Spring Break on the Independence: Max's Mom's Diary

[maxs mom]

Hi Everyone!

Just back from the March 30th sailing of the beautiful Independence of the Seas. I kept my usual journal and am ready to share it with you.

We are Jane and John from North Carolina. Twenty eight year veterans of sailing with Royal Caribbean. We are Diamond Plus cruisers....a little over halfway to Pinnacle. I doubt that we will ever get there.....but we're going to have fun trying. I am retiring this year after 40 years of teaching, so there's no telling!

This journey began on March 29th. We had a smooth uneventful flight from RDU to FLL. They actually had to de-ice the plane before we took off!! Now that's a first from North Carolina at this time of year! It was great to be out of school and leaving this unusually cold weather.

We arrive in FLL on time and call for our free shuttle to the Comfort Inn. As soon as we walk outside....there it was. The Comfort Inn was the only thing we could get because of our procrastination in booking a hotel and it was a holiday week-end. The Comfort Inn was just OK, but everyone was very friendly and we had free airport and port shuttles. They had a free breakfast, but we were not impressed and went to McDonald's next door.

Saturday ~ March 30th ~ Embarkation

After our scrumptious McDonald's breakfast, we went to the Big Lots store that was close by to get a few things. The free shuttle was not until 11:45, so we had plenty of time. Here I am ....patiently waiting for the shuttle:

The shuttle left right on time and we were at the ship at Pier 29 by noon. I don't normally like to go to the ship this late but...hey....it was free. We grabbed our carry ons and got in the VERY long line that was WAY out into the parking lot. But we were here and there she was !!

Here are some shots of the lines outside:

One nice thing about getting there a little later is that we could immediately go to our cabin. We were visited by the upgrade fairy about a week before the cruise and we had this wonderful Junior Suite.....9558.

Edited April 13, 2013 by max'smom

[DragonOfTheSeas]

I am along for the ride. :)

[Sugar*Magnolia]

As always Jane, love your journal-reviews!!

 

Im along for the ride too!!!

:D

Edited April 13, 2013 by CruiseDivaNJ

[maxs mom]

We loved our cabin!! The Junior Suites on the Freedom Class ships are a little bit bigger than the JS's on The Voyager Class ships. Our balcony was also a VERY nice size. I loved it!

By the way.....this was our first time sailing on a Freedom Class ship. I really liked it......it was beautiful. Quite a bit crowded at times, however. We really prefer the smaller ships.....but the Independence was a super ride!

Here's another shot from or balcony.

The only problem with this cabin was that it was very far forward, so we had quite a walk to get anywhere, but we managed. It was the first cabin in front of the forward hump and just below the cantilevered hot tub on the port side.

After finding our cabin.....I immediately went to get our reservations at Chops and Portofino.....then our My Time Dining reservations squared away.

Next up was lunch in the Windjammer. We try to stay out of here as much as possible, but lunch was very good today. I usually get a good salad with whatever the carving of the day is. Today it was roast beef and horseradish......quite tasty. I didn't want to eat too much because we were going to Chops for dinner.

Back to the cabin to unpack. Love, love, love the JS with its walk in closet and all that storage space.

Soon it was time to head to the Sky Bar for our pre Meet and Mingle with our roll call group.

It's mojito time!!!

[Jax129]

I can't wait for the rest of your review!!

[maxs mom]

We had a great turn out of our folks who had been chatting for quite a while. We had a great time for about an hour or so, just basking in the sunshine......everyone was in a good mood!

The Oasis and the Liberty were nearby!

Edited April 13, 2013 by max'smom

[maxs mom]

Oops! Having a little trouble posting pictures.....I left this one out:

Next up was the muster drill at 4:45.

It was fairly quick and painless.

Now we were ready for the sail away. We stayed on our wonderful balcony for that. The sail aways are just the best from Port Everglades. I was on the phone with my family who were watching on the webcam.

I looked over at our neighbor's balcony and saw that they had the divider opened between two balconies. Cool!

[maxs mom]

Here we go!!

[CRUISEMAMI]

As always love, love, love your review!!! :p

Waiting for more!!! :)

Franca :p

[maxs mom]

And we're gone!!

So by now, it's getting late and we have to get ready for the evening.

First of all we go to the Concierge Lounge for drinks as is our ritual every evening at 7:00. We immediately meet another D+ couple....Al and Phyllis from Florida....who booked this cruise 6 days earlier. We hit it off with them and met them there every night. Here we are the first night with Al and Phyllis and also another new friend, Brian.

Raj Bhugwath is the Concierge, whom we had the privilege of sailing with this past summer on the Grandeur. he came in shortly and immediately came over to give us a hug. This was his first day back on board after his vacation. He is a great and very attentive Concierge. I'm so glad that he was sailing with us.

