Review -- Independence of the Seas, March 11th Sailing

We just returned from our third cruise, and our second aboard Independence of the Seas. This was the ship we sailed on during our virgin cruise in July 2015. We tried MSC Divina last summer, but decided to return to RCI this year. We sailed as a couple - the kids stayed home with the grandparents this time!

This was a 5-Night cruise out of Fort Lauderdale. The itinerary included two sea days (Days 2 & 5), and two port days (Costa Maya on Day 3, and Cozumel on Day 4).

For a bit of context: my wife and I are both educators, so we can only take trips during public school breaks. Our last two cruises were in the summer, but we decided to take a winter vacation this year during the public school March Break (which, in Canadian schools, tends to happen in the month of March, hence the name).

To add to the context: many Canadian universities have their "reading week" (spring break) in February. We knew about spring break, of course. We didn't realize that March is the popular month for American university spring breaks. This week, in particular, seemed to be a popular week for Florida colleges. I'll discuss this more later in the review.

I'll try to organize this review into general topics/themes. I'm open to any questions. Sorry for the length - I wrote this over the past two days in Word, then pasted it all into the forum. Perhaps next time I'll write and post as I go!

-- ARRIVAL / PRE-CRUISE HOTEL --

We flew to Fort Lauderdale a day early. We had some excitement on the AA flight - we experienced a "rejected landing". Just as we were on the final approach to the FLL runway, landing gear down and ready for touchdown, the plane suddenly accelerated and climbed steeply over the runways and airport. The pilot explained that ATC ordered a go-around due to our plane being too close to the aircraft landing ahead of us. A new experience for us (and not a fun one for my wife, who tends to be a nervous flyer). We landed about ten minutes later, after a circle tour above the night lights of Fort Lauderdale.

We booked the Fort Lauderdale Airport Cruise Port Inn on the South Federal Highway, near the airport, for our short first night stay (very late arrival). This hotel is undergoing renovations to become a branded hotel of some kind.

We collected our luggage at around 11pm and called the number to request the free shuttle, which was promised within 15-20 minutes. By 11:45 I called back, and was assured that the driver was on the way. He ended up arriving at 12:15 am. This was very similar to our last experience in 2015 (that time a shuttle for one of the Holiday Inns): we had to wait over an hour. Next time we fly into FLL we'll take a cab to the hotel, I think. It was annoying to watch the same shuttles for other hotels come back several times, and still be waiting for our driver.

When we arrived at the hotel at around 12:30 am, they couldn't find our reservation in their system (I had booked directly on the hotel website and noted our late arrival on the reservation). They had a suite available so it was essentially an upgrade, so it worked out. By that point we just wanted to crash - we had been flying since 10am, with two connections.

Even though the room was on the seventh floor, the traffic noise was very loud. There isn't a whole lot the hotel can do about this, except perhaps put in thicker windows or something. The hotel isn't set back from the road at all, so the traffic can easily be heard in the room.

Aside from all this, it was a clean and comfortable stay for the few hours we were there. We skipped the free breakfast and ate at a nearby Denny's in the morning.

-- EMBARKATION --

We signed up for a shuttle to the port the next day (this time offered by a different company than the airport shuttle) and that worked out well. We arrived at around 10:45 am. Check-in was a breeze, and we were waiting in the pier by 11:00. They let us on by 11:30-11:40, I believe.

We had a snack at the Cafe Promenade and avoided the Windjammer, then wandered the ship. My wife remarked that it was nice to be back aboard Indy, although it would have been nice to explore a new ship - the awe and excitement was somewhat muted this time since Indy was familiar.

We wanted to check out Indy again, in part, to take a closer look at the activities for kids - our next cruise will be with our two children. Last year we sailed MSC Divina with our kids. It is a beautiful ship but we found it wasn't all that great for our boys, and we think Indy / Freedom class would be much better for a family cruise, especially with the H20 Zone. Ironically, Divina would make a lovely adults/couples cruise - perhaps we should have sailed her this week instead!

There were six ships leaving port on the 11th. It was great to see Harmony up close - she looks amazing!

