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I love Cococay and purposely booked my next trip to include it.  I think it is so perfect for people with young kids- there is no private transportation to worry about (what about car seats?), I'm not locked into some 6 hr Royal-sponsored beach trip when my child decides they are done for the day, and I don't have to worry about finding food for lunch or snacks.  I love that I can do the whole day without spending any money if I want to.  Even without a young kid, I would love it just because it is easy and a day that I don't have to plan anything.  I would go there every cruise if I could haha.

What kind of amenities are available at Secret Harbor?  I know that we can rent chairs and umbrellas through the dive shop.  Are there bathrooms/showers/changing rooms?  Is there a bar? a restaurant? (for non-hotel guests)  Will the hotel call a cab for us to return to the ship?

Arriving in the afternoon on Royal Caribbean Harmony of the Seas.

29 minutes ago, GTO-Girl said:

 

There are also hotels at the Orlando airport where you could get a day room and relax and swim until time for your flight.  

This sounds even better than my original plan!  thanks 🙂

Arriving on Harmony of the Seas at Port Canaveral on a Sunday, first flight that I can get leaves at 4:30 pm from MCO (Orlando).  I have a 1 year old and don't want to sit at the airport for 6 hours!

Assume that I don't want to deal with renting a car and just want someone to pick me up at the port.  Are there companies that will pick us up and maybe drive us to Disney Springs or something for a couple hours and keep our luggage for us and then drive us to the airport when we want?  What kind of price should I expect?  Also, we are a party of 7.  Thanks.

Thank you for the excellent review. Glad you enjoyed the ship, ports and cruise.

Do you happen to remember who the Captain Circle Hostess was?

Sorry, I don't know who the Captain;s Circle hostess was... this was our first Celebrity cruise so we were not a member of the Captain's Club.

Background:

We are a married couple in our early 30’s. This is our fourth cruise together, we have taken 2 cruises out of Puerto Rico on Royal Caribbean and 1 cruise to Alaska on Princess. We choose our trips based on the itinerary and the ship, we don’t feel tied to any cruiseline. This is our first time trying Celebrity, I will include our thoughts on Celebrity at the end of the review (preview: we LOVED it!). We sailed on the 7-day round trip out of Venice on the Silhouette. Sorry this review is so long and wordy, but I do like to include a lot of information that I was wondering about when we planned our trip in order to help people in the future.

Pre-cruise:

We had an afternoon Lufthansa flight from Houston to Frankfurt, then a 4-hour layover and then a connecting flight from Frankfurt to Venice. We arrived in Venice around 2 pm. We would highly recommend Lufthansa for anyone traveling to Europe from the U.S. – they have nice airplanes (especially the A380), good service, and Frankfurt is a good airport to connect through. After we got our luggage, I tried to use the ticket machine in the baggage claim area to get our ATVO tickets to Piazzale Roma. I wanted to travel on the ATVO because they offer the underneath storage for your baggage and you don’t have to take it onto the bus. Well I was very jet-lagged and had a really hard time figuring out the tickets on the automated machine. I would suggest to anyone wanting to take the ATVO bus to get your baggage and then go out the door into the non-secure area (where everyone waits to meet their families), there is a ticket counter there with actual people to help you out and it would have been a lot easier for me to do that then try to figure out the machine. Then you walk outside to wait for the bus. There is a terminal where the bus picks you up where you can also purchase tickets (if say the line at the ticket counter is too long for your liking) and there is also a machine to validate your ticket before you get on the bus. The bus ride was uneventful and dropped us off in Piazzale Roma. We had a short walk to our hotel (only one bridge to walk over), the Hotel Arlecchino.

I chose Hotel Arlecchino because of its easy access to both Piazzale Roma bus station and the cruise terminal and it did not disappoint in that regard. However, I was disappointed in our room. We paid 189 Euro for one night in their most basic room category. We ended up in some weird attic annex, you could take up the elevator but then you had to go down a hall and up another half flight of stairs to the room. The room was small, but the bathroom was very small. I could not stand up straight in the shower, and I am 5’6” tall. My husband, who is 6’4”, had an even harder time in the shower. It was bad enough that when we first saw our room on the cruise ship, it felt huge and the bathroom felt humungous.

After resting for a little bit and washing up, we headed out to enjoy the city. It was relatively easy to walk from Piazzale Roma to the Rialto bridge and Piazza San Marco (maybe 30 minutes?). There are clear markers about 8 feet off of the ground on the sides of the buildings, you just have to get used to looking up to figure out which way to go. So we walked to the Rialto bridge (stopping at a random square for dinner along the way) and then to Piazza San Marco. We took the elevator up in the bell tower (campanile) and enjoyed the view (and watched a cruise ship go through the canal), had some gelato, and then got on a vaporetto (water bus) to go back to our hotel because we were too tired to walk. It is true that they say you have to be careful to validate your tickets in Venice, while we were on the vaporetto a ticket inspector got on and scanned everyone’s tickets to make sure that they were validated. Luckily, we had validated ours correctly, but I think some other people weren’t so lucky. Back to the hotel, and straight to bed.

Cruise Day 1: Embarkation

We got up and ate breakfast in the hotel- Hotel Arlecchino had a very good breakfast, I will give them some points for that. Then we left the hotel and wandered on an opposite path of where we went the day before. I can’t actually remember where we went, we just walked and made it back to the hotel around 10:30 (they had 11 am check out).

