8-Day Christmas Cruise on Adventure of the Seas, Southern Caribbean (lots of pics!)

[Aviator of the Seas]

I'd like to nominate LittleMissMagic's review of the Adventure of the Seas and San Juan pre/post as the 2011 cruise critique of the Year. If not ever!

[LBumb]

agree

[KRUSA]

Count me in too...Great job LittleMissMagic!

 

Going on the Adventure again in 2 weeks and it was wonderful to read about your vacation and get a fresh perspective.

 

Well done and thanks for doing this!! :)

[windjamming]

Same here. I thoroughly enjoyed the review and find LittleMissMagic's posts to be poised, generous, and fun.

[LittleMissMagic]

It's okay, guys - I've gotten a lot of positive comments and so far, only one negative.

 

I found the "posiest OP" comment funny - I am a "posy" person. I'll own up to that. I've always got my hand on my hip and my legs in a proper stance. If I'm going to take pictures, I'm going to pose so I look nice. My sister and I are both pageant girls - what do you expect?

 

I post the kind of reviews I like to read. Perhaps it is because I am a visual person, but I enjoy reviews with lots of pictures. If I open a review and the first post is a mass of text, I skim through to see if there are any key words that interest me - if not, I move on.

 

My cruise review was written in the same format that I write my Walt Disney World trip reports, and I did not really take into account that because we were cruising the Caribbean and going to the beach almost every day, there were going to be a lot more swimsuit pictures. I'm sorry if I have offended anyone. That was not my intent. However, if you are cruising the Caribbean, you might take into consideration that you will see a lot of girls in bikinis.

[LittleMissMagic]

Loved the pics and review; How far are you from HHI? This one of our favorite vacation spots when we aren't cruising

 

I think it's about a four or five hour drive for us. I've actually only been to Hilton Head once as a child. I guess it's because we live in SC - we typically don't vacation in-state.

[bonagrad]

I like your style. I just might do my first review when we get back and I'll be lucky if it's half as good as this one!

[LittleMissMagic]

I really enjoyed your review; it was a nice change to read one from the point of view of someone in my age group. Also loved your dresses, of course! I have to ask: How many pairs of shoes did you take? I bet you guys had a lot of luggage... :D

 

Gosh, I'm not sure total - Rachel definitely had more shoes than me (she always does). I had four pairs of heels, three pairs of sandals, one pair of flip-flops, and one pair of tennis shoes, I believe (plus one pair of flats that I wore to/from PR) - 10 total! We also had 10 bags total - one bag just for shoes!

[Melodya1002]

I Loved your review! It's kinda hard to find reviews done by people my age, so it's really nice to read something written the same way I think :D excellent review...

 

Also, LOVE the lilly pulitzer dresses! :)

[dwdwnurse]

Thanks so much for the great review and pictures! We sail on the Adventure in 50 some days and seeing your pictures makes we wish we were sailing next week :)

 

Shoes are my weakness, too! There should be a cruise shoes anonymous club on ships!!

[Motleu]

Great review! Informative and entertaining at the same time. Well done! As for Clemson - blech! haha. Sorry. Buckeye fan here. And I have been miserable (at least the hoops team is doing well)! You cruise alot so please do more reviews!

[birdylady]

I've very much enjoyed your review and since we'll be on Adventure in less than 2 months this was very informative. Like you, I do major research ahead of time. Luckily, hubby is like me too in that regard. I look forward to (as they say) 'the rest of the story' (i.e. the airport). The one thing that kept running through my mind with all the pictures of you and sis are WOW, how great is that. They seem like Best Friends. I can't even begin to imagine how super it is to have a sister that is a best friend (not having a sister at all).

 

Also, if I may, I have a few more things I wanted to reply to (trying not to take away from your thread).

