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

Harry, last summer we did similar trip - drove from Houston to Orlando, cruise on Oasis, then 1 week doing non-Disney parks then drove home. It was a lot. We originally planned it so that the cruise was the second week but work circumstances meant we had to switch it up at the last minute. We were glad to finally be home at the end.

Wow, more people doing the Oasis and land vacation pre/post cruise. I shouldn’t be surprised as I am sure many people combine both WDW/Universal and cruises from all the available cruise lines. Just scary from an energy perspective on how much time it would take to pre plan both WDW vacation and an Oasis class cruise.

With Disney, you start planning 180+ days (I believe you get 10 days head start if you stay on Disney property) as that is when you make your dining reservations and then you do Fast pass+ 60 days out on top of everything else you need to do for Disney. Then you have to track your reservations for the Oasis cruise as well as shore excursions. Effectively you are looking at maintaining two separate spreadsheets for the 2 vacations.

I don’t know how people spend their time at WDW but for me, I use the Unofficial WDW book’s method of “attacking” the park similar to a military landing in Normandy by getting there early and staying as late as possible mapping out what rides to go on with apps and pre planning. Being cheapo dad, I feel the need to spend as much time as possible at each park every day in order to “maximize value” for my vacation dollar. But that is butt tiring to do this for 7 straight days.

After a whole week of that, we are typically exhausted by time we leave WDW. If I have to do an Oasis cruise, not sure I can muster enough energy to do my usual “take picture of every dirt on the ground” type of cruise vacation. I think the cruise vacation will suffer as a consequence as I will just sleep most of the time, which defeats the purpose of going on the mega ship as I need to be active every minute to get my money’s worth being cheap (you see the pattern here?).

It’s like eating 2 buffets back to back. My eyes will be bigger than my stomach’s capacity.

Thanks Harry, for taking us along on your trip report and letting us feel like part of the family! Appreciate all of your travel hints and tips. Will miss reading your report. Can't wait for your next installment! Hope you find a great fare sale for your next family cruise SOON! :)

 

We had a great cruise on Freedom (again!) last month. Can't wait for the next one!

 

Happy Travels, Laurie

Hi, Laurie,

Thanks for the compliment. Glad you enjoy reading the trip report.

I just did some basic price quotes for next year's cruise vacation. But since there is a fee to make changes, I am in no hurry to book things as who knows what will happen next summer. Not willing to risk $100 X 4 to just reserve couple rooms at this stage.

Glad you had fun on the Freedom and hope you have a great cruise next year as well.

Hi. Harry.

Here is the big loop thing that I came across when I am doing research:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g28965-i411-k4326394-UT_Trip_Maps_Big_Loop_from_Las_Vegas-Utah.html

 

So it is basically Las Vegas - Grand Canyon South Rim - Horse Bend - Monument Valley - Moab - Green River - Capitol Reef -- Bryce - Zion or in reverse order. And there is another map possible from Salt Lake City.

It is a lot of places and rather tight schedule for 10-12 days. My family is also not hikers so I asked around for advice on where to stay, how many days I should allocate for each location and such. Your excel sheet give me some information. Thank you very much. I will collect my thoughts and email you a few questions specifically.

 

I like the trip planning process but I spent too much time on it. I even watch drive through videos.

 

Harry, looking forward to read your next adventure!

Yeah, that is pretty aggressive plan for 10 days to go to that many places. But that depends on what you guys want to do. These parks can be seen with a quick scenic route drive through in 5 hours or some people can hike each park in depth for 5 days. It's up to you what you like to do and how far you want to drive daily.

You should get the Google map to see what you want to see. I do have some question on seeing the Grand Canyon South if you are on a tight schedule. I know that is the popular spot to go to, but that takes you way down south as that is the only thing out on the south region and you need to double back.

You might want to map out Vegas >Zion>Bryce>Grand Canyon North>Page>Monument Valley>Arches/Canyon land and others. Oh, wait, did you say you are going in the winter? Then north rim Grand Canyon won't work as they are closed during the winter months.

Depending on how much time you have, if you are done while at the north loop, it might be faster to return your rental car to Salt Lake city and fly home from there. But it's a trade off between time and money as it might be more expensive this way.

