Live Review - Independence of the Seas - 14 Night Italian Mediterranean Cruise 14/6

[little britain]

Hi Londongal

 

Such a shame about the weather. Can I ask where the best place for wifi is in Cadiz please?

 

Loving the review!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

When I was there it appeared to be the steps of the cathedral. There were loads of people with laptops and iPads there.

 

The trick is to just follow the crew. They know.

 

Edited June 28, 2014 by little britain

[londongal796]

Well it is officially after the cruise so I have some final days to catch up on and conclusions/scores to write. I apologise that I didn’t have a chance to write sooner but our days in port the last few days weren’t very long and we were busy most of the time, so I didn’t have a chance to write my thoughts and post them on here.

 

So after I last wrote, the sky miraculously turned clear and the rain dried up so we were able to go into Cadiz. I didn’t really know where to go, I had a map of the city that I’d gotten out of a travel guide book but it wasn’t very detailed. But we could see the ‘New Cathedral’ from the ship and I knew I wanted to go there. So we made our way over. First we stopped in a plaza very near the ship and saw a lovely fountain and some wild parrots too! They were green with some blue plumage. Then we walked along the narrow zig-zagging streets to the cathedral. Our waiter had told us the night before that it can be easy to get lost in those narrow streets and he wasn’t kidding—fortunately we used a map app on our phone so guide us there, although halfway there the map stopped working because it lost its signal through the tangle of tall narrow streets. In any case, we arrived in the correct square and went up to the cathedral. We decided to pay to go in, they did offer a lovely Audio Tour in English and that was really useful. The cost was €5 for adults, for those who are interested (that included entrance to the cathedral and the audio guide).

 

The cathedral was really beautiful inside, except the ceiling which was rather damaged. It had the most beautiful organ / choir area I think I have ever seen, and that is really saying something – and listening to the audio guide only enhanced my wonder and its beauty. It wasn’t the largest I have seen, but there was something about it that was so warm, possibly the wooden carvings, that really impressed me.

 

As we really had no idea what else to do, and we had been out for a while wandering, we decided to make our way back to the ship. I know, we didn’t do much, but planning your own tour and fulfilling it is a lot harder to do. I really learned that on this trip. I did see some people when we were in Cinque Terre with an audio guide app that they were using on their iPhones so I may try to look into something like that in the future. I don’t know any more than that, I just could see them using an ‘audio guide’ from their iPhones and assume it was some sort of app out there. Anyway – when I tried to ‘self-guide’, unless I had formulated a very specific plan, I was pretty rubbish. So back to the ship we went. We’d spent about 2 hours in port wandering around.

 

When we got back on the ship we went up to the Windjammer for some lunch. Again the pickings were quite poor but I had my lovely salad and we made do with what was available. Afterwards we rested and then we went to dinner. I will have to look up what we had – OH! We went to Chops. That’s it. We went to Chops for the final time as the menu was really nothing we were interested in the MDR. (Which, I know, people will wish I had taken photos of what was available – I’m sorry but we didn’t!) Chops was lovely again, we both had the Shrimp Cocktail to start and Filet Mignon for mains, including the roasted potatoes (mmmm), the mashed potatoes (pretty good) and the asparagus again. I loooved the asparagus. The béarnaise sauce was really good again too. For dessert he had the Mango-y one (he has now tried all three) and I had Red Velvet cake again. Mine was even better than the last time, he had some as well and completely agreed.

 

The performance was with ‘TV & Universal Recording Artist Claire Maidin’ whom we had never heard of and no other information was included in the Compass so we decided to skip it. Instead we went to the Love & Marriage Show at 10:30pm. It was really funny but not as good as other ones we’ve seen, more based on the choice of couples than anything else. It happens – there were still some memorable bits, including stairs and beds with wheels. I won’t say any more!

 

The next day was our day in Lisbon which I was really looking forward to. We had breakfast in the Main Dining Room and that was quite good although their timing is very very poor. We arrived at a table to share and there were 4 of us in total. There were 4 empty seats. After about 5-10 minutes the waiter came around and took our orders, and said that if anyone else did join us they would serve them separately. The other couple ordered cold foods and then I think the husband ordered a hot breakfast too, whereas we only ordered a hot breakfast. Another 5 minutes went by and another couple were seated with us. They ordered hot food. A few more minutes went by and they served the other couple their cold food. It was 30 minutes after we ordered before our hot food was served—along with the late-joining couples’ hot food. ALL of our food was delivered together, despite them saying they would serve them separately. I was really annoyed because we had a timetable to stick to and there was no need to keep us waiting that long. They had done this consistently every time we had gone to breakfast in the MDR so just be warned about that. If you have a timetable to stick to, sit alone. Otherwise if you have tons of time, then sit with others. I should add—this was the A la carte breakfast.

 

We got ready for our tour and met at the Alhambra Theatre. There were a LOT of people there and it was really busy/crowded. I think they should have added additional venues for this to make it less overwhelming to sort out your tours but oh well. In Lisbon and Vigo, due to the position of these places near rivers, they are tidal ports. So we arrived at low tide and they could only put one gangway out on Deck 2, instead of the usual 2 on Deck 1. It was down a corridor with peoples cabins. It was very awkward and it meant we were delayed by a good 30 minutes past our ‘estimated’ starting time. They did say that they would add 30 minutes to our tour though so that was good. We were driven around Lisbon and given quite a good history of the town, although absolutely no stops were made for us to take photos. We eventually arrived at the aquarium (we were doing the Lisbon and Aquarium tour) and that was a really good visit. I have grown up near the National Aquarium in the US and I have never found another one that even remotely came close to its size, variety, and prestige. But this one was definitely the second best I have been to and was almost as good as the Baltimore National Aquarium. It was really really good. It took us a little over an hour to work our way through the whole aquarium. We had 2 hours, so we went up to the temporary Sea Turtle exhibition which was terrible. There was one tiny sea turtle who was asleep and hiding. We then went downstairs to the restaurant and ordered a HUGE meal and paid only €16 for it!! It was VERY affordable and the food was actually very good. The guide suggested we walk about 300m down the road to a mall and eat there but really, the food there was REALLY good. I couldn’t believe how affordable it was. We were really impressed. And if you wanted to eat cheaply you could as well, I think my husbands sandwich cost all of €2 whereas my massive plate of hot food was €6.50! And then we both got drinks and two desserts (why not?!) and still it was only €16 in total!

