Independence - May 20-28, 2018 Fresh Outta Refurb, Straight Into the Fjords

We hadn't been on a Freedom-class ship in quite some time. We had been on Indy before, but this girl was straight out refurb and she was SPOTLESS.

We loved this cruise for the ports and the effectively brand new ship. FUN FUN FUN!

This was our first cold-weather cruise, but it was oddly warm several days. This meant we had mismatched clothes and had several items we didn't use. This trip was a packing nightmare and we were out of our element in that regard.

My wife has a thing about Scandinavian captains. She loves them. She always feels like we're going to have a better cruise when she hears that the captain is from Norway, Finland, Sweden, etc. Captain Iv came from Croatia and she was a bit sad. HOWEVER, Captain Iv turned out to be a sailing stud! More on that later, but he did something amazing later in the trip.

We had CD Mark and AD Izzy (Lizzy???? or maybe Iggy????) who were both pretty much a non-factor in our cruise.

This was also our first cruise with a predominately British crowd. Wow, there were a lot of sad-sack complainers on this cruise. The cruise skewed a bit older, as well, so that may play a part. However, complaining about everything was a large focus of the cruise. We were on the Promenade quite a bit, in the Diamond Lounge a lot, and twice had to take a shared table at dinner in the MDR. We chatted with a bunch of different folks and most everyone seemed to be very hostile about a lot of things. There was a lot of political discussion, too. We just kept saying we didn't want to talk politics. The food wasn't warm enough. The food was too cold. The air conditioning was too low. The air conditioning was too high. The service was rushed. The service was too slow. It got to the point that we made the decision that we would not engage anyone in conversation again. Oddly, then we met the most wonderful woman and her daughter who we loved talking to.

Weird complaint moments:

During the muster (mustard!) drill, a man loudly started BOOING and HISSING when Captain Iv started talking about the refurbishments. Not just a "boo!" or something. He started going "BOOOOOOOOOO! HISSSSSSS!!!! BOOOOOOOOOO!" like he was in a 1600s period-piece TV series where the disgraced king comes down the road. If he had fruit, it would have been thrown. He was very angry.

We were having a late evening slice of pizza at Sorrento's when a woman began to yell at the pizza guy about him not having sandwiches like the Promenade Café has. She was complaining that she would now have to walk down there to get a sandwich instead of him just serving her sandwiches at the pizza place. She said it was ridiculous that the pizza place wouldn't serve sandwiches.

There was a woman from Belfast at one of the shared tables we had who (mind you we hadn't opened our mouths yet) complained that she hoped she never had to share a table with lousy Yanks again. I started to open my mouth and my wife squeezed my leg under the table. She was complaining how fat they are (this lady EASILY weighed as much as my wife & I combined and I'm a big dude), how loud they are (at some high decibels herself), and how they ALWAYS order 3 main courses (she ate an entire basket of bread by herself!) because they need to stuff their fat faces. It was kinda funny when I ordered my dinner and my wife said "Honey, are you sure you don't want to order 2 more mains? I've heard we Americans do that." The woman didn't speak a word to us directly the entire meal. The guy next to her wasn't with her, but he said "You'll have to excuse her, the Northern Irish don't travel much so they don't know how to behave." The rest of the table was DEAD QUIET the entire meal. I couldn't pick them out of a line-up if you promised me a million dollars if I could.

I saw the Diamond Lounge concierge in the elevator and commented that 6 days in we hadn't even talked to her yet. She laughed and very politely (AKA I'm paraphrasing) said these particular cruises seemed to have a much longer complaint list than others and she didn't get to talk to as many different people as she'd like to because she was busy with her TO-DO list.

The ship and crew:

She looked beautiful. The upgrades were noticeable and stunning. The WJ looks like a million bucks. Major high marks for the refurb. Oddly, the staterooms don't seem to have been upgraded at all. They are very old school and not freshened up at all.

The room was still nice and quiet 7 of the 8 nights. Our neighbors got into a fight at about 1am on the first night, but they were good the rest of the trip. After about 20 minutes of her berating him for his entire life at full volume, I walked over to the wall, banged on it once, cupped my hands to the wall and yelled "SHUT UP, NO ONE CARES. STOP BICKERING!" and they immediately quieted down. I saw her the next day in the hallway and put my finger to my lips in the shhhhh motion and her eyes hit the floor. Never saw her again and most importantly never heard them again.

Our stateroom attendant was awesome. He was really on top of things and super good.

