We just had an absolutely fabulous time on the Independence of the Seas; 4 night Thanksgiving cruise. Note - my reviews tend to be a collection of organized thoughts, rather than a flowing narrative, so this review won't be for everyone.) We had a few complaints, food quality being the biggest, but we don't cruise for the food, so it didn't ruin our fun. This was our seventh cruise and third cruise line. First time on RC. As we expected, due to it being Thanksgiving, this was a very crowded ship. We were a group of seven, with the four youngest sharing an inside. I suspect that tons of people were using the extra beds in the cabins for this cruise. It was hard to get a reservation, because there were so many groups of eight or more.

Embarkation

Less efficient than the others. The "sick" forms were not available until we got to the check in window. Since there were large groups of families, it caused quite the bottleneck as several people stood around the check in desk, where two people could fill out their form at a time. We usually sail through the check in process, but this time took us around 45 minutes. Read more