My Adventure review, Mom perspective

As sad as I am to be writing a review with the harsh reality that my voyage is over, I am thrilled to be able to give a little back to the site that helped my excitement build for months! What follows will be my day by day review of our cruise on Adventure of the Seas 7 night Bahamas cruise out of Bayonne, NJ.

Meet the cast:

Me (Lillian). The Mom. The packer of all things. The schedule carrying, sunblock applying, rule following, 43 year old.

Aaron. The Dad. The carrier of all packed things. The easy going, who needs a schedule, I'll follow you, 44 year old.

Blake. The 16 year old son. The teen. The attitude packing, when can I go explore, I'll try it my way, TEEN.

Brayden. The middle child. The tween. The loving, I'll try anything, let's hit the buffet asap, 12 year old.

Gianna. The girl. The flowery backpack carrying, when can I get in the pool, get me to the rock wall, ok what's next, always on the go, 11 year old.

Pre Day 1.

We drove to Bayonne, NJ the night before our departurre. So many things that could go wrong, did. We realized we forgot a few key items about an hour into our journey and had to double back. I truly thought that would be the worst of it.

I was wrong.

At 8:45 pm Brayden told us that he heard something funny coming from the back tire. We pull over. The tire is shredding. We are in the middle of PA. and it's almost 9 pm with nothing around us. Aaron slowly drives to the only thing we could find off of the expressway, Walmart. The service department closes in 6 minutes. We pull back and a service tech comes out right away. Bless this amazing man that said he'd work over and help us out. We are now the proud new owners of 4 brand new tires. During the hour it took for the new tires to be put on I successfully locate the manager and heap praise on this man that had no reason to stay an extra hour past his shift to help us out like he did. There are truly amazing people in this world.

3 am. The time we arrive to our hotel in Jersey. We made it. Safe, exhausted beyond all reason, but still truly excited for what tomorrow will bring.

8 am. Family wake up time. We grab some breakfast from the hotel, run to the liquor store for our very important bottles of wine, and hit a few little stores to kill a little bit of time and grab a few last minute items.

11 am. We head to Bayonne and get the all important first glimpse of our ship. Remember, this is a first for us. So for anyone out there that will scoff at my amazement at the sheer size of this behemoth of a ship that we are about to board, please just try to see it from my eyes. And even better, my kid's eyes.

WHOA NELLY that is a SHIP! The squeals and "NO WAY" statements coming from my car right now are enough to excite anyone. Seriously?? This is going to be home for the next week??

Bring

It

On

Day 1.

It's official. It's day 1 and we are parked at Cape Liberty parking deck. We've made it through the lines in under 10 minutes. Everyone is starry eyed looking around and amazed at how fast and smooth this check in process actually is. We even stopped and had the traditional first photo taken.

We have crossed over onto the ship! We step out of the way and snap a quick picture. And then we are off!

I knew the Windjammer would be really crowded from everything I have read on here so we decided to head up to the sports deck to look around. Oh but what is this we have here? The ice cream machine? Don't mind if they do.

I'm loving your review and your enthusiasm!

Ahhhh, such a great start. Can't wait to read the rest.

I remember the feeling of awe we had when stepping onboard for our very first cruise. And it was the "little" Majesty of the Seas. We still get butterflies when taking that first step off of the gangway and onto the ship.

Dan.

As the lead "cast member", you left something out of your description----great author! Beautiful writing and beautiful family! Looking forward to the rest of your review.

Ice creams in hand we do more open mouthed gazing around the ship. Look!! There's the rock wall!! EEKKKK! THE SLIDES!! Those clear parts are going to scare us but we truly can't wait. The kids can't believe the size of everything. TWO pools? Jacuzzi tubs too?? There is a lot of "Mom, oh my gosh MOM, look!" happening. I'm a pretty emotional person. I call myself a companion crier. I tend to cry happy and sad tears even when I'd truly prefer not to. Well let's just say that their excitement had me whisking a few tears away here and there.

For me, the ship felt like I was with an old friend. I had studied all the reviews on CC. I had watched the Youtube tours. I did my homework and the amazing feeling of standing right there, in that moment, watching my family take it all in was honestly everything I hoped it would be.

