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What with living in a Port city, I often see the comings and goings of all the Cruise Ships and the guests but I've never actually been onboard a ship until now, and what a ship to start off with. I've always thought of cruising as a luxury and adult only, turns out it really is for everyone. All I've ever expected from a ship is for it to be really extravagant, up market and that I wouldn't be the right clientele. Turns out I was very wrong, I mean it is extravagant but I'd fit right in. Royal Caribbean's Independence of the Seas was the first ship I've ever been onboard and it's recently had a multi-million pound make over. Which means it returned even bigger and better than before, I grabbed my passport, met up with some other local bloggers and off we went to explore the floating city itself.
We all know if you go away as a family or a big group there's always the thought of what should we do? I can assure you, that would not be an issue onboard Independence of the Seas. There is a wide variety of activities for all. Fancy a chill day? Lounge around the pool or visit the Vitality Spa. Want to occupy the kids? Visit SplashAway Bay, The Perfect Storm waterslides or maybe even a game of Lazer Tag. You could even visit the Ice Rink onboard for some family fun.
I honestly don't think you could run out of fun things to do while onboard, each day could be different. I know we were overwhelmed with how much there was to see and explore and I don't think we managed to see everything. Although we did spend a good hour or so as a group wondering around and coming across more and more that we just didn't expect. We all kept mentioning how easy it was to forget you're actually on a ship because it was like its own little city.
What with the recent make over, there's even more fun to have onboard including some new features, some of which are;
SKYPAD - Now, this looks super snazzy. It's a brand new trampolining experience, including virtual reality head sets, so while you're bouncing away you can take part in zero-gravity games.
FlowRider - I did go and watch a pro doing this as you can see above. It's a surf simulator, so you can give it a bash yourself or get ring side seats to watch people give it their best shot as well as some spectacular wipe outs. ( Guess which one I opted to do?)
Splashaway Bay - I'll be real, it took me everything not to go running into this because, my god does it look like some fun! But, it's for the little ones to enjoy, a whole mini aqua park onboard that will keep then occupied for hours. There's water slides, water cannons and drench bucket.
Perfect Storm - Now this is what you call a water slide. There's two so you can race a friend to the bottom while rushing through all the twists and translucent panels, which I can only imagine the views you get what with being three stories high.
Laser Tag - Anywhere that has laser tag on offer is immediately amazing for me. It's also glow in the dark too. The Battle For Planet Z would be well worth it.
Escape Room - Ever met a time travelling professor lost in space? well, now you can! Time to put all your heads together and work fast to get out and save the professor before time is up.
And that's not even half of the fun activities available on the ship.
There's so many little chill areas around the ship but the hammocks were a firm fave of ours, we all spent a good amount of time swinging away and taking in the views while trying to figure out where we could venture to next.
Golf course?
Theatre?
Royal Promenade?
Casino?
All of them? YEP!
There's just as much to see on the inside decks as there is on the outside decks, as much as we were enjoying the glorious weather we were blessed with on the day, it was time to step inside and see what delights were on offer.
When I say floating city, it is a literal floating city with its own promenade, theatre, casino and many many places to shop and eat. We were all taken aback when we arrived on this deck to be confronted with what you would expect to see on a highstreet. There were shops, bars, restaurants and once you had walked the length of the promenade, the Royal Theatre appeared with its glowing sign. We all slowly wondered along the promenade trying to take it all in, I vividly remember a Ben & Jerry's ice cream shop (it's what dreams are made of).
Once we had made it to the end of the promenade, we all wondered into the Royal Theatre, and it was just as grand as you would expect. I know I would have spent a lot of time there myself if I was sailing away that day, specially as Broadways hit musical Grease is currently taking the stage.
There's so so many options for food onboard Independence of the Seas but we got to enjoy Chops Grille, which is a new American steak house, they serve up succulent cuts of meat, fresh seafood along with a variety of side and desserts.
The food was really good, cooked to perfection and exactly how we would usually eat it with lots of different sides to try between us all. Once our food babies were satisfied, off we went for more adventures.
We were free to do as we pleased after lunch and we all went off in different directions. Some went straight to the pools, who could blame them? It was 28˙ after all. A couple of other bloggers and myself decided to tour a little bit more as we were adamant we had missed some areas out, we then all met back up at the pools ready to disembark.
We had a good few hours on Indy and we did get to see a fair bit of her, but I can't help but feel we still definitely missed some off. I would have loved to see inside a Stateroom, experience the Vitality Spa and maybe have even giving a couple of the activities a whirl, but you can only do so much in a few hours, guess it's time to look into going back on!
Have you ever sailed with Royal Caribbean? Or even been onboard Independence of the Seas?
Thanks for having us onboard Royal Caribbean & Independence of the Seas, what an experience!
Emily-May x
* This is a sponsored post, all words are of my own, please see disclaimer.
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