masonpips

Following this (on the same cruise!) as I plan to work out and run on the treadmill too. Going to do a web search for photos also, I'll post if I find any recent ones

I was going to search for the video, glad someone had the link. We'll be in 6145

4 weeks from tomorrow!

I'll post a mini-review and some photos after!

Could you tell me more about your Charter with Jolly Roger? How much time did you have at Turtle Beach? Was lunch/beverages included? Full or half day? Cost? Thanks, planning for my March cruise and St.Croix will be a new stop

for us 😄

I think it was $75/person and beverages (soda/water before snorkeling, rum punch added on way back) included. We took a taxi over and were at the dock early. They said there were no snacks, so we bought a bunch at a store right by the dock. The excursion was 11-3:30 and right on time

We stopped at the beach for 30-45 minutes and snorkeled for probably close to an hour. The rest was sailing to/from the island and back. We all really enjoyed the excursion. There were 11 of us and another family of 4 aboard. The captain and his wife are runners (as were a couple of our party) so we had a great time discussing races.

The other family brought their own beer (was hilarious) and shared with us. We had a great trip!

Sorry it took me so long! Here's some balcony pics

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yep! We each bought just a bottle of champagne but they had a lot of choice!

thank you both for the info!!

Hi, we are planning to fly into Gatwick on Thursday am June 2, 2016, arriving around 9:30 am. We'll spend Thursday and Friday in London (two older teens so teen friendly sight seeing).

Saturday June 4 we'd like to take a tour of Stonehenge pre boarding our RCCL Independence cruise. Londontoolkit offers a lot of options, so we're exploring those and plan an early morning departure from London, 2 hours at Stonehenge and about 1-2 pm arrival at Southampton.

Upon returning to Southampton on Saturday, June 18, we'd take a train directly to Gatwick for a 1:15 departure home.

A couple of questions and my thought process:

1) We're using the time in London to acclimate to the time change and do our "pre-cruise" sightseeing.

2) Since we have a 2 week cruise, I don't feel the need (for once) to be at the terminal at 10:30-11 am,

but plan for arrival after Stonehenge around 1-2 pm - does this make sense?

3) On the return, we'll be fairly rested from 2 days at sea and would like to get home that same day (albeit a very long day) to acclimate back to our local time.

Is the 1:15 flight doable - we have no issue w/self-disembarking and catching an early train (via taxi to train terminal)

4) Am I missing anything else?. I'm just looking at flights as WestJet has some attractive prices

Thanks!

So the Mongolian Grill is just part of the buffet?? What did they serve?

Enjoyed your review. We are sailing next month!

They had beef or chicken and veggies - you could pick as much as you wanted and they stir-fried them up for you with a choice of 3 sauces - a teriyaki, a sweet/hot one (the one I had) and another (just spicy I think). They gave you a number and brought it to you. All 7 of us eating the first night had it and I think everyone went back and had it again the 2nd time!

The Verdict on the balconies:

 

Having experienced both of these, the E1's win with flying colors (7408 and 7708)

YAY! We have 7708 booked for next summer on the Indy for 2 weeks! I figure with 6 sea days and a lot of ports I can spend A LOT of time on that balcony looking out!

Did you say something about a Mongolian Grill? this is the first I've heard of that on Adventure.

Yes! Up in WJ for dinner! It was there both nights we ate up there, so I'm assuming all week?

Ports:

St. Croix – did a private snorkel w/Jolly Roger – outstanding. It was our group of 11 plus a family of 4. Highly recommend.

