Independence of the seas my first time!

Back again from my first time sailing with Royal Caribbean from Southampton, and what a lovely trip with a great bunch of ladies (and one outnumbered gentleman!)

Check in at Southampton went pretty smooth, just the sheer amount of passengers does create a few queues, this is where you should stick to your time slot, they do it for a reason.

This one is up on the pool bar. the trip was Bruges, Le Harve and Cherborg , so not the warmest of climates.

Probably one of the most popular pubs on board, The Dog & Badger, they have a singer on here every night, all the sing along songs and great fun. The cabins above intrigued me, while the bar closes around midnight one of my colleagues has stayed in these cabins, they are triple glazed and what I thought fab is you have a volume control inside the cabin! how cool is that, so when they have the shows/parades in the centre of the ship, you can sit in comfort to watch , and hear as much as you feel like, clever.

You can see behind us one of the undercover whirlpools, this one hangs out over the ocean,  not brave enough this time to get in, though a number of my colleagues did, they said it was lovely, and the nice part is it seats about 30 people, very popular of these cooler trips.

Main pool area, as you can see just because the weather is not perfect you can still get in the water, the pool and Jacuzzi area was never empty, the water is heated, possibly have a towel or gown ready for when you get out, did not seem to stop the children,  I went on deck one morning for coffee @ 07:30 and they were happily;y swimming, brave little ducks!

The larger ships are not for everyone, though I think this one is a nice size without going to the 6,000 plus capacity, apart from muster and breakfast on the last day I can honestly say there were not huge queues everywhere, it seems to have a lot on offer for all age groups, several quiz groups. line dancing, movies, shuffleboard, to name but a few.

Hope this gives you a small insight into our trip, there will be lots on our website from our on-line team.