Careful of AirBnB Harry; I came across this article last week and it made me shiver a bit:

 

https://www.asherfergusson.com/airbnb/

 

Not to say AirBnB is not a great option, just makes you a little more anal with planning and researching reviews :)

 

Anyway, thanks again for your stellar trip report and taking the time to see it through to the end. I enjoyed it so much and am sad it is now over :(

Thanks for the info.

We rented the condo when we were in Moab last year visiting the Arches National park so I am familiar with the rental system. We will rent out the entire townhouse/condo so we won't be sharing the place with anyone and I typically only get 4.5+ star places that have 30+ reviews from people as to be more legit. But it's good to have a wary eye on how things can go wrong so I appreciate the info.

Here are few of the travel books I checked out so far. Waiting for the Zion and Bryce books to be available as they are checked out by others right now.

 

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WOW... you have a good library!

Also getting $225 OBC per cabin from the travel agent and $100 per cabin OBC since both my wife and I are shareholders helps to ease the pain somewhat. So these events combined kept cheapo dad from falling into catatonic state but not into happy dancing state either.

++++++++++

Husband was just asking how much stock you have to own to be able to get the discount?

100 shares.

WOW... you have a good library!

Our county's libraries branches are all connected such that I can go online and request a book that they have listed in the catalog and the system will transfer the book from any branch to my local branch. This way I am not limited to just my local city's branch's book shelve to get a book, I have the entire county's library to look through.

Once the book arrives at my local branch, they send me an email and I just go and pick it up. Very nice. I have 2 more books checked out on Disney and Grand Canyon. More reading than I have time for, but at least I have the info at my finger tips if I need to look up something.

 

Husband was just asking how much stock you have to own to be able to get the discount?

100 shares.

++++++++++

Here is the web site for all the sharesholder benefits. It's getting harder to get the benefits nowadays as they won't give you this benefit if they have another marketing promo that also give you a small credit like $50. They would make you select one of the two.

http://www.rclcorporate.com/investors/shareholder-benefit/

Not sure if anyone else is still reading this trip report, but saw this article on LA Times the other day on the latest St. Maarten 6 months after the hurricane:

http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-st-martin-hurricane-sliders-2018-htmlstory.html

For some reason I can't load your links. I did search the LA Times. Interesting pictures and nice to see the recovery happening. Have a great week!

4. The Gemini mind is constantly racing with thoughts and ideas.

12. Gemini can be a bit of a weirdo sometimes.

14. Gemini is restless and always on the go.

20. Gemini has a wickedly sarcastic sense of humor.

Although not a follower of astrologers all the points ring very true for this Gemini. 25th May

Although not a follower of astrologers all the points ring very true for this Gemini. 25th May

Hi ! Welcome to these boards with your 1st post . We share the same birthday and I don’t follow astrology , either . Not much applies to me from the list.

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Thank you so much Harry, I loved your Allure report and this one too.

Do you report in your WDW trips anywhere? As a WDW fan, I'd love to read those too....

Thanks again.

Ahhh, I think that is what the ship calls it also "bum bag"?

 

Out here in US, fanny is another word for butt. What does it mean down under?

 

Thanks for the info and continue to read along.

Same here in UK. It means female private parts

One reason I didn’t update my anal spreadsheet is on the Freedom class ship, you don’t need to pre plan for shows or dinner as with other ships. The Indy follows the more traditional 2 seating setting and typically has shows pre or post dinner, depending on when you have dinner.

 

For some, that is great as they don’t have to worry about uber planning and being super anal to know where they will eat 4 months later. But for the Disney planner in me, this is too boring as I have nothing to do pre cruise to “d o something”.

I have been conditioned by Disney to start sweating months before to gear up for the reservation system like in pouncing on the computer and phone to reserve dining at the 180 day mark to book all the days of the Disneyworld trip. The Freedom and Indy style is “too tame” for the 9.8 anal scale people like myself.

 

About the pre-planning I did was to email Royal 49 days out and requested a table. Don’t laugh, someone else from my roll call beat me to making the request so it goes to show you that just because you rank 9.8 on the anal scale of 1 to 10, there will always be 9.81 and 9.82+ level people out there.

