My boyfriend and I took this 4 day cruise from Southampton to Cobh/Cork to try out Royal Caribbean after having sailed with Carnival and NCL previously. This was the first time we had embarked in the UK, something we found very easy and would happily repeat. We travelled to Southampton by train and then it was just a few minutes in a taxi to the dock.

The Independence of the Seas was a very large and impressive ship. Some areas felt a little tired, however the facilities were excellent. We liked the promenade area and thought the aft sports deck had amazing facilities such as flow rider, which would particularly appeal to teenagers.

We booked an outside guarantee stateroom and were assigned a category H cabin on deck 2 forward a couple of weeks before sailing. The cabin was a very standard outside view cabin. We found it nice and quiet, apart from when docking. The cabin was conveniently located close to forward stairs, 3 decks below the promenade. Although standard, it was a shame the bed head was under the window, rather than in a position where you could look out to sea. A kettle and tea bags were provided in the room, but no coffee. There were no robes in our room either, which would have been nice for walking up to the hot tubs on deck 11. Read more