(Slightly less so) Cheapo dad's trip report on Independence of the Seas

So we are back to the cabin and to shower and wash off all the sand and salt. There’s nothing like coming back to your cabin after a long hot day away.

It never fails, in the morning, you are anxious. You can’t wait to get off the ship to see the port and do your excursion. After a long day away from the ship, you drag your tired buns back to the ship and can’t wait to come back to your cabin and rest. I always crank up the AC to max before I leave as it feels so nice to walk back to a really nice cold cabin.

As we had an early lunch today, we were hungry again by 5. Instead of going on top deck to see the sail away, we opted to eat instead. Priorities. So you folks get zero sail away pictures.

Time to visit the uncle in prison (aka shopping)

Oh, yeah, so what day of the week is today? Simple, everyone that have sailed on the RCI ships know to look at the elevator floor to find out. So we look down and see...WTH?

We are in the twilight zone where days of the week does not exist...Do Do Do Do DOO (Bad impression of Twilight zone music background)

After the snack, we walked along the RP and saw the brother in law eating at Sorrento's with his family. That’s my younger one decided he wanted a slice of pizza also – after just eating a scone and piece of pie. How he can be so skinny after eating all that food is beyond me.

But no worries. We are on vacation and not as if cheapo dad has to pay extra for all this. So we set up camp at the other end of the ship inside Sorrento's while he ate his pizza.

Few pics of RP after the pizza

One last picture of RP before we move on. I like the darker shades of this picture

After we all finished eating, all 8 of us went down to the photo area to check out the pictures we took with the photographers last night in our formal clothes (aka visiting crazy aunt in basement).

As they have the $25 off deal on the all inclusive photo package (original price of $250 minus $25 to be $225), my brother in law decided to buy the package so at the end of the day, they burned a copy of all the pictures and gave it to him on a CD. He said the Princess cruise method is better as they came on a jump drive, which is safer to carry him than a breakable CD.

I think he got few hundred pictures at the end of the 9 days so that was a good deal for him. If this deal interest you, just be sure to sign up for it at the first 3 days of the cruise as the price was never lowered after that the entire cruise. Besides, once you KNOW you will want all the pictures, you will get in front of every photographer everywhere the entire cruise.

While they were doing all the photo discussion with the sales clerk, I took few pictures of the casino area as I can’t take pictures inside the photo gallery.

If you are a James Bond fan, you will recognize these pictures from the famous movies.

Oh, Harry, you're killing me with these gorgeous ship pictures! I like your wife's style. A picture of a ship framed in palm fronds is as exciting to me as rope pictures are to you. You can never have too many.

And thanks for digging out the old CA Adv. pic. Ah, the memories of the letters and the fake Golden Gate before they tore it all out. Those must be your boys following behind you. Nothing ever changes. Keep up the good work!

You can NEVER have enough pictures of beautiful sand beaches, lovely blue water AND Christmas decorations!!

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As in all things Disney, they do things on a grand scale. Look how big the letters are

 

The letters aren't that big...it's just that those boys are so SMALL!

The letters aren't that big...it's just that those boys are so SMALL!

Yeah, amazing how fast they grow. Now they are taller than me.

Oh, Harry, you're killing me with these gorgeous ship pictures! I like your wife's style. A picture of a ship framed in palm fronds is as exciting to me as rope pictures are to you. You can never have too many.

 

And thanks for digging out the old CA Adv. pic. Ah, the memories of the letters and the fake Golden Gate before they tore it all out. Those must be your boys following behind you. Nothing ever changes. Keep up the good work!

Thanks for continuing to follow along and commenting. It's like running a marathon, you have people in the beginning and the end. It's those long stretches in the middle that you hardly see anyone.

Having various folks chime in is great as you are like my pace car. I don't feel like I am running alone.

We used to have annual passes to Disneyland for 2 straight years. Cheapo dad used to vacation there no stop as to take advantage of the annual pass.

Yeah, those two little ones are my boys. Now they are taller than me and the old man has to walk faster to catch up to them...

You can NEVER have enough pictures of beautiful sand beaches, lovely blue water AND Christmas decorations!!

 

 

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More beach pictures coming up. This is just 1st of 5 ports. Few more pics to show...