We checked out of the hotel at 10:45, walked over one bridge to Piazzale Roma, bought our tickets, and got on the People Mover. I was surprised that the People Mover dropped us off so far from the cruise terminal building. It was a bit of a hike to take all of our luggage all the way to the cruise terminal, and then you have to walk far down the side of the terminal building to the luggage drop off point (there are employees directing you where to go). We got inside and were given the letter “C” and we were allowed to go straight to the check in line. After we made it through the check-in line, we were given a number to wait to board the ship. We only had to wait about 5 minutes for our number to be called. The Venice cruise terminal was not the nicest place, it felt small and it felt hot. In the end, we were on the ship at 11:45 am, exactly one hour after we left our hotel. I was pleased with that because I had been reading some horror stories about the Venice Cruise terminal and lines.

They gave us complimentary champagne when we boarded, then we went straight to the buffet with our carry-ons- it wasn’t super crowded yet. We greatly enjoyed the lunch buffet, we felt like there was a wide variety of good food, and it remained that way throughout the cruise. Our rooms were supposed to be open by 1:15 pm, they made the announcement that they were ready around 1. We went to our room and we loved it! We were booked in a “partially obstructed” balcony, room 6152 (on the starboard side). You could see the lifeboat when you looked down, but there were no davits obscuring your view looking out. The room felt larger than similar rooms we have had with Royal and Princess, partly due to the fact that there was a full size couch in the room instead of just a small loveseat. The room was well appointed with a large bed, with a nicer mattress and sheets than what Royal/Princess offer, as well as good storage and a flat screen TV. The balcony felt larger as well with a nice table and chairs (with reclining backs). The bathroom was amazing for a cruise ship. We loved the larger shower (and also the foot bar to help with shaving legs- men have no idea how hard it is to shave your legs in those little tube-like cruise ship showers!) and the bathroom had amazing storage as well, as well as a real sink and faucet. The location of the room was great because it was right by the forward elevators and stairs. The stairs took us quickly to both the theatre and the main dining room. After exploring our room, we took our time to explore the rest of the ship.

We did NOT have the beverage package for this trip. We booked onboard a Royal Caribbean cruise in the spring and we got $150 OBC for booking while on a cruise and we got the $200 OBC from the pick-your-perk benefit (instead of the basic beverage package). We are not big drinkers and figured that we could do more things onboard with the credit (dinners, photos, shopping, etc). Unfortunately, only the $150 showed up on our onboard account. We had to visit the guest relations counter twice in order to get the $200, they had to email the Celebrity corporate office (twice) to get it straightened out, even though we had our original booking papers from Celebrity with the info. It was kind of a pain, but luckily it worked out.

We greatly enjoyed the sailaway from Venice. They played classical music over the loudspeakers in the pool area and there were just amazing views of the city. After the sailaway, we got changed and went to dinner. We had the flexible dining time (Celebrity Select Dining). We never made reservations, but we never had a problem getting a table for 2. We went between 6:30 and 7 pm almost every night.

One bad thing happened this night- we got back to our cabin at 10 pm after the show and our toilet wouldn’t flush. We called the steward line for them to send a plumber and 30 min later no one had showed up. We called again and also called the guest relations desk. The guest relations desk called the plumbers and then called us back to say that there was some kind of blockage that was affecting decks 6 and up and they were working on it. They made it seem like the whole ship didn’t have working toilets, we couldn’t sleep because we were so worried that we would wake up in the morning in Venice since none of the toilets were working. Happily, when we woke up the next morning, our toilet worked again! We spoke to our room steward and some other guests about it and no one had any idea what we were talking about so we still have no idea what actually happened, we were just happy everything worked fine from then on.

Cruise Day 2: Kotor, Montenegro

Tender ticket hand out was scheduled for 10:15 am in the Entertainment court. We walked down around 9:50 and people were milling around, around 9:55 they put out the table and the line formed, we were within the first 20 people. Even though the ticket hand out was supposed to start at 10:15, it probably started around 10:05 and the line was super long by then, I was glad we were there so early. We got Tender 12 (I think that they started with Tender 8, so it worked out well for us).

The Cruise Critic meet-up was scheduled for 10:15 am in the Wine Bar. There were 49 people signed up on our roll call but maybe 25 or so attended. Celebrity provided water, coffee, tea, and danishes. The cruise director (Sinan) showed up, as well as several other senior officers who were there to mingle.

We watched the sail in, which was beautiful, mostly from the lounge on Deck 15 because it was drizzling rain. Luckily, the weather cleared up by the time that we arrived. We were supposed to drop anchor around 3, the Captain was early and they started tendering before 3 pm. I was surprised that it was about a 20 minute tender ride to the dock! We walked from the dock into the entrance to the town and then just kind of walked towards the back of the town and we luckily found the entrance to the steps to the fortress. Let me tell you, this was quite a climb. It took us 1 hr to reach the flag at the top of the fortress, then about ½ an hour to climb back down. There were plenty of breaks! It was very hot and not very shaded. The view from the top was very nice, but the climb really exhausted us. Please wear good footwear if you decide to do this- we saw one woman attempting to climb barefoot instead of wearing her strappy flip-flops, that would not be recommended. The steps were steep and narrow, and in many places the steps were broken or the trail was made up of slippery rocks. Also, wear a hat and take plenty of water. Afterwards, we stopped at a café and had a drink before heading back to the ship on the tender for dinner. Tonight they told us to turn back our clocks 1 hour.

