Independence of the Seas Review

4.5 / 5.0
1,703 reviews

Staff & Ship Excellent. Fellow passengers rude.

Review for Canary Islands Cruise on Independence of the Seas

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Sail Date: Apr 2012
Cabin: Oceanview Stateroom

We decided on a cruise this year as we know many people that have fallen in love with this type of holiday and we had got fed up with the airport scenario.

Firstly, we did not expect a 3 hour queue(3 separate queues)to get on the ship, apparently the ship was booked to full capacity (4300 people) extremely frustrating and this puts airports in good favour in our opinion.

Ship magnificent, awe inspiring it's so huge& clean...Our cabin on deck 6 at the front was very spacious and clean, our daughter & boyfriend was inside stateroom, even though quite spacious, no natural light, made them feel very disorientated (time wise) and claustrophobic. ALL staff extremely pleasant and good mannered - less said for the majority of other passengers, sour faced and rude mostly, just out for themselves, even more so in the huge "cafeteria" (windjammer) area (more queuing!)- which again in our opinion is not big enough to accommodate 4300 people or even half that,several occasions we could not find anywhere to sit to have our breakfast or lunch and resorted to find less occupied areas which shouldn't be for eating. And the people acted like food was going out of fashion!! Bumped into, elbowed out the way, is a few ways to describe it and that goes for all ages on there! One "speciality" coffee Place and newspaper stand is not enough for this large ship and yes more queues! All this and suffering 10m (32.8 feet) waves most of the time is not our idea of a good holiday, hence back to flying next year. One saving grace we had to complain after 3 or 4 sleepless nights due to big banging noises under our cabin, (crew had left heavy iron gate to swing open & shut) the guest service manager treated us to a meal at chops grill - exquisite- and a day out in Madeira, again absolutely enjoyable, I think we would have flown back from a port otherwise to escape! Someone once described a cruise as Butlins on Sea, though the look & feel of this ship & staff is 5 star, most of the passengers don't act like it.

Cabin Review

Oceanview Stateroom

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