 

We got back on the bus and earlier they had said they could drop us in town and we could pay €18 (each) for a shuttle bus back to the ship. Considering we’d paid around $50 per person for the entire trip, including entrance to the Aquarium (I think that was €18 per adult!), I was flabbergasted by the price for a one-way shuttle bus trip. Anyway, as we had so little time left in Lisbon, everyone agreed they didn’t want to go. Also – just a warning out there. There were two women who were over 10 minutes late back to the bus. We very nearly left them behind. Seriously – BE TIMELY. It is not only rude to everyone else but if you get left behind, and you don’t speak a word of Portuguese (like me), then you will have one heck of a time getting back to the ship. Our friends at dinner got in one and said ‘port’ and were being taken to the airport before they were able to make it clear where they wanted to go. And even then they found out there was another ship in port, and almost got taken there instead!

 

We were back on board for the last formal night where we were due to have no lobster but instead have giant prawns (this is from the modified Jasmine menu). I had the Royal Seafood Salad to start which was quite good, although the piece of crab leg was smaller than in a photo I’d seen recently shared from an Oasis cruise I think. But everything tasted lovely. My husband had the Double Duck Consummé and said it was nice, I think I have had that in the past and it was good too. We both had the Pan-Fried Giant Prawn (official name). There were two very large fried prawns on our plate, along with – a half lobster tail!!!! And then our waiter, the best waiter EVER, came around with four more half-lobster tails for the four of us at our table who had ordered it. So we all had a whole lobster tail each in the end! YUM YUM YUM!!!!! I was sooooooo pleased and gave our waiter quite a nice tip for that single gesture alone, as he knew how much I was looking forward to having lobster. I believe for dessert most people had the Baked Alaska including myself and my husband, but I also couldn’t pass up the chance to have the Grand Marnier Souffle which was one of the nicest souffle’s I’ve ever had. It was gorgeous!!! YUM! Best meal the whole cruise!

 

Afterwards we went to the production with the Singers and Dancers onboard called ‘Center Stage’. It was a variety production and I have to admit, I really didn’t like it. I had quite a headache and while the music was okay, they kept doing ‘covers’ of songs that really were not very good and were primarily to show off the singers’ vocal talents. Well, I’m sorry but slowing down certain rock songs and things is not commendable and did not display their talents particularly well!! It was a struggle to sit through it all. At one point I thought, why don’t they have the Latin dancers out here while the Latin group performs? Then after that song ended, the ships singers did a ‘latin version’ of a song (with their non-Spanish accents) while the two Latin dancers came out and did their bit (I should clarify, they did Latin-style dancing but they were from South Africa, and were one of the best pairs of dancers I have ever had the good fortune to watch perform!!). Anyway – I really disliked it and almost walked out, but I never have enjoyed Variety shows and my headache didn’t help.

[londongal796]

On the final port morning we tried the MDR one more time for breakfast but asked to be seated by ourselves. This was a much quicker service and I was much more pleased as we were a little later and didn’t have as much time to spend there. We again went to the Alhambra Theatre afterwards for our trip to Vigo and Bayona. It was much quieter in the theatre that morning and so it was easier for everyone to get organised. Again to start with we only had one gangway on deck 2 although another one was opened on deck 4 shortly afterwards. The corridor wasn’t as crowded so we were only delayed by about 20 minutes from our initial tour starting time.

 

We were driven mostly past Vigo although a tiny bit was taken in at one point. We then went onwards to Bayona which is a small seaside village. I have to admit, this wasn’t the best tour we’ve ever been on. I don’t know what is going on with the descriptions they give online but when my husband and I booked it, it sounded AMAZING. But in reality, it was really very boring. I don’t know what happened. We arrived in Bayona and were told we had about an hour and a half of free time. BUT, if we wanted, we could follow our tour guide up to the fortress for some nice views and also nice toilets. It would take about 15-20 minutes, he said.

 

We decided sure, why not. We went up and up and up (it was a gentle slope but ALL uphill) and eventually made it to the first vantage point. It was quite beautiful, you could see the harbour of Bayona. Then we went to the nice toilets and that was also good. This was about 20 minutes in now. Then he suggested we go up further along the hill to another stone structure. We went up there, took more photos, and you could see the ocean from there. It was very nice, the waves crashing on the rocky shores. Then he said, let’s go along this path here. In total we probably walked about a mile and a half along this fortress’ walls, up and down, and by the end EVERYONE was exhausted. A lot of people were complaining as we had all been under the impression this was just a short 20 minute walk when in reality it ended up being just over an hour. But, it was nice that he spent the time with us, as sometimes the guides just disappear for the ‘free time’. So we did get much more tour than we thought and that helped me, personally, justify the price we paid for the tour.

 

We had about 25minutes of ‘free’ time in the town then and we decided to get some gelato to boost our sugar levels. It was pretty good. There is a replica of the ‘Pinta’ ship which is from ‘the Pinta, the Nina, and the Santa Maria’ from Christopher Columbus’s voyage. The Pinta arrived first to Bayona with news of the ‘new world’ and so this is the villages main claim to fame. Apparently you could visit the ‘museum/replica’ for €1 each which isn’t bad but since we only had a few minutes we skipped it. Back on the bus and we went via the motorway to another fort on a high hill so we could overlook the Vigo port. Again up the hill we climbed for a not-so-amazing view, personally at least. It was quite difficult to get up to it as well and I just didn’t think it was worth the effort. We could see the ship from another vantage point but there was a huge multi-story building in the way so it wasn’t that impressive.

