Blue Collar Diamond cruiser on the Adventure of the Seas Southern ABC Islands

Bill, Enjoying your cruise report. Getting ready to jump back on the Allure this Sunday. We'll be with a family & friends group of 12. Always enjoy cruising on the one of the big ladies. :) I will say, the CC roll call group on the Allure when we cruised with you and Gina is definitely among the best we've ever been a part of. (y) Our current roll call group is a lively bunch as well.

 

Thanks for posting the picture of the full face mask you bought for Gina. We've got a snorkel excursion booked with an independent tour provider, Cozumel H20, with 6 of our 12 going. I've ordered one, and it should arrive by Friday. Just hope I can get it into the luggage. LOL

 

Sounds like the waitstaff change made for more enjoyable dinners in the MDR after a rocky start. I've subscribed to your thread, so will continue to follow.

Thanks for replying, I wish I was going back on Allure, but it looks like 2 more years before we get back on one of the big girls. Enjoy Allure and Labadee, my countdown is back up to 300_+ days.

Ok, my slow pace may have lost some of you, but I'll wrap this up. All that is left if the final sea day and then our day in San Juan before departing for home.

Friday was a Sea Day headed back to San Juan. As I do on most sea days I get up in the morning and run a few slow miles on the track. I think I was closer to 7:30 this day. As much as I say I disconnect from the world and have no interest in the internet when I'm on a cruise, I go ahead and take advantage of the Free Day of internet we get for being Diamond members. As much fun as I've made of Royal's IT department, signing up for the internet and applying our "discount" is really easy and well implemented. So , something you haven't read in a review in a long time, "Hat's off to the Royal IT staff!"

The only bad part of the internet usage was I could have gotten the "surf" package for free, but the Surf and share was $7 I think. I knew from discussions here, Adventure didn't have the official VOOM we saw added to other ships, but they will still call it that. Boo for Royals marketing. I didn't tell Gina I did this as I wanted to compare her speed with mine. Most times it wasn't much different. Oh, well, I've wasted more money than that on other things.

I did start out walking a mile on the track before running and I did Facebook live for my friends. I did stop and watch people put down 5 or 6 towels by the pool and just walk off. I explained CHAIR HOGGING to my land based friends. I had to restart a couple of times walking around the ship when I lost a wireless connection. But it worked well enough for most of what we were doing. I logged into Southwest and verified my boarding status as part of the first group, then caught up on Facebook.

We eventually settled in the solarium for the day and of course no seats were available. I manged to catch someone leaving and got a seat for my wife and I saw nearby on the edge of the hottub reading my book. A nice lady next to my wife said she was leaving when she finished her book and she would let me have her chair. So technically I reserved a chair for more than 30 minutes! (At least someone was in it) 40 minutes later I got that seat and sat next to my wife. I was in that seat for about an hour before I had my first dumb@ss attack. I had caught up on some email and Facebook and put my phone in my swim suit pocket. (Ain't hard to guess what I did was it?) Sure enough after about 90 minutes in the chair I went for a 5 minute swim in the pool. Did I mention this was a brand new Galaxy S8? When we did get back to the room to get ready for out last evening in the Diamond Club I found my phone in my pocked and realized what I did. I put in on the charger and it gave no indication that it was taking a charge. I accepted my medicine and packed it away for the trip home. When I got home I found it would take a wireless charge and actually turn on and work on a WIFI connection, but it wouldn't connect to the cellular network. Ok, after the $200 deductible on the phone insurance, the extra $7 for the internet doesn't seem as bad.

We got to the Diamond club, said our goodbyes and left a couple of last night tips for the staff. One of the couples from our dinner table was already here so we joined them. Soon one of the other couples from our table joined us leaving out only those Emeralds, and close friends, Jon and Penny who won't be diamond till 2019 :p We had a pleasurable evening and headed down to dinner.

Bill, it looks like you did the same tour in Curacao that I did. Though, we had to meet at 8:10 am in Studio B & we left the beach at around 12:30 pm, so we might have crossed paths in the parking lot at the beach. Why we had to meet that early, even though we were on the island until 11 pm, I'll never understand. Except for the Subway, none of the restaurants at the beach opened until 12 pm, even though there were a lot of people on the beach. I thought that the beach there was really nice. I did get some photos inside the distillery/museum.

