Kissmya63

I'm afraid to ask, but it looks like no more lobster night? Not that it's as good as it used to be, but still nice to have :-)

Following! I'm watching her sail away right now. We have a long while before we are on her!

hello fellow cruise critic geeksters out there...we don't sail for a while but has anyone posted anything good/bad or natural about the dry dock enhancements the RCCL did to Adventure in October of this yr...I had read that she was getting pretty weathered...did they upgrade the cabin carpet and bedding and furniture...we have sailed Adventure 2 other times but many yrs. ago...thanks in advance:):)

We were on Adventure at the end of May - before the improvements.

I don't have a lot to compare it to, but I absolutely loved it! I was so worried after reading all the negative reviews too! OK - I guess our carpet was a little worn but that doesn't ruin a vacation for us.

I can only imagine how nice it is now with all the upgrades!!! We will definitely have to sail her again!!!

We don't cruise again until April 2018!!! Ugh!!! This time on FOS! 511 days :eek:

I miss the midnight buffet, impeccable service from the dining room to the bartenders, to stateroom attendants. I remember our first cruise. We had an inside cabin and our cabin attendant was fantastic. We felt like royalty the way were taken care of on that cruise.

The lobster - that was like something you'd get in a 5-star seafood restaurant. All the food used to be wonderful. The lobster now has been salty, fishy and rubbery.

We never had to wait for a drink at the bar. Now there's no reason to have good customer service when you know you already have our 18% tip.

I think the only way to get that great service and great food again is to cruise with one of the premium cruise lines.

515 days until we're on FOS for the first time :rolleyes:

Way too long, but I'm sure it'll go quick.

Can't wait for 2017 to get here so I can say "we're going on a cruise next year". LOL!!!

RE: Quick question : my wife and I both purchased a drink package. Could I go to a bar with her card and mine, and pick up 2 drinks (or for each of us) or do we need to physically both be there to order?

 

 

If RC are like Princess you can't order bottles of wine in the restaurant from off your package, you have to pay for them, so what you do is order your wine by the glass when in the restaurant and that way they are included in your package.

 

 

cheers

We were able to do this. As long as we had both cards we could get 2 drinks.

I'm pretty sure its the same on Royal as with Princess about the wine. I can't remember.

I was just wondering how the quality/speed of the VOOM internet was? Is it worth the money/ will I feel like I am back in 1999 using dial up?

I was on Adventure at the end of May and purchased it and it was usually pretty good! It was better in public areas than in our stateroom. I am a Facebook addict so I had to be able to post comments along with photos and I rarely had any issue. Sometime uploading photos was a little slow but nothing as slow as the dial up days, LOL!!! :)

I can't comment to current concierge, but I've done a GS and absolutely loved it. My favorite perk was the full breakfast room service menu.

I know we will take advantage of that! It will help a lot on days that we have early excursions! We are not morning people :o

You guys are going to have a blast!! We did this last Thursday and it was awesome!!! We could have road all day long! The looks you get while you're going down the street are priceless!! I work in Marketing and I told the guys that riding down the road with a group is like a free advertisement. They were giving out business cards at the stops we made! We had one couple come up to us and ask if we could take their picture on the one we were riding! They took a business card.

We booked GS 1598 for April 2018. Hoping it's worth it! The bigger room and balcony alone should make it worth it the extra money! We really enjoy spending time on our balcony and having that extra space will be awesome!

We had a JS recently and the priority check in alone saved us probably about an hour in line to get onboard!!

April 2018 is a long ways away, but I'm sure it will be well worth it!!

Like many, I am an over planner, but also like many, really need the vacation. :)

 

Did you take the Bonaire Vista Tour? We have signed up for that?

Yes we did! It was a nice tour of the island! Although I felt that we could have spent a little more time at each of the stops. We had both English and Spanish speaking people in the van and the tour guide struggled a bit with her Spanish and you can tell she got a little frazzled here and there. The stops were awesome, but I think an extra hour total to have more time at each of the stops would have made it more enjoyable.

We have $450.00 in on board credit and were going to book an 11 to 14 day retirement next cruise in a GS. We would get $400.00 for that and then pay for the drink package.

 

The other option is to take on two bottles of wine, pay as we go for the first three days, do the Chefs table one night, Giovannis another, and then buy two drink cards on the fourth day.

 

Decisions, decisions. :)

Sounds wonderful!

I'm jealous, LOL!!! :p

My husband and I are confused as to who and when do we tip over and above the gratuties that we pay RC. Thank you

On one of the last evenings your stateroom attendant will leave you some envelopes to tip anyone who you felt went above and beyond. We gave an envelope to our head waiter on the last evening and then left an envelope in our stateroom for our stateroom attendant.

