Adventure June 4 Review - LOTS of port pics

We just returned from a 7 night Adventure of the Seas cruise. Following will be a review that will touch a little bit on the ship, but will mostly focus on the ports. For background, there are 4 of us: DW, DD21, DD18, and myself. This was our 6th cruise...5th with Royal. We had 2 D2 cabins, 8246 and 8248. The itinerary was as follows:

 

Saturday - Depart San Juan

Sunday - St. Maarten

Monday - St. Kitts

Tuesday - Antigua

Wednesday - St.Lucia

Thursday - Barbados

Friday - Sea Day

 

We packed a lot into the 6 ports (including San Juan) and I'll go through each port separately. It might take me a few days given the number of pictures that I have and the backlog at work.

 

Before discussing the cruise, I need to talk about our travel to and from San Juan. Both days were painful so hopefully talking about it will help. :D Like we always do, we left for the departure port a day early. About 10 miles from the airport, I got a flat tire. With no time to call AAA, I changed the first flat tire that I can ever remember changing. I first had to figure out how to lower the spare (a smaller "donut" spare) from the underside of the SUV by cranking on a shaft that was hidden under a plastic cover. It took me about 30 minutes and I was covered in grease when I was done. We skipped the less expensive long term parking (and the shuttle bus ride that goes with it) and drove directly to the airport parking at the terminal. Fortunately, the lines for check-in and security were short and we were at the gate 5 minutes before boarding. Plenty of time to wash up and grab a Starbucks coffee...not that I needed any caffeine at that point.

 

We had a 50 minute layover in Philadelphia which made me a little nervous. We ended up landing 15 minutes late and needed to sprint to make it to our connecting flight. We were the last people on the plane and they closed the door right after we got on. For those familiar with PHL, we arrived at gate F3 and departed from gate A26. I don't know if there are 2 gates that are farther apart! The shuttle between terminals seemed to crawl. In the end though, we arrived in San Juan a few minutes late and all of our luggage made it there as well. Time to get the vacation started!

 

Let's skip forward 8 days though for the return trip. We were supposed to leave SJU at 2:40 with a 2.5 hour layover in Philly and get home about 11:00. On the final night of the cruise, I kicked my daughters off the internet so that I could check us in for the flight. We had been moved to an earlier flight departing sometime after noon (12:30?), which gave us an earlier connection in Philly to get us home around 8:30. No problem since we had plenty of time to get to the airport the next morning, and it would be nice to get home earlier. The next morning though, I received a steady stream of text messages from American Airlines:

1. Departure delayed to 1:30p. Our Philly connection would now be very tight

2. Departure delayed to 1:35p. That 5 minutes might make all the difference for our connection!

3. Departure delayed to 3:00p. Our Philly connection is now gone

4. Rebooked to a 4:35p flight through Charlotte that arrives home at 11:26p

 

Lots of shuffling but we will end up home only about 30 minutes later than originally planned. We sat in the San Juan airport for 6 hours but there are worse problems in life. One mechanical plane problem avoided. Our 10:00 flight out of Charlotte however also had mechanical problems and was delayed until 10:45, and then eventually left around 11:15. We made it back the Cincinnati airport, collected our luggage, and then began the 40 mile drive home going no faster than 45 mph on the donut spare tire in the right lane with blinkers flashing. I was more than a little nervous going that slow on the sections of highway with a 65 mph speed limit where people we routinely going 30 mph faster than me.

 

We made it home at 2:00a, stressed but with no other significant issues. I'm normally a Delta flyer but chose American for this trip to save a few bucks (times 4 people). With back to back mechanical problems, a delay in Philly flying there that almost caused us to miss our connection (although that might not have been American's fault), and a bad experience on a American flight to Seoul just 2 weeks earlier, I think I'm done with American Airlines.

 

Now...time to get the vacation started!

Looking forward to your review. We sail on the Adventure in November.

