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

[Sarah1974]

So my question to folks that cruised recently, is this at the discretion of the cruise director or this a fleet wide move to slowly move to the 80’s? I have seen on YouTube when the Indy is in Europe for the summer, they call this dance the British invasion or something. So just wondering if it was Indy that moved this to be more 80’s?

 

 

 

I sailed on Indy in June last year and they still have a 70s dance party (including YMCA) and also on a separate night a "Rock Britainnia" thing on the Royal Promenade - this features songs from around the British Isles - including the Spice Girls, the Proclaimers and Tom Jones

[Clarea]

... I sailed on Indy in June last year and they still have a 70s dance party (including YMCA) and also on a separate night a "Rock Britainnia" thing on the Royal Promenade - this features songs from around the British Isles - including the Spice Girls, the Proclaimers and Tom Jones

Did you have Graham Seymour as the Cruise Director for that cruise?

[griffy116]

Love your review and the photos of the street parties. We were fortunate enough to go on two cruises last year. One on Celebrity and one on Royal. I always complain when my daughters drag me to the street parties because of the CROWD, but I have to say that on the Celebrity cruise, I missed these parties. I even threw myself into the awkward Y-M-C-A arm movements. I'm sure there are some pretty shady people that have me on video and are home now laughing at my attempts to follow along, but it was great fun.

[dreadpirate3]

Harry, I hope you saw the lunar eclipse.

 

 

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[Canadian1]

Thanks for the walk down the 70/80's musical memory lane, I wounder if the missing YMCA Indian is another RCL cut back or if he was sick.

Usually they are pretty buff.... maybe there was a lack of a buff guy? [emoji6]

[Disney Sheep]

Harry, Many thanks for sharing your itinerary for your Utah trip. I had been looking at the Adventures by Disney (ABD) Southwest Splendors itinerary as a starting point to figure out a possible trip itinerary for us. The ABD trip starts in Phoenix, heads to Sedona via Montezuma's Castle, heads for Grand Canyon National Park (south rim) via Williams (and Route 66 for a Cars tie in), then heads to Monument Valley and then on to Moab. Airfare to Phoenix was outrageous when my DH checked, not that heading to FLL is much better at this point, but at least the cruise part should hopefully be entertaining and relaxing vice 'all that driving' from my DH's perspective. Starting in Vegas with your style of itinerary might have convinced him to at least seriously consider it.

 

Again, many thanks. I look forward to future 'rock' photos, both from your past trip and any that show up in future trip reports of yours

[micmacmissy]

Although I am enjoying your cruise report, I have to comment as well that I would love to know your itinerary for your Grand Canyon/Utah trip! We were briefly considering a Grand Canyon trip for end Feb (University reading week for our kids), but it was tough to just do a land trip without all kinds of planning - so we defaulted to cruising, on the IOS - so here I am taking notes on the ship, but I have to admit that a Grand Canyon trip is also on my someday list ��. Thanks for the great trip report(s).

 

If you're going all the way to Utah, do NOT miss Zion! We did:

 

Day 1: Fly into Vegas, overnight

Day 2: Drive to Zion National Park

Day 3 and 4: Zion

Day 5: Drive to Bryce National Park

Day 6: Bryce to Antelope Canyon (quick stop) on to Grand Canyon

Day 7: Grand Canyon

Day 8: Drive to Hoover Dam, Glen Canyon dam, back to Vegas

 

In my opinion Zion was the best stop of all!

[micmacmissy]

Airfare to Phoenix was outrageous when my DH checked, not that heading to FLL is much better at this point, but at least the cruise part should hopefully be entertaining and relaxing vice 'all that driving' from my DH's perspective. Starting in Vegas with your style of itinerary might have convinced him to at least seriously consider it. �

 

Flights to Vegas are usually cheaper- and the hotels there are pretty cheap too - buyer's market! We stayed at the Venetian which was gorgeous and a great luxury for about $175/nt.

 

Check out the trip advisor travel forums- go the one for United States, then it breaks down by state and you'll find the Utah forum. The people on that board are SO helpful and there are tons of itineraries and lots of advice. Have a great trip!