 

Back to the bus and straight back to port. We got back on board and I went for some pizza while my husband had a nap (hehe). It was a LOT of walking but I just wasn’t in the mood for a nap. Then we went to the Ice Show performance, Freeze Frame, which was good but not quite as good as the first show. There were slightly different performers which was interesting as I didn’t realise they had more than 12 on their cast. The music was varied which I really enjoyed but the choreography was not as daring as the first performance. It was still really enjoyable.

 

Afterwards we got ready for dinner and I had the Split Pea Soup and the Thai Style Chicken Salad to start – both were okay, but nothing to write home about. Husband had Chilled Golden Delicious Apple Soup which he couldn’t finish as it was very strong, I had a spoonful, it was good and refreshing but a whole bowlful was a bit much! For mains I had the Baked Sea Bass which was okay, nothing special, and husband had the Slow-Roasted Center-Cut Pork Loin. It looked very nice and he said it was good but his potatoes were really tough and not enjoyable. I honestly can not remember what we had for dessert – I’m sorry. It probably wasn’t anything too special.

 

The performance was The Bohemians, the Queen tribute act, which was really really good. Although, as we were warned, it was VERY LOUD. Almost too loud. It was a bit unnecessarily loud. But it was good. The performance was top notch, the only thing was it was a bit loud – seriously really good group though, really great performance, top notch and way way WAY better than the Bee Gees tribute group. We had planned to go to the Rock Britannia party on the Promenade but I was again not feeling great, still had a headache (not helped by loud music of course!) so we went back to the room.

[londongal796]

There had been a Happy Hour Spa offer in the Cruise Compass for the final sea day which was $99 for 4 treatments – back massage, foot massage, scalp massage, and a facial. I was really interested in this as I had been looking all cruise for a good bargain on these and this at least featured 4 treatments I’d want. As I’d never done a massage before though I was quite nervous and wanted to go with my husband as well. They didn’t have any afternoon appointments so we agreed on 10:30am for our appointment.

 

Well, at 8am, our cabin phone rings, waking us up from a very deep sleep. It’s the spa, reminding us about our 8am Happy Hour appointment. My husband, who answered the phone, groggily told them it was for 10:30am. A few minutes later this was rectified but I was a bit irked about this mistake as we already felt we had to ‘wake up early’ on our last day for the morning appointment. And now they’d woken us up even earlier due to a mistake. Fortunately we both got some more sleep and went to our appointment at the correct time. We had to sign quite a lengthy waiver and I began to worry about what kind of massage we would be having!!

 

It was really nice though, my ‘massage therapist’ was named Mia and she was really sweet. She gave a lot of advice which I took with a pinch of salt (although she urged me to ‘stop eating salty foods’ due to water retention). She did give some good advice, and some not so good advice that was directed at sales, but this is her job and I expected it. For those like me who have never experienced a massage before, I’ll give the nitty-gritty so you know what to expect.

 

I was taken into my own treatment room where a massage table was already laid out. I am a big woman so I was worried about it carrying my weight but it was very sturdy despite looking to be made out of Ikea-thickness fake wood. It was good though. She stepped out of the room for a few minutes and said I could take all of my clothes off but I could leave my underwear on if I wanted. I did opt to do this and removed everything else (and by underwear I mean knickers, I did remove my bra, of course, since it was a back massage). My husband left his boxers on as well. You then get onto the table with your chest facing down and pull the sheet over yourself to cover yourself. I have to admit, this was really difficult – the sheet was tucked in along the length of the table and I didn’t realise this, so I was on the table but struggling to get the sheet to cover me. I started to panic, thinking oh no, she’s going to walk in with the door wide open and more than half my naked body out on display, but then I managed to get the sheet to shift and untuck and got under it. Not a moment too soon – there was a knock and she entered. She readjusted the sheet for me thankfully. Another thing to note—for the back massage, since they do your lower back, they moved our waistbands down on our underware to expose about half our butts (I wasn’t with my husband, he told me this later, we were in separate ‘treatment rooms’). But his experience in this respect was the same as mine. I was a little uncomfortable with this since I did not expect it but obviously it was fine overall. I guess they see a lot of bare upper-butt every day and I don’t suppose mine is the worst they’ve ever seen!!!

 

She started with the back massage which was good but she applied a lot of pressure to start and then asked if it was okay. I said no, a bit less please. She then tested a softer pressure and it was fine for me. She worked my back, shoulders, and neck and then did my right arm. But she never did the left – I think she forgot about it!! Then she held up the sheet quite high and with her arms stretched as wide as they go and said for me to slowly roll over onto my back. I did so but I was a little groggy from the first part of the massage. There is no chance she could see me so bare that in mind if you are worried about being seen naked by a stranger. (I definitely was concerned about this but it was totally fine.) She covered me up and then readjusted the sheet so she could work where she needed to. This did involve moving the sheet down quite far on my chest. But as I had some stuff on my face I couldn’t actually see my chest. It’s possible she had more than just cleavage on display but it’s hard to say. Ultimately, I decided, it wasn’t so bad really and I was okay. But I’m sure if you really couldn’t handle that you could ask them to please tuck it in under your arms so that there is no possible boob-slippage!

