Independence of the Seas Cruise Reviews - Reviews

good family holiday with 5 kids and 5 adults

cabin was great as were the staff

kids club poor 

food was good but not great

one problem with glass in an appetizer

Relaxing vacation. great ports of calls. food not so great this time. great service.  Great entertainment.  Balcony room was fabulous.  Labadee is a relaxing day.  Visited the hospital on board. They were excellent.

My husband and I celebrated our 34th anniversary on the Independence of the sea! Long time cruisers but first time on the freedom class ships. Independence of the sea is a very good ship. Staff was very conscientious about cleanliness of the ship.  The entertainment was very good. Cruise director and activity manager was visible and engaging often around the ship. we had a wow experience!

Its is our first time in a cruise and we loved.

I lot of activities for us and the kids. the food was great and people really friendly, specially in the main restaurant. The only thing I was disappointed was the day in the Cayman Island. The instructions weren't clear and  we waited for like 20 minutes because we didn't had a tour with Royal Caribbean. They made us to wait for all the people who had a tour with them. And we were try to get information and the girl who is the personal shopper ( Paige) was there and instead of being polite and try to help us, she was very rude and treat us in a very bad way a person with that attitude should be working with people.

If you want to let the Royal Caribbean tours go first, please be clear and let people know.

I always heard good comments about Royal Caribbean so I gave it a chance. Unfortunately it was not what I expected.

Food and beverage: mostly tasteless, few options in the menu, restaurant closes when you leave the ship, after 3pm, slow service at the bars.

Fun: very few interactive activities at the pool, the ship is dead if you do not get out at the ports. Poor activities for kids and teens.

Ports: Cayman is beautiful. There is not a lot to do in Falmouth, Jamaica, you will have to travel almost an hour to get to nicer beaches like in  Montego Bay or Ocho Rios. Labadee, Haiti is a beach club good for those who look for comfort and that is it. For me it was depressing to see a fence preventing access from locals to the peninsula and just a few opportunities for them to work and grow with the port business as food, beverage and services come from the ship. I am not sure how much of the environment was compromised with the structure RC built there.

Fabulous experience.  From boarding to disembarking, all went smoothly, very well organised and professional.  All employees were helpful, friendly and welcoming.

I was very excited to be doing a cruise for the first time. First off I must say the boat was beautiful. Our room was in the back of the boat & loved it great views & some what quite. What was disappointing was the staff on the boat not very helpful for example on the first day on the boat we went to lunch at 2:30 well the greeter at the main dining room said they were closed. Well we were very hungry * didn't realize that it was closed only a half hour greeter never told us that nor did they let us know there was a small sandwich place located on a different floor. So we only new of Johnny Rockets that you have to pay extra for & how thrilled to eat a burger & fries!! well got over that didn't waste time feel bummed. Next we were told our room was ready yeah! guess what our host for the stateroom was unbelievable first when I requested pitcher of water to make my own cold brewed ice tea he said just let the ice melt in your ice bucket & use that. Then he said to put a note on our bed if we were in need of anything, when I ask him for paper & pen (which we had neither of them) he just look at us & said nothing. Later at the bar in the main dining room asked bartender for a pen which he replied he doesn't have one thankfully the waitress said no problem & gave us one. I was looking forward to relaxing in the pool good luck with that pool way to small for adults only crammed in there. Kids pool area big & plentiful so if you are a family with children lots of room. Food in main dining room was nothing but 2 star quality. The staff in the sit down restaurant were very pleasing & helpful to bad the food was bland & tasteless. Even the desserts were awful! Unless you were willing to pay for your meals (chops) which was very good didn't realize that was the only way to have good food. The spa at the ship was great too of course extra. So I realize you need to pay, pay, pay, to have good service( tip, tip ,tip) good food (pay, pay, pay & entertainment was also at a cost bingo $30.00 a card! The money I paid out in the end wasn't worth it could have gone somewhere for longer stay for a lot less.

The check in process was extremely fast, so the earlier the better to get on the ship. We received our luggage by Dinner Time that day. Our Balcony was good. The buffet food was only ok. It was much better on the other Royal Caribbean cruise. After dinner shows were good but very limited entertainment. Other cruises we have been on have included comedy shows or shows such as Blue Man Group. We went with another couple and the problem they encountered was the people next to their cabin were smoking weed on their balcony. Security was called twice and no action was taken. Our friends paid for a balcony but could only use it when their neighbors were not there. Very disappointing how this was handled . Unloading was very good.  

