Review of Adventure -- Sept 27th 2009

[sanjay]

i'll try to keep this short and sweet...

 

key facts to put this review in context:

- this is my 7th cruise

- 1 carnival (europe), 3 royal caribbean, 1 princess and a Celebrity last year

- my wife and i prior to this cruise had both been travelling for work without eachother so we decided it would be less exploring and excursions like we normally do – and mostly relaxing and spending time on the beach.

 

here we go!!!

 

embarkation - well organized, hassle free. friendy staff. our room (balcony) was ready despite it being quite early.

 

first impressions of the ship – big beautiful and clean – it felt just like a mini freedom from a year before minus the flowrider – it didn’t feel a lot smaller than freedom which i think it is.

room (9350)- loved loved loved it. great layout, so much storage, and that beautiful balcony which we sat on for hours at a time...it was more than perfect. – i did prefer the balcony on summit more however .... this balcony seemed to have a barrier of sorts so you never see your neighbour (on summit you can see into your neighbours room if you peak around the corner.....) i felt the shield blocked some of the view – but it was still great. the room was in great shape but a few small things which RC should have fixed were not - the garbage bin was a little rusty, and the toilet seat was dirty etc. - fixing both of these things would have taken RC about 3 minutes and made the room perfect.

meals - I think we’re pretty sophisticated in our pallets and i was concerned after reading reviews here that it had gone down in quality. I had no issues with the food at all. this was the first time we’d done MTD and loved it – we were initially concerned that we’d miss the personalized service we’d become accustomed to receiving. however we were seated in the same area nightly and our waiters got to know us the same way they normally do. While we’re not antisocial by any means – i don’t really see the point of socializing with 4 strangers every night to never see them again - MTD gets us a nice private table.

 

Portofinos’s - the service, food, etc was excellent. it just wasn't the fine steakhouse that my mouth was watering for. i can't hold that against them, though. i prefer chops! J

breakfast & lunch – this was the first cruise we did breakfast/lunch every day in the main dining room because the windjammer lines were so, so, so slow and you spend a ton of time finding a table. Will never go back to the windjammer again after experiencing the excellent food & service in the dining room.

 

itinerary - excellent! here is a quick synopsis of each port:

 

st maarten - had a chill out day at orient beach, which was stunning as always. I noticed the beach seemed totally totally empty in comparison to normal times – this is our 3rd time there always in September

barbados – sadly as this was a few weeks ago i don’t really remember which beach we went to – if it was very good or terrible we’d remember though. I do recall my wife and i being slightly disappointed with Barbados after hyping ourselves about it though.

 

st lucia – we took a cab to rodney’s bay – this is the most beautiful beach i’ve ever been on – soft white sand and lush greenery everywhere you look. There’s a Sandals resort on this beach as well. We rented a jetski here ($40 for 30 minutes) and had a great time....we even saw a sea turtle.

 

antigua - we took a taxi to Dickenson Bay beach – again beautifully clean soft white sand – just relaxed again and jetskied again – same price

st croix - again, another favourite island. – we went to sand castle beach which was a $3 cab ride away. When you get there the easiest access to the beach is via the single hotel there – for $5 they give you a guest pass which includes a chair and use of their small pool and shower facilities – WELL worth it. Get there early because they ran out of chairs very early into the day. We snorkled a lot here and there was abundant marine life everywhere......one of my favourite snorkelling spots in the Caribbean.

 

sea day - so relaxing and fun. we had brunch on the ship, lazed around, etc etc.

 

disembarkation – We had an early flight out and the ship was super strict about letting us off early as we didn’t have our plane tickets printed to show as proof -- when we got off one of our bags had been misplaced however 2 RCI staff were assisting us finding it – it could have happened on any line ... however i was impressed with the helpfulness of RCI staff

other random observations:

- gym was excellent, as was the running track up on deck 12

- Satellite tv was very limited (not rcl’s fault)

- I really missed chops.

- Ice show was spectacular (as always)

- Soft serve machine on deck 11 with frozen yogurt was so, so, so good (wish i could have some right now)

- Adult area swimming pool was beautiful

- Hot tub in the middle of the gym area was a little weird---but cool once you got over stripping down to your suit with people working out around you

- Would do this cruise again in 2 seconds.

 

 

[Loves_Dogs]

Thank you for the great review...I cannot wait to cruise AOS!

[CaribbeanSoul 05]

Thanks for the review! We're cruising on AOS with the same itin. in January and this gets me even more excited for it!

[youngestof9]

Thanks for the review - doing the same itinerary in '11. I can't wait!!

 

I'll have some frozen yogurt for you :)

[yogimax]

Thanks for the review and glad to hear MTD worked out so well for you!

[sanjay]

i'll also add that the welcome back party was there (we're Gold only)