We had great service in the MDR, in Giovanni's (wow were the specialty restaurants DEADER THAN DEAD on this cruise), and in the WJ. We had some really great service. Tons of smiles and laughs. The crew was fresh and ready to roll. It was very nice. We met a couple (Susie says she occasionally reads CC, so hi to you and Rick from Boston if you see this) who said it was their guess that Americans got the fun side of the crew. She said the Brits at their shared MDR table didn't quite get the same fun-loving service because they didn't seem to enjoy it. But the crew was always fun with them and even made napkin animals for them at dinner and did stupid magic tricks.

Playmaker's was awesome and a massive upgrade over the On-Air bar on other ships. So great. This is a great venue. I didn't even smell the ciggie smoke here this close to the casino and I'm very sensitive to it.

The sad part is that on our sea days the pools and outdoor activities were entirely too cold/windy for us to use. We had some intense excursions, so we were too wiped on the nice weather port days to use them.

We used the hot tub once. That's it for outdoor activities. We wanted to try them. We have to wait until she comes home to Florida to do so. The sea days were especially brutal weather-wise. The second one was so bad that chairs were flying off the top deck overboard. It was like a baby hurricane. Captain Iv said there were 60 knots bursts? That's a lot of wind.

TO BE CONTINUED...

So far so good! Looking forward to more.

Thanks for the review. We leave on June 16th on Indy from Southampton. We're very excited!

WOW what a difference a day makes. We were on the Indy transatlantic from Southampton last year. As you noted the passengers were 90% from Briton, Scotland, and Germany. Spent a lot of time talking in the Diamond Lounge and found the Brits and Germans to be a very happy group, I leave out the Scots as they speak a different version of english:) and have no idea what they are saying. Hope you enjoy your trip as we have little interest in Alaska but keep considering the Fjords.

The Ports:

We did Molde, Geiranger, Alesund, Flam, and Stevanger.

Molde was a cute little town, but the fjord aspect was pretty minimal. It was a fjord, but not much of one. We chose to do the ship's Bergtatt cave tour because it looked really interesting and then wander on our own. This port was further shortened because we arrived late. It was suppose to be 14:30-21:00 and we didn't arrive until like 15:30 or so.

I was hoping the cave tour was a 4-star (of 5) tour, but it wound up being about a 2-star instead. It was beautiful and interesting, but it was almost a waste a time at the same time. We took a half hour-ish bus ride to a mountain. You drove up and inside the mountain. You put on hard hats and life vests (for the germophobes in the house... they do not clean the hats between use, you dump it back in the tub you pulled it out of) and hop on what was effectively a pontoon boat with a trolling motor. They take you about 10 minutes in to a spot where you hop out and take a taste of pure snow water filtered by granite. It was good water. They talk for about 5 minutes and you hop back on the boat to exactly where you came in. You take your gear off and go into a beautiful bar carved into the mountain where they hold concerts. You watch an odd video about the mining history and leave. You bus back to the port and it is over.

In hindsight I would've chosen one of the local walking tours or perhaps rented a car to drive the Atlantic Ocean Road and/or up to Mt. Varden.

The town was cute, but not very exciting. It also didn't seem to be very focused on tourism as there wasn't a ton to do. It was pretty chilly this day and overcast, but it wasn't that bad.

Reading to see another cruiser's perspective of this trip. We had a great time but Royal's lack of customer service when our toilets did not flush on three different days put a damper on the Royal aspect. We also found the ship felt crowded to us. It was hard to find a place to sit and relax and visit and the Windjammer was always crowded. Finding seats was hard. BUT, the MDR exceeded our expectations in quality and service. I have to agree about Molde. The weather was not great, gray dull skies made the sail less than spectacular and like the OP said, the town was ok... We had talked about doing the Great Atlantic Road but with the weather threatening we opted to just do a walk around on our own. A few hours later when we got back to the ship we found out we were not alone, there was a long long long line to return. Like several blocks long but while it was dark and dreary, it was not raining on us.

Thanks for the review, at least the edition 1, sorry you had such a miserable bunch of Brits on your cruise, we are not all like that, honest.

Looking forward to your further comments, unfortunately we have 14 months to wait until our first cruise on Independence, but I am liking what you have to report so far.

Was Mark Rous the CD? I thought he was AM and Tim was CD with Lizzy headed for vacation on May 20th. Can you confirm who was there?

Was Mark Rous the CD? I thought he was AM and Tim was CD with Lizzy headed for vacation on May 20th. Can you confirm who was there?

He was a thin Brit guy who were never really saw. Lizzy/Izzy/Iggy whatever was a curly-haired girl (reddish/brown hair?) but my wife/I both remembered his name as Mark.

I will qualify that with the fact that I didn't really pay much attention to him.

