MauiLuvr
May 23rd, 2004, 10:54 PM
Warning: This is an honest review. If you're not willing to see the bad and the mediocre along with the good, this isn't the review for you. I'm not at ALL trying to be negative, but I feel that the reviews that help ME most are those where people prepare me for how it really is, and that's all I'm trying to do for others.
PART 1
Pre-Cruise Hotel: We stayed the one night pre-cruise at the Caribe Hilton in San Juan. The hotel is older, nothing spectacular, but perfectly acceptable. The grounds are pretty, esp. the view from the pool area. Plenty of restaurants on the premises to choose from, including one that had both a fajita buffet for dinner (at least that one night—it was a Saturday night) and a breakfast buffet. We got a good price via Priceline.
Embarkation: Embarkation goes a bit differently in San Juan than in Fort Lauderdale, but is still managed efficiently. In Fort Lauderdale, as soon as you get out of the cab, there are a guys everywhere to take your luggage. In San Juan, you get in a line (at least there was a line when we got there around noon) to give them your luggage just before you go into the terminal. Once in the terminal, you queue up in a line and you get called as there is a check-in person available. This isn’t done by ship deck or by express check-in as it was done in Fort Lauderdale; everybody waits in the same queue, except there is a special line for certain passengers (I seem to recall lit was for people in suites; there were only about 10 people in that line and the rest of us (100 or so I’d guess) were in the main line. Interestingly, there’s a duty free shop right IN the terminal. You can buy booze and sodas in there; even spring water. When we got off the ship an hour or two later to hit the duty-free store, the line was down to nothing, so 1-2pm may be a better time to arrive than noon. Sailaway isn’t until around 11 p.m. and the first muster drill is about an hour before early traditional dinnertime—not good, since this is when we’re usually getting ready for dinner! Another difference with San Juan (due to the late sailaway time, I assume) is that the first night’s dinner, even for us traditional diners, is open seating. So you don’t sit at your pre-assigned table or meet your “real” dinner companions until the second night.
Cabin: I was in aft/port cabin E728, one of the Emerald deck mini-suites with the extended balcony. I was in the same cabin last year and enjoyed it once again; however, I don’t remember so much noise in the cabin when the ship is docking. It woke us up quite a few times, but at least we had early excursions most days, so not a huge loss.
Cruise Critic Gathering: Met a great gang of people (hi gang!) at the Outrigger bar just above the aft pool the first day. I won’t remember all the names so I won’t try to name them all. The coolest thing about this group is that we saw a lot of them throughout the week. We had Cruise Critic folks on nearly every excursion and ran into them around the ship a lot as well. What a great group of people!
Still to come: Part 2 - Excursions
PART 1
Pre-Cruise Hotel: We stayed the one night pre-cruise at the Caribe Hilton in San Juan. The hotel is older, nothing spectacular, but perfectly acceptable. The grounds are pretty, esp. the view from the pool area. Plenty of restaurants on the premises to choose from, including one that had both a fajita buffet for dinner (at least that one night—it was a Saturday night) and a breakfast buffet. We got a good price via Priceline.
Embarkation: Embarkation goes a bit differently in San Juan than in Fort Lauderdale, but is still managed efficiently. In Fort Lauderdale, as soon as you get out of the cab, there are a guys everywhere to take your luggage. In San Juan, you get in a line (at least there was a line when we got there around noon) to give them your luggage just before you go into the terminal. Once in the terminal, you queue up in a line and you get called as there is a check-in person available. This isn’t done by ship deck or by express check-in as it was done in Fort Lauderdale; everybody waits in the same queue, except there is a special line for certain passengers (I seem to recall lit was for people in suites; there were only about 10 people in that line and the rest of us (100 or so I’d guess) were in the main line. Interestingly, there’s a duty free shop right IN the terminal. You can buy booze and sodas in there; even spring water. When we got off the ship an hour or two later to hit the duty-free store, the line was down to nothing, so 1-2pm may be a better time to arrive than noon. Sailaway isn’t until around 11 p.m. and the first muster drill is about an hour before early traditional dinnertime—not good, since this is when we’re usually getting ready for dinner! Another difference with San Juan (due to the late sailaway time, I assume) is that the first night’s dinner, even for us traditional diners, is open seating. So you don’t sit at your pre-assigned table or meet your “real” dinner companions until the second night.
Cabin: I was in aft/port cabin E728, one of the Emerald deck mini-suites with the extended balcony. I was in the same cabin last year and enjoyed it once again; however, I don’t remember so much noise in the cabin when the ship is docking. It woke us up quite a few times, but at least we had early excursions most days, so not a huge loss.
Cruise Critic Gathering: Met a great gang of people (hi gang!) at the Outrigger bar just above the aft pool the first day. I won’t remember all the names so I won’t try to name them all. The coolest thing about this group is that we saw a lot of them throughout the week. We had Cruise Critic folks on nearly every excursion and ran into them around the ship a lot as well. What a great group of people!
Still to come: Part 2 - Excursions