St. Kitts – we had done a private sail here before but couldn’t do w/our larger group so dh and I took a hike to the left of port, up to a rocky area and just wandered. HOT

St. Maarten – all 11 to Orient Beach. Guys/dads went jet-skiing. Had lunch at a restaurant. Always a fan favorite

Martinique – got off, searched for wifi (didn’t have ship map), it was HOT and dirty downtown and we weren’t impressed. Heard good reviews from people who took water taxi to beach. We were off ship maybe an hour and enjoyed quiet ship after

Barbados – one of our all time favorite ports. Private sail w/Shasa (our group of 11) and in everyone’s top 3 excursions. We did the 5 hour lunch trip (had done 3 hour trip a few years ago) and hit the sea turtle area and snorkeling, then grabbed food and went to a sandy beach area for lunch. The food was outstanding. HIGHLY recommend.

Sea Day – DD and I laid out in am (HOT) and everyone packed/worked out in pm. Used the gym 3 days – I wish RCCL would add a bigger free weight area – it’s TINY on all ships, but the rest of the equipment is good and it was fairly cool in there which is nice.

People:

There were 42 Quniceanera groups on board. They chose Wed as their “formal night” and dressed up. There were some larger groups that evening, doing photos and the like, but really it was fun to see them and they didn’t impact us.

I will say there were LOTS of large groups onboard (which is typical for Thanksgiving) and I am constantly amazed at people’s inability to realize you don’t walk 8 across on the Promenade (bad) and then JUST STOP AND STAND THERE (worse). Other than that and the typical general group of rude/clueless (both?) people, it was great.

Funny story – the group next to us at dinner included a VERY LOUDMOUTHED KNOW-IT-ALL. We felt so sorry for the people seated with him/his traveling companion. On the last night he got up to go to the restroom (his other person didn’t show up that night) and our group reached out to the two people seated there. They were a RIOT and the lady said “I was about to hang myself from the curtains”.

He came back, but left before we did so we then kind of linked up with them and talked the rest of the night. Wished we had reached out earlier. They were newer cruises on a back-to-back and didn’t know they could request to change. They avoided dinner a few times due to this guy.

Disembarking:

We chose self-disembark and went to the conference rooms on 2 at 6:45 a.m. We sat there for probably 25 minutes (where sat = stood as they crammed people in) and then were released room-by-room (2 down there) to Deck 1 to a ramp to leave. We walked into the terminal and got into the Customs line (3 agents, 1 was devoted to crew when they showed up). We were in the taxi line by 7:35. The airport is lacking real-restaurant wise (construction) so we grabbed breakfast at Margaritas and our plane left at 11:30ish. I was able to move DH and I to the 9:15 for February (returning and sailing on Celebrity Summit) given how we would have easily made that flight this time.

FYI: there were a TON of people with GIANT suitcases doing self-disembark. A TON of them. They either took the elevator (we took stairs as we were able to MANAGE our luggage as stated you should) or made several trips up/down stairs. Would be nice if RCCL would put them all together so they can delay each other, not the rest of us who follow the rules (my opinion, YMMV)

Overall Thoughts: Great cruise, great crew (super friendly and outgoing). Once I found Vladimir in the Sports Bar and realized he’d give me lemon drops for my Diamond drinks, I had a new home! The trip was relaxing and I didn’t miss the shows I didn’t see and didn’t participate in much all week – just what I planned/wanted!

Crew

Kenyon (sp?) was our room attendant. He was cheerful and did all we asked (which was basically ice). We didn’t get robes and I wanted one, but I never thought to ask and it ended up being fine. The room was great (cold) and the balcony was fantastic! With so many ports, it wasn’t used as much as I would have liked, but WOW the space!

We got a call at some point and they added 2 seats to our table for dinner! It was a little stretched out (think kiddie table at the end) and dinner was slow for the most part (our waiters were Russell/Tex (Texroy, just call me Tex) and they had our table of 11, a table of 4 (set for 6) next to us and a table of 6-8 next to that. We acknowledged that we added people and were understanding of the slow pace. The one night we wanted out for Love & Marriage they hauled a$$ for us and did it. They both received extra tips and WOW cards – excellent job for the week!

The rest of the week, categorized (I lose the ability to remember much after several ports and drinks….)