Sorry to hear about your cell phone and it's unfortunate swim in the pool! :eek: The only reason that won't happen to my phone is that none of my swimsuits have pockets!

They make waterproof cases for cell phones that don't cost very much and protect your phone better than the ziplock bag I usually use. You can take your phone in the shallow water and use the phone's camera. I do not own one of the cases, but I have several friends who do and are very happy with them. They are also good to keep your phone dry if you need to take it with you on a dive. As I said, I use a ziplock bag. A good one, not one of the cheapies so it has a good seal. Just be sure the ziplock doesn't have any holes, and be sure your phone actually gets sealed into the bag.

After reading what I just wrote, I think I may need to take my own advice and order a couple of those cases for me and my DH! :D

The final night in the MDR was very nice. They saved the Lobster for the last night. I had the prime rib that was missing from the first night. It was very good,just what I expect from a cruise dinner. Service was perfect as it had been the last 3 days of the cruise. Right before bringing dessert, our waiter got the attention of all of her tables in the are and started a speech about giving the dining room staff a 10 and how they are whipped for hours if they get a 9. She also very specifically said, "If you rate the food and bar service as less than a 10 it is like punishing us." She also said that we would be getting the survey as soon as we get off the ship. Normally its taken a few days for the survey to show up, but she was correct at 9am the survey showed up in Jon and Penny's email. I would have to wait till I got home. The survey was a little different from last time I got off Oasis. This survey very specifically separated the dining room service,, bar service and food into separate questions. That was not the case after my Oasis cruise. All of my group said they were going give honest ratings as the survey was written. One of the questions on the survey that made me think Royal is definiitely listening to us was, "Did anyone ask you to rate them highly?" I think our waiter has seen this specific survey. We rated everything as honest as we good. That meant 10 for service 6 for food, and 7 for bar service.

After dinner we skipped the farewell show and the solarium hot tub and did what everyone hates, the packing and putting our your suitcases in preparation for being thrown off the ship. "Being thrown off the ship" is a self imposed feeling, the staff on the last day was as cordial and helpful as they were the first day. We ate one more breakfast in the MDR and then went to our assigned area for departure and got there right at our time and suddenly it was exactly 1 year, and 1 hour, ok perhaps 1 second till I am on a cruise ship again! (Maybe we will do a quick road trip/majesty cruise at the end of summer like last year if finances allow it.)

Giving my own school grades to the cruise:

Embarkation - A- Quick efficent check in, only needs more seating area like other ports.

Ship condition - A+ Given the age of the ship I found her to be in perfect condition, we were in a junior suite, I don't know if they have finished all the cabins on this ship, but ours was perfect. I didn't go looking for rust in places, nor did I see any being painted. I enjoyed the ship and every part of it.

Cabin and Cabin attendent A+ His name was "Ryan" The room was ready on time and we were never lacking. He did introduce himself on the first day and made a point to say hello when we passed him in the hall. If he hadn't we might have never seen him.

Hot tubs and pool.: A I've frequently give Royal bad grades in this category, Many times on Allure, Oasis, Majesty (pre 2016) we couldn't find a hot tub that was open and above 99F. They always had at least one open and warm in the solarium and main pool deck every night. THIS IS ALL I ASK. <Again I think Royal has been reading my posts and heard me.

Food - Dining room - C the work bland really comes to mind. One meal I felt good about all week. Chops - A While it was a trimmed down menu, both of our stakes were good. When I went on Freedom back in 2015 I tried the bacon appetizer and described it as one of the best things I have ever eaten. On Oasis it was horrible. On Adventure it was somewhere inbetween. I didn't eat it all so I could eat my steak. I had a medium NY strip and it was perfect. I had a bite of my wife's petit filet. Normally she gets it medium, but she ordered medium well. I thought mine was better. We did have a very nice anniversary there. Oh, I almost forgot, Pizza! There have been many threads that basically said that Royal has horrible pizza. Many times I wouldn't disagree. On this ship you could get pizza in the promenade and in the Windjammer. It was actually good. Now New Yorker's and Chicago-ins, don't get your hackles up, it wasn't that, but I found it acceptable and a good snack. I think they put more sauce on it, so even if it sat on the tray for 10 minutes, it wasn't dry.

