Independence of the Seas 2-10-2013 6-night pictures and review

[ahecht]

We will be on the Independence March 16.

 

We are renting from Avis at the airport and suppose to return it there. I did not know about Hyatt Pier 66 office. Did you have any problems returning the car to the hotel office instead of the airport. How often is the shuttle?

 

Sorry I didn't see your question earlier. With Avis, your reservation has to specify that you are returning to a different location. If you are going on a cruise, use location code QF1 for the drop-off, which is listed as "Port Everglades Shuttle for Cruise Ships". You should be able to call Avis or go online and change to return location to QF1.

 

If you use the QF1 location it won't be considered a one-way rental if you got the car from the Ft Lauderdale airport. There is a separate code for the hotel without the shuttle (F8D), but if you use that location code you will be charged as if it were a one-way rental.

 

The shuttle runs every 15-30 minutes depending on how many people are waiting. Since it is location right at the port entrance, a cab would be $10 or so.

Edited February 26, 2013 by ahecht

[KissaKay]

So glad to see this! Sailing this one in a few weeks.

[ahecht]

Thanks for all the great comments.

 

Sorry for no update yesterday. I'm still going through the 3GB of video and pictures from snorkeling on Grand Cayman, so I should have more to post tonight. Doing this online review is a great excuse for me to actually go through all of my pictures and videos promptly.

[Geema]

Do you happen to be a Diamond member and know who the concierge is in the Diamond Lounge???

[UCF_Knight]

Do you happen to be a Diamond member and know who the concierge is in the Diamond Lounge???

 

The OP said in the first post of this thread that this was their first cruise ever.

Edited February 27, 2013 by UCF_Knight

[lauren0309]

Thanks for your review and pics so far. Enjoying reading it as I will be on that ship in 9 more months. Looking forward to more pics and the rest of your review!

[ahecht]

Day 3: Tuesday, February 12th, 2013 - Part 1

 

Welcome to Tuesday:

 

Tuesday we would be at Grand Cayman, which was the port stop we were looking forward to the most. We had planned a snorkeling excursion with Nativeway Watersports, but we also wanted to have time to snorkel at Eden Rock, spend time at Seven Mile Beach, and do a little souvenir shopping at Del Sol and the Hard Rock Cafe. We had recently read a review on here about the same Nativeway trip we were doing getting back late, so my plan was to try to get off the ship as early as possible, get on the first tender, and snorkel at Eden Rock before our 9am check-in time.

 

Room service woke us up at 6:30am with a tray of hot cocoa, so we sat and watched a bit of the Morning Show on TV. I guess I should talk a little about that here. Every evening, the Cruise Director Joff and the Activities Manager Rob recorded a show on the pormenade which aired the following day from midnight until noon. The two of them have great chemistry, and their banter was hilarious. They would discuss the activities on that day's schedule, interview people walking by, and tell jokes and riddles. My only complaint was that they didn't describe what many of the activities were (what is a "Progressive Battle of the Sexes" anyway?), but it was entertaining to watch nonetheless.

 

At 6:45 I headed up to Windjammer to grab some breakfast to go, but only the early riser breakfast in the asian Jade buffet area was open. There were scrambled eggs (with baby shrimp!), the ubiquitous hash browns and roasted tomatoes, and a selections of toppings for either miso soup or rice, for those that wanted an asian style breakfast. There weren't any pastries or cereal available until the rest of Windjammer opened at 7am.

 

When I got back to the room with a couple of breakfast sandwiches, the sun had come up enough that I could see that we had company. To one side were a Celebrity and AIDA ship (the AIDA ship, for those not familiar with them, had giant red lips painted on the bow):

 

On the other side was the Disney Magic (it was close enough that I had to use the Panorama mode on my camera, hence the wide image):

 

The first tender was supposed to be at 8am, but at 7:40 we could see them starting to line up next to the ship:

 

We arrived at the tender dock at 7:45 they had just closed off the line for the first tender. Another tender docked 5 minutes later (the Carib Lady shown above), and after 10 minutes of loading passengers we departed.

 

Here is one of the larger tenders they were using that day:

 

The views of the ship as the tender circles around it are amazing, and from this perspective you could really get a feel for how large the ship is.

[ahecht]

Day 3: Tuesday, February 12th, 2013 - Part 2

 

Here are some more shots of the ship:

 

 

We got to the dock on Grand Cayman right at 8:15. We were immediately struck by how blue and clear the water was, although this was nothing compared to what we would see on the other side of the island.