Reading to see another cruiser's perspective of this trip. We had a great time but Royal's lack of customer service when our toilets did not flush on three different days put a damper on the Royal aspect. We also found the ship felt crowded to us. It was hard to find a place to sit and relax and visit and the Windjammer was always crowded. Finding seats was hard. BUT, the MDR exceeded our expectations in quality and service. I have to agree about Molde. The weather was not great, gray dull skies made the sail less than spectacular and like the OP said, the town was ok... We had talked about doing the Great Atlantic Road but with the weather threatening we opted to just do a walk around on our own. A few hours later when we got back to the ship we found out we were not alone, there was a long long long line to return. Like several blocks long but while it was dark and dreary, it was not raining on us.

We saw that line in Molde and took the free shuttle downtown instead. I hate waiting in line.

I'm fairly sure the ship was so crowded because almost NOTHING outside was able to be used. It was like half of the common areas were wiped out.

Thanks for the review, at least the edition 1, sorry you had such a miserable bunch of Brits on your cruise, we are not all like that, honest.

Looking forward to your further comments, unfortunately we have 14 months to wait until our first cruise on Independence, but I am liking what you have to report so far.

We have many Brit friends and that certainly isn't the case with them. It's like when non-Americans see the People of Walmart and assume we're all like that. We know it was this batch.

WOW what a difference a day makes. We were on the Indy transatlantic from Southampton last year. As you noted the passengers were 90% from Briton, Scotland, and Germany. Spent a lot of time talking in the Diamond Lounge and found the Brits and Germans to be a very happy group, I leave out the Scots as they speak a different version of english:) and have no idea what they are saying. Hope you enjoy your trip as we have little interest in Alaska but keep considering the Fjords.

Growing up in the States my friends had no clue what my mother was saying. Funny thing is she didn't sound any different to me!

He was a thin Brit guy who were never really saw. Lizzy/Izzy/Iggy whatever was a curly-haired girl (reddish/brown hair?) but my wife/I both remembered his name as Mark.

 

I will qualify that with the fact that I didn't really pay much attention to him.

Lizzy would have been AM then.

Tim Connor was supposed to be on there and he fits that description as well, although Mark was due to join on May 20th as AM. Maybe he stepped up for a sailing. Thanks for the info.

People from Scotland are actually British! Possibly you mean the English rather than the British?

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People from Scotland are actually British! Possibly you mean the English rather than the British?

 

 

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Depends who you ask. ;););)I was born in Scotland and never refer to myself as a Brit. There is a lot of history there.

The Ports II:

I would say the port of Geiranger alone made this trip worth it. This was one of the most amazing places I've been to.

We skipped the ship tours based off reading these forums and just got off the ship early. We went to the tourist depot and bought 2 bus tickets for the bus that goes all the way to the top of Mt. Dalsnibba for the most amazing view. We also purchased 2 tickets for the RIB waterway tour.

Combined we paid less than either of these 2 options from the ship by themselves. The weather was PERFECT. I wore shorts and a light shirt. My Florida-raised wife wore light pants and a light sweater.

The tiny town is perfect. The people were super friendly and the shops had tons of little whatevers that you could buy and take home. More crap in your suitcase, but the shops were great.

The RIB waterway tour was on a nice inflatable boat (Rigid Inflatable Boat) that took us around the fjord for a wonderful water-level view. That was a great way to see everything. We loved it. They dress you up like a little kid in a snowsuit, but the water is ice cold, so if you fell in you'd need the suit. We loved this and would highly recommend it.

The bus tour was fairly typical. Lots of chatter from the guide, some neat, some boring, but it was a smooth ride. We had 2 stops and both were really pretty. The upper stop was so insanely good that I'd call it a must do.

On the way back down we asked if we could be dropped off at the top of the waterfall walk. I would beg you to do the same. The waterfall walk is beautiful and another must-do, but it's way cooler to just walk down instead of going both ways. Do as you wish, but this was a great way to do both options in a time-efficient manner.

Lizzy would have been AM then.

 

Tim Connor was supposed to be on there and he fits that description as well, although Mark was due to join on May 20th as AM. Maybe he stepped up for a sailing. Thanks for the info.

I stand corrected. I googled Tim Connor and Mark Rous. Wow. They look a lot alike. Thin, white guys with short dark hair and beards.

Although, after look at this:

I believe it was actually Tim Connor.

My confusion may actually be solved if they were BOTH on board and BOTH doing things. Maybe that is the case??????

Have always wanted to do a Norwegian fiord cruise but too worried what the weather will be like. Having said that the weather in Nice last Monday was grey , cool and spotting with rain.

Growing up in the States my friends had no clue what my mother was saying. Funny thing is she didn't sound any different to me!

