ISurfTooMuch

You can do it, but you may not have as much time as you think you will. Assuming your flight gets there on time, you still have to claim your bags and get trough the taxi line if you want to see OSJ, it will be better to go there and let Barracina's hold your luggage while you explore. It'll also save you some money, since it'll be one less taxi ride. Just be mindful of the time. We did Adventure last month, but we got on early, so I'm not sure when they stop boarding. Muster was at 6 p.m.

Correct, but there is a USDA inspection you have to go through when you get ready to fly out. You must do it before checking luggage, so make it your first stop when you enter the airport.

We spent three days pre-cruise in OSJ last month and never saw him. Of course, there weren't many people from the mainland around most of that time, so maybe he took those days off.

Thanks. Never considered it being related to drugs, but that makes a lot of sense. Seems kind of stupid for him to have approached the ship like he did, since I'd be surprised if the bridge crew didn't radio the Coast Guard when he did that.

I can only help a little, since our Adventure cruise only covered San Juan and St. Thomas of your itinerary, and I never turned my phone on in St. Thomas. I'm a Verizon customer, BTW.

San Juan is Extended network, which means you're not on Verizon but won't get charged roaming. You're using Claro, which used to be Verizon's network until they sold it a few years ago. Voice service is mostly fine, but data is slow to the point of being almost totally unusable. I was using an iPhone 6 Plus, but the most you can get is 3G, and, again, you're better off hunting for free wi-fi, because Claro's network is awful for data. The only place where it worked enough to get something done was at the Pan Am pier, and, even then, it was painfully slow. Texts work OK as long as you aren't sending or receiving pictures. If that's the case, you might get them to work, but likely not.

For all other ports, you'll pay roaming. Most places are $1.99/minute for calls, $0.50 for each text sent/$0.05 for each one received, and over $20 per megabyte for data, so don't even consider data unless you have no other choice and really, really need it. Using the ship's network will set you back $2.49/minute. Not sure on data, but it'll be a lot, and it'll be slow. You might as well buy an Internet package and use that. I believe that texts are the same price as above.

For AT&T, both San Juan and St. Thomas are considered on-network, so there won't be any additional charges. Speeds are supposed to be good. Just be careful if you go to St. John, since you're close to the BVI and might roam onto one of the carriers there on some parts of the island.

Just returned from Adventure's March 15 cruise. As expected, it was fantastic, but I wanted to write about a few incidents on board and near the ship.

First, we had two emergency medical evacuations. The first one involved us diverting to Curacao before going to Aruba so that a passenger could be taken to the hospital. My wife and I heard the emergency call on the intercom around noon on Wednesday, and the captain came on a little while later to say we needed to divert. We pulled into port around 11 p.m., where an ambulance was waiting to take the passenger off the ship, after which we immediately left and continued on to Aruba. In the Captain's Corner, Captain Toni said that they'd done 23 knots to get him there as quickly as possible. He said that the passenger had spent a few days in ICU but was in a regular room and was doing fine. No word on what happened.

The second evacuation occurred around 3:00-3:30 of the morning before we returned to San Juan. We'd heard another emergency call the day before that stated help was needed at Guest Services, but I don't know if that was related to this. Anyway, the captain came on in the middle of the night to tell us that a helicopter would be landing on the ship in about 10 minutes to take a passenger to the hospital. It must have been serious if they couldn't wait the extra 1.5-2 hours until we docked. I don't know any more than that.

The last incident actually occurred first, and this is a really weird one. I didn't see this myself, but some friends who were on deck 11 at the time did, as did many other passengers up there. We'd departed St. Thomas about an hour earlier, when people started seeing a small boat following us. From what my friend said, it looked like a small fishing boat with an outboard motor and one person aboard, and he said that he could see the bridge crew watching it with binoculars. He said it cut across our stern so close that it looked at one point like it might hit us, then it drifted off, like its engine had died, at which point we left it behind, just drifting out there. He thought it was really odd because he said it was way too small a boat to be that far out at sea, since it looked more like a bass boat. I actually asked the captain about it at his talk, and he said what everyone saw must have been the pilot boat, but my friend swears that couldn't have been what it was because he saw the pilot boat in Curacao, and it was much larger than this one. Has anyone heard anything about this incident?

Where can we grab a map of OSJ? We'll be flying in three days before our cruise and want to explore a little. Are they available at the airport? Do most hotels have them?

Thanks!

You've probably realized this already, but you need to sleep in for as long as you can the day of your flight because you won't get much good sleep on the plane. No matter how you do it, you're going to be tired, but you need to have enough energy to make it through embarkation day. Taking some melatonin on the last leg of your flight might help a little.

I'm on my phone, so browsing their site is a bit of a chore, but they do have a number listed. I'd give them a call and ask.

http://www.fs.usda.gov/elyunque

DW and I are staying three days pre-cruise at the Gallery Inn. Really looking forward to it, but I have some questions.

First, will most taxi drivers know where it is? Some reviews have said that it's difficult to locate, but the reviewers may have been trying to find it on their own.

Second, how safe is the area it's located in? I know OSJ is safe, but I get the impression that it's not far from La Perla, which is definitely not safe. Is it uncomfortably close?

