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We survived Adventure of the Seas 3/16-3/23/2014- a Long review!

kmpjdd

By kmpjdd,
in Royal Caribbean International

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kmpjdd

kmpjdd

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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!

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BillOh Holiday Sharing Rare

BillOh

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Interesting idea about having Allure has an excursion! It would have presented some difficulties logistically, but a really good idea. I'll bet nobody thought it on RC's end. Congrats on making the best of a difficult situation.

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  • 3 months later...
Missus Makkem

Missus Makkem

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Did you watch any of the movies outdoors? If so how was it? What did you see?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Cruise Critic Forums mobile app

 

The movie screen was not installed until after this cruise just befroe the AOS did her trans atlantic.

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loubetti

loubetti

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Nice review. I've stayed at both the Caribe Hilton and Marriott, and both are wonderful hotels, however, the Hilton is my favorite! Never did them on a cruise either, just one-week land stays.

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  • 6 months later...
CapitalKyle

CapitalKyle

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Thank you for taking the time to detail your experience! I'm sailing on Adventure in April and want to know what to expect. I'm sorry to hear that your plans were so interrupted by mechanical trouble, but it sounds like you and your husband had a great attitude about it and enjoyed your trip all the same :)

 

Can I ask... even though you didn't get to do it, what attracted you to the kayaking excursion in St. Croix? That is one of the options I am considering (that or a coastal bike tour) and I'd love another perspective.

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Merion_Mom

Merion_Mom

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Thank you for taking the time to detail your experience! I'm sailing on Adventure in April and want to know what to expect. I'm sorry to hear that your plans were so interrupted by mechanical trouble, but it sounds like you and your husband had a great attitude about it and enjoyed your trip all the same :)

 

Can I ask... even though you didn't get to do it, what attracted you to the kayaking excursion in St. Croix? That is one of the options I am considering (that or a coastal bike tour) and I'd love another perspective.

 

The Cruise Critic Forum for St. Croix:

 

http://www.boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=166

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