 

The two gentlemen which you do not where they are from; The one to the right is a Danish hotel owner living in Malaga, Spain, the other is his partner, indian-Spanish. They do not dear to fly, so they started their cruise nov 07 in Malaga, Transatlantic, and they will be back in Mlaga in the spring, when Adventure returns to malaga after the eastbound transatlantic cruise. I think they said they would visit St. Thomas 18 times. I spoke to them on the transatlantic. They must have had tons of cloths with them ,because every night they came down to the lower level in the MDR, dressed up in new costumes every night, with wigs most of the times. One of the last nights, all the guest applauded them. It was a kind of enterainment to see these to guys arrive after all others were seated, and we waited to see them come down escorted by a female officer.

From what you wrote it sounds like they will be on the Adventure through the end of the So. Carribbean sailings for this spring. I would imagine that means they'll be there when we're there the end of March. I hope.

 

So do you have any suggestions for the ports of Cozumel or Falmouth Jamaica (feel free to Ochos Rios/Montego Bay if you've been there). Thanks :)

Not to step on any toes, but I can't recommend highly enough going to Chakanaab park and swimming with dolphins. You can book through the park. Do the Royal Swim. Was our highlight of that trip.

 

Lastly,

I have two questions for you, would you by ANY chance have a copy of the cruise compass? I'm going on the same route! (Well, somewhat..our cruise is 7 days, not 8) And is there a Ben & Jerry's? I loved enjoying an ice cream each night on the Liberty :D

 

Also, saw this link to a posting of the Cruise Compass for our itinerary.

http://cruisecompassesadventure.shut...com/pictures/8

 

 

Thanx again,

Erika

[lexluthor]

 

Not to step on any toes, but I can't recommend highly enough going to Chakanaab park and swimming with dolphins. You can book through the park. Do the Royal Swim. Was our highlight of that trip.

We also went to Chakanaab. Took a cab there and when we got there, we had no intention of doing the dolphin swim, but the had people standing there offering large discounts it and made it a no-brainer.

 

IIRC, you can also rent snorkel gear and do snorkel off the beach. I recall it being pretty decent snorkeling.

 

The park was relatively empty when we were there.

 

Would also highly recommend the trip there. Huge savings over similar ship sponsored excursions.

[LittleMissMagic]

I've very much enjoyed your review and since we'll be on Adventure in less than 2 months this was very informative. Like you, I do major research ahead of time. Luckily, hubby is like me too in that regard. I look forward to (as they say) 'the rest of the story' (i.e. the airport). The one thing that kept running through my mind with all the pictures of you and sis are WOW, how great is that. They seem like Best Friends. I can't even begin to imagine how super it is to have a sister that is a best friend (not having a sister at all).

 

My sister seriously is my best friend!!! I realize now how lucky I am to have her. We've always been great friends - growing up, we were perfect playmates. My mother says that she wanted us so close in age so we'd always have a friend. I'm really glad that my sister is so fun and that we get along so well.

 

It was really weird for us, because we kept meeting people our age who were talking about how they were so glad to be escaping their families. It offended Rachel on the first night when a guy made a toast to "finally escaping our parents" - we go on vacation to be with our parents.

[LittleMissMagic]

Hello, all! I survived my first architecture review of the semester!!!!!! Three all-nighters and still going strong! (Okay, okay... I slept for 10 hours last night :D)

 

If you don't mind, I'm going to pick up where I left off and finish our stay in Puerto Rico. Since Puerto Rico is a beautiful departure port, I have some lovely pictures I would like to share. (BTW - I think I said this earlier, but we had a GREAT embarkation in PR and totally recommend it as a great port to sail from. Even if our embarkation was terrible, the beauty of San Juan would over-compensate. We love sailing from here and will definitely be back in the future!!!)

 

We hit the beach in the morning. It was mostly sunny with random storm clouds. However, the waves were washing up the beach very high. We had to carefully guard our things in our laps or else the waves would take them. People were chasing their shoes up the beach!

 

 

 

There's the sun...

 

 

Cruise ship... that we're not on... wahhhhh!!!

 

 

[LittleMissMagic]

We went up to the room mid-afternoon to get ready to go to Old San Juan for some shopping.

 

 

 

 

We decided to walk it. The doorman told my dad that it was a short 20-30 minute walk. I would describe it more as 45-min to an hour!!! :eek: The first part of the walk was breezy and beautiful, but then we got into a more traffic-y area, and it wasn't as scenic and kind of scary.

