Arrived at the Independence of the Seas at Southampton on Saturday 12^th July, on a breezy summerish day. The Independence of the Seas is a renowned cruise ship owned by Royal Caribbean International, and it’s my second time ever to be on one such of its like. The first cruise liner I ever went on was Crown Princess owned by Princess Cruises, if you’d like to know.

Little sailing ship passed us by as the big cruise liner trumpeted its way out of Southampton, with Emerald Princess (might have gone on that one, had some nice waiters I knew on there) leading the way, and Dawn Princess and Cunard’s Queen Victoria behind

Beautiful clouds highlight the day ahead with the Solarium whirlpool shown by the dome in the bottom left hand corner of the picture

Ran through check-in and security in a rush-thought we were going to be late and didn’t take any welcome onboard pictures, sorely regret that-we were greeted by a cheerful hostess who offered us free FIFA World Cup plastic cups for the duration of our journey. All drinks would be free if poured into this cup-even if they started going smelly after a couple of unwashed days.

Me and my brother Loos were accommodated a stateroom on the starboard side Deck 6. However, my mum and dad were on the port side of Deck 6, and my friends family were on Deck 3. We tried to change our stateroom numbers to be more closely situated next to each other but there were no longer any staterooms available-the whole ship was crammed full.

Feeling disheartened we went to buffet lunch at the Windjammer/Jade café on Deck 11, where I had undercooked spaghetti and flavour enhanced mango juice. Still, it was a filling meal.

So we decided to have a look around-saw people riding on the Flowrider (and failing miserably), checked out all three pools: the H20 Zone, the regular Pool and the Solarium, for adults only (what a shame that in the late evenings you could spot teenagers messing about in the whirlpool there.) and then played mini golf with the wind whipping up my hair and throwing it in my face like a thousand sharp mini daggers. Ouch.

We had dinner at the Romeo and Juliet Dining Room, and were served by a magician, Jesus (pronounced HE-ZUS), the funny and smiling Lancellot and our hilarious and generous head waiter, Gheorghe, from Romania. Honestly I cannot remember what I had on most of the days but I believe for starters I had the chilled watermelon and raspberry soup. Having never had a chilled fruit soup before it was quite a new area of food for me. It was quite tangy with a very sweet taste and a bit difficult to eat but I managed well enough that I finished it with a bit of help from Lancellot’s ‘yummy-yummy’ bread rolls; they make good dippers.

After dinner went down to the pool with my friend Catherine and watched the Netherlands vs Argentina match down in the hot tub there whilst our dads sipped some nice cool beer (shouldn’t really be describing it in that much detail, makes it sound like I had some…) before playing with this plastic ball we found underneath the towels exchange desk. Look, no one was there, so I thought it was for free. Happy?

The pool on the Independence of the Seas is a many coloured one

That concludes Day 1 of the cruise ship adventure. I’ll be writing more-and with pictures!

Hoping to get some of the videos uploaded on my YouTube account as well, check out my profile for more (MoonlightWalnut):

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX70qNJKUCeYRohtYojG-Vg