Quick Adventure of the seas review

Pre-Trip-

We stayed at San Juan Stellaris Marriott for 2 days prior to the cruise. Excellent hotel and location, we had an oceanfront suite on the third floor and was able to leave the balcony open at night and hear the waves:D

Ben and Jerry's for breakfast was amazing both mornings, excellent service and great food with a view with barely a dent in the wallet. Oceano's was excellent also, beautiful view and the food made me wish I had a second stomach for more. Tacos and Tequila, meh, totally not worth the price

The bad- The taxi driver's in San Juan are ridiculous, overpriced and extremely rude. We had to get police involvement on our trip from the hotel to the ship. We were quoted 40 dollars for the 2.5 mile trip and decided to use UBER instead, well as we were headed to get into the UBER three taxi drivers started following us yelling at us, so we just ignored them. One of the taxi drivers ran in front of and opened the UBER drivers door and started screaming and yelling at him and then yelling at us that we needed to walk a mile up the road to the twin bridges, as the taxi drivers were yelling I had signaled for a cop that was up at the hotel entrance to come down. My wife then told one of the taxi drivers that they cant tell us what to do and started to get into the UBER, as she was getting into the car the same taxi driver that was doing all the yelling started to reach to grab my wife but luckily the cop got in front of him, pushed the taxi drivers away and asked our driver to just go 50 feet up the road to pick us up and diffuse the situation. I heard similar horror stories from other people on the cruise also.

The Trip-

I will get this out of the way up front. I was extremely disappointed that we did not get notified that St. Lucia port stop was cancelled and replaced with Martinique till we boarded the ship. This left really no chance to book any excursions except for Royal Caribbean sponsored excursions. We had booked one through a private company that sounded good but they cancelled the night before so we just treated Martinique as a sea day as we didnt want to go through the hassle of changing money to Euro's, trying to find people who spoke english, etc... I think Royal Caribbean should have offered some form of compensation, even a percentage off future cruise as St. Lucia was the main reason i booked the trip.

St Maarten- We rented a jeep from Hertz and visited Orient bay, Marigot and Maho Beach. Did not like Orient bay at all, beautiful scenery but the area where we were at was full of european chain smokers that kept blowing in our face and we did not feel like paying another 20 dollars for another chair/umbrella set at another location so after an hour and a half of constant second hand smoke we left. Marigot seemed like it could be cool, but it was dead on Sunday. Maho beach was nice, chill party kind of atmosphere but not crazy and it was really cool watching the planes come in. Not sure if i would go back to the island again, feel like once and done.

St Kitts- We bought a day pass for the marriott with Couples massage. This was an excellent day, resort was really nice, not crowded at all, beach was nice but water was chocked full of seaweed so we didnt swim. I could have definitely spent a couple days here though as even though the water was not that great, the beach was really nice and resort pool area was excellent.

Antigua- Definite favorite island, we spent the whole day at Blue waters antigua resort which was amazing. It was 300 dollars all inclusive for the day but that included breakfast, drinks, watersports, etc... This was without a doubt probably the nicest resort we have ever been too, but i understand it is wicked expensive to stay so it was nice to have the option for a day pass.

Martinique- Used this as a sea day

Barbados- So both me and wife had not felt good this morning (really bad stomach cramps) we decided we would still do our excursion the Mount Gay rum and beach excursion. Mount gay rum tour was excellent, the tour was very informative, rum punch and rum shots were great, only wish we had felt better as we had to stop the rum shots after the 3rd and they still did 3 more ;p, we ended up getting dropped off at the ship instead of continuing to the beach as the RUM did not help when already having stomach cramps, lol.

The Ship -

There were things i really liked about the ship and things i really did not like. Overall i was fairly impressed with the aesthetics of the ship after only cruising carnival but i am not going to lie, i did start comparing after day 3. Below are some highlights

Food- meh, windjammer food was not that great, main dining room had some hits but a lot of misses and although Johnny Rockets was pretty good, i did not like having to pay extra. Chops Grille was really good though.

Library- Perfect location to view the promenade, but honestly i do not understand why Royal Caribbean did not close it off and made it a main thoroughfare from port to starboard on deck 7, so if you are trying to read a book you are constantly being interrupted by people running through talking, yelling, stopping in the library to carry on conversations, etc ....

Promenade- CAFE Promenade and Duck and Dog pub were great but the rest of the promenade i could have done without, not much of a shopper and i had an absolutely awful Moscow Mule one night in the champagne bar and never went back.

Solarium- Very nice but can get very loud by mid day

I had really wanted to love this ship and Royal Caribbean, especially after our disappointing Carnival Liberty Cruise but I am not sold on Royal after this cruise. I found myself missing Guys burgers, the blue iguana, alchemy bar and especially the serenity area, i like that Royal has a pool and bigger hot tubs in the Solarium, but nothing can beat getting one of the clamshell loungers or hammocks in the serenity area and hanging out there.

Post Trip -

Stored our bags at Barrachina and walked around old san juan for the morning and then had Lunch at Barrachina before heading to the airport. Their Pina Colada's are amazing and food is great but portions are way too big for one person, we could have easily split one meal.