-- DINING --

We decided to dine at Giovanni's on the first evening - we had done Chop’s on the first night in 2015 and enjoyed the experience. There were no posted specials for first-night specialty dining, but when we asked they offered us both a 30% discount. I enjoyed the food but my wife's pasta was awful - she couldn't eat it (and she isn't a picky eater). True to form, the wait staff fell over themselves to find something for my wife to eat and she ended up with a fish dish - not great but not bad. The service was excellent. We wouldn't do Giovanni's again but I'm happy to have tried it. I was happy with my meal.

We had MyTime dining and made reservations for the second night - formal night - at 8:45 pm. This was the earliest time they had available. When we arrived at around 8:40, the MyTime area was jam-packed - probably around 100 people waiting, with no discernible lines for those with reservations and those without. We waited for ten minutes in this chaos, then decided to forgo the main dining room, opting instead to check to see if Chop’s had anything available, which they did. We hadn’t planned on doing two specialty restaurants but in the end I think it was a more pleasant and special experience, especially on formal night. We were both very happy with our food and service in this restaurant.

We only ended up in the MDR once, on Day 4 (Cozumel). This was on a lark - we had thought we’d want to go to the buffet on this day, but instead opted to check out the MDR and walked in without reservations, seated next to a window. It ended up being lobster night. The meal was good.

-- SPRING BREAK --

It seems appropriate to talk about the spring break crowd.

As I mentioned earlier, we didn’t know about spring break when we booked this cruise. Even had we known, I don’t think I would have associated cruising as something college students would want to do en masse, but I’m still a new cruiser so maybe this is well-known.

To be sure, the nature of this cruise was unlike the past two we have taken. Many of the students were there to party, without question. The pool deck was packed with students most of the time, and large groups of students roamed the ship at all hours.

By and large the students did their thing and we did our thing, and we had an enjoyable experience. There were a few times when they did interfere with our experience in a negative way:

Late Night Noise

Every single night we were woken repeatedly by students who were loud and obnoxious as they returned to their cabins, sometimes lasting for upwards of 10-15 minutes. This usually happened throughout the night, typically between 2:00 and 4:00 am. There was also a group in the cabin above us who stomped around and shouted, but they weren’t as disruptive as those in the passageways. This was the most disruptive aspect of cruising during spring break, and we didn’t find this cruise relaxing in the same way as we did in 2015. We returned home tired.

Bars

Sometime on Day 2, the first sea day, the drink menus disappeared from most of the bars. For my wife and I, this was a problem - we like to see the selection and try different drinks, especially since we pay as we go (no drink package). The bar staff we asked were coy about the reason, and so I decided to ask Guest Services to see if, at least, we could have photocopies of the menus to keep in our cabin. The person at GS insulted my intelligence by suggesting that the menus had not been intentionally removed, and perhaps were being stolen or removed by guests. I told her a bartender had told me that there “was a reason” for the menu removal, and she huffed over this, suggesting that the bartender didn’t know what he was talking about.

Another noticeable difference from our 2015 sailing was the lack of bar servers. Often the interior bars would have only the bartender working well into the day, and no servers to help or tend to seated guests until the evening, if at all. On the first sea day, at around 2pm, my wife and I wandered the ship trying to find a drink, and every single venue we checked was packed - we couldn’t get near a bar, and often it was just the single bartender trying to deal with the crowd.

A fellow cruiser I was chatting with theorized that Royal pulled the menus and servers on purpose, to essentially slow down the alcohol consumption of the students (most of whom seemed to have the drink package). His theory: if guests had to order at the bar and there weren’t enough staff, it would slow down the number of drink orders processed per hour. It is a plausible theory, despite being underhanded.

Things did seem to improve somewhat as the cruise progressed - additional bar staff started appearing earlier in the day, although the bars were often still very busy. The menus never returned in Schooner, Olive or Twist, Pyramid, and other lounges we went to. There were menus in the pub and the champagne bar.

