Big Al's adventure on the Adventure 11/14-21/15

When my wife & I stepped onto the Adventure Of The Seas on 11/14/15, I must admit I was apprehensive. Between mixed reviews along with good friends who thought the food & entertainment 21 months ago on the AOS were disappointing , I decided maybe not to expect too much on this Southern Caribbean route. We chose this cruise because of the itinerary: St. Thomas, St. Croix, Antigua, St. Lucia & Grenada..all out of San Juan. We had been to St. Thomas 8x on Eastern Caribb cruises, but the other 4 were new to us. This review will cover my observations, opinions, and comments on this cruise. As a former educator, I tend to give grades to things, so I will do that here to make things simple & usually everyone understands what “B+” means compared to a “D”..

A little background so you know where I’m coming from: I am a cruise agent for almost 19 years now. My wife & I have been on 32 cruises now including this 14th on Royal Caribbean. We are Diamond, not far from Diamond Plus. We also have cruised 6x on Carnival, 5x NCL, 2x Disney, 2x Princess, and once each on Celebrity, HAL, and Celebration ( small cruise line out of West Palm Beach). We have never cruised MSC nor Costa yet. I will be making some comparisons to both other RCI ships & cruises, as well as other cruise ships & lines. If you have only been on a few cruise lines, or worse- only RCI, some of this will be meaningless to you because you will have nothing or little to compare the AOS to. As a cruise agent, it is MY JOB to sample all that’s out there. Imagine if a client asked me what I thought of Princess or Norwegian, and I said I had never cruised on either and NEVER even seen their ships..that would not make me a credible agent, would it? BTW, although I have never cruised on MSC, I did take a ship tour of the MSC Divina..as cruise agents, we are allowed to do ship tours and I have done over 50 in my career. FYI, the Divina was absolutely gorgeous, and I have about a dozen friends who have cruised her & loved the ship & cruise. MSC has SEVEN brand new ships coming out in the next 6 years and all look amazing, especially the “Seaside” class. They are an up & coming new star in the cruise industry.

A good & thorough review should cover the SEVEN important areas of a cruise. They are:

Cabins

Dining & food

Service

Entertainment

Embarkation & Debarkation

Public rooms/ areas

Overall experience

I will cover each one and give commentary. Of course all of these, especially food, service & entertainment, are subjective, and on Cruise Critic, sometimes highly volatile & controversial ( like dining, inside vs. balconies, shows, service, DRESS CODES ,etc..). So, that being said, please again keep in mind that these are MY opinions, thought, observations & comments. If you disagree, or had a different experience from us, that’s fine, but please be respectful & courteous.

My wife & I had a great time on the AOS. Despite mixed reviews on appearance, I thought she looked pretty good for 14 years old. One exception was our balcony cabin # 9618. The cabin itself was fine, but there was significant rust on the dividers that separated the balconies from each other on BOTH sides. It was unattractive, but did not detract us from enjoying the great views. More on our cabin later. We did not see other wear & tear on the ship, but you should know that the AOS will be undergoing a 35 day total refurbishment in Oct 2016. She will get 3 new dining venues including Chops, Sabor ( Mexican) and Izumi ( Japanese). She also will get a Flowrider, and high speed WIFI ( that was terrible while we were on..more later), new carpets, and all the cabins will get a facelift, too. This will be a welcome change for this great ship.

Embarkation & Debarkation

Embarkation was fine as we are Diamond, so it went pretty fast. Lines did not seem too long, and we were on the ship by noon. BTW, we had flown in on Jet Blue around 10:30 AM and grabbed a cab with 3 others from our Roll Call- Herbert ( AKA “Floridadiver6666” on CC), Sylvia & Marlis. Total for 5 for a cab from SJ airport to the dock was $27. Pretty fair price I thought. I saw Herb, his wife & Mom , all from Germany many times throughout the cruise. It was great meeting him & family along with the rest of our Roll Call crew. Cheers to you all & I hope you had a great time & safe trip back…Debarkation, on the other hand, was a nightmare..45 minutes from the time we got off the ship till we went through customs & security. SJ just doesn’t have enough help. Lines were VERY long & no A/C in the baggage & customs area. Give yourself plenty of time to get to the airport or wherever you need to go. Construction on the roads made our 20 minute drive to the airport almost AN HOUR. It’s a good thing we left early. Embarkation gets a “B”, Debarkation gets a “D-“.