:D(y)

We saw that line in Molde and took the free shuttle downtown instead. I hate waiting in line.

 

We had already walked downtown and around and my weather knee was saying rain was coming so we opted to just head back, saw the line and hoped it moved quickly which it did not. I think the pier was so small that they only had one door open to get us on and off. Fortunately the rain did hold off.

 

I'm fairly sure the ship was so crowded because almost NOTHING outside was able to be used. It was like half of the common areas were wiped out.

 

I realized that the weather was effecting some of common areas but even on the nicer days it tough to find seating. We are not sit in the sun people so a lot of the outdoor options were not so good when the sun did come out.

 

Still this was a great trip. Like you said, the scenery was just amazing. Oh, the walk up the water fall was great too All 14 stories of it. :)

Lizzy would have been AM then.

 

Tim Connor was supposed to be on there and he fits that description as well, although Mark was due to join on May 20th as AM. Maybe he stepped up for a sailing. Thanks for the info.

Hi Joe,

We were on the same cruise and CD was definitely Tim Connor and AM was Lizzy.

Tim did a fantastic 70s night (they appear to have installed another bridge across the Royal Promenade that comes down from the ceiling - at least we never saw it before) and Rock Britannia.

Cheers

Steve

Have always wanted to do a Norwegian fiord cruise but too worried what the weather will be like. Having said that the weather in Nice last Monday was grey , cool and spotting with rain.

Tell us about it. We have had awful weather for a month now here in Nice.

Cheers

Steve

Ahh sorry about your fellow passengers- as has been mentioned, we aren't all like that I swear. Even though complaining is a bit of a national pastime, it's usually done quietly or in your head as we don't like to make an actual fuss lol. Bet I get all of these delightful folks on my P&O Fjords cruise next year!

I'm enjoying your port info, as for the aforementioned P&O cruise I have no idea what we're doing in the ports yet! Also we have a little 3 day trip on Indy this year, so you are being doubly useful :)

Still this was a great trip. Like you said, the scenery was just amazing. Oh, the walk up the water fall was great too All 14 stories of it. :)

I'm still glad in hindsight we only did the walk down.

Ports III:

Ugh... back to uglier weather.

We were in Ålesund. Which apparently is about eels. The Åle (we were told) means eel which was a popular meal here because they were plentiful. Lie or truth, I like it.

We were really torn about what to do here. There wasn't a lot of help here on CC about what to do because no one seemed to have any must do items. We briefly considered renting one of those electric scooter cars (car would be only used in the loosest sense as they are TINY) but they were super expensive.

The ship's tour of Aksla point and the aquarium was pretty cheap, so we went with that. I wouldn't call the viewpoint at Aksla much of anything to cheer about. It was fine on an overcast day, but actually paying money to come here seems like a waste. Unless maybe you've never left sea level before in your life or something. It wasn't very high and there wasn't much to see, even if it had been clearer.

The aquarium was quaint and nice. We enjoyed it. If you've been to a big aquarium like the ones in NOLA, Baltimore, Corpus Christi, Monterey, Boston, Chicago, Tampa, Atlanta, etc. etc. etc. then you will find this to be like a tiny hillbilly version of an aquarium. We've been to a lot of those and we still enjoyed this for what it was.

We walked around town on our own and it was ok. We didn't really see anything you can't see in any port town.

There is a brewery right at the port. The beer was pretty tasty. Just note that for 2 beers and some bagged (not even vaguely fresh and the salsa was from a bag, too) chips & salsa we paid $35+ US.

It appeared that a tour of the many islands would've been a bit better choice, but even then, the people we spoke to who rented a car said it was just fairly ordinary.

Ports IV:

We were on our own in Flam. It just seemed like the smart thing to do and it was.

We went online and booked train tickets. It was way cheaper and way easier than the ship tour. We also weren't crammed like sardines into a couple of cars. That was crazy.

The train ride was wonderful. The views are excellent. I would say they are better on the righthand side (as you head up the mountain) but the falls are on the left. The good news is that the train stops at the falls on both the ride up and the ride down. You get 5 minutes or so each time. The falls were crazy wet and beautiful. They have a Huldra (forest nymph??? that's about what it is) dancing and music/singing piped in. A guy on our train said the last time he was there his camera was so high-res that you could see it was a dude in a blonde wig. AGAIN... truth or lie, I cracked up.

We loved the ride on the train.

The town was quaint and lovely. The people were friendly and the shopping was plentiful. It was slightly more expensive than the other towns, but not much.

