Review: RC Adventure of the Seas Dec 19 2015

[BoopTennis]

Tuesday Day 4 St Maarten

We docked on the port side

 

Part of our family wanted to see both French and Dutch sides of St Maarten so we decided to rent a car/van for all 8 of us to go around the whole island. I had laid out a path for us with many options to see along the way. The two primary things we wanted to stop at was Orient Beach and Maho Beach. We got both of those done, other things we didn’t do in order to make sure we did not miss the big planes at Maho.

 

We ate early in the Windjammer then got off the ship as soon as we docked. We rented thru Hertz and their office is a short walk from the pier. From the office they gave us a shuttle ride to where the cars are maybe 2-3 minutes away. We checked out our van and piled in for our adventure. Everything went very smoothly with the rental car.

 

We went counterclockwise around the island, first starting up the east side and first went to Orient Beach. It was fun seeing the views as we drove along the road. You do not need a special drivers license to rent, our USA license worked. You drive on the right side of the road like in U.S. Lot of construction going on still at Orient but still many beach clubs and places to have a drink, lounge chairs, umbrellas and even wife. I did not purchase wifi on the ship so we took advantage in ports when we could just to grab a few emails.

 

We spent a couple hours at Orient Beach. Water was warm and waves were fun and grandson played in water a long time. Had some drinks and just relaxed. Left Orient and drove up around the north side of the island past Grand Case (had wanted to stop there but got concerned about time). Then headed back down the west side towards Marigot. Hit MAJOR BAD traffic in Marigot so did not stop and see any of the things there because we did not want to miss the big planes at Maho. It took us about an hour just to get thru Marigot which is NOT a big town!

 

Took the bridge across to the airport and Maho beach. Found parking ok and walked to beach and hung out there watching planes come and go. This was my FAVORITE part of the trip! I love planes and anyone who cares has seen all the YouTube videos and how awesome this is. They go RIGHT OVER your head. It is so cool. We watched the big ones arrive and a couple go, and after the big KLM jet we decided to leave.

 

Drove back towards pier around 2 and traffic was not that bad yet. Returned our car, process was simple, the Hertz attendant was in the car lot waiting for us so we had no wait. Did the paperwork, didn’t take long, all was good no issues. Then walked back to ship, Very fun day I am glad we did what we did

 

Oh – this did not affect us but on our way back to the pier from the airport, we were driving on the same bridge we had come in on. This is a two lane road (one lane going one way other lane going other way). Some car doing the other way (in towards Maho) had car get stalled on that bridge (!!) and cars were backed up forever. Not sure what they did to get that guy going again but I am very thankful we were not stuck behind him on the way to Maho!

 

Dinner for appetizer I ordered “cheese Sticks”. Sounds funny but they were fantastic! I think most people at our table had them. Funny part was we did not know how many came with an order – two of our family decided to split one appetizer. Well it came and there were two cheese sticks so each person had one. LOL. I also had a baby shrimp salad as my 2nd appetizer (like I always did) and it was good. I had Singapore Noodles for entrée, it was good but not my favorite so far. I had crème brele for dessert and it was good but I would have preferred it without the banana taste. My husband loved it though and I think got it every night after that. (I love chocolate anything).

 

This evening was fairly bumpy sailing, not so much so that any of us felt sick, but you could feel the rocking more so than other nights to this point. I sleep like a baby when the bed is gently rocking at night.

[BoopTennis]

deleted

Edited December 29, 2015 by BoopTennis

[BoopTennis]

I don't usually take photos of food, but this one was interesting. It was a dessert at MDR dinner. It was called Chocolate Crisp or something like that. It was good but there was not much chocolate and it was not crispy so we could not figure out the name LOL

 

 

another towel animal

 

 

in our rented van and headed out to explore St Maarten

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BoopTennis]

Orient Beach

 

 

 

 

In the places along the beach where there was no beach club, the seaweed was awful. But where there were beach clubs with lounge chairs, it had been cleaned up

 

[DCGuy64]

Thank you for these photos! You're a great photographer. I couldn't access the Compass photos through Shutterfly, but I'm sure they were amazing. I am in agreement with you regarding the positive attitude, my wife and I are the same. It makes cruising so much more fun!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BoopTennis]

my grandson had fun playing in the water for a long time at Orient Beach

 

 

on past Grand Case and over to Marigot

 

Marigot traffic was AWFUL

 

 

Edited December 29, 2015 by BoopTennis

[BoopTennis]

Thank you for these photos! You're a great photographer. I couldn't access the Compass photos through Shutterfly, but I'm sure they were amazing. I am in agreement with you regarding the positive attitude, my wife and I are the same. It makes cruising so much more fun!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

OK, i must have done something wrong on the Compass photos. I am still learning how to post pdf files. I have been using Shutterfly. I guess i need to find some help because it is different than posting photos. Thanks for the heads up that you could not access them

 

Anyone know what I might be doing wrong? i posted pdf's of the Compass to a shutterfly share site as "files" and tried to post the link here on cc. maybe i have not provided access, i am not sure what i need to do!

