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

So I guess I must have been discouraged by my crappy menu photography efforts the past 3 nights that I totally gave up the idea of taking any picture of the menu as I didn’t have any for day 4.

In middle of dinner, we saw the Jewel sailed off on her 7 day cruise for people that flew into SJ. Not having a window seat, I passed on trying to take a picture of it.

We sailed off sometime during our dinner as the sail time was supposed to be around 9 PM.

Scallops (but very very small). Mental note to self to pass on this dish going forward

Don't remember what soup as I don't have a picture menu

The younger one got this beef dish. The meat looks soft

The interesting story behind the duck is that when the waiter brought out the wife's duck dish (I had it also), he shook his head and apologized that the duck was too small. My wife never said a word. But the waiter said he will bring her a bigger one.

Sure enough, he came back later and brought her a second serving of just the duck. But then he didn't want the rest of us that ordered the duck to feel like we were left out, so ALL of us that ordered duck for dinner that night got double duck. Quack, Quack. Dang tasty.

For those who will be cruising soon, order a double portion of duck on your cruise. Really good.

No, I didn't take a picture of the second duck serving as it came half way through my first one so I didn't think people want to see my half eaten duck picture. Just imagine this one X2...

Haha, stand in line for this fraternity. Many people on CC requests table seating by number. I am by no means alone in this request.

 

I'm just one of the few admitting to the 9.8 anal factor. Others do the request but won't admit to it for fear of either sounding too anal or giving away their secret table number/location so others will fight for it (similar to secret fishing hole you don't talk about).

Lol... still a newbie here with a grand total of 1 cruise on Enchantment last Oct (but 2 more booked, Allure this year & Indy 2019!), so I'll get there, I'll get there...I mean, half (at least?) the fun of a vacation is the detailed research & planning, no?

*Goes off to read more Cheapo dad's reports*

Since SJ was a late stop with “all aboard“ at 8:30 PM (1 to 9 PM officially), I wonder how crowded was the 5:30 MDR dinner? Anyone from our sailing that ate at 5:30 in the MDR can chime in? The reason I ask is we obviously wouldn’t be able to make the early dinner in not getting back to the ship until after 6:20. If we did have early dining, we would have been at WJ for dinner instead.

 

In order to make dinner at MDR for the 5:30 time, your time in port would be severely limited even if you were able to get off the ship at the earliest 1 PM docking time.

We were at the early seating in the MDR that day- definitely our 'fastest' service of the trip, as our section was probably only about 40-50% full. We were able to finish dinner, drop the kids off at Adventure Ocean, and head to the helipad to watch the sailaway (and Christmas eve fireworks in the background in San Juan) which was really nice!

$79!

Lol... still a newbie here with a grand total of 1 cruise on Enchantment last Oct (but 2 more booked, Allure this year & Indy 2019!), so I'll get there, I'll get there...I mean, half (at least?) the fun of a vacation is the detailed research & planning, no?

 

*Goes off to read more Cheapo dad's reports*

Nah, you don't have to just read my trip report to get an idea. There are many other trip report out there as everyone has different perspective of what they want to do on their cruise vacation.

It's like those cooking competition shows where people are given one ingredient like mushroom or bell pepper but what they end up cooking is totally different. Same with cruise vacation. You can see there are many people from my sailing reading this but all of us had different experience during the same cruise.

The Allure report is old info. Just read it for eye candy as I still like some of the pictures.

We were at the early seating in the MDR that day- definitely our 'fastest' service of the trip, as our section was probably only about 40-50% full. We were able to finish dinner, drop the kids off at Adventure Ocean, and head to the helipad to watch the sailaway (and Christmas eve fireworks in the background in San Juan) which was really nice!

Hi,

Thanks for providing the info. Appreciate the quick response.

Yeah, I would estimate the first seating would be pretty empty given the timing of things. Second seating had more people but like you see in the picture, no wait to walk in.

We saw the fireworks just briefly as it happened during our dinner. By time we walked out, it was all over.

Interesting how even though we were on the same sailing, we had different experience.

$79!

Yeah, that's per person per restaurant. Since it's offered both Christmas Eve and Christmas night, you can go to both restaurants to experience two different meals at $79 each.

So as a bean counter, I can't help but do a quick simple math. Let's see, family of 4 at $79 per head for the 2 nights, that's $632 in total. Sure, it's worth it, right? Must be the Moet...

Ah, finally semi redeemed myself with a adequate dessert menu picture

I got the souffle. Always associate that as cruise food.