 

She worked on my face, applying lots of gloop and some warm towels intermittently. Then she did the scalp massage which was a bit weird to be honest, it involved lifting my head a lot which was more effort than it was worth. A better positioned towel may have been better as I used a lot of neck muscles helping to hold my head up while she did different things. Then she did a bit more on my face and then she did my foot massage. For me, she went halfway up my legs, almost to my knees, whereas my husband said his person did his feet only. Also, when she did my scalp massage, she also massaged the top of my chest, my front shoulders and neck. He said he didn’t have that at all either. We definitely had two very different massage therapists and his did some kind of ‘ting’ with bells at the end to signal it was over. Anyway, the foot massage was pretty good, although I would have preferred a bit more time spent on my feet than on my legs, but it was really nice overall. She then helped lift the table up so I was sitting up (my husband didn’t have this, I think because it was ‘okay’ for his chest to be exposed so he could just sit up, whereas for us ladies most would prefer to keep themselves covered and it is easier to do this from a raised seating position). She then said she would get me water, did I want it with mint, lemon, or just regular. I clearly said regular. She came back and gave me the water with lemon (which I absolutely hate the taste of, oh well) and she said I needed it as a diuretic (although trust me, I’d been peeing quite enough for the cruise!!). She then gave me some suggestions – she said I should brush my skin every morning as the skin is the largest organ on the human body and brushing it will help improve circulation and help it ‘breathe’. I definitely considered this one. The next was an anti-cellulite massage oil. Okay, I have already said, I’m a big woman. That isn’t cellulite—it’s fat. I can’t ‘massage’ away my fat with oil. So that was a big no. And the final one made me laugh. So I am super low maintenance, I never wear make up, and because of that, I generally don’t need to cleanse my face regularly (as most people need to remove the make up etc). I probably could do with a facial moisturiser but I’m just no bothered. Well, she said, I have beautiful skin, it’s really great – but I should do more or else I will lose it. So she recommended a 2-in-1 facial cleanser that cleans and moisturises together. She left me with the prices and said she’d be back with my bill. I sipped my lemon water and discovered the body brush was $44, the anti-cellulite oil was $63.50 and the face wash was I think $23. I have since checked on ebay, body brushes sell for about $5! And there was no chance I was buying the oil and I almost bought the face wash but decided to tip her instead. When she asked why I wasn’t buying anything I just said it was too expensive. Anyway – I gave her a tip instead and I hope she appreciated that. They do charge you an 18% tip automatically which was not mentioned at any stage, not in the advertisement or when we phoned up to book our session, nor on the ‘waiver’ you fill out – so I guess that is worth noting. I gave an extra $10 on top of that so she probably hit about 25% tip or so. I think she earned it with how much she did for just the $99. It took just about 1 hour in total.

 

I will confess something though – I now have a spectacular bruise along the top of my right shoulder along the back, where she pushed so hard to start with before asking if the pressure was okay. It was apparently NOT okay. I do bruise easily and often have bruises that I have no idea where they came from, but my muscle was very very sore there and I had trouble sleeping that night. It’s better now but it’s still quite stiff. Definitely the opposite of what I would expect.

 

So I’ll go ahead and rate the spa in two ways:

At the time of my session, I’d rate the spa as a 9/10 – I was SO relaxed I was practically comatose and really really comfortable.

After the session, when I discovered that my body was absolutely soaked in some kind of oil that I still haven’t managed to get off after 2 showers, my hair was greasy and oily, my shoulder was aching etc – probably a 7/10.

Would I do it again? Possibly not. I really enjoyed the attention, the care, etc – but the lingering feeling of being relaxed lasted maybe 30 minutes tops. And I really expected to feel relaxed for a number of days, not minutes, after something like that. Oh well!

 

Afterwards we went down to the MDR for lunch to see what the lunch menu was. It looked decent so we decided to have lunch there. We both had a Tutti Salad, mmmmm soooo good!! So much protein to be had! Much more than in the Windjammer. And then I had the Zucchini Fussili and he had the Chicken Sliders. My pasta was pretty good but could have done with some protein in it so I grabbed some chicken from the Tutti Salad bar and added that to it. His chicken sliders were made with a sort of chicken salad and we had both expected it to be just a chicken breast or fried chicken breast, not chicken salad that had been fried. So he didn’t really eat his ‘main’ at all although of course we’d both had big salads to start. We had the desserts, I had a hazelnut praline thing with rice krispies in it, it was pretty good, and he had the banana mille-feuille which was really just a layer of pastry at the bottom with some banana filling, a thin layer of cake, some more banana filling and then some caramelised banana on top. I absolutely LOVE banana cream pie and if you skipped the caramelised banana on top, it tasted EXACTLY like it. So I ended up having most of his dessert as well as mine! Oops!

 

We went on deck to play the miniature golf (or crazy golf as some call it). It was pretty busy but we got two clubs and were able to start immediately. There was a group of four ahead of us, 2 boys and 2 men, and they of course took a bit longer than a group of 2 adults as we were. So we caught up to them within a few holes. We had absolutely no problems waiting and of course we did wait for them, but the couple behind us, a man and woman probably in their 50s, seemed to need to live their lives RIGHT NOW because they kept playing while we were still ‘on the green’. We’d have to jump out of the way as a ball came around towards our feet. I’m sorry, but it’s a 9 hole course, you aren’t paying for it, there is NOTHING ELSE to do all day, and you can’t wait 30 seconds for some kids to finish their round so the people in front of you can move on to the next hole?!

 

I have to admit, I let it get to me, and I was really irked by their impatience. It just was so rude, and I was fed up with rude people. For our last hole, my husband deliberately did not get his ball in and kept putting it back and forth, back and forth. The couple started counting out loud. ‘11. 12. 13!! What’s the point?!’ The point is – you are impatient and rude and you need to learn the rules of miniature golf – there is basically only one, and that is, you do not play through until the party in front of you has moved on!!! The way the course is set up, you literally can only move on to the next green, there is no where to wait in between holes, so yeah – anyway… I shouldn’t have let it get to me, but I did, yet my husband certainly made me laugh about it in the end. If you happen to be that couple – shame on you!!