Harry, I was looking forward to catching up on your review all week as I recovered from surgery. It did not disappoint!

The jellyfish really ruined our day at Labadee, a guy came running out of the water screaming like I’ve never heard a man scream before, after having been stung by one. We’d literally just sat down where you were. He made such a fuss, I just could not get in the water after that and my kids certainly weren’t interested!

Where on Labadee did you find this? Everything else I recognized.

I think we accessed the Dragon's breath point on our first trip to Labadee in 2005. Need to access the old photos that are on the backup drive

Really enjoying your review

Harry, I was looking forward to catching up on your review all week as I recovered from surgery. It did not disappoint!

 

The jellyfish really ruined our day at Labadee, a guy came running out of the water screaming like I’ve never heard a man scream before, after having been stung by one. We’d literally just sat down where you were. He made such a fuss, I just could not get in the water after that and my kids certainly weren’t interested!

Hope you have a fast recovery from your surgery. Glad to know the info is entertaining.

I had read about jellyfish at Labadee so I was looking for them as soon as we hit the water. Saw couple of "something" in the water within first minute. Didn't want to take any chances and requested they be removed from our area.

So did you guys just relaxed by the beach chairs instead of going into the water?

Where on Labadee did you find this? Everything else I recognized.

 

I think we accessed the Dragon's breath point on our first trip to Labadee in 2005. Need to access the old photos that are on the backup drive

 

 

Really enjoying your review

No clue. The picture wasn't taken by me - the wife took it. I don't really know what pictures she took until I get home and upload them. Not as if she shares her pictures with me daily as we just take pictures and move on.

Thanks for the kind words on the trip report. Appreciate you keep reading as I keep blabbering...

So after all the photo stuff is all taken care of, it was time to get to the theater early and grab a seat for the night’s entertainment. These guys are called Revoiced. They are the typical A Capella group. I wasn’t impressed by last year’s A Capella group on the Freedom so I had low expectation coming in but my wife and kids like this type of music so I figure I just sit and chill with them.

Here is the YouTube video on what songs they sing. You can search more if this is what you like.

As I posted at the beginning of the trip report, ask for the entertainment schedule ahead of time so you can YouTube the people to find out about their music

Pretty empty at 6:42 ahead of the 7 PM pre dinner showtime

They brought an audience member to stage

The show was surprisingly good. I would almost say they were the best guest performers on the cruise. It was either them or the comedian on the last day. Entertainment is even more subjective than food preference so no need to explain what we like or dislike but I will say I was pleasantly surprised as I typically prefer more instrumental/synthesizer tpes.

They were selling their 2 CDs after the show. 2 for $30. That’s OK, I will pass. Don’t like them that much.

After the show, it was time for dinner. You see a pattern here? Eat and be entertained and then eat again.

Per the menu title, today’s menu is Pimento. The food was OK. Still can’t take a straight picture one handed. I suck...

As I gave my phone to ask my kids and the wife to take pictures of their food, there are few extra pictures from tonight's dinner. So whoever that was clamoring for more food pictures last week, here's your bonus coverage

After dinner, the remaining event for the night is the “Christmas Caroling” by the on board show singers. They were ok. Not terribly exciting. My wife and younger son got bored after few songs and they headed back to the cabin but my older one & I wanted to stay so we hung out until the end.

You can play any Christmas song in the background just to be in the mood of the moment if you like. Yeah, didn’t think so. Hard to listen to Christmas music in January…

The cruise director said he was streaming the event live on Facebook or whatever social media so you see him walking around the RP with his phone pointing at people and events. Whatever. I’m old school, I don’t use Facebook.

Standing right behind the ship's official video dude on the right with the headphone

Look up at the "sound guys" above the wine place. You don't always noticed them there

Here comes the singers - Jingle bell time

That’s all I have for the night as I have no more pictures so this concludes day 3 of the trip report.

Oh, wait, one more item I forgot mention. On this cruise, the captain changed the ship’s time to be the same as local time. During the non summer periods, the east coast USA (Florida specifically) is one hour behind eastern Caribbean island time but not all captains asks the passengers to adjust the time to match the one hour difference between island time and Florida time.