[BoopTennis]

arrived at Maho beach and so excited to see the planes!

 

 

 

 

my son and grandson played in the water while planes came in, had a great time

 

 

[BoopTennis]

i did not take a lot of photos of the actual planes coming in. There are plenty of those on YouTube and elsewhere. Here are a couple. But i was sitting on the sand right under where the planes came in and it was an AWESOME feeling! Photos dont express it properly. If you love planes (I do). then go see this place at least once

 

 

this photo does not show it well enough (and it is a smaller plane). but they come real low right over your head. and the bigger jets are not to be missed

 

 

 

the runway is on the other side of the small street. they land right there. and take off there. When we were there, no one was hanging on the fence for takeoff. but sand blew everywhere so when a plane was taking off i got away from that area LOL

 

 

headed back to pier after Maho

 

 

[BoopTennis]

driving back to pier

 

 

our ship in the distance

 

 

 

[DCGuy64]

Your photos on Shutterfly are fine, I was trying to access them through Tapatalk and it didn't work. But when I went through the CC forums, it was fine. You're good! BTW, last December we went on a Carnival cruise and my wife and I went near the same beach area on St Maarten where the planes fly low. We were actually on a boat, but it was amazing how close those jumbo jets get to shore. Definitely a highlight of our trip!

[BoopTennis]

Wednesday Dominica

 

Another active day and had to make everyone get up fairly early again! We had reserved in advance a River Tubing tour with AnTours (directly through AnTours, not through the ship). We docked, grabbed quick breakfast at Windjammer, then walked off the ship. Driver with AnTours sign met us at the end of the pier where all the tour operators were waiting. There were 7 of us in our family group. One other couple from Canada joined our group and after a bit of a wait we piled in the van and off we went. Driver’s name was HenryFord (“like the car” LOL) and he was funny and told us all about the island on our drive. Fairly long drive (30 minutes? Didn’t track it too much), went thru town then up into mountain and lots of narrow curvy roads.

 

Got to the top and another truck with a bunch of inner tubes was waiting with guides. We hopped out and started getting outfitted with helmets and lifejackets. We all wore water shoes and I recommend you do this for this tour!

 

At this point we waited again for awhile, longer than I would have liked, for another group of people to come. Maybe another 8 or so. But after that, once we got going in the water, everything was perfect.

 

They helped us get into our tubes. Not that difficult. They seems to be good quality and sturdy tubes. The water is not deep you can easily stand up in the river. They got us in a bit of a line then pushed us off. It was SO FUN! I was afraid the water would be very cold but it was not bad at all (and I am a BIG chicken when it comes to cold water). Off we all went, and did it over 45 min to an hour, I didn’t really track, but it was a very long and nice ride. Part of the river were fast rapids, then you would have a calm area to just float awhile. I lost count of how many guides were with us but plenty to make sure we were all ok. Maybe 6 or 8 guides?? They would swim fast and be in front of us and also behind us. They would rush ahead to be by the rapids and rocks to make sure if we got stuck they pushed us to get us going again. There was plenty of water and I got plenty wet

 

For this I had purchased one of those cheap old style 35mm disposable water cameras. You definitely want something waterproof for this adventure! Those pictures are in for processing so I don’t have them yet to post but will later if any of them come out LOL. This was so much fun I was laughing the whole time.

 

Again our ages for this tour was 9 yrs- 65 yrs. One dad had a baby that looked one year old or less. I’m not sure I would have done that (baby did not seem too happy) but she was safe the whole way. No one got hurt.

 

After the nice long ride down the river we got out and took off all our helmets and lifejackets and turned in our tubes. Then they had rum punch for us (YUM) and also nonalcoholic punch if you wanted THAT. Then the drive back to the pier, which did not take very long because we had gone down the mountain on the river. HenryFord told us more about the island and some jokes and even quizzed us at the end (in a funny way). We did learn a lot about the island.