Cruise directors,  Ricky,  Sara and Tom were very good at helping everyone feel good and part of each activity.  All three of them made our cruise very special.  I felt like they were our new special friends that we will never forget.  Thanks again, for making our cruise so great !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was our annual family cruise, and we traveled with our grown children and 3 grandchildren, ages 1, 2, and 6...8 total, in three staterooms on level 9.  We always use , because of their outstanding cruise specialist, Patti Opera.  We are experienced cruisers, and prefer Royal Caribbean, as we have found that they deliver a consistently great cruising experience.  The itinerary included St. Maarten, St. Kitts, San Juan, and Labadee.  We loved the fact that it was an 8 day cruise...we felt the extra day was a "bonus."  As always, there were a few "standout" members of the cruise staff that made our cruise memorable.  In this case, it was our entire dining room wait staff.  Our waiter and assistant waiter, Randy and Julius, were outstanding.  The anticipated the needs of our grandchildren, and brought out their food early each meal to keep them occupied and satisfied.  The Head Waiter, Vivek, was the absolute best Head Waiter we have experienced.  He was personable, and highly involved with our service every evening...ensuring we were all (including the kids) enjoying our dining experience.  He even performed magic tricks for the grandkids.  Overall, another outstanding experience with and Royal Caribbean.

First time with Royal found we had the same food everyday at lunch. Don't think it help that we started with a bad taste before we started the cruise with the web site. Didn't have money returned spent 2 weekend on the phone, waste of my time not to happy.

Wendy

Everything was great, excellent service, great food and entertainment was outstanding. Only bad thing was their coffee. Room was comfortable and cruise director was energetic.Everything was A+

We loved cruising the Caribbean and enjoyed the amenities on the ship. Started out badly because the porters left many suitcases out in the pouring rain even tho we had delivered them to a covered tent. Ruined many outfits. We must have chosen our tours poorly because three out of four were terrible. Only the Puerto Rico Food Tasting was great. Their island cruise Labadee would have been okay had the so-called tour guide told us what we were seeing but he was too busy with his friends and flirting with a woman tourist. And honestly, the quality of the food on Royal Caribbean has really slipped since I first started cruising with them about 8 years ago.

We very much appreciated the wait staff on our recent cruise. We were late seating in Romeo/Juliet deck 4 table 266. We felt everyone was very friendly and helpful and made our dinner enjoyable.

I would like to give Phillip Charles great praise for his service. We were state room 8527. It is staff like him that make your cruise so pleasant. I told him of a light bulb that started to flicker in our bathroom. He had it taken care of immediately. It is the little things as well as the big things that make the cruise what it is. We also enjoyed how ALL the staff take the time to smile and say a greeting each and every time.

This is our second cruise on Independence of the Seas and we would highly recommend it to our friends and family.

Thanks you,

Wm. Michael &Christine OFlynn

A wonderful ship...service was awesome. 

Usually cruise on Celebrity so did miss the martini bar.  Have cruised many times but felt that the drink prices had increased a bit.

Food was generally great only one night of questionable dinner in the main dining room.  Chops specialty dining was out of this world.

Very impressed with the private island Labadee and all that it offered. 

I would highly recommend this to couples or families.  A very nice kids pool area called H20. 

The BEST cruise director Ricky on this ship, he made each entertainment venue so much fun.

We had a simply wonderful time, Once again, RCCL met all of our expectations. The only negative we experienced was at the Guest Services desk. We did have a couple questions as the trip evolved and I thought the attendants were a little sully, as if we were bothering them. Compared to the wonderful treatment we received everywhere else on the ship, we found it a little surprising. The trip overall though was well worth it and we are already looking at booking another for next winter. See you soon :)

We had a very good week  the Independence of the Seas ship. My only disappointment was they didn't give us the 6pm dining and when I tried to have it changed there was no available tables. We had to wait until 6:40 each eve to see if they had a no show. This got very old with my adult children. Crazy thing was that 5 out of six nights they did seat us at the same table. This means that whoever was assigned to the table did not use it at all. And of course we were still eating when the entire dining room was done. My problem is , when I booked the cruise I ask Mike to make sure we got the early seating. He told me you didn't need to do that any more because they have a my time dining. But that was booked also. This was enough of a problem with our group that if I were not positive I was getting it the next time I would not book the cruise.

This ship was a wonderful ship in everyway. The food, the crew, the staff,at the front desk, and the ship itself. We actually did a back-to-back cruise and loved both. The entertainment was also excellent.

The ship was not only beautiful but it cruised so smoothly, that, 90% of the time, you didn't even know the ship was moving. You actually had to lookoutside the window to see it.

We found the food at the buffet to be so tasty and with such a large variety, we only ate in the diningroom  one time.

We will definitely cruiseon this ship again.

1- we get a  very bad meal  in the 1st day on the cruise . and the waiter execuse us for that and told us its the smell of the food here !!

2- they didn't allow us to visit the 1st island and just stay on the ship 

The ship is a beautiful floating palace with great amenities.  Because the ship is over 1000 feet long, we did a lot of walking to and from our stateroom.  Our dining experience was varied from cafeteria style to  formal.  Dining in the Romeo & Juliet facility was great and the service at our table was excellent; especially the wine steward, John Cervantes, who has a great future ahead of him.  We were disappointed in that we could not make our first Port docking.  The weather was such the tenders could not make it to our ship so  we proceeded to Falmouth, Jamaica.  The remainder of the cruise was enjoyable.  The entertainment was excellent and our overall experience was good.  All staff we had any contact with were very sociable, likable, and always willing to go the extra yard.  We would certainly recommend the IOS to anyone interested in a relaxing, enjoyable cruise.