Final Thoughts on Spring Break

All-in-all we made the best of our cruise. There were times when we were annoyed at the antics of the students, but we forced ourselves to remember that we were all that age once (although we were a bit surprised at the frequent juvenile behaviour of these young adults - perhaps this speaks to the relatively high drinking age of 21 in the US, but they often reminded us of stereotypical teenage behaviour). Interestingly and sadly, one evening we were chatting with a young lady, a student herself on spring break cruising with her boyfriend, and she was near tears because she couldn’t believe the behaviour of her peers - they seemed to be ruining the trip for her.

Would we cruise again in March? Probably not. We made the most of it, which is part of any vacation or cruise, but it became a bit too much to so often be around obnoxious and rude guests. It should be said that, as with any large group of people, the rude ones were in the minority, but it seemed to be a larger minority than usual. We grew wary of “making the most of it” and were quite happy to get off the ship.

I don’t know what, if anything, Royal Caribbean can do about this. They had extra security working - another noticeable change from 2015. I wondered about whether a specifically marketed “party cruise” might work: basically charter/brand a ship or two as spring break cruises throughout March and advertise them on college campuses. Would this draw enough students away from the other ships to allow non-students to enjoy their cruises without the college party atmosphere? I don’t know. At the very least, I think Royal should note on their website which cruises take place during popular spring break periods.

-- PORTS OF CALL --

As mentioned earlier, we sailed to two ports during this cruise: Costa Maya and Cozumel. It was our first time in Costa Maya, and our second visit to Cozumel.

We booked private tours at each port and they were both excellent. In Costa Maya we used Island Marketing Ltd (Costa Maya Cruise Excursions) and went to visit the Chacchoben Mayan site, a butterfly farm, and then we had a beach break at one of the clubs (Kimbara), which included drinks, snacks and a light meal (we had snapper fajitas - yum!).

In Cozumel we used a driver-for-hire service (Tours Plaza) and visited Punta Sur Park for a few hours, which was beautiful. In addition to a solid hour on the beach, we also explored the park a bit and climbed the lighthouse. I was worried about Cozumel - there were six ships in port that day, I think - but as others here said, the port was easily able to handle the load. Punta Sur was very quiet!

In Cozumel, upon our arrival back in the city we asked the driver to recommend an authentic restaurant for a late lunch, one that wasn’t too far from the ship but not on the main tourist strip. He brought us to a restaurant called La Choza, which had a mix of tourists and locals. It was fantastic! My wife had the chicken mole, and I had chicken fajitas - delicious! The margarita came in a glass the size of a fish bowl! Our driver suggested we take a taxi back to the ship but we opted to walk - a good hike but well worth it. He said 2.5 miles (4 km), which seems about right. Took about 45 minutes to walk.

We bought some liquor at the state-run liquor store and stopped at a few market stalls along the way for souvenirs. Question: are these markets authentic, or do they all just sell stuff mass produced in China? We ended up buying a couple of blankets and we hope that they are authentic, but every stall and shop seemed to have the same stuff. We aren’t yet experienced enough to know any different.

We also saw our first pier runner miss the ship in Cozumel. The day before, in Costa Maya, there were some passengers crying and upset at the gangway, and it ended up that their companion was late, but she did manage to get aboard (albeit delaying the ship for a few minutes). The next day the captain, during his morning message upon arrival in Cozumel, implored guests to be on time, otherwise they’d have the unique opportunity to take a photo of Indy sailing into the sunset without them (paraphrase of his words, but he did say something to that effect).

That evening in Cozumel, after the lines were cast off and the ship was moving away, we saw a young lady racing down the pier with security and a port worker running with her - the port worker had a life jacket in his hands. The ship did not stop, and when it became obvious that we were sailing without her, this young lady became very angry, gesturing and yelling towards the ship. She was escorted back to the port area.

What an awful feeling it must be, and I hope to never be in the situation. Whenever we go ashore we go prepared - passports, credit cards, etc. just in case. In the event that we missed the ship for whatever reason we’d be fine - albeit an expensive change to our vacation. It’s easy to judge and think that this was just an irresponsible person, but who knows what her circumstances were. I hope she ended up being okay, regardless of the reason for her missing the ship.

