Royal Carribean – Independence of the Seas

We went with a party of 6 to Caribbean half of us from Henderson, Nevada and the other half from Chicago, Illinois, it was a big mess between us, but NOT the trip it was fine nice service from Royal Caribbean staff. The weather in port Fort Lauderdale and Saint kits St Martin and Puerto Rico was very humid didn’t like the buffet too many people rushing and grabbing and food in front of you it was was bad! The regular dining Rome was good service was very good food was not bad so OK, Best place to eat on Royyour Caribbean his chops steakhouse for nominal excellent hors d’oeuvres or appetizers hear your maincourse your dessert off fantastic five stars on chops. Johnny rockets restaurant was very nice food was good entertainment when the waiters dance and saying that that’s really fun nice place to eat nice for everybody family. Good entertainment throughout the show the plan on the cruise music and all kinds of things going on at a 70s theme was very nice was a lot of fun a lot of good things is always something to do great shopping me my wife enjoyed, all in all was a great trip bar feel little difficulties with family issues but next time it’ll just be my wife my daughter and I are one order Guess that’s it!!!

Food was substandard with very Limited choices. Poor wifi signal that costs an arm and a leg. Front desk staff was very unwelcoming (girl from Ireland) and the excursions desk guy (from Jamaica) was curt and acted annoyed. Even our waiter at the main dining hall (Noël) seemed too exhausted to care. The rest of the staff were warm and welcoming though. The rooms were always cleaned to perfection.
Every move you make has an 18.5% surcharge… Everything — including eating at the main dining which is supposed to be included in the fare. And not all the food is included on the ship. You even have to pay for the ice cream and cupcakes.
The spa leaves a lot to be desired. The bloated prices ($ 250 facials and $ 280 massages) were not worth the blah quality service. They start and end each treatment by up selling other treatments. So your 50 min massage is really 35 – 40 min service and 10−15min of stress. Skill wise, the massage and facial were both Trainee level. Definitely not worth it.
The whole trip was not worth the price.

Should of had less people onboard. Better food. Better entertainment staff — I would have rather paid more for the initial ticket and enjoy better food during the day than eat that monotonous garbage they serve. Is this the cruise they give you when you attend a time share presentation? The company cannot be blamed for the «types» of people who enjoy the cruise but they can definitely hedge the quality of guests by charging slightly more than the cost of 3 Kegs and a tent at your local campground. I am in no way a person who complains about service quality/​food/​people — and yes I have had bad experiences elsewhere– but never one that warrants the need to mention it publicly or in a review– awful — spend your money just going to the destination and enjoying the local sights on your own– no need to be shoved into a tin can with a bunch a sweaty salami’s.
Not much else I can say — if you want to keep feeding the hoards of people garbage and low quality entertainment and taking their hard earned money — Overworking your friendly staff and assuredly underpaying them as well — then I am sure the model will still work for years to come. Your cruise entertainment staff is so «corny/​hoakey/​cheesy» — whatever equivalent word you can sum up. Pauly Shore or Vanilla Ice would have been better entertainment. The only person I feel bad for is the sign language interpreter who communicates to the deaf audience during your shows– because they have to sign the same awful and often repeated jokes daily. I don’t have time to review this for spelling and punctuation– this review is not even worth the effort — this is an Awful idea of a vacation — next time I will just sit in my yard with a case of beer, invite over a few dozen strangers and spray them with a garden hose while they dance to Pit Bull and I serve them several Mama Celeste microwave pizzas on a hot July day. The only real difference is I would have saved a few hundred dollars, which I could have easily had more enjoyment flushing down the toilet.

Loved the whole first time cruise experience minus the fact that you have to wait SO LONG to get in. However once you get on the cruise… You’re going to be amazed at the customer service here. Literally everyone in here is SO NICE to you. Rooms are very clean and vacuumed everyday or whenever you want it cleaned honestly. The food was good, the ship ride over all was good. Everything was just a great experience for my 5 days stay on the independence of the seas! Their shows are worth watching… Overall a great experience!

Our experience on our honeymoon.
1.) Very family friendly. They have a lot of activities for children, youth and adults including a waterpark, jacuzzis, pools, sports, rock climbing, arcade, shows, and flowrider.
2.) They have very nice restaurants with quite a few options to choose from. The dinner meals are small portions so a breakfast and lunch before should help fill you throughout the day.
3.) Many excursions to choose from. My husband and I did the zipline excursion in Haiti. It’s the longest zipline over an ocean in the whole world and we really enjoyed it! We also did a zipline and climbed the Dunn’s River Falls in Jamaica. Their zipline equipment isn’t the best and you may feel unsafe in the beginning but once you do the first couple of ziplines it’s not too bad. The one thing about the excursion that I did not like was our helmets were dripping with sweat from the previous group and smelled horrible so bring a bandana on this excursion to wear underneath. You will definitely need water shoes for the excursion at the falls and a waterproof camera if u want pics.
4.) Our driver for the excursions was a horrible driver. He sped the whole time, drove onto oncoming traffic, tailgated every driver in front of him and nearly hit another car about 10X.
5.) The shows that we watched were pretty good including the Strings Show and Love & Marriage.
6.) Our cleaning lady and all of the staff on the cruise are really friendly and did a great job keeping us happy and comfortable.
7.) Jamaica and Haiti are defintely places to see. We enjoyed the beach and touring around the island.
8.) They do have some shopping stores on the top deck. Not too much of a variety. Items can run pretty expensive.
Would go again. Overall great experience and honeymoon