Independence of the Seas - my overall experience

[3trinitythree]

I though I’d add here of my experience of my recent cruise onboard the new renovated Independence of the Seas between the 2-16th June. I’ll start off by saying it was the sixth cruise with RCI, once onboard the Voyager and the fifth on the Indy. Each time I’ve been I’d recommend RCI to everyone, but not anymore the Independence I’m afraid, the refurbishment with the additional rooms which brings another 500 passengers onboard to 4150 is just too much. So many places were overcrowded, most people are aware what mayhem the Windjammer is at peak times, but the whole ship seemed like that this cruise.   One problem is the main dining rooms, with the additional tables added it’s difficult to manoeuvre between the chairs and tables, something a lot of waiting staff were telling passengers. 

The usual problem with sun beds was just made more problematic on sunny days, and on a day at sea when it was windy and overcast (sailing between Madeira and La Coruña) with everyone being inside queuing for a speciality coffee took 40 minutes. We also found the main dining room experience slightly tarnished as the wait between courses was some days up to 30 mins, I don’t think the waiters can deal with the additional tables when it’s full. One place we never see anywhere near busy was Fish n Ships, infact I only saw a few people eating there. I can’t see that staying to be honest, when you take into account how much a simple fish and chip dinner costs.

Additional problems on board we encountered were a galley brunch we had ordered before cruising on the last day was changed to two days earlier, not a problem you’d think. Trouble being our stateroom attendant put the notification in our room the evening AFTER the event. A refund was issued and a complimentary Chops Grille was given, but we’d missed the brunch which we had done before on previous cruises and enjoyed.

The last problem onboard I found was our main dining room waiter, a week into the cruise he mentioned the guest satisfaction survey we’d receive after our cruise and how vital it was to him that we scored him well. Now, I don’t mind him telling us that once, but that evening he spent each course asking if he’d score a 10 from us which slightly annoyed me. The following evening and the one thereafter was the same, with him even telling my daughter to make sure we give him a 10 score, that was enough for me and we only dined again there on the last formal night, he really did sour the whole evening experiences for us. I will add the other waiter was an absolute pleasure to know, polite, funny and a credit to RCI.

Now on to the plus points. The new additions, the water slides, laser tag and skypad are superb. Great fun for us all and really do add to the cruise, we spent many hours enjoying these activities. The escape room was also a great hour spent, I’d never done one before and really enjoyed it and got to make some new friends while playing it. Managed to escape with 9 minutes left.

We also dined at Izumi, and what a superb night that was. Atmosphere, food and the whole experience was one of the best, chef Elvis was a pleasure to meet, definitely worth the additional cost for the meal. We also tried Johnny Rockets, a good time with some nice food, although the additional cost doesn’t seem warranted in my opinion. 

The tours we did with RCI were handles well and ran very well as usual, booked four but one trip was cancelled which was disappointing, other days at port we did our thing which we find more enjoyable. If you ever go to Madeira go on a catamaran dolphin and whale watching, a three trip and a reasonable price and a fantastic experience seeing turtles, whales and dolphins up close. It was the highlight of the cruise, as was Lanzarote, albeit an exhausting one, hired bicycles just outside the port and followed the path 8 miles to the next town. Beautiful weather and scenery, and stopped for a lovely lunch by the beach and tried out the jet skis, another great experience.

Overall we had a great holiday again with RCI, but it’s the first time I've finished a cruise and not wanted to go back immediately, certainly not on the Independence. I’ll have to overcome my fear of flying and cruise on another ship, or consider the Navigator which sails from Southampton, I’d love to see Norway some time. I’ve waffled on far too long now, so if you’ve got this far thank you for reading. Take care and happy cruising to you all.

[Sweety]

Thank you for your informative blog. I love the info regarding your excursions. The pics are awesome.

[JLMoran]

Thanks for the review, and very sorry that after the prior overall good experiences you had one with so many negatives, almost all due to the increased crowds. It's possible this is in part because the ship was just refurbished and everyone is excited to try all the new things, but I can see where adding another 500 passengers to the ship will definitely contribute to an overall crowding problem. Especially for the sun loungers.

I'm curious to know if you did MyTime Dining or traditional. From multiple posts here over the last few months, it does seem that MTD is becoming less and less of a good experience due to the overworking of the waiters and the general crowding. If this was a problem with traditional dining, that would be a very bad harbinger of things to come.

[3trinitythree]

2 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

Thanks for the review, and very sorry that after the prior overall good experiences you had one with so many negatives, almost all due to the increased crowds. It's possible this is in part because the ship was just refurbished and everyone is excited to try all the new things, but I can see where adding another 500 passengers to the ship will definitely contribute to an overall crowding problem. Especially for the sun loungers.

I'm curious to know if you did MyTime Dining or traditional. From multiple posts here over the last few months, it does seem that MTD is becoming less and less of a good experience due to the overworking of the waiters and the general crowding. If this was a problem with traditional dining, that would be a very bad harbinger of things to come.

We did traditional dining first sitting at 6pm. We did speak to a couple who were pinnacle C&A members who were far from impressed with having to queue for many things, hopefully it’s just teething troubles as staff get used to the extra workload they have.

