I know I haven't been blogging much and, I tried to think of something I could do a nice quick blog entry about. The thing that comes to mind immediately is my recent cruise on Royal Caribbean's Independence of the Seas. The cruise was interesting in a number of ways. The cruise started in Southampton, England BUT, I joined the cruise at Philipsburg, St. Maarten. This was intentional i.e. I didn't miss the boat. If a cruise is open ended i.e. starts in one port and finishes in another, you can join the cruise at a later port as long as you get approval from Royal Caribbean's security at their headquarters. When the time comes, presumably, they'll notify the ship of your plans so, they know where to expect you. This was the second time I've done this. The first was on Royal Caribbean's Legend of the Seas in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The cruise started in San Diego, California, United States of America (U.S.A.) but, to make my then boss happy, I joined it at Cabo San Lucas to keep down the number of days off I needed.
Another interesting thing about the cruise was the itinerary. I know some people like days at sea. I don't even though I know the ship tries to have lots of things for people to do. In this case, once the ship set sail out of Southampton, it would sail non-stop for over 8 days to St. Maarten. Once it made St. Maarten, I felt it became an excellent cruise with additional stops at St. Kitts, St. Thomas, San Juan and Labadee, Haiti with 1 day at sea before pulling into Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, U.S.A.
For me, the main reason I did the cruise was for the cruise points though I did like the itinerary once the ship made port in St. Maarten. If you join a cruise late, you'll still get all the cruise points for the cruise you would've gotten otherwise. What that means for me is that I got 15 cruise points for it being a 15 night cruise even though I was only on the ship 6 nights AND, I got another 15 cruise points as I always cruise solo i.e. I always pay double for my cabin (I don't care for the solo cruiser cabins). This means, I can advance faster in Royal Caribbean's frequent cruiser program the Crown & Anchor. I'm Diamond Plus thanks to a Baltic cruise I did with them last summer and now, I'm shooting for the ultimate - Pinnacle. At it requires 700 nights, even with me getting double cruise points, it's going to take a while to reach it.
The cruise itself had a number of mishaps from beginning to end which took away from the experience for me. Royal Caribbean normally does a better job in my opinion. I don't know why there were so many mis-steps. The first was when I arrived at the Dr. Mathey Cruise Ship Terminal. As I previously mentioned, I'd had approval to join the ship in St. Maarten months before and, they should've known I was going to be arriving that day. Yet, when I checked in that the cruise ship terminal, I wasn't on the list to proceed to the ship. St. Maarten security had to send someone to the ship to confirm I was supposed to be admitted. I waited for at least 20 minutes wondering if I was going to get on a ship I had a paid reservation for.
When I got to the Independence of the Seas, Andrew Evans from Guest Relations met me, subsequently took me on board and did my in-processing. It should've been a normal cruise at that point but, it wasn't. I was supposed to get my 2nd crystal block but someone forgot to tell the Loyalty representative I was supposed to get one. I had to see her to get this straightened out. I was supposed to get a $200 shipboard credit but, I wasn't able to get this fixed until the very day I was supposed to leave the ship! The Voom WiFi Royal Caribbean raves about crashed though they did give me a refund for the days it was down. I was supposed to get luggage tags for my bags but, someone forgot to put me on the departure list so, I had to ask my cabin steward for them. People were sent to the Alhambra Theater to wait till their number was called to leave the ship but, the announcements didn't come over the theater speaker system. I was supposed to leave the ship at 7:15 but, they fell 30 minutes behind. They had 500 people going to Miami International Airport but, they were only able to board 3 buses at a time and got behind because of number of people in wheel chairs didn't tell them they were going to be in wheel chairs (that was the excuse they gave).
There were some good points to the cruise. I got to do the scenic train ride in St. Kitts which was pretty cool barring some unexplained technical difficulties which delayed the train. I did the jet boat ride in St. Thomas which was really fun, interesting and did wonders for cooling you off (you will get wet!). It was 103F when we made port at Crown Bay. I got to visit the only tropical rain forest in the U.S.A.'s National Park System, the El Yunque National Park. The La Coca falls were very pretty. Lastly, I got to do a scenic cruise out of Labadee where I learned more about Haiti and some some stunning scenery. Sadly, thanks to the first medical emergency I've ever heard happening on a cruise I've been on (someone supposedly had a heart attack and we had to turn around and return to San Juan to send them on their way to the hospital), we arrived late to Labadee though Captain Iv Vidos did his best to make up the lost time. Also, thanks to the loyalty representative, I was able to do 2 behind the scenes tours Diamond Plus and Pinnacle are allowed to do for free. I particularly enjoyed the bridge tour and have a neat picture of myself with an officer's hat in a command chair on the bridge presumably making sure the ship sailed smoothly and safely to Ft. Lauderdale.
I accomplished what I wanted to do on the cruise but, I wasn't very pleased with Royal Caribbean. I can't wait to give them feedback on it. Incredibly, I'll be doing the same cruise on the same ship at the same time next year. Hopefully, it'll go smoother next time. We'll see. Happy travels all!
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