However, for our sailing, the captain opted to forward our clock one hour starting tonight so we lost one hour of sleep. I like it though as the next 4 ports, we are the same as local time. This is great for independently booked tours as you don’t have to mentally adjust the time to meet with the tour operator and time back to ship.

Day 4 – December 24, 2017

San Juan, Puerto Rico

So today was Christmas Eve/Sunday to the rest of the world. For the people on this cruise, it’s known as day 4. But we still acknowledge the fact today is Sunday per the elevator floor.

Cruise compass for Christmas Eve.

As the distance between Labadee is far enough that we won’t get to San Juan until after lunch, we had the whole morning on the ship.

So after breakfast, we wife went off to attend some shopping seminar where they promised everyone some free stuff for attending. Yes and no. There is no such thing as totally free stuff. There is a catch. Whatever - it makes her happy to attend something, so that’s good. We are on vacation. Just do whatever makes you happy.

That leaves me and the boys to try and find something to do. Thus far on the cruise, we have been spammed nonstop from the next cruise people with ads for the next cruise and of course since we go to café promenade regularly for drinks and snacks, we are literally next door to the next cruise place where I picked up some ads for the various cruises.

For those that read my Allure trip report, you know we like them BIG. After 2 sailings on the Freedom class, the family is clamoring for going back to the big ship again. So since we had time to kill, we stopped by the Next cruise and got the next available appointment to get some price quotes for the Harmony/Symphony cruise for December 2018.

Of course, the Christmas sailing is crazy expensive and if bad dad has his way, he would take the kids out of school the week before Christmas and save boat/ship load of money but it’s hard to take kids out during the critical high school periods. This isn’t kindergarten.

If we sail Christmas week, the 4 of us would be around $7,400, not counting airfare from California, which means we are looking at a $10,000 budget cruise. If we pulled them out of school 1 week early to sail before Christmas, it’s only $4,100 for cruise portion only. So that meant we would have to pay $3K+ more to sail during Christmas in 2018. Cheapo dad “not down with that” - to steal a phrase from Sir Mix A Lot – just to sail over Christmas.

So for now we have no cruise planned for the winter. Maybe go back to Disneyworld in Orlando to pay homage to the Mecca that the Mouse has built. We haven’t been there since 2011 so it’s long overdue. Deep down I am a bigger Disney fan than a cruise fan as it’s more ‘fun/work” to plan for a Disney trip than a cruise.

It brings out the aggressive anal side of me in planning out where I want to eat dinner 180 days out during the entire 7 night stay. Now that is ANAL…

But that’s way down the road. Enough digression.

Speaking of digressing, here is a quick series of pics from our visit to the California redwoods. I showed rocks few days ago, now it's tree time.

I believe I showed these last year on the Freedom trip report but just in case there are people that didn't read that.

Avenue of the Giants where there are tall trees on both sides of the road

Rocky coast of Northern California

There is a trail where you can get all the way down to the water area. If you look closely (or able to zoom in), you will see people on the road way down there. We walked all the way there ourselves

Check out the width of the these redwoods

The way you HAVE to book every second at Disney just really puts me off! Luckily there are plenty of those planner ladies in my area who apparently have a knack for it so I would probably get one of them to do it for me, although I hate letting someone else book stuff for me in case they are not getting the cheapest deal for me. That’s why I like cruising, I can get myself the best deal and still be flexible on board. The Oasis class was a good compromise, because I had to book some shows, but didn’t have to give up all of my freedom.

Just realized I didn't post pictures of the lovely Windjammer from breakfast. So here you go

WJ not too crowded at 8:30AM or 7:30AM before the clock changed

All the drinks are pre poured for you

Oh, yeah, that brings me to one new observation. Not sure if it's an Indy thing but I noticed all the drinks at WJ are half empty (or half full if you want to digress more into the philosophical discussion of half full versus empty). But the water is FULL.

So some bean counter cost accountant must have crunched some numbers and came to conclusion that most of the people don't finish their juices and thus is being wasteful. So now you have half of cup and if people want more, they just get 2 cups. But since water is not expensive, they give you a full cup.

You see it better with this next close up shot. Now is this fleet wide policy or just on the Indy?