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Adventure of the Seas Review 1/21/17, post drydock with pics!

aubreyc1988

By aubreyc1988,
in Royal Caribbean International

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aubreyc1988 Great Review Rare

aubreyc1988

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Hey all! I will be beginning to write my review for my cruise on Adventure of the Seas which departed on 1/21/17 here tonight and wanted to give people some time to subscribe while I am putting together some photos and details!

 

Here are some of the topics I will cover and if you have any questions, feel free to ask away!

 

- Food (MDR, Buffet, Johnny Rockets, Giovanni's Table

 

- Drinks (Ultimate Beverage Package, Limits/pricing, upcharges, coffee on the promenade, bar service

 

- Ports of Call, which were St. Maarten, St. Kitts, Antigua, St Lucia, and Barbados, as well as a day and a half pre cruise in San Juan in which we did the San Sebastian Festival, El Yunque Rainforest and the Bio Bay in Fajardo, PR. One excursion we almost missed the ship, so be sure to subscribe to hear about that! :eek:

 

- Production Shows, including comedians and ice show

 

- Cleanliness of the ship and the new carpeted areas

 

- Casino

 

and much much more so stay tuned, first entry will be posting tonight with pictures and at the end of the review, my husband will have finished our vacation video which features a lot of cool go pro videos, including one of a sunken ship snorkel dive :D

 

 

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Pre cruise/Planning

 

So I want to spend a little time to talk about pre cruise planning, especially since this is a port intensive itinerary, so a bit more planning went into it, compared to my other 3 port, 7 day cruises.

 

I cruise with my husband, he’s 30 and I’m still 29 (still in my twenties hehe) and we don’t have any kids, just one dog. We typically cruise 2 times a year, once in the winter and once in the late summer. We got on this schedule when we were living in Iowa about 4 years ago, because Iowa winters are brutal and September is a cheap month to cruise because of hurricane season, in addition to my husband really needing another vacation around this time of year. We try to cruise with some friends who live in Indiana in the winter, and we had been eyeing a southern Caribbean cruise for months, waiting until after final payment to score a deal.

 

Finally, we saw some good deals on the Cyber Monday sale, and my husband and I booked an inside cabin at a Crown and Anchor rate of 460.00pp before port taxes and fees, no OBC. We could have opted for OBC, but it was still a better overall price to get no OBC with the lower rate. I opted to go for an inside to save some money, because it’s a port intensive itinerary and I really rarely use the balcony whenever we end up getting a balcony stateroom!

 

Onto the next phase of pre cruise planning! I ended up paying a lot for flights to San Juan from Dallas, Texas (Where we are from). I could have gotten a 300.00 pp flight, but the total flight time was 17 hours and I just couldn’t waste that much precious vacation time in airports and in the air, so I selected an American flight that was 530.00pp direct to San Juan. While I was booking it (typing in my name, frequent flyer numbers, etc) the price went up 30.00pp! :eek: But I ended up paying it anyway, because it was such a great flight time of only 4 ½ hours to San Juan, leaving Dallas at 7am, getting to San Juan at 1:30pm local time on Thursday the 19th, before the cruise! This would give us time to go to Old San Juan for a local dinner and also to check out the San Sebastian festival on Thursday, and then an excursion on Friday before the cruise!

 

I did a lot of research on hotels and decided to try to save a little money by booking a hotel that included breakfast and one that wasn’t a resort. I chose the Holiday Inn Express in Condado for location. It was right across from the beach and seemed to be not too far from the airport, but also not too far from the cruise port and Old San Juan. I didn’t want to get a hotel super far away from Old San Juan because then any hotel savings would be negated by high cab fares to different places. We paid (with all taxes and fees) about 400.00 for Thursday night and Friday night at the Holiday Inn Express Condado, which is high for a Holiday Inn, but because we booked last minute, most hotels were around 300-400.00 a night with all taxes and fees and nothing was even available in Old San Juan.

