Independence of the Seas Cruise Report - 2 Jan 2020 - 7 Jan 2020

Day 6 – Debarkation Day (aka You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here)

I know people don’t like talking about this day, but I’ve always found it helpful to know how people got home, especially when you have to fly. For us, we had a 2pm flight back to Toronto, so realistically we had plenty of time to get off the ship.
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For this trip, we were assigned tag number 32, with an estimated debarkation time of 9:30am – about as middle of the road an assignment as one can get, I think. This gave us, in theory, plenty of time to get ready, pack up and leave.

When we woke up (roughly 6:30-ish), I looked outside and discovered that we were in the process of docking, so barring any unforeseen clearance issues, we’d be getting off the ship shortly.

We got dressed (in our travel clothes… le sigh), and headed up to Windjammer one final time. The buffet was actually not that busy, perhaps a testament to our going up a little later than the norm. And this worked out well for us. Not that we were going to overdo it on food, but certainly we weren’t “fighting” the masses to find a seat.

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After breakfast, we went back to the room to do finish packing our carry-off bags and do a final sweep of the room. After exchanging goodbyes with our attendant, we headed down to the Promenade to wait.

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While we were waiting, we saw some of the charter cruise workers come in with display boards for their t-shirt stands. In hindsight, I should’ve taken a picture and/or bought a shirt. Not that I’m a huge metal fan or anything, but “70,000 Tons of Metal”? You know you’d want a shirt with that on it as well.

Regardless, we were called ahead of schedule, around 9:15, and dutifully made our way to the 4th deck and the exit ramp. Unlike previous Oasis class cruises, we headed straight down to the baggage area – a nice surprise, given that I was expecting a 30-60 minute wait to go down. The lines were indeed kind of long – I estimated about 45 minutes for the Suites, 60-90 for everyone – but since we have NEXUS, it was a simple matter of picking up our bags, showing the officer in the centre exit our cards, and heading through customs. Our debarkation, from ship to outside the terminal, took us under 10 minutes.

With so much time before our flight, we debated going somewhere else for an hour or two, but we decided just to go to the airport. Bit of a misstep on our part, because we were at the terminal well before 10am, and the 3 hour bag drop window was still over an hour away. So that meant some waiting.

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Once the drop off window opened, there was somehow only one Westjet employee at the counter helping three separate lines (special assistance, check in and bag drop). So this was… interesting, but eventually some other agents made their way to the counter to help out. This was not ideal, but since we’d checked in on the ship and had TSA Pre-Check, we had very little concern about making our flight. And indeed, we were through security around 12. A little later than I expected, but still nothing to worry about at all.

We got a pre-flight meal at Shula Burger (note: onion rings look much better than they taste), and with little fanfare, got on the flight home.

Once at Toronto Pearson, we went over to the NEXUS line, where there appeared to be only a few NEXUS kiosks working. Fortunately, there were several of the standard kiosks available, which we used to breeze through customs. Easy peasy, and after picking up our luggage and car, we headed home.
 
Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed and entertaining review! Independence of the Seas is one of the ships my family is toying with. We have been on Freedom of the Seas and loved it. We live just east of Toronto. Isn't it decadent to escape winter for a little while?!
 
Considering the snow we just got... yes! We haven't done a winter vacation since the Ice Storm a few years back. Weather was bad enough on the way home that we got diverted to Buffalo for 5-6 hours.
 
I've only sailed DCL but would like to try another line so I enjoyed reading your thorough review here.

Day 4 - Cozumel

The itinerary today found us coming into Cozumel around 10:30. Later than I’m used to, but with only one other ship in port (I think it was Disney Dream), not a big issue. Due to being in port on a Sunday, a lot of the popular beach clubs were closed. As a result, our plan was to go to Paradise Beach, but the backup plan was to stay in and around the port area.

Funny thing, we were in Cozumel the same day as you. It was the Disney Wonder. We did the Jeep Excursion to Punta Sur and saw your ship on our way back to port. The wind/waves were very brisk that day!
 


I've only sailed DCL but would like to try another line so I enjoyed reading your thorough review here.
Thanks for reading along!

Funny thing, we were in Cozumel the same day as you. It was the Disney Wonder.
Ah, got it. I like the fact it was just the Wonder and Indy there - it's effectively like getting a private port. Could get used to that.
 

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