Doing the exact itinerary and ship in quite a few days.

Looking forward to your review.

 

TIA

Happy Days!

Looking forward to your review. We are sailing the same itinerary in September.

 

I am so sorry you had so much stress getting to and from your cruise.

Before I get to the ports, let me spend a few minutes talking about the ship. The general consensus here seems to be that the ship is showing it's age here and there and is ready for dry dock, but that there's nothing significantly wrong and any issues with the ship itself are more than made up for by the crew and the ports. I'd mostly agree with that assessment.

 

I did see quite a few rust spots, paint chips, worn carpet, etc. I also saw a few things that are not age related like mold in the shower and burned out light bulbs. Still, the crew overall was good. I really enjoy the Cruise Director's staff, led by Cruise Director Dan "Dan Dan" Whitney. Dan Dan did a great job with the Quest, Love & Marriage, and the Belly Flop contest. The Activities Manager was Renato Arana who also did a great job, as did Roxie and several other members of the Cruise Director staff. We had a hard time finding a lot of activities that interested us, but the activities that we attended were well done.

 

We did My Time Dining and ended up at 3 different tables with 3 different sets of Waiters throughout the cruise. All 3 Waiters were very good. The Assistant Waiters tried their best but were new and didn't seem to be well trained. One didn't know what kind of beer was available, and the other had never seen the 10 drink card and had to check with her supervisor to see if it could be used for wine at dinner. Like I said though, I couldn't ask for more effort or a friendlier approach from the Assistant Waiters. We only had Vuk as an Assistant Waiter one night but he worked that tables next to us and was very entertaining...even at a distance.

 

Bar tenders were disappointing overall. The Solarium Bar was severely understaffed and I don't think I saw a smile or heard anything friendly all week. Several times, I went to the Pool Bar because there was only one Solarium Bartender and a half dozen people lined up. At one point in the middle of the week, we went to the Solarium pool around 4:00 after returning to the ship from a day in port. The bartender put a sign on the bar around 4:30 saying that the bar was closed. Closed at 4:30 in the afternoon with a half full Solarium? Really? Same story in the Sports Bar and with one exception, the pub. I've heard other people complain about this and I've read the discussions about whether or not the drink packages are the cause, but I'd never experienced it myself until this trip.

 

Our steward introduced himself on day 1 and we didn't see him again until the last day. We struck up a better relationship with the steward a few cabins down as we regularly passed him on the hallway. No issues with our cabin though so at least our Steward did a good job, even though he wan't visible.

 

Since people often ask, here are a few other members of the staff on the cruise:

Master - Tomas Busto

Hotel Director - Gordon Marshall

Loyalty Ambassador - Ricardo Zavaleta

 

For entertainment, the dancers were OK, and the orchestra was very good (always seems to be the case). They had 2 professional dance champions (

) on board early in the week who were excellent at Latin style dances. Incredibly fast hips and feet. The Las Vegas Tenors were the headliners on day 3 and were good. They did a variety of music but it's hard to compete against the 3 Tenors when doing classical music. They finished with Nessun Dorma which just seemed to fall a little short. Comparing them against the 3 tenors isn't fair though. We again enjoyed the second Headliner Scott Record, who is a musical comedy impressionist. We saw him on a previous cruise and he was still great. From his introduction, it sounds like he is one of the most popular headliners in the Royal fleet.

Following

Thanks for the review.

Looking forward to the rest of your review, sailing Adventure next month. Disapointing to hear about the bar situation at the Solarium.

Following! We were on Adventure last October and I am always interested in others review of the same ship even though we were on the opposite itinerary!

:cool:

Following, and looking forward to hearing more. Sorry to hear of your stressful travels, both there and back.

Same situation with the Solarium bar on my last two cruises. Disappointing.

 

Looking forward to your review as I am sailing Adventure in November!

