Royal Caribbean Independence of the Seas Review 2025 | 5 Night Cruise

Royal Caribbean Independence of the Seas Review 2025 | 5 Night Cruise

hey everybody welcome back to another Jackson jet setting Cruise video today I’m reviewing my five night cruise on board the Independence of the Seas the Independence of the Seas is with Royal Caribbean it is a freedom class vessel launched in 2008 in the very last of her class I’m going to review everything aboard my cruise in this video including my dining things to do on the ship my cabin and the overall itinerary if you’re looking for a full ship tour we have that up already on the channel and we’ll put that down in the show notes as well as a tips and tricks video specifically made for the ship so let’s get started but before we do if you like these types of videos if you love Cruise content and want to support the channel like this video And subscribe it really helps us out the freedom class is probably my favorite class of Royal Caribbean ship I think it’s the right size big enough to have a ton of activities and restaurants on board but also incredibly welld designed from a layout perspective it’s really easy to move around the ship some ships even the newer ones can have dead ends on certain decks so it makes it really hard to move and go to where you’re trying to get to that’s not really the case on board the Independence of the Seas I also think that this ship much like its sister ships in the freedom class have a great cabin to public space ratio on board other ships especially large ones in the Oasis class can get really busy in those public areas during peak times you know you’re thinking breakfast at the Wind Jammer Etc seems like this ship really does a great job of spreading people out and not overpacking too many cabins on board to kind of ruin that vacation now let’s get into everybody’s favorite topic dining on board the Independence of the Seas on my cruise I planned to dine every evening in the main dining room it’s included in your cruise fair and so it’s a great way to save money or at least use the money that you’ve already spent to get on board I haven’t tried any of the new Royal Caribbean dining options during dinner as well they completely revamped their menus in the last year or two so I was excited to try those out overall wasn’t a big fan of the menu the first night went fine but after the second night with Italian night the food was absolutely terrible so I just decided you know what we’re just going to go try some of the specialy restaurants on board it’s not thankfully there’s no shortage of options on board to go and eat you have the Wind Jammer that’s going to be open for breakfast lunch and dinner they also have inside the Wind Jammer on the independence the Seas the specially restaurants chops Grill as well as giovanis those are both going to be an upcharge of about $60 that you can find some accounts um online before your cruise um either in the app or logging in through your browser so I do recommend doing that if you are playing it they also offer an unlimited dining package so that’s going to save you a lot of money as well if you’re planning on kind of going for that high-end dining but for me I decided to go to isumi I tried out the Habachi one night and then I tried out the sushi bar so isumi is a specially restaurant they have two different concepts Under One Roof uh I love the Habachi concept I was sailing solo this Cruise so it was fun to get had a little bit interaction with the other passengers cuz you are seated at a table around the live Chef that’s cooking for you if you do want to do Habachi on your cruise book that well in advance you’ll save a little bit of money and you’ll make sure you get a spot there aren’t too many hiachi tables on board if you do want to have some Asian food though and not pay for Habachi they do have a sushi restaurant with a separate menu it is prefixed or you can actually do allak cart so if you just want one sushi roll you can get it in and out of there pretty quickly at Playmakers they also have an alart restaurant so I try the buffalo chicken egg rolls which were pretty good and then up on the pool deck fish and chips is actually included with a few upcharged items but this is going to be your fried shrimp as well as fish and chips there are many other dining options on board you can check out my full cruise ship Tour on the channel check those out but that’s the way I dined on my Independence of the Seas cruise now let’s check out what there was to do on board the Independence of the Seas as I previously said I love the layout of the ship there’s plenty of things to do you of course have the water park on the top deck you can see those slides there plenty of fun for the kids and adults alike two slides on board Independence of the Seas there’s also a water splash pad Splashway Bay really really fun here and of course this cruise ship does often sail to Ports that have plenty of activities for families and children including perfect day at CoCo K now I’m not a Lie by the pool guy but there are plenty of people on board that love that sort of thing plenty of deck chairs as I noticed though on board Independence the Seas just uh if you want that Prime spot get there very early and of course there are plenty of hot tubs including some cived options on the pool deck you have the Flow Rider which is a very popular option they have the schedule in the app so you can line up a little bit early for this line does get a little bit long especially on Cay for me I love all of the shows on board I think that Royal CRI does a really great job of packing all the events in in the evenings plenty of things to do I love Studio B and the ice skating shows on board they all vary ship to ship um but I did really love uh the option onboard Independence of the Seas and everyone’s always very talented Studio Be does turn into laser tag at certain points during the cruise which is awesome so they actually create the whole course and you’re running around on the skating ring itself of course covered so you’re not like slipping on the ice but it’s really really well done and a lot of fun about 15 minutes 20 minutes uh probably getting set up and everything about a 30 minute activity in the Royal Theater there’s going to be entertainment throughout the day and of course course through the evening lots and lots of shows in here one cool thing that Royal Caribbean does is they actually have full length Broadway shows so they actually had grease