[maxs mom]

We had reservations at Chops tonight and used our Buy One Get One coupon. Great deal. We also ran into Al and Phyllis there and a few other D+ folks. It was not crowded at all. We had a wonderful dinner. We were all sitting at tables for two right in a row and ended up having a conversation throughout dinner with each other.

And as I've said many times before......this is the reason I cruise!!!! Mud Pie!!

I ate every bit of my dinner. We were pretty tired because it was a long day, so afterwards we went back to the cabin and on to bed. It was a great day!

[maxs mom]

So glad to see some familiar folks stopping by to say hello! Glad to have you along for the ride! Keep checking back...as this is a long process. I hope to work on this throughout the week-end.

[Merion_Mom]

Great score on the upgrade! LOVE those Junior Suites, particularly on Freedom class!

 

Where in NC do you teach, and what do you teach? (I started my teaching career in Sanford)

[maxs mom]

Easter Sunday ~ March 31st ~ At Sea

I woke up around 7:30 this morning. We had very calm seas all night and I could hear the waves crashing outside against the ship......very soothing.

My every morning routine is to go to the Concierge Lounge for coffee while John gets his shower. I usually chat with Raj and do some journal writing in there. The coffee was really good this morning.

We always go to breakfast in the D/D+ section of the MDR. On this ship, you have to go through the MDR entrance and be seated from there rather than having a separate entrance like on other ships. The service was really slow this morning, but when we finally got our food, it was really good. The rest of the week, the service was excellent and very prompt.

After breakfast we went to the Meet and Mingle which was held in the Pyramid Lounge on Deck 5. It was fairly well attended. A couple members of the CD's staff were in charge.

They raffled off a few prizes and that was about it. I won the first prize given out......two plastic key chains! Wow! They had some nicer prizes, though.....a couple bottles of wine, some mugs, and t-shirts. We visited with a few folks in there before leaving. I wish we had passed the microphone around and introduced ourselves because I really didn't know who too many of the folks were.

It was a nice gathering, though, and I enjoyed seeing a lot of these folks throughout the cruise here and there!

[maxs mom]

Great score on the upgrade! LOVE those Junior Suites, particularly on Freedom class!

 

Where in NC do you teach, and what do you teach? (I started my teaching career in Sanford)

 

Hey Carol! We live in Burlington....not too far from Sanford. Right now I teach ESL and have been doing that for 11 years. When I was in the classroom, I taught all grades in elementary school, but mostly first and second grade. Forty years has been just a little too long and I am ready to leave! 38 more days!

[bdcat117]

Looking forward to your review!!

[loeytalldog]

LOVE your reviews! Thanks for doing it, I'm subscribing!

 

Lois

[maxs mom]

We did a quick tour of the Promenade before going back to the cabin.

We saw some guys in the Barber Shop:

Here is the Café Promenade. Nice spot to sit and people watch.

The Ben and Jerry's cows:

Here is the English Pub:

And this is Vintages:

The Promenade on this ship is exceptionally nice.

[VillaHappy]

We did a quick tour of the Promenade before going back to the cabin.

 

 

I think I see my Promenade room for next January in this pic! Consider me another subscriber to your thread... :cool:

[Cupcrazy]

Enjoying your review! Thanks for posting

[maxs mom]

Here is John with his t-shirt prize from the M&M:

And of course....my fabulous key chains!!

We went back to the Windjammer for lunch today and it was VERY crowded. I just don't enjoy having to bump around with everybody in there. I don't feel like it is very well laid out. The first two sections seem like wasted space and most of the food offerings are in the back. It's just too congested. I can't talk John into going to the MDR for lunch, so we just have to put up with it. That being said.....we had a really good lunch there. I had a spinach salad with a slice of pork on the side. An oatmeal raisin cookie and then some chocolate ice cream from Sprinkles.

We retired to the cabin for the afternoon for some serious reading and napping time. I was cold all day so I decided to soak in a very hot bath. That felt great!

We watched the Duke/Louisville game....most of it anyway. And then it was time to head up to the Concierge Lounge for drinks.

[mkmom514]

Enjoying your review and looking forward to the Indy in November!

[OHCruisinDad]

Hi Jane - Great review. I agree that they could have passed the microphone around at the M&M to that everyone could have introduced themselves. Great pics of our Sky Bar sail away. I will have to show my DW (another Jane) your review and photos.

 

Enjoy the retirement countdown! :)

 

Cheers, Mac

[Poorplaya]

Great review so far, can't wait to see and hear the rest of it. The pictures by the way are awesome, thank you for posting. Making me more excited for our cruise on IOS next April, never been on a freedom class ship before and these kind of reviews make it more exciting everytime.

[Coralc]

We did a quick tour of the Promenade before going back to the cabin.

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Is that supposed to be a big, giant, golden wok in the middle of the promenade? Does anyone know why?