ADVENTURE/ABC's Aug 20-27,2016 REVIEW w/lots of photos

[Hoopster95]

For those of you unfamiliar with the Adventure, and especially Voyager Class ships in general, it would be a good idea to have this deck plan handy and follow along with this review:

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/findacruise/ships/ship/decks/deck/home.do?deckCode=04&shipCode=AD&shipProfile=1683&sailDate=1160903&hasNavigation=false

 

Note that the grey areas will be new in November after drydock and indicate what will be changing. In this case Boleros will be added here instead of the current set-up. I love Boleros!! Great add to a great theme. We had several opportunities to dance here.

 

I will take the opportunity to mention that the live music on board was one of the best I've experienced in 30 or so cruises... Billboard Band (top 40 and some latin) and Son Machine Trio (Latin) played here mostly and were awesome! They had a great following. The Caribbean poolside band (can't remember their name!) was also one of the best, fantastic reggae with many people dancing along with them poolside in the late afternoon)

 

 

 

 

 

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[cpshaye]

We're doing this exact itinerary on this ship in January (our first on RC)....Can't wait for the rest of your review!

[Hoopster95]

I hadn't touched my camera since my May Explorer cruise, and totally forgot that it was on it's last legs. I began to have flash and lens/focus issues on that cruise which I totally forgot about. I already have a back-up camera that I am learning to use but it was in the cabin! Oops. So I made due with my old friend Sony that has been all over the world with me in all the reviews I've done for you guys.... aaaaaww. lol. Still takes great outdoor photos in natural light, but with indoor light, and especially lower lighting situations like the casino, photos are not so good. So now reviewing my 8-9 Casino photos they are mostly horrible with very bad exposures. I'll share a few here.

 

Oh.... yes, it was a little smoky every time we went through so we avoided cutting through here for the most part during most of the cruise

 

 

 

 

[Hoopster95]

I have some of my best memories of the Adventure here in Jester's when I did a TA on her back in 2012. Jester's (aka. The Dungeon on other ships) will be extinct in November as all the other nightclubs on the other sister ships are already gone. Instead, deck 4 will be Chops and the dance floor/bar/seating area below will be newly installed interior cabins. And unfortunately like the Casino photos above, my photos didn't turn out the best. Regardless, enjoy your last look at Jester's.

 

Good bye old friend!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hoopster95]

Coming out of Jester's deck 4 entrance, you look right at the Schooner Bar.

Here's a shout out to activity staff Felix... hilarious guy!! The standard music trivia here art 8pm each night was excellent. Lots of fun with a whole lot of singing along and jokes. Great activity staff and fun trivia.

 

 

 

The Lyric Theatre

 

 

 

[maryjaden]

I am loving your review. We will be sailing on the Adventure in November after the refurbishment.

[Hoopster95]

Here's The Imperial Lounge, the location for various events like the C&A Welcome Back party, dancing, nightly games shows, etc... I liked the Oriental Theme and colors, but I'm afraid if the refurb is the same as the other Voyager Class ships this Lounge will be "cleaned up" with more neutral and white, crisp color scheme which I found to be a little institutional for this space. We'll see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hoopster95]

Cafe Promenade - deck 5 forward walking away from the Imperial Lounge

 

 

 

Entrance to Casino Royale - deck 5 Promenade midship

 

 

 

Street sign by the Promenade Shops - deck 5 Promenade midship

 

 

 

View of Promenade from "Next Cruise" - deck 6 aft

 

 

 

The Library ... already gone from the deck plans (future cabins) - deck 7

 

 

 

RC Online ... also already gone from the deck plans (also future cabins) - deck 8

 

[Hoopster95]

The few photos I took of the Viking Crown Lounge (aka. "Blue Moon") at this point did not turn out well in the lighting, I have much better ones tomorrow... so I'll skip right to the two soon to be extinct rooms you will never see again: Seven Hearts card/games room and Cloud Nine

 

 

 

 

I love the diamond lounge on Voyager Class ships, great views and location with nice outdoor seating area overlooking the sports court and rock wall.

 

 

 

 

[Hoopster95]

This Sports Deck will be forever transformed in a couple of months with the addition of the Florider and new slides. With the new slides, I am not sure whether the mini-golf will be totally gone, but at bare minimum will be greatly reduced. Right now the mini-golf area is very large and of course this is the final ship where the inline skate track still exists.... but not for long

 

 

 

 

Good bye inline skating

 

 

 

The mini-golf on this ship was extremely minimalist with barely any shrubbery, props, statues, etc... surprisingly boring actually compared to other ships

 

 

 

[cincicruisers]

Wonderful photos and review. Looking forward to more.

[Hoopster95]

Deck 12 just below the sports court is where the kids & teens rooms exist: Adventure Ocean, Video arcade, Teen disco, Johnny Rockets... these areas are not changing but the area at the very aft areas will change with the Florider equipment being placed dead center aft.

