Live-ish (hopefully) Adventure of the Seas 9/9 - 9/16

Hello all,

I have been actively participating for about 5 months on these forums now, and I want to return the favor! I loved reading live reports, and I want to try my hand at it. I recently saw that with T-mobile they have free data for Aruba, Bonaire, St. Maarten, and of course San Juan. That just leaves sea days and Curacao I won't be able to post. Hopefully, this works out, if not I will just post up until we leave San Juan and as soon as we get back with lots of detail!

So, about us: My boyfriend James and I will be going on our FIRST cruise on AOS out of San Juan. We spent a lot of time deciding whether or not to try a cruise. Our last vacation was to Nepal last November. We spent $1700 each for a full two week vacation including airfare, very nice accommodations, and eating at all the nice places. Plus $200 on a thing called ParaHawking - look it up. Best money I have ever spent. So, when we were looking at a vacation this time around it was a little shocking to see how much it would cost. I guess you have to pay a premium to NOT have Hep. A in your water...:rolleyes:

Anyway, I did some (a lot of) research, saw that the Southern Caribbean was much less likely to be affected by hurricane season and booked! Guess I forgot to pay attention to the fact San Juan IS NOT SOUTHERN. Cut to me hearing about Irma late last week and becoming obsessive about checking the models. Right now, I am feeling relatively confident we will get there. Our flight is a red eye out of Denver on Thursday to Miami, and a 7:20am out of Miami to San Juan on Friday. American Airlines is giving people the option to rebook with no fees, however when I called them just to see what they recommended the lady said she thought we were well positioned to be just fine. Irma should be gone for about 36 hours by the time we arrive, and it won't have landed in Miami yet. Crossing our fingers that this doesn't become the AOS live-ish that never was. (All the people in the path are in my thoughts, I know my vacation pales in comparison to what they are going through.)

So, today we finished up last minute shopping. YAY for labor day clearance sales of summer stuff! I don't think I paid more than $10 for a single item I bought. We have a guide dog puppy in training that has a sitter all set up for him (black lab, name is Orion, five months). The two cats get to stay home and have a friend pop in every other day. They will be thrilled to have the place to themselves without annoying people or a puppy constantly trying to play.

If anyone is taking AOS soon, feel free to ask any questions! I will try to be as helpful as possible.

We also have a T-mobile plan that provides free data on ports you mentioned.

Enjoy your cruise! Looking forward to your updates from those ports.

Be warned that the free international data with T-Mobile is at 2G speeds which can be far slower than you may realize/remember from the good old days when mobile internet was 'new'. Your phone will still connect to 3G or LTE and show it as such, but your data will be throttled.

The last couple times I've traveled I've gone ahead and bought a data pass so I'll still get LTE speeds. It's $20 for 10 days with a 1 GB cap. I was traveling or work though, so they paid for it ;) I probably wouldn't on a cruise though, since it only works in ports.

Enjoy your cruise, and hopefully Irma behaves!

Can't wait for your reporting! I hope everything goes well with your flights to San Juan :)

Someone else posted concerns about flying into miami then san jaun, some one suggested maybe fly to chicago then to san juan so you wouldnt be flying into a potential hurricane

Someone else posted concerns about flying into miami then san jaun, some one suggested maybe fly to chicago then to san juan so you wouldnt be flying into a potential hurricane

That was me posting! I just switched to South Carolina instead of Miami layover. I know it could also be in the path, but not for quite a while and I feel a lot better not flying into Miami a day before a major hurricane is supposed to hit.

Lol sorry, didnt pay attention to names. Good move on ur part.

I just googled the ParaHawking site and passed it to my daughter - she is geeking out over it! I think it's now on the top of her bucket list.

I'm guessing based on photos I've seen today, you won't be going to St. Maarten. It will be interesting to see what port they substitute...maybe Barbados?

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I live in Tampa,Fl and fly out Saturday for Adventure 9/9, Miami airport maybe closed Friday due to evacuations and weather. Keeping my fingers crossed my flight does not get canceled.

Update: Nothing you don't already know. San Juan is currently in the thick of it. Looks like the eye made a turn north, so hopefully it isn't getting as hammered as poor St. Maarten. If I do make it to the cruise, I am almost 100% certain we won't be visiting there. I almost wish we could just to get some badly needed dollars in there. I just can't imagine what the people there are going through, specifically the residents. The airport was absolutely trashed. It will be interesting to see how long it takes before regular service starts up there again.

As for my flight, I switched it to layover in Charleston instead of Miami. I know it looks like Irma is headed that way, but I feel much better about my flight to there than to Miami on Friday. Seems to me everything is riding on two things - how San Juan fares, and if our flights can get there. Worst case to me is we go to Charleston and immediately have to turn around due to a cancelled flight or cruise. And for someone who hates flying and only sucks it up because I imagine my upcoming adventure and how it will all be worth it, that is just not a fun thought for me. My brother is a pilot, he just does not get me...

