Just Back from Adventure of the Seas June 25 Part 4 Final Summary

Day 7: We did some shopping at Havensight and then my son went parasailing. My husband and I don't do this since we are both afraid of heights. However, I got to go as an observer for $15 and it was well worth it. I got really great pictures. They are posted on the link that I gave in my previous posts. This was really great. We then headed to Coki beach to meet up with some cruise critic friends. We really liked Coki and it was great spending the day with our cruise critic friends. The water is very clear. The woman who did my hair braiding was awesome. Much better and much cheaper than at Orient. She even had photos of all her designs. She does great work. If you want your hair braided I would definitely recommend Coki. Although the vendors tried to sell us stuff we just told them no and they went away. I really liked St. Thomas. This was a great end to a wonderful vacation. Even though I missed the helicoptor ride on Antigua, all the great friends we made on this trip and the fun other excursions, espcially our time at Coki, more than made up for it. We are now planning a trip to Antigua for a few days in the spring so I can get on that helipcopter. Debarkation: This went pretty smoothly. We got to stay in our room until about 9 am, when they finally asked us to leave. Since we were not leaving until 2 pm we were in no rush. By 9:30 we were off the ship. There were massive amounts of luggage in the terminal, but we found our bags pretty easily. One of our bags had been put in the wrong place with other luggage, but luckily I had put some coloful curly yarn around the handles so we were able to find it easily. My husband and son laughed at me when I was putting the crazy looking yarn on our luggage, but then they thanked me after we almost lost our one bag during debarkation. If you have black luggage I would highly recommend putting something very identifiable on it, it case it gets misplaced.

Odds and Ends: Overall this cruise was great. A big reason it was so terrific was because of the great friends we made through cruise critic. The ship is very well maintained and clean. However one very minor observation and this is only my personal opinion, although the staff was very nice and attentive, I did not feel the same love and pride from the staff on this ship that I did on our previous cruises. We have also been on Voyager, Radiance and Majesty and the staff of Majesty was my favorite. The love, pride and attention to detail on this ship is amazing. I just had a real warm feeling on this ship more than any other we have been on. That said, Adventure is still a beautiful ship and meticulously kept. Our GS was awesome and our cabin attendent went out of his way to make great towel animals. We found a good mix of passengers and although there were a lot of teens and children all seemed quite well behaved and we did not encounter any bad situations. The elevators got crowded at times but everyone was polite and we often made light of the situation and laughed about it. Announcements were biligual but this added to the international flavor and enjoyment of the cruise. Embarkation was the best we ever encountered, smooth and efficient. Concierge did call me about a week before. Therefore, I can confirm that suite guests are contacted (we were only gold at the time of this cruise, although platinum now) prior to embarkation. She efficiently handled all our requests for reservations. We really liked having the lounge, especially appetizers before dinner. Since we had late seating this worked out really well. Our main dining room dinner companions only showed up 1 night. Although the food was very good overall, we found the selection in the main dining room to be a bit odd. We found ourselves using the alternate selections more than ususal. Portifino is amazing and well worth the extra fee. Johnny Rockets is also great. We liked going to the Cafe Promenade for pizza and sandwiches. I love the cookies! Our dining room waiters were very nice and did a good job serving us. One minor thing here was that they did not initially offer drinks other than water and wine on the first few nights. Once we finally asked a couple of times for soda, they brought our drinks automatially by the end of the cruise. Our dinner companions only showed up 1 night. This was a dissappointment since we ended up having dinner by ourselves for most of the cruise. We really were looking to meet new people on this cruise. Next time I will be sure to check with Royal on the day we embark and if no ones shows on night 1 will ask to switch tables. On our 4 cruises we have not had any really good seating arrangements. Oh well, maybe next time. I think that is about all I can think of. This is a great cruise, and I can't imagine anyone not enjoying it. If you are going on AOS, have a great time. Please feel free to send me any additional questions and take a look at my pictures on Web shots. If you have a GS I tried to take lots of detailed pictures of our suite GS1324 because I know how curious I was before I went. Enjoy! Laura

Thanks for the review!!

Doesn't the ship pass Montserrat? If it does, did you see anything? I have read that some people have actually seen the lava (at night).

I believe the Aruba route may have a better view Montserrat. We did not see it. It was pouring rain the day and night we were in Antigua so we could not see much of anything. Laura

Hi Laura

Thanks for taking the time to post a great review :D

Your pictures were great too!

We leave in 1 month now - yippeeeee

Thanks again!

Laura, again thanks so much for all this information. We leave this Sunday (July 9th) and we are also staying in cabin 1324!! I love all your pictures, I now know what to expect!

A couple more questions. You mentioned that Monday was the first formal night when was the other formal night? Did you visit the concierge lounge? If so were there a lot of people there in the evenings. I know my husband is looking forward to spending time there before our dinner (early seating) and after dinner (he loves his beer and it is my understanding it is free).

Obx - While I was on this cruise in 2003 we did pass by Montserrat - but it was in the morning so I did not see any "glowing lava". Although we were close enough to see the detail of the destruction the volcano left - it was quite stark looking and then on the other side of the island you could see the city that was left over. I'll be on the Aruba sailing 8/13/06 so I'll be sure to keep a look out for this as well.

Thanks for the great review - I love reading about the AOS! We are doing a B2B in Feb 07 :)

We had GS 1324 too - loved the cabin!

You said the Concierge was a "she" - is Luis not on the AOS anymore????

Thanks for the review!!

Doesn't the ship pass Montserrat? If it does, did you see anything? I have read that some people have actually seen the lava (at night).

I was also on the 6/25 sailing (just posted a review) Not only was it raining as the OP said but we passed Montserrat late at night, well after sunset, so nothing at all to see.