 

 

 

 

Here's where the big changes take place... Adventure Beach will be greatly reduced and may likely look a lot like my pics of deck 12 on my Mariner review. The Florider housing & equip will rest on deck 12 and thus take up much of this space.

 

 

 

These kiddie slides will be gone as well

 

 

[Hoopster95]

We walked around deck 12 past the pool deck to the front of the ship to make a full circle before retiring to our cabin to relax on our awesome balcony for a bit before dinner.

 

On this first pic below, you will never see again in 2 months... this will all be the new panoramic ocean view cabins on deck 12 beside the Vitality Spa. The jogging track and loungers will no longer be there... GONE

 

 

 

Also gone will be the view over the bridge at the front, however those who book these forward facing cabins will have majestic views of everything.

 

 

 

The jogging track will wrap in behind the SkyBar rather than coming along here. The awning and stairs leading up the the deck 13 open deck will change. I'm basically standing in the exact spot of someone's balcony cabin in 3 month right here.

 

 

 

And finally one last Embarkation Day pic.. I have a picture of myself on every single RCL ship I've sailed on with a life ring so I just had to keep my collection of life ring photos intact!

 

[Hoopster95]

We got on board and wanted to book my D+ specialty BOGO at Giovanni's right away, but we were told that the first day everyone had the opportunity for 2 for 1... ok, so we decided right there to book it and then come back to Giovanni's night #2 as well with my D+ BOGO. As it turned out, 2 for 1 was offered also on night 2 for everybody again! So much for a D+ benefit. They would not move my BOGO to any other night and the 2 for 1 was not offered on any further night either.

 

Anywho, Jewel in December had muster at 7:30pm with sailway and dinner reservations starting at 8pm. I thought Adventure was the same, but that is not the case. While just starting to have a shower and slowly enjoying our balcony, we were startled at 4pm by the 1/2 hour announcement for 4:30pm muster... What?? We don't sail until 8:30pm! Turns out they do a 2nd muster in the Imperial Lounge for those embarking in the later hours. No problem... we had lots of time to get ready for 6:30 dinner reservations.

 

Here are the initial paperwork I received in our cabin

 

Gallery and Theatre Tour invitations - bridge tour not offered

 

 

 

D+ benefits

 

 

 

Diamond Lounge Rules (note the bolded text 2nd to last paragraph)

 

 

 

Staff

 

 

Edited September 1, 2016 by Hoopster95

[Hoopster95]

We were seated at Giovanni's at a wonderful window table for two at the window. Our waiter however was not so wonderful... a little bit off and impersonal, but that's fine (bad day, personal issue? not feeling well? Who knows). The dinner was outstanding and the Ossobucco fell off the bone... superb dinner and an excellent way to start our vacation! We really wanted to enjoy sailaway without over-stuffing ourselves, so we skipped desert to get changed and head out for sailaway where we enjoyed the music and regular pool deck dancing festivities as we sailed by the darkness of San Juan Gate and El Morro.

 

As the sailaway party tailed off, we went to the Welcome Aboard show for all guests at the Lyric Theatre, typical welcome from the CD Dan Dan (Dan Whitney) with various ship info, a set of instrumental by the band, and an intro to the dancers/singers. The comedian, Kivi Rogers, was quite good actually and did a longer than expected set. Decent show all around. Once the show was over it was quite late, and seemed that things wound down very quickly, as per normal on Day 1. Jester's was empty as was the Viking Crown. we opted for early bed as well as we've had two long and awesome days already and wanted to get up early for St Marten.

 

I'll end all my day reviews with the Cruise Compass of that day.

 

For those of you who have offered kind words but I have not responded to personally, I read all the comments posted. Please accept my sincere thanks and I hope this may help you with some of your own planning in the future :D

 

G'night all ~ zzzzzzzzzzz

 

 

 

 

[phabric]

I enjoyed your pictures of your aft JS 1694 cabin.

 

I have aft cabin 1694 booked on the Adventure. I have also a side cabin 1658 booked.

 

Has anybody been in both Junior suites cabins to compared them? Is there any difference beside balcony size?

[Hoopster95]

I enjoyed your pictures of your aft JS 1694 cabin.

 

I have aft cabin 1694 booked on the Adventure. I have also a side cabin 1658 booked.

 

Has anybody been in both Junior suites cabins to compared them? Is there any difference beside balcony size?

 

I daily walked up and down the hallway to get to my cabin where 1658 is located and looked into many of the open doors when the stateroom attendants were in cleaning. It definitely looks to me that the aft 1694 is larger square footage than the side JS, it looked to be the exact same width but the aft is much longer.

 

I quickly googled this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPnm1nAN_BQ

 

You can see in this video the length of the cabin is shorter.