Sorry about the taxi/Uber incident. Glad it did not get physical.

Thanks for your review.

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Thanks for the report. We sailed Adventure last year and it's always interesting seeing what others have to say about a ship you've been on.

My wife and I also just got off of Adventure Saturday and I agree with much of what you said. We have never been on Carnival but the food on Royal has really gone downhill. Also, we got into San Juan the day before the cruise and got stuck at the airport for 3 hours due to the taxi strike. Taxi drivers were standing around laughing at people and there was a large police presence. Uber was temporarily not allowing pickups at the airport. We walked down the road from Embassy Suites the next morning to catch an Uber XL to the airport. A taxi driver saw us and called two of his buddies there. They screamed at our driver and I thought there was going to be a fight. One of their guys followed us for awhile. Not going back to Puerto Rico anytime soon.

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Thanks for the review!

Are there any hotels lose to Barrachina?

I keep reading about the ugliness in PR. I hope they straighten it up before we get there in September. Too bad PR officials aren't figuring out that the taxi drivers are give PR tourism a bad name.

Thanks for the review!

 

Are there any hotels lose to Barrachina? ,,,

Best place to ask is the port of call forum: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=131

We experienced the same type of issues w/ Taxis in San Juan. Over priced and I busted one of them. The rate to the restaurant for dinner was $10, then double on the way back. I got the concierge involved and eventually offered him a $10 bill and told him to take or leave it. He tossed an F bomb and grabbed it out of my hand and drove off. On the way to the port the Uber drivers were extremely intimidated and told us to meet them 50 yrds from the hotel entrance. Strange. But other than the Taxis we really enjoyed our time in San Juan.

Unfortunate about the taxi issue. I've been keeping my eye out for other tourism related issues due to all the island's financial problems; surprisingly flight prices to San Juan haven't gone down a bit. If they want to bring money to the island they really need to encourage people to go there, kind of like Mexico did years ago by dropping prices to resorts and getting airlines to fly there direct for cheap. It was enough to overcome all the fears of the excessive drug cartel murders. But I digress...

I like the library, and I think they left it open more as a casual spot for people to congregate, not necessarily for a quiet reading area. It's really only a library because there are free books there to borrow (but I've noticed the number of books has severely dwindled over the years). Unfortunately, the Adventure is turning the library into a bunch of staterooms. It wasn't supposed to exist anymore, but because of the dry dock issue in October, the staterooms didn't get put in. The library will disappear next spring.

I really liked the windjammer on Adventure. Didn't care as much for the MDR food, but I'm also more of a grazer than a full-meal eater so that could be why I felt that way.

Glad you enjoyed parts of your vacation.

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I noticed on our taxis we took in san Juan had a lot of anti uber stickers and booklets in their car. But we had no problems with our drivers when we were there a few weeks ago. Most of them where very friendly. Some did not talk a lot because of language barrier. No complaints from me. Then again I never took an Uber before

Thanks for the review. We are heading to the Adventure this weekend - hopefully the taxi/Uber situation improves. Were you given an explanation why they skipped St. Lucia? Was that a one time itinerary change or has it been happening on other sailings? Thanks, Rada

They are/we're dredging the port in St. Lucia to be able to accommodate larger ships. At least one sailing went to Martinique rather than St. Lucia. I am on he June 3rd sailing, and we are scheduled to be back.

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My wife and I also just got off of Adventure Saturday and I agree with much of what you said. We have never been on Carnival but the food on Royal has really gone downhill. Also, we got into San Juan the day before the cruise and got stuck at the airport for 3 hours due to the taxi strike. Taxi drivers were standing around laughing at people and there was a large police presence. Uber was temporarily not allowing pickups at the airport. We walked down the road from Embassy Suites the next morning to catch an Uber XL to the airport. A taxi driver saw us and called two of his buddies there. They screamed at our driver and I thought there was going to be a fight. One of their guys followed us for awhile. Not going back to Puerto Rico anytime soon.

 

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We were lucky, got in before a reported island wide strike that was supposed to happen while we were on our 4/29 cruise. I maybe the last person to try Uber, but I don't like the business model, My two experiences with taxis from the airport to the hotel were good, regulated and good service. Uber here just announced they are going to charge a premium if you live or are going to an affluent neighborhood and can really jack up the prices at peak times. The only taxi issues I've had are at the cruise port after the cruise, even after you have picked a cab, the others will try to pull you into their cab or bus.

We were lucky, got in before a reported island wide strike that was supposed to happen while we were on our 4/29 cruise. I maybe the last person to try Uber, but I don't like the business model, My two experiences with taxis from the airport to the hotel were good, regulated and good service. Uber here just announced they are going to charge a premium if you live or are going to an affluent neighborhood and can really jack up the prices at peak times. The only taxi issues I've had are at the cruise port after the cruise, even after you have picked a cab, the others will try to pull you into their cab or bus.

So then I'm guessing there are ample taxis at port on day of embarkation? We don't need to call ahead of time?

Tigers2425

So then I'm guessing there are ample taxis at port on day of embarkation? We don't need to call ahead of time?

 

Tigers2425

We've always found ample taxis at both the port and the airport.