 

When we got to the gate there were a group of passengers with luggage waiting to get on the ship. Several of them were wearing bright pink BOSTON t-shirs, so presumably they weren't able to get out of New England before the blizzard hit:

 

We soon found ourselves in the Royal Watler Terminal. There was a courtyard filled with tents for the various shore excursion providers (both from the cruise lines and independent). The Nativeway tent was the very first one we came to when we walked through the gates:

 

We figured that it was a 10 minute walk to and from Eden Rock, so we would have 20 minutes to snorkel if we hurried. As we walked past the Paradise Restaurant (another snorkeling spot) there was a mother hen on the sidewalk with 5 tiny chicks trailing behind her (although only four are visible in this picture):

[ahecht]

Day 3: Tuesday, February 12th, 2013 - Part 3

 

About a block past the Paradise restaurant was Eden Rock. We paid $5 US to rent a locker and quickly changed and got in the water.

 

The water access was really easy via a ladder. You don't need water shoes or anything on your feet. The water itself was somewhat brown due to the waves kicking up silt, but we could easily see a variety of fan coral and some scattered fish and sea urchins. We mostly saw blue tangs, butterfly fish, and grunts, although we also found a Triggerfish and a Peacock Flounder.

 

I did get a quick video. I was using a Kodak EasySport Zx3 camera for the first time here, so I didn't really know what I was doing. If it weren't for YouTube's image stabilization feature this video would be a shaky mess:

 

We spent about 15 minutes in the water, dried off, and made it back to the port right at 9. There was already a large group in the Nativeway tent (including some people from the Roll Call thread), but most of them were doing the "Reef, Rays, and Rum Point" excursion. We had chosen the shorter "Stingray Sandbar, Coral Gardens, & Star Fish Snorkel" excursion to make sure we had time at Seven Mile Beach, and it turned out that the excursion was going to be just us and a family of four from the Disney Magic. We left right on time with Sharon, who drove us to the other side of the island to meet the boat. We were introduced to the boat captain Chris, given a quick overview of where the bathroom and life jackets were, handed waivers to sign, and we were quickly on our way.

 

The water in the harbor was an ominous opaque brown, reminiscent of the Charles River here in Boston. As Chris explained, tannins in the Mangrove trees surrounding the harbor gave it that color, and he promised that it would get clearer quickly. Sure enough, as soon as we were out of the harbor the water turned an amazing bright turquoise that I had only seen in pictures. I had no idea that water could actually be that color:

 

It took about 30 minutes to get out to the snorkeling area. As we got close we could see that Stingray City was very crowded, so Chris decided to go to the starfish area first. The starfish area was about 8 feet of very clear water with a sandy bottom studded with seagrass. This area was a bit of a disappointment, as there were less than half a dozen starfish to be found. Other than that, all there was to see was a lone conch, a dead sea urchin, and lots of grass. We had half an hour here, and while there wasn't much to see, it was a good opportunity to get used to the water and practice snorkeling. You could dive down and touch the starfish, and my girlfriend managed to pick one up off the bottom (and quickly let it go before it took in too much air to sink back down):

 

 

Here's a quick video of the Starfish area:

[ahecht]

Day 3: Tuesday, February 12th, 2013 - Part 4

 

Soon it was time to head off to Stingray City. It was still pretty busy there, but not as much as before:

 

Here's one of the other boats that was there. It looked like it had almost fifty people crammed into it. Remember: we only had 6 people on our tour!

 

Chris quickly caught a stingray, and since there were only six of us, we got plenty of up-close and personal time with her (all the large stingrays are female). Chris was very knowledgeable about the stingrays, and was even giving some of the other guides advice on how to handle them. The people on the larger tours spent most of their time waiting in line for their turn with a stingray, and several of them came over to listen to Chris. The people with bright orange snorkels in the picture below came off that crowded boat I showed you before:

 

I didn't get many pictures at Stingray City, but I got lots and lots of video. Make sure to check out the YouTube clip below if you haven't been there before:

 

After we all had held, fed, kissed, and gotten all the time we wanted with the stingrays it was time to go to our final stop, the Coral Gardens. This was a snorkeling stop about 5 minutes from Stingray City, but it wasn't at the barrier reef where most tours go. Unlike the barrier reef, there is much more live coral here. As soon as we pulled up we could see dozens of colorful fish swimming just under the surface of the water. We quickly got in, and were surrounded by an amazing variety of sea life.