 

The beach at the Condado...

 

 

Tell me I'm not selling you on San Juan, right now...

 

Edited January 28, 2012 by LittleMissMagic

[LittleMissMagic]

 

 

 

This is how we roll...

 

 

[LittleMissMagic]

 

 

 

 

 

[LittleMissMagic]

 

Closer to downtown, there were a lot of tripping hazards...

 

Do not worry - no one was harmed in the making of this photo.

 

 

LOVE Spanish architecture!

 

 

 

[LittleMissMagic]

 

[LittleMissMagic]

We came to Old San Juan tonight specifically to buy rings. It's tradition for Rachel to buy a ring on every cruise (for the past three years or so). I decided that I wanted a ring this time, too. We hit up Venetian Jeweler's and both found rings there.

 

Here's a picture of my bling. It's Caribbean Topaz - good price.

 

 

By the time we got our rings (I was decided in the first 15 minutes - Rachel took an hour!!!), all of the other stores were closing. So, we went to eat dinner at a Mexican restaurant we stumbled upon - I forgot to take a picture of the sign so I'd remember the name.

 

This sequence of pictures describes our relationship perfectly:

 

We took a cab back home - no way we were walking!!!

[setsail]

 

It was really weird for us, because we kept meeting people our age who were talking about how they were so glad to be escaping their families. It offended Rachel on the first night when a guy made a toast to "finally escaping our parents" - we go on vacation to be with our parents.

 

:DWhen I read this, the first thing that came to my mind

 

"We are the people our parents warned us about"....being fans you know what I mean:)

[LittleMissMagic]

The next day, the waves were coming up the beach REALLY far!!! Well, we sat there, and the water was coming up under our chairs every so often. We had a table so that we could put our stuff on it. Then all of a sudden... A GIANT ROGUE WAVE THAT ALMOST TOOK MY IPHONE! Luckily, Rachel snatched it up right before it hit. That wave went clear up the beach, soaking everyone!!!! That was IT! Rachel and I were DONE! So we went to the pool.

 

 

Well, a couple of hours later, the sun had moved so that the pool was completely shaded. Mom came and told us that Dad had moved our chairs to higher ground. So, we went to sit for a little bit before going up to the room to change and go back to Old San Juan.

 

Rachel and I sat there, watching the waves, pointing out what might be a good one. "That one has potential... ahh, disappointing." "That one... nope." And then... "This one - yeah, it's going to be this one." And we just sat there and watched it come OVER OUR HEADS, PUSHING US AGAINST THE BACK OF OUR LOUNGERS AND SOAKING US COMPLETELY! Seriously - I got sandblasted and was completely under water. Thank goodness my dad had the bag full of things and held it up high below his head - still, the bottom of it got wet. This wave went all the way up the beach!!! But at that point... it was funny. Because Rachel and I saw it come and our things were okay. We decided that no wave could top that (if there was one, we didn't want to meet it) and went up to our rooms to change for downtown.

 

[LittleMissMagic]

:DWhen I read this, the first thing that came to my mind

 

"We are the people our parents warned us about"....being fans you know what I mean:)

 

:D :D :D - I love that song!!!!

[LittleMissMagic]

This time, we took a cab downtown so we could get there in time to do some shopping!

 

 

 

We finally came across the good stores - there was a street with Dooney & Bourke AND Coach - we were in heaven!!!

 

We went crazy in the Dooney & Bourke store, but then Rachel couldn't make up her mind on whether or not she should get the totebag she had selected until we checked out the Coach store. So we went on to Coach, and I chose a pretty gold over-the-shoulder bag that I thought would be good for my study abroad in Italy next spring (the Clemson architecture department requires us to spend one semester abroad at one of the three fluid campuses - Barcelona, Spain, Genoa, Italy, or Charleston, SC - I learned just this week that I will be going to ITALY, my first pick!!!), and a cute passport cover.

 

Rachel decided that she didn't want anything there, so she and Dad went back to the D&B store.... and they had just closed! NOOOOO!!!! We had left purses in there! :eek: We'd just have to come back first thing tomorrow. :D