Cabins

Our cabin was # 9618 ( Junior Suite CAT JS) on the hump/ bump. It was a GREAT location, just 2 doors down from the elevators, just below the Windjammer Cafe & Viking Crown Lounge. We also had quick access to the Royal Promenade on deck 5, as well as the RC Online & Next Cruise areas just below us. Our stateroom attendant was Robert from Nicaragua, and since my wife is from Peru, they could speak Spanish & communication was easy. Robert did a great job & did the 2 things we asked for : extra towels & ice and he also brought the Cruise Compass to my wife in Spanish every night during turndown. The towel animals were out & hanging every night either from the ceiling or on the bed. BTW, chocolates on your pillows are gone now. Too much $$ I suppose. Shower was GREAT- great pressure & no problems with water temps. There is a dispenser for shampoo. Walk in closet is a HUGE advantage in these cabins along with a 50% overall bigger cabin & 30% bigger balconies. I was disappointed though, that were NO lounge chairs on our balcony- only 2 regular chairs & small coffee table. I believe JS should have a lounge chair since you are paying between 20+ 40 % more $$ for these cabins. I hope they consider this & put lounge chairs when they do the refit next year. A/C worked great (I like it cold- I keep the cabin like the Arctic Circle at night, lol..), TV had about 20-25 channels including CNN, CNN Espanol, 3 ESPN’s, TBS, TNT , about 8-9 or so RCI channels, cartoons,a few movie channels. There are movies for $$, unlike Princess who’s movies are all free ( nice touch, along with a 40 Inch Samsung in every cabin on the newer Regal & Royal Princess..) IMO, Disney cabins are the nicest, and the 2 bathrooms in most cabins really is nice when getting ready to go to dinner or when you are leaving the ship… Cabin itself gets an A-, balcony a C- ( due to the rust & no lounger), cabin steward gets an “A “.

Dining & Food

Ok, here’s the biggie for most people, right? As we all know food is THEE most subjective part of cruising, or anything really..what you might love, I might hate & visa versa. That being said, we thought the food was “OK”..”not bad”..some dishes slightly good to slightly mediocre. Service though was EXCEPTIONAL at our table which was table # 664 on deck 5 ( My Time Dining). Our waiter, Sheldon, from India, was perfect..never a need or want for anything. In fact, when Sheldon learned my wife had problems with the salad dressing because she is lactose intolerant, he made a SPECIAL dressing for her, w/o dairy..great service!! Our assistant waitress was Nika, a 19 yr.old gal from China, who also was terrific & always had a smile on her face. Nika also when she knew what breads my wife preferred, she would bring them over to her several times a night..We had a table for 2 and the only thing I would suggest to RCI is the tables are a bit too close to each other- there is about 6-8 inches between tables ( there were four 2 seaters at our section) and that is waaayyyy too close..not much privacy nor room. I hope in the future RCI remedies this problem and gives you more space at the dining tables. I won’t go into specific foods other than lobster tails was served Thursday night ( 2nd formal night), and I had 2 & they were pretty yummy…Needs improvement: the shrimp cocktail was perhaps the worst I ever had on any ship...small, wet & just awful,it really needs something done..either change the company RCI gets it from, OR I would pay extra $$ for bigger & better shrimp..escargots were pretty good.. we found the bread rolls pretty boring compared to other cruise lines. I had one decent dessert only, and that was Lemon Meringue pie..I am diabetic, so desserts need to be really special for me to eat..

Giovanni’s, on the other hand was FANTASTIC, and we would go there again in a heartbeat!! Price is $25 PP and it was IMO, well worth this price. Service, food, location ( table for 2 near the window w/ views of the sea)..I had a shrimp dish & my wife had the filet which was simply amazing…my dish was great, but hers was to die for..appetizers KILLER..desserts also very good…I have heard some people say it was “OK”..fine..IMO, they are either picky, ordered the wrong dish, were drunk, or unconscious…we both agreed the meal was super!!

