Summit out of San Juan during spring break...nightmare?

[micmacmissy]

We're looking at a cruise during our school spring break for 2017....Easter falls late that year, so it would be the week of April 8 (Easter is the 16th).

 

Two options:

 

Summit out of San Juan, or RCCL Adventure of the Seas out of San Juan.

 

Does summit attract a party/spring break crowd? We are a family of 4 but REALLY want to avoid that. Any thoughts?

 

Also, anyone sailed both and have an opinion of one over the other? We are normally X cruisers but did do one RCCL when we took the kids. X is pricing out $1,000 less than RCCL for a similar itinerary.

 

Thanks in advance!

[k9x8]

oops. Never mind.

Edited January 17, 2016 by k9x8

[Algebralovr]

A lot of spring breakers don't fly to the ship, so I would not expect there to be as many of them. Most of the college students I know who head to the beach or to a cruise car pool to get there, even from Missouri.

[DrivesLikeMario]

We had to move our March, 2017 cruise to April due to the Summit being chartered. I'm dreading going the first week of April and am hoping the Summit doesn't get a lot of spring breakers. I'm sure there will be plenty of locals, I'm just hoping not so many out-of-control party-types. Anyone sail during that period? :confused:

[illiniwahoo]

April is late for college spring break. Some start late feb, but I don't know of any in April. So I wouldn't worry about the party crowd. I would look up when Puerto Rico spring break is. If it falls the same week is could be very crowded with families.

 

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[stratixman]

RCCL more likely to attract the college crowd, if in fact the college crowd is willing to spend the bucks to fly to San Juan. My suspicion is that neither cruise would likely be inundated with sprig breakers. If Celebrity is cheaper I would be inclined to go with them, but RCCL probably offers a bit more in the way of activities that would appeal to a younger crowd.

[ozark74]

We're looking at a cruise during our school spring break for 2017....Easter falls late that year, so it would be the week of April 8 (Easter is the 16th).

 

Two options:

 

Summit out of San Juan, or RCCL Adventure of the Seas out of San Juan.

 

Does summit attract a party/spring break crowd? We are a family of 4 but REALLY want to avoid that. Any thoughts?

 

Also, anyone sailed both and have an opinion of one over the other? We are normally X cruisers but did do one RCCL when we took the kids. X is pricing out $1,000 less than RCCL for a similar itinerary.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

We have cruised the Summit 3 times during spring break when my wife was still teaching. Never had a problem with a spring breakers. Summit is not a party boat. More of a family boat. The spring breakers would probably go out of a Florida port. Never had a problem getting a deck chair on the pool deck. Been on the Adventure of the Seas once and have not been back on any RCCL ship since. It was the worse cruise. Lots of kids running wild, pushing all the elevator buttons all day long. It was crazy and the food was not that good.

Edited January 18, 2016 by ozark74

[az_tchr]

Celebrity does not attract Spring Breakers or the party crowd. After an incident a while ago on Connie where Celebrity threw a number of them off the ship can almost guarantee no heavy duty partying on Celebrity.

[davekathy]

In 2012 and 2015 we did a B2B Cruise on the Adventure in late March early April out of San Juan. No issues. In 2014 we also did a B2B Cruise on the Summit during late March early April out of San Juan. No issues.

[LzyCruiser_NWA]

We did his cruise last spring break (last week of March 2015) and there was 0 rowdy spring breaker to be found.

 

To be frank. Most college kids are too broke to fly down for a 7 days cruise.

[Mirage]

We have been on both. The adventure had significantly more kids.

 

Our kids were with us and and were surprised the kids on Adventure were a bit more rambunctious.

 

If you have a concern, I would pick the kids and our favorite, Cekebrity.

 

Mirage

[Iamcruzin]

I believe that San Juan is the destination for Spring Breakers and not a cruise ship. My son and his friends are headed for San Juan in March. Puerto Rico has become a popular destination for Spring break because of the drinking age. You would have to be at least 21 to book a cruise and be able to drink. Also Celebrity wouldn't be the choice for college aged kids. There will probably be more families sailing at that time.