 

We went back to our room and had a nap which was really nice. Then we got up in time to get ready for dinner for the last time. I had the scallops and chorizo to start, as did my husband, and I also tried the Spanish Tapas which was two pieces of meat (a slice of prosciutto I believe and a salami-type meat), a piece of cheese, and an egg fritter type thing. Both were good but the scallops were perfection. For mains I had the seafood trio thing, it was fried fish, fried shrimp and I believe fried scallops as well. Served with a mash. Our waiter brought around some extra fried shrimp as well which was a really nice touch. My husband had the lamb shank which absolutely fell off the bone, it was super tender and delicious. I had a few bites and it was really good.

 

For dessert we both had the warm apple strudel. It was the ‘low fat’ version and frankly, you could tell – not enough sugar or something. But it was pretty good. Neither of us finished it and it was a small portion, but it just wasn’t sweet enough.

 

So first of all, I will rate the overall MDR:

8/10

 

I am giving it a very high rating because the food was absolutely amazing. Even when the menu looked a bit unappealing, the food was just amazing. Everything we ate (except the chicken sliders I think) was actually really really good. I know this is subjective but we seriously eat out way more than is healthy for us, and we eat a wide variety of food types. And this was seriously good food. I grew up in a family with quite a few restaurateurs and I’ve had more than my fair share of fine dining and this was VERY GOOD. Breakfast was pretty good, the two lunches we had were good (again, excluding the sliders), and almost everything I ate for dinner was just so good. There were a few hiccups, one night my husbands potatoes weren’t cooked and a lot of nights the accompanying veg was barely cooked. I had some nearly raw potatoes one night etc. But I’d still say it was at least an 80% success rate.

 

The servers themselves – I don’t know, our waiter tried, he REALLY tried. He did some amazing stuff, like bringing extras of the seafood out to us, and he was really sweet. But he still made quite a few mistakes, and considering he wrote everything down, it was a bit amazing how he could muddle things up. I don’t know if he had another table around the corner from us or not, we think he may have, but if he did, that was it – 2 tables, a set menu, it shouldn’t be too hard not to make mistakes. But he was always willing to go above and beyond and anything I did ask for, almost every time it was done. The water was kept topped up which was quite good for me, so I was really pleased with our assistant waiter as well. He always asked if people wanted more bread – which, after the third time of you telling him NO (on the same evening), did feel a bit annoying, but I realise he was trying. I think the natural ease of being a waiter or assistant waiter still had not come to them yet, even though our waiter had been working for RCCL as a waiter for apparently 10 years. Still – he had such a good heart, and he really tried, so really he did a good job overall.

 

I will say one thing – every day you pay a set amount of gratuities. This covers your stateroom attendant, your waiter, your assistant waiter, and also the ‘head waiter’. The head waiter, on past cruises, has come around, introduced himself, and turned up at least a few times during the meals, making his way around the room. Our head waiter on this cruise did no such thing. He never made the rounds, ever, and although we were not there every night, we confirmed with the other people we sat with – he NEVER made the rounds. Even the nights we weren’t there. On the second night, which was our first evening in the MDR, there was a woman ahead of us who approached the head waiter and asked for help in finding her table. His response was ‘it’s in the same place as last night’. She, not deterred, replied, ‘I can’t remember where that was.’ (She was an older woman.) He actually responded ‘well it’s in the same place’ and pointed for her to go through to the dining room!!!

 

I was really appalled that he would not help her, but I also was not deterred since we had not been in the night before so I knew we needed advice on where to go. I told him we didn’t know where our table was. He said, ‘the same as last night’. I countered with, ‘we ate in the Windjammer last night. We haven’t been here before.’ He finally looked at my Sea Pass card, read my table number, and said, ‘To the right.’

 

Well – half the bloody dining room is ‘to the right’ you useless git!!! We found our own way to our table but I was really seething.

 

Ultimately though – this guy has gotten his tips from us because when I asked to have them removed, they said they can’t remove it for a single person. You would have to instead cancel all gratuities and then give, in cash, the correct portion to each of the other people that you want to tip. Well, frankly, I didn’t have that kind of cash on hand, and to do so, I would have spent as much in currency conversions and foreign bank cash withdrawals etc to do it – and even then I wouldn’t have had the right change. Instead I was given the advice to note it on the survey and I am also going to write to them about it. This man made $.75/day from every person that was in the dining room (or at least on our floor I should say of the dining room). Every day. Twice a day, for each seating. And he was rude and did nothing. I appreciate people may say, oh, he was directing other waiters to where they needed to go, etc, but really, I doubt that sincerely. I think this guy just does nothing and gets paid an awful lot to do so. So rubbish to him!! Deck 4, Macbeth Dining Room on Independence of the Seas – bad bad man!

 

I will go ahead and rate the Windjammer now:

Windjammer 6/10

Food was always edible but the variety was surprisingly small considering how large of a ship it is and how big the area is. The sushi, the only saving grace in an evening meal, was nice, but the rice was slightly undercooked and did not stick together. I know I’m being quite technical here but if you aren’t going to do a lot of variety, you need to do everything right. I had been reading a lot of people saying how disappointed they were with the Windjammer’s selection and I genuinely thought – wow, what picky eaters. But seriously – they had mashed potatoes and gravy at three different stations EVERY DAY. Every day! Lunch and dinner! I They usually had one pasta and one pasta sauce every day, whereas in the past I’m used to having two or three different pastas and at least two different sauces. Sometimes even a baked pasta dish. There was rarely a ‘custom made’ anything, whether eggs, omelettes, pastas, or anything else. I think the most variety came from the Jade area where they really did have different curry’s and asian-style dishes each day. But other than that, it was just the same stuff every day. And not enough variety. I normally ‘live’ at the Windjammer for my other meals except dinner, but this trip we deliberately avoided it by the end as it was so bland and boring. We hated breakfast, we hated lunch, and we really did not want to end up having dinner there either!