Bar Service -A We only paid for 2 drinks all cruise, but we were with Jon and Penny who had the drink package. We also used our Diamond Voucher in a couple of bars with good serivce. They had no problems getting drinks and neither did we. There has been talk about bar service around the pools. On this cruise it was plentiful. I mainly noticed this because the last sea day was windy and I saw the crew members struggling to get the drinks to people around the pool without losing them. That made me notice that they were around frequently enough for everyone. The bar service in the Diamond club was also very good. We did feel well taken care of and the Diamond Concierge did a great job of making everyone welcome and he seemed interested in anything we had to say.

Excursions - In 4 ports we did 2 Royal excursions and 2 private excursions. I would rate the Royal excursions - B- They were adequate and ontime. They were the snorkle/catamaran on the MUSHI MUSHI in Bonaire, and the city tour in Curacao. We got a better value and satisfaction, at least I did from our private excursion - VIP Diving in Bonaire, and the Trikes Aruba. We will probably be talking about the trikes all year, the photos were a hit back home.

Departure - A, Very efficient, bags were there, we could have gotten a porter and went to a shorter line, but we were not in a hurry. The spaced people out that the lines never got real long. I would say we were in line 15 minutes for Customs. We did get to watch a drug sniffing dog in action.

Coming up - I will close with out with our morning/afternoon in OSJ before heading to our plane.

Sad to see this come to an end! Guess you'll just have to book another cruise! When's the next one?

Awesome review! Some of my favorite ports and one of my favorite ships. I also agree about Trikes Aruba - absolutely one of our favorite excursions. I really enjoyed following along on your vacation.

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Would you do the adventure out of cape liberty NJ?

Loyal2Royal

MOTS 11/04, NOTS 4/18,

Allure 9/17, Anthem 4/18

Would you do the adventure out of cape liberty NJ?

 

Loyal2Royal

MOTS 11/04, NOTS 4/18,

Allure 9/17, Anthem 4/18

I would consider one of the summer/early fall trips up into New England.

The problems with my picture hosting site has delayed this and disjointed my train of thought. Since my first cruise that had the Coke Freestyle machines (Allure 2013) I've mentioned something about them in my review. I also read what you have to say. That first experience on Allure was terrible, but people in the weeks before and the weeks after had no problem, so I read other reviews too. Part of that review also covers how many machines and how accessible they are. This was my first time on a Voyager class since the machines made their debut. There were two machines in the windjammer and two on the promenade. This seemed like a fair number for this size of ship. I rarely had to wait at all to use one. When I did wait it was usually behind that one person whose clock in their car is blinking 12 midnight all the time.

For this cruise I give the Freestyle machines a B- grade. With the above quantity and location of machines, I have access 24/7 with no wait. Even with the WJ closed, I could walk in an use a machine and get out. There were two malfunctions this week, one was undetected by the staff and went uncorrected. (I didn't notify anyone) On the machine in the WJ on the starboard side I noticed on day 1 that at the top of the main menu is a selection one side says ALL DRINKS and one side says ZERO CALORIE drinks. (this is from memory) If you want say regular coke you hit the upper left. Any diet drink you hit the upper right. That upper left main selection didn't work all week. If you wanted regular Coke, you had to use one of 3 other machines. Fortunately as many of you know I usually go for Coke Zero so I went to this machine first as it never had a line. On day 5, one of the promenade machines went down and wasn't fixed. While not a perfect record, it didn't inconvenience me at all.

Ok, I've been threatening to wrap this up. I think I previously mentioned departure was easy and efficient. We were in no hurry so the 20 minutes from finding our bags to getting through customs was no problem for us. All 4 of us had the same flight home and it wasn't till 3pm. Both Jon and I had read threads about people taking a cab to Barachina's restaurant, storing their bags there and touring around OSJ. Because of the overwhelming positive reports, we decided to do this. Knowing we had a 3pm flight I could have went to Guest Services and asked for the latest possible departure time. Since we booked our own flights I wasn't sure what we could get from the cruise line and we didn't even want to think about getting off the ship. We went out with departure group 7 and were walking off the ship by 8:45. We could have stayed on the ship longer, but this worked out ok and gave us more time in OSJ. We found a cab right away that knew where Barrachina's was and agreed to take all 4 of us and our bags there for some small fee. (I forgot to write it down, but we found it affordable. Cab drivers at the terminal are some of the most aggressive I have ever seen. Even though we had picked one and was walking to his cab, several other drivers tried to steal us away. Before you knew it, we were there.

