Chose this Cruise to introduce some friends to the joy of cruising and I'm delighted to say that they loved every minute of it. We on the other hand did not, this was the 11th time we had been on this ship and we have always had a wonderful time, until now. We had My Time Dining, but could not get a table before 20:45hrs each evening and on the 4th night, they took us up to deck 5 and we started dining at 21:10hrs. They announced on the last night, that over 2500 people had been catered for with My Time Dining and were bragging about how wonderful it had been! It wasn't and was a shambles most evenings, and people waited for ages for a table and then to cap it all, the food was poor compared to previous sailings.

For the first time ever on 20 cruises, we were not offered tea or coffee at the end of our meal and then had to ask for it each evening afterwards. We had taken part in the lottery of a guaranteed cabin for the first time ever and ended up on deck 3, below the new Sports Bar, nightmare and bumping and banging until 02:00hrs each night. The new innovations as expected for RCI, were wonderful, and the Windjammer certainly needed the upgrade, the food did as well mind you, they haven't got around to that yet. Shows were good and had usual poor comedian who turned out to be a very good singer. Ice show stunning; as always. Piano Player in the Schooner Bar put on dark glasses and tried to sing like Stevie Wonder, but sounded like Wonder Woman on a bad day with a hangover. Great to see Josh back onboard and hopefully he'll find a Comedian and a Singer for the Schooner Bar soon.

Cabin Steward for the first time ever was poor and mostly invisible, I think the staff are being tasked with too much throughout the ship, after the additional cabins added to deck 12 and the additional hundreds of guests, that now need catered for, with the original dining sizes throughout the ship. We had already booked for the October Transatlantic with our friends, but that will be our last on the Independence and hopefully they won't make the same mistakes with their other ships when upgrading in the future. Just to finish, tried the Fish and Ships, not great and pricey for what it is, don't see this lasting too long.