Ok, emotions aside, let's get to our room already! These carry ons are way heavier than they seemed to be about 1 1/2 hours ago.

Que the first time we hit the stairs. With us the stairs will become a way of life and for me personally, the permission slip to indulge in the extra desserts. (Am I right here people? More stairs = more desserts??)

We arrive at deck 7 just a few minutes before the official time of 1:30. The magical time when the doors open and the crowds descend upon their cabins. We had two interior cabins that were 2 doors apart. 7511 and 7517.

Ahh there it is, the muffled and accented announcement that the rooms are ready!! Everyone struggles to their feet under the weight of their carry ons and we walk the length of the ship to the very front to our rooms. TA DA!! It's time to drop all extra weight and HIT THE BUFFET!! Oh, and the rooms are great. Sorry, we were all a little ravenous at this point. Plenty of room. The kids get one room, we get the other. Wary worrier that I am we will decide if we will rearrange the rooms and who is sleeping where later. Because, as I mentioned, it's time to EAT!

Great review to far! I can almost taste that ice cream. You and your family will no doubt have some great memories to look back on.

The Windjammer was, well, ridiculous. I consider myself somewhat of a foodie insomuch as I love food. All the reviews I read that had a negative tilt to Windjammer had me ready to accept whatever prison like cafeteria food they were going to try to push on us. WELL well well let me tell you about my first meal of Prime rib, horseradish sauce, mashed potatoes, lentils, more fruit than I probably should have ate, and roasted veggies. Heyyyyy, don't judge. I ate last at 8 am and it was now 2. I was pretty hungry and, well, down right thrilled at the choices.

Remember folks, it's a buffet. There will be things you don't like. Sooooo try, try again. I'm pretty sure no one has died from starvation on a cruise. Wink wink.

Here is my ONE and ONLY nod to the great food debate; the desserts on the buffet. My word are they beautiful. So colorful and glossy. Strangely though, very tasteless. Even those Ranger cookies? I'll just call them the best of the worst. That way I won't lose some of you readers. Haha! Keep the faith on the desserts though, because the main dining room is coming!

You have redheads! I love redheads! My mom is one so I'm especially partial to redheaded kids.

I'm excited by the enthusiasm of your group. Looking forward to hearing about more of your trip.

And I agree with you about the desserts. It's kind of like the dessert display case in most diners and restaurants. Pretty to look at, not so much to eat. And I'm not a coconut fan so the Ranger cookies don't do it for me. I'm partial to the chocolate chip ones. And anything that resembles chocolate melting cake.

Thank you all for the love and replies so far! I’m going to keep plugging away at this so I can get as much covered as I can quickly. Sorry to not reply individually, and I hope no one sees that as rude. I so appreciate all of the responses! They’re keeping me excited to keep writing.

Wow, we leave in 15 days and your posts got me so excited! I'll be with my wife, 12yo daughter and 14yo son, their frist times as well. Can't wait!!!

Would you mind if I changed your thread title and replaced AOS with Adventure? Some might think of Anthem or Allure.

Not at all Bob, thank you!

So the rest of Day 1 went something like this:

Me: Hey guys the schedule has a sail away party and a first time cruise tour. Anyone interested? No? Ok wanna go see the teen room? No? You want to sign up for the flow rider and slides, well sure then, let's go! Oh now you want to sign up for the rock wall? Yeah let's do that too. Ok teen room now? Ok.

So Mom tip, be prepared that first day to chase and follow the kids around. I'm a controlling one and I was starting to feel the stress of all the things the schedule said we could be doing and that, I felt, we were missing. Signing up for all the things they wanted to do was very necessary, albeit not very glamorous, and since it wasn't available to do before online it had to be done.

Somehow I did manage to get Blake to go to the Spa raffle with me. They really do give away some great prizes that you need to be present to win. So if you want to relax at a pretty fun little raffle for about half an hour, I'd say try to get to it. 4-5 prizes of cash to be applied to services were given away. We weren't winners but we still had fun.

Sail away time! I even remembered to snap the photo when we went under the bridge! SCORE one for my memory of posts on here. It was really cool to see the slides as we went under the bridge.

And suddenly it was time to get ready for dinner. The kids were now signed up for everything, Brayden rode the Flowrider what felt like 75 times, Gianna and Blake hit the slides and I watched everyone and took pictures and even read a little of my book.