[nat9511]

I went on both the Summit (2012) and Adventure (2013) out of San Juan the week before Easter. It was spring break time for the schools in SJ. There were many, many large families from that area on board. While there were no rowdy people the large groups and many children bothered us.

 

I don't think I would cruise from there over spring break again.

[Lsimon]

In the past we've cruise many times during the spring break time frame on cruises from both Ft. Lauderdale and San Juan and never had an issue with spring break party type crowds on the ships.

 

I think this is largely due to Celebrity's age policy which sets a minimum age of 21 for sailing without a parent or guardian.

[Jane2357]

We refuse to ever sail from San Juan again regardless of what month it is. We had a bad experience and learned our lesson. :(

[micmacmissy]

We refuse to ever sail from San Juan again regardless of what month it is. We had a bad experience and learned our lesson. :(

 

I'm interested...care to share that experience?

[micmacmissy]

In the past we've cruise many times during the spring break time frame on cruises from both Ft. Lauderdale and San Juan and never had an issue with spring break party type crowds on the ships.

 

I think this is largely due to Celebrity's age policy which sets a minimum age of 21 for sailing without a parent or guardian.

 

That's good to know! I'm just wondering how different it will be from a typical Celebrity cruise (we've never encountered large/rowdy groups before).

[mcrcruiser]

Never has any problems with college kids on X cruises from San Juan :D

[secrui]

Regardless of what ship you take out of San Juan, be prepared for an unpleasant surprise.

 

When you come to the Miami or Ft Lauderdale ports, you hand your luggage to a dock worker and tip him and then you're on your way to stand in line for registration. Not in San Juan.

 

In San Juan you stand in a long line that moves very slowly to drop off your luggage, then you stand in a line for registration. We waited in the luggage line for close to an hour. The reason it move so slow, is apparently they don't have the space that Miami and Ft Lauderdale have. So they'll take about 20 suitcases at a time, put them in a small area, and wait for the dock workers to come with a cart for them. Then they take another 20 suitcases, and so on. Very inefficient!

[CathyCruises]

My DIL and SIL are on a cruise out of San Juan right now. They said embarkation was a breeze. YMMV

[richsea]

We've sailed from San Juan during spring break back in 2013, & did not notice any difference in the passenger mix, but did find the airfare to be very high. We've sailed out of San Juan 11 times & it is our favorite port to sail from. Never had a problem, & love the people.

[SevenSeas1492]

We echo the posters stating how bad embarkation out of San Juan was. We took the Adventure of the Seas from there a few years ago. When we arrived at the port, there was absolutely no organization, none of the fellow passengers knew what line to get into, and no one we asked seemed to know! We also, along with everybody else had to drag our luggage around, as there were no porters available for a long time. Debarkation also was a nightmare. We were scheduled for a post-cruise tour thru the ship, and none of our tour group was given priority debarkation for the tour. When we finally did get off the ship, the lines for Customs were extremely long; and as a result, our tour of the rain forest had to be cut short. Not too anxious to ever go back to San Juan again, although the cruise was wonderful.

[phoenix_dream]

Have cruised out of San Juan many, many times and while the port is not my favorite, we never experienced any significant problems - ever. Spring break out of SJ is more likely to attract Puerto Rican families than spring breakers flying in. Check the spring break calendar for PR to see when their spring break is. If it is a different week, then no worries.

 

And for anyone who thinks Celebrity does not attract spring breakers - I was on the now infamous cruise last March on Connie and suffice it so say the movie Animal House had nothing on that cruise!

[DrivesLikeMario]

For those of you that had problems at embarkation with the slow check-in process, what time did you arrive? What time would you recommend to arrive?

[secrui]

We arrived about 11:30am. Most cruises out of San Juan don't leave till about 8pm as they know there will be lots of passengers flying from U.S. mainland. I imagine if you showed up mid to late afternoon it wouldn't be as bad.