First picture is without the sauce

With sauce

My son got the Lemon Meringue Pie

Toward the end of the dinner, our waiter pointed out there were some fireworks from San Juan. Guess they must be celebrating Christmas Eve or something. So we just walked out of deck 4 and right outside to the Promenade deck to catch the fireworks.

I was never able to capture the fireworks with my cell phone as it was too far and too dark on a moving ship. We didn’t bring the SLR to dinner so the cell phones were all we had with us.

Cyclone1414 from our sailing mentioned in post #603 that they watched the fireworks during the sail away. That would be a cool thing to see.

But we did see the fort from the water at night as we sailed past it. Maybe I am a default Disney dad but this dark view from the waters looking up at the forts makes me think of the Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride where you sail past the fort at night with the guns blazing.

That only means one song from the Disney ride:

So as we walked past the shuffle board, the kids want to play. The boys explained the rules to their two younger cousins and we just hung out by Promenade deck while they played.

It’s a different experience to play at night time

bokeh

Couldn't get a clear pic of the pilot ship as he races back to port

I assume that blob of light out in the distance was the Jewel that sailed off just before us

So after enough Shuffle board games, we went back inside the ship.

Since we were off the ship for most of the day, we wanted to drop by and visit the crazy aunt in the basement to see if she had enough to eat (aka visiting the photo place to check on the pictures taken so far this cruise) and we always walk by the Boleros lounge. That place is always rocking at night with loud music and dancing.

Since we passed on the entertainment venue (Once Upon a Time), the only entertainment left is the Holiday Sing Along at RP. Unlike last night’s event where they had the ship’s singer sing to you, this one is a sing along with the ensemble of the ship’s personnel (yes that includes the captain and all the senior officers on the “bridge”).

Royal gave out to everyone a free Christmas song book so people can follow the words to each song.

Here's the captain in the Santa hat with the senior officers

It was surprisingly fun. It was so much better than the affair from last night when the singers sang to us (they weren’t very good).

The best song was the 12 days of Christmas as everyone had to sing it from beginning to the end. Time for some oxygen mask toward the end or another trip to cafe promenade to get some food nourishment…

The entire event ended with “We wish you a Merry Christmas” and fake snow coming down from the ceiling. Wait, you said, what fake snow? You didn’t take pictures of the fake snow.

That is correct as my younger son wanted to do the sing along, as did my wife and the older one. That left yours truly to video tape the event instead of taking lots of pictures. Since I couldn’t do both, you folks don’t get to see fake snow as I was video taping at the time…

The song book they are holding was given out to everyone walking around the RP. Yes, we took 4 home with us

Everyone sing...

On the other bridge, they have Santa's helpers singing there as well

As this is “even” day of the week (Day 4), our cabin steward has a towel animal for us when we came back. Interesting. Don’t recall I ever seen a penguin before.

As this is the last picture of the night, I have nothing else to add to Day 4. So this concludes the day 4 of the trip report.

I looked for Santa outside our ocean view window just before we went to sleep at midnight as it was Christmas eve but couldn’t see squat as the window was dirty/cracked so only thing I could see were the waves below.

Yeah, yeah, cheapo dad not paying extra for ocean balcony just so I can see outside to look for Santa. Don’t care about Santa that much…

I continue to enjoy reliving our trip through your pictures :)

Did you go inside any of the shops in San Juan? From the outside there wasn't much apparent damage, but inside places there was lots of water damage and the shopkeepers we talked to said they just recently got power there and in their homes just a short distance away many were still without power. There were still many other utilities that were not back to normal too.

There were so much written by people here on what OSJ would look like post hurricane. From what we saw in walking back and the stream of cars driving by, I didn’t see any impact of hurricane in the OSJ area.

 

Of course, outside the district and further into the rural area, it might be a whole different story for someone else to report on. But from what we saw and the pictures will prove out, things look pretty normal.

For our day in San Juan, we rented a car and drove out to Luquillo Beach - about a 30 minute drive east of San Juan. It was a drastic difference between that area and Old San Juan. There were no traffic lights working, highway signs were twisted and torn on the side of the road, and lots of construction as repair crews were working hard to restore power - even on Christmas Eve. It was very eye-opening to the power of Mother Nature and to the resilience of the people of Puerto Rico to have the tourist areas back so quickly so it looked like nothing had happened.

Nope…no such thing as too many pictures for forts.

I go to Disney World every 4 years. Vote by mail and run off to fantasy world. Do you write trip reports about thosevacations too?

Waiting patently for St. Maarten…..

Harry...A Dad that takes his family on a Christmas cruise is not a cheapo! What a wonderful gift to your family! That's a gift that lasts a life time. You might be a tad frugal, but your not a cheapo. Your boys are lucky to have you for their father.