During the cruise we had a couple bartenders that we tipped a little extra each time because of their wonderful service!

We sailed Adventure May 28 - June 4.

We stayed overnight in OSJ at a place called Chateau Cervantes. It was good for a night or 2, but the room we had was small. I wouldn't be able to stay there an entire week in the room we were in. They were very accommodating though! and held our luggage the day of embarkation. We had a balcony and that was nice too. It was right next to a bunch of restaurants. We had an early dinner at Triana Tapas and it was fantastic.

On the 28th our plan was to walk around OSJ, visit the forts, etc before we went to the ship. About 11:30am it started raining and it didn't stop so we walked back to the hotel to get our luggage and a taxi. We got to the terminal and the lines were crazy long! This was probably about 1 or 1:30 if I recall. We had a JS so we told the driver we had priority boarding. He dropped us off right by that area and there was no one in that line! We were on the ship in 20 minutes tops!

We spoke to others later and it seemed the average wait time in those lines were about an hour.

I think the reason it was crazy that day is because of the rain. Nothing to do in the rain so why not head to the ship?

I did research beforehand on the lines and I saw both negative a positive thoughts about SJ cruise terminal.

Now, disembarkation on the 4th? That was a fiasco for us! We originally had an 8:45am meeting time to disembark (number 11). We had a 1:50pm flight so we went to guest services to get a later check out time and we changed to 9:45am (number 21). They got up to 15 or 16 and then didn't call a number for over an hour. We ended up leaving anyway or we would have missed our flight.

Someone in my roll call said that they were warned by Royal crew that CBP was "working slowly" the previous few weeks in order to get overtime pay and that another issue that caused problems was people jumping in line. They said they saw several people jumping in line.

So my advice is to try and get an early departure time!

I cruised on Liberty of the Seas two summers ago and paid $199 onboard for a week of that "slow speed old school Internet". I don't know how we would have survived without it. I shared it with my two millennial sons, so we just took turns using it when on the ship. Thank God that T-Mobile worked for free pretty much all over Europe; we just needed Internet when we were at sea.

Meanwhile, I pre-paid about $70 for a week of Voom on Adventure of the Seas, sailing the Caribbean in July of this year, hoping that works out well.

We were on Adventure last week and internet was fine. It was slower in the room and I only had an issue of not connecting once on the entire cruise. It was brief. I was very satisfied with the internet. I uploaded pictures to facebook, checked emails, etc. Uploading pictures was not as fast as at home, but it still worked!

I loved everything about Adventure!

Was the ship late? We have a 12:41 flight and plan to do the self disembark as early as possible. You mentioned on another thread that the premium package including tip was 64 something. That's quite a jump in price. Someone else on that same trip said it was 49 + tip or around 57.

We made the mistake of changing our disembark time from number 11 at 8:45am to number 21 at 9:45am. I think people that got out early were okay. I don't know how self-disembark works, but as I recall I think it's early so you should be fine.

As for the drink package. We didn't buy beforehand with the cheaper prices because we wanted to use our $300 OBC. We don't usually buy anything on the ship so we knew that our OBC would go towards the drink package and in the long run save, even over the internet special.

What time was your flight?

Our flight was at 1:50pm. I don't think we got off the ship until after 11am!

Cost us $10.00 well worth it tip to a guy that knew what to say and do to get through customs quicker.

Just off Adventure on June 4th!

We bought the Premium Package. It was $64.90 per day per person. This includes gratuity. For us it worked! We drink when we're on vacation and at $10 per drink or $6.00 per beer, plus we had $300 OBC? It was a value for us. It included wine at dinner (up to $12/glass - if your glass of wine is more you get charged the difference. We went to Giovanni's one night and I had a glass of wine that was $13, so there was $1.18 on my bill - $1 + 18% gratuity). It also included bottled water. We would always bring a bottle of water or 2 back to the room for the next day's excursions.

They had a table of what they offered just as soon as we boarded the ship and there was a 10 drink package offered right up to the last day. They had info at all the bars as well. It will be easy to find.

Adventure is an awesome ship!!! We loved it! :)

We were on Adventure on the May 28th sailing. Our biggest complaint was departure on the last day. We ended up leaving on our own or we would have missed our flight. It ended up being okay. I don't know what the issue was. Other than that we loved everything! In our opinion Adventure is an awesome ship!!

I think I had an issue with the internet once for maybe about 30 minutes. I logged out and back in and all was good. It was slower in the room than in public places.

Fridge did not cool too well, but it was good enough to put some waters in to have for the next day.

The other issue we had was with the Romance Pkg that I purchased. They delivered the canapes to the room way too soon and didn't include the champaign. I went to guest services the following day and they gave us a bottle of wine for our trouble and said they'd make sure that on the 2nd formal night that it would be okay and it was.