 

*****Sorry for the hijack, Harry! Still enjoying your report!*******

[Canadian1]

Harry! Saw this just now and thought of you! If you're on Twitter I think you need to find out who Mike C. is and follow him....

 

I know different song but along the same line.

Edited February 1, 2018 by Canadian1

[BnWhited]

Harry! Saw this just now and thought of you! If you're on Twitter I think you need to find out who Mike C. is and follow him....

 

I know different song but along the same line.

 

 

 

I wish CC had a thumbs up button [emoji1360]

 

 

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[harryfat1]

Thanks for the walk down the 70/80's musical memory lane, I wounder if the missing YMCA Indian is another RCL cut back or if he was sick.

 

Usually they are pretty buff.... maybe there was a lack of a buff guy? [emoji6]

 

I guess my question is whether or not RCI is migrating toward the 70’s and 80’s street party fleet wide or was our sailing of combining the 70’s and 80’s a standalone oddball thing not seen on other ships?

 

There isn't much need for have a full squadron of Village People if you only had them do 1 song like they did for us as they moved onto the 80's era pretty quick.

 

For anyone that sailed in 2017, did your cruise have the 70’s only party or was it both 70’s & 80’s?

 

If you have both eras, you are not making the street party twice as long. You are giving up some of the iconic songs from the 70’s, like “In the Navy” and all the Earth Wind Fire Songs as well as others. Instead you get Michael Jackson and Cindy Lauper.

 

Is the trade off worth it? That’s a personal preference thing but just curious to know if this is more of a fleet wide push to include 2 eras or was it just our CD discretion to include both.

[harryfat1]

So my question to folks that cruised recently, is this at the discretion of the cruise director or this a fleet wide move to slowly move to the 80’s? I have seen on YouTube when the Indy is in Europe for the summer, they call this dance the British invasion or something. So just wondering if it was Indy that moved this to be more 80’s?

 

I sailed on Indy in June last year and they still have a 70s dance party (including YMCA) and also on a separate night a "Rock Britainnia" thing on the Royal Promenade - this features songs from around the British Isles - including the Spice Girls, the Proclaimers and Tom Jones

 

Oh, it is very nice to have two street parties. We only had one for the 9 day cruise.

 

Did you folks have a parade when the ship was in UK? We didn’t have any.

 

I know Indy doesn’t have Dreamworks, so there would be no character parade but I thought I read other trip reports for Indy that mentioned they had a simple old school style parade without the characters? I was hoping they would have one similar to the Freedom but they never did.

[Canadian1]

I guess my question is whether or not RCI is migrating toward the 70’s and 80’s street party fleet wide or was our sailing of combining the 70’s and 80’s a standalone oddball thing not seen on other ships?

 

There isn't much need for have a full squadron of Village People if you only had them do 1 song like they did for us as they moved onto the 80's era pretty quick.

 

For anyone that sailed in 2017, did your cruise have the 70’s only party or was it both 70’s & 80’s?

 

If you have both eras, you are not making the street party twice as long. You are giving up some of the iconic songs from the 70’s, like “In the Navy” and all the Earth Wind Fire Songs as well as others. Instead you get Michael Jackson and Cindy Lauper.

 

Is the trade off worth it? That’s a personal preference thing but just curious to know if this is more of a fleet wide push to include 2 eras or was it just our CD discretion to include both.

My September cruise on the Jewel was all 70's, as far as I remember. The January one on FOS was all 70"s too. Both were 2017.

[harryfat1]

Love your review and the photos of the street parties. We were fortunate enough to go on two cruises last year. One on Celebrity and one on Royal. I always complain when my daughters drag me to the street parties because of the CROWD, but I have to say that on the Celebrity cruise, I missed these parties. I even threw myself into the awkward Y-M-C-A arm movements. I'm sure there are some pretty shady people that have me on video and are home now laughing at my attempts to follow along, but it was great fun.

 

Thanks for the kind words.

 

I think that is the hidden beauty of the 70’s party on the royal promenade. They have it at an open area where people of all ages (the nieces were under 10 and they were dancing /asking for glow rings) can participate.

