Independence of the Seas Review

Never again!

Review for Canary Islands Cruise on Independence of the Seas

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Sail Date: Oct 2010
Cabin: Superior Oceanview Stateroom with Balcony

3 days into our 10 day canary island cruise on the Independence and my wife wanted to go home. I managed to talk her round with the promise of better times when the ship landed at the first port of call (Tenerife) but I really wish now that I had listened to her. It is certainly not possible to please everyone but we will not be cruising again with Royal Caribbean or most probably any other cruise line.

Royal Caribbean do so many things right that I feel a little guilty about complaining. Our deluxe sea view cabin with balcony was lovely and our cabin steward was excellent. The food is very good and plenty of it and this is catering on a big scale and on this point one wonders why so many small establishments in the UK do it so badly. The service cannot be faulted and one is acknowledged by every member of staff usually with a smile and there is always someone at hand to help. The shows were very good and often as high a standard as any we have seen in the West End of London. The ship is spotless and hygiene is stressed wherever you go in the ship. So what are we disappointed with? Well, probably the lack of anything intelligent to do on sea days and because the Independence is a big ship there are a lot of people on board and we felt that it was crowded and full to capacity. O.K. there were trivia games and suchlike but so brief and the seating arrangements in the bar areas where they were held was woefully inadequate. Invariably there was not a seat to be had which brings me to the complaint that it was usually impossible to get a seat in any of the main bars as there is insufficient seating. The same applied to the windjammer buffet restaurant and on one occasion we gave up on having breakfast there. Fortunately we had a very nice cabin to retreat to and we made full use of it! However we did not expect to spend so much time in our cabin.

Perhaps it is us as we do not play bridge, hate the swimming pool areas as the many children there are not ours and we cannot stand Bingo. We did book the holiday to avoid half-term but it would appear that many parents do not worry about taking their children out of school and so there were many children on board and rules about their presence in bar areas such as the champagne lounge or dining rooms were ignored. The lectures on photography both of which were very short were also very mediocre. The half hour talk given by the chief engineer was very well attended but the visual aids were poor, which was a shame as so many people were interested in how such an enormous ship functions.

Cabin Review

Superior Oceanview Stateroom with Balcony

Cabin D1

Great view, quiet although close to service lifts, unaware of anyone else nearby, very clean with all you could wish for in a cabin. It is well worth paying the extra for a balcony as we spent a lot of time in our cabin in order to escape the crowds. We would have been totally miserable had we had a inside cabin.

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