AndreaDoria

Glad I decided to look in on this thread. Seeing what I've read, my partner and I would definitely not bother spending any of our time and money in either Jamaica or Bermuda. I've heard that the Cayman Islands is another country to avoid, if you're gay. True or not? It still amazes me that in the 21st century, we can continue to have people so utterly ignorant and illogically fearful of others who are different in how they live their private lives. Truly sad.

I always wondered why they scheduled things so late.....we too, are in bed by 10 and would never be up that late! Those early excursions do cut into your sleep time...vbg ;p

Yes, I wondered too, but never bothered to ask someone at Guest Services. That's okay, we're on vacation to leave the ship and explore islands. I need my 8 hours of sleep or I'll seriously cut a b****! ;p

My partner and I recently sailed on the Adventure of the Seas, 12/16 - 12/23, out of San Juan. During our week, we came across only three gay couples, two of whom were seated at tables near us in the dining room. The third couple participated in two of our excursions. All the couples were foreign and spoke very little English and we both spoke even less Spanish and Italian. We all regularly waved, smiled and uttered our native "Hello" when passing each other, but beyond that we didn't get together for drinks, etc... Had language been less of an issue, I think we'd have made time to meet and chat with each other. The Cruise Compass did have daily listings for "LGBTQ gatherings" in the Champagne Bar, nightly at 11:00 PM. We both thought the scheduling at such a late time was ridiculous. We had excursions booked for every port day, which put a cap on how late we wanted to be up on any given night. We were back in our cabin by 10:00, asleep by 10:30 PM and we woke up every morning, except for our at sea day, at 6:00 AM.

Hi there!

Yeah, our cruise was very nice. The weather was great, aside from the daily 'quickie' morning shower right when we were disembarking for our daily excursions.

This was our 3rd time on the Adventure of the Seas. It's in need of some basic repairs and maintenance work, regarding the condition of some furnishings in public spaces and some issues we had in our cabin. We put our balcony to full use and we slept well in the beds on board. Definitely the best cruise in terms of friendliness of all the staff we encountered.

Very few LGBT folks on this voyage. Two young gay couples we initially met, sitting next to us in the Sapphire dining room, were Hispanic and spoke limited English. It was hand waving and rudimentary Spanish whenever we passed each other. On a few excursions, we met some other folks who were parents of gay sons/daughters and we swapped email addresses/Facebook information to keep in contact.

Our cruise was a sellout and it was definitely noticeable on board. Some annoying lines and crowds in the Promenade area while formal night photos were being taken, etc... and occasionally when entering the Sapphire and Windjammer. Staff members told us that after this winter season, the Adventure is no longer sailing from San Juan and will reposition between Cape Liberty & Miami. Freedom of the Seas will take its place in San Juan.

No matter what one's reasons for wanton to be alone and not mingle (and these are perfectly valid feelings that shouldn't beed to be explained) there is no excuse for not returning a greeting or a smile.

Exactly so! That's just being a decent human being.

We are very fond of Royal Caribbean..

Dennis

We've enjoyed all of our previous RCI cruises and our upcoming one should be no different. This will be our 3rd sailing on the Adventure of the Seas. Before we started accumulating our Crown & Anchor points, we did one sailing each on Princess and Celebrity, out of San Juan. Those were fine cruises, but the itineraries for each cruise was not as nice, compared with RCI's. My one minor complaint with Celebrity is that the Celebrity Summit is a very boring ship in terms of amenities on-board and it's the only ship based in San Juan. RCI has the Adventure, Serenade and Jewel to pick from. Our last cruise in Dec. 2016 was on the Jewel of the Seas, shortly after her renovation and it was like sailing on a brand new ship! We lucked out with getting one of the new deluxe balcony suites, added as part of the renovation on deck 11. We'll definitely go back for another sailing on the Jewel, in the future.

My partner and I are getting ready for our 7th Royal Caribbean cruise and our 9th cruise, overall. We have never failed to find outgoing gay couples (and some singles) on our cruises. Between the FOD gatherings and just wandering around the ship, meeting people and striking up quick chats, we're always surprised by how many other gay couples are on-board at the same time as us. On the last 2 cruises we took, we found more gays/lesbians participating in the various daily trivia type games, than were at the FOD gatherings. We've made a few friendships over the years on our various cruises and we keep in touch with all of these people on Facebook. There are many Canadians and Americans from the Midwest and Northeast who escape the winter back home for a week's vacation and relaxation. I can't speak too much about cruise lines other than Royal Caribbean, but on Royal, it would be damn hard to swing a dead cat by the tail and not hit a bunch of gay crew members.....they are everywhere! Aside from 1 or 2 staff persons that I can really remember for their lousy attitude, that seems to be the exception and not the rule. That is one of the reasons that we continue to take our cruises with Royal Caribbean. We've never sailed on Carnival and I don't see that happening. Between the first hand accounts from friends of bad experiences with staff, fellow passengers, food, entertainment, cabins, etc... who've sailed on Carnival ships and what I read on Cruise Critic, we're totally put off by the idea. I've heard the same comment made about Carnival not really bothering to do anything to either encourage or promote gay-centric social events, on their ships. If you haven't already done so, give Royal Caribbean a try the next time you decide to do a cruise.

Dang! We'll just miss you. We'll be heading out on the Adventure of the Seas on Dec 23rd.

Aww, that's a bummer! Does your itinerary have St. Maarten back in place? On our cruise, St. Maarten was swapped out with Martinique, which is fine with us as it's a beautiful island. Have fun on your cruise!

We're a gay couple sailing on the Adventure of the Seas, December 16th to 23rd and would enjoy meeting up with other gay couples for drinks, ship activities, dinner table companions, etc... We've generally had good luck meeting other gay couples on board our previous Royal Caribbean cruises and have struck up some friendships lasting well after the cruises have ended.