Edited September 1, 2016 by Hoopster95

[phabric]

I daily walked up and down the hallway to get to my cabin where 1658 is located and looked into many of the open doors when the stateroom attendants were in cleaning. It definitely looks to me that the aft 1694 is larger square footage than the side JS, it looked to be the exact same width but the aft isN much longer.

 

I quickly googled this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPnm1nAN_BQ

 

You can see in this video the length of the cabin is shorter.

 

Thanks for the information.

 

Looking forward to more of your review.

[Hoopster95]

Well this was going to be weird.... I checked the port schedules before sailing and discovered we would be the only ship in port. The previous 4 times I have visited St. Marten there have been no less than 4 ships in town so I figured this would be a different experience today... I was so right! More on this as I proceed with this day.

 

I was also hoping that the Adventure would back into the pier with her aft as I have seen her docked this way on two other occasions, that way we could enjoy the sail-in from our aft balcony. Unfortunately that did not happen as she turned the corner and pulled right in bow first. This is the danger of any balcony on the ship... you may miss a sail-away or sail-in, your views are limited to the direction of your balcony. And as mentioned in a previous post, this itinerary port side is far superior than starboard for views of the port and land. Not so bad for a port like St. Marten where I'll likely visit another 10 times over my cruising career, but once in a lifetime destinations like Venice? Santorini? Sydney? Istanbul? etc??? No way I would get "stuck" in any balcony whatsoever and not have a perfect 360 degree view of everything at top deck.

 

Regardless, we enjoyed our lazy sail-in and then headed out for our first macchiatto at the CL on deck 9 as well as breakfast at WJ.

 

 

 

After breakfast we decided to take a short walk around deck 12 to check out the views. I also wanted to take a few more pictures of Adventure's top deck as I was having issues with my camera the previous day. Here's the SkyBar and small deck above it... I don't think any changes will happen here but who knows (maybe the globe)?

 

 

 

Here's a rare shot that you will never see again... the jogging track extending straight to the front of the ship passing the Solarium and Spa. In 3 months what you will see here is the jogging track taking a hard left behind the SkyBar where the loungers on the left are. Where the jogging track is currently will be a wall with stairs going up to deck 13. Behind the wall will be the new deck 12 balcony cabins. There will be a small walkway deck overlooking the solarium and a sliding door entering into the elevator lobby.

 

 

 

The morning cruiser-less pool deck from the same spot looking back

 

 

 

I have not posted any pics of the open air "Solarium" yet... here it is.

See the statue of the sitting gentleman with the top hat? That is approximately where the walkway overlooking the Solarium will be and the entrance (on each side) into the forward elevator lobby.

 

 

[Havin'fun]

Fantastic review! Loving all of the pictures. Looking forward to the next installment

[Hoopster95]

Moving forward from the Solarium pictures above you have a choice of continuing along the jogging track on deck 12 or going up these stairs to deck 13. Of course as mentioned you will not have this choice anymore in a couple of months! This awning will be gone and the stairs will be reconfigured... your only choice forward will be to go up to deck 13. At this point I am basically standing where a balcony cabin will be.

 

 

 

And here's deck 13... and the funky green carpet that will be gone for good. There's nothing up here but loungers (no bar, no service, nada)... however excellent privacy, and of course peace & quiet from pool deck activities if that is what you prefer.

 

 

 

 

Here's a couple of more rare photos you will never see again... This railing looking down into the Solarium at this angle will be gone as this will be interior space for the new cabins.

 

 

 

And this is a rare shot as well of the jogging track from this vantage point.... it will only wrap behind the SkyBar.

 

 

 

Lastly one more pool deck shot for this morning

 

[Hoopster95]

Here a some pics and views of "Blue Moon" which I did not include in yesterday's posts

 

 

 

Love the carpet in the elevator lobby... I hope this does not get changed

 

 

 

 

And here are again a few rare photos as I believe this will be changing as well... You will no longer be seeing this larger band stage area as this will be the dance floor for the night club. With Jester's being taken away, Nightclub lighting will be installed and there will be a booth type area for the DJ.

 

 

 

 

Always love the view of the pool deck from here

 

[luvsun22]

Enjoying your review and all the photos! We'll be in 1692 in 3 weeks. It's good to know that the connecting door will not present potential noise problems. Had we been on your cruise, we would have been neighbors!

[Hoopster95]

Fantastic review! Loving all of the pictures. Looking forward to the next installment

 

Thank you Havin'fun.

Ah!!!... I see you have the 9 night Southern booked on Navigator next Feb :D:D

Have you looked through any Navigator reviews? If you wish to see the refurbished Navigator, I was on her a couple months after drydock and she is beautiful! She was the first of the Voyager ships to be updated. You'll see all the differences I'm taking about (ie. Florider, addition of Izumi's, Sabor deck 4, nightclub in Viking Crown, jogging track, etc etc). If interested, this may help you... my Navigator ship tour review starts here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=42735318&highlight=embarkation#post42735318