Quick Review of Independence of the Seas

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Reviews: 2

Helpful Votes: 27

Review summary

Just got off the Indy yesterday. Had good time because I was on vacation, but there were definitely some issues. Not sure if anyone else has had this problem, but but weary if you win a Royal Up bid. I bid the absolute lowest amount so I was not expecting an upgrade. On our way to Florida, I received an email stating my bid had been accepted and we won an upgrade to a Balcony cabin. So when we got to the hotel, we reprinted the boarding information with the new cabin number. The next day when we went to check in for the cruise, they couldn't find us under the new cabin number. They searched our names and found us listed under the original cabin number. When we asked what was going on we were told we had to go to Guest Services. Nothing puts a bad taste in your mouth like having to visit Guest Services right after getting onboard instead of enjoying your vacation. We spent an hour in line because there were many people with issues after first arriving. We were then assured our upgraded cabin was the correct one so we went to enjoy ourselves. Several hours later everyone had received cabin keys but we did not. So once again we had to spend 30-45 min in line in order to get cabin keys. The ship hasn't left port yet and we've already visited Guest Services twice. The rest of this day turned out good other than several times we ordered drinks only to be told that they were out of several things. The things we know they were out of was white wine, Johnny Walker, all draft beer except Heineken and ingredients to make a mojito which I'm assuming was just the mint. Maybe it's just me, but if you know you are out of so many drink items, should you still be charging people full price for drink packages? Day 2 we go to Playmakers and enjoy some appetizers. We didn't know to tell them that we have Unlimited Dining because every other restaurant had that information in the computer. We ended up getting charged for our food. Well now here's a third visit to Guest Services in order to get that fixed. Luckily there wasn't a line this time but the lady helping us thought Playmakers wasn't included and had to ask a supervisor. The supervisor assured her it was and instead of just taking off the charge she called Playmakers to find out why they charged us. We were told it was our fault for not stating we had the Unlimited Dining. 10 minutes later, and it was fixed. We also had several other issues with meals at the paid dining venues. Johnny Rockets was understaffed and extremely slow. Nothing like immediately getting your fries and onion rings, but having to wait 30 minutes just for water. 10 minutes after the water the burgers came and another 10 minutes we finally got melted milk shakes. Chops and Giovanni's was not worth the money paid. If I didn't have the Unlimited Dining I would have been even more upset about those meals. We only ate in the MDR once and that was after the bad meal at Giovanni's and it was really good. We wished we had just ate in there all weekend as opposed to eating at some of the paid options. Izumi and the last night in the MDR were the two best meals we had. Izumi was probably the best hibachi meal we've ever eaten. We didn't ever make it to see the ice skating show, but we did catch the juggling comedian Scotty Cavanaugh and the production of Grease. Both of those were definitely worth watching and I highly recommend them. It was vacation, so we made the best of it, but just know they are short staffed and having lots of supply chain issues so experiences may not be what you are used to having.

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