Independence of the Seas Review
Rating by category
Additional details
For us, the ship is the destination, and based on that, we had an excellent cruise! This was the first week of our B2B cruise.
We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale on Saturday, and took the convenient airport shuttle to our hotel, Best Western Airport/Cruise port. We were too early to check into our room, but they stored our luggage while we walked over to have lunch at Slackers and do some last minute shopping at the strip mall near by. We found our room to be recently updated, clean and neat--great deal for the price. We would definitely stay there again.
Sunday morning we took a cab ($12) to port. The hotel offered a shuttle for $8/person. The cab was efficient--they kept texting me when they got closer, giving me the cab number to look for--and very easy. We definitely would use the cab over a shuttle.
Cabin Review
Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom with Balcony
We had an E2 "hump" balcony. Others have raved about the extra balcony space on the hump balconies, but we found it was the same size as any other balcony. The extra room for being on the hump was taken up in the cabin between the drapes and the sliding door--a good place for some luggage, but not much else.
Cabin 8634 was small, but fine for the two of us. It was clean and well maintained.
Port Reviews
Fort Lauderdale (Port Everglades)
We arrived at Ft. Lauderdale the day before the cruise and found getting around via taxi and shuttles very convenient.