We had lunch (I know the ship's food is included, but we wanted the experience) at the brewery right as you get off the ship. The food was super yummy and the beer was wonderful. The check was a nightmare. We had two beers each and I got an open-faced pulled pork sandwich, while the wife got an open-faced grilled fish sandwich. $100 US for lunch. Not even vaguely worth $50, but it was a great meal and a fun experience. As a frugal guy that hurt.

We walked up to the town, which is a pleasant and mostly flat-ish hike, and it probably wasn't worth the time it took. The church was pretty and very old, but we had much better views on the train.

We went to the train museum in town and just enjoyed our time off the ship. A+ little place.

Ports V:

Stavanger, our final port. It isn't a pretty town. It's very industrial and pretty boring. Apparently, the great King Fairhair united Norway here in the 9th century. Other than that... it looked like any small industrial town in the world.

The draw here was Pulpit Rock, located about 45 minutes outside of town. We were shoehorned into this port with about an hour longer than this excursion lasted. We did the ship's tour because of that fact.

I am a big guy and overweight without being rolly-polly. A friend describes me as "universally fat instead of regionally fat" and it makes me laugh. What he means is that from head to toe, I'm a big guy. I don't have a pot-belly. I am not pear-shaped. I'm between 6'2-3" tall about 250lbs, have really broad shoulders, long arms, a thick neck, legs that are as strong as an ox, and I am built like a NFL linebacker that has retired and let himself go a bit. HAHAHAHAHA

My wife is about 100lb soaking wet and very fit.

This is critical to this part of the story. We both also live within 100' of sea level. OUCH. We are both very active and regularly walk 10-15 miles a week in the neighborhood. Sadly, those miles are at sea level. We also both use a FitBit and regularly clock 70,000-90,000 steps a week. Sadly, still at sea level and Florida is flat as a pancake.

The hike to Pulpit Rock was brutal. Simple as that.

The guide called it a "medium hike" but I'd call it much more than that. We were allotted 4 hours to make the trek. I set my phone for 2 hours and we took off. That first stretch was insane. It is just gravel, but I was already winded at the top. Apparently, I was in worse shape than I gave myself credit for. I persevered and got my legs under me.

As the hike went on, more people started tapping out left and right. It wasn't a path but more just rocks in a line. Some of them were steps of 6" and some of them were steps of 30". It was raw nature in many places. You could wedge a foot in the cracks. You could slip off the rocks. There were water crossings and even a few places with short wooden bridges. I would highly suggest you watch some YouTube videos prior to doing this like we should have.

If you've done this hike, I got to the section with the wooden railings. That's how close I got. If we had 30 more minutes, I would've finished. I was too slow and as I took a breather at the wooden railings getting ready to make that last little bit of the climb (I'd estimate it's about 95% up???) my alarm went off to turn around. I was immediately crushed. I knew I was close, but I knew I couldn't miss the bus. My wife had gone ahead and was on the top. She messaged me that it would take me about 20-25 minutes to get up and down from where I was. She was leaving the rock right then as her alarm had gone off, as well. I told her that I was turning around.

Seriously, my heart was broken. I should've been able to finish. The things you think of... if I hadn't just hiked several miles in Flam the day before. If I hadn't done so much walking in Geiranger! If I had trained on a stair master! I hate failure, but I failed here. I took a bunch of selfies from the point I made it to and started down the mountain.

There was a section where they had hired Sherpas from Nepal to re-work sections of the trek. Randomly, you had to leave the path and wander up the dirt hill on a homemade goat path. My size betrayed me. My size 13 shoes weren't cooperating. I was REALLY tired. I was hot (it randomly was like 80+ degrees in NORWAY?????) and there was an impatient Norwegian behind me. He decided to pass me and firmly put his hand on my shoulder to push off. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE down the hill I went. I tweaked my calf and my knee. It was about 10-12' down the hillside, but mostly it was my pride that was hurt.

What an adventure!! My wife caught up with me eventually and we stayed together for the rest of the way back. I was hobbling, but I pushed through. We were 12 minutes late back to the bus, but the guide held it for us. A nice family on our bus had been there right after I went down and they had informed the guide that I was hobbled, but coming as fast as I could. The dad said they were back to the bus just a few minutes before us. I appreciated being on a ship tour at that moment.

By pushing as hard as I did, I wound up destroying 2 toenails and being in a knee brace for almost a week. I'm on the mend now and it counts as just another adventure.

Part of me wishes I just pushed on and hit the rock... missing the bus... and just took a cab or something back. Part of me thinks there wouldn't have been a cab to take and we would've been flying to Southampton instead. It was just a rock and a pretty view.

A third part of me thinks we should've taken the boat tour that looked up at the rock from the water!!!! HAHAHAHAHA