Multifacetted Island Cruise
Adventure of the Seas Cruise Review to Caribbean - Southern
Contributor Level:
Purser
Cruises: 1 cruise (first)
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 34
7 Night Southern Caribbean (San Juan Roundtrip)
Sail date: August 05, 2017
Ship: Adventure of the Seas
Cabin type: Balcony
Cabin number: 7586
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 6 years ago
Review summary
A wonderful excursion to the small and different eastern carribean islands. Ship facilities are all good, service okay, food excellent and RC recommendable as a good cruise company (less party as on Carnival we hear). Plan ahead your dining times and excursions, thus you have more time enjoying. Tours book out quickly as well as early dining times (6pm-7pm). Bring own snorkel gear (provided once are not well cleaned and some don't fit well). Fins are not needed or can easily be borrowed.Embarkation
RC informs prior by E-Mail about planned time period for embarkation of your deck. Even though our deck 7 was planned fpr 3-4pm, we arrived earlier (around noon) and had no problems. Everything was quick. I recommend others to come earlier, as you can enjoy the ship the whole day until your stateroom is ready (around 4pm). Thus, do not forget your swim suit in hand luggage because your luggage will be checked in for boarding and brought to your room in the afternoon. Our bags arrived late, around 6pm that we nearly missed those cloth for the dinner.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
Main dining room is wonderful. Titanic feeling. Keep in mind that "My Dining time" (where you arrange your own time to be seated in advance) is always on the lowest level (3). Thus, in case you want to sit on higher levels (4,5) you need to book the 6pm or 8:30pm dining times (fixed schedule).
Waiters vary in agility and service. So don't hesitate to ask for a different table, if you are not satisfied. In case you like a starter, main or desert, waiters will bring you a second serve, if you ask for. A la carte appeared to us to be the best of the included food options, but bring some time (about 1.5h).
Windjammer buffet dining is a loud, crowded area, but a lot of choice of food. Good quality.
Jonny Rocket Diner is not worth the extra money. Windjammer offers fresh Burger service as well (for free).
We did not use the other restaurants.
Beverages: The RC brewed ice tea is sugar free and tastes like Lipton ice; add some sugar or sweetener and it is really good. The coffee varies from station to station and time to time. The cocktail of the day is 8 USD and changes all days through the cruise. Overall we had some cocktails, beers and the free drinks and definitely did not need any of the beverage packages. Especially this cruise has only one sea day, thus you are on all other days off-board 8am-4pm.
Room service: The worst coffee and tea we got each morning with the room service. Tea water comes in a can that was used befor for coffee (and tastes thus like water running through a coffee maker). Coffee was either too strong or to lame.
Additionally, RC limited the free room service to continental breakfast. All other orders or after 11am add an extra charge of about 8 USD per order. Very emberassing in case you already payed a lot of money for a balcony cabine as we did. The smart TV menu was not updated, thus it allowed ordering of eggs etc as included, but indeed they where charged.
Onboard Activities
Adult pool area (age 16+) is calm and good for relaxing. The other pool area is more for party, with life music, kids play and activities. We once took part in aqua zumba, good fun (but not really exhausting).
The slides are great. The blue one has a transparent part that allows a look oround the ship. You need to bring a shirt (keep in mind for first day).
Music, theatre shows and ice shows are all professional and worth the time.
The "next cruise" team gives each day afternoon a presentation about next RC cruises. These presentations include a raffle and good chances to win a small appreciation of your listening.
..a lot of other activities, too much to write about all. We had ~no~ activity that was dissatisfying. All on time and well organized. Check your daily on-board news-paper you find on your bed the evening before.
Entertainment
see above about activities on board.
Children's Programs
We traveled as a couple
Service and Staff
Our room steward Mathew was friendly and did a good job.
Waiters vary in accuracy and speed. Some even do not speak English well, but you can change seat/table.
reception/guest service was the worst experience concerning the staff.
Ship Quality
The ship is clean and well maintained. Still you recognize in corners and wooden interior that it is not a new ship.
Cabin / Stateroom
We had a lot of marks on wodden interior in our room. Carpet had a lot of dark spots. The TV screen (LCD) was broken in the upper corner. Doors of cupboards, wardrobe etc. were loose and did not close well.
