We just came back from an 8 day cruise on RCCL's Independence of the Seas. This was my 5th RCCL and I have another 5 on Carnival. We are Platinum members and traveled in a group of 17 which included Emerald customers. Let me say this may be our last RCCL cruise. What a huge disappointment. Comparing this to prior cruises, it is clear the company has cut staff. This was evident from housekeeping, to the closing of bars at night to the dining staff. A great example was we booked 7 for Chops Grille. It was a fiasco from the moment we booked it. They had 1 waiter who was also the busboy, drink waiter and assistant waiter. We were missing appetizers, never never got our coffee, the meal took over 3 hours, it was so dark we all had to use our I phones to read the menus and they overcharged us for 5 meals which I had prepaid. When I flagged down the head waiter, he turned it over to someone else to deal with because he too was serving meals and bussing tables. No one ever came over to ask how our meal was. The best was my son, who is 23, is a vegetarian. He joined us for dinner because the menu clearly states Gluten and Vegetarian options available, ask your server. We asked our server and he replied, this is a steak house. No kidding.... however one of my kids, who was part of the party, wanted to join us and the menu claims to have options. He ordered a salad and then the waiter went next door to the Italian restaurant and their chef made him a special main dish. Guess what he made him for dinner, a salad. I am so glad I paid extra for him to eat 2 salads. The main dining room was just as bad. My husband and had 2 drinks spilled on him in the main dining room and no one came over to apologize or offer to have his clothes cleaned. Spilled drinks happen and we understand that but please, at least offer to clean his shirt and pants. I learned alcoholic after dinner drinks are sticky and smell after a while. Each meals took forever. We had 6:00 dining and a few nights we were leaving as the late seating was waiting to come in. Ice tea, forget it, our glasses remained empty most of the time. We didn't fare any better at the disco. They had a Michael Jackson dance hour and when we showed up they were playing obscure Michael Jackson songs. Doesn't Michael Jackson have a large enough library of songs you know and can dance too? When we said something we were told by the DJ over the speaker he was doing an hour of Michael Jackson and if we didn't like it we can leave. That was an easy decision, we left and the dance floor was open. A suggestion, when you play "dance" music play the matching videos on the screen. One of our travel companions ordered a virgin Strawberry Daiquiri on the pool deck and the bartender put alcohol in it. She had the upgraded drink card that offers specialty non alcoholic drinks, sode, coffee and juice. He took her card, told her she had to pay for the drink. She told him she asked for a non alcoholic drink and he said she didn't. Basically calling her a liar. Thankfully there were 2 other people at the bar, whom she didn't know, who told the bartender they heard her say virgin. He took the drink and thew it away. He was clearly upset, made a new one and put it In front of another bar patron who had to slide it over to her. How about an I'm sorry I did not hear you instead of attitude. This was my daughter in law's 4th cruise and she has always gotten such a kick out of the towel animals. We got 3 out of an 8 day cruise. The Emerald group never got the items they requested In their rooms. I have many more stories from this trip just like the ones above but the cruise ended on the funniest note that just summarized our experience. We had a few people celebrating birthdays. One of the group ordered a cake on line for his wife. He then went downstairs to talk about the delivery. They asked him his wife's name. That night the cake was delivered to their room. It read Happy Birthday but it was in Spanish, Feliz Cumpleanos. That was really sweet except she does not read, write or speak Spanish, he did not ask for it to be in Spanish and of course it did not have her name in it. She kept the cake since it summed up how this trip went down. A few positives, the ship is clean. However some of the artwork is just weird. I can't figure out if they have a theme or just walked through an art gallery pointing to pictures. Most of the staff tried. They just seemed overworked and totally, severely understaffed. Perhaps this is causing the poor attitudes. I blame ownership for this. We saw one of the wait staff being dressed down by a manager in the dining room. This is inappropriate and should never take place on the floor. I blame management for this. Maybe management needs retraining? The ports were great and even with all the hiccups, had a good time. The beds were comfortable and getting on and off the boat was a breeze. The wait staff in the Windjammer at night were way better so we ate their most of the time. When we did complain to Customer Relations, they had managers called us but really, what could they do at that point? The meal at Chops was already done and not worth the extra charge. We missed hooking up with the other people in our group because the meal was painfully long. They did take my husbands shirt and pants and had them cleaned but that was only after we said something 3 days later. They would not have offered if we didn't say something. They told us they would speak to the DJ and bartender but to what end? The damage was done and they have lost not only us but most of the people in our party including the Emerald couple. Their are many other cruise lines available who would love to take our money. They will get that opportunity.