-- ENTERTAINMENT --

The ice show “Strings” was very good, and they had a headliner singer named Solomon Jaye who was very entertaining - a great showman! “Grease” was shown on the final night of the cruise and it was a great show - well done. We somehow missed the Love and Marriage show (I still can’t figure out how we didn’t notice it), and we didn’t bother with Quest.

We did a lot of trivia and a few other activities here and there. The Activities staff presented a range of enthusiasm: one was fantastic, others just so-so, and one was clearly phoning it in this week. I couldn’t tell you who the Activities Manager was - I don’t know if we saw him or her during the entire week. We only saw the Cruise Director, John Blair, once during the headliner show (and he didn’t seem very sincere in his praise for Solomon Jaye). This was very different from 2015: the Activities staff seemed much more engaged and happy, and the CD (Leigh Xuereb) was much more present all over the ship.

-- DRINK CARDS / SERVICES --

The ten-drink punch cards were offered on Day 4 (Cozumel) for $69. My wife and I decided to buy one - it made financial sense for us, given the types of drinks we were ordering. We were determined to make sure we used every single drink and succeeded - we had our last two drinks at 9pm on the last evening! I wish they’d offer these as an alternative to drink packages for the entire cruise. We had drink tickets on Divina last summer and they worked well for us. When our bill arrived at the end and I crunched the numbers, we would have never benefited from a drink package - not even close.

We didn’t use the internet so I can’t comment on that (our preference is to sail disconnected).

We ordered room service several times, including three breakfasts. It was good, the same as in 2015 in terms of selection and quality. For all three breakfast deliveries they were earlier than we requested, once by about 30 minutes (our alarm had just gone off). Only one morning did we get a call alerting us that they were on the way.

-- DISEMBARKATION / POST-CRUISE HOTEL --

For as pleasant as the embarkation was, disembarkation was much less so.

We decided to go as late as possible instead of walking our luggage off the ship. We had tag # 36, scheduled for disembarkation at 10:00. We left the room at around 8am and settled into one of the empty lounges with some snacks and books. They called all remaining groups at around 10am, but when we went to check the line it was still snaking up the stairs to Deck 3 so we found a sofa near Studio B to wait it out. This lasted about ten minutes before we were respectfully but firmly asked to go to the line. From that point it took close to an hour to make it off the ship, into the luggage hall, and through customs. Another group ahead of us was commenting on the wait, and their thought was that it might be due to so many college students having to clear customs as individuals, as opposed to couples and families who would all go together through customs. Seems plausible.

We decided to stay an extra day in Fort Lauderdale, and this time we selected a hotel close to the beaches: Aqua Hotel. It is what they call a “boutique” hotel - in other words, an older property that has been renovated and modernized! It was a very nice stay: all the rooms opened into a central courtyard with a pool, and the rooms were clean and well appointed. The manager was very personable and friendly, and she offered to hold our luggage until our room was ready while we went exploring. She texted us when the room was ready at around 2:30 pm. We’d stay again, although we would request a room on the second level. We visited the nearby state park (Hugh Taylor) and took the Water Taxi in the evening for a few hours.

-- STAFF / STATE OF SHIP --

Some people in these forums have commented that Royal is changing, and even in our limited experience we can say that the ship felt a bit different this time. We aren’t sure if it was due to the spring break crowd or not. It must be long days for the ship staff with a party crowd, especially when it goes for weeks on end.

We did find a bartender we liked and tipped him accordingly, and it seemed to help with him noticing us in a crowd. I already mentioned the Activities staff. Our room steward was fantastic - really nice guy from Saint Vincent. The dining staff were fantastic wherever we went.

My wife found the spa staff to be quite aggressive whenever they were set up around the ship trying to sell appointments, but otherwise we didn’t feel harassed onboard.

There was a fair amount of construction happening on the ship, and some areas were closed. As well, our stateroom had a few minor issues, nothing major, but still showing some wear: a drawer was falling apart, the switches on one of the bed lights were loose and didn’t work well, and we had to call a plumber at one point when the drain plug wouldn’t pop open. The shower drain was also slow. I found myself wondering if Indy is due for some kind of refresh in the near future.

