AOS Itinerary

[Seacruizlover]

I am booked for a cruise on AOS that leaves from San Juan in July. I cannot find any trip reports from previous cruisers that say anything about the itinerary that this cruise is offering. This cruise goes to Barbados, St. Martin, St. Lucia, St Thomas, and Antigua. Is this a brand new itinerary for AOS?

[Magicat]

There has been a bunch of reviews on this itinerary. We'll be doing it in 2 weeks so we'll let you know how it goes.

[erniesband]

Most of the reviews on this specific itinerary can be found under posts about Serenade, since this is the Caribbean itinerary Serenade does. AOS alternates it with her winter itinerary during the summer months, when Serenade is doing Alaska.

 

We've done this itinerary 6th times, with a 7th booked for next January, although never on AOS. We've done it on Monarch, Radiance & Serenade. Needless to say, we love it. It's a busy itinerary, and by the time you get to Friday, you're ready for your day at sea. We like port days over sea days, though, so for us it really works.

 

St. Thomas is good for shopping and snorkeling. Our favorite things to do in St. Thomas are a day sail (we really like HighPockets), or going over to St. John and snorkeling there.

 

St. Maarten is another good shopping spot. The Loterie Farm Tree Top Adventure is a lot of fun, and leaves you time in the afternoon for shopping or a beach stop. Relaxing at Orient Beach is a really nice way to spend the day, easy to do on your own, as is renting a car and exploring the island.

 

Antigua is our favorite stop - check out http://www.adventureantigua.com. We love Eli's EcoTour and the Xtreme Circumnav he offers. These excursions are unique - you won't find anything like them offered either on Antigua, or on any other island we've ever been to. They're both full day tours on boats. The EcoTour stays in the North Sound area, and you see the mangrove area, the off shore islands, snorkel, climb on Hells Gate, go to Bird Island, have a great, homemade lunch, juice, pop and water available all day, and Eli's special rum punch in the afternoon, great, attentive crew, that give you all kinds of interesting info about Antigua and it's ecology. The Xtreme is on a high powered boat, fast, fast, fast, goes all the way around the island. It's a blast. You swim with the stingrays, go to Green Island (where you have the same great lunch served on the EcoTour), have a water-based tour of English Harbor, snorkel at the Pillars of Hercules, have a beach stop where the rum punch makes its appearance, have a great crew on this one, too. Lots on info on Eli on the ports of call boards, but I'd recommend going to his website, too.

 

St. Lucia - gorgeous island, looks like it belongs in the South Pacific. Great island to take a tour - we've used Frank (see the ports of call boards), and had a great experience. Snorkeling at Anse Cochon is wonderful, and Frank can arrange a snorkeling stop for you as part of his tour.

 

Barbados - we've had good results hiring a taxi to tour for the day, using Glory tours, and going on Silvermoon 2.

 

Jodi

[Seacruizlover]

Thanks for the replies. I am getting so excited!

[uksimonusa]

Thanks for the replies. I am getting so excited!

 

we'll be doing it in 5 weeks, watch for my review when we return:D

[Sheik]

This itinerary is definitely not new, the Serenade does exactly the same itinerary.

[KillaFee]

That itinerary rocks. We did it on the Serenade recently and had a blast! It's very busy, but we didn't have a problem fitting in relaxing and partying along with visiting all the ports. :eek:

I don't usually dig tours on vans or buses, but in St. Lucia you should really look into Cosul tours. It was the best tour I've ever taken! The island is so gorgeous and there's so much to see that you'd be missing out if you didn't take this tour - I'm serious! That was our favorite island on the itinerary.

In St. Martin we've done the Rhino Riders, which are crazy and fun, but last time we went to Orient beach and relaxed all day and it was beautiful.

Didn't love Antigua but that's probably because we didn't really do anything except stay by the pier because we had a very late night....errr early morning in the Vortex. If I went back to Antigua I'd probably go to one of the 365 beaches or Nelsons Dockyard.

The sea turtles are pretty big in Barbados and they have a bunch of catamarans that visit them. The beaches there are killer too.

We tried not to schedule ourselves to death on that cruise and it was nice to have to opportunity to check out 5 islands in one week. Have fun!

Laura

[Sandytoes]

You're going to love Barbados, St. Martin, St. Lucia, St Thomas, and Antigua.

 

Enjoy your cruise.

[toriwc]

It is a wonderful itinerary. As someone mentioned, it is very busy, so make sure you have some downtime planned. We are going on AOS in June, this time on the Aruba itinerary, and depending on that trip, we may do AOS again in 08...We'll just have to wait until after June to decide which route!

[Seacruizlover]

I am looking forward to reading the reviews of those who are going soon. I see I still have a lot of planning to do on deciding on shore excursions. :)

[Shazni]

We did this itinerary on Adventure in June 06. It is indeed a great itinerary, if a little busy with only one sea day to recover!! You need at least one beach day in there to recharge the batteries!! Magens Bay in St Thomas is good or Orient Bay in St Maarten although it's also good to tour the island, making time for both sides but especially the French side which is stunning. In St Lucia we really enjoyed the Caribbean Pirates Extravaganza which is a short sail on the actual ship from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies over to Pigeon Island! Most of the crew were used in some form in the movies and are full of interesting stories!! All the stops are great, you will have a fantastic time! Enjoy!!