Main dining room. It is beautiful. The kids love it too. Everyone made their choices and now we are talking about what to do after we eat.

Dinner arrives. Fish of the day was a miss for Aaron and Blake. They weren't big fans. Brayden didn't think it was bad at all. Escargot was fun to try for them all. I love escargot so it was cool to see their reactions. Gianna and I had MORE prime rib and it was perfectly cooked. The desserts. Oh the desserts. The creme brulee could win awards. Delicious.

Ok now we are off to the Welcome aboard 9 pm show. Great preview of the shows and the comedian was really funny!

And just like in all the reviews I'd read before...we were so tired. With our super late night the day before it wasn't long before everyone was yawning and thinking about our beds at sea. Just to make it official, we did go to the promenade and everyone had a piece of fruit and the kids tried out the pizza.

Then it was time to lay down our heads and dream of tomorrow's adventures. And for the record, the kids did stay in the room by themselves and I was able to deal with that. Mainly because I was so very tired. And they felt safe and very grown up.

Good night Day 1.

THE creme brûlée. It deserves its own post. It truly does.

We are on Adventure beginning July 6th!! Can’t wait....

Good morning Day 2! Whoops, somehow we forgot to set an alarm and everyone slept until 9. At least everyone was refreshed. Late night showers before bed meant we were able to be out and at the buffet by 9:30. And we took the stairs, another theme of our cruise.

I promise I won't keep talking about food only, but breakfast really was great. Again, soooooooo much food. Bacon and eggs (not scrambled, those bad boys are more than I can take a chance on), roasted potatoes and hot tea. Let's get this day started!

We hit the pool after breakfast and later that morning it was ice skating too. Oh and the cruise compass alerted the husband and myself to the $2 mimosa deal. Yes please. 2 each thank you very much.

This was an at sea day for us and we found it relaxing. We decided prior to this trip to opt out of all of the "extras" and see what we would add for our next cruise. (because, oh yes, there WILL be a next cruise) So we didn't have any drink plans or specialty dining. We had a Pina Colada poolside in the late afternoon. It was picture perfect. The kids were everywhere! I'm pretty sure we did all the major things. Rockwall, Gianna LOVED it! She climbed both sides and rang the bell but wasn't able to get to the bell on the middle leg. She has vowed to ring that dang bell before the week ends. Brayden is quickly mastering the Flowrider and Blake is doing what teens do. Looking cool, right? Looking cool and hitting the waterslides, haha! Good stuff. And I think everyone ate at least 2 ice cream cones each. We're taking the stairs, remember?

I noticed on the compass that they give away charms in the promenade once a day. We picked up our sail away ones yesterday and today they advertised a Port Canaveral Charm so we all trooped down to pick one up. They're really fun and totally free, so why not?

The kids decided to swim a bit and I wanted to touch up my nails before we were all going to go to the 5 pm General Knowledge Team Trivia in the Schooner Bar.

This decision would truly impact my day. If you're curious for the details feel free to read this post here https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2648285.

Once the craziness of THAT is over and the rest of the day continues we are back at dinner. Another amazing meal.

Tonight the younger two really want to watch a movie outside while chilling in the Jacuzzi. Blake wanted to go to the teen only ice skating. The outdoor movie was a blast! It was actually a great movie, "I Can Only Imagine" and Aaron and I grabbed a lounger pool side and watched it too.

Blake going to the teen club was the best idea he had and changed his cruising experience. That very night he made a great group of friends, 3 in particular, that he would spend a good chunk of the cruise with. We even ate meals with them, truly great kids. So if you are considering how the Teen Club experience would be for your kid, our experience was very positive and I'd say to let them try it on for size.

The kids each ordered a virgin pina colada today. For $5 it was a pretty good deal and they really liked them.

After the movie we went back to the Promenade Cafe, this would quickly become our late night tradition, enjoyed a snack and then made our way back to our cabins.

Day two ended with towel animals and a very exhausted me. Tomorrow we were arriving in Port Canaveral and I was ready to hit the land and enjoy the beach!

Good night Day 2.

OMG....this is absolutely wonderful!!!! I am enjoying every single second of it!!!