Back from an amazing time on the AOS

[mag0737]

Hi all:) Unfortunately I'm home....because I just had an awesome time on the AOS!!! Let me know if you have any questions, I'd be happy to help the best I can. I was on the Barbados route from July5-12. Still wishing I was sailing the SoCaribbean....

[travel_babe]

We want a review! ;)

[sajeffc]

Hi all:) Unfortunately I'm home....because I just had an awesome time on the AOS!!! Let me know if you have any questions, I'd be happy to help the best I can. I was on the Barbados route from July5-12. Still wishing I was sailing the SoCaribbean....

 

We leave in a few days on the 19th.....I can't wait.

[ken_nyc]

mag0737, would you be able to scan the Compass' and email them

[mag0737]

ken-nyc - i don't have access to a scanner at the moment. Though I can tell you that I was trying to get ahold of the compasses before I left unsuccessfully - and ended up loving that I didn't get them. It's nice to have that little sense of surprise as your compass is delivered each evening.

[mag0737]

A review huh? Haha..well I'll give you some of my thoughts on each island and then if you have questions we can go from there?

 

Ship itself: Beautiful! Well taken care of - the staff on this ship is superb! We stayed in an oceanview room w/ the porthole on deck 2. Emmerson was our stateroom attendant and he was amazing. Everytime we left the room - we came back to find it refreshened (towels, turn down, etc). We had a towel animal every night (elephant, stingray, bat, swan, and monkey are the ones I remember) and once he knew we were using the cups in the room, he always had the ice bucket filled. The rest of the ship is very clean. Food was decent - no not 5star by any means, but it's not like eating fast food either. We ate at Windjammer for most breakfasts, and did room service for breakfast once. We ate lunch off the ship while in port or we came back for their snacks in the Windjammer from 3-5 (though to be honest, it was more like a lunch!). We ate in the dining room 5 nights, Portofinos 1 (definitely worth it!), and Windjammer 1. Activities were plentiful on the ship. We enjoyed some of them especially on sea day. The cruise director Chris - I thought was very good. I know some of you who cruise the AOS often say that Mike S was hard to top - but I thought Chris did a great job. The only comments I had for them was to liven up the so called sail away parties, because they were definitely lacking.

 

Sea day and Ports of call thoughts...next!

[janabm81]

It's great to hear that you had a good time also!

We just got back from this cruise in June and it quickly became my new favorite ship. Too bad Adventures going overseas next year.:(

[ken_nyc]

mag0737, thank you any way...glad you had a great time! :)

[mag0737]

I wasn't sure if I'd like the sea day being the first full day instead of the last, but it ended up being nice. The Barbados route was definitely port intensive and it felt like it made those days go by fast. But anyway - sea day was great. We didn't even bother attempting the pool until later in the day (4ish) when we knew it would be less crowded. Instead we got to know the ship better. We watched a cooking demonstration in the Promenade. That was really neat - to see some of the chefs carve beautiful things out of watermelon! The bf did the dodgeball tournament on the sports deck. He tried to also do the longest drive competition in the golf simulator, but the line was long! We also did free skate in Studio B as well as minigolf on the sports deck. We figured how often do you actually get to golf and ice skate in the middle of the ocean!

 

We then headed to the pool. We found it to be far less crowded later in the afternoon. We had late seating so it worked out perfectly for us. Then headed to the room to get ready.

 

We attended the captain's reception party before dinner and enjoyed free champagne. The captain was actually quite funny (in a dry sense of humor way) and attended many shows and such on the ship - he even came out and was skating on the rink! This was only his 2nd week on the AOS, but was very good. I liked that he interacted with the passengers.

 

up next - Barbados

[mag0737]

It's great to hear that you had a good time also!

We just got back from this cruise in June and it quickly became my new favorite ship. Too bad Adventures going overseas next year.:(

 

I know! But it's only during the winter season...it'll be back in San Juan for the summer sailings. I guess they were having a hard time filling the ship in the winter. We loved the ship as well. Beautifully decorated!

[mag0737]

Okay so we were a little disappointed in Barbados. The island is not what we expected. Maybe we just had our hopes up too high? I don't know.

Anyway - we booked the shipwreck and turtle snorkel through the ship. There were about 40 people in all on the excursion, but they split us up between 2 catamarans. Half went on one of the Silver Moons that you read about on these threads - and the other half went on a standard catamaran (which is what I had). The crew was great and the trip was unforgettable. It was amazing to see the turtles up close! There were 5 or 6 of them. I didn't get to swim out over the shipwreck much, but people were saying how many different things they saw (puffer fish, eel, etc) And then after the 2 snorkel sites they found a secluded beach where we hung out for about 45 min. It was definitely worth the $65 for 4 hours.

 

Afterwards we walked into town for a bit. Not too much shopping going on here - so we stopped at a local restaurant for some Caribbean curry. It was yummy.

 

Back on the ship - apparently it was Italian night in the dining room, but I couldn't tell. Lol. Afterwards they had the 70s dance party in the Promenade. That was funny - and they played all the songs that just about everyone knows regardless of age. Too funny when the cruise director and staff all came out dressed like the Village People.

 

up next - Day 4 - St Lucia...

[janabm81]

Actually Adventure is going to be overseas in the spring/summer and back to san juan in the winter.