-- Final Thoughts --

This wasn’t a relaxing cruise, but it was fun - a nice getaway, and a good escape from the still-cold late Canadian winter (we returned home to 0°C, 32°F). The ports were the highlight of this trip for us. We will sail with Royal again - we actually booked via Next Cruise onboard to obtain the future OBC. The agent suggested we book a “dummy cruise” since he said we could change it at any time, to any sailing, and keep the OBC so long as we kept a balcony stateroom. He slotted us in for the latest date sailing he had available: January 2019 aboard the new Symphony OTS. Our next cruise will actually be in the summer of either 2018 or 2019, as a family, ship TBD.

I hope this review has been helpful to some. Comments and questions welcome.

Thanks for sharing! I can empathize with having to cruise at Spring Break – I am a retired principal, so for years the only time I could cruise was during school vacations. While you can't eliminate the crowds, we never had a problem with college age partiers. Our Spring Break cruises, on three different cruise lines, were filled with younger children and families. For the most part everyone was well behaved and the children didn't affect our enjoyment at all. I think the key was that those cruises were all seven nights. The college spring breakers seem to choose the shorter "booze" cruises.

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Thanks for sharing! I can empathize with having to cruise at Spring Break – I am a retired principal, so for years the only time I could cruise was during school vacations. While you can't eliminate the crowds, we never had a problem with college age partiers. Our Spring Break cruises, on three different cruise lines, were filled with younger children and families. For the most part everyone was well behaved and the children didn't affect our enjoyment at all. I think the key was that those cruises were all seven nights. The college spring breakers seem to choose the shorter "booze" cruises.

It was very much a "live and learn" experience for us. Someone on board echoed your sentiment that college students would probably be drawn more to five-night cruises than seven-night cruises. We had actually expected a large number of school-aged children (much like on our summer cruises), but on this cruise there were very few children/families.

Thanks for the tip. Should we ever cruise in March again, we'll be sure to pick a seven-night itinerary!

Thank you for posting such a thorough and well thought out review. Your opinions and experiences will be of great value, especially those planning a similar cruise in future who aren't of the 'spring break' party!

We were on the cruise right before you on IOS. I wasn't expecting all of the college kids either... Apparently this was Florida's college spring break! Someone said we had 1,000 college kids on ours... They seemed okay to us/not too much of a bother but the pools and hot tubs were over taken with college kids... I do think there needs to be some regulation but then again that would be discrimination. I don't know. Oh, we brought 2 sound machines and were all the way forward so that probably helped. Lord if myself or our child woke up every night I would of been livid. No sleep is tough..... We still had a wonderful cruise!!

It was very much a "live and learn" experience for us. Someone on board echoed your sentiment that college students would probably be drawn more to five-night cruises than seven-night cruises. We had actually expected a large number of school-aged children (much like on our summer cruises), but on this cruise there were very few children/families.

 

Thanks for the tip. Should we ever cruise in March again, we'll be sure to pick a seven-night itinerary!

Great review! Sailing Indy in 3 weeks.

We were on the Indy for the same cruise. We have four kids so spring break is when we can go on a family vacation...took the same cruise essentially 2 years ago on Liberty of the Seas and although we prepared for it, there were MUCH less college spring breakers on Liberty from March 10-15, 2015 than there were this time on Indy March 11-16. I do think Florida State, Central Florida, and another large FL university all had spring break this same week which likely is the reason.

Aside from the pool (still plenty of room for my daughter and I to swim, just few lounge chairs which has been a problem no matter when we cruise in 7 cruises) and bars being over-run (we don't drink so bar lines didn't impact us, but the lines for those who wanted drinks looked Horrible) the spring breakers were what you'd expect. We found the vast majority to be polite and very normal when we encountered them directly. A few obnoxious for sure...but I would offer, a "FEW" of any stereotypical group will always be obnoxious. Case in point, a couple drunk 65 year old ladies on this cruise got on the elevator with my 16 year old son and his friend and she grabbed his nuts and said "look at this nice stomach" and then turned to the other 16 year old and said "oh another one" to which the kid shook his head "no" and wagged his finger at her. Kind of a role reversal huh? Another case in point, we were on a very crowded elevator on our last sea day after Cozumel with really room for no more but maybe a squeeze for one more...and when doors on deck 6 opened...3 grey haired elderly ladies said "Move, we're getting on!" and literally shoved two passengers back into their significant others and forced their way rudely onto the elevator...they were not drunk, dressed nice, just obnoxious and rude and likely sick of waiting for an unpacked elevator, but does that make them any less obnoxious and rude?