The Windjammer was the Windjammer..we ate there 4x for breakfast due to excursions & dining room didn’t open till 7:30 AM, and we had to get off the ships early. We did do the Diamond breakfast on deck 5 twice and once it was good, once I thought the eggs benedict were over- cooked…lunch at the WJ was typical fare and was OK…Disney for me has the best buffet, Princess was good also…Disney also had the best dining room food IMO, plus we love the rotation dining Disney does- so much fun to eat at different venues over 3 nights & have your waiters follow you & greet you at the new place each night. I urge RCI to open the Diamond Lounge for breakfast at 7 & dining room at 7, not 7:30, so we could go there- sometimes when you have an early excursion, say at 8 am, 7:30 is not feasible for breakfast, so one must go to the WJ, which is not as good as the MDR IMO. Grades: MDR food “C”, service “A”..Giovanni’s gets an ‘A” for both food & service.

Entertainment

Another subjective area is entertainment. The Oasis & Allure Of The Seas have great shows..the diving shows in the Aquatheater are simply awesome..on the AOS, I thought the shows were good, not great, but good enough for me. “Can’t Stop The Rock” was a tribute to all kinds of music, although lots of it was not what I would call “Rock”. Singers & dancers were very good. I should mention our CD ( cruise director ) was Mercedes from Argentina..many have stated they didn’t care for her..my wife is Latin so, we got along great. She IS very visible & we saw her all over the ship. Very friendly..maybe not in the Richard Spacey league, but she was OK…because there was a Latin Salsa dancing convention on the ship from Puerto Rico ( over 800 people!!) , she made all announcements in both English & Spanish. Can’t Stop gets “B”

Next up one night was Greg Bonham, a versatile entertainer from Australia. He danced, sang, told some jokes & played a very mean trumpet. Loved his moonwalk ala Michael Jackson…did some good songs & overall I thought he was very entertaining…kind of the old Vegas style show lounge guy. Greg gets a ‘B”

The Ice skating shows were day 4 & day 7 ( only 1 show last day at 3 PM)..highlights NO DOUBT were the pair from the Ukraine , Oleksandr & Tetiana..they were virtually unbelievable…he put her up with ONE hand over his head at least a dozen times while skating..the strength it must take to do that was impressive..NOT TO BE MISSED if they are in the show..you can see their names displayed on the inside flap of the Cruise Compass, RCI’s daily planner. The pair from the Ukraine gets an “A+”

Michael James was another act that I guess you can a juggler, but he did something with a ladder that was pretty cool..very dry & sarcastic humor- right up my alley..crowd not very enthusiastic at first, but by close, was given him a lot of applause.. Michael gets a ‘B”

“Invitation to Dance” gets the last production show, a kind of tribute to Latin dancing & Broadway shows. Guests included Dance champions Anastasia & Igor from Belarus, and they also were spectacular IMO…all the dancers & singers very good IMO…Belarus pair get an “A+”, show gets a “B+”…best shows at sea are on Disney, & the Allure/ Oasis ships..I hear the new Quantum ships have great shows, too…

Public Rooms

We thought the AOS looked pretty good for a 14 year old ship, other than some rust on our balcony. There is a Sports Bar on the Royal Promenade that was not there when we cruise the AOS 10 years ago. Here is where I must make a negative comment about most RCI ships: I am a beer snob & enthusiast. I have commented before about the lack of decent draft beers on RCI ships, approximately 75% of the time, I find the taps are broken, busted or simply not working. NO exception on the AOS..in fact, there is NO draft beer in the Sports Bar AT ALL, and across the way at the British Pub, the Duck & The Dog, there was ONE draft working, Amstel Light, which I hate, and the others were not going to be ready for 2-3 days! They are Heineken & Newcastle Brown Ale..THAT’S IT…but a British Pub with ONE draft beer for 3 days? Terrible.. the new NCL Escape has the Brewpub, a bar where that have 24 beers on tap & another 36 in bottles…now that’s what RCI needs! The Oasis & Allure have better bottled beers available, but again, weak on draft beers…very disappointing if you love draft beers.