Happy belated Holidays!

You really aren't cheap. This weekend, I was telling my family about all your cruise reviews and photos. I mentioned that you call yourself "Cheapo Dad." My Grandson is 24. He said, "this guy has never met my Dad...the cheapest man on earth." You really aren't a cheapo. My son-in-law rode all the way to Dunns River Falls and refused to pay the $7 charge to go in and walk the falls. He sat and waited on the rest of us. We paid for my Grandson to see the falls (he was only about 9 at the time). He still remembers Dunns River Falls and his Dad refusing to pay the money for them to see it when they were right there at the falls because $7 was too much. He doesn't go on the family cruises with us anymore. The rest of us are going on another cruise in June. My Grandson goes, pays his way and enjoys cruising. My son in law doesn't enjoy himself. Every time we say we want to do something, he goes, "cha ching...more money." He makes everyone miserable. You have to stop calling yourself cheap. You make sure your family gets to see the sights and enjoy the trip. Love your reviews and all the photos.

I continue to enjoy reliving our trip through your pictures :)

Did you go inside any of the shops in San Juan? From the outside there wasn't much apparent damage, but inside places there was lots of water damage and the shopkeepers we talked to said they just recently got power there and in their homes just a short distance away many were still without power. There were still many other utilities that were not back to normal too.

For our day in San Juan, we rented a car and drove out to Luquillo Beach - about a 30 minute drive east of San Juan. It was a drastic difference between that area and Old San Juan. There were no traffic lights working, highway signs were twisted and torn on the side of the road, and lots of construction as repair crews were working hard to restore power - even on Christmas Eve. It was very eye-opening to the power of Mother Nature and to the resilience of the people of Puerto Rico to have the tourist areas back so quickly so it looked like nothing had happened.

By time we walked back toward the center of OSJ, it was around 6 PM on a Christmas Eve and not too many stores were open. We only walked into one small gift shop to check out t-shirts and the CVS on the way back.

Good info to hear that you guys experienced something different from your excursions so the readers have a more complete picture of SJ than just what we saw.

Nope…no such thing as too many pictures for forts.

 

I go to Disney World every 4 years. Vote by mail and run off to fantasy world. Do you write trip reports about thosevacations too?

 

 

Waiting patently for St. Maarten…..

Yeah, every few years we get that Disney urge to pay a visit to the Mecca (The house of the Mouse). Obviously cruises are much more relaxing and less tiring than running around theme parks trying to race against the next slow moving kid in line so we can be next in line.

That’s why they call the place EPCOT (Every Person Comes Out Tired). Not my joke. We heard that on the Disney bus from the driver to the hotel many years ago.

No, I am no longer active on the Disney boards as we only go every few years now. As with every vacation we take (Cruises/road trips/Disney), I create a special web page via Shutterfly and more or less do a blog daily event on the trip.

But I don’t release that info for general consumption as it's friends and family only so I just do my cruise review here. Maybe someday I will do my own travel blog as I have seen others with theirs.

St. Maarten/Day 5 will be the “longest day” with the most number of pictures. Part of it is Christmas formal night and another is the 70’s party so it will take me a while to get through it. By contrast, day 8 was sea day and I had very little to say or did on that day so that will go fast toward the end. The days are not equal by any means since I am heavily biased toward port days versus sea days.

San Juan looks great! Those taxi guys look annoying though.

This island is still in recovery mode. The taxi drivers likely lost income from the hurricane season which devastated this island. I think rather than annoying, they are hoping to make some money to stay afloat.

I am sorry for them to have someone say they look annoying.

Downtown San Juan looks good but go inland and the reality of the damage is very evident.

Harry...A Dad that takes his family on a Christmas cruise is not a cheapo! What a wonderful gift to your family! That's a gift that lasts a life time. You might be a tad frugal, but your not a cheapo. Your boys are lucky to have you for their father.

Happy belated Holidays!

Happy belated holidays to you as well.

Haha, so we now get into different categories of cheapness? Someone from the Freedom report called me the ROI dad instead of cheapo dad. I guess I could have called myself the “Value Maximizing Head of Household” but somehow that doesn’t flow off the tongue, right? ;p

It’s always a struggle with families trying to find the right time to vacation around the holidays as when YOUR kids are out of school; chances are all other kids are off as well. Thereby driving up the price with everyone wanting to get away. We took the kids out of school for the Allure cruise and they were miserable after they went back as they had to spend lunch time and after school to take makeup tests and do extra makeup homework. Especially when they get older, it is hard to justify taking time out from the important high school time.

