DAVE(Darkcabbie)

Oh right and we're supposed to belive that :) and the poor waiter gets the blame. I bet behind the camera you've got two also. He he he

Thanks Matt , great reviews. Glad im going in the gym every day otherwise I may get harpooned as I leave the ship :) .

You have picked a great first cruise , I love all three of those places. The sail out of St Thomas in the evening is fab. Just as the sun is setting and the town lights up its gorgeous. I guarantee this won't be your last cruise once you've done one you'll be hooked :) My wife and I are going on the independence round the Canaries in October and this will be our first Royal Caribbean Cruise and thanks to all the info from the great bunch of people on this blog I think that RC will be our cruise line for quite some time.

We booked for the Indy back in March and will probably book next years ahead too so that we get the room we want but there is also another one we have our eye on and that will probably be last minute to get the best deal available. These will all be with RC.

Yes we started cruising in 2001 and have sailed with Carnival & P&O (never again with P&O they were terrible) mainly around the Caribbean. So now we are trying and really looking forward to RC and infact we are already considering 2 more with RC that we have our eye on from Southampton. Trust me if they bring a dish full of tiramisu near us its ours, my wife has a black belt in FOODJITSU and her Jedi mind tricks are better than Obi Wan Kenobi . :)

Thanks Matt. Do you know if I was right and Portofino has been replaced by Giovanni's on the Indy since her refurb. Their website has conflicting pages as to whether it's there or not.

One of our first cruises was in the hurricane season and although we did encounter one it was not really a problem. The Captain just altered course to try to avoid it but we did catch the tail end so it got a little rough but with the stabilisation it was like being gently rocked to sleep. We didn't miss any islands on the itinerary and had a great cruise. Just keep in mind that mother nature does what she wants when she wants the Bay of Biscay is a prime example of that any time of year. Weather can change at any time so my advice is don't worry about it just pick the cruise & the time of year you fancy AND HAVE A GREAT TIME :)

I Haven't tried either yet as the Independence will be our first RC cruise. We was looking forward to trying Portofino but after her refurb it looks like it's been replaced by Giovanni's. Have we now missed out on a good restaurant or is Giovanni's just as nice.

Thanks for the info :)

Does anyone know if you can get take out from JRs to take back to the room.

We nearly always opt for late seating mainly because we try to stay ashore as long as possible and we like to go up top for the sail off as it's normally great fun and then we can get ready for dinner. If we want to catch a show then we would hit the buffet or maybe room service.

Forgot about the Cheesecake Factory that would be cool. I do agree with both of you that the ships should stay unique and although I can't wait to try Johnny Rockets it would probably be better if RC had their own fast food chain maybe called Caribs Burger Shacks specializing in home made burgers and ribs.

Thanks Matt & Tyler80 for your info , I will make sure we order early so that we are on the dinner schedule. Don't want to be eating dinner for breakfast if you know what I mean :) .

I agree and hopefully sooner than later

I think Tyler80 has a point because with more and more great things being put on board the ships sometimes you just don't want to get off and that's why I hope that RC start to do a regular Transatlantic Cruise from Southampton because you would get 7 great nights non stop , time in New york & 7 nights back non stop. That would be awesome. But I do want to see a lot more places like Alaska , South Pacific , the Panama Canal etc so destination will still come in to it some of the time.

My wife and I have decided that on a couple of evenings it would be nice have dinner in the room on the balcony watching the sun go down. Can anyone tell me if this is a good experience or even though the RC website says you can order anything from the MDR menu at certain times are you actually limited.

Hope you have a great cruise :) . I love cruising the Caribbean , Matt is doing a Southern on the Jewel on Sept 21 which is going to some great places. Where do you visit.

I think Matt is right and she will come to Southampton. I know that there are also rumours she will replace the independence but I wonder if Royal Caribbean plans to keep both there and use one of them to run a permanent Transatlantic Schedule to rival Cunard. This would be a very smart move if they did as there is definitely a need for another Cruise Line to do this as many Brits , US Citizens and Europeans would prefer to have a choice. I would definitely use RC for this as we both want to go to new york and this would be a great way to get there and back. Here's hoping :)

Matt is spot on and that is definitely the best way to avoid big bills. There are 2 other things you can do , one is if you want to check your mail turn on your wifi ONLY and use the local free wifi while you are ashore. The other thing you can do is take out your sim card and buy a local pay as you go sim for the country or island you visit and put that in your phone this will allow you to make cheap calls and you may even get some data to use also. The only thing that may stop you doing that is if your network provider has locked your phone for their network only.

If you are going on a cruise soon I thought it might be fun to know what you are doing while on board and what places you have visited or even post a restaurant review.

Hi everyone my name is Dave and I have been married to my wife Samantha for 8 years and we have been together for 28 years. When we married in 2005 and as we love Disney we got married at Disneyworld in Orlando at the Magic Kingdom and even had Mickey and Minnie at the ceremony and reception it was the most amazing day of my life. We began cruising in 2001 and have been hooked ever since. Our other favourite things to do are going to the gym and playing golf and going to Disneyworld as much as possible. I own a small Chauffeur company in the UK which offers a personal and reliable service.

I think that most of the time now when we book a cruise the ship is probably first on the list because they all have such great things on board these days BUT if there is a destination we really want to go to then that comes first. Thankfully most of the time the ship has the itinerary we want :)

I was just talking to my wife this evening about possibly going to Chops on one of the formal nights on our forthcoming cruise and I think that you have just made our minds up. Thanks :)

Definitely because maybe they would base one in Southampton and that would be awesome. I would love to be able to go on an Oasis class from here to Europe & the Med etc. BRING IT ON

That Im old school fun fair, BRING ON THEM BUMBER CARS