Cruise Day 3: At Sea

We accidentally slept in way late (that hike up the mountain must have exhausted us!) and it changed up our plans for the day. We had breakfast and then went on a tour of the galley, a late lunch and then we wanted to go to the pool. The chair hogs were out in full force on this cruise, it was almost impossible to find 2 chairs together that didn’t have towels “reserving” them.

This was our first formal night (the lobster night was second formal night). We had our only towel animal of the cruise this night and well as chocolate covered oreos on our bed (the only chocolates of the cruise left by our stateroom attendant). I included that info because I know it is important to some of you. We went to the Café al Bacio because I wanted to find the box of chocolates that people were talking about on Cruise Critic but I was not able to find them, we had to settle for daily cookies instead, which were actually quite good.

Cruise Day 4: Santorini, Greece

I was really worried about Santorini due to the high number of cruise passengers in port- it was 9000+ because of 3 ships in port, one of the highest numbers of the entire summer. Therefore, we booked the Volcano hike and Hot springs swim through Celebrity so that we wouldn’t have to deal with trying to get an early tender off of the boat. Our group was supposed to leave at 8:30 but we were slightly delayed because people on earlier tenders apparently kept forgetting that they needed their Seapass card to get off of the ship. I was surprised at the large amount of people on this excursion, probably about 125, because at the volcano caldera we split into 5 groups of 25 that each had their own guide. We were given a bottle of water when we disembarked the boat at the caldera, which was a nice extra. We enjoyed the hike, it was nowhere near as strenuous at the Kotor steps, and the guide walked at a nice pace. Afterwards, we boarded the boat again and they took us to the Hot Springs. You had to climb (or jump) off of the boat into the water and then swim a little bit to the hot area (they did not offer life jackets or noodles or anything). You could stand in the water in the hot springs area. A guide was encouraging people to use the mud and rub it into their skin, I wouldn’t recommend this, as my feet were slightly dyed orange just from walking in the mud area. The water in the hot springs area is yellowish, due to the sulfur. We swam back to the ship and were one of the first people back onboard after they blew the whistle to tell everyone to come back. The plan was to change quickly in the bathroom so that we could directly take the cable car up to Fira. Well this plan worked, but we regretted it. The boat’s bathroom was pretty gross, we went in barefoot and it felt slimy, and there were no hooks or anything where you could put your clothes, so my clothes were on the floor of the bathroom too. Later, we noticed bathrooms at the bottom of the cable car, this would probably be a better solution if you are looking to do the same thing.

The shore excursion dropped us off at the pier around noon and gave us cable car tickets. We walked right up to the cable car and got on without waiting, there was absolutely no line at that time. However, there was already a line waiting to come back down when we got to the top. We ate a small lunch at one of the restaurants right outside the cable car, we greatly enjoyed the view. Then we walked around the town for a bit. We went to get in line (around 3?) to get back down the cable car, but the line was huge and everyone in it was really cranky. So instead we bought some water and Powerade at one of the shops and walked down. It was hard to find the entrance to the steps, but we eventually made it there with help. There was no shade on the way down, it was hot, and there was seriously donkey poop everywhere. It smelled worse than I thought it would. We made it down the hill in about 30 minutes. There were lots of people walking down, lots of people walking up, and lots of donkeys. The donkeys are scary. They walked quickly and almost everyone sitting on top of them looked scared. We also ran into a group of people on donkeys where the donkeys had stopped moving and were just standing there and the people didn’t know what to do, eventually some of them climbed off and just started walking up the steps. I was so glad that we finally made it down, and then the little town at the bottom was crazy full of people waiting to get on the cable car to go up (there was a ship that arrived at 2 pm I think). We were supposed to leave at 5 pm, but the day before the Captain announced that he was changing it to 6 pm, due to another ship leaving at 5 pm, to help with the cable car congestion.

We had reservations at the Lawn Club Grill for dinner this night at 6 pm. It was nice to sit in the restaurant and be able to watch the sailaway. This specialty restaurant focuses on grilled cuisine in an interactive, open kitchen, type concept. The meal included an appetizer, salad bar, grilled entrée, and hot dessert – all very delicious but in very large portions. The appetizer was a flatbread, but for all intensive purposes it was a New York style pizza. For the entrée I had steak kabobs with dirty rice, and my husband had the grilled red snapper with lobster mac & cheese – so good! We enjoyed the warm chocolate chip cookie for dessert. Somehow we ended up with an onboard dining credit (probably our travel agent), so we didn’t have to pay for this specialty restaurant.

Cruise Day 5: Athens, Greece

We booked the Acropolis + Cape Sounion Tour through Celebrity, we had to meet in the auditorium at 7:30 am! There were 3 buses of people who chose this tour. The very first thing we did was go to the Acropolis. They gave us a bottle of water when we got off the bus and then we walked up to the Parthenon. I was so glad that we went there first, by the time we left it was so crowded, it was crazy. We had a tour around the Parthenon site and then some time on our own. After we got back on the bus, we had a couple stops in Athens. The first stop was a souvenir store for about 15 min (because there is no opportunity for shopping on this tour). The store was nice, they had a good selection of things that appeared to be a good quality, and we got our postcards for free. Then we drove to the Parliament building and because of the timing, they let us off the bus to see the changing of the guard (I am not sure if this happens on every trip or not). We had another stop at the Olympic stadium of the first modern Olympics. Then we drove to a hotel in Athens for lunch. The buffet was good (some classic Greek food as well as things like baked chicken breasts) and they included soft drinks and wine with lunch. After lunch we got back on the bus to drive to Cape Sounion and the Temple of Poseidon. It was about 1 hr 15 min drive… I think most people took an after-lunch nap on the way there. Once we were at the site, we had a tour with our guide and then we had time to ourselves to walk around. Back on the bus, and drove back to Piraeus. One thing I didn’t know, the bus doesn’t drive you directly back to the ship, but instead it drops you off at the cruise terminal building which is nowhere near the ship. You have to go through security (just like the airport) before boarding another bus back to your ship.

