Welcome to the Royal Crime Blog podcast, a weekly look into the world of Royal Caribbean

Cruising.

I'm here else Matt Hodgeberg, and this is episode number 226.

I'm back from my Royal Caribbean cruise on Royal Caribbean's Independence of the Seas,

and this week we're going to be talking all about my experience on Independence of the Seas,

including what I did on board, what we did on shore,

and my thoughts in general about my cruise on Independence of the Seas.

Here we go.

Over Thanksgiving, I took a cruise on Independence of the Seas.

It was a four-night Western Caribbean getaway.

And on this week's episode, we're going to be talking about my experiences on Independence

of the Seas.

In fact, this is my first time on Independence, not my first time on a freedom class ship. Many of you know from past episodes, I've been on Freedom of the Seas quite a number

of times. So I'm very familiar with the Freedom Class, but I've never actually ventured

on to Independence. And we picked this sailing primarily because of its proximity over Thanksgiving.

The days off required were none. It left on Thanksgiving Day came back on

that Monday morning. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But we got an opportunity to sail on

Independence of the Seas. And it was great because obviously it gave us an opportunity to sail on

Thanksgiving and also check out a new ship. Now, we had two connecting balcony state rooms. So these

were your standard ocean view balcony rooms. And it was great, very good. We've stayed in these kind of rooms before, so no real surprises there. It was nice to be able to have the connecting balcony. But most importantly, the reason why I booked two rooms for our family, because I do have two children who are six and two, is primarily because it gives them a place a place to sleep they sleep in their own

room we can literally close the door and that's great for me and my wife because that means we

can stay a little bit later read watch tv talk to you know kind of enjoy a drink whatever it is we

...