So those are the problems we had. The good outweighed the bad for us and we had a great experience!

Day 1 out of San Juan - it was raining that day so I think everyone had the same idea to get to the ship right away. We started walking around OSJ but when we saw the rain wasn't going to stop anytime soon we walked back to our hotel, got our luggage and we were on our way to the ship. Lines were long. Because we had a JS we had priority boarding, but later we talked to several people that said considering the long lines that it was under an hour wait. Now, please keep in mind that I have hardly any cruise experience, but the people I spoke to didn't seem to really mind all that much.

The islands were wonderful, the staff that we dealt with were wonderful. Our stateroom attendant Dwayn was awesome! Otis, our head waiter was equally awesome!

We had an outstanding time and I would sail Adventure again in a heartbeat!

I'm cruising on Adventure at the end of May and on RCCL Website I'm being offered Voom at 30% off. I didn't think Voom was offered on Adventure.

This doesn't seem like much of a sale to me. I went to purchase it and it doesn't include the 18% gratuity. We want to buy the premium package which I think was $49/day, but that included gratuity. This "sale" does not include gratuity. So you get a savings of about $32/person for a 7 day cruise, which isn’t even close to 20% off.

I see it in the Cruise Planner section of the edocs.

Found it - thanks :)

If you have OBC from Royal, I would also print that page.

Bob - where do you find that page with OBC? I can't find it. Thanks!

Subscribed! Looking forward to hearing more! Thank you for taking time to post your review!

I did a 7 night northbound Princess cruise on Diamond Princess out of Vancouver. I will give you some idea of what it was like.

 

1. Northbound was less expensive than southbound. Don't ask me why, but it just was. Not sure if that is the same now, but it might be something to look at.

 

2. GET A BALCONY. Repeat, GET A BALCONY CABIN. We had an inside cabin and regretted it for the entire cruise. You will probably have at least 2 sea days and it was horribly trying to find any window seats in the general areas of the ship ESPECIALLY in the buffet. It would've been nice to just be able to sit out on the balcony and watch the beautiful scenery go by.

 

3. Going NORTHBOUND, get a STARBOARD (right side) cabin. That will put you on the "land" side rather than the "sea" side. You might see more animals that way. If going SOUTHBOUND, get a PORT (left side) cabin for the same reason.

 

4. If you go to Skagway and want to do the train leaving from Skagway, sit on the LEFT side of the train. You will be going up the mountain and all of the action will be on the left side of the train. They will also be giving all the scenic information on the way up the mountain.

 

5. If you really want to see the whales, I cannot recommend enough to take a Photo Safari excursion in Juneau. I booked it through Princess and it ended up being in the top 5 best shore excursions I have ever taken. It cost about $150-$200, but worth every penny. We saw sea lions, eagles, otters, humpback whales and even a killer whale came cruising past our little boat (and he was probably longer than our boat was!). Absolutely a must do if you want to see animals during your trip.

 

6. Glacier Bay was spectacular, so if you want to do it you won't be able to take a Royal Caribbean cruise.

 

7. If you have 14 days, then I would do the 7 night northbound cruise followed by 7 days in Denali (or however long you want to do). We really regretted not doing Denali (budget wouldn't allow it).

 

Good luck in planning your trip! Congrats on the 20th Anniversary! You won't regret taking this trip. Alaska was spectacular and I can't wait to go back someday. Oh, and don't go in May! It was freaking freezing and rained every day (except during our Photo Safari and at Glacier Bay). Go when it is warmer!

 

I am attaching a link to my Shutterfly share site so you can get an idea of what to expect on an Alaska cruise. Enjoy! https://2008alaskacruisediamondprincess.shutterfly.com/

We did the Photo Safari with Princess too! It was the best! I couldn't believe how much wildlife we saw!! We even saw a couple killer whales breach (jump out of the water)!!!! It was amazing! My husband got it on video and I got pictures of it.

We did Skagway train to Yukon Territory and that was amazing too!!

I totally agree on the balcony too! We had such awesome weather and we were outside when we were doing the scenic cruising. But being at the front of the ship outside by a huge glacier - it was really cold! We had out winter coats on, hats gloves and wind pants and it was still cold. The ship started doing the 90 degree turn and we went back to our cabin and sat on the balcony to watch the rest. From our balcony you would here the ice calving (glacier ice falling into the water). There's nothing like it! And we were able to peel off all of our gear down to just jeans and a long t-shirt!

Another thought on the balcony - the further north you are, the more daylight you will have. One night I woke up at around 4am I think it was and I went out on the balcony and the sky with some clouds and the low angle of the sun along with mountains was so beautiful! And so peaceful!!! It was like it was just me and all that scenery on my own private ship :p