Independence of the Seas Review

4.5 / 5.0
1,703 reviews

Frank and honest

Review for Canary Islands Cruise on Independence of the Seas
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mika6617
6-10 Cruises • Age 50s

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Additional details

Sail Date: Mar 2011
Cabin: Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom with Balcony
Traveled with children

Just got back from a Canaries cruise aboard the Independence of the seas.Accomodation was fine and overall appearence was good.Biggest let down was the evening meal in the main dining hall.Food was bland and limited, lacking any sort of imagination especially for a cruise line.The service in the dining room was dreadful again when comparing with other cruise companies.On my eleven night cruise my guests and I spent three nights only because of how bad it was.It says everything when you see how busy the buffet actually was, speaks volumes. This was a big dissapointment as its normally a big part of most peoples cruises.The entertainment was very good especially the shows in the theatre of an evening.The ports of call were fine apart from the fact that sometimes we departed from some ports as early as 3pm when we didnt get there until 11am,(not much time ashore) You read loads about how dear it is onboard from various websites, but its not until you board do you realise just how expensive it actually is, for example to buy a simple no frills glass of wine you would pay £12.00 to £13.00 (no not a bottle but a glass) my wife was after a simple blow dry in the salon onboard, wait for it...$69.00 about £45.00 for A BLOW DRY. Ridiculous but true, just be aware of these mind blowing costs before you book.I have sailed on Disney and P&0 a number of times but have never come across so much bad value for money.I probably wont use RC again due to the poor value for money aspect and especially wouldn't travel on the Independence of the sea's purely because of its large size and very different inside layout if feels very little like a cruise ship which I suppose is the reason you go on cruises in the first place.I never did understand it when people have said that "the ship" was too big and prefer something a little bit smaller. I can now though.I did however have a really great time although this was down mostly to the people I travelled with.

Cabin Review

Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom with Balcony

Cabin E1

Our Balcony stateroom was fine, it had enough room for our period of stay and was kept tidy enough, although you will find better kept staterooms.

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