We witnessed some similar rude behavior from the spring breakers, mostly in the form of foul language and being loud to the point of disrespect. But nothing that we couldn't just laugh at, and walk away. I guess the point is, you probably could no more "judge" the spring breakers group than you could the "families" group (us), or the "elderly group" or the "drinkers group" or the "non-drinkers group" or the "smokers" group etc. They all have their "few" annoying obnoxious members and you almost just have to expect it...from every group. On one prior cruise (with no spring breakers) an old guy in a scooter was running over people's feet (including mine) in a crowded hall yelling "look out, coming through" which is about the most disrespectful thing I've ever seen on a cruise. So yeah, I've probably personally annoyed others as well at some point by doing something.

We had a great time, brought noise makers for our three balcony cabins and everybody slept fine even though we turned in at about 10-11pm well before the spring breakers shut up. We could hear them from our 9th floor balconies, but not bad, and mostly in the evening they were singing and partying up top or on their balcony. Were they noisy in the hallway yes, but again, for 5-10 minutes and done, but sound machines likely helped drown that out. I don't disagree with your review at all, it's great and I enjoyed it as I relieved some of the cruise...weather was 80+ for most of the cruise while they had 8 inches of snow back home so that escape from winter was exactly what we were after on a family vacation. If we could cruise outside of spring break would we? YES, but the question then would be how to avoid the newlyweds, overly-feds, and nearly-deads? You see, there is always some, or several stereotypical groups on board, so I guess we will just continue to plan to deal with all of them and have fun...just like you said, "making the most of it" no matter what group we encounter. Your point of putting it in the review to warn those planning cruises in March in the future is valid because it's absolutely what you experienced in your cruise, however all anybody has to do to become acutely aware of spring breakers being on cruises is search "spring break" on these forums and you'll get plenty of research and advance warning from many years of past March cruisers, so add another one to the record! Glad you enjoyed your cruise!

Thanks for your thoughts.

It is all what you make it, for sure, and I agree: the minority tends to be the problem, although I do think, as I mentioned in my review, that the minority of obnoxious people tended to be larger on this cruise than the two previous cruises we were on. Just our experience, though.

I think a big part of the reason, for us, was the impact on our sleep... once in a while, to be woken up by noisy guests (of any age) in the hallways is normal, albeit annoying. To have this happen literally every night in the pre-dawn hours of the morning, accompanied by loud discussions, laughing and yelling, is over and above what is acceptable, in my opinion. Perhaps we just had bad luck with the particular patrons in our hallway!

It was a "live and learn" for us, to be sure. Now I know the spring break dates in the US, and also that students enjoy cruising on their breaks. Previously I tended to associate spring break with places like Cancun and Miami Beach. To be honest, I'm still a bit surprised that cruising is something students would want to do.

You're the second person to mention "sound machines"... I'll need to look into these.

Are you the music teacher, by chance?

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I was on the same cruise, and as teachers, my wife and I are no strangers to Spring break cruising. This was our third spring break cruise, and as Diamond members, we understand a bit of it. What we saw on this cruise was FAR worse than previous cruises.

Food being thrown from upper levels onto guests below. Drunks vomiting from balconies, in the casino, and in the passageways. Young women in the Schooner bar flashing the rest of the bar. We even saw a male staff member with his hand inside a young woman's dress. We got pictures of that and gave them to GS.

On the final morning, I wanted to again speak with guest services, but left embarrassed because the woman in front of me and her brother were upset and complaining that the woman had been sexually assaulted.