Stupid work. Why can't I just cruise, review, repeat? I guess that's what retirement is for. Still a few years away. Anyway, time for the good stuff...the port discussions with LOTS of pictures. Fair warning...when I say lots of pictures, I mean lots of pictures. I'll try not to overdue it too much, but you can always drag down on the scroll bar on the right side of the screen if you get tired of looking.

 

 

OK...technically San Juan starts on Friday since we arrived a day early. When I last talked about our travel problems, I said that we arrived just about on time early afternoon on Friday in San Juan. By the time that we took a taxi to Old San Juan and checked into the Sheraton, and given the fact that we hadn't eaten since breakfast (did I mention sprinting through the Philly airport?), we were very hungry. I wanted to find a local restaurant but I was outvoted. We ended up going next door to Seńor Frogs. Burgers and beer it is! The place was somewhat empty but a few cruisers were there getting warmed up, and there of course was some sort of bachelorette party that included shots. We then wandered the streets a bit to get a feel for the area, since it was out first time there.

 

Calle San Francisco in Old San Juan

 

We eventually ended up at Casa Cortés Chocobar for desert. If you like chocolate, this is the place to go. We split a Lava Cake and a floating brownie. I would say that it was the perfect amount of food for desert for 4 people, but we were practically licking the plates and certainly could have eaten more. Good stuff.

 

Casa Cortés Chocobar wall of old chocolate molds

 

After recovering from the chocolate coma, we walked around more and found Plaza de Armas. I later learned that this is a common name for the main square in many Hispanic cities. This is where we first met someone who we would pay for my daughters to hold wild animals (hint...it wasn't the last time). A local in the park had bird food that he was giving to people to feed the pigeons (aka tree rats). We gave him a couple of bucks for the privilege of letting pigeons eat out of your hand.

 

Plaza de Armas in Old San Juan

 

DD18 Feeding the pigeons. Note that she is selfie ready

 

DD21's turn

We finished the evening with more walking/wandering, and a stop at Walgreen's next to Plaza de Armas to pick up supplies.

 

Looking at the old city wall from Calle Recinto Sur

 

 

View of the Rotonda del Municipio de San Juan

 

 

View looking down the Paseo de la Princesa

 

Check in at the Sheraton Old San Juan was painfully slow, but I would definitely stay there again. The rooms were nice and the views were great. We ate breakfast there, which was good but a little expensive. I wanted to get breakfast at Cafeteria Mallorca to try one of the local specialties but was again outvoted.:rolleyes:

 

View looking east on Calle Marina from the Sheraton Old San Juan outdoor bar on the second floor

Thank you for doing this review!! Will be on the same cruise and staying at the same hotel in September. Loving all the pics!! :)

Great review, looking forward to more.

Enjoying the review and photos.

Thanks for taking the time to post. Did this itinerary on Carnival a few years ago and have it booked again on AOS for next December.

Excellent

 

You mentioned the 10 drink card, I wondered on what day they sold this and how much it cost

 

Thanks

Following along! I love everything Adventure of the Seas!

Following, we board with this same itinerary this Saturday. :):)

Following! Can't wait to do this same itinerary in September!

Following along!

Excellent

 

You mentioned the 10 drink card, I wondered on what day they sold this and how much it cost

 

Thanks

 

The 10 drink card went on sale early...I think we first say it on the evening of day 3, but it might have been day 4. The cost was $85 plus tip, for a total of $100.30.

More to come...I promise. Need to find time to post!

So glad I came upon your post. We are staying at the Sheraton in Aug. and cruising on the Adventurer. My DH and I have been on the Adventurer and did the same itinerary but DS &DIL with grandson 16 and granddaughter 14 will be with us this time.

 

May I ask the price of the cab?? Do they charge for luggage?? We were told by the lady at the hotel just to take "white colored cabs" is this what you did??

 

Looking forward to your review. I'm sure the others appreciate all the time and effort you put into it. (Do it at home, don't lose your job)

 

The pictures are great!

 

Carol