Serenade of the Seas review with an attempt to post pictures :)

[BILL-WI]

Great review...thanks for sharing and I love the photos!:):)

 

BILL

[angel258]

I have been on 8 cruises and have posted a few reviews, but never with pictures. I did not take as many picures as I thought I did, but I will try to post the ones I have..hey, some are better than none..right?

 

So here goes..this cruise was originally booked with 4 families back in February 2010 while onboard the Freedom. Two of the families had to back out so it was myself, my husband, and our college aged daugher in our family. We flew into San Juan from Dallas on Friday on Spirit Airlines..more on that in a minute. The other family was a mom and dad and thier 4 kids...3 college aged and one 10 year old. They flew in from Atlanta and met us on Saturday.

 

Our flight was for 6:00 a.m. on Friday, June 17th on Spirit Arlines out of Dallas. Spirit is new to the Dallas market and at the time that I was booking our air, it was the cheapest and had the best departure and arrival times. We had one short stop in Fort Lauderdale and were in San Juan by 2:00. It was a very long day considering we had been up since about 3:30 a.m. I will say that I will NEVER fly Spirit airlines again if I can help it. We were warned on this board that Spirit is bad about nickel and diming and they have poor customer service. All of that is true and more..word to the wise if you are flying on Spirit..make sure you take your own drinks and snacks on the plane. They charge for everything including soft drinks, carry ons, luggage over 40 lbs, etc, etc. I am pretty sure that we ended up paying more on Spirit than we would have on American (who we normally fly). We had mechanical delays on all legs of our flight and almost missed our returning flight..more on that later..

 

Once we arrived in San Juan, we had no problems at the airport getting a taxi to our hotel..the Caribe Hilton..which we LOVED! I got it on Priceline for $90.00 per night and I was thrilled. Here are some pictures of the Caribe..

 

I totally agree with your remarks about Spirit Airlines. I flew with them once in May and will never fly with them again. You feel you have received great fares until you realize they charge for everything and the 40 lb weight limit really annoyed me. We also had a delayed flight but it was related to paperwork and the plane not having enough life vests for children.

 

Anywho...I'm glad you enjoyed your cruise. I sailed the Serenade last year on a different itinerary but I will be visiting most of the islands you visited next year. I have enjoyed reading your review and looking at your pics.

[Host Faith]

Hey Stacey! Great review and I loved your pics! I think if we go back to St. Lucia we'll book the beach break with Spencer. That was a recent addition to his tours since it wasn't available when we went with him.

 

Can't wait to sail the Serenade in a few weeks! We'll be on a different itinerary this time, but your review made me even more excited to sail her again!

[maxs mom]

Stacey!!!! I'm just now seeing your review!! I guess since we were on the B2B, I just missed it. Very nice. I always love to read about the same cruise that I was on from someone else's perpective.

Sorry we didn't get to meet you guys! Especially since we chatted for so long beforehand. We were at Valley Church at the same time and Orient Beach. We left Valley Church at 2:30, too.

Well.....glad you had a good week on board my favorite ship! We had a wonderful two weeks. Trying to figure out when we can cruise on her again. Might have to go to the Med!

I don't know if you saw my review or not. Here is the link in case you didn't.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1441400

Enjoyed your review!

[DebbyD]

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You can see the ship in this one too..barely

Great review Stacy, we did this tour last year and it was fabulous. We are sailing on the Serenade again in September except doing the Aruba route. Can't wait to get out of this Texas heat!

[Darkingnj]

Great review and pics. We sail on Serenade next month.