 

Our stateroom attendant did his job but, I have to admit, ‘as usual’, the bare minimum. On about day 11 of the cruise we came back to our room and the bathroom absolutely reeked of cleaning products. The problem there is that – it had NEVER smelled like cleaning products before. So he’d never actually ‘cleaned’ the bathroom before, just tidied it, changed the towels, etc. I don’t expect him to be scrubbing toilets on a twice daily basis, but a couple of times during the week, especially considering the ‘threat’ of food illnesses (one of which can come from toilets), I would sort of expect them to be sanitising that a few times during the week. He did fold absolutely every piece of clothing that I left out so I started to get a bit paranoid and folded things before I put them down so he wouldn’t feel obligated to fold them as well. I do realise that for a room our size, he normally would be getting 5-6 tips for the size of room. But as we were only 2, he would also be doing a lot less work in ‘cleaning’ it. For the first week of the cruise, every day we came back to the room to find someone else’s stuff uncovered – a penny here, a hair tie there, a kids toy another day. The fact that there was so much stuff left in the room from a previous cruise and only being discovered day by day was a bit – hmmm, well, yeah. It just was a bit icky but not that icky. It happens. But with all of that in mind, I would rate our stateroom attendant as an 7/10 – he did what he needed to, but nothing more. Not a wow experience, just an experience.

I should add – he did the towel animals every 2-3 days, but most of them were unrecognisable. He would mix one anima’ls face with another’s body, so we had like a rabbit head with a dog body, or a frog head with an elephant body. It was hilarious. We would take turns guessing what it was ‘supposed’ to be. One time we decided on a hippo which is certainly not in the normal repertoire of towel animals. Maybe he is starting a new trend of hybrid towel animals? Or maybe he is just avant-garde – an abstract towel animal artist? Or maybe he was just a bit rubbish at making them? The world may never know!

 

To close out our final day at sea – we went to the show which was the Farewell Production show. They played the Cruise in Review which surprisingly was missing a lot of footage, in my opinion, as I was near cameras quite a few times but none of those scenes were featured. Weird!! I deliberately did not GO on camera, so I’m sure it’s not my personage that deflected the video from being featured. Anyway – it was about 10 minutes in length? Not very long. Joff had a really funny bit that he did, I won’t spoil it though. And then there was an artist who came on and they’d called it a ‘variety show’, which normally means a variety of different performers. Instead it was this one performer who we’d never seen before on the cruise who had a variety of different dance-styles that she performed. It was endless. 40 minutes later we walked out. I’d had enough. It was rubbish. I’m sorry but it was. She did some regular ballet-style dancing. Then she got marionettes and a looooong skirt to add to her dress. And she did that for a bit. And she had this weird full-body black sheath thing she put on that covered her from head to toe, and she could stretch out and it would make weird ‘ghostly’ shapes. She did that for a bit. Oh, she used hula hoops for a while. She then had a ribbon and twirled that around. And then she had a ball that she used. It was amazing how many things she did! She finally got to the bit that they’d advertised on the screens outside the Theatre, where she used two curtains attached to the ceiling to do some aerial work, but even that was just moving into different positions, then repositioning, holding for applause, and repositioning again. I have seen other aerial performers who actually danced, glided through the air, etc. This was just posing and more posing. So we left. Oh well. Ended the evening on a low if I’m honest but we were tired and needed to get some decent sleep for our early start the next day so we just went to bed.

 

We changed the clocks back that morning so we got an extra hour of sleep. But I slept poorly, partly because of the pain in my shoulder and partly because I was anxious about going home. We had breakfast in the Windjammer, just grabbed a plate each and then grabbed our bags and headed to our disembarkation venue, the MDR. We arrived spot on 7:30am and were told our number had already been called so we headed out and left very easily. There was no proper customers / immigration, I guess if they have concerns they approach people beforehand or something. They seriously did not check our passports or anything. No bag checks either. There were a couple of people stood about but they didn’t look interested in anyone. It was very easy. We went outside and walked to the taxi rank, poorly labelled, basically you go to the queue of white taxis and just go to the front one. 5 minutes later we were at the train station, we went through to our train and had no real problems from there. The best reward was going to the cattery and picking up our 4 cats – a very sweet homecoming indeed!

 

It’s been a real pleasure writing this up, I realise it probably is more like a diary than a review, but I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

 

I will also be adding photos from the ports (though not from the ship as I’ve seen plenty of them posted before), some detailed photos of our room in case people are interested, and I will also be scanning in all of the Daily Compasses from all 14 days of our cruise. Please remember that this is a LOT of scanning so it will take a while. And I have like, 700+ photos to review as well. So I’m not sure when they will be posted, but they will eventually. I realise for the people who were cruising immediately after ours that it will be too late but I hope to get it done before the end of the next 14 night cruise. I am working 6 days this week and then 5 the next so I won’t have a lot of time but we’ll see. I am also off on holiday in less than 3 weeks’ time so I have a lot to do before then!! (I know, I’ve just been on holiday and I get to go on another – I am very very lucky!) Anyway – thank you everyone for reading and I hope this has been of use to those starting off the Med season out of Southampton on Independence of the Seas!

[londongal796]

A couple people asked about Wifi off the ship -- I am so sorry but as we had cheap roaming costs (£2/day for each day in port with access to unlimited text, calls and internet) we never even tried to find free Wifi. I did occasionally see signs for free Wifi so I'm sure you will manage, and pretty much every port had a Starbucks or a McDonalds (or both) so I think you will be able to find some there. Sorry about that.