Tomorrow we depart for the airport at 10pm (ugh, but best and cheapest option since we wanted some time in San Juan without taking too much time off of work). I am absolutely slammed with stuff I have to do that isn't vacation related tomorrow, so I really need to get on top of packing. I am finding it hard however to get motivated to do so. I just keep checking news of how San Juan is doing.

As for ParaHawking and Nepal, I cannot say enough good about it. I felt 100% safe there the entire time, and the people were so gracious and accommodating. We met for the ParaHawking at a little storefront and they told us to wait for the car. Well about 30 minutes later a tiny little car pulls up and we knew it was ours because the hawk, Bob, was sitting in the front seat! It was surreal. After we were done with the ride, they take you to the little area where they rehabilitate injured birds and the owner puts together pictures for you if you got the package (which was totally worth it). They then educate you a bit about their cause which is truly amazing. Then, since the owners were headed to town, they loaded us up in their car with their beautiful two children and took us back! Best money I have ever spent.

Any word on how the Pan American pier weathered the storm?

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Any word on how the Pan American pier weathered the storm?

 

 

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Haven't heard much about the piers yet. Did see that the airport has flights coming and going so that is a good sign! I know the majority of the island is without power.

Haven't heard much about the piers yet. Did see that the airport has flights coming and going so that is a good sign! I know the majority of the island is without power.

Deleted.

Haven't heard much about the piers yet. Did see that the airport has flights coming and going so that is a good sign! I know the majority of the island is without power.

You should mean a large chunk of the population is without power. The entire south of the island is fine.

Royal just announced your ship will depart on schedule, skip St. Maarten and will overnight in Aruba.

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Wishing you all safe travels and I will be keeping up with this review to make sure

Well, nothing good to report. Recent RC update:

Adventure of the Seas: September 9 Southern Caribbean cruise

We plan to operate this sailing as planned on Saturday. However, given the impact of Hurricane Irma in St. Maarten, we will be replacing this port with an overnight in Aruba.

Given the changes to these sailings, if you are unable to travel and need to cancel your cruise, we will provide you with a 100% future cruise credit. Pre-booked shore excursions will be refunded to your original form of payment, and you will have the ability to book excursions in our new ports of call once onboard.

Also just called American Airlines. They say that San Juan airport is technically open, however with very limited scheduling. All Delta, Jet Blue, America, and United flights for today (in and out) are cancelled. Our flight is tonight at 1:15am to South Carolina, and from there to San Juan at 9:30. They said they can't confirm yet whether or not our flight to San Juan will continue.

So WHAT TO DO? We got insurance, but it won't kick in unless our flight is officially cancelled. We really don't want to fly round trip to South Carolina for no reason, but that looks like what we might have to do. We also figure there is a chance we can take RC up on their cruise credit and try again in a few weeks and that American might be willing to give us flight vouchers. That would essentially mean we aren't out any money.

HOWEVER, how cool would it be to take a leap of faith and actually get there?! I bet the cruise would be far less crowded and they might even throw in some freebies for getting there.

Decisions decisions...what would you do?

Wow, that's a tough one...and complicating things further is Jose, now a CAT 2 and supposed to be in the area Saturday. If it wasn't for that, I was going to suggest trying to connect in Baltimore and give a go. Seems like too many obstacles...between the lack of power in San Juan, flight uncertainty, Jose and possible rough seas...I'm glad it's you making the decision and not me. My turn will come in 5 weeks. Best of luck to you...we'll be following along!

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Royal just announced your ship will depart on schedule, skip St. Maarten and will overnight in Aruba.

 

 

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That's a good layover! Aruba is nice. Enjoy.

Irma has passed Puerto Rico. As long as the airport is still up and running (aka has power, employees can get to it, etc) I don't see why flights wouldn't resume. Might be delayed, and the flight might take longer as they navigate around the storm.

The airport is open, however American said operations are severely limited and unsure when exactly they will fully open again. I have heard they are running on generators and reduced staff. Looks to be only tiny airlines coming in and out. All large American carriers have cancelled everything for the entire day despite the airport being "open".

I am thinking I am going to try my hardest to get there. If we get a night in South Carolina hoping for a flight out Saturday if ours tomorrow morning doesn't go then so be it. My insurance will kick in for a long layover due to delay and kick in again if I can't get to San Juan.

So, are you going?

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Yes we are! Just finished packing and getting picked up with a friend at 10pm.

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Yes we are! Just finished packing and getting picked up with a friend at 10pm.

 

 

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Good luck! Look forward to hearing all the details of your trip...

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