 

In this picture I can spot a parrotfish, a sergeant major, a school of grunts, a schoolmaster, and a fairy basslet:

 

Here are some grunts with a blue chromis and a bluehead wrasse:

Edited February 28, 2013 by ahecht

[ahecht]

Day 3: Tuesday, February 12th, 2013 - Part 5

 

Here's a school or sergeant majors, school masters, and mature blue tangs:

 

Here's another shot of the blue tangs that better shows their color. These blue tangs were older, so they were very dark blue to the point of almost being black. The blue tangs we had seen at Eden Rock were adolescents, and were therefore a light blueish grey.

 

I won't post any more photos here. I took some video which I've uploaded to youtube, although I am still working on getting the color right. I'll probably replace this video with a better version at some point in the future:

 

The reef was the absolute highlight of the day for me, although my girlfriend really liked getting to interact with the stingrays. All too soon it was time to leave. We got back to the harbor at around 12:30 and Sharon was waiting to meet us. We all wanted to be dropped at seven mile beack, so she offered to leave us at either the public beach (free, but a $4 cab ride back) or the Royal Palms ($2 entry fee, but only a $3 ride back). We opted for the Royal Palms since it was closer to the port, but that was a mistake. The beach there is very narrow and was so crowded that there was nowhere to lay out a towel without getting trampled:

 

We walked down the beach to the north about 800 feet and found a gorgeous secluded spot in between two residences. There was a wide beach, some shade provided by pine trees, and no crowds:

 

We lay out on the beach a bit watching the lizards scurry around and playing with the soft sand, went swimming again, and just enjoyed being in such a beautiful setting:

 

Coming up tomorrow: leaving Grand Cayman, Quest, and the late night pool party.

[ahecht]

Day 3: Tuesday, February 12th, 2013 - Part 6

We sadly left the beach at 2:30, as we wanted time to do some shopping in the port area before getting back on the ship. We stopped at Del Sol, where the stuff was actually reasonably priced ($25 US for a shirt), and at the Hard Rock Cafe, where stuff wasn't (the standard Hard Rock logo shirt was $28.50 Cayman, which translates to about $35 US, but it came with a free rum punch).

 

We got back to the port at 3:30 since the last tender was at 4, and the line was only about 150 feet long. We grabbed a lobster patty and a spicy sausage patty from a vendor cart and got in line. 5 minutes later we were on a tender watching huge frigatebirds fight for fish.

 

Our tender got back to the ship at 3:45, but we had to wait 15 minutes for other tenders to unload before we could get off.

 

We went back to our room, where I was able to get a picture of the Royal Palms beach area. Royal Palms is the area on the right with the white loungers, and we walked to the area on the left where the wide open beach is:

 

We hadn't had lunch yet so we decided it would be a great chance to try out the Room Service menu. We ordered the spinach artichoke dip (flavorless and covered with a slice of cold american cheese), Honey Stung Chicken (unlike the one in Windjammer this was a dry piece of white meat chicken), a beef burger with caramelized onions and bacon (this was very good), a fruit platter, a cheese platter, and a drink of the day. To our surprise, the Room Service team treated us to a free plate of chocolate covered strawberries!

 

I won't post my Room Service menu and the rest of the food pictures here, but they are available at https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=300858D26087A5BF!231

 

We split the burger and settled on the lounge chairs on the balcony with the fruit and cheese platters and watched the sailaway and sunset

 

 

When 8pm rolled around we decided that we were too exhausted to go to dinner (and not all that hungry since we had a late lunch). I had taken pictures of the dinner menu earlier (available here) and we knew we wanted to try the strawberry bisque, the lamb, and the chicken marsala, so I ran up to Windjammer with the room service tray to grab some food. They had all the apps and entrees available on the buffet, but the dessert selection was different. The strawberry bisque was good, but not my favorite of the cold soups. The lamb was very good and nicely tender, and the chicken marsala was a standard chicken marsala (nothing special).

 

Coming up next: Quest and the Pool Party

Edited February 28, 2013 by ahecht

[3happykids!]

your pictures show how much fun you are having. thanks for taking the time to post. i am looking forward to reading about the next day. thank you so much.

[ahecht]

Day 3: Tuesday, February 12th, 2013 - Part 7

 

Next up was Quest. I had actually been introduced to Quest at a theme park event (the organizers readily admitted that they stole it from Royal Caribbean) so I know it was a must-do event. Quest is held in Studio B, the ice rink, although they put a wood floor down over the ice. The audience is divided into 8 sections, and each section chooses two team captains. Joff would then announce a quest that one of the captains would have to do, such as bring him a sock with a hole in it or to bring down the tallest woman.

 

The grand finale, in honor of the fact that it was Marti Gras that day, was to bring down the best Mardi Gras drag queen:

 

The show wasn't as racy as some that I've heard of, but Joff was hilarious as the host.

 

Tuesday night was the one night that teens were allowed in the Labrynth nightclub, so the Solarium was turned into an adults-only nightclub called "20 by Absolut":

 

We danced until 1:30 in the morning before heading back to the room. On the way, I decided that this was probably my one opportunity to get a picture of the cigar lounge without having to choke on smoke:

 

Coming up next: Jamaica!

Edited March 1, 2013 by ahecht

[ahecht]

Day 4: Wednesday, February 13th, 2013 - Part 1

 

I promise I'll keep this day shorter. Narrowing down hundreds of pictures is harder than it looks.

 

 

Our plan for Jamaica was to get a late start, head into town for brunch, go to the beach at Time n Place for a few hours and then head back to the ship. My plan to get a late start was thwarted by the azipods vibrating the room at 6:30 as the ship spun around in preparation for backing in to Falmouth Jamaica. When we finished turning, I could see the port way off in the distance:

 

Backing in was the worst in the aft, as the wake was being directed directly under our room. Although the vibration didn't bother my girlfriend, there was no hope for me getting back to sleep given how far we had to go in reverse. I spent the time on the balcony taking pictures until we docked, and then I went back to sleep.

 

I was woken up again just before 9 by the sounds of roosters crowing and horns honking. We were both hungry, so I headed up to Windjammer to grab some snacks. I also took the opportunity to get some pictures. Here is Jade, the asian area. As I described before, for breakfast this area had rice and miso soup that could be topped with a variety of toppings ranging from scrambled eggs to seaweed salad. At breakfast and lunch this area featured a stir fry of some sort as well as sushi:

 

This area had more of the traditional breakfast offerings (eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes) as well as a carving station for ham:

 

The "Need Milk" area (I guess "Got Milk" is a trademark) had, as you would guess, milk. Behind it is the area that features pastries and the omelet and made-to-order eggs station:

 

Here is a shot of part of the seating area:

[ahecht]

Day 4: Wednesday, February 13th, 2013 - Part 2

 

We headed off the ship and into Jamaica. It was about a 1/4 mile walk from the ship to the port exit. Once we got there, we had to walk through the gauntlet of vendors. While they were pushy, we were able to make it through without too much trouble:

 

We finally got to our first destination: Club Nazz. Back in 1995 or so I spent a lot of time playing online text-based adventure games. Like on CruiseCritic everyone went by a screen name in these games, and I used the name Nazz on all of them (based on a nickname a teacher had given me). When I saw Club Nazz being talked about on the Jamaica message boards here I knew I had to go, if only to get this picture:

 

It turns out that Club Nazz also has free WiFi and pretty good food. We each ordered Ackee and Saltfish (the national dish of Jamaica) with eggs and a side of fried breadfruit. It was very good, and very filling.

 

We sat and ate and caught up on email for a while before heading back into town. My plan, based on maps that had been posted here, was to walk to Fort Balcarres and then take the walking path along the shore back into the port.

 

It turned out that Fort Balcarres is on the property of the Falmouth All Age School. A security guard at the school offered to give us a tour in exchange for a donation to the school (and a small donation to him). There were a few people from the ship who were volunteering at the school doing construction work and repairs.

 

 

All that is left of the fort is a foundation, the old powder storage building, and a cannon. The tree next to the cannon in the below picture was knocked down during Hurricane Ivan but has managed to survive. It is something of a mascot for the school.

 

Here is the view back towards the ship:

 

Coming up next: Time N Place, spelunking, and the Love and Marriage show!

[trucruising]

Great Review! The details and pictures have fantastic!

 

We will be on the Independence in December for a B2B. We are in aft cabin 9404 on our second leg. Question: Were you able to see the balcony of 9404 cabin from your balcony. I have been searching for some pics of cabin and have not across any with good views.

 

Look forward to more of your review.

 

Thanks

[ahecht]

Great Review! The details and pictures have fantastic!

 

We will be on the Independence in December for a B2B. We are in aft cabin 9404 on our second leg. Question: Were you able to see the balcony of 9404 cabin from your balcony. I have been searching for some pics of cabin and have not across any with good views.

 

Look forward to more of your review.

 

Thanks

 

9704 (the mirror image of 9404) was just out of view from our balcony. If you look at post #21 you can see 9706 and 9706. 9704 would be just beyond the glass partition towards the top of the image.

[ahecht]

Great Review! The details and pictures have fantastic!

 

We will be on the Independence in December for a B2B. We are in aft cabin 9404 on our second leg. Question: Were you able to see the balcony of 9404 cabin from your balcony. I have been searching for some pics of cabin and have not across any with good views.

 

Look forward to more of your review.

 

Thanks

 

There are also pictures of 9690 and 9390 on Voyager-class ships (which are equivalent to 9404 and 9604 on Freedom-class ships) at http://voyager-class.com/pictures/cabins/aft_93909690/gallery.html

[ahecht]

Day 4: Wednesday, February 13th, 2013 - Part 3

 

Our next stop was the beach and caves at Time N Place. Time N Place offers a cruise package that includes transportation from the port and admission to the beach for $20/person (you can add a cave tour for an extra $15/person). Unfortunately, their driver had left for college and they were unable to get a replacement before our trip (although they seem to have solved that problem now). We decided to go anyway via cab. We headed back to the port to catch a cab, but it ended up costing us $20/person for the round trip. As we found out from the cab driver, the port charges $20 per trip to go through the gates, so you are better off getting an official (red license plate) cab outside of the gates. The trip would've cost $10/person for the round trip had we done that.

 

The driver dropped us off, and since he hadn't been there before he stuck around to make sure the place was legit before leaving us. We were soon welcomed inside by the staff and paid our admission fee (and they pulled the cab driver aside, presumably to offer him a kickback for bringing future customers there).

 

Here are some shots of the beach. There were plenty of wooden lounge chairs to go around, a couple of kayaks people could borrow, a beach bar near the entrance (featured in the movie "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" according to the web site), and a mobile beach bar at the far end of the beach. They did a very good job raking the beach to get rid of the sea grass here.

 

 

Behind the beach are the cabins for people staying there (we met a woman from Rhode Island who had been staying there for a month to escape the New England winter)

 

To the east of Time N Place, separated by a breakwater, is the "N Resort" nude beach. While you could see that there were naked people there, it was far enough away that you couldn't make out any details or even tell what gender the people were.

 

To the west was seemingly endless untouched beach. Here is a nice secluded beach area just around a bend in the coastline. If you continued in this direction for half a mile or so you would get to the Red Stripe Beach that you can buy excursions to on the ship:

 

Here's one final shot back towards Time N Place (the N Resort is the red-roofed buildings). This was beyond their property so the beach was un-raked. Closer in there wasn't as much seagrass on the sand.

Edited March 2, 2013 by ahecht

[MrFunInTheSun]

Great review and pictures! Thanks for sharing your cruise adventures with us.

[gambee]

You have a lot of details in the ports are, thank you for doing this. We are going on a similar itinerary at the end of the month and this helps to get another angle on things to do Grand Cayman.

[ahecht]

Day 4: Wednesday, February 13th, 2013 - Part 4

 

One thing we had really wanted to do was the "theraputic" cave tour and swim. Since we weren't able to purchase the package online that included the tour we asked the guy at the beach bar about it. He said "sure, I'll take you to the caves", asked for $15/person, and walked off. We followed him around as he went back to grab some chicken from a cooler in the back, got supplies from a storage area, and did other chores before heading to his car. We didn't have any clue what was going on, and getting an answer was difficult. Finally, we found out that the cave was off-site and we would have to drive there. He left us at his car while he went to look for candles and a lighter, but he was only able to find one.

 

We piled into the car,but there was barely room for two passengers as most of the rear seat was filled with a giant speaker. We drove back towards the port a short way before pulling off in the grass along the highway. Our guide was leading us into the woods when a police car pulled up with its lights flashing. I guess it did look pretty suspicious: a jamaican guy leading a couple of american tourists in swim suits into the woods alongside a busy highway. The police hadn't heard of either Time N Place or the cave, but after they checked with their dispatcher they discovered everything was okay (and the guide invited them back to Time N Place for a beer afterwards). We headed off into the woods alone a faint path through the bushes:

 

After a walk that seemed much longer than it probably was, we got to the tiny mouth of the cave:

 

I will mention that at this point, our guide immediately lit up a joint and started smoking. He have a flashlight with him, but he did have an older smartphone an American friend had just given him. He had never used it as a light and didn't have a flashlight app on it, so I had to pull out my phone to use instead.

 

Getting into the cave was a bit challenging, but since I grew up in an area where I would often scramble up hillsides and over boulders I didn't have too much of a problem. My girlfriend had a much tougher time, but that was partially due to the fact that she was wearing flip flops.

 

Once we got inside the cave, our guide lit the single candle, and we were greeting with a beautiful crystal clear pool surrounded by all sorts of limestone formations (mostly flowstone, but plenty of stalagmites, stalactites, and Draperies). Unforunately, I was wearing a swimsuit with only one pocket, and since I was taking my phone down I didn't bring my regular camera. Most of the pictures taken with my phone's weak flash didn't turn out very well. This is the best picture I got of the flowstone and draperies, but it doesn't do the real thing justice. The path to scramble down into the cave is on the left of the picture:

 

At the urging of the guide we both got in the water. He claimed that the water was therapeutic, and that they had a guest with a broken foot that was healed by the water (although how someone with a broken foot scrambled down into the cave wasn't answered). Theraputic or not, it was beautifully clear. He offered to take our picture with my phone, but none of the pictures really came out. This was the best one (although the red-eye makes us look like scary aliens):

 

After spending 15 or 20 minutes in the cave we decided we had enough. so it was time to leave.

 

I got this picture of my girlfriend coming out of the cave. Note that this picture is very deceptive due to the perspective. My girlfriend was actually pretty deep in the cave when this was taken. The cave entrance is very small, and that branch to the left of the opening is only about a foot long.

 

We returned to Time and Place and had only a short time to swim and grab a nice cold Red Stripe before our cab driver showed up to take us back:

 

Funny story here: My girlfriend hadn't finished her Red Stripe when the cab showed up, so she went looking for a place to throw it out. The staff and cab driver were confused as to why she was leaving it instead of bringing it along, so we had to explain to them about US "open container" laws, which they thought was hilarious. The cab driver said "Here in Jamaica you drink, we drive! Heck, we drink and we drive! Irie! No Problem!".

[ahecht]

Day 4: Wednesday, February 13th, 2013 - Part 5

 

On that encouraging note, we headed back to town. We had the driver stop at Pepper's Jerk Center, which I had found a bunch of good online reviews for online.

 

We got there to find that they had just built an outdoor pool hall, and there was painfully loud music coming from there. However, after smelling all the amazing roadside jerk stands on the way back into town I knew I couldn't leave Jamaica without some authentic jerk chicken. Pepper's has no prices on the menu, so while they charged us $8 for a plate of Jerk chicken the locals were being charged just a couple of bucks. It was worth it, as the chicken was so good that we mostly devoured it before I remembered to get a picture.

 

My girlfriend wanted to get a sundress, so we shopped for a bit in the flea market just outside the gates (this is in a vacant lot just to the left of the gauntlet of vendors as you face away from the port). There was some heckling here, but not nearly as bad as along the street. She was able to negotiate down to about $12 for the dress she wanted. We also shopped at the flea market within the port gates, where they vendors had obviously been trained not to hassle tourists and it was a much lower pressure environment. We were only able to negotiate down to $20 for a dress here, as the vendor said that the port takes a huge cut of the sales so prices inside the gates are higher. We also stopped for samples at the Tortuga Rum Cake shop, but noticed that their prices were 50% higher than the prices for the same cakes on the ship.

 

There was quite a line at 3:15 to get back onto the ship (departure time was 4, but everyone had to be on board by 3:30). However, there was a very good band playing there to entertain us:

 

Back on the ship, after our traditional first stop at Cafe Promenade to get a cookie, we went up to the pool deck to watch sailaway and take some last pictures of Jamaica. The below panorama shows the N Resort and Time N Place on the left and Red Stripe beach on the right. It's hard to make out the details in the tiny image here, so you can see a higher resolution version here.

 

As we sailed away, we caught another beautiful sunset from our balcony:

 

[ahecht]

Day 4: Wednesday, February 13th, 2013 - Part 6

 

That night was the hilarious "Love and Marriage" show. This is a "Newlywed Game" type show where four married couples are randomly chosen, and each spouse is asked to predict their significant other's answers to a variety of embarrassing questions. Joff, as usual, was amazingly funny as the host.

 

As we left the show and headed through the promenade, I heard a woman shriek with delight in Sorrentos. It turns out that the dessert area had her favorite dessert, the Nougatine Mousse. After that endorsement I knew I had to try it. It was a caramel flavored mouse with crispy caramel bits on top and was very good:

 

We decided after trying it that our new tradition upon boarding or re-boarding the ship would be to first grab a cookie from Cafe Promenade and then grab a mousse of the day from Sorrentos.