Independence of the Seas Review

Our 1st Diamond member cruise

Review for the Eastern Caribbean Cruise on Independence of the Seas
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BOAT JUNKIE
First Time Cruiser • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Mar 2010
Cabin: Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom with Balcony

On March 20th, 2010 we sailed the Independence of the seas for our 30th anniversary and our 1st diamond member cruise and our 1st ever balcony cabin. The dining room service was the worse experience we have ever incurred sailing RCCL ships. I booked our cruise with our 30th wedding anniversary noted in the reservation. The waitstaff hardly ever smiled and looked like they were always in despair just to get everyone served. Waiting 1 hour for appetizers, waiting constantly for iced tea refills...etc. We were never even acknowledged for our anniversary and after 2 nights in the dining room we skipped the 3rd night & ate in the windjammer. the 4th night of 8, we said we would try again to eat in the dining room and it only got worse. We skipped dessert and told the head waiter on the way out we were unsatisfied. He told us he would arrange for us to be moved to another table for the future. We were so embarrased being offered to be moved instead of serving us better. The next night we ate in windjammer and I talked with the head guy there and told them our issues in the dining room and finally something happened as we got strawberries delivered to our cabin by our head waiter apologizing and an anniversary cake the next night at our new 4 seater table. This was our 1st diamond cruise and the total experience was as if we were nothing else other than a number instead of a valued guest. My tuxedo pkg. I had pre-ordered was old and the shirts were all yellowed around the collars and one shirt had a half dollar size old stain on it. The check in process room at Fort Lauderdale was a large one with little window booths with #'s on each one. I asked one lady with an RCCL badge on where priority check in was and she answered rudely that we have to keep the line moving and check in at any window. I looked for the priority check in and never found it until after we just walked up to one of the regular windows after about 20 minutes, checked in with a person that seemed to be his 1st day. We then walked the long room and finally seen the priority window way down @ the end of the room. Each night the dining room menu selection was worse.

We were excited about being able to have access to the diamond lounge in the evenings for drinks and snacks. We went there and they set it up in the smallest room where there was standing room only and it would take 1 hour to actually get a drink after asking 2-3 times and they never offered to pull up visible empty chairs just outside the next door for us to be able to set down. 2 visits were formal nights and we couldnt set outside because the wind would destroy our formal night appearance. We recieved a notice in our cabin to come to the diamond lounge to pick up ice show tickets and went and the unsmiling lady gave us tickets for the 5pm show--the same day/time as the welcome back party and we came back & made her aware of it and she replied that she didnt have anymore tickets and replied that she didnt know we would be at the repeaters party at that time. She doesnt need to be anywhere near a diamond member or even a 1st time cruiser. She would fit maybe in the dish washer room in the galley. We are very unhappy and deserve credit from this cruise. There were so many negatives, I havent mentioned all of them but the GOLD ANCHOR service we are supposed to recieve never happened. The captain never even attended the repeaters party. Instead, someone else gave us a speach about the RCCL ships and where their going and that most will be overseas now. That comment really made everyone in the room feel like RCCL was doing us a favor with the very few ships here in the U.S. If this is the way its going to be because our economy is not as good as it once was, RCCL can also move their Florida corporate offices overseas too. Most of my complaints were documented on this cruise to ship personnel. Our original dining table was number 360. After this cruise we understand what we were reading on the cruisecritic.com site before the cruise. At this point, I am not sure if we will cruise rccl again, which is sad, all the cruises that we tried to stay loyal to reaching diamond status and now seeing all the perks taken away. Just FYI—we spent $2800.00 for the cruise and brought 3 other diamond members with us and we spent over $4000.00 more once onboard as we usually do and if that isn't enough for gold anchor service, then maybe we need to look @ other types of vacations or try other cruise lines.

Cabin Review

Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom with Balcony

Cabin E2

Cabin 6342 is a balcony on the midship bubble.

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