Adventure of the Seas -- which itinerary?

[MiniMom57]

My husband and I both turn 50 next year:eek:, and want to treat ourselves to a cruise without the kids. :D Between US Airways points for free airfare and our RCI credit card, we can do this for the price of one cruise ticket! We figured we would get the most "bang for our buck" by going on a southern Caribbean cruise. So, the question is....which Adventure of the Seas itinerary is better? One has 2 At Sea days, which we love.....but which one has the better ports? This is our chance to do some more exotic exursions, too, having to buy 2 tickets instead of 5! Our kids (24, 20, and 15) tend to be "give me a beach" kind of kids...we "old folks" would love to try jet skis, snorkeling, party boat tours, etc!

 

Any thoughts are welcome and greatly appreciated!

[DJan07]

Minimom57,

 

I was wondering the exact same thing and whenever I posted the topic I didn't get much feedback. We already did an Eastern Caribbean that included St. Thomas and St. Maarten and was wondering if we should do the Aruba Route or the Barbados Route. Hope you find a good answer and I look forward to reading some replies!

 

Derek

[Ocean Boy]

After struggling with this same issue I did the Barbados route on Serenade. Mostly I chose it because I had already done two Voyager class ships and wanted to try a Radiance class ship and Serenade no longer does the Aruba route. I was a little unsure at first as I like having two sea days. However, I very much like having the last day be at sea and it is on the Barbados route but not on the Aruba route. So there was only one sea day but at least it was the last day.

 

I was also concerned that this would be too port intensive and not relaxing enough. That turned out to not be an issue at all. We really enjoyed Barbados, Antigua, and St. Lucia. We also had done the Eastern route previously and had been to St. Thomas and St. Maarten aboard Mariner. This time while at St. Thomas we went over to St. John so the stop was like a whole new destination for us. We love St. Maarten and had some things to do that we didn't get to on our first stop there so we took care of unfinished business. Since you have been to both ports you always have the option of staying aboard ship and using it as a sea day even though the ship is tied up in port.

 

I have never regretted chosing to do the Barbados route. But since I haven't done the Aruba route I can't compare the two for you.

[MiniMom57]

I think I'm leaning toward the itinerary with 2 At Sea days (I think that's the Aruba route).....they are usually my favorite days because they are so relaxing.

[KKeeganS]

We've done both, and preferred the Aruba route. We love Aruba and love the sea days. However, you can't really go wrong either way.

[pambo]

We've done both - enjoyed both very much. However, we welcomed the extra Sea Day on the Aruba itinerary. Aruba and Curacao are both beautiful and well worth experiencing. Enjoy!

[MiniMom57]

Looks like it will be Aruba! Thanks for the input!!

 

One thing that I love about both intineraries is that you have the entire day at every port....seems that every cruise I've been on so far has at least one place with only a few hours in port.

[KKeeganS]

We definitely found we had the time to do an excursion or spend the morning at the becah and then do some afternoon shopping and sightseeing in each port. There is an extended call in Aruba, so we could do an excursion, hit the beach and go ashore for dinner/drinks in the evening, which we really enjoyed.

 

We loved the ship so much, we had to go back and try the other itinerary the next year for my birthday. And I'm not ruling out another go on the Aruba itinerary this year or next year. As I said, either way, you can't go wrong.

[trunkman]

We've done the Barbados route on Celebrity's Constellation. It was nice and the ship was awesome. Less kids than RCCL, which is a plus. We're back on RCCL, though, in March for the Aruba route on AOS. Read lots of positive posts, so we're excited about the itinerary and ship.