All in all fine and clean. Thats the most important.
Level 7 was a very good choice as you have above and below one more level with state rooms (that prevents loud music etc from pool or promenade to come to your room). On level 7 I would next time choose a room more close to the rear elevators (e.g. 76xx) to have shorter distances.
Ship tip
In case you are not planning to drink a lot of cocktails or heaps of soda, don't go for beverage packages. Second, on most Islands (except St. Lucia) we suggest to book excursions with local tour operators yourself in advance via Internet. RC charges a lot more and RC tours are overcrowded, less exceptional and a mass experience.
Thumbs up
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Ports of call
Old city of San Juan is nice to see architecture and the fort.
We arrived one day earlier, stayed in a central old city hotel. Thus we could embark the ship early next morning.
St. Maarten could be the savest of these Islands (half french, half dutch).
We were lazy and booked the TikiHut excursion via RC before. Was nice snorkeling, especially in the afternoon as most people left with the taxi boat around 1pm to visit the city. Then we had the best time snorkeling and enjoying the floating boat and the Pelicans nesting closeby. Next time I would try to book with TikiHut directly, as RC adds their margin.
A very rural and low inhabitated island. We took a taxi to Cockleshell Bay/Raggae Beach Bar, but very dissappointed of the crowded beach (sand not very bright, left side a lot of sealences in water).
Thus we took another taxi to South Friars Bay, which was much nicer. Great sunbeds, a nice bar and good sand/water. This was a tipp of our friendly rasta taxi driver. We took his advice and were not disappointed.
Overall taxi rides were 14 USD (shared car), 15USD and 10USD.
Probably the most beautiful island. 366 beaches, all public property (but not all are accessible via roads).
We booked on our own the Antigua Eco tour https://adventureantigua.com/the-eco-tour/ and it was great. Small comfortable boat, about 20 participants, a lot of information about the island, beaches, celebrities, the exclusive long island, sea turtles, dolphins (we saw both on the trip very close).
During the tour we skipped the walking tours and enjoyed the water snorkling.
The stop on bird island is a dream of a beach. Snorkling is as well good (but don't expect it to be like in Thailand or Australia, still lots of fish and coral).
This island is next time worth an own holiday visit.
As St. Lucia has the reputation of some crime scene, high unemployment and poverty as well as drug scene, we decided to book via RC the jeep tour, which was good. You see a lot of the islands rainforest and hill area. They bring you to a rainforest park where you have an informative 20min walk. Bring a lot of insect repellant.
The included beach time (only 30min) on the beautiful Piggeon Island sandy beach is great, but too short.
Tipp: walk over to the sandals resort. Beach and water is public, thus they cannot prevent you from using this exlusive view, beach and water there! Totally great (even as a day trip).
We left the ship as early as possible and took a taxi (5 USD for 5min ride) to nearby Carlisle Bay Beach. A dream of a white sand, cristal clear water beach. Bring your snorkel gear and swim over the 500m to the turtle spot and/or the shipwecks. The earlier the day, the better. The spots get crowded from 11am to 4pm by about 50 excursion boats simultaneously (spitting out each about 50 snorkelers)...thus turtles may flee soon.
This said, we were totally dissatisfied of our RC booked 3h tour "Swim with turtles, shipwrek and beach time". This tour takes you around the corner to exactly this beach, they throw you in the water 500m from the beach to join all the other boats and snorkelers (it feels like to be one of 1000 in the overcrowded water then). Afterwards they move to the 200m further shipwreck spot, again some snorkeling and then back to the harbour (with some music and free rum punch). A total ripp off! Expecially, if you know (as we did) how easy the access to beach and turtle swim is on your own in the morning!
After complaining, RC refuses us any refund. Bad experience.
Disembarkation
All went fine. Was the only day we used a la carte breakfast, which was dissappointing. Same/less choice as in Windjammer restaurant. Most stuff still needs to be taken from a smaller buffet. Thus worthless and time consuming.
The carry/trolley service on disembarkation area for the luggage (5 USD) was worth the money, as thexy have their own queue to immigration and this saved us some time.