 

I will now go briefly over my port excursion planning, so I don’t have to really explain why I selected each one when we get to them in my day by day breakdown.

 

For Friday before the cruise, I initially booked the itourpuertorico.com tour called “Arecibo and Camuy Caves” tour. My husband is a ham radio operator and really wanted to go to Arecibo, and the whole Arecibo and Camuy caves is HIGHLY rated on TripAdvisor, so I was like “Why not”. Right after I booked the excursion online with itourpuertorico.com, I got a call from their company. The lady on the phone told me she wasn’t sure if they would be able to do the tour because lack of people interested, but they would wait until we got closer to my tour date to see if anyone else signed up for the tour. 2-3 weeks passed and she called me again, saying they didn’t have any interest. So I asked her if I should cancel and book something else. She told me no, that they still wanted to wait until a few days beforehand before giving up hope. At this point, I kind of just wanted to cancel and book something else, but I decided to trust her and “Go with the flow” so to speak. Three days before we were supposed to leave for Puerto Rico, I gave her a call, to check on the status of the excursion. Again, she told me she would know for sure by tomorrow morning, so I trusted her and said “ok”. The next morning came, I woke up and had a text from her company that said they didn’t get enough people for the excursion. So I texted her back and said “Ok” and asked for the cost of their Rainforest and Bio Bay tour. She quoted me 150.00pp for the tour. I did some research online and found the same tour for 110pp (I’m all about saving money and deals, folks) and itourpuertorico.com’s website did say they were the lowest price, so I asked if she would price match the other tour company. She texted me back and told me their couldn’t price match it and so I replied and said “Ok, will I get my deposit back from the Arecibo excursion” (And I know a lot of you are probably wondering why I was texting her and I don’t have a good answer, only that it totally happened this way) and the lady from Itourpuertorico told me “Yes, you will get your deposit back”. So I texted her back saying “Thanks, I think I am going to go with the other company but thanks for your time!” and then I went to that website and booked the 110..pp excursion to rainforest and bio bay. Right after I booked it, I get a phone call from, you guessed it, itourpuertorico.com! The lady then told me that my deposit would only be refunded if the tour operator cancelled the excursion! And I told is “Isn’t that what you texted me this morning, that the excursion was cancelled” and she told me this: “well, it has to be OFFICIALLY cancelled by the tour operator, and they only cancel it officially the DAY before the excursion. And your deposit is only refunded if they decide to cancel it. If they decide not to cancel it 24 hrs before your excursion, if you decide to not go, you are charged the full amount. If you personally choose to cancel the excursion, you have to do so 48 hrs prior to the excursion, and if you choose to cancel it 48 hrs before, you still don’t get your deposit back”

 

So I bet I’ve confused you now…just imagine how confused I was. Since the deposit was only 30.00 total, I told her to cancel it right then and there and just decided to lose the 30.00. So I know this seems like a long and pointless story, but I wanted to let people know this tour company SUCKS and has terrible customer service and cancellation policies. I felt like I was lied to and strung along the whole time, so I was pretty frustrated about the whole thing. And cruise critic is a great place to get out your frustrations and tell the world all about your terrible travel experiences, am I right???

 

SO bringing it back to the actual Friday before our cruise, Jan 20th, we booked with http://www.ecoadventurespr.com and did their Rainforest and Bio Bay Kayak tour. And I will more fully review that when I get to that particular day in my review, but wanted to put a “little” backstory to how I got to booking that tour haha!

 

 

Onto excursions for the cruise, starting with St. Maarten. We booked America’s cup sailing regatta through the ship. We did it a few years back and it’s absolutely one of the best excursions we have ever done and always book it when we are in St. Maarten. Last year we tried to book it on Oasis to try to do it a second time, but for some strange reason, not enough people signed up on the Oasis to do it (I think they need 16 people total, as its 8 people to sail per boat and it’s a race) so we were really looking forward to doing it in St Maarten this time, since it got cancelled on Oasis.

 

In St Kitts, I booked Thenford Grey’s city tour and beach break to Cockleshell beach. I decided to do one beach day with our Indiana friends, but also wanted a bit of an island tour to see what St Kitt’s is all about!

 

http://www.thenfordgreytours.com/capital-city-tour---beach-splash-on-st.-kitts.html

 

In Antigua, I really wanted to swim with stingrays, but all the ship tours to do this were really expensive and they didn’t last very long, and I really wanted an all day excursion, so I booked Adventure Antigua’s XTREME Circumnav! It was the best excursion we did on this cruise, maybe even ever. And remember, I will go into more detail about it when I get to that day in my review

 

http://www.adventureantigua.com/the-xtreme-circumnav/

 

In St. Lucia, I booked COSOL tours, because again, I wanted to try to do a WHOLE day tour with all the “must do” items that I could fit in, and COSOL is so highly rated, I had to try them

 

http://cosol-tours.com/tours.html

 

In Barbados, we did Cool Runnings catamaran and snorkel. My Indiana friends had never done a catamaran before and I insisted they do one, so we picked Barbados as a “Catamaran” stop. Cool Runnings was pretty highly rated on tripadvisor and I chose them because they seemed to be a full day catamaran with a couple of snorkeling spots.

 

https://www.coolrunningsbarbados.com/rates.html

 

That’s it for an quick overview of excursions planned...I'll give mad props to the person who can correctly guess WHICH excursion almost made us miss the ship :cool:

 

As for cruise ship add on amenities, I did end up booking the Deluxe Beverage Package for myself (my husband doesn’t really drink) and I did the cruise planner deal BOGO 1st and 2nd night dining at Giovanni’s. I did not get VOOM internet but I did hear that it was very slow on the ship. I went back and forth on the beverage package, since it's such a port intensive itinerary. But I am blessed from the beverage gods, I never get hang overs and I can't abide the ships coffee (I am a bit of a coffee snob) Plus there's the added benefit of just prepaying your bar bill and not worrying about it appearing on your seapass on the morning of debarkation!

 

A little pre cruise side note, this was my first cruise with packing cubes and I totally loved it! My husband doesn’t think they really give you more space, but I totally think they do! Plus, even if they don’t actually create more space for your luggage, It was great keeping our clothes separated by the cubes, and it was easy to unpack and repack. I got a deal on amazon, buy 2 sets, get 2 free. So I got 4 different colors, he got grey and orange and I got the pink and teal. It was a great way to keep our clothes separate without actually having to have separate suitcases. We packed 2 carryons and 1 checked bag, 2 backpacks and I do think I could have packed less. I packed ALL of our clothes in the cubes into our two carryons, but with the whole TSA liquid rules for carryons, I just didn’t want to mess with having to buy liquids in San Juan once we landed, so decided to check a suitcase anyhow!

 

Our two carryons with cubes in them, I would say 6 cubes in each, various sizes

 

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And our checked back (Don’t worry, our checked bag was much fuller on the way back, as we tend to not pack as organized on the way back home)

 

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Link to Packing cubes (and no, I don’t get a kickback from sales ;) Just posting info!

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LEHAZYY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Another great travel thing we bought this time was travel pillows! We fly a lot throughout the year, as our families are spread out within the US, and I can’t believe we didn’t have travel pillows! So I did some travel pillow research before this cruise and decided on the “J-Pillow” which is very comfortable by the way, and we did get some sleep with them on our EARLY morning flight to San Juan, even if we did look ridiculous!

 

Link to J-Pillow

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009416CVC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

So that’s pretty much the end of my “Pre Cruise” planning segment, I’ll be writing up my “San Juan, Thursday, San Sebastian festival and hotel” post next!

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Jan 19th, Traveling to San Juan Puerto Rico from Dallas, Texas

 

Like I said before, we booked a direct flight to fun on American Airlines. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 7am, so we had to leave our house at 4am to make it to the airport in time (We live about an hour away from DFW airport). I woke up early because I drank coffee to late the previous evening in the mug I got my husband for Christmas. Remember our favorite excursion, America’s cup? I had a custom mug made for my husband with the Stars and Stripes '86 yatch on it, but I love drinking out of it too haha! I can’t wait to get my own nautical mug from this artist, but he’s always really busy and he usually sells out of the mugs fast. I was surprised he did this custom one for me! I might ask him to make me a St Lucia Pitons inspired one…

 

Here are some pics of it!

 

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I’m a bit of a pottery enthusiast as I took many pottery classes in college, but haven’t been able to have a home studio due to the cost. So I just geek out over other artist’s work and this guy is amazing, all hand painted, hand thrown! I wish they sold stuff like this in the ports of call that was easy to find!

 

Anyhow, back to the review, sorry for the sidetrack. We stopped at Walmart for some airplane snacks, and got to the airport plenty of time in advance. Airport wasn’t crowded, as it was so early. My husband TJ and I have TSA pre check, but just went through the regular line as there wasn’t a line and they let pre-check passengers keep their shoes and belt on in the regular lines too.

 

DFW airport is pretty nice, if you haven’t been to it. Lots of chargers under the seats and the bathrooms are nice and clean. There is a nice variety of restaurants throughout the terminals, and some of the gates even have comfy black reclining chairs. I was excited to see that Chick-fil-A will finally be coming to the airport haha! I wished it was there that morning, because nothing beats some Chick-fil-A chicken minis in the morning! Fun fact, I used to work at Chick-fil-A for a while, so if you have any unrelated questions about that, yes I will answer them :P

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aubreyc1988

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Our pile of carry ons and personal items…and the J-pillows!

 

rleue9.jpg

 

My husband passing some time on his new macbook

 

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We had a delayed take off, because we switched gates and planes right before our boarding time. I believe we left about 30 minutes late, around 7:30am Central time.

 

But we finally did take off

 

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The airplane wasn’t full, so we had no one seated in between us, which was AWESOME! It was still nice to see this on my phone!

 

t9wsao.jpg

 

A shout out to T Mobile Wingman for giving us 1 hr of free wifi for the flight and free texting throughout the entire flight!

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wolfatlga

wolfatlga

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Greetings,

We also are going on this cruise. I appreciate the packing cubes and the J pillow tip.

Our clothes will do much better in a cube.

 

My partner is very curious about the coffee maker in the room.

He wants to bring his own coffee to brew. We are in a grand suite, any ideas of what he should bring would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Roy

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aubreyc1988

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Greetings,

 

We also are going on this cruise. I appreciate the packing cubes and the J pillow tip.

 

Our clothes will do much better in a cube.

 

 

 

My partner is very curious about the coffee maker in the room.

 

He wants to bring his own coffee to brew. We are in a grand suite, any ideas of what he should bring would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Roy

 

 

 

There was no coffee maker in my inside. J don't know if there is one in the grand suites, but I can tell you the promenade cafe coffee was very very good. If you are dead set in bringing your own, I would contact the concierge on adventure of the seas!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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alfaeric

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A little late with the suggestion- but next time you are in Puerto Rico- rent a car and go to the observatory and caves on your own. Each have their own tours anyway.

 

And it's a nice drive along the north coast of Puerto Rico.

 

I think for a little over one week of car rental, it was $400 from Hertz.

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alfaeric

alfaeric

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Greetings,

We also are going on this cruise. I appreciate the packing cubes and the J pillow tip.

Our clothes will do much better in a cube.

 

My partner is very curious about the coffee maker in the room.

He wants to bring his own coffee to brew. We are in a grand suite, any ideas of what he should bring would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Roy

 

There's a single cup maker, which I can't recall the brand- but it uses paper pods (that don't fit that well). Or you can use the other pot to boil water and use your own pour over device. I got one that folds flat at REI.

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leadvocal

leadvocal

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Looking forward to your thoughts and review of the inside stateroom. My wife and I will be sailing on the Adventure in a couple of weeks and will be in an inside stateroom for the first time (deck 9, midship). On our 4 previous cruises we had balcony staterooms.

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After landing, we went to pick up our checked bag, which didn’t take very long. We then went to catch a cab. I was hoping to take Uber in San Juan, but they are not allowed to pick up at the airport.

 

Here is a very bad picture I took of the cab cost sheet. I can’t find the sheet in my luggage now, so this is the best I got. Basically its 21.00 flat rate, and 1.00 per bag. We traveled back to the airport on debarkation with our Indiana friends (so 4 people total) and the price was the same, 21.00 and 1.00 per bag. Which you would think it would be cheaper with more people, but oh well.

 

Here’s the cab cost sheet

 

jkdird.jpg

 

Then we headed to the Holiday Inn Express in Condado. Took about 20 minutes, there was some traffic but nothing too terrible.

 

xemzqw.jpg

 

I didn’t get many pictures of the hotel room or common areas, but it’s very unimpressive. Everything in the lobby seemed to be clean and maintained, more so than what I would find in the rooms. The people at check in were very friendly and efficient.

 

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We had a view of the pool, which is small. The standard room at this holiday inn was SMALL. I read reviews saying it was small, and I told my husband that I read reviews saying it was tiny, but he kinda shrugged it off, thinking those reviewers were exaggerating. However, we can confirm that it is TINY! We opted for two double beds because our friends were flying in on a red eye and would arrive in San Juan at 5 am on Saturday morning (Embarkation morning), so we thought they might want to nap at our hotel room before we boarded Adventure. Anyhow, back to the room. Like I said, it was tiny and BASIC. The past few hotels I have stayed at have been in Fort Lauderdale/Miami and have been 4 star SPG resorts, so it was a shock to my system at how basic it was. The tile on the floor was in bad shape, but the everything WAS clean and in working order. The bathroom was surprisingly big, considering the size of the room. Some things were just…missing in the bathroom, like handles on the vanity to open the cabinets underneath, just had a hole where it was supposed to be. I’m being kind of nit picky here, but this is a review and these are things I noticed.

 

11wdp4o.jpg

 

That’s the only photo I have, sorry! But the A/C did work well, and the beds were moderately comfortable, although we might have been too forgiving in that regard, since every time we came back to the room we were super exhausted.

 

The Holiday Inn Express in Condado has free continental breakfast and wifi, which was a big reason why I picked it. I’m not really a breakfast person, I just need it for fuel and coffee, so not having to pay for it is a plus for me. I wasn’t sure how strong my T-Mobile service wouyld be, so I wanted to have some wifi I didn’t have to pay for as well. Turns out, our T-Mobile service was super fast and the wifi was super slow, so we didn’t end up really using the wifi. We did do the continental breakfast both mornings and it’s your typical continental breakfast: some bad eggs, waffles, pancakes, cereal, pastries (the pastries were actually the best offering on the continental breakfast, bad coffee, juices, etc. It was what I expected to be included in a continental breakfast. I hate how resorts charge you for every little thing and you pay so much for the room, you think they would include a small breakfast and some wifi, so having this stuff for free was nice!

 

The beach is less than a 5 min walk, right across the street. It’s a very walkable area in terms of location as you will see from my pictures below. Lots of nice shops and little restaurants.

 

I would say overall we wouldn’t stay at the Holiday Inn Express again. The area is nice, but the hotel was just…too basic for me. Since we normally don’t get suites or anything fancy for our cruises, I love getting a nice pre cruise hotel and next time I’ll stick to resorts. Free breakfast and wifi didn’t really make up for the small room and accommodations. I did take a little walk through of the La Concha, which is also in Condado area, and next time I will stay there – WOW!

 

Next up, I’ll post about how we got to Old San Juan for food and the San Sebastian Festival on Thursday afternoon!

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