 

Whereas if they held this at the ship’s disco/dance club, most likely a lot of the people wouldn’t attend as that’s not their typical night time hangout spot.

 

YMCA is the best party song in that you can get EVERYBODY to participate and they only need to sing 4 letters and make 4 basic body motions and they feel like they are “dancing” along with the rest of the ship.

[harryfat1]

Harry, I hope you saw the lunar eclipse.

 

 

Sent from my SM-G950U using Forums mobile app

 

Very nice picture – thanks for sharing.

 

Nah, it was too early to wake up for me as it was 5 AM to watch it here. My coworker woke up early and took a picture from his cell phone to show people at work today and it looked pretty reddish/yellow. I will just admire your photo and his and others online while I slept in.

[harryfat1]

Harry, Many thanks for sharing your itinerary for your Utah trip. I had been looking at the Adventures by Disney (ABD) Southwest Splendors itinerary as a starting point to figure out a possible trip itinerary for us. The ABD trip starts in Phoenix, heads to Sedona via Montezuma's Castle, heads for Grand Canyon National Park (south rim) via Williams (and Route 66 for a Cars tie in), then heads to Monument Valley and then on to Moab. Airfare to Phoenix was outrageous when my DH checked, not that heading to FLL is much better at this point, but at least the cruise part should hopefully be entertaining and relaxing vice 'all that driving' from my DH's perspective. Starting in Vegas with your style of itinerary might have convinced him to at least seriously consider it.

 

Again, many thanks. I look forward to future 'rock' photos, both from your past trip and any that show up in future trip reports of yours ��

 

 

Glad to help. Actually in my earlier version of the draft itinerary, we were going to visit Grand Canyon as well but that was scrubbed when we substituted Antelope Canyon (that I showed couple weeks ago). That’s because we had already seen Grand Canyon many years ago so it was easy for us to swap out.

 

That's the good thing about these road trips; they are extremely flexible as you can go as far as you have energy to go. But that's also the bad thing as you will find yourself spending hours/days/weeks tinkering with the schedule trying to see if you can "just squeeze in one more" site but you also need to restraint yourself that you can't see it all.

 

We went to Sedona few years ago when we took a summer cruise and then a winter road trip instead. Spent Christmas Day at Las Vegas at staying at Bellagio as Vegas has great Christmas deals as long as it's not a weekend. Vegas get expensive on New Year's Day, not Christmas.

 

If you want to see Sedona, then you would head more south from Vegas. Another option is check out Bryce and Zion National Parks on the Internet to see if those would be acceptable substitute for Sedona. We will be heading for Bryce and Zion this summer.

 

If you do Bryce and Zion and also Antelope canyon/horseshoe bend from my previous pictures, then go see the north rim of Grand Canyon (not the south rim from Williams) before heading up north for Monument Valley and Arches/Canyon land NP, that would a be ton of rocks parks to see.

 

Also look at the possibility of flying back from Salt Lake City as it's a shorter drive there after Arches canyon than drive all the way back to Vegas. But if it's too expensive, then it's a moot point.

 

I'll probably drop in some monument Valley pictures sometime next week or so. That is a really WOW experience given the size of the area.

In meantime, here are some Vegas pics from our trip.

When we first arrived, it wasn’t very hot but later on it was 110 degrees. Yes, I know people will say it is dry heat so it’s not that bad compared to humid weather at 90 degrees. Nevertheless, 110 is crazy hot and if your car has been sitting outside in the sun for awhile, add another 15+ degrees when you open the door.

 

 

 

This is from the Forum shops. It's an indoor shopping area. The sky above is fake so it always looks like that no matter what the outside looks like

 

 

I am a big Cirque fan so we went to see the Cirque's Beatles show at the Mirage. It was really fun if you like their music.

 

 

They won't let you take picture of the show so can only take a picture of the stage pre show

 

 

Post show:

 

[harryfat1]

Vegas version of Venice with the Venetian. I've been to the actual Venice in Italy and as anyone who has been to both can tell you, the Vegas version is way too sanitized.

