Adventure Ocean Review by a "Guest" (15-17) Includes Compasses

[kazooie11]

I sailed the “beautiful Legend of the Seas,” as the entire crew insisted on calling it (and fortunately was true) the week of January 13-20 as a “guest” in the Adventure Ocean program. Since apparently there is a shortage of Adventure Ocean reviews, without further ado, here’s mine:

Facilities: The Optix lounge/club was sizeable enough for the handful of teens on my cruise. It was fairly well-maintained, providing little conventional seating but plenty of floor space and window seating on which to sprawl. I found the Plexiglas wall separating the teen program counselors/organizers from the lounging space disconcerting, as it was difficult to communicate with the employees, and when they were at the desk they had to use a microphone to lead the games and other activities, a barrier that didn’t seem to make much sense. The dance floor covers a relatively small corner of the facility, maybe ¼-1/5, and while it was sufficient for the number of young cruisers at this time of year, I would imagine that during the summer the space is overcrowded. That said, at least from my experience, most of the activities meet in Optix but proceed elsewhere on the ship, so the space limitations really affect only “hanging out.”

Staff: There were two main teen staffers, Paul (I think) and Candace. I’m not certain of so much as Paul’s name, simply because, to my knowledge, he only ran the activities on one day, which makes sense, as I’ve heard each sub-staff gets one day off during each cruise. He was neither particularly friendly nor unfriendly, running the activities with efficiency and something of a sense of humor, but relying on us to make them really fun. Candace, on the other hand, seemed surly and disaffected, to the point where I was surprised to see her crack a genuine smile towards the end of the week. I finally came to the conclusion, though, that she couldn’t be bothered, and most of the teens didn’t want to be bothered, so it all worked out in the end. I wouldn’t say that her sulking detracted from the activities in and of itself, but I did miss the personal interest in me that I felt from the regular activities staff, particularly the stellar Shawn and Matilda.

Activities: The activities range widely, from very open-ended games such as late-night dodgeball in Optix, which quickly spawned multiple variants of the game and much shouting, and highly organized activities such as the scavenger hunts. I found the various scavenger hunts and challenges to be by far the most fun teen activities on the ship. I participated in three of them: Amazing Race (styled after the popular reality show, with surprisingly challenging clues requiring trips all over the ship), Mission Impossible (a combination classic scavenger hunt and trivia/puzzle challenge, which would have been much more fun had there been more than one other participant), and Polaroid Posers (a list of challenges was passed out, and each team had to get other cruisers to take pictures of them in the listed poses). I favored the Polaroid challenge, primarily for the looks on senior cruisers’ faces when we shoved an instant camera into their hands and requested that they take a picture of us variously giving piggyback rides to each other, hiding in a plant, and pretending to sing along as a team member mugged at the Centrum piano. Poker night was also fun, though the promised prizes never materialized. The teen activities seemed to fare better when they had a clear goal and could get everyone into an excited, competitive mood. Less organized activities, such as bingo, tended to fall apart soon after they began in favor of sitting around and chatting, which I found a bit disappointing.

Overall, while some of the activities were less than perfectly thought out—or the teens were less than willing to cooperate—and the staff was less than energetic, I appreciated the cleverness of most of the more competitive activities. Also, if nothing else, while I didn’t spend nearly as much time in Optix as I know many other teens did, I appreciated the provision of designated space in which to meet other young people.

Hope your "Guests" find this review useful. Links to the Compasses for Guests ages 15-17 are below.

Tori

(DD of Kazooie1)

Day 1

Day 2 & 3

Day 4 & 5

Day 6 & 7

[raina*faith]

Thanks for your reveiw, we are looking forward to AO on the Explorer of the Seas!

 

Thanks again!

[nlcentralchmps03]

Thank you for sharing!

 

There does seem to be a small amount of AO reviews, so glad you took the time to write one up for us.

[derrick22]

Thank you for posting from a teen point of view and special thanks for the compass'. First time I've seen the ones for the 15-17 y/o.

While I am sailing on The Rhapsody it does give me an idea of what to expect.

Did you have early or late dinner?

I did notice many of the activities take place during late seating which we have. As long as I get a pix of my son in his tux I'll be okay.

Thanks again

[kazooie11]

Derrick,

 

While many of the activities did take place during late seating dinner (I had early seating), I noticed that the activities were not well attended until after 9:30 or 10, so I don't think it should make participation that difficult. The most populous times seemed to be from about 12PM to 4-5PM and 9-12PM, with the activities outside of those time frames having few if any participants. That said, that might only hold true when there are a small number of teens on the ship, as on my sailing. Bottom line, if your son wants to participate, I don't think he has anything to worry about, as the interesting/well attended things happen outside both of the dinner timeframes.

 

(And get that picture! Dad is thrilled to have a picture of me in a dress.)

 

Tori

[zantedeschia]

Thank you for posting from a teen point of view and special thanks for the compass'. First time I've seen the ones for the 15-17 y/o.

While I am sailing on The Rhapsody it does give me an idea of what to expect.

Oh man you should have said something. I have 3 of them from last August on Rhapsody. I had more but I tossed a few somewhere along the way. Want me to scan them? (will have to wait until next week, am cruising on Splendour day after tomorrow)

[castleforus]

Thanks for taking the time to write this and post the links to the compasses. I'm thinking about traveling with my 15 year old son who is not into sports and I was worried that he wouldn't enjoy the teen programming. I think he'll find a lot to do.

[derrick22]

Oh man you should have said something. I have 3 of them from last August on Rhapsody. I had more but I tossed a few somewhere along the way. Want me to scan them? (will have to wait until next week, am cruising on Splendour day after tomorrow)

 

I'd love to see the compasses!

Have fun on the Splendor and when you get the chance you can e-mail me the scanned copies.

Thanks again

 

Denise

knebel22@frontiernet.net

[zantedeschia]

I'd love to see the compasses!

look at them on http://www.taronga.com/~arielle/cruise

 

I'll see if I can remember to pick up some AO compasses while on Splendour.

[HiCsAdventure]

Tori thanks for taking the time to post your review could you tell me if the programs were similar for the 12 -14 year old group. My 14 year old daughter is going to be sailing with us on Legend in March as well as a couple other 11 - 14 year olds. Did the two groups mingle for any activities or were they completely separate. Also how did the kids deal with the 12:00 curfew?

[kazooie11]

HiCs: During my cruise, the 12-17-year-olds were all grouped together due to a lack of enough kids on the ship to justify separate groups. If there are enough 12-14-year-olds to split the groups up, I'm not sure the extent of the differences in activities, though I know on more crowded ships 12-14-year-olds are excluded from some of the late-night teen activities and the dances (they might have their own late activities elsewhere--I don't know). As far as the 12:00 curfew goes, it is waived as long as the child is participating in an organized Adventure Ocean activity, and even outside of the activities I never noticed it being enforced.

 

Tori

[HiCsAdventure]

Thanks for the information Tori. DD will be happy to have an idea what to expect.

[HiCsAdventure]

Thanks for the information Tori. DD will be happy to have an idea what to expect.