Our cab driver gave us his card and told us to text him if we wanted him to take us to the airport and to give him 30 minutes notice. We thought he did a good job and we planned to text him. (more later)

We arrived around 10am. Don't be fooled by this sign, the place is open and ready for your luggage.

The gentlemen who took our bags politely told us that he worked only for tips and gave us a claim check. We were off and walking. I'm sure you have heard of the free hop on/hop off trolley. We noted barachinas was close to this one.

I guess I have to stop taking portrait style photos. Were were there maybe five minutes before a trolley arrived. Half the population of OSJ got off and then we got on. We were only on a few minutes when we all agreed to visit one of the forts. We were dropped off by an open air market where the ladies shopped and we chilled before walking to the nearby fort.

After a few hours of milling around the hot sun of San Juan and several hours after our last Windjammer fix, we were starting to get hungry. Jon and I sat in a bar drinking a Coke for about 30 minutes while the girls shopped nearby. During that time we didn't see a single trolley go buy. Jon pinned Barachina's location on google maps and we were about 4 blocks away, so we walked it, only stopping when the girls saw something shiny.

We got back to Barrachina's and thought we should give them our lunch business since they provided the luggage valet service. We were seated quickly. The place is a bit of an open air design, but the room we were seated in was cool and comfortable as it was probably approaching 90F outside.

A couple of power outlets were available for those who didn't take their new phones swimming. The menu was a balance of local foods and standard American cuisine. It said on their menu that their pina-colada's were legendary, so a few of those were had. Service was good, about the time our food arrived we texted our taxi driver and he replied right away. Had he not, lots of taxi's were available. He came, we went home. End of story! Actually if any questions come up, or I find more interesting pictures I'll be around. I'm not busy annoying my next roll call.

Great review, can't wait for our turn on Adventure and the trikes...

Thanks for the review and photos.

Thanks for the review, Bill. I have enjoyed following you and Gina on your cruise. I am looking forward to meeting both of you aboard the Symphony, and chatting with you on that roll call for the next 705 days until we sail. :cool:

Thanks for the review, Bill. I have enjoyed following you and Gina on your cruise. I am looking forward to meeting both of you aboard the Symphony, and chatting with you on that roll call for the next 705 days until we sail. :cool:

Thanks, at least we both have at least one more cruise before then.

Bill -

Can you answer a few timing questions for me?

Which nights were formal dining?

Did they have a "white night" and if so, which night?

On which night was the 70s party? The Quest?

Thanks!

Bill -

Can you answer a few timing questions for me?

 

Which nights were formal dining?

Did they have a "white night" and if so, which night?

On which night was the 70s party? The Quest?

 

Thanks!

I hesitate to answer the formal night question, be sure to make sure the itinerary matches. The first formal night was Night 2, St martin, which I thought was odd as it was the day before a Sea day. Why make people on early traditional dining get back early if they want to participate. But thanks to the roll call I was aware of it. I was pretty sure from the roll call that the 2nd formal night was day 5, in Curacao, but it ended up being Day 5 Bonaire. I know there was a 70's party, but I didn't attend, I think from seeing it on TV later that it was Day 3 the Sea day, but I could be wrong.

Do you have the compass or did I miss them.

Do you have the compass or did I miss them.

I don't bring compasses back, heck, I'm not even sure I looked at one all week!

Great review!

Although, it’s “ Trikes Aruba”...tons of fun!

Trikes Cozumel kinda sucks.

We love Columbus, Martini Modern Italian is one of our favorite places ( Pittsburghers)

Great review!

 

Trikes Cozumel kinda sucks.

 

Thanks for the heads up, we've been to Cozumel many times and thought we might try this.

Hey, you might enjoy it... we just felt it was a letdown compared to Trikes Aruba ( same company). I detailed why in my Escape review.