There is Karaoke in the Schooner Bar most nights, a nice band in the much loved Viking Crown Lounge, where you can also find the Diamond Lounge on deck 14. We were in there 6 out of 7 nights there. I want to say the staff, especially Alberto from Panama, were exceptional! He filled our drinks every time he saw they were not filled. He was very friendly, along with our Concierge, whom I now forget his name, but he was from South Africa. We met many nice people every night in there. DL lounge & staff get an “A” from Big Al..there is a lot of Latin music everywhere on the ship, but mostly in the Imperial Lounge ( deck 5), and the Lobby Bar on deck 4. 70’s Retro Disco Party in the Royal Promenade, which we have been to 5 or 6x before, was very good..that was Day 3 ( Mon) BTW…

Intangibles

Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle & Sailaway: IMPORTANT: When you get to San Juan, it will be one hour ahead of EST..so, that means that for many, if you don’t adjust your watch or cell phone, the real time will be different from whatever you thought it was..we had a Sailaway Party meeting @ 4:30 PM at the Sky Bar on deck 12. THREE people showed..pretty disappointing, but I understood that many had perhaps not noticed the time change. And the muster drill was 5:45 pm, which to some, was 4:45 on their time. BE AWARE of the time change. Our Meet & Mingle also was changed form Monday @ 5 pm to Sunday 5 PM in the Blue Moon Lounge in the Viking Crown Lounge area deck 14. We had originally thought it was 29 confirmed, but read 50 on the RCI thread for M & M’s. About 12-15 people showed including Herb, Sara, Ron & some other very nice people we met on this cruise. No officers showed up like they sometimes do, but they did raffle off some nice gifts ( we won a bottle of champagne)…This was my 10th M & M I’ve attended out of 14 RCI cruises. First few there were no meetings because it was pre CC time ( 90’s)..best attended was on the 2010 Oasis cruise where we had 57 attend in Dazzles night club.

Weather: We had pretty bad weather in St. Thomas, St. Croix, Grenada & our sea day was even rainy & cloudy till 3:30 PM…Antigua & St. Lucia were both sunny & fabulous.

Ports of call & excursions: I won’t go into this much because you can easily find info on the ports of call threads, but I will say the RCI excursion to the Pitons in St. Lucia was OUTSTANDING! We took a power catamaran for a 5 hour boat tour of the famous 2 peaks in St. Lucia known as the Pitons. There was rum punch available, beer & soda, plus they had finger sandwiches of tuna & cheese available. Great caribbean music, salt air, wind, sun & an overall party atmosphere made for one of the top 5 excursions we ever have taken in 32 cruises. Only negative was the beach we stopped at was very rocky, and I would encourage them to go somewhere else. Great shopping in St. Thomas for liquor , although I was a bit shocked at how prices went up since the last time we were in ST. Bailey’s went from $14 to $21 for a liter…we bought 7 bottles at AH Riise & had them sent directly to the ship ( you can do this, but go early enough so you don’t have to carry anything around) …also bought fantastic bed sheets at Cariloha…we did private tours in Antigua & Grenada, and took a tour of the Cruzan Rum Factory in St. Croix, where Stephanie gave us a very nice tour even though we got caught in the rain there as well in a storage building…

Sorry, no pictures…Any questions, thoughts, comments, please pass it on & I will try to answer. overall, I would rate this cruise a “B+”..the AOS cannot compete IMO with the Oasis or Freedom class ships, nor the new Disney ships , nor the new NCL ships with all their dining options & perqs, but we had a great time and I think the dry dock next October 2016 will vastly improve the AOS & we would not hesitate to cruise her again and maybe do the Barbados/ St. Kitts & Dominica route- we have not been to those 3 yet as well…Happy Cruising to all!!

Big Al

Good Balanced Review....I Enjoyed reading it! Thanks! :cool:

Hi Big Al. Great review! :)

Good Balanced Review....I Enjoyed reading it! Thanks! :cool:

Hi Big Al. Great review! :)

Thanks to both..Hi Donna!!!

Big Al

Very informative. We will be sailing on her over Christmas.

Have never sailed MSC nor known anyone that has. Will now look into it after what you reported.

Very informative. We will be sailing on her over Christmas.

 

Have never sailed MSC nor known anyone that has. Will now look into it after what you reported.

As I mentioned , the Divina may be THEE most beautiful ship I've ever seen..main theater for sure, is the nicest...food very good, cabins very nice, pools nice..shows are good, but short...great prices & all my friends said Pizza was the best they ever ate ( not a reason to cruise, but nice to know..)..3D theater very nice..black & white lounge ( all leather) a big fav for me..

