A quick Indy review

So my wife and 2 adult sons travelled on the Independence last week on the 8 day Eastern. I plan on doing a picture review later this week once I have had a chance to get through my 1000+ pictures but I thought it would be helpful if I put up a quick review now.

This was our third time on the Indy and we've had great previous cruises on this great ship but things have changed a bit since last year. For starters Joff Eaton is no longer the CD but has been replaced by Ricky Matthews. It appears that Joff took many of the CD staff with him when he went to the Quantum because I didn't recognize anyone from the last two cruises. Ricky Matthews has big shoes to fill in Joff Eaton and he did an ok job, just ok. For example I found the 70's party in the Promenade no where near as fun and active as the two previous with Eaton. They started it off with a general dance party with the singers singing the 70's songs for 30 mins or so. Then Matthews came out for a shorter stint than Eaton had done previously. Generally speaking Matthews did a so-so job at the venues I saw and they mainly consisted of him dancing to a tune, introducing an act and then leaving. I also wasn't a huge fan of the Michael Jackson Thriller dance thing they did in the Promenade on the last sea day. It plugged up the Promenade in the middle of the day when I felt people were just not interested. Anyway, I give the CD and his staff about a 6.5 out of 10.

MDR food. I was slightly disappointed with the food I have to say. Last night the Seafood Mash was cold for both my wife and I. First night DW ordered a medium-rare steak and as soon as she cut it the waiter took it from her. He said it wasn't medium rare and he was right. The next steak was barely cooked. The food on the rest of the nights was fine so it was disappointing that the kitchen whiffed on 2 out of 8 meals for us. Also, on night 2 we showed up for our My Time Dining reservation of 6:45 only to find out that they had given our table to someone else and they had no tables for us. We ended up waiting for 30 minutes for a table. While the Maitre D was very apologetic I have to say that RCI needs to poop or get off the pot with My Time. Either do it or don't because this halfway pregnant thing is posing issues. Having said that, the wait staff was impeccable. Service was tremendous and they were really nice guys to deal with. I have nothing but great things to say about them.

Chops - We ate there one night and found the food good. On the last sea day we took advantage of a $20 Chops lunch and galley tour. Tour was nice, food in Chops afterwards, not so good. My sons ordered the burgers which they loved. DW ordered sliders that were cold and I ordered a medium-rare steak that was blue in the middle and quite cold. Disappointing here to have a meal like that on the last day that didn't turn out so well.

Windjammer - The usual fare. Food acceptable and in the normal variety. No complaints.

Ship condition - great shape once again. Well cared for and super clean.

Room Attendant - 10 out of 10 in my books. Great guy and did a great job.

Stops - St Maarten/St Kitts - I love those places and could spend a month in either one. Weather was great for all stops. San Juan was a walking tour for us that I enjoyed and Labadee was of course a beach day with great weather.

All in all - a good cruise but I think the food could have been better and has been better on our 2 previous cruises. I'd like to see RCI improve My Time Dining (it was poorly organized on a couple evenings) and Chops was disappointing considered the new rate they want for the place but from an overall perspective we were generally happy with the cruise.

I'll post some pics on another thread later.

Any questions, feel free to ask.

Thanks for the review. We will be on the Indy next month.

The best I can say for Ricky Matthews is that he wasn't annoying. For some reason I did not particularly care for the way he ran Quest. And I agree that "Thriller" thing was out of place and a pain in the a$$ for anyone trying to navigate the Promenade.

I found Joff's "Splendid" got old quick, but overall, I did like him as a CD.

Will be on the Indy this Saturday for the 8 day run. Can't wait

We are getting excited for our 6/28 sailing on Indy! Following the review!

We were on the same cruise. I agree with you about Chops. Price has gone up and service down. Server took our order and never saw her until the end of meal. Host brought our steaks and no one came over to see how they were cooked or if we needed anything else. The red velvet cake now seems like a Sara Lee box cake. Giovannis on the other hand was excellent. Nice cruise over all except for wet clothes and soggy luggage first day.

So my wife and 2 adult sons travelled on the Independence last week on the 8 day Eastern. I plan on doing a picture review later this week once I have had a chance to get through my 1000+ pictures but I thought it would be helpful if I put up a quick review now.