We didn’t initially book the Christmas cruise but was forced into it when the kids’ school district moved the holiday schedule by one week. We were lucky to have found this cruise as it was still expensive but less of a premium than all other cruises. I still haven’t figured out why this 9 day cruise costs less than the similar 8 day cruise on Freedom over the same holiday week going to similar island.

Just going with the biggest bang for the buck. If I wasn't cheap, I would have gone with Harmony or Anthem but I opted to get the cheapest per day rate possible during that week and still sail on the bigger sized ship.

You really aren't cheap. This weekend, I was telling my family about all your cruise reviews and photos. I mentioned that you call yourself "Cheapo Dad." My Grandson is 24. He said, "this guy has never met my Dad...the cheapest man on earth." You really aren't a cheapo. My son-in-law rode all the way to Dunns River Falls and refused to pay the $7 charge to go in and walk the falls. He sat and waited on the rest of us. We paid for my Grandson to see the falls (he was only about 9 at the time). He still remembers Dunns River Falls and his Dad refusing to pay the money for them to see it when they were right there at the falls because $7 was too much. He doesn't go on the family cruises with us anymore. The rest of us are going on another cruise in June. My Grandson goes, pays his way and enjoys cruising. My son in law doesn't enjoy himself. Every time we say we want to do something, he goes, "cha ching...more money." He makes everyone miserable. You have to stop calling yourself cheap. You make sure your family gets to see the sights and enjoy the trip. Love your reviews and all the photos.

Hi,

Thanks for the compliment on the pictures and the trip report.

As I replied in the post above, there are different level and types of cheapness. The REAL cheap people won’t even leave the house to go on the cruise. Their money has only inflow and very less outflow.

Sure, you can live your live that way but there’s an old saying that says you can know the cost to all but know the value to none. We all have to evaluate what is important to us.

In your example, if going up the waterfall is important as being part of the bucket list, then pay the money. Especially since those of us who lives in west coast or out of the country, just getting to Florida costs a fair amount of money and then add on the cruise, the extra $7 is inconsequential in the whole scheme of things.

Now where I am cheap is if I can find an alternative to what is there for free or lower price, I would opt for that. For example, I don’t pay extra for food or drinks in specialty dining or drink packages because I can find substitutes for zero extra cost in MDR or WJ. But if that is important to you or others, by all means go for it.

Especially if you are getting older in life, you need to consider the value of time in how many more years you have to cruise as a family. When they get older and go away for school and have their own lives, they may not have time to vacation with you down the road. So the window is closing/narrowing as they get older. Like the old saying goes, money can’t buy you happiness but sometimes, it buys you the opportunity to do something before the chance is gone.

What type of car do you drive? Mine is a 22 year old Camry…

Day 5 – December 25, 2017

St. Maarten

So this is Christmas. Or at least the Caribbean version of Christmas where it is blue sky and 84 degrees.

Good time for the John Lennon song:

Just to be on a Christmas cruise costs a lot more money than if you had sailed the week or two before. Yeah, I know, I know, there’s the supply and demand and all the economic theory from classes I had to take as Finance major. But whether or not the extra cost is worth it to you or not is your own judgment call.

Well, regardless of whether it’s worth the premium cost, we are here and time to get off the ship to join our official first tour of the cruise. As you recall, the first port stop at Labadee was effectively free (minus the $1 per chair tip). Second stop yesterday at San Juan was $7 per adult for entrance to the forts. Today we get on the typical island tours we usually sign up for while visiting the islands for the first time and paying to join the tour.

But before we get off the ship, we had to eat first.

Woke up at 7 something and heard some banging noise right outside the window. WTH? Santa making a late morning visit? Nope. Better than that. It’s the Pilot ship next to us as without him, we can’t dock.

Crappy window prevents me from taking a clear picture but you get the idea. Just pretend cheapo dad as grand suite with a big ass balcony so I can go out and take an obstructed view of this. Maybe they washed the windows when I am in port but I never saw anyone outside doing so when I was dockside. Our window view wasn’t very good.

He saw me taking picture of him from my window and waving at him and he waved back

For rest of the world, today is Monday, Christmas Day. For the cruisers on this sailing, it’s Day 5 of 9 and we arrived at St.Maarten for the 3rd port day in a row.

Before I forget, here is the scanned daily compass.

Oh, by the way, even though officially per Royal’s web site, a 9 day cruise is only supposed to have 2 formal nights, this cruise had 3 formal nights. No big deal as we had prepared to be dressed up for Christmas Day anyway. But just in case other people reading this is planning a holiday sailing, don’t be surprised if they plop in a formal night on Christmas. Pack accordingly.