Shows Went to Quest (~meh~) and Elton John tribute (LOVED it). Rest of group went to Love & Marriage and enjoyed

Trivia: had a blast. Won the first night and came in 2nd another night. We dragged all 11 down there and the kids were clueless on 70’s night but enjoyed it!

Food:

Dining room: ate there 5 nights – first 2 (prime rib was roasted sirloin? Mine was good), last 2 (Thanksgiving was turkey/formal and last night was lobster) plus another. The food was good to very good. The desserts were excellent (lol). The other 2 nights we hit the WJ and the Mongolian Grill was fun/good and the rest was pretty good. Desserts are way better in the MDR.

We had JR for lunch one day and the service/food was outstanding. Probably my best experience at JR ever. Wished I had gotten our lady’s name. She remembered 4 orders perfectly (and we have adds/minuses all the way around) and I loved her.

We did the MDR lunch on the last/sea day and the salad bar was fantastic. The main dish items pretty much were awful. The risotto seafood was bland and undercooked. The burgers looked worse than WJ. The desserts were good (note to self: salad/dessert is enough) and service was not good. DH and I ate at the Diamond ala carte breakfast one day and it was better than WJ, but really not necessary. We ate at WJ or had RS for other breakfasts.

Overall room service was very good. We had one order (on a port day at like 1 pm) that took 1 hour and 20 minutes, plus a call, and was wrong (no salad dressing, no fries, something else wrong, no sugar w/iced tea). Everything else was perfect and tasty (spinach dip and cheese trays were our favorite).

This was our 8th RCCL cruise and I literally pulled up our last trip on Adventure (in my signature) and updating that review to do this one since it’s virtually the same route.

Pre-cruise/Friday

We flew from TUL to DFW with no issues, meeting friends, who flew in from OKC to meet and cruise with us, at Pappasito’s for lunch and margaritas before boarding the long haul to SJU.

Dh and I had bulkhead on the long flight and I’m a horrifically nervous flyer so I took a pill and slept 80% of the flight. Excellent. Landed on time and grabbed our one checked bag and a taxi and head to Tres Palmas. This was a Hotwire win and fairly inexpensive (~100 for night versus ~200 at most hotels). I liked it, my family acted like it wasn’t that great. The room was small, but clean and the AC worked like a champ.

We walked over to Blu Burger where service was slow and mistakenly 2 of us got eggplant burgers (wasn’t bad) because we pointed to the sign. Our fault and served to keep us from starving all night.

Boarding Day

I woke up and hiked over to Walgreen’s for sunscreen and some random last-minute items. Breakfast was very light (I had a piece of toast) at the hotel and we grabbed a taxi (they called, came within 5 minutes). Arrived at port to get in the first “drop your bag, let’s bang on the tip jar” line, then into “wait for doors to open” line. I would say the doors opened about 11 and check-in was speedy and efficient (we’re Diamond and were directed accordingly). The seating area was just filling up so we grabbed seats near the garage door and hit the liquor sampling and duty free shop (grabbed one bottle of champage)

They opened the door and, as read here before, chaos - there is no real boarding process so just get in line. We skipped the photo and headed up the escalator. We divided into two lines (mid and front ship) and then stood there for 5-7 minutes. It looks like our lady scanning sea pass cards was new and/or having issues. There were 2 crew members coming on so they had to show passports? No real worries, we were STEPS away.

I posted a pic as we boarded and it says 10:00 a.m. (12 noon there) so boarding was pretty much at noon sharp! We checked our dining room table and tried to get 2 added to our group of 9. My dh had called, gotten them “linked” but our friends had to call and “confirm”. She did that and they had no record of my dh asking for it. He called back and RECONFIRMED. Guess what? We’re not together. So aggravating to make the calls and NOT have it together.

They indicated it probably wouldn’t happen the first night, but they’d work on it. Ok.

