Indy OTS Review 3/4/19

[ShillyShally]

We just returned from the 5 night 3/4/19 sailing on Independence of the Seas.

 

Cast of characters: Myself and DH (45 and 50), my youngest (22) and his girlfriend (21). My 13^th cruise, 10^th on RCCL, my husband’s 7^th or so cruise, son’s 8^th and his GF’s 1^st cruise (she’s now HOOKED).

 

We prepaid tips.

We purchased Key.

We all had the deluxe beverage package.

 

We had an AWESOME time!  Some misses but we just relaxed, did our own thing and enjoyed being on vacation!

 

Key – we loved it and we only used it for the embarkation and debarkation perks plus internet but for us these alone were well worth it as we avoided the usual stress of getting off the ship on the last day!  I did a full review in the Key thread but for us we will definitely consider it again!

 

Food:

We intended to go to the included lunch at Chops but got distracted by Playmakers and we considered going to MDR but ended up never going.

                Playmakers – LOVED this venue.  Great beer options we usually haven’t found on other ships, my son’s favorite menu drink (black and gold) and they had a great menu we tweaked late one night (husband and I are vegan) by asking for the nacho platter with just salsa, guac and jalapenos and I wish I took a picture, they were HUGE but really good!

                Izumi – LOVED this venue.  We lucked out 2 nights (once just DH and I and one time all 4 of us) asking for a la carte veggie sushi that wasn’t on the menu but the chef got super creative and blew us away both times.  At the a la carte prices it was a steal!

                Windjammer – usual fare but decent options most meals for all of us.  DH and I can usually find options we can eat and the staff was super helpful answering questions we had.  I do just wish though they’d put allergen information on all their food name placards.  I think that would be helpful for everyone!  But one day DH went in and asked about the veggie burger they had and the chef said it was vegan but those buns weren’t and went out of his way to find us some vegan buns.  Son and his GF loved it all.

Son and GF also hit Sorrentos and loved it. 

We did check the menus every night and either completely missed it or it wasn’t to be found but son was really bummed he never saw strawberry bisque on the MDR menu, we would have made sure to go for that.

 

Rooms:

Aft balcony cabins on the 8^th deck.  These were great, room steward was fine, not too personable and irritated we didn’t follow a normal schedule in/out of room but he did always bring us ice and we didn’t ask for more!  Beds though – ugh – those are painful!  Are they better in suites?  For our aging bodies we’d be willing to splurge!

 

Solarium:

We were here every day – we usually had no problem finding chairs and often ended up with 4 together.  Loved the bar staff at the bar and walking around here.  They liked us because we ordered “easy” drinks compared to the copious spring breakers on board!  Now the last sea day we tipped our favorite bartenders and then our drinks came fast and furious and that wasn’t why we tipped lol and we were glad we hadn’t tipped earlier! We do wish this area wasn't such a cut through though!

 

Drink Package:

We love not having to sign receipts, to have it already paid for, to just not worry about it and we loved it again this trip!  We used it a lot for bottles of water, DH loved the fresh OJ, son and GF loved the sodas and red bull too and we all enjoyed it for flowing drinks when we wanted them.  One day we were under the break-even point but that was from drinking margaritas on our excursion in Cozumel and we certainly broke even overall but truly, we didn’t care.  We bought it when it was $49 PP.  We’ll likely always buy it as I realized for my husband it just lets him relax not worrying about each drink cost, etc.  It's sometimes the little things but we try and find the things that allow our usual type A personalities to relax on vacation and this is one for us. 

 

Shows:

We did a few, headliner night 1, Love & Marriage and Quest – mainly we totally enjoyed being on our own time and just doing our own thing, we skipped a lot but never felt we missed anything!

 

Schooner Bar/Piano Guy – BIG MISS!  Don’t love the Schooner bar as it smelled smoky due to proximity of it to the casino but mainly ***** is improv piano comedy crap?!? I know this could be just us, so my apologies if everyone else loves it, but do any ships have true piano guys?  We have loved ours on Liberty OTS and our last cruise on a Carnival ship had an outstanding piano bar.  I just want piano and songs and singing and I’d be there every night lol! I tried on night one but left when he started making car noises at the start.

 

Fitness Center:

I went every day – mainly because I had knee surgery not long ago and part of my recovery is riding a bike every day.  No problem getting machines even on the very busy day one.  As usual by day 5 it gets a tough quieter but I love the fitness centers on this class.

 

Passengers:

SPING BREAK!  We were at capacity and there were a TON of college spring breakers.  As mentioned, I brought 2 of my own!  They were everywhere but I have to say all the ones I chatted with at bars or around the ship were very nice and respectful!  It made Quest a slightly different ball game but DH and I are beginning to wonder too if we’re just aging out of that, HAHA, though we are former silver medalists!  We did enjoy seeing some of the shows through son’s GF eye’s as a 1^st timer and I was worried she was missing out since we were skipping things but she LOVED it and loved just being able to NOT DO, one of the best things about vacations sometimes!  Only gripe about Quest was the line to get in started forming 45 minutes ahead of time so by the time they opened the doors there were a lot of waiting groups trying to cut the line, but few in the line let that happen, there was some fun solidarity!

 

Overall:

We loved the new features on Indy!  My previous favorite ship was Liberty OTS but Indy jumped to #1 – we loved Playmakers and had fun playing cornhole, watching sports, etc.  We all did the water slides and those were fun.  We loved Izumi. We didn’t do a ton else – we loved just staring at the sea in our solarium chairs and reading, chatting.  Truly goes down as one of our best vacations!

[The Fun Researcher]

Glad the revamped Indy is even better than before!  If I HAD to pick one favorite cruise (adult friends only) of them all, it was on the Indy back in 2014 with the great 8 night itinerary that RCI runs (Labadee, St. Maartin, St. Kitts, San Juan).

 

Great to hear about Playmakers.  The new food options are very exciting to me, and I look forward to the beer selections now that you mention them.  I'm excited to try it later this week on the Amped Navigator.  

 

Glad you hear that you had a great vacay!

Dan

[rmr236]

Was Dave your piano guy? He was amazing when I was on Indy a few weeks ago.

[ShillyShally]

10 minutes ago, The Fun Researcher said:

Glad the revamped Indy is even better than before!  If I HAD to pick one favorite cruise (adult friends only) of them all, it was on the Indy back in 2014 with the great 8 night itinerary that RCI runs (Labadee, St. Maartin, St. Kitts, San Juan).

 

Great to hear about Playmakers.  The new food options are very exciting to me, and I look forward to the beer selections now that you mention them.  I'm excited to try it later this week on the Amped Navigator.  

 

Glad you hear that you had a great vacay!

Dan

Thank you!  I look forward to hearing about Amped Navigator too!  Playmakers really is a great use of the space on the ship, it had a lot of seating, a lot of games, great service and theming and tons of TVs - hmmm, too bad I can't get on now for march madness!

Edited March 11, 2019 by ShillyShally

[ShillyShally]

5 minutes ago, rmr236 said:

Was Dave your piano guy? He was amazing when I was on Indy a few weeks ago.

I don't think it was, and now I can't access the app to check.  Was yours an improv based guy too? I was bummed ours wasn't straight piano bar!

[rmr236]

@ShillyShally He did both, though it was mostly piano bar guy stuff.

[ShillyShally]

3 minutes ago, rmr236 said:

@ShillyShally He did both, though it was mostly piano bar guy stuff.

Ah, I could have given him longer just wasn't feeling it at all at the start and whenever we walked by it hadn't seemed to change - he had a lot of props!