[JLMoran]

Just now, 3trinitythree said:

We did traditional dining first sitting at 6pm. We did speak to a couple who were pinnacle C&A members who were far from impressed with having to queue for many things, hopefully it’s just teething troubles as staff get used to the extra workload they have.

Wow, that's not good. If even traditional dining is getting slammed then I'd think that Royal needs to hire more staff to better manage the larger dining crowds (even though that will itself lead to some extra traffic in the MDR), and/or do some major reworking of the table layouts to allow better flow for both passengers and wait staff.

Of course, if this all ties in with the theories others here have posited about Royal wanting to drive people to specialty dining, well... I guess it's time to put the tinfoil hat back on. 

[JohnUK]

Thank you for your review. It is very informative, balanced and useful. It is such a shame your experience was tarnished. 

I would like to think you are right and things will settle down a bit as Indy is one of our favourites. All of the Voyager and Freedom class have had additional cabins added and, if it is any guide to a more hopeful outlook for Indy, our experience of sailing on Explorer after the extra cabin upgrade had taken place was very positive. We did not notice any additional queuing or overcrowding over the 35 nights we were on board. Even though the first cruise of that sailing was a trans Pacific, which we expected to be a little busier, I can't say it was much different to previous cruises on Explorer (apart from the Concierge and Diamond lounges).

We do not currently have any further cruises booked on Indy but we will be back on Navigator (which also has the additional cabins) in September so we will definitely take particular note of any overcrowding issues, if they arise.

Sad about your MDR waiter. I understand how important ratings are but his approach was obviously counterproductive. You would hope that one of the senior staff would spot this and advise him of the error.

Loved the photographs.

[monctonguy]

An increase of almost 15% of passengers and a reduction in space on the ship due to these added cabins and venues that you have to pay for will make it feel more crowded for sure. But this is the way Royal is going an all her ships it seems so this will be the norm...not growing pains or teething troubles.....

[Rose City Cruiser]

Thanks for the review.  I am glad your family still had a great vacation. 

I hope Royal takes a look at this and see what is hindering flow.  I am certain Royal had new flow procedures in place to cater the additional passengers.     Whether staff follow those procedures is a different story.

[pamw]

We were also on the same cruise as the O.P.

I agree the ship was busy on sea days and yes the windjammer was heaving, however we have experienced this before on ships and will order room service for breakfast.

We do have the option of other eating places don't we?

On this cruise we didn't actually use the dining room at all, this sometimes happens with us - it all depends what we are doing and what we feel like we do generally use My Time Dining though. We went is on Disembarkation day and I thought it looked a bit squashed but didn't give it too much thought at the time - now i understand why!

We ate either in the specialty eating places or the windjammer.

The Diamond Lounge was pretty quiet as well compared to some cruises we have been on so I am taking it there were not so many top tier members on this cruise?

I can't say we experienced any problem getting off the ship on port days and we enjoyed every port just walking and doing our own thing.

The shows where good what we watched and also the ice skating but we needed to be there quite early to get a decent seat.

I have to say though the invitation by the Captain to an Ice show for Top Tier guests was a bit disappointing as most probably queued longer to get in that the show lasted, I'm not quite sure if that had been thought out.

My hubby and I christened it the moaners cruise as that is all we heard and much of it was about the weather and too many passengers.

We got on with our cruise however and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Back on it next year.

[pamw]

Just to add that during the Indy refurb they have installed hand wash basins into the Windjammer we now have a choice washy washy or jelly jelly -

I prefer to use soap and water TBH but it did get a bit messy at times in that area and staff needing to mop the floor as it did get a tad wet!

 

[3trinitythree]

On 6/19/2018 at 4:43 PM, pamw said:

We were also on the same cruise as the O.P.

I agree the ship was busy on sea days and yes the windjammer was heaving, however we have experienced this before on ships and will order room service for breakfast.

We do have the option of other eating places don't we?

On this cruise we didn't actually use the dining room at all, this sometimes happens with us - it all depends what we are doing and what we feel like we do generally use My Time Dining though. We went is on Disembarkation day and I thought it looked a bit squashed but didn't give it too much thought at the time - now i understand why!

We ate either in the specialty eating places or the windjammer.

The Diamond Lounge was pretty quiet as well compared to some cruises we have been on so I am taking it there were not so many top tier members on this cruise?

I can't say we experienced any problem getting off the ship on port days and we enjoyed every port just walking and doing our own thing.

The shows where good what we watched and also the ice skating but we needed to be there quite early to get a decent seat.

I have to say though the invitation by the Captain to an Ice show for Top Tier guests was a bit disappointing as most probably queued longer to get in that the show lasted, I'm not quite sure if that had been thought out.

My hubby and I christened it the moaners cruise as that is all we heard and much of it was about the weather and too many passengers.

We got on with our cruise however and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Back on it next year.

Agree with the Top Tier ice show, seemed the skaters just turned up in their training gear, and the queues were massive, although once in there it didn’t seem full. We also overheard many others moaning in relation to the downturn in RC compared to previous cruises. 

‘Overall we enjoyed the cruise, it’s just that each cruise before has been almost perfect, and this time around this problems I’ve already listed soured our experience, personally I’m hopeing that an Oasis style ships comes to Southampton in 2020, something that I heard onboard but have yet to hear for definite it’s happening.