The CEO of RCCL defended the cruise line from similar accusations in 2012, and we assumed that the accusations were overblown, but after this last cruise I now see that this happens from time to time, and the cruise line should probably do more to prevent it. I know that Carnival will suspend an entire cabin from buying alcohol if the guests in that cabin over indulge and get out of hand. Perhaps RCCL could look into something similar? All I know is that all guests are subject to a behavior policy, and the servers are not supposed to serve alcohol to people who are intoxicated, and neither of those policies were being enforced.

Wow - that is very unsettling, to say the least.

The most serious example of extreme intoxication we saw was actually while we were in line at GS ourselves, asking about the punch cards. This was at the end of our second port day in Cozumel. Two young women arrived in the line behind me. They were both drunk but one seemed to be extremely intoxicated, to the point of dropping her pizza and stumbling against me and another person behind her. At one point she loudly asked "Is this a nude cruise?" -- I purposely looked away so I'm not sure if she decided to flash anyone or not. Again - this was in the Guest Services line. They didn't seem to know what to do.

It left my wife and I wondering if Royal enforces any type of "cut off" policy for guests who are clearly over the line. In this case she may have been in Cozumel drinking tequila all day - who knows - but I hope she wasn't offered any more alcohol that day.

In 2012, the tabloid show "Inside Edition" did a show about extreme intoxication. At the time, I had already been on quite a few RC cruises, and thought it was exaggerated. Here is a link to the show:

http://www.insideedition.com/investigative/4295-inside-edition-investigate-cruise-ship-drinking

The CEO of RCCL responded to the show with an explanation of the cruise line's alcohol policy, which is found here:

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/connect/royal-caribbean-president-ceo-discusses-onboard-alcohol-policies/

It appears as though the Inside Edition is certainly plausible, considering what we all saw last week. It also appears that RCCL is not enforcing those alcohol policies.

macdon- Do you know what the on board construction you mentioned was about, please? What deck(s)? I am specifically wondering if they are converting a space on deck 14 to make a suite lounge.

They may be. The Diamond lounge used to be aft of Olive or Twist on the starboard side of deck 14. It is now on the port side of deck 14, in what used to be cloud 9. There is a concierge lounge on deck 10, just aft of and between the aft elevators. The room that used to be the diamond lounge is now vacant.

The diamond lounge was VERY recently moved, and the key card lock isn't even installed yet- the Diamond lounge door does not lock.

There is some construction materials and a cargo container on deck 11 right below the old diamond lounge, next to the basketball court.

In 2012, the tabloid show "Inside Edition" did a show about extreme intoxication. At the time, I had already been on quite a few RC cruises, and thought it was exaggerated. Here is a link to the show:

 

http://www.insideedition.com/investigative/4295-inside-edition-investigate-cruise-ship-drinking

Thanks for sharing.

This actually starts to square the circle for me, a bit. It's why I didn't associate cruising with spring break. When I think of the (admittedly stereotypical) spring break activities like beer funneling, shot pounding, etc. I never would have thought these types of things would happen on a cruise ship. It's disappointing, if true; and, even if exaggerated, it seems that Royal is liberal with its cut-off policy.

macdon- Do you know what the on board construction you mentioned was about, please? What deck(s)? I am specifically wondering if they are converting a space on deck 14 to make a suite lounge.

Ditto what Journey said. As well, possibly associated with the construction near the basketball court: the person we spoke to about the kids' clubs also said the nursery was being moved/renovated, so it seems that some changes are being made to decks 12 and/or 13 aft.

There was also minor repairs being made here and there. They had a part of the pool deck torn up for most of the five days, and minor work here and there. This isn't a criticism, to be clear - repairs need to be made - just an observation.

You're the second person to mention "sound machines"... I'll need to look into these.

Nope, not the music teacher! Yes, I highly recommend sound machines, we take them on all trips to put a "sound curtian" between us and the hotel hallway or traffic noise from window or whatever. We like the "white noise, static, fan blowing" sound where it's a constant hum sort of...but you can get them to do ocean waves, nature sounds, rhythmic noise, etc.

Thank you for your comprehensive review.