And finally, the hotel is now advertising that their beach house is open to guests, and, from what I can tell, it's actually in La Perla. This seems like a very bad idea. Can anyone share any details, perhaps something I'm missing here?

I recently was told in another thread that you'd immediately get a C&A number and gold status if you signed up for MLife and then linked it to your RCCL reservation. Tried it and it worked. If you search this forum for "basic C&A question" you should find it. I'll try to post the link a little later if anyone needs it.

Similar experience with my first cruise from San Juan. Arrived to an unexpected long line which wrapped around the whole airport for the Agriculture Inspection, went back outside, found a porter/sky cap, provided a nice tip and *snap* my bag was scanned and I was in front of the check in desk before I could blink. Next time I will plan better so as not to add inconvenience to those waiting in the long lines but it got me on my flight in time. Would love it if LV was added for this port!

How much was your tip? Just curious.

I forgot to come back and update this thread.

 

I used Ripple on Grandeur on our Christmas cruise. It works but it's not without it's caveats. Was it worth the few dollars? Absolutely yes..but I can see how some people (especially those who are not tech savvy) could get very frustrated with it very quickly.

 

That said, it worked (for the most part) and was a good investment for us personally. Just don't expect it to be perfect - you MUST remember to leave it open on your device just before locking, and some features (like video calling) never worked at all. Not a huge deal, voice calls worked fine, but just saying.

 

The texting was hit or miss. We had a large group in our Ripple friends list and some of the kids occasionally seemed to end up in some black-hole where they could send but not receive, or vice versa. A few times we had to completely reset their friend group and re-add one of them which worked sometimes, but not others.

 

But like I said, generally, it did the job.

Thanks for the update. Do you know what version of iOS those in your group were using? We're all on iOS 8, which was released after the last Ripple update. Also, how much of a battery hog was it? I've heard it drains pretty fast, but I have a 6 Plus, so I've got battery to spare.

One thing to note for anyone considering it is, if you have iOS 8, you can set up Family Sharing, which means that you can buy the app once and install on all devices in your family. It's going for $2.99 now, which isn't bad when you split it several ways.

I wanted to revive this thread to ask if anyone has recently tried Ripple on Adventure, and, if so, how it worked. We're going with another couple and would like to be able to check in with them to make plans from time to time.

So I'm guessing that polo shirts aren't allowed for this special, correct?

I have the galaxy 5 so should I download an app like whatsapp or another to make calls? Anyone tried Skype from their android phone? How did it work?

Download a few.

Skype is great for calling other Skype users for free, but calls to phone numbers cost.

Vonage Mobile allows free calls to US numbers, but sound quality is only fair.

Hangouts, with the dialer installed, will allow you to call US and Canadian numbers for free, and quality is better than Vonage, but Vonage seems to do better on slow networks.

Hope this helps.

T-mobile phones can use wifi to make phone calls. If you can connect to wifi while in port you can make phone calls without using any cellular data.

^^^This. T-Mobile and Sprint offer it, but T-Mobile has had it for much longer.

However, you need to find out if your phone supports wi-fi calling and, if so, how to use it. My guess is that the Galaxy S5 does.

Awesome! Thanks for the tip

How will we know what gets loaded onto our card? Will we get a brochure, or will the C&A site tell us?

We're doing our first RCCL cruise in March on Adventure. We've done five others on Carnival and HAL, so I have a basic question about C&A. From reading the RCCL Web site, I get the impression that we can't join until after we return from our first cruise. Is that correct?

Thanks in advance for your help.

We stayed there two years ago, and the fare wasn't bad. Around $20 for the two of us and our bags. Very nice hotel, and you'll find tons of restaurants within easy walking distance. We ate at a little Italian place on Ashford Avenue. I don't recall the name, but maybe someone else knows.

I don't think any hotels there offer shuttles. When we were there two years ago, getting a taxi was no trouble at all. Just be aware that there's an extra charge for each bag the driver puts in the trunk, even small ones like backpacks. So, if it's small enough to fit comfortably on your lap, hang onto it.

There's also a CVS a few blocks from the OSJ terminal. Very easy walk. Just ask the port staff to point you in the right direction.

Yes, AT&T has native coverage in San Juan. Coverage seemed pretty good when we were there in 2010, but I didn't make many calls.

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While I can't tell you exactly where to get it close to the Pan Am pier, just about any pharmacy should have it. If you're taking a taxi, ask the driver to take you by the nearest CVS or Walgreen's, and they should have it. As an alternative, if you have a layover at a major U.S. airport, check some of the stores inside to see if they have some. You'll pay more, but you won't have to deal with the extra expense and time of an additional taxi stop on the way to the ship. Finally, I'd be shocked if the medical center on the ship doesn't have any for sale.

DW and I are going to be spending three days in San Juan pre-cruise this March, and we're looking into things to do. One thing I know we want to do is to take a tour of El Yunque and also possibly one of the bioluminescent bays. We aren't really outdoorsy people, so we aren't into a long hike or kayaking.

Can anyone recommend some tours we can book to see one or both of these sites that don't involve a long hike or taking a kayak, which would lead to one or both us us falling into the water, I'm sure? :)