 

A little question have they been charging for the shuttle buses ? If so do you know how much on average. Chocolate for breakfast - sounds awful but hey I've got to give it a go ha who doesn't like chocolate sound like a great way to start the day - I just pity the parents of the little ones who get a sugar high ha ha !

 

The shuttle buses around the ports (like from the ship to the start of a port) were always free. But other than that, most shuttle buses seemed to be priced quite high if they were done direct from the ship, something like €18 per person. However, local bus services did also seem to offer the same type of service from the start of the port and these were usually no more than €2 per person each way, so I think you could find much cheaper transportation options outside of RCCL. But I didn't get any real specifics except for in Civitavecchia (Rome) when we used the €.80 (per person each way) shuttle bus from the port drop off (where the free shuttle drops you) to the Civitavecchia train station. Better than a 1 mile walk any day.

 

Great Posts! As I have booked the Ultimate package because, among other things, of the inclusion of specialty coffees, and because of a refurbishment of the Indy las year, I have a question: which brand of specialty coffees does the Promenade Cafe serve? Still Seattle's? Or Starbucks?

 

I have to be honest, neither my husband nor I drink any type of coffee so we never paid any attention to the type being served. I do remember what the Seattle's Best logos looked like when we were on our last cruise as my dad was with us and he drank from it ALL THE TIME. What I don't remember is seeing the same logos in the Cafe Promenade for Seattle's Best, so I have a gut feeling that it was different on this ship. I heard a lot of people comment that the coffee was not particularly good, whereas on our last cruise most people said the coffee was fantastic (when it was Seattle's Best). Definitely NOT Starbucks though, there was no Starbucks on this ship. So apologies for not answering your question completely. I will add -- the Cafe Promenade's speciality stuff looked quite popular and people lined up to pay for it, so I guess what they served behind the counter was much better than the stuff they had out 'for free' to the masses.

[Scooter girl 58]

Hi Londongal,

 

I just wanted to thank you for the very detailed review inn the Italian Med cruise.

I was very interested in it as I would have been on the same cruise but due to a very tragic family bereavement I had to cancel. I have managed to book the same cruise leaving Southampton on the 12th July. I was glad to hear the food in the MDR was good, I don't use the buffet much as I have mobility problems and much prefer to be waited on. The entertainment sounded good too, you can't please all the people all the time, I hope Mike Doyle is on our cruise too as we saw him last year on the celebrity eclipse and he was excellent. I am now looking forward to my cruise in just over a weeks time, I have not cruised with royal caribbean before, but I,m sure my friend and I will have a great time, as we always do on ours girl's holiday [we leave the men at home] Thanks again for all the information.

[dleafy]

Thanks for posting your very detailed review.

We were on the same cruise and I have to say that our experience was very, very different to yours.

 

We absolutely loved everything from start to finish.

We ate breakfast most mornings in the room.

Yes the ordering took a day or two to realise what you would get when you ticked the box, but we sorted it quickly.

All of our lunches were in the windjammer (except when in Rome/Pisa etc) and all of our evening meals were in the main dining room.

I too had the undercooked broccoli, but sent it back to be changed. Other than that we found the food to be excellent.

We found all the staff to be really on the ball and very helpful.

The entertainment was excellent apart from the improv lot (they won't be back!)

 

We went on no organised tours and spent a fraction of the cost as a result.

We found free wifi in every port without problem.

 

All in all we loved it. It was our third cruise (2nd time on Indy) and we will probably try Anthem in a year or two.

 

Once again, thanks for posting. :)

 

Cheers

 

Davy !!!

[beryl patricia]

Thanks for all your info and replying to my queries. I was very interested in your views of the spa treatment - I have had back problems and been to a physio recently and was thinking of going to the spa for a back massage but it sounds like it might do more harm than good so thank you.

 

Glad you're home safely and enjoy your next holiday.

[Plymouthmerlin67]

Hi Londongal.

 

We were also on the same cruise as you, but I cannot write anything as detailed as this, which is very good.

 

You say about the transfers from the centre of Lisbon back to the ship were $18. We paid $19 for BOTH WAYS.

 

I may have missed it in your very extensive review, but could not see any mention of the 2nd performance of the show "under the big top" which had to be stopped for safety half way through, and then shown again the next day after the Captains Q&A session.

 

The Whirlpools, we spent a lot of time in them and loved them, so would be very surprised if we did not bump into you.

 

Just one other thing, for Joff Eaton. "CRIKEY"

[Plymouthmerlin67]

"Crikey", just seen your bit about the big top, and totally agree.

 

Earlier you mentioned the about 50 people walked out of the comedy troupe after about ten minutes. Two of them were us.

[Bril]

A couple people asked about Wifi off the ship -- I am so sorry but as we had cheap roaming costs (£2/day for each day in port with access to unlimited text, calls and internet) we never even tried to find free Wifi. I did occasionally see signs for free Wifi so I'm sure you will manage, and pretty much every port had a Starbucks or a McDonalds (or both) so I think you will be able to find some there. Sorry about that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The shuttle buses around the ports (like from the ship to the start of a port) were always free. But other than that, most shuttle buses seemed to be priced quite high if they were done direct from the ship, something like €18 per person. However, local bus services did also seem to offer the same type of service from the start of the port and these were usually no more than €2 per person each way, so I think you could find much cheaper transportation options outside of RCCL. But I didn't get any real specifics except for in Civitavecchia (Rome) when we used the €.80 (per person each way) shuttle bus from the port drop off (where the free shuttle drops you) to the Civitavecchia train station. Better than a 1 mile walk any day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have to be honest, neither my husband nor I drink any type of coffee so we never paid any attention to the type being served. I do remember what the Seattle's Best logos looked like when we were on our last cruise as my dad was with us and he drank from it ALL THE TIME. What I don't remember is seeing the same logos in the Cafe Promenade for Seattle's Best, so I have a gut feeling that it was different on this ship. I heard a lot of people comment that the coffee was not particularly good, whereas on our last cruise most people said the coffee was fantastic (when it was Seattle's Best). Definitely NOT Starbucks though, there was no Starbucks on this ship. So apologies for not answering your question completely. I will add -- the Cafe Promenade's speciality stuff looked quite popular and people lined up to pay for it, so I guess what they served behind the counter was much better than the stuff they had out 'for free' to the masses.