on board Independence of the Seas which is pretty cool for Broadway fans they also have a few different variety shows coming in it really depends on the cruise that you’re on what the entertainment is going to look like they actually have a few Production shows as well uh for on my cruise there was a very cool Illusionist that I actually had seen before on a different ship if you go on enough cruises like I do you start to see some of the same entertainment pop up people have kind of a a circuit that they do which is pretty cool um and you know a lot of the entertainers are just really amazing um The Love and Marriage game show is also featured in The Royal Theater this is my favorite event of any Cruise always some embarrassing questions and people are always good sports about that another thing I love is trivia and so that’s hosted in the Schooner bar so look for me on the Schooner bar if you are looking to play trivia on my next Cruise if I’m feeling lucky I’ll try my luck in the casino especially the slot tournament haven’t won one yet but I know my luck is coming soon the crazy Quest is also an amazing event that I just featured there that’s going to be an adults oriented scavenger hunt really a lot of fun a lot of drinking involved so now let’s talk cabin I got to say this is one of my favorite cabins I’ve ever had on board any ship anywhere was able to book a panoramic Ocean View so no balcony but this thing was on the top deck had amazing ocean views kind of slanted windows so you can really see a ton of the port and the Sea very very relaxing really had a great time pretty standard bathroom for this room uh but the overall size was pretty big uh it was just me sailing so I had plenty of room never really have had any issue even with two people in a room um you know I’m I’m someone who doesn’t pack a ton of stuff on these cruises uh so I’m never really bothered by lack of storage sh has a traditional door which is great some cruises I go on have the curtain and water sometimes can get everywhere so I love the doors there uh don’t love the combo shampoo and body wash that Royal caran gives you I wish they kind of gave you two different ones uh but that’s a minor quibble that I always mention on these videos if you watch a lot of my content you know I’ll always mention that lot of storage though for you know your t-shirts and underwear and all that stuff right here right next to the door and then hanging clothes are going to go in here see my suitcase is in there they do have laundry services on board haven’t really tried those out in quite a while haven’t had the need to with these shorter cruises but on a longer Cruise you’re definitely want to make use of that Royal crian doesn’t have self-service laundry facilities on board you’re going to have to make use of the paid option so just keep that in mind safe right there and some more storage plenty storage here especially for one person mini fridge right here love that the mini fridge opened with the door kind of a nice little touch there good little desk area for doing any work or for most cruises honestly it’s where all the papers that they give you tend to collect throughout the cruise of course the most popular category on any cruise ship is going to be balconies there are plenty of balcony cabins on board this ship this is just a cabin that was offered to me by the casino with my Casino offer that I got on board with so I decided to take it and I was very very surprised with how amazing this was nice little sitting area for getting ready that doesn’t really turn into a bed or anything so just keep that in mind and then that king bed does turn into two twins by request so if you’re sharing a room with someone you can split those off here’s a look at the view so just really really amazing here just a beautiful look to this panoramic Ocean New State room I will say we did have a few nights of rough Seas on board and this was on one of the top decks right next to the spa and in the forward part of the ship so if you are prone to moshage sickness I do recommend getting a cabin in the midship and on one of the lower decks you just going to reduce the amount of motion does present a few more problems with noise sometimes from the engine and things like that so just keep that in mind uh but if you are motion sick I do recommend being on a lower deck and more midship on this itinerary we had two different ports the first Port was nasau which I’ve been to many many times before I have a lot of content up on what to do in Port um including Margaritaville which is what I did exactly on the Independence of the Seas cruise I took really good option walking distance from the cruise ship good little water park and a lot cheaper than Atlantis or bajamar we had a Cay and then landed in Falmouth Jamaica which is not my favorite Port I do love Jamaica as a country but I felt like the location of this port is really inconvenient for a lot of things I did a ship tour to the hamen rum Distillery which was a really interesting tour uh really a cool way to make rum a little bit different than what I’ve seen on other tours wasn’t a big fan of their rum actually but the property itself was really beautiful and the lunch was absolutely delicious so I do recommend this tour if you’re just interested in seeing how rum is made uh they make it just in a very unique way and you get really up close and personal with some of the distilling which is not something you can do in the US for sure so I do recommend this it’s a little bit of a bumpy ride getting there and back which is just kind of a complaint I have kind of for the entire area around felma so overall a great Cruise debarkation was really really nice and organized Roy cre does a great job there do recommend Independence of the Seas so if you like this type of content Please Subscribe like I said earlier in the video and thanks for watching

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Royal Caribbean’s Independence of the Seas was one of my favorite cruises – I enjoyed my 5 nights on board sailing to the Bahamas and Jamaica! Check out all my thoughts on how my cruise went, including food, entertainment, the ship itself, and the itinerary!

Full Ship Tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgVJXlAhUFs
Vlog Series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI1Uj0XuIsM

00:00 Introduction
00:41 Why I Love The Freedom Class
01:28 Dining on Independence of the Seas
04:15 Activities Onboard
06:41 Cabins Review
09:43 Itinerary Review