This was our 15th cruise, and our 7th on Royal Caribbean. We had a less than wonderful experience on our last cruise last October on Vision of the Seas, and looked forward to this cruise on Independence. It was our first experience on one of the larger ships, and it did not disappoint, in most areas.
As we are Florida residents, we drove from our home in Central Florida, and used Park-N-Go on Eller Road for Parking and transport to and from the ship. We arrived there a little after 11AM, and were quickly on a shuttle, and off to the Port. Very Quick and Easy! We recommend them highly. As Platinum Crown and Anchor, we bypassed most lines, and were on the ship within 15 minutes of arriving at the port.
We toured the ship a little, then found a nice table for 2 in the Windjammer for a bite of lunch. We were pleased with the selections of salads, cold cuts, etc. at the buffet. It was much better than our last cruise. Service was good, even with all the incoming guests - and the service continued to be good throughout the cruise.
Nice size for 2 people. Plenty of storage space. Window out to Promenade was nice -but a little strange to look across and see into other people's cabin. Much prefer the shower doors in this cabin to the curtains on some other ships - but it is like showering in a old style phone booth. The water temperature was set too low and we had maintenance turn up the heat, and that fixed that!