 

 

Thank you for this answer and the great reviews!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[londongal796]

Thanks for posting your very detailed review.

We were on the same cruise and I have to say that our experience was very, very different to yours.

 

We absolutely loved everything from start to finish.

We ate breakfast most mornings in the room.

Yes the ordering took a day or two to realise what you would get when you ticked the box, but we sorted it quickly.

All of our lunches were in the windjammer (except when in Rome/Pisa etc) and all of our evening meals were in the main dining room.

I too had the undercooked broccoli, but sent it back to be changed. Other than that we found the food to be excellent.

We found all the staff to be really on the ball and very helpful.

The entertainment was excellent apart from the improv lot (they won't be back!)

 

We went on no organised tours and spent a fraction of the cost as a result.

We found free wifi in every port without problem.

 

All in all we loved it. It was our third cruise (2nd time on Indy) and we will probably try Anthem in a year or two.

 

Once again, thanks for posting. :)

 

Cheers

 

Davy !!!

 

I will say that I really enjoyed my cruise overall. I've given some ratings which may seem 'low' but are being judged based on previous experiences which have been to a much higher standard (in particular the Windjammer and MDR services). Of course the food was perfectly edible, very delicious, plentiful, etc. I probably could have sent my broccoli back to be cooked, I didn't even think to ask, but everyone at the table agreed it was underdone so it wasn't just my opinion, and considering our age range I feel that it was most definitely not cooked enough.

 

We did a mixture of private tours and 'free' excursions on our own. It was a nice blended experience but I will admit that I am pretty rubbish at doing my own exploring so sometimes I prefer having someone 'in charge' who can tell me what I'm looking at and why. But then they have gotten more and more expensive for not very much interaction -- again, these opinions are based on previous experiences. I'm glad you were able to do your own thing everywhere, we did do that sometimes as well which I've commented on.

 

Thanks for all your info and replying to my queries. I was very interested in your views of the spa treatment - I have had back problems and been to a physio recently and was thinking of going to the spa for a back massage but it sounds like it might do more harm than good so thank you.

 

Glad you're home safely and enjoy your next holiday.

 

I don't know if it was just me or what, I'm just giving my own experience here. I imagine if you tell someone that you have back problems and for them not to put too much pressure on you then it could be a very good session. I have never had a massage before so I didn't know that I may need to say something like, please start with light pressure and work your way up. It was only my shoulder that was really painful and I am happy to report seems to be fine now!

 

Hi Londongal.

 

We were also on the same cruise as you, but I cannot write anything as detailed as this, which is very good.

 

You say about the transfers from the centre of Lisbon back to the ship were $18. We paid $19 for BOTH WAYS.

 

I may have missed it in your very extensive review, but could not see any mention of the 2nd performance of the show "under the big top" which had to be stopped for safety half way through, and then shown again the next day after the Captains Q&A session.

 

The Whirlpools, we spent a lot of time in them and loved them, so would be very surprised if we did not bump into you.

 

Just one other thing, for Joff Eaton. "CRIKEY"

 

Oooh okay, I can't always remember everything so I guess the Lisbon was $19 per person each way, and that's why they wanted to charge us another $19 to get back to the ship when we'd already paid for our excursion which included a ride back! It did seem VERY expensive when it was only about a 10 minutes drive to the city centre!!

 

Had very nearly forgotten about CRIKEY -- I started saying it loads on the ship but fortunately that trend has stopped now that I'm back at work!

 

 

I appreciate all of the positive comments from everyone, I realise this was a super detailed review and I still have more info to come. It is also obviously a bit personalised and everyone has different experiences. I have been cruising with RCCL since 2007 and the standards have changed dramatically during that time. But I still really enjoy things, and by reading this forum I was able to learn more about things and manage my expectations. I think the only thing that I still haven't been able to grasp as well is the deterioration of MDR staff, which I realise I loved my waiter and he was sooo nice and really great, but I have had waiters on previous cruises who were 10x better than him -- and that is quite a decline! I guess maybe my first few cruises I was really really lucky? But the past three cruises it has not been very wow-worthy, just an enjoyable time.

 

As I mentioned at the very start of this review, we are buying a new house, so we don't have any proper plans for our next cruise as money is a bit too tight. I did take advantage of my American citizenship and booked our 'next' cruise for a $100 deposit (just myself on the reservation). It's a tentative one though, an October 2015 transatlantic. But we are hopeful for either one in 2015 or at the latest 2016, and then continue to be fairly regular after that! :) And we will be cruising as Platinum members next time!!!! :D

[Plymouthmerlin67]

Hi Londongal.

 

We are the other way round. We have just sold our house, so have some money burning a hole in our pockets. We are going to honour a promise next year. When our granddaughters were born I had a private grandad/granddaughter chat, and promised to one day take them to see a certain mouse in Florida. We are seriously looking at adding a cruise on the end of the holiday in Florida, and looking at, possibly, freedom of the seas.

[54cruzin]

We're Booked for January in room 8200. We were in 8500 this January on the Freedom. There are five of us. The two little ones in the bunks. Oldest on the pull out. And we get the Master. Great great rooms. Keep us posted.

[poodog]

Good review thanks