Big Al

Big Al - nice review I enjoyed reading it. Go back on Adventure in April 2016 so very informative. Thank you.

Thanks for the awesome review! We've been on AOS twice and are headed back on our first back to back in January! I agree with you that for her age, she is looking mighty fine! We've never sailed on anything bigger/newer than AOS so I think that helps us not expect too much. Glad you had a nice cruise! :)

I enjoyed your review, Big Al.

Well done.

Keith

Great review Big A! Thorough, cut to the chase details. I like it.

Happy to hear you and your wife had a good time and for coming back to share with us all. I had some questions for you but I want to discuss off the board. Do you have an email I can send them too? :) Thanks.

And, again, welcome back. :)

Nice, concise review, thanks!:)

Thanks for the awesome review! We've been on AOS twice and are headed back on our first back to back in January! I agree with you that for her age, she is looking mighty fine! We've never sailed on anything bigger/newer than AOS so I think that helps us not expect too much. Glad you had a nice cruise! :)

Thanks & have a great cruise on her in Jan!!!

I enjoyed your review, Big Al.

 

Well done.

 

Keith

Thanks, Keith... always nice to hear from you!!

Great review Big A! Thorough, cut to the chase details. I like it.

 

Happy to hear you and your wife had a good time and for coming back to share with us all. I had some questions for you but I want to discuss off the board. Do you have an email I can send them too? :) Thanks.

 

And, again, welcome back. :)

You can contact me at statusalalan@bellsouth.net...nice hearing from you!!!

Alan

Nice, concise review, thanks!:)

Thanks, Clarea!!

I don't recall the std JS balconies as being large enough for a lounger, 2 chairs and a table. Do you really feel they are large enough?

I kind of take that back, the Indy was across from us in Cozumel and I think they were large enough. I don't think it would work on the Radiance ships JS.

I don't recall the std JS balconies as being large enough for a lounger, 2 chairs and a table. Do you really feel they are large enough?

 

I kind of take that back, the Indy was across from us in Cozumel and I think they were large enough. I don't think it would work on the Radiance ships JS.

AOS JS are 75 SF, and I think you could get one lounger in there..I certainly would take one lounger & give up one chair!!!

I don't recall the std JS balconies as being large enough for a lounger, 2 chairs and a table. Do you really feel they are large enough?...

We had exactly that configuration in a Vision JS last month. No problem.

You can contact me at statusalalan@bellsouth.net...nice hearing from you!!!

 

Alan

Thanks Al. The email addy didn't work for me, kept coming back as failure:confused:

Thanks for the concise review. You mentioned briefly WIFI. How was it? We will be cruising Adventure in a month, and I have been considering doing the $20 per day unlimited internet, as I thought Adventure had the enhanced internet WIFI already. Also, are there other internet packages available?

Thanks for the concise review. You mentioned briefly WIFI. How was it? We will be cruising Adventure in a month, and I have been considering doing the $20 per day unlimited internet, as I thought Adventure had the enhanced internet WIFI already. Also, are there other internet packages available?

WIFI was very slow..couldn't even print my boarding pass...RCI says it will get the new fast WIFI that the Quantum ships have now...don't think there are any other packages on the ship other than RCI's...

WIFI was very slow..couldn't even print my boarding pass...RCI says it will get the new fast WIFI that the Quantum ships have now...don't think there are any other packages on the ship other than RCI's...

Thanks for the quick response. I think I'll wait to be on board to decide about the internet package.

We had exactly that configuration in a Vision JS last month. No problem.

We had a lounger on Legend JS, but it was twice as big as the one on Brilliance. As I said earlier, the Indy JS's seemed to have loungers. Those seem to be same style as AOS

Hallo Big Al,getting Home safe,didn't see you on the last day on the way to the Airport,Merry Xmas and a Happy 2016 for both of u,we had a nice time together on the Adventure,dont know were i put your B-Card,so please let me know your E mail,so we can stay in contact,my adress is

us1scuba@t-online.de

Regards

Herbert,Sylvia and Marlis:):):)

Thanks for the clear words....it helped knowing your role in life.

I also have been on Oasis and Allure and enjoyed the new higher speed internet service so I am sad we are in this window of time where so many ships in all cruise lines are in transition. Once the AOS gets its refit then that's one more ship that will be at the top of its service.