 

For those who don’t know, you can email Royal to make a specific request. RCLDining@rccl.com

 

My request was for table for 8 on deck 4 next to the balcony railing. Simple, no?

 

Then they emailed back to confirm you have the table. We were assigned table 468. The map below is the MDR for deck 4. The number on the top is table number, the number below is size of table. Do note this changes by seating by sailing such that sometimes they can change the table to make changes between 4 to 6 to 8 on an as needed basis.

 

At least I thought that was all settled. Will explain more on why this thing fell apart by time I get to day 1:

 

 

 

Thanks Harry - We just emailed RCCL tonight to confirm our table location. - You are a wealth of information to us all !!

Let's see if what they tell me comes to fruition......... :-)

Hi ! Welcome to these boards with your 1st post . We share the same birthday and I don’t follow astrology , either . Not much applies to me from the list.

 

 

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Although not a follower of astrologers all the points ring very true for this Gemini. 25th May

More fellow Geminis. I think the personality thing holds true for me more often than not, but I guess it doesn't fit everyone in the sign.

Thank you so much Harry, I loved your Allure report and this one too.

 

Do you report in your WDW trips anywhere? As a WDW fan, I'd love to read those too....

 

Thanks again.

Hi,

Thanks for reading this after reading the original Allure trip report. That was my best trip report as it was my first and I was enthusiastic and had more creative ideas like black & white pictures as well as miniatures. Nowadays, I am a "has been" and just rely on the same tired butt jokes and hard ware improvement on the cell phone to carry the day.

No, I am no longer active on the Disney boards so I wouldn't even have a platform to write a Disney trip report even if I wanted to. I am only luke warm on writing a blog as that is just a monologue and a travel diary if you just write it without people to banter with you as I get here on CC. It's talking to people and sharing ideas that makes it more fun. Just me telling my story is pretty boring without reader participation.

Same here in UK. It means female private parts

Interesting how different countries have their slang usage. Best be careful when traveling overseas on not angering other people without even realizing it.

BTW - thanks for posting your first 2 posts here at on my trip report. Always appreciate new CC folks in dropping a line.

Thanks Harry - We just emailed RCCL tonight to confirm our table location. - You are a wealth of information to us all !!

 

Let's see if what they tell me comes to fruition......... :-)

Hi,

Thanks for the kind words. But other than my spreadsheet, which is my creation, the rest of the info I am passing on, I read it from other posts. It's just that I combined various info in my trip report so new cruisers have the info centralized so they don't have to hunt for it.

Back on the Freedom, we go the response back very quickly. For the Indy, it was a long wait. I want to say over a week of wait. Don't know if it's budget cutback as they have fewer people working or more people from CC are asking for table assignments and they can't keep up the demand.

Now I don' want to ruin the story line if you are reading the beginning of the trip report but just know that not everything went smoothly for our table assignment. So keep in mind to ask them to re-confirm your table number maybe one plus week out, just in case...

Ahhh, I miss not having a cruise scheduled or even the thought of planning for one. I just removed my old clock ticker countdown for the Indy from my signature below as that cruise is over. So now I have no future cruise countdown clock. Very sad...

I very much enjoyed your review of the Indy and read along to the end of the trip. There are so many pages now, that finding the answer to my simple question will be easier to ask it. Can you tell me what time the shows started. My DH and I are doing a five night western itinerary in November and I want to make sure my dining reservations do not interfere with the timing of the nightly shows. Any information would be very much appreciated.

I very much enjoyed your review of the Indy and read along to the end of the trip. There are so many pages now, that finding the answer to my simple question will be easier to ask it. Can you tell me what time the shows started. My DH and I are doing a five night western itinerary in November and I want to make sure my dining reservations do not interfere with the timing of the nightly shows. Any information would be very much appreciated.

We were on in February here are the show times from our 5 day

Canadian 1 you are awesome. A huge Thank you

I can't sleep on planes, no matter what time of the night it is! Never could, and I did a lot of very early morning/late night flying in my time.

Same here! I don't sleep on planes regardless of flight length. I get a window seat and will watch movies

Canadian 1 you are awesome. A huge Thank you

[emoji6] [emoji106] no problem, glad I could help!