Photo review: Adventure OTS, 8/13/16

[cyntil8ing]

This was the day we had most been looking forward to. My husband and I have been to Barbados once before and it is among my favorites. We had booked a catamaran sailing and the kids were dying to swim with the turtles.

 

But sometime very early in the morning, my son woke with an earache severe enough that he was vomiting. Needless to say, we weren’t going anywhere except off the ship to find some ear drops to help relieve the pressure. The ear drops and some ibuprofen took away the worst of the pain, but he was still one miserable little guy. He is prone to ear infections and we really should have been using ear plugs for all the swimming he had been doing. Big parenting fail!

 

And my leg I had scraped the previous day was still hurting a bit, so the kids and I just stayed on the ship all day. DH went into town and bought himself some (more) bling. In our family, he is the one going into the jewelry stores – for watches. He bought two on this cruise.

 

So, here is my vast collection of photos from Barbados.

 

 

 

Not very exciting!

 

Another towel animal.

 

[cyntil8ing]

I forgot to mention this earlier, because I don’t have any photos. Funny how if you don’t get a picture, it didn’t happen. But this was a new experience, so I’ll mention it.

 

When we booked, our travel agent had a specialty restaurant promotion. Usually, it’s just OBC, so we use it as we wish, but this time, it was an actual coupon. For two. So, we were perplexed. The kids weren’t interested in going and I hated having to pay for them, so we were just going to skip it. But DD suggested that DH and I go “on a date”, and she and DS would eat dinner at Windjammer and then hang out in the cabin watching movies and playing PlayStation. We went to the CL and picked up a couple of movies and a game. We left them with a couple of $ for room service tips and headed off to Giovanni’s for dinner. We all ended up having a great evening. They’re growing up so fast! First DS in the pool by himself and now this?!?

 

This was our first trip to Giovanni’s for dinner. There was a mix-up with our reservations which were made by the concierge. We requested 8:00, but when the confirmation call came, it said 8:30. Neither the restaurant nor the concierge would admit to this mistake and could not accommodate us at 8:00. So, we arrived at 8:30 and even then had to wait for 20 minutes.

 

But the food was good and the service excellent. Well worth the $0 we paid. Well, we purchased a bottle of wine and left a tip, so it wasn’t truly free.

 

Speaking of the kids, they never visited the kids clubs. My son read the schedule every day and every day found something of interest, but when it came to actually going, he always found a reason to hang out with us. My daughter never even mentioned wanting to go.

 

With such an active cruise, we were off the ship all day, returning to clean up then relax in the concierge lounge before going to dinner, there just really wasn’t time. It’s one of the issues of having late dining.

[lolavix]

Stopping by to see how your trip went, and I agree that there are lots of similarities between our experiences. I am sorry about Barbados as well as your fall.

 

Your pictures are terrific.

 

And now I want to go back and visit Ponce. If I had seen your review prior to making my arrangements, I would have been torn. I probably would have just stayed and done what we did, but now I know that next time, there is so much more to see on the south side of the island.

[crazycargirl]

Following and enjoying your review. Was wondering if the Zika virus influence decisions or if bug spay played a part? We will be there in February.

 

 

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[perfect match]

Sorry to hear about your son's ear infection. Hope it cleared up quickly so he could enjoy the rest of your cruise.

 

Your DH sounds like mine - addicted to watches! I do not know anyone other than my DH who records Invicta watch infomercials on his DVR! :eek:

 

Thanks for posting the links to your port excursions. I have bookmarked several of them for future reference, as I know I will be booking a southern Caribbean cruise soon. :D

Edited September 1, 2016 by perfect match

[drarill]

Cindy:

Did you talk to the suite concierge about the refurbishment of the ship? Any information will be appreciated. I'm really enjoying your review. :)

[cruise47]

Thanks for sharing your vacation and your pictures.

[cyntil8ing]

Following and enjoying your review. Was wondering if the Zika virus influence decisions or if bug spay played a part? We will be there in February.

 

I can't say we worried about it much. The night that we went to La Guancha, we sprayed ourselves, but I still ended up with a bite on my ankle. I'm past child-bearing age, so really, it wasn't a huge concern.

[cyntil8ing]

Cindy:

Did you talk to the suite concierge about the refurbishment of the ship? Any information will be appreciated. I'm really enjoying your review. :)

 

Thanks! No, we didn't really. We have no current plans to book Adventure again. Next year, we are booked on Carnival Vista. After that, I really want to go back to Bermuda. And the new MSC Seaside really interests me too. So the "new" renovations would probably be at least four years old before we would ever be back.

[cyntil8ing]

Sorry to hear about your son's ear infection. Hope it cleared up quickly so he could enjoy the rest of your cruise.

 

Your DH sounds like mine - addicted to watches! I do not know anyone other than my DH who records Invicta watch infomercials on his DVR! :eek:

 

Thanks for posting the links to your port excursions. I have bookmarked several of them for future reference, as I know I will be booking a southern Caribbean cruise soon. :D

 

Thanks. That's the reason for doing the reviews. I used to be a little nervous about booking non-ship excursions until I read review after review where there were no issues. Now I barely every look at the ship excursions.