 

You can actually see the bottom with the Vegas version

 

 

 

 

Another indoor area where the sky is not real

 

 

One thing both the real Venice and the Vegas has in common - the Gondola ride is not worth the cost

 

[harryfat1]

This is pretty new to people who hasn't been to Vegas in the past few years. As in everything Vegas, things must be big. They say this is supposed to be the biggest in the world

 

 

No way to fit this big thing into the camera lens giving the tight space

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

If you're going all the way to Utah, do NOT miss Zion! We did:

 

Day 1: Fly into Vegas, overnight

Day 2: Drive to Zion National Park

Day 3 and 4: Zion

Day 5: Drive to Bryce National Park

Day 6: Bryce to Antelope Canyon (quick stop) on to Grand Canyon

Day 7: Grand Canyon

Day 8: Drive to Hoover Dam, Glen Canyon dam, back to Vegas

 

In my opinion Zion was the best stop of all!

 

Flights to Vegas are usually cheaper- and the hotels there are pretty cheap too - buyer's market! We stayed at the Venetian which was gorgeous and a great luxury for about $175/nt.

 

Check out the trip advisor travel forums- go the one for United States, then it breaks down by state and you'll find the Utah forum. The people on that board are SO helpful and there are tons of itineraries and lots of advice. Have a great trip!

 

*****Sorry for the hijack, Harry! Still enjoying your report!*******

 

 

 

No worries. Like I said in the beginning, I don’t prescribe to the concept of “hijack” a thread. To me, that is just silly.

 

This is a vacation forum. We are all here sharing vacation ideas. It is a pot luck of info. Bring whatever you like to help someone else. Others are free to chime in as well.

 

As for Vegas, yes, it’s great place to fly in and out of if you can time your arrival. The key to Vegas hotels and flights is NEVER go there on a Friday or Saturday. The prices shoot sky high with all the southern Californian flocking there for weekend getaway. Come Sunday to Thursday, everything slows down and prices take a steep drop. So plan your arrival accordingly.

 

Yeah, there are a lot of places to see in that section of Utah/Arizona. My original version(s) of the trip had us going to Bryce and Zion but ultimate we cancel those and replaced them with Monument Valley and Arches. So we saved them for this year.

 

It's like a Caribbean cruise; you can only go to so many islands in a one week vacation time frame. You can decide which places is higher importance to you - just go online to check out all the national parks or go to public library to get some guide books to plan things out. If you have 10+ days, then obviously you can see more.

[harryfat1]

I wish CC had a thumbs up button [emoji1360]

 

 

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Harry! Saw this just now and thought of you! If you're on Twitter I think you need to find out who Mike C. is and follow him....

 

I know different song but along the same line.

 

Haha, thanks for thinking of me.

 

I think I might need to curtail my zealous nature on the ship butts. People will stop calling me cheapo dad and instead think of me as some perv with a special fascination with ship rear ends. I'll change my screen name to "Ship Butt Enthusiast" or SBE for short.

 

This is really a 99% male topic. Not too many women are going to take picture of ship butts and post those online. And bigger the better, right, fellas?

 

Don't think this Mike guy would take a picture of a small ship like the Empress and post that online and be proud of it.

 

 

It's like when women buy new clothes and bring them home to demo in front of you and ask "Does this make my butt look bigger?" And you reply YES and to you that is a GOOD thing and then they go and return the clothes...Ehhh?

[harryfat1]

(So where are we in the trip report story line? People thought they click on the link to see a basic trip report on the Indy but instead gets the pictures of rocks in Arizona as well as songs to ship butts...)

Day 6 – December 26, 2017

 

Antigua

 

Another day, another port. Fourth port in four days. After all the running around yesterday, we were getting a tad tired from the fourth port in a row. As in the really old movie, If this is Tuesday, this must be Belgium. We will use the same theory by saying, if this is day 6, this must be Antigua.

