisingly we didn't.

There was a lot of the traffic in the port to the drop off area outside terminal 25, which I have put a picture of below:

The porters took our luggage and loaded it on trolleys ready for the ship.

On entering the terminal we passed through security which only had less than a 5 minute queue then directed to our check in desks. We are only gold status but the line for gold status was significantly shorter than the queue for Diamond which seemed odd.

Check in was straight forward then although some people were boarding straight away, us and many others were directed to a holding room where we were seated for around 10 minutes before being able to board.

Boarding was simple although the security team had issues with their terminal so they couldn't scan people in, however that was only a 5 minute delay.

We had noticed that our drinks package wasn't showing on our Seapass card so we needed to go to Guest Services to resolve it. They advised us this had been a big issue for them today as most pre booked packages weren't showing so they were manually adding these on.

In total from arriving at the port, passing through security, checking in, sorting our drinks package out to sitting in a bar with a beer took less than hour in total which is pretty good.

Great start, looking forward to your review.

Before boarding we hadn't booked any speciality restaurants but did want go them, especially as it's a 15 night cruise. The dining package available was $70 for 3, $85 for 4 or $100 for 5. We went for the 5 package to allow us to go to Giovannis and Chops twice and also to do the lunch time galley tour as the 5th option. They were heavily pushing the dining both on the stalls and coming round the bars trying to sell this.

Against our better judgement, we decided to brace the Windjammer for lunch. This was due to fact we are travelling with family who have never cruised before who wanted some lunch, rather than a snack.

The WJ was very busy and it was extremely hard to find a seat. This seemed to be due to the fact even when people had finished eating they were staying sat down until their cabins were ready at 1. There were numerous announcements from the crew asking people to leave when they had eaten so other people could be seated. At 1pm it was like a mass exit from the WJ as people went to their cabins, so this would have been a great time to come and eat.

After lunch, we booked our reservations for the speciality restaurants as we were unable to do this at the time of purchasing the package before heading down to our cabin.

We chose an interior cabin for this cruise as the price was very good and we spend very little time in our cabin usually so for us was not worth paying extra for a balcony cabin.

The cabin is quite dated and has been made up with 2 single beds rather than one king. We called housekeeping about this and have been advised this will be reconfigured at turn down tonight.

I have taken a video of the cabin, which I will add a link to as soon as I am able to upload this.

We quickly unpacked our hand luggage and deposited our valuables into the safe. The safe is very small though and will not fit a laptop in. I am sure like many, we have a lot of tech so a bigger safe would be useful.

Since then we have headed to Vintages for a drink before the muster at 15:45

Following your review, as we are travelling on Indy in June.

I've just uploaded a couple of bar menus and the room service menu to: http://www.bourkeblogs.com/iotsmenus

So sail away was scheduled for 16:30 and at muster we were advised it was delayed until 17:30 due to loading baggage and supplies. We came to the sail away on deck 11 and there has been an announcement to say sail away is now delayed until 18:30 or 19:00 due to them still bringing luggage and supplies on board.

At a guess I would say as this is a 15 night cruise with 8 days transatlantic it's probably more supplies than they have been used to boarding for some time.

THANK YOU!!! I followed your last live report and it was wonderful. I am selfishly wishing you were on the Navigator transatlantic since we will be on that ship out of Southampton in June :D:halo:,

Enjoy your cruise

I notice on the Dog & Badger menu that even a Gin Fizz or Martini is $14 - that mean there's an extra charge even though you have drinks package?

Hope u have a great trip. We on Indy on 1st May from Southampton.... cant wait!

THANK YOU!!! I followed your last live report and it was wonderful. I am selfishly wishing you were on the Navigator transatlantic since we will be on that ship out of Southampton in June :D:halo:,

 

Enjoy your cruise

Glad you enjoyed the last one, hopefully this will be as good.

We've not been on the Navigator, hope you have a great time.

I notice on the Dog & Badger menu that even a Gin Fizz or Martini is $14 - that mean there's an extra charge even though you have drinks package?

Hope u have a great trip. We on Indy on 1st May from Southampton.... cant wait!

If you are sailing from the UK, the drink prices include gratuity, and the package limit is normally raised to cover that.

I notice on the Dog & Badger menu that even a Gin Fizz or Martini is $14 - that mean there's an extra charge even though you have drinks package?

Hope u have a great trip. We on Indy on 1st May from Southampton.... cant wait!

Yes there seems to be a lot of things above the package limit. For example in the MDR tonight, if we wanted a glad of Prosecco this is $15 so $3 above the limit. However, we have been drinking Grey Goose and Red Bull this afternoon which has had no extra charge so not always totally clear.