[BillOh]

We have visited Antigua before and we did a traditional island tour. This time, we just wanted to take a taxi to a beach. The suite concierge, Ryno, suggested Jolly Beach, so we decided to try it.

 

Thanks for the insight into this Antigua Beach. On our first visit there we took a tour "Taste of Antigua which was the worst Royal Excursion ever (since removed because it was a pure rip off) In that horrible all day tour, I saw a really nice beach for about 10 minutes. Looking forward to going back to this island.

[cyntil8ing]

My son still wasn’t feeling too great. We kept him on the ibuprofen, but he wasn’t himself. He had a little fun today and his appetite improved. We debated whether to take him to the ship’s doctor or wait until we got off the ship the next day. We ended up waiting.

 

 

 

DH and DD went inline skating and played mini-golf.

 

 

 

At dinner in the dining room, the staff sang that song that makes us all sad.

 

Edited September 2, 2016 by cyntil8ing

[cyntil8ing]

We had luggage tag #1, so we could leave the ship at our leisure. We missed the dining room breakfast by less than five minutes, so we went to Windjammer.

 

We grabbed a porter who handled everything, we breezed through Customs, and were in a cab by 9:15am.

 

We went to our hotel, the Embassy Suites in Isla Verde, arriving around 9:30am. They had a room ready for us! Woo-hoo! We did our laundry and then called our travel insurance company to find out what we needed to do to have our son seen by a doctor. We printed all the forms we needed then headed to the nearest Pediatric ER – Ashford Medical Center. All-in-all, it was not a bad experience. We were there a few hours, but they took great care of him and most importantly, he left the hospital with no pain! It was after 9:00pm by then. We found a 24-hour pharmacy to fill his prescriptions and then grabbed a burger for dinner.

 

Not a fun way to spend a Saturday night in San Juan!

 

 

But my little guy was on the mend.

[cyntil8ing]

We slept in until after 10:30, missing the hotel breakfast. So we walked until we found a bakery. After a decent breakfast, we decided to stay away from the beach and water. Instead, we took an Uber to Plaza Las Americas and walked around the mall for a few hours. DS was feeling good and was very excited to get a new friend at Build-a-Bear Workshop. He named him Perro. Not very original.

 

 

We returned to the hotel and went out to the pool.

 

 

It was time for happy hour!

 

 

 

So nice to see him smiling and happy again, even if he couldn’t go under the water.

 

 

We ate dinner at the Outback in the hotel. Our preference is always a local restaurant, but that’s where my son wanted to go, and I was so happy for him to have an appetite back that we gave in.

[cyntil8ing]

On our first stay in San Juan in 2009, we wandered into a restaurant by chance. We had the best breakfast and have been trying to return ever since. Unfortunately, the restaurant closed for a couple of years and just reopened earlier this year. We were all excited to go this morning, dragging the kids out of bed at 8:00am. We walked the two blocks to a bus stop and took the bus to Old San Juan. We arrive at the restaurant to find it is closed on Mondays. Arg!!!! So, we went to Café Mallorca instead. It was good.

 

 

 

We took the trolley, riding the entire route.

 

 

 

 

[cyntil8ing]

 

After riding the route, we decided to go back and walk past all the monuments to get a better look.

 

This is a monument to police officers.

 

 

 

And one to teachers!

 

 

The Holocaust

 

[cyntil8ing]

And finally, the Walk of Presidents. Each US president who has visited Puerto Rico is depicted. We weren’t very respectful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After hanging out with the prezes, we rode the bus back to the hotel and hit the pool and happy hour again.

 

For dinner, we walked to Mi Casita, a restaurant in a strip mall near the hotel. It was ok. The sangria was good! I had two. And this was after happy hour! It's a wonder I wasn't singing.

 

So, our vacation started off great, but kind of ended with a whimper. I think we all were exhausted and ready to go home.

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[cleagle]

Cindy, thank you so much for your review and pictures. So sad that you and your son were not 100% during your vacation. I too am from the Girl Scout "be prepared" camp and at first thought that I might be taking to many precautionary items but after reading that your tour guide had no first-aid of any type I'm perfectly happy that I hold cards from the American Red Cross for First Aid, CPR and AED courses and will go prepared with a few over the counter basic first aid items thrown in. Just curious, do you know if they would have had a medical response service had you been injured worse and is there such a service as the coast guard for marine type responses? I am so amazed at the pictures that you took and would like to know if you used a camera or your phone camera? I can't decide which way I want to go, my phone has a wonderful camera and video capabilities and is much lighter than a camera, any thoughts? Have you ever cruised during Thanksgiving? I was wondering about formal nights if one would be Thanksgiving and only one other or two as usual + the holiday. Well, I have enjoyed your review, look forward to posting one of my own when I return!

[easyboy]

Nice photos.

[perfect match]

Thanks for doing this review, Cindy. I enjoyed cruising along with you and your family. :D