We went to Windjammer for lunch and it was typically/good. I will say the salad bar all week was really good! We wandered the ship and waited for the rooms to be open which was at 2 pm. We had 7388/7688 (corner afts) and kids in 7387/7687 (inside). We switched 4 people around (my dh/SIL and my DS and niece) and had no issues making the switches. Niece didn’t have her card assigned to her parents which caused them issues leaving the ship the last day so that was a little odd but our group was fine.

We had our luggage within minutes it seemed and were unpacked w/a stack of stuff for pressing and ready to vacation. So? We napped! Everyone was exhausted from traveling and the weather was kind of iffy. This was the one and only time it rained all week, which we didn’t know until we woke up and saw everything was wet!

Muster drill was painless and we had late dinner so we took showers and DH/I hit the Diamond Lounge. We didn’t spend a lot of time in there as the 3 free drink vouchers on our card were just as attractive and we had family/friends with us.

Thank you - we leave on Saturday!! SO EXCITED

Thanks to everyone! I did consider upgrading the drink package so we'll get onboard, book the specialty (will ask for the discount) and then decide! I feel like I have a much better grasp now!

Thanks again

Hi, I've done some research but have some remaining questions regarding dining on the Summit for our February cruise.

Details:

• We're booked for our 20 year anniversary in Sky Suite 6145 (thanks to this board for the tip, photos and videos of the amazing room).
  
• We're Diamond on RCCL and know about the Elite package items (cruised Century for our 15 year 5 years ago).
  
• We're currently booked at late dinner in the dining room and will eat there the nights we don't choose speciality
  
• We booked via the January 123GO package so we have the Classic Drink package, prepaid gratuities and $300 OBC.
  
• We plan to use the OBC for specialty dinners and/or spa as we'll do our excursions on our own.
  

Questions:

1) We can eat in Luminae as we desire due to the sky suite - do we need to make reservations daily as we decide? I'm assuming this is similar to Coastal Kitchen on Oasis (their suite dining area)?

2) For the OBC I'm looking at the 3 dinner package for $119 - in order to use OBC I need to book that once on board versus paying now via cc?

3) Is there any chance we can try Blu at some point just to see if we'd like it for the future? I wasn't sure on this since it's reserved for Aqua Suites

4) Bistro on 5 doesn't show up in my cruise planner - does this require reservations?

5) Is there anything else I'm missing dining wise? I know about the complimentary places, but I'm trying to get organized re: when to eat where realizing if we don't pre-book the dining package we may have to adjust once on board.

TIA

Thank you! We board on Feb 13 for this same itinerary!! Great review

Thanks for posting - we leave on SATURDAY!!!

5!!

Thanks again!! 8 days to go!!!

Your thoughts, we have the money saved up for the airfare, I imagine the schedules should be out soon we plan on booking with Delta or wait for cheaper prices with SW?

We're doing Adventure in 3 weeks and Celebrity Summit in February, both out of San Juan. Southwest was the last to come to the table with schedules and their prices were not any better (plus one of the routes was an 11 hour journey). If you see something that looks good on another major carrier, I'd book it.

Google flights is really nice for showing you the "average" price out there for months ahead of time!

I've been on several Thanksgiving cruises and had it both ways so I don't know that we'll know until we board! We have a roll call for this week going, come join us!

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2087769&page=9

Loving this! We'll be on Adventure 3 WEEKS from today!

We stayed at that same hotel for our last Adventure cruise and it was fantastic!

Can't wait for the rest!

Hi MasonPips

 

How did you end up going with cancelling your mother from your room? Did you get moved?

 

Hope you had a great cruise...

 

Thanks

We ended up switching to another European cruise next summer so it became a non-issue! We snagged 7708 on Independence for that one, so it all worked out!

I've done both. I actually prefer the formal and feel happier in it. I will also say you'l get admiring looks from a lot of people; many I think who might think "Oh I wish we would have dressed up too". Go for it!