Adventure of the Seas 6/25 Review

[jlstwinmommy]

I know several others have posted reviews of this cruise, but I thought I would add our perspective. I couldn't read enough reviews of the ship and ports before I left, so hopefully this helps someone else. :)

 

A little about us:

 

My family of 5 (DH, myself, college ages son, and b/g twins who are 12) went on this trip with my parents. We have sailed on anywhere from 4 (twins) to over 10 (parents) cruises. Our line of preference is RC, but we also enjoy Princess (warning - there will be a few comparisons between those 2 lines here). This was me and DH's 5th RC cruise and 2nd on the Adventure of the Seas.

 

For this trip, my parents booked a GS. Our last cruise was an Alaska cruise on the Star Princess where both my parents and DH and myself had booked Vista Suites. My parents really enjoyed the suite benefits on Princess and had heard that RC had made some changes that made the benefits similar, so they decided they wanted to try a GS. We had previously (on AOS) been in the Royal Family Suite and the suite benefits didn't wow us, so they wanted to give it a try with the new benefits. More on their thoughts later.

 

DH and I booked a JS on deck 9 on the hump (9314). I had originally booked the kids in a nearby inside room, but about 6 weeks before the cruise there was a great deal on balcony rooms and I was able to upgrade them to a balcony for on $150 more. To add to the no brainer, there was an aft balcony available and we love aft balconies. :) Since my oldest is in college and his brother and sister are experienced cruisers, I had no problem moving them to 1390 on deck 10 (plus my parents were just down the hall).

 

We flew into San Juan 3 days before the cruise. On our last cruise on AOS, we only spent a day before touring the forts. This time, we wanted to see a little more of Puerto Rico. DH loves hiking so we included a trip out to El Yunque to hike the rainforest.

 

I will try to include pictures as we go, but we'll see how that works out as I've never posted pictures on CC before. :o

[khm1]

Yay! Another Adventure review! I sail on Adventure in less than 4 weeks. Keep it coming!:)

[jlstwinmommy]

As I previously stated, we few into San Juan on Wednesday. I wanted to stay in Old San Juan so we could walk around town. Finding a place that sleeps 5 is always a challenge, but we settled on a nice family inn, Fortaleza Inn & Suites. The staff could not have been nicer and we had a huge room with a little balcony overlooking OSJ as well as a kitchen which we used to make at least one of our meals. We rented a car only for the first 2 days so we could take our day trip out to the rainforest.

 

I had read that it was best to get to El Yunque early, so we left the hotel by 7:30am so we would be at the rainforest by 8:30. We chose to hike to the top of El Yunque, a 2 1/2 mile hike up that is mostly paved. It was a refreshing hike and we lucked out in that it didn't even rain on us. :)

[jlstwinmommy]

Yay! Another Adventure review! I sail on Adventure in less than 4 weeks. Keep it coming!:)

 

Oh good, I'm glad someone is reading. :)

 

I was trying to figure out the picture thing. Hopefully, this worked. :)

[jlstwinmommy]

Now that I figured out the picture thing, here are a few more pictures of El Yunque. We had the perfect day for hiking and the view from the top is well worth the climb. :)

[birdlord]

I have a year and 5 months before I'm on Adventure, but following along.

[jlstwinmommy]

After we went to the rainforest, we stopped at a beach near Luquillo (I think it was Playa Luquillo) that we were told was a great beach in Puerto Rico. Honestly, it was only ok. It was $4 to park, another $1 per person to use the facilities (which were not that nice), and another $5 for a chair (there were trees, so we didn't need an umbrella). To make matters worse, my daughter ended up losing her eye glasses. I had them in my hand and I swear I handed them to her, but somehow, we must have dropped them and by the time we realized it, they were gone. She gets migraine headaches without them, so we spent Friday morning at LensCrafters in the mall in San Juan. At least it was Friday so I was able to get her prescription from her optometrist. Kind of put a bit of a damper on what was otherwise a great day. :(

 

We spent the rest of Friday touring the forts. I really love the forts in San Juan. The views are amazing. We hiked the path around the outside of the old city wall. It is a nice path, but gets super hot during the middle of the day. Also, for those animal lovers (like my DD), there is the largest colony of feral cats I have ever seen. Goodness, my DD wanted to take them all home. Fortunately, she felt better when she saw there was someone feeding them at several locations around the path.

 

Here's some pictures from the fort. I think the pictures of the path are on DH's phone so I will have to grab those later

[Daveintb]

Following [emoji41]

[jlstwinmommy]

I found some pictures of our room and view from our room as well as some pictures from the walk. First, the room and the view of Fortaleza street from our room.

[jlstwinmommy]

Here are some pictures from the walk around the city wall (including the cats that DD wanted to take home). :p

[jlstwinmommy]

So while researching my cruise and reading other AOS reviews, I stumbled upon mention of a restaurant that has chocolate in everything. What is not to love about that? ;) So, we decided to head over there for dessert one night. It is called Casa Cortes Chocobar. It was only a couple blocks from our hotel. It has the yummiest lava cake I have ever had. Here is a picture of it.

[jlstwinmommy]

On the way back from San Cristobal, we stopped by the church in OSJ. It is beautiful. There is also a crypt in the basement that was open when we stopped by.

 

On Saturday morning, DH and I got up early to take a walk by the water and get a coffee. Low and behold, what should be tied up in the dock across the water? :D

[jlstwinmommy]

We checked out of our hotel around 11am and headed to the pier. We got there around 11:30ish. I have to say this was the easiest embarkation we have ever experienced. We waited in line to check our bags for about 5 minutes, then headed over to the suite line to check in. We were the only one in that line, quickly checked in, and then immediately boarded the ship. We caught up with my parents in the Windjammer (they had arrived at the pier at 11ish - they said people were still getting off so they had to wait about 10 minutes to board). We were sitting with them and eating lunch by noon. Cabins were available at 2pm, so DD and DH went swimming while my mom, my boys and I went to Guest Services to get extra keys for the 2 rooms we had.

 

At 2pm promptly, they opened the cabins and we headed to drop off our carry on bags. As I mentioned before, we had been on AOS before, 9 years ago. We had done the itinerary that went to St. Lucia, Barbados, Antigua, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten. I have to say, I think the ship looks better now than it did then. Granted, I think it's been through a touch up or two in the last 9 years, but it is also headed to dry dock in a few months. I guess I was expecting it to look a bit more run down and needing dry dock. There were a few people we met who talked about their balcony being rusted and there may have been a couple of places where the carpet looked a little worn, but we were impressed with how it has been maintained for an "older" ship.

 

A brief comment on our rooms:

 

GS: The room was beautiful, but my parents said their bed was hard, harder than ours was. They were looking forward to their own bed by the end of the cruise, but they enjoyed their room.

 

JS: Our room was perfect and our cabin steward was fantastic. I love the little extra space on the hump balcony. I also enjoyed being able to look forward. My parents and I were on the same side of the ship (starboard). If we did this itinerary again, we would get the port side as that is the side the ship docked on in every port we went to. Oh well, we still loved our views and spent many hours on our balcony.

 

Aft balcony 1390: Overall, I love this room and really love the balcony. Our only issue (really for the entire cruise) was that this room smelled of mildew. We reported it the first day and our cabin steward did a great job of trying different things to help with the smell (ionizer, dehumidifier, etc). It did get a little better by day 3, but the smell never went completely away. They said it was because the balcony door was left open, causing condensation in the room and on the walls. I can see that a little (though we never left the door open and were particularly careful once this was suggested as the cause), but I believe the AC unit in the ceiling was also leaking as we saw it dripping a few times (also reported to maintenance). I'm not sure where the odor came from, but hopefully this is addressed during the dry dock if not before. None of this stopped us from enjoying the room and especially the balcony (which is huge!). I really like these balconies even better than when we had the RFS on 8 as deck 10 is above most of the structure of the ship. Even though RC still calls it an obstructed view, we did not feel it was obstructed at all. :)

 

Here are some views from our different cabins while in port and during sail away.

[CS-RN]

Aft balcony 1390: Overall, I love this room and really love the balcony. Our only issue (really for the entire cruise) was that this room smelled of mildew. We reported it the first day and our cabin steward did a great job of trying different things to help with the smell (ionizer, dehumidifier, etc). It did get a little better by day 3, but the smell never went completely away. They said it was because the balcony door was left open, causing condensation in the room and on the walls. I can see that a little (though we never left the door open and were particularly careful once this was suggested as the cause), but I believe the AC unit in the ceiling was also leaking as we saw it dripping a few times (also reported to maintenance). I'm not sure where the odor came from, but hopefully this is addressed during the dry dock if not before. None of this stopped us from enjoying the room and especially the balcony (which is huge!). I really like these balconies even better than when we had the RFS on 8 as deck 10 is above most of the structure of the ship. Even though RC still calls it an obstructed view, we did not feel it was obstructed at all. :)

 

Here are some views from our different cabins while in port and during sail away.

 

We are going to be in 1390 in January. Hopefully no mildew smell by then, post dry-dock! Any pictures you have of that room would be appreciated!!

[jlstwinmommy]

Since I've given my run down of the cabins, let me now address the food. I know, I know, food is very subjective. That said, over all, we thought the food was great - some of the best food we've had on a cruise ship. And our wait staff (Lucia and Yoga) were FANTASTIC. This has got to be the best service we have ever had on ANY cruise. There are some details I will mention:

 

Breakfast - we ate in the dining room one day. The food was fine, but the service was very slow (IMO). It was fine, but my kids thought the food in the Windjammer was just as good and faster, so we ate the rest of our breakfasts there. Plus, we got to have our terrific wait staff continue their fabulous service as they told us what section they were covering and we always sat there. :)

 

Breakfast in Giovanni's: here is where the comparison to Princess will begin. Staying in a Vista suite, one of our favorite perks was eating in Sabatini's every morning. The staff was amazing, they made you whatever you wanted, the service was fantastic. We really never wanted to leave. Once my parents heard that RC had a similar deal with Giovanni's, they got super excited. Sadly, they were disappointed. The first breakfast they said the service was terrible. My mom has a ton of allergies (which I have to say the staff in the main dining room handled amazingly and our head waiter - wow- he went out of his way to ensure my mom always had a meal she enjoyed). in Giovanni's, they made her feel like she was an intrusion. My dad, who needs a low cholesterol and low sugar diet, asked for an egg white omelet and they said they could make one, but they'd have to go down to the MDR to get the egg whites and it would take a while. My dad felt he was imposing on the staff. He also said there was also only one cook and one waiter, so everything took a while. Before you think we are a bunch of whiners (I swear, we are not) - my parents talked to our head waiter about the situation at dinner that night and they said it improved tremendously the next day. The staff even came by to check on every table to ensure they were all happy with the service (other suite guests had also complained). Even though it was much better and they continued to eat in Giovanni's most mornings, they said they felt Princess still does a better job with this and Sabatini's is still much better.

 

Lunch in the MDR: The salad bar still has to be one of my favorite thing about sea days on this ship. :p

 

Windjammer: I thought food in the Windjammer was great every time we went there. Granted, we did not ever eat there for dinner, but we had most lunches and breakfasts there. The variety was good and the food was fine. There were some dishes we absolutely loved (how DO they make that mac & cheese?? :p) and there were some dishes that were ok. There was nothing that we hated and no one went hungry, trust me. ;)

 

Dinner at Giovanni's: We have eaten at Chops before and loved it, so we decided to give this a try. Our dinner was fine and the food was good, but given that we had great food and service in the MDR, I'm not sure we would pay for this again. We had some onboard credit which is why we decided to book this. Otherwise, I think we would just skip it.

[jlstwinmommy]

We are going to be in 1390 in January. Hopefully no mildew smell by then, post dry-dock! Any pictures you have of that room would be appreciated!!

 

I kept meaning to take pictures of all 3 rooms, and every time I thought about it I didn't have a camera. I'll check with my older DS, but I did not get any pictures of any of the rooms. Mostly of scenery from the room. :)

 

We seem to always end up with a JS or higher so I don't have a good reference for balcony rooms, but we thought the hall between the bathroom and the closet was a little tight. If the kids left the closet open (which they seemed to do a lot), I hit the closet with the door when I came in the room in the morning. Otherwise, the room itself was fine. The balcony has a regular table with 2 chairs and 2 loungers. One could easily have a nice room service breakfast on that balcony (or ours, for that matter). I threatened to a few times, but everyone wanted omelets or pancakes or other items that aren't on the room service menu. :p

[jlstwinmommy]

Our first port was St. Maarten. We had been to St. Maarten before and had gone to Divi Little Bay which we really enjoyed, so we decided to go back there. I have to say, I think St. Maarten isn't as nice as it was the last time we were there. The crew even commented to us that the town has gone down hill in the last few years. That said, we still enjoyed Divi Little Bay and the resort there is still beautiful. I would totally stay there for a week. :)

 

We bought some nice snorkel gear for this trip (mostly due to our stop in Bonaire), but we took it here as DH had snorkeled with success at Divi Little Bay before. It was just as he remembered. If you swim out to the left (as you look at the water), near the rocks there are tons of fish. My kids even saw a stingray lying on the bottom. We stayed here until early afternoon and then went back to the ship for lunch. You can see the rocks I'm talking about in one of the pictures below.

[manders175]

We leave on this cruise in 81 days....so incredibly excited and following along!! Thanks for doing the review! :)

Edited July 5, 2016 by manders175
spelling

[Clarea]

Oh good, I'm glad someone is reading. :)

 

I was trying to figure out the picture thing. Hopefully, this worked. :)

Also reading, and enjoying.:)

[jlstwinmommy]

For those who are curious, our formal nights were Sunday (St. Maarten) and Thursday (Curacao). I found this interesting as we are used to having formal nights on sea days. I understand not having it the last sea day as folks have to pack, but the first one being on a port day as well was interesting. Not an issue for us, but thought some might like to be prepared for that.

 

Day 3 was our first sea day. DD declared we needed more sea days. She was enjoying the ship. :p The kids did the rock wall as soon as it opened. That turned out to be a great idea as they ended up being able to climb the wall several times before a real line developed. This turned out to be true both sea days. The pool got more crowded as the day went on (as expected), but we didn't have trouble finding chairs when we wanted them. The kids enjoyed the evening movies as well. One night (and I think it was this one, but don't quote me), they played Zootopia. The kids had seen it in the theater, but my parents hadn't, so we all went up to the pool deck to relax and enjoy the movie. :)

 

We didn't do a lot as far as shows were concerned. My mom played bingo (which I thought was really high this time, but inflation, I guess). We did a couple of the trivia sessions (darn that 80's music trivia - the song titles were always right on the tip of my tongue. :p) We didn't even go to the ice show, but we did watch several of the "game" shows run by the cruise staff. Some were a bit lame, but we still enjoyed watching. We came very close to winning the majority rules game. :) Overall, we liked the cruise staff and thought they did a great job. At least, we had fun. :D I'm a little jealous of those of you sailing after the dry dock. I think we would enjoy the updates. I know my kids would love the new slides.

[bobmacliberty]

We were on Adventure a month ago but with a different itinerary. Looking forward to hearing your take on the islands that we didn't see.

[MikeBayAreaCa]

We were on the same cruise and we do agree that breakfast was very slow and the salad bar was very good in the main dinning room, but we had the exact opposite opinion of the Windjammer for breakfast and lunch. Other than the omelette station we felt it was lacking in variety and, more importantly, taste. The one time we ate dinner there was better.

 

I know that food is very subjective, but we felt our meals on the plane were better than anything we had I the ship except for Giovanni's.

[jlstwinmommy]

Day 4 was Bonaire. We were most looking forward to this port as we had heard the snorkeling here was amazing and it did not disappoint. While doing research, I had read that Woodwind tours was the best snorkel tour company. Unfortunately, by the time I did this research, they were booked. On to Plan B. :) We decided to take a water taxi over to Klein Bonaire where I had read the best snorkeling was. I read the water taxi was $20 per person. When we got off the ship, the first water taxi was going to charge $20 (as I'd read), but DH walked down a bit more and found someone who was charging $15. He came back to get the rest of us and the original guy said he would give us a 50% discount and let us go for $10. Sold! :D

 

The ride is only about 15-20 minutes. The boat lets you out in the water and the bottom is covered with coral so I highly recommend water shoes (I took off my flip flops on the recommendation of DH and wish I hadn't). :rolleyes:

 

We walked all the way to the left (facing the beach) as I had read. We went as far as I wanted to with the coral and then mostly floated back along the edge of the reef. The fish were AMAZING. There were huge, beautiful fish. We talked about getting an underwater camera before we left and decided against it. Still torn if that was a good idea as I think pictures of those fish would be cool for an album, but I did enjoy just drifting along and watching the fish. We went a few times until the twins and I were tired. DH and my older DS went even further and found the sea turtles. (NOTE: if you go, go past where most of the people stop and go all the way to the point - the sea turtles are there). I really enjoyed the snorkeling. Definitely worth the cost to get to Klein Bonaire.

 

My dad took a ship excursion with a glass bottom boat. He too was able to see tons of fish and sea turtles. He was very happy with the excursion (not sure the name of it, he booked it the day before on the ship). My mom, not really the water person, went shopping in town. She was not really impressed with the shops. The town is quite small and I do agree with her, not a ton if you are a shopper. My older DS did find a shirt to buy (with sea turtles on it). :)

 

I didn't take my camera so I don't have pictures of Klein Bonaire (I didn't want to leave anything of value on the beach). Here are some pictures from the ship. The water is an amazing blue.

[jlstwinmommy]

Here are a few more pictures of Bonaire. The flat piece of land is Klein Bonaire (our view of it from the ship). :)

[jlstwinmommy]

Our next port was Aruba. I could see spending a week in Aruba. There are some beautiful resorts there and the beaches are truly amazing. We spent the morning at Eagle beach. My only complaint was the guys renting the jet skis. When they would rent one out or get it back, they would ride it very close to where my kids were swimming in the water or playing in the sand. One guy even did a cookie and sprayed water and sand on my kids as they were building sand castles. :rolleyes:

 

Otherwise, the beach was beautiful. There are lean-to type structures that the guy said we could sit under for free. We did rent a chair ($5) which he put under the lean-to for us (there's a bench, but it's not really comfortable - I wanted a lounger). The sand is that fine, Caribbean sand you read about. The kids built some amazing sand structures (DD made a turtle that would rival any made by the "professionals"). :p

 

We went back to the ship for lunch and a shower and then went out to shop with my mom. The shopping was much better here. There a a couple of malls within walking distance of the port. DH went to a museum he found on the port map while we meandered back to the ship. We were in this port until 11pm, but the shops close at 6pm. Otherwise, we would have taken an island taxi tour (they were charging $25 per person). I would like to go back and do the island tour to see more of Aruba. It was very pretty.

 

Again - I didn't take my camera to the beach, but here are a few pictures of town and the some that DH took on his travels after we split up. :)