Adventure June 4 Review - LOTS of port pics

[k1koala]

I will never fly American Airlines again myself for the same reasons!! Notorious for constant changes in flights, and not worth the cheaper cost! Sorry it added so much stress to an exciting time.

 

Also following; love how your doing the review and love LOTS of pictures. We are doing same itinerary on the same ship soon!!! Gets us excited :)

[Ms Jo UK]

The 10 drink card went on sale early...I think we first say it on the evening of day 3, but it might have been day 4. The cost was $85 plus tip, for a total of $100.30.

 

Thank you

[swim13]

Enjoying the review!

[bobmacliberty]

So glad I came upon your post. We are staying at the Sheraton in Aug. and cruising on the Adventurer. My DH and I have been on the Adventurer and did the same itinerary but DS &DIL with grandson 16 and granddaughter 14 will be with us this time.

 

May I ask the price of the cab?? Do they charge for luggage?? We were told by the lady at the hotel just to take "white colored cabs" is this what you did??

 

Looking forward to your review. I'm sure the others appreciate all the time and effort you put into it. (Do it at home, don't lose your job)

 

The pictures are great!

 

Carol

 

Taxi prices are generally fixed by which regions you travel between, plus $1 per luggage bag. I think we also paid a $1 or $2 airport fee of some sort. If I remember correctly, airport to the Sheraton OSJ was $21 plus $1 per bag plus airport fee.

[luvsun22]

Looking forward to the rest of your review! Only 99 days and we'll be sailing the same itinerary!

[manders175]

That might be it for the review!! LOL. 2 days since any pics posted.....

[bobmacliberty]

Nope...more coming. I'll squeeze in a few postings tonight but then I got invited to go to the US Open on Saturday and Sunday and will be driving to Pittsburgh tomorrow night. Won't be posting again until Monday. Sorry to be dragging this out.

[bobmacliberty]

Last I left you, we were waking up on Saturday morning of the cruise in Old San Juan. Our plan was to checkout, leave the luggage with the hotel, and check out the forts, before boarding the ship in the afternoon. We wanted to get one of the tunnel tours of Castillo de San Cristóbel. From researching here on CC, I know that these tours were given in English on Saturdays at 10:30 and 12:30. I also knew that the tours were limited to 15 people, so we got there early at 9:30. There were already 5 people on the list. Many people showed up at 10:30 and were turned away. Definitely get there early if this interests you. I can highly recommend the tour.

 

Our tour guide...a former US Marine.

 

Our tour guide did a great job. She was full of knowledge and liked to tell stories. She really helped make you understand what it might have been like defending (or attacking) the fort in the late 1700s. Most of the fort is open to anyone who pays the $5 to get in. (Save your receipt because the $5 fee covers both forts in OSJ). The special tunnel part of the tour was a locked tunnel that was barely big enough to fit one person wide. I'm 6 feet tall and had to duck most of the way. Our guide several times warned people who are claustrophobic or afraid of the dark. We were each given flashlights but at one point shut them off and it was total blackness.

 

 

It was difficult to take pictures in the dark, but here are a few:

 

 

The end of a tunnel was a very small space where two very junior soldiers would spend 24 hours looking through a narrow slit to see if any invaders were coming. As our guide put it, this was where they worked, ate, slept, and went to the bathroom. They could choose to have a lit torch for light, but they also had gun powder. Open flames and gun powder don't typically mix.

 

The lookout spot at the end of the tunnel

 

One of the larger tunnels that is open to the public

 

The tunnels were sloped and had curves as part of the defenses. The Spanish who built and defended the fort would go downhill to be able to quickly get to the other end of the fort. They could also roll bombs down sloped tunnels to kill/trap attackers. Attackers would need to go uphill through the tunnels and around blind curves. This would slow them down and allow the defenders to surprise them around the curves. Definitely worth visiting.

 

One of the Castillo de San Cristóbel residents

[bobmacliberty]

If you are a photographer, the forts are a photographer's dream. Great views and stunning photos everywhere you turn. Too bad the skies were overcast. Many pictures of Castillo de San Cristóbal coming at you...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note anything off in the distance in that last photo?

[JimAOk1945]

Excellent review and pictures. I'm following and looking for more.

[bobmacliberty]

More of Castillo de San Cristoból...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bobmacliberty]

Still more...

 

 

 

 

Adventure of the Seas in the distance

 

 

[bobmacliberty]

I did warn you about lots of pictures didn't I?

 

Viking Crown Lounge peaking over the top of the buildings

 

 

 

 

Looking at Castillo San Felipe del Morro

 

Enough of the Castillo de San Cristóbal. Time for some lunch and then off to the Castillo San Felipe del Morro, aka El Morro. We at lunch the Cafe Berlin, at the base of Castillo de San Cristóbal. Good food and the right location.

 

 

Our plan was to then make the short walk to shuttle stop 18A where we would catch the free shuttle to El Morro. We waited for about 10 minutes with no sign of a shuttle. We saw a few taxis come and go and decided to take a taxi instead. I asked the taxi driver how much he would charge to take 4 people. He seemed a little unsure and then said $12. That sounded better than standing in the heat so we got into his mini-van. Of course, as soon as we started getting in the taxi, the shuttle showed up. It was completely full though and no one was getting off, so the taxi was the better option anyway.

[bobmacliberty]

LeBron just made a monster jam and the Cavs are off to a 6-0 start in game 6. Time to watch some basketball.

[bobmacliberty]

El Morro is an equally impressive fort with a huge green lawn area. There were quite a few people out picnicking and flying kites.

 

 

 

 

El Morro doesn't look all that intimidating from this side, but there are multiple levels facing the sea, with lots of places for cannons.

 

 

 

The view from the men's bathroom

 

Believe it or not, the last picture was taken from a little balcony off the men's bathroom. DW said that there's a similar balcony in the lady's bathroom.

[bobmacliberty]

More El Morro pictures...

 

 

 

Walking down to the lower level

 

The main wall seen when entering the bay by ship

 

 

[bobmacliberty]

And a few more El Morro pictures...

 

 

 

 

View back down the coast toward Castillo de San Cristoból

 

The El Morro Lighthouse

 

The National Park Service also does a free lighthouse tour but we didn't do it. At this point, we were about ready to head to the ship.

 

[bobmacliberty]

I'll take a brief break from posting pictures and talk about the rest of our afternoon. We grabbed a taxi from El Morro back to the Sheraton OSJ to pick up our luggage. The taxi driver again wasn't too sure about how much to charge but in the end said $10 for the 4 of us. Deal.

 

Everything went well back at the hotel. The bellhop quickly retrieved our luggage, got a taxi for us, and helped load the luggage in the taxi. I was a little worried about fitting 4 people with lots of luggage into taxis in OSJ but we always had a mini-van with plenty of space. I don't recall what the taxi cost was from the Sheraton OSJ to the pier, but we had a very friendly driver who kept us entertained. Just as we were pulling up to the pier, it started raining. No problem as the line outside to drop our luggage was covered. The luggage line seemed long to me but our driver told us that it earlier was more than twice as long. It moved fairly quickly and we were soon through security. There was no line to check in. I think the bottleneck was luggage/security.

 

Before boarding, we stopped in the duty free store to pick up some wine and water. Since we had 2 cabins, we bought 4 bottles of wine and 2 big bottles of water. We enjoy wine (DW regularly, me occasionally...I tend to drink beer) but we're not wine aficionados. Four bottles of Beringer (2 Pinot Noirs, 2 Sauvignon Blancs) plus 2 big bottles of water were $48. That's about 4 glasses of wine onboard. The clerk at the duty free store said we'd have no problem bringing the wine onboard and likely wouldn't need to show that we had 2 cabins. He even suggested that we could board, drop off the wine in the cabin, go back to the duty free store and get more, and nobody would ask. Sure enough, no one even looked at us as we carried the wine on.

 

One big problem area was the muster drill. It took forever...standing outside in the heat, tightly bunched together. The stragglers were partly to blame for making everyone wait but the Captain seemed to drone on forever when he was releasing us. He was even giving us a weather report.:rolleyes: We had an older lady in our section pass out and was fortunately caught by her husband. A second older lady then passed out and was caught by DW and DD18. Don't tell us about the upcoming cruise and the weather while we're standing in the heat!!! Just dismiss us.

[prekteacher]

Enjoying your review. Looking forward to more pictures and posts.

 

Barbara

[Happyreb]

Following! We are on this cruise in Feb 2017 - not long after the dry dock. Looks like a fab itinerary!

[SandyToes2000]

Thank you for taking the time to review your cruise for us. We will be sailing with Royal for the first time on New Years Eve, and will visit the same ports. I look forward to hearing all about them!

[caral2004]

Wow great review! Looking forward for more....we will be on Adventure in January 2017

[jimbri]

Great review and photos!

[queenschick9b]

Your photos are great. What camera are you using?

[poffles]

Love reliving my two cruises out of San Juan, your pictures take me back. Can't wait to hear more of your trip.