In addition at Vintages this afternoon, not many wines are included in the package, although not all wines are listed. For example, no Malbecs were on the menu, but I asked if they had any and was served one which was included in the package.

The majority of people seem to be on drinks packages, as from what we have seen so far, no one is signing for drinks.

Thank you for doing the blog. We had to cancel not long ago but have been still counting down. Would like some pictures, too, please.

On our last cruise in February, they had you sign for drinks even with package. Appeared the crew was requesting additional tips.

Will be back to UK in the fall to visit family and see Cornwall, at last. May catch TA for return home if prices are right. Have signed up for Jewel TA next spring and will then go to London to see grandchildren and their parents.

Again, thank you and have a fantastic voyage. Jealous;)

looking forward to more of your review, many thanks for taking time out of your trip to keep us informed on the cruise

For dinner this evening we ate in the MDR. (Menus have been uploaded) We are on My Time Dining (MTD) and had made reservations for 18:45 and went just before this and were seated quickly.

Service was a little slow, with it being a short while before our drinks and food order was taken. Although the waiting staff Alex and Mario were very good.

The starters we chose were the Shrimp Cocktail and Smoked Fish Rillettes.

For main course we selected the Carved Roasted Beef Striploin and Aged Hand-Cut Manhattan Strip Steak.

Drink wise we were planning to have Prosecco, although as mentioned above this was $15 a glass so would have incurred a $3 a glass up charge. Although a relatively small extra payment, we're not happy to pay this as the drinks package is so expensive to start with. It appears they are pricing items up, which have previously been included to still earn additional revenue which doesn't seem right to me. In the end we chose a rum and coke each.

None of us selected desserts as we full from the meal, although a dessert menu picture was taken.

After dinner we decided to head back to the cabin and unpack our luggage. Despite the small cabin we were able to easily unpack 3 full suitcases full of clothes and store them in the available cupboards and wardrobe.

I've also been on the hunt for the prices of everything I could find, so will PDF these and upload tomorrow morning.

On our last cruise in February, they had you sign for drinks even with package. Appeared the crew was requesting additional tips.

Thanks for your comments. We've not been asked to sign anything yet and we've probably had around 10 drinks each in total including water, soft drinks and alcohol.

I've seen very few people sign, and I'm assuming these are people without the drinks package.

For dinner this evening we ate in the MDR. (Menus have been uploaded)

I've also been on the hunt for the prices of everything I could find, so will PDF these and upload tomorrow morning.

Thank you for doing this, it is so very helpful to have current information even if some of the items may not have changed from the time someone post them. At least we would know. With the ever changing prices on the drinks this is most helpful and in general like to see the menus its fun to look / plan.

I do not know if you meant you already uploaded last evening's dinner menu, if you did it isn't on your website. Looking forward to following along.

Enjoy your cruise

Looking forward to the rest of your reports. It's a great idea posting the menus and cruise compass on another site as then they are all in one place and don't pad out the trip report with multiple quotes.

Indy was our first ever cruise in 2009 and we are back on her for the first time since in Sep. We were on Oasis last month and really enjoyed the new MDR menus so are hoping they are on Indy for our next trip. They are the plain landscape menus.

The upcharge on more and more drinks is annoying. It's called the Deluxe Package but it doesn't feel it when they keep upping the price of some drinks above the package levels. Celebrity are doing this also. It's cheap and devalues the drinks package wether you've paid for it or got it as a perk.

Anyway, I digress. Have a great trip and glad you are sharing your vacation with us.

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Thank you for this wonderful review. Following along in earnest. It does seem they are adding sly upcharges to drinks that perhaps used to be covered by the package. Sneaky and one to watch. Disappointing with regards the Prosecco.

Just so you know, Independence sails from Port Everglades (Ft Lauderdale), not Miami. I'll be doing the TA on Freedom from Port Everglades to Barcelona in 9 days. Enjoy your TA!

This morning we went breakfast in the MDR. From our previous cruises we had expected this to be A La Carte, although only a buffet was available. We asked about this and were told an A La Carte option would be available on Day 5. As we've not sailed on this ship before we are not sure if this is usual.

Breakfast was good, although service was pretty slow on the drinks. It took about 15 minutes for the teas to be delivered. We also had the fresh orange juice which was really good.

There was a decent choice of food available on the buffet, with the hot food being tailored towards the large amount of British onboard with items such as black pudding and English Bacon.

After breakfast we headed up to deck 5 where you could collect tickets for the 2 ice shows which will be taking place on the cruise. There are 5 times for these which are shown in the cruise compass.

After this we headed to Cafe Promenade for a Latte which you can use your drinks package for, alternatively free tea and coffee is available here as well.

Great read; thanks.

Here is a video of our cabin: