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

[alexkrn46]

I am enjoying your review,thanks

[Cupcrazy]

Thanks for the great review!

[ade1982]

Enjoying your review. Sailing in September 2013, excited!

[theodoru]

We are going on this same cruise next week. We are even using Native Way for one of our excursions. It is great to hear that we made a good choice.

[woostercruise]

Your review is wonderful! We leave in a week on the same 6 night, and I just used your wonderful luggage tag program the other day to print our tags. Thanks for putting that together!

[ahecht]

Day 5: Thursday, February 14th, 2013 - Part 1

 

Welcome to Thursday (aka Valentine's Day)!

 

Thursday, in addition to being Valentine's Day, was also our day at Labadee. Fortunately, we weren't woken up this morning by the ship's manuvering since we didn't begin pulling in to Labadee until 9am or so. We took advantage of the late start to get breakfast again in the main dining room. I ordered the banana caramel pancakes from the kids menu which were so dry and tough I needed a steak knife to cut them. Fortunately, some strawberry sauce from the buffet made them edible. My girlfriend got the juevos rancheros, which she liked a lot. My pictures of breakfast are available at https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=300858D26087A5BF!218

 

We returned to the room to gorgeous views of the Haitian coastline.

 

We could see many Haitians commuting to work at Labadee via boat, most of them unpowered rowboats and kayaks.

 

I decided to travel light this day, so I only carried my waterproof camera, which doesn't take great still pictures. However, it did take this nice panorama of the resort area from the pool deck.

 

Here is the classic shot of the ship. It's almost like they designed the wharf so that they could sell pictures of people in front of the ship. Make sure to get your pictures in the morning, as the ship will be in shadow in the afternoon:

 

Our first order of business was to head to the Dragon's Tail coaster. Rather than wait for a tram, we decided to walk through the nicely landscaped gardens to get to Adrenaline Beach:

 

Coming up next: More of Labadee, Dragons, Dinner #1, and Dinner #2!

[ahecht]

Day 5: Thursday, February 14th, 2013 - Part 2

 

For those of you that haven't been to Labadee, you can get a good idea of the layout from the map at http://c3270052.r52.cf0.rackcdn.com/ports/maps/labadeelinkmap.jpg

 

We had wanted to do the all-day pass for the Dragon's Tail coaster, but it wasn't offered online or available at Guest Relations on the ship. Despite that, when we went to the Dragon's Tail sign up area, the first thing they offered was the all-day pass. The price was $40 per "driver", but a "passenger" gets to ride for free. I got the "driver" wristband and my girlfriend got the "passenger" one, but they never enforced who sat where (the "driver" sits in back and therefore must be the heavier of the two riders, but our weights are close enough that it didn't matter). The "driver" controls the brakes, but since the coaster was mostly empty most of the day they told us that we didn't need to use the brakes if we didn't want to until we came to the station at the end of the ride.

 

Here's a shot of us coming into the brake run at the end of the ride:

 

After riding a few times, we found a nice shady lounge chair right next to the sign-up area. We sat there a while just staring out at the water and listening to the birds sing (you can see this area in the video in the next post).

 

There were a few stray dogs wandering around looking for attention (we didn't interact with them due to concerns about fleas or disease):

 

We went in the water for a while, although it was difficult without water shoes as the bottom was covered with either seagrass or broken staghorn coral. This was at Adrenaline Beach -- some of the other beaches may have been sandier. We talked to some people who snorkeled further out at Adrenaline Beach and they warned us that there were lots of sea urchins near the breakwater.

 

We did see some sealife here -- a needlefish was swimming around us for a while, and after we moved into shallower water a schoolmaster snapper came up to investigate our feet. You can see both of these in the video in the next post.

 

We had lunch nearby at the adjacent Cafe Labadee buffet. Lunch is included, and is prepared by the kitchen staff from the ship. Lunch was burgers, hot dogs, barbecue chicken, and ribs. Nothing fancy, but it was tasty. There was a good Mexican pasta salad available as well as green salad and potato salad, but vegetarians might have a hard time finding a satisfying meal without going back to the ship.

 

After lunch we did some souvenir shopping. The vendors in the Artisan's Village (along the road between Town Square and Columbus Cove) were very pushy, almost as bad as in Jamaica. Note that you can get to Columbus Cove without having to walk through this area either by taking the tram or by taking the free boat from the wharf near where you exit the ship.

 

The vendors in the Artisan's Market (the indoor shopping area) were much more restrained. They had obviously been trained on how to deal with american tourists, and generally wouldn't talk to you unless you asked them a question. We did notice, however, that much of the "Made in Haiti" merchandise was actually made elsewhere, such as this shirt:

 

After shopping, we took the tram back to Dragon's Plaza. On the way we passed the kids water play area:

 

Near the end of the Dragon's Breath zipline is this rock, which the employees claim is the Dragon that much of the attractions on Labadee are named for:

 

In my next post: the actual dragon rock, the dragon's breath, and video.

Edited March 3, 2013 by ahecht

[ahecht]

Day 5: Thursday, February 14th, 2013 - Part 3

 

Before getting on the ship, we wanted to walk out to Dragon's Lookout Point:

 

The access path for this area is just behind the Dragon's Breath Pub and the end of the Dragon's Breath zipline. Walking out, we saw this rock formation, which to me looked much more like a dragon than the other one (it actually reminded me of Falkor the Luckdragon from the Neverending Story):

 

This area is very neat -- there are all sorts of interesting rock formations and tide pools filled with small fish and snails, as well as great views of the ocean. You can also get a different view of the ship from the lookout point:

 

While standing at the lookout point, you can clearly hear the Dragon's Breath that the zipline is named after. The breath comes from this small tide pool in the rocks. As the waves go in and out, air is forced into a cave in the rocks and comes out of a tiny opening near this pool. At the end of the video at the end of the post, you can see and ear this phenomenon.

 

All too soon, it was time to go back to the ship. Be aware that security won't let you take large shells back on board, and they had a huge pile of confiscated ones near the X-ray machine. We had bought a couple of painted conch shells that they let through because they were small, but they gave us a hard time.

 

On the wharf, we got a picture with a real Labadee life ring (not the fake ones that the ship's photographers won't let you take your own pictures of):

 

Below is a link to my video featuring views of Adrenaline beach, people going down the zipline, the needlefish and schoolmaster snapper we saw, and the Dragon's Breath rock:

 

 

Coming up next: Dinner and Dinner!

Edited March 3, 2013 by ahecht

[ahecht]

Day 5: Thursday, February 14th, 2013 - Part 4

 

While getting back on the ship, we got a close-up view of the rollers for the lines that hold the ship to the dock. I remembered seeing the Undercover Boss episode on NCL where a major job was chipping the rust off of these rollers and repainting them. It looks like Royal Caribbean just uses leftover carpet from the ship to protect the rollers -- I definitely recognize the carpet patterns from the ship!

 

As we sailed away, I took this panorama of the cabanas at the Barefoot Beach Club, Nellie's Beach, and the water park at Columbus Cove. Click on the image for a higher resolution version:

 

As we sailed away and got ready for dinner, we caught this beautiful sunset over the mountains:

 

We usually had a late dinner seating, but we wanted to have a special meal for Valentine's Day and when we went to reserve Portofino only a 6:00 time was available. The restaurant was very nice, and we had a great view of the ocean:

 

Again, I won't post food pictures in this thread. My pictures of the food and menu are posted at https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=300858D26087A5BF!177

 

Since it was formal night we both dressed up for the meal. I was a bit disturbed to see that the guy at the next table was wearing jeans and a t-shirt (Portofino requests that diners wear at least slacks and a collared shirt). However, he also kept going on during the meal about how much he preferred sailing on Carnival over Royal Caribbean, so I wasn't too surprised.

 

The meal started with a very artistic bread basket shaped like a sailboat. We then moved on to appetizers. The tuna and beef carpaccio were both very good, but the real star were the Crostini for two, which featured small pieces of toast with delicious toppings ranging from eggplant stew to marinated raw tuna. Note that any of the "for two" appetizers can be ordered for one if you ask, although we didn't choose to do this.

 

I ordered the Osso Buco for my entree. It was good, but very salty. My girlfriend ordered the seafood skewer, but was very disappointed by it. The fish was dry and the lobster was overcooked. Only the scallops were good.

 

We split a dessert sampler, and again were disappointed. The tiramisu was drowning in unsweetened cocoa powder, and you couldn't taste anything else. The chocolate cake didn't have much chocolate flavor, and the jiggly white thing (I don't know what it was) didn't taste like anything but sugar. The only good part was the fresh strawberries with mascarpone. I could've eaten a whole bowl of those.

 

We had been joking about going to our regular late seating in the Main Dining Room for lobster night after Portofino, but after the disappointing meal we decided to actually do it. We had a little time to kill, so we enjoyed a glass of wine and some chocolate covered strawberries on our balcony:

 

In the main dining room, we started with the Peach Soup which was good, but probably my least favorite of the fruit soups. We split the seafood cocktail, which was very good - better than the shrimp cocktail we had had earlier in the week.

 

We both ordered the fisherman's platter for dinner, and it was very inconsistent. My lobster was incredibly tough and chewy. It was chewy to the point that I had to discretely spit some of it back into my napkin. If I hadn't already had one dinner I would've sent it back. My girlfriend's was on the opposite end of the spectrum: tender to the point of being mushy. The shrimp served alongside was good and we weren't that hungry, but it was a disappointment.

 

Dessert was much better. I had the low-fat passion fruit cheesecake which was amazing, and my girlfriend had the sampler which included a small piece of regular cheesecake, a bite-size chocolate cake, and an apricot-flavored thing.

 

During dessert, the kitchen staff came out, paraded around the room, and lined up on the staircase so the head check could introduce them. It was amazing how many people are involved in preparing all the food on the ship:

 

We had planned on seeing the comedy show that night, but we forgot about it until it was too late. What we saw aired later when they started showing the cruise in review on the in-cabin TV looked very funny.

 

Coming up next, our last day at sea: fruit and towel animals, belly flops, rock climbing, ice skating, the farewell show, and more of the ship!

[OHlady]

Am really enjoying your review ahecht. You notice and write about things that most people don't see or don't write about. Different and very interesting. and just as a side note... I work in Sandusky, OH, just a short swim to Cedar Point!!! For those who don't know, Cedar Point is a roller coaster haven.

 

Hope the disappointing food doesn't put you off Royal for good.

[ahecht]

Thanks again for all the nice comments. The only really disappointing food was the dinners on Valentine's Day. Overall, we thought the food was very good -- better than most banquets and weddings we've been to.

 

We still haven't made it out to Cedar Point yet. Our last midwest coaster trip only took us as far north as King's Island (near Cincinnati).

 

As I've been going through the report, I've realized there have been a few things that got left out. Therefore, I will introduce a brief intermission to catch up.

 

Intermission: Part 1

 

Ice Show and Trivia

I forgot to talk about the Ice Show since I didn't have any pictures of it. We saw the 7pm Ice Show on day 4. The ice show this week was Freeze Frame, which covered popular dance music from the 40s to the 80s (as one of the stars said on the Morning Show, there was no good music after the 80s). We got to Studio B about 15 minutes before show time, and although the section facing the "stage" was completely filled there was plenty of room along the sides. We ended up in the first row near the middle of the rink. The show itself was great, and the performers were very, very good (especially considering how much the ship was rocking and swaying that night). This is definitely a don't-miss show.

 

After the ice show, we stumbled into the "Quiz at 8" trivia in the Schooner Bar. Cruise Critic member troynuke and his friend spotted me in the crowd, and we ended up teaming up and winning. Our big prize was a "magnetic poetry kit" type set for leaving messages on cabin doors. The trivia was fun, although much of it was geared towards a British audience (there was a Dusty Springfield question).

 

The Royal Promenade

The promenade is the center of the ship, and serves as both a shopping mall and a performance venue for the various parades. It is a 4-story-tall space, and is flanked on either side by the bay windows of the Promenade cabins. The topmost level of promenade cabins have windows that are angled out slightly to give a better view of what's going on below:

 

At night, the promenade it makes a transformation into a dramatically lit space, as you can see in the below picture of Sorrento's.

 

There 6 food and beverage venues on the Royal Promenade. The first is Sorrento's, which served lousy pizza by the slice, but had a very tasty selection of antipasto and desserts. Later in the cruise, we made sure to stop each day to try that day's flavor of mousse. I didn't get a good shot of Sorrento's, but you can see it on the left of the following picture (the Duty Free Emporium is on the right):

 

On the other end is Cafe Promenade, which serves fancy Seattle's Best coffee and coffee drinks (for a fee) but also has a variety of free pastries, cookies, and sandwiches. Many people never realize that the food here is free due to the cash register on the counter. As I mentioned before, we would stop here for a cookie first thing every time we got on the ship.

 

Here is the pastry counter:

 

And here are the sandwiches. The ham-and-cheese croissants were usually there, but the sandwiches on the bottom shelf were different each day:

 

The final eating venue is the Ben and Jerry's shop, which serves a limited selection of Ben & Jerry's ice cream starting at about $3.50 for a small cone. Behind Ben and Jerry's in this picture you can see the barber shop (which will be transformed into the Cupcake Cupboard when the ship goes into dry dock this spring) and the fashion store (which is the athletic apparel shop on other Freedom-Class ships):

 

Coming up next: drinking and shopping on the promenade, plus more of the ship.

[SoFlaCruzer]

Excellent review - been reading it nightly before going to bed. Maybe it helps me sleep knowing I'll be sailing her end of month :D

[Irish Cath]

Loving this review. One of the best I've seen here on CC. Thank You:)

[3happykids!]

i love your review. anxiously waiting for the rest of the week. thanks for the fine details and all your tips.

[ahecht]

Intermission: Part 2

 

While I continue to sort through the rest of my pictures, I'll continue with the Royal Promenade. There is no shortage of places to drink on the ship (note that this picture was from the last day of the cruise, so many of the bars closed earlier than they normally do):

 

Not including the restaurants I already talked about, there are 3 bars on the Royal Promenade. The first is the Dog and Badger, the British-style pub:

 

Moving up the fanciness scale is Vintages, the wine bar:

 

Followed by the Champagne Bar:

 

Just down a flight of steps from the Promenade is the Schooner Bar, a great nautical-themed area that is on just about every Royal Caribbean ship. This is also where the piano player performs nightly, as well as where trivia is held. Unfortunately, while the Schooner Bar is a non-smoking venue, it is located close enough to the casino that it can be very smokey at times. This picture shows it with the Valentine's Day decorations still up:

 

Down a flight of steps from the other end of the Promenade is Boleros, the latin-themed bar/club. There was a very good latin dance band playing here every night. Unfortunately I didn't seem to get any pictures of it.

[ahecht]

Intermission: Part 3

 

Moving on to shopping. The shopping venues on Independence of the Seas were reconfigured to support a British clientele where there is a much higher demand for duty-free goods (due to the high VAT duties in Europe) than for souvenirs. They turned the "Perfume and Cosmetics" store into a designer handbag store and moved "Perfume and Cosmetics" into the much larger space that used to be the "Logo Shop" (for Royal Caribbean and Independence of the Seas branded souvenirs). They then turned the "Fashion Boutique" into the "Duty Free Emporium" carrying designer sunglasses and high end alcohol. The "Fashion Boutique" was moved into the smaller space that used to be "Get Out There" (the athletic wear shop).

 

Some of orphaned merchandise from the "Logo Shop" and "Get Out There" was combined with the stuff in the General Store, which they hastily renamed "The Gift Box" (the sign is just a vinyl banner taped in place):

 

However, most of the souvenirs in the Gift Box are British souvenirs. There were a few generic looking hats that said "West Caribbean" on them, but that was about it.

 

 

 

 

 

Even the cigarettes had EU-style warning labels:

[ahecht]

Intermission: Part 4

 

Some other random odds and ends.

 

Here is the hallway leading back to our room. As you can see from the dark patches in front of each door, the carpet needs either a deep cleaning or replacement:

 

I though the vacuum cleaners being used by the stateroom attendants were cute:

 

I posted pictures of Olive or Twist and the Seven of Hearts lounge before with out giving any real context. These venues are located in the Viking Crown, which surrounds the front and sides of the smokestack (the rear is covered by the rock climbing wall). Here is a shot of it from the kids pool area:

 

Below the glassed in seating area in that picture is Deck 12, which contains the kids and teens area of the ship, Johnny Rockets, and the arcade. Here is a shot of part of the arcade (the other side has more traditional video game cabinets):

 

Moving to a completely different part of the ship, we get to the library and business center. Both are located on balconies overlooking the aft end of the Royal Promenade. The library on deck 7 is a quiet place to read, and has a handful of books for checkout on the honor system. This is also where you can get daily (british-style) crossword puzzles and leave messages for the cruise director to read on the morning show.

 

The opening in the ceiling looks into the business center on deck 8, which also serves as an internet cafe.

 

Finally, I'll end this intermission by posting the color-corrected version of my Grand Cayman coral reef video for those of you that hadn't watched the original yet. I still can't do much given the cheap camera I used, but it's a little better:

 

[paul.ed]

Fantastic review with excellent photo's as well.

 

Paul

[yknot13]

Thanks, this review is excellent and brings back great memories.

[LBumb]

nice photos

[ahecht]

Where was I? Oh yes, that's right:

Day 6: Friday, February 15th, 2013 - Part 1

 

The day of the week in the elevator was a cute touch at first, but as the week wore on it got more and more depressing.

 

Friday morning was beautiful. Calm seas, clear blue skies, and very little wind even up on deck. That morning we woke up still full from our dinners the night before, so we headed straight to our first activity of the day, the towel folding demonstration. This was held in the On-Air lounge (aka the Karaoke Bar) which was a great venue for viewing, but a terrible one for photographs. I'll do my best.

 

The host was a bit annoying, but the stateroom attendants they had demonstrating the technique were very good, and I learned some techniques that came in handy later at Discovery Cove. Here's a shot of some of the finished animals:

 

After the towel demonstration, they gave us all pamphlets with instructions for making several towel animals (although most of the demonstrated ones were either not in the booklet or very different). I have posted a scanned copy of the booklet at https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=300858D26087A5BF!137

 

The towel folding demonstration segued directly into the fruit carving demonstration. It turns out that there was one person responsible for all the fruit and ice carving on the ship (he usually has an assistant, but he was on vacation). He went to school for several years just to learn carving techniques for food, ice, and wood (although he doesn't get to do much wood carving on the ship). Here's a shot of the figures he carved during the half hour demo:

 

After the carving demonstration, the captain made his morning announcement. We had found it funny all week that the captain would always end his announcement by saying "I will now repeat this message in Spanish" only to have a female voice come on and make the Spanish announcement. Since this was the last day of the cruise, the captain addressed this issue: "Many of you have said that they don't believe that it's me doing the Spanish announcements", he said, "but it really is me. I just had a female Spanish teacher."

 

Since it was the last day of the cruise, it was time for us to work on getting all the punches on our activity wristbands. We already got the Flowrider done on Day 1, but our arms were too sore for the rest of the cruise to even think about the rock wall. However it was now or never, so we signed the waivers and got in line.

 

The rock wall was located on the back side of the smoke stacks. The top of the rock wall is the highest guest-accessible location on the ship and offers a great view.

 

They require you to wear shorts, socks, and dry clothing, but they provide you with shoes and helmets. Here we are in the stylish rock climbing gear:

 

Coming up next: Rock climbing, belly flops, ice skating, the farewell show, and creepy Bill!

[/color]

[Gon2hwe]

This is a great review and I beleive you are hooked on cruising. I just have to say though it was scary that you went with the guy in Jamacia. Fortunately it was okay but that could have ended badly, but I'm glad it turned out okay.

[ade1982]

I can't wait to hear who "Creepy Bill" is!

[ahecht]

This is a great review and I beleive you are hooked on cruising. I just have to say though it was scary that you went with the guy in Jamacia. Fortunately it was okay but that could have ended badly, but I'm glad it turned out okay.

 

I definitely wouldn't have done it if there weren't so many positive reviews of Time N Place on the boards here and on Trip Advisor.

Edited March 6, 2013 by ahecht

[RealDeal]

What cabin did you have & what category was it?