 

This was our third time on the Indy and we've had great previous cruises on this great ship but things have changed a bit since last year. For starters Joff Eaton is no longer the CD but has been replaced by Ricky Matthews. It appears that Joff took many of the CD staff with him when he went to the Quantum because I didn't recognize anyone from the last two cruises. Ricky Matthews has big shoes to fill in Joff Eaton and he did an ok job, just ok. For example I found the 70's party in the Promenade no where near as fun and active as the two previous with Eaton. They started it off with a general dance party with the singers singing the 70's songs for 30 mins or so. Then Matthews came out for a shorter stint than Eaton had done previously. Generally speaking Matthews did a so-so job at the venues I saw and they mainly consisted of him dancing to a tune, introducing an act and then leaving. I also wasn't a huge fan of the Michael Jackson Thriller dance thing they did in the Promenade on the last sea day. It plugged up the Promenade in the middle of the day when I felt people were just not interested. Anyway, I give the CD and his staff about a 6.5 out of 10.

 

MDR food. I was slightly disappointed with the food I have to say. Last night the Seafood Mash was cold for both my wife and I. First night DW ordered a medium-rare steak and as soon as she cut it the waiter took it from her. He said it wasn't medium rare and he was right. The next steak was barely cooked. The food on the rest of the nights was fine so it was disappointing that the kitchen whiffed on 2 out of 8 meals for us. Also, on night 2 we showed up for our My Time Dining reservation of 6:45 only to find out that they had given our table to someone else and they had no tables for us. We ended up waiting for 30 minutes for a table. While the Maitre D was very apologetic I have to say that RCI needs to poop or get off the pot with My Time. Either do it or don't because this halfway pregnant thing is posing issues. Having said that, the wait staff was impeccable. Service was tremendous and they were really nice guys to deal with. I have nothing but great things to say about them.

 

Chops - We ate there one night and found the food good. On the last sea day we took advantage of a $20 Chops lunch and galley tour. Tour was nice, food in Chops afterwards, not so good. My sons ordered the burgers which they loved. DW ordered sliders that were cold and I ordered a medium-rare steak that was blue in the middle and quite cold. Disappointing here to have a meal like that on the last day that didn't turn out so well.

 

Windjammer - The usual fare. Food acceptable and in the normal variety. No complaints.

 

Ship condition - great shape once again. Well cared for and super clean.

 

Room Attendant - 10 out of 10 in my books. Great guy and did a great job.

 

Stops - St Maarten/St Kitts - I love those places and could spend a month in either one. Weather was great for all stops. San Juan was a walking tour for us that I enjoyed and Labadee was of course a beach day with great weather.

 

All in all - a good cruise but I think the food could have been better and has been better on our 2 previous cruises. I'd like to see RCI improve My Time Dining (it was poorly organized on a couple evenings) and Chops was disappointing considered the new rate they want for the place but from an overall perspective we were generally happy with the cruise.

 

I'll post some pics on another thread later.

 

Any questions, feel free to ask.

We were on the 8 day itinerary of Indy, two weeks prior to your sailing....and our experience was so different. Our cabin steward was wonderful; our dining room staff was very good....I can say that only one dinner meal when I ordered a steak did the steak I ordered, come a little bit more well done, than the medium rare I ordered.....but it was not enough for me to request another one; if it would have been -- I would have.

We got shrimp cocktails every night even though it wasn't on the menu each night. The wait staff knew which of us wanted our tea or coffee WITH our meal rather than with dessert and we had it that way.

As far as entertainment staff.....we had Gordon Travis as the CD. He was filling in, between the CD that had been on Indy and Ricky that was coming. He probably was back in his role as Activity Manager on your sailing. Gordon, needs more practice as a CD, but I can say that the events he hosted, he did well....even Quest. We did not have the Michael Jackson Thriller event in the Promenade on the last sea day -- which proves that a CD does change some of the entertainment things on board. Ricky Matthews will be CD, for a few more weeks and then Leigh Xuereb has been assigned as the regular CD, and is very good.

There is a department at Royal Corp. that would welcome hearing about your issues on dining -- it is rcldining@rccl.com. It should work better than it did for you.

We rarely eat in specialty restaurants....and usually only if there is an Izumi, which there is not on Indy. We wanted to go have sushi from the Jade Sushi section in WJ, but we had such a good time in MDR with our table mates -- it just never happened.

I found the Café Promenade to have wonderful shrimp rolls or chicken wraps(nice for lunch) and incredible cheesecake lollipops (that became a midday or late night snack).

You had much better weather than we did....and as you....we also had a very good cruise on Indy.