 

So everyone knows the ABC islands down in the southern part of the Caribbean (Aruba/Bonaire/Curacao). Mnemonic is great to help people remember things. With that system, I don’t think I could have passed the CPA exam. Anyway, in the beginning when I was trying to remember some of the islands on this sailing, I couldn’t list them all. Then I lined up few of the islands and it made things easier to remember:

 

Antigua

San Juan

St. Kitts

St. Maarten

(and Labadee)

 

Anyway, none of us ever had been here so it’s brand new to us. We booked the tour with the company “Scenic Tours Antigua” as they had solid ratings on Trip Advisor and good prices for kids ($15). I’m sure everyone has their favorite tour operators. But the name of the company is pretty blah – scenic tour? Really? "Hi, I am here looking for the Scenic Tour..."

It is debatable on how much of a difference each tour can provide versus their competition next door. In theory people can book their tours right off the docks but anal people like me like to know things ahead of time.

I hate making last minute decisions on the dock as I have no idea if the first dude that comes up to me is any good versus the fourth dude. But if you book the tour at the dock side, you have more flexibility on when to get off the ship instead of worrying about being at the meeting place on time at 9 AM.

 

Maybe someday when I am older and be less anal, I could just walk off the ship at any time after breakfast and book a tour right off the dock.

Nah, who am I kidding? I will always be anal. That’ll never go away with age. If nothing else, when I get older, I have to be even more anal to know the details as I would have medical/physical needs.

Anyway, that’s enough theoretical debate. It was time to wake up at 7 AM and get the troops up to WJ.

 

Walked by the Washy Washy gal listening to her singing her song and recorded her again. I miss that gal. So happy and chirpy all morning long singing that mind numbing few phrases to thousands of people…

 

The ship docked at 7 AM so many people were up and about eating early planning a long day in port.

 

[harryfat1]

Oh, before I forget, just to be consistent, here is the scan of day 6 compass.

 

So far, not ONE person has asked about what's on the compass so I assume nobody really cares but in order to have a complete trip report, I feel compelled to include this. But since this is a special sailing for Indy where she is typically in Europe or in western Caribbean, this once in the blue moon sailing of Eastern Caribbean for the holidays interests no one...

 

Maybe for days 7 to 9's daily compass, I will scan them all but mix them up like page 1 of day 7, followed by page 2 of day 9 and then page 3 of day 8. Doubt anyone will even notice it...

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Oh, speaking of long day in port, here’s something I wanted to pass along. The Captain went on the PA system and announced that with the large number of ships in port today such that if people are caught up in traffic and not able to make it back to the ship, he is able to delay departure for a bit.

 

Officially we are in port from 7AM to 6 PM with all aboard at 5:30 but he said can stick around until 6:30 to depart as they must leave by 7 PM as they can’t be in port more than 12 hours. Now I have never heard of a captain telling people he has “wiggle room” on departure. I’m sure all the itineraries have some buffer time for captains to make up time if he is running late but you never hear the captain making a public announcement about it.

 

Obviously it helps in the fact that our next port of call, St. Kitts, isn’t that far away along the Eastern Caribbean route so he can stick around a tad longer if necessary. It was a very nice gesture to let the people know just in case they needed the extra time. I just never heard of it from the Captain himself saying he has wiggle room for bad traffic at the ports. Maybe other veteran cruisers can chime in on their experience.

[harryfat1]

So as I secured a table while the family grabs their breakfast, one of the waiters came by and asked if I wanted any coffee. Sometimes you catch those guys roaming around refilling your coffee/juices so you don’t have to get up and get it yourself.

 

 

Few pics of Antigua harbor as seen from top of WJ.

 

 

 

Hmmmm, that doesn’t look good…

 

[harryfat1]

I must have been tired as I only took one picture of the typical breakfast plate. Or maybe I was distracted by the brand spanking new MSC Seaside that pulled aside us right after we docked. I have seen pictures of the ship from the front page CC articles but it’s more impressive to see it in person.

 

Per wiki, they are about the similar size as the Indy. It will be interesting to read some of the reviews of the ship to see if we should consider going on her in the future.

 

But that is for later. For now, we had to eat and run and meet up with the brother in law and his family at café promenade as they are joining us for this tour. This time I remembered to bring my camera…