In the evening, we had reservations at Qsine… it was delicious! Qsine is meant to be a “dining experience” – you order off of iPads, the meal is served multicourse tapas-style, and every dish has a different theme. We ordered items like the baby back BBQ spring rolls, lava king crab, tacos royale, and painters palette filet mignon. My husband enjoyed getting to make his own guacamole at the table with the mortar and pestle. Dessert was make your own cupcake and strawberry fields forever. We greatly enjoyed the meal there, I wish my stomach was bigger so that we could have tried more food!

Cruise Day 6: Katakalon, Greece

Finally, a chance to “sleep in” since we didn’t arrive until 9 am! We went to the MDR for breakfast. I didn’t really enjoy it, they crowded everyone into a small area of the dining room, the service was really slow, and the food wasn’t that much different from the buffet. Also, they seated us at a table for 2 that was like 3” away from the other tables for 2. On other cruise lines, we have enjoyed eating breakfast at a larger table with people who we didn’t know, but we didn’t have that option here.

We had a private tour booked with “Olympic Tours by Niki Vlachou”. We had booked the 6 hour tour that included a tour of Olympia and a lunch (called “The Olympia Project”). One interesting thing- our tour of Olympia included both the people on our tour (that included lunch) and the people who booked the regular 6 hour tour (with free time, did not include lunch). We had maybe 20 people total on the tour. Our tour included both a tour of the museum, where it was cool to see the statues and relics from the site, and a tour of the site. After the tour, we had some free time to walk around and then about half of our group got back on the bus to go to lunch. The lunch was a buffet of traditional Greek dishes, and it was delicious. There was a tour group on a Celebrity tour at the same restaurant for lunch and they had people performing traditional Greek dances for them, so we got to watch while we were eating, which was fun. They talk about taking a swim in the restaurants pool in the trip description, but there wasn’t really any time for that. When we were done eating, the bus dropped us off on a street in “modern” Olympia, we had about half an hour to do any shopping if you wanted and then we had to meet back up with the bus to drive back to the port.

Cruise Day 7: At Sea

We got to turn our clocks ahead overnight so we woke up at a decent time and went up to the buffet for breakfast and then to the pool. The chair hogs were out saving chairs super early since it was an “at sea” day, so we ended up in the Solarium. We enjoyed the Solarium pool more than the outdoor pool because there were no kids splashing and jumping all over. Strangely, the nice loungers in the Solarium were available when most of the outdoor loungers were “reserved”. We went to the “Grand Extravaganza Buffet” or whatever they called it for lunch. There was the normal buffet food as well as sushi, a giant dessert display, chocolate fountain, cotton candy, and chocolate dipped strawberries and Oreos. My favorite part was the large selection of berries that they put out for dipping in the chocolate- I wasn’t the only person I saw taking a big spoonful to eat without the chocolate!

Cruise Day 8: Disembarkation

We accidentally didn’t see the paper about reserving a disembarkation time until after we received our luggage tags. It didn’t matter though, we didn’t have anywhere that we needed to be. We were assigned an 8:45 disembarkation time and walked off easily right around that time. They kick you out of your room by 8 am, so we were sitting in the theatre. We walked off, got our luggage, and then hiked back to the People Mover to get back to Piazzale Roma. We stored our luggage for the day at the baggage storage located right next to the entrance to the People Mover in Piazzale Roma. It was 7 Euros a bag and they were open until 8 pm. I was worried that there would be a long line there when we dropped off the luggage (it was approximately 9 am), but there was no line! There was also no wait when we picked up our luggage at the end of the day.

After we were free from our luggage, we set back out for another walk in Venice. We randomly found a church that had a Leonardo da Vinci exhibit where they built mechanisms based on his drawings, so we stopped there for a bit. Then we ate lunch on the Grand Canal near the Rialto bridge. It was nice to sit there and relax and people-watch. At 1 pm we had a rowing lesson with “Row Venice”. They are a non-profit organization that teaches you to “Row like a Venetian”. We rowed a “batellina” which is like a shorter, more stable gondola. The instructor rowed and steered at the back of the boat, and you stand in the front and row. We rowed through a bunch of small canals on the north side of the island, it was a lot of fun (and not too hard). It take some time though to learn the proper balance. Definitely take your own water and a hat, it gets a little hot doing the rowing!

After we finished rowing, we walked back to the Rialto bridge and had a gondola ride- it was nice to have someone else do all the work! We went on both the Grand Canal and some of the smaller side canals, it was very nice and relaxing. Note that the Gondola prices are fixed in Venice, and you pay about 80 Euro for a 30 minute ride. We had an early dinner at a random restaurant that we passed on our way back to Piazzale Roma. We bought bus tickets at the ACTV counter and then got our baggage to take the #5 bus to Tessera. We had reservations at the Best Western Titian Inn because they had early shuttle service to the airport. All I could find out beforehand from reviews online is that “Tessera” is one stop before the airport, that is not a useful fact unless I take the bus all the way to the airport and then turn around to take it back to Venice. It was kind of stressful finding our stop, there were like 10 stops called “Via Orlando”, which was weird. Luckily we could see our hotel from the bus, and the hotel was before the bus stop so we knew when to get off. It was a little bit of a walk to the hotel, but not too bad. The Best Western Titian Inn was really nice, it had been renovated recently and was in good shape. When we checked in, the 5 am and 4:45 am shuttles to the airport were full, so they added a 4:30 am shuttle for us (which was then full the next morning). They had a computer with a printer that we could use to print out our boarding passes. The breakfast was supposed to start at 4:30 am, but they opened it earlier since people were leaving at 4:30 am, which was a nice touch. We crashed at 8:30 pm because we were absolutely exhausted from our day.

Last Day:

We woke up at 3:30 am, showered and had a small breakfast, and took the 4:30 am shuttle to the airport (we had a 6:45 am flight to Frankfurt). The Lufthansa counter was not open when we arrived, but the line was just starting. We were able to go in the baggage drop-off line since we had printed our boarding passes, and we were the first in line there when they opened (around 4:50?). The Venice airport had strange security- I got in trouble for leaving my Kindle in my backpack (in the US, electronic devices like Kindles and iPads can stay in your bag) and apparently no one was taking off their shoes to go through security. We were the first people at our gate and we settled in to wait for our flight.

We landed in Frankfurt and we had to take a bus from the plane to the airport. We had a 2-hour layover and we made it to our gate in plenty of time. Note that in Frankfurt you have to go through passport control when moving between the shorthaul (European flights) and longhaul (overseas flights) areas of the terminal. We made it back to Houston on time around 2 pm Houston time, what a long day!

Thoughts on Celebrity Silhouette:

We LOVED Celebrity and this ship! We were a little bit afraid when we booked that it would be too “upper class” for us and we would not fit in, when in reality, we fit right in with everyone. In fact, I even saw one person use their hand (instead of tongs) in the salad bar at the buffet, so not everyone was “upper class”. We loved the little touches that Celebrity had- the nice bathrooms, the cold washcloths and drinks at the gangway when you get back on the ship, free champagne at embarkation, etc. The ship is absolutely gorgeous both inside and out, and its so big and luxurious that you can’t tell you are on a ship at all.

Entertainment:

We went to the 3 “production” shows and we enjoyed them. The first one was “musicals” themed, and the last one was kind of “cirque du soleil” themed. I enjoyed the Cirque one the best, but it seemed like they just kept singing the same thing for the entire show. We also enjoyed the House Band (we think their name was “Soul”) and we went to a lot of their performances. A lot of the activities program focused on shopping and extra ways to spend your money, and in some ways the activities (like trivia) are better on Royal Caribbean. One of the most enjoyable activities was the Captain’s question and answer session in the Silhouette Theater.

Food/Drinks:

Food was delicious and very high quality. The buffet was great for breakfast and lunch and we enjoyed all of our dinners in the MDR as well as the specialty restaurants. My one complaint here is that even though we were not doing fixed seatings and always had a table for 2, it always took more than 75 minutes for our dinner. We usually only ordered one appetizer, the main course, and dessert, no coffee or tea or anything afterwards. We got several drinks at the martini bar- this was my favorite bar on the ship! The frozen bar top was fun and the bartenders were entertaining as they made your drink. Several people were jealously looking at my martini as it was being made- why would you go to that bar and drink something else? The martinis were just fun!

Pools:

Both the main pool deck and the Solarium pool were very nice. Pool furniture (loungers) were a significant step up from what you would find on Royal Caribbean or Princess. The Solarium Pool was by far the nicest – teak deck loungers with padding and also “cuddle caves” (daybeds with canopies). The “pool butlers” also laid out 2 towels on every lounger before the crowds arrived. However, we did think that the hot tubs all seemed to have a huge amount of excess chlorine in them and they were not very hot. You would get in the hot tub and start coughing because the chemical smell was so strong.

Conclusion:

All in all, we had an absolutely fabulous time on this trip- we enjoyed the ship, the ports of call, everything- we would sail Celebrity again anytime!

Let me know if you have any questions and I will try to answer them!

We rented a car in Anchorage after a Princess cruise 2 years ago. See my review here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1657964

We drove up to Denali for 2 nights, it was totally worth it. It was nice to be on our own schedule and also it was important to us to spend as much time as possible in Denali National Park. We took the 8-hour bus ride one day and went hiking both days we were there.

I was kind of sad to miss the train ride, but we went on the train in Skagway, so we didn't feel like we were missing anything by driving ourselves.

My advice is this: if you are even thinking about doing this, rent a car as soon as possible, the prices never drop, they just keep going up, and the car rental is easy to cancel without losing money. We rented 10 months in advance, so it's not too early to do this for next summer.

There is a third option: there is luggage storage at the Piazzale Roma station. They are open 6 am to 8 pm and it is 7 euro/bag.

http://www.trasbagagli.it/en/index.shtml?services

I have this same situation, we are going to get off of the ship, drop our bags at the station, explore Venice for a day, then pick up our bags by 8 pm and go to a hotel near the airport to stay overnight for our 6:30 am flight (on Lufthansa). (I found your post searching for recommended airport hotels)

Yes, I would be interested in learning what tour companies you are using, the trip you have set up sounds really good. Thanks!

We will be on Santorini at the end of August on Celebrity Silhouette. The day we are in port there will be almost 10,000 cruise ship people. We arrive first, at 7, and leave at 5.

My husband really wants to go and do the volcano hike (the one that you have to take the boat to) but we have no desire to go to the hot springs. I would really like to see Oia. Has anyone heard of a trip that would include both that we could book ahead of time? I would be fine with the trip ending in Oia and then we take a cab back to Fira.

thanks for your help!

About us:

We are a 32 year old couple. This is our third cruise together (# 1. Southern Caribbean on Serenade of the Seas in April 2011, #2. Alaska on Island Princess in June 2012). This is a long review, but I often wish for more detail in people’s reviews and I try to include details that might interest other people.

Saturday March 15th-

We got up at 3:00 am to make a 6:30 am flight to Orlando, then to San Juan on Southwest. Upon arrival in Orlando, we found out that our flight to San Juan was delayed about 40 minutes. We met lots of people who were boarding their cruise that day, but we prefer to fly in a day ahead to not have to worry about delays. Both flights were relatively short – a little over two hours each.

We arrived in San Juan and took a $24 taxi ride to the Caribe Hilton. The Caribe Hilton was a beautiful property, and as soon as we got there we started relaxing. We booked the hotel but for some reason they put us in the “Condado villas” when we arrived. We didn’t complain because the villas were more expensive when we booked, however, it was a much further walk to get anywhere on the property. We arrived right after 4 pm so we were able to check in right away, put on our bathing suits, and start using the pool. We swam and then ate an early dinner at the pool bar (which closes at 6 pm). Their grilled mahi mahi with garlic bread is very good. Later, we walked around to see what there was around the hotel, which was nothing, it was pretty isolated. Two small stores that sold a small amount of wine were across the street, as well as a Subway open 24 hours for your sandwich needs.

Sunday March 16th (Cruise day 1)-

We enjoyed a nice buffet breakfast at the hotel, then we took a cab to El Morro, one of the two fortresses that are part of the San Juan National Historic Site ($15). We were there when it opened at 9 am ($3 admission per person) and it was pretty empty. It took us about an hour to walk around all the different levels of the fort. It was very hot and there wasn’t much shade, but we enjoyed it there. Then we walked through Old San Juan and found ourselves near the Carnival dock. There is a giant CVS almost right across the street from the dock and you can get anything you forget to bring there. The CVS also has a pretty good selection of wine. We walked down the road further to see the Adventure of the Seas, which was docked at the Pan American Pier on the other side of the harbor. Near the Carnival dock a guy stopped us, asking us if we spoke English and went into this long story about how his dad was mugged and he needed money for a taxi. I believed him until I remembered that it was a scam that I read about on the San Juan ports of call board here on Cruise Critic. After we checked out our ship, we took a taxi back from the Sheraton to our hotel ($14), checked out right before noon, and took another taxi to the ship ($17). We were not a fan of these expensive cab rides in San Juan - the cabs from the airport and from the cruise dock are regulated (with people handing out tickets with your fares calculated) but everywhere else it just seemed to be a random number.

Anyway, we got to the dock right at noon, and were onboard the ship by 12:30! One interesting thing about embarkation, we carried on 2 bottles of wine and 1 large bottle of Gatorade. One bottle of wine and the Gatorade were in my beach bag, they went through the scanner with no problem. The other bottle of wine was in my backpack, and for some reason they called it out and put an orange zip tie on my backpack. Then later I got pulled out of line and had to show them my wine and then they cut off the zip tie before I went up the escalator to the ship. We still have no idea what that was about.

We enjoyed lunch in the Windjammer, then they opened up the staterooms at 2 pm (scheduled for 2:30 but they were ready early). We walked the whole ship and then had time in the pool while everyone was boarding. Muster drill was at 5:45 pm. We left San Juan on time and were excited to start the cruise!

Monday March 17th (Cruise day 2)-

We arrived in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, on time – our captain was apparently a real stickler for time and he was very good about getting us in and out of port on time (at least for the first two days). We ate breakfast in the Windjammer and when we left there was a line of people waiting to get in. From then on, we mostly ate in the MDR for breakfast, since they had a buffet and table service.

We chose a ship excursion that was supposed to be a ferry to St. John, and then 6.5 hours on St. John that includes a short bus tour of the island and beaches and then time on your own. The tour left at 10 am, there was a 40 min ferry ride that was extremely choppy. There was also barely any shade on the ferry. The ferry captain got in a fight with people at the docks because we were supposed to park at the private dock but it was full so he took us to the public dock and got in a yelling argument with the people there. The bus trip was good and we enjoyed seeing the sights and all the beaches on St. John. We finally got to Trunk Bay around 1 pm. Now, if they had followed the written timeline of the tour, we would be on the ferry to head back to the boat at 5:00 (supposed to be 6.5 hours on St. John). However, the ferry was leaving at 3, and they wanted people boarding at 2:45. Therefore, we only had a little over an hour to enjoy Trunk Bay. The line to rent snorkel gear was long so we were glad that we brought our own. The changing facilities and showers were very nice. We just wished that we had more time there! The ferry back to St. Thomas was much smoother than it was in the morning, and we were more comfortable sitting at the bow instead of up top, and it included rum punch. Later in the evening we participated in the first formal night, which included getting our picture taken with Captain Henrik Sorensen.

Tuesday March 18th (Cruise day 3)-

We arrived in St. Kitts early in the morning. Based on the St. Kitts port of call message board, we decided to do a tour by “My Island Tours” by Javin. He has an all day tour that visits the black lava rocks, the rainforest, snorkeling, and the beach. We really enjoyed this tour, it was very active, and we would take it again. Flip flops are not good, you definitely need at least water shoes (Teva sandals, for example) or sneakers to walk around the black lava rocks. Javin provides a snack after the rainforest hike- local breads and juices. The last stop of the day was Cockleshell Beach, at the southern tip of the island, with white sand, crystal clear water, and a scenic view of Nevis across the water. At the beach, he turns the back end of his truck into a bar, and you can mix rum with the juices and have a good time. He also cut fresh sugar cane for us to have with our drinks, which actually makes a nice drink stirrer.

St. Kitts was where the mechanical problems started on the ship. We noticed a boom was around the aft end of the ship (apparently because we were leaking oil). The captain talked over the loudspeaker when we realized that we weren’t leaving at the specified time. Voyager-class ships have “podded” propulsion units instead of traditional propellers, two rotating pods (Azipods) and one fixed pod (Fixipod), and the captain announced that the Fixipod was leaking. They had made some fixes during the day, but we weren’t going to be able to go above 9 knots, so we weren’t going to make it to Aruba or Curacao. He announced a changed itinerary of Antigua, 2 days in St. Maarten, and St. Croix (so we wouldn’t have any sea days). We were disappointed because we really wanted to go to Aruba and Curacao (hence why we were sailing out of Puerto Rico), but we couldn’t really be too upset because we were on a tropical vacation, right? We felt like the captain was doing his best to keep the passengers informed about what was going on, and he had made the right decision based on the circumstances.

Wednesday March 19th (Cruise day 4)-

We docked in St. Johns Antigua. Unfortunately, we had never been to Antigua and without Cruise Critic and the internet we had no idea what to do there. Royal set up a few excursions but none of them really appealed to us. In the Ports of Call shopping guide in our stateroom we found out about a place called Nelson’s Dockyard, so we decided to go there. We treated the morning like it was a day at sea, lounging and going to the pool, and then got off of the ship after lunch. We walked around the dock area and then we took a taxi to Nelson’s Dockyard ($32 each way). It was $8 admission/person. It was a cute historic dockyard, dating back to the days of Admiral Horatio Nelson, and there were some little shops, museums, and several restaurants and bars to eat & drink at. Nautical buffs, like my husband, should enjoy touring the dockyard. We had arranged for the taxi to return in an hour, it only took an hour to tour around, and then we returned to the ship. I thought that it was nice and quiet (we were the only ship in dock that day) and shady, but we probably wouldn’t go there again.

Thursday March 20th (Cruise day 5)-

Day 1 in St. Maarten. There were 5 other ships in port that day so Royal wasn’t able to schedule very many cruise excursions. We relaxed in the morning again and then in the afternoon took the ferry taxi to the town area to walk around the shops. It was very crowded and very hot. Even with 6 ships in port, there wasn’t much of a line for the ferry taxi, which was nice. It was $7/person and you could ride back and forth all day. Be aware that there are standard water taxis and “party” water taxis – and on the “party” taxis the crew play loud music videos, dance, and serve drinks, which may not appeal to everyone. Allure of the Seas was docked next to us, which was impressive to look at. I wish that there was some way that Royal could have offered us guided tours of that ship as a shore excursion- that would have been awesome and we would have paid for that opportunity.

Friday March 21st (Cruise day 6)-

Day 2 in St. Maarten. We signed up for a “Mountain Bike” excursion. There was about a 30 minute drive to the French side of the island, where we met up with the mountain bikes. Our guide took us off road for a little bit, this was slightly scary as I was not used to mountain biking, I usually stay on the road. My husband and I both got scratched up by bushes on the trail. Then we switched to biking on the road. We enjoyed it because we like to go for bike rides, but it was kind of through a neighborhood and not particularly scenic in any way. Had we planned to go biking we probably would’ve brought bike shorts, which would have nice given how hard the bike saddles were. We ended our ride at the Friar’s Bay Beach Club. This was a beautiful beach. There was a restaurant with bathroom and lounge chairs and umbrellas. The water was totally clear but a little bit rough. It was nice to be able to cool down after the long ride. We got about 30 minutes at the beach before we had to head back to the ship.

This was the other formal night on the ship. We ate in Portofino’s and it was delicious. My husband enjoyed the “Spidieno di Mare” (grilled seafood skewer). The berries soaked in Grand Marnier and served in a martini glass make a great dessert. If you book during the first couple days of the cruise, they give you 20% off, so it was only $20/person instead of $25.

Saturday March 22nd (Cruise day 7)-

We signed up for a kayak adventure on St Croix and I was really looking forward to it but when we woke up we were nowhere near land. The captain announced that they were having more problems with the propeller and now we could only go 5 knots, so we weren’t going to be able to dock at St Croix. We spent most of the day going 1.5 knots because they were trying to do more repairs and if we went faster, it would cause the propeller to spin and would cause more damage. The only good thing about getting our Sea Day was that they opened the MDR for lunch and we were able to get the Tutti Salad Bar that everyone here raves about and I had been talking about to my husband for 2 weeks. And yes, it was very good! We found out in the afternoon that we would be getting $300 OBC per stateroom due to the problems that the ship had.

Sunday March 23rd-

When we woke up we could see San Juan, it just took us forever to get to the dock! Disembarkation was a complete disaster. We left our room around 10 and went up to the pool deck, around 11 we went to our disembarkation lounge and it wasn’t even open. (Our original disembarkation meet time was 9:15) People were just sitting around on the floors and in hallways and it was a mess. At noon they came on the loudspeaker to announce that the Windjammer and the MDR were open for lunch. We ate around 12:30 and then went to our lounge which was finally open. The first people were allowed off of the ship around 12:30 (people with flights from 2-3 pm). They finally came and got people from where we were around 1:30. I don’t think that there was any order to the way that they were letting people off of the ship, we were just grateful to be back on land. It took about 40 min to go through customs because the line was very long but by 2:30 we were on our way to our hotel. If you need to get through customs quickly you should hire a porter because they keep a dedicated line just for the porters and it moved faster than the other lines.

We were lucky that we didn’t have a plane to catch on Sunday, we had decided to stay an extra night in San Juan. We did a Southern Caribbean cruise once before and we sat at the airport for half the day on Sunday waiting to leave and it was not fun and not relaxing. This time we stayed at the Marriott Stellaris in Condado. Our room wasn’t ready when we checked in, so we left our luggage and went to visit Fort San Cristobal ($15 cab). It took about an hour to tour the fort and then we walked around the old town for a bit before heading back to the hotel. For dinner, we walked about 15 min from the hotel to Ropa Vieja Grill, which had really good Puerto Rican food (the Puerto Rican style skirt steak was fabulous).

Monday March 24th-

We spent the morning relaxing at the pool (nice but not as nice as the Caribe Hilton). Around noon we checked out and then walked across the street to a burger joint called “Buns”. It was a really good fresh hamburger, kind of like “Five Guys” if you are familiar with that chain. They have some of the best French Fries I’ve ever eaten. We headed to the airport around 1 to catch our flight home.

Overall impressions of ship:

We thought that the service on the ship was really good. Our waiters were great, servers always came to us when we sat down in a lounge, and our stateroom attendant was always easy to find if we needed anything. Keep in mind that with My Time Dining they try really hard to keep you with your same waiter for the entire cruise. We also got 3 towel animals J. We enjoyed the ship, and it didn’t seem “tired” to us like some people mentioned. We are always impressed with how well Royal Caribbean keeps up their ships. And yes, there were some places that needed a fresh coat of paint, but what cruise ship doesn’t. I didn’t enjoy the smoking side of the pool deck, the smoke seemed to congregate under the overhang and sit around. It seemed like there weren’t many daytime activities on this ship, but this could be because our Sea Days got cancelled- no ice carving/fruit carving/galley tours/ etc. We enjoyed Café Promenade and getting cookies when we got back onboard after our shore excursions. We also enjoyed the Royal Promenade, it was a fun place to walk around. We enjoyed the food greatly – our favorite dishes were Orecchiette pasta with short rib ragu, Chicken Marsala, the Spanish tapas appetizer plate, and the carved beef tenderloin. We had no problems asking for wine glasses from the bars- and then we carried glasses of wine into dinner almost every night. The ice skating show “Cool Art, Hot Ice” was great, as was the entertainer Earl Turner. There were two parties in the Royal Promenade – the island parade when we left San Juan, and the “70s dancing in the streets” party where the cruise director’s staff got their groove on. The trivia sessions were pretty good, which were usually held in the Schooner Bar, and we managed to win one of the trivias this time. The “Farewell Show” was pretty bad and not worth attending.

Compared to the Serenade of the Seas:

I liked the glass atrium in the Serenade as well as the elevators that have the ocean view. We also enjoyed the covered outdoor eating area on Serenade (part of the Windjammer), which is enclosed as the “Island Grill” on Adventure. Adventure of the Seas was much bigger and it felt like it took much longer to walk places, but we enjoyed the Royal Promenade a lot. The ship is so big that you don’t really feel like you are even on a ship. My husband really enjoyed the “peekaboo Bridge” which was a covered area with windows that looked down into the Navigation Bridge. Overall, we would be happy to sail either ship again.

That concludes my review, please let me know if you have any questions and I will try my best to answer them!

My husband and I were walking though OSJ and then down by the water by the Carnival dock on 3/16/2014. A man stopped us and asked us if we spoke English and then started his story about how he and his dad got mugged by the forts and the police didn't help but someone at the Sheraton did and his dad went to the hospital and he needed $6 to get to his dad. I felt terrible for the guy, he had several bandaids on his face and a large bandage on his hand like he had been hurt. I was about ready to give him some money but luckily I had read this thread and suddenly remembered it and we just took off and left him. Thanks for the warning and I hope that it helps other people too!

I am going on RC Adventure of the Seas 3/16/2014. When I was looking through excursions before I booked, I saw a bike excursion where you rode bikes (human-powered with pedals, not gas scooter things) about 15 miles, with lots of breaks for pictures and chatting. However, now it is not shown as a choice to book. Does anyone know who might offer a tour like that on the island? I haven't been able to find one anywhere and my husband was really excited about it. Thanks.