 

Dominica is clearly one of the more tropical/non commercialized islands we visited.

 

I am so glad we did this tour. I like active adventures

 

Back on ship just hung out and enjoyed pool etc. Dinner had Caeser salad (good), crab cake appetizer (good), some sort of Beef Ragu entrée (just ok) and for dessert this yummy “yeast cake” with vanilla ice cream. I don’t know what it is about how they names these foods, they taste great but the names need to be improved LOL

 

PS this island took a pretty big hit with Storm Erika a few months ago but everything was fine that we saw and it did not affect our tour at all

[BoopTennis]

 

 

 

 

our inner tubes for our river tubing ride

 

 

[BoopTennis]

 

 

 

 

[BoopTennis]

 

 

 

 

 

[BoopTennis]

we had a short rainstorm, with the SUN OUT, so we had a rainbow!

 

 

 

 

another food picture. this was called Chocolate Sensation and it was yummy

[JTBCruiser]

OK, i must have done something wrong on the Compass photos. I am still learning how to post pdf files. I have been using Shutterfly. I guess i need to find some help because it is different than posting photos. Thanks for the heads up that you could not access them

 

Anyone know what I might be doing wrong? i posted pdf's of the Compass to a shutterfly share site as "files" and tried to post the link here on cc. maybe i have not provided access, i am not sure what i need to do!

 

I was able to view them without a problem. Thx for posting.

[BoopTennis]

I was able to view them without a problem. Thx for posting.

 

thank you for letting me know

[krazy4kruisin]

Great Review. I will be taking this same cruise in March, 1st time to the Southern Caribbean and 1st time to SJU & 1st time on AOS. Thank you so much for taking the time to post it!

[BoopTennis]

Great Review. I will be taking this same cruise in March, 1st time to the Southern Caribbean and 1st time to SJU & 1st time on AOS. Thank you so much for taking the time to post it!

 

you will have a great time. I love the S Caribbean itineraries!

[BoopTennis]

Thursday Barbados

 

We decided to not pre-book an excursion for Barbados so we weren’t too booked and could relax a bit. Plus it was now Christmas Eve! So we spent time around the pool and exploring the ship. We did decide to get off the ship for awhile in the afternoon…5 of us got off and took a taxi into town for $2 per person. Dropped us off, my youngest son and I looked for a place with wifi to grab some quick emails, another son and his family headed for Boatyard (beach). I had researched that here on cc and it sounded great, and I heard later they had an awesome time. Got the lounges and umbrellas and a free drink for $15 each and my grandson had so much fun playing on all the water toys.

 

My other son and I asked around and found this internet café. For $5 we both got free internet for 20 minutes or so on for both of our devices. So that got us all caught up.

 

We grabbed taxi back to ship. That evening we played music trivia in one of the lounges which was fun. After dinner played cards up in the game room.

 

Dinner I had a caprese salad, which I liked, some sort of mushroom ball appetizer, also good. Entrée had tiger shrimp on rice which was good but tiresome to peel the shrimp . For dessert had two things and they were both awesome and I was way too full. One was a bread pudding and it was out of this world. Other was a dessert sampler, had three things, I was only interested in one of them (chocolate) and it was a little mousse type cake and it was the best dessert I had all week. I would have liked that every night LOL. This was also the 2nd formal night.

 

Several nights my husband and some of the others went to the casino. I don’t enjoy gambling so did not partake. Hubby thought the casino was a little better than other ships we have been on, a better selection of table games. Negative was the craps table only allowed single odds bet (whatever that is). Casino had smoking except for one night was non-smoking (we are not smokers), I could detect the smoke when we walked thru there.

 

I don’t remember if I mentioned ping pong before. They had several tables available and we played a few times, did our own little tournament, and that was fun. It’s up on the top deck so wind can be a factor.

 

 

this is the internet cafe we found

 

 

 

 

 

[BoopTennis]

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 30, 2015 by BoopTennis

[krazy4kruisin]

Love it. I will have Sweet Caribbean Dreams tonight! This makes me want to drag out the suitcases now:)

[firefighter75]

Us, too! Gave my wife the cruise as a Christmas present. We're sailing on 28 January, how about you?

 

 

January 7, 2017

[BoopTennis]

Friday, Christmas Day, Sea Day

 

I do enjoy sea days and we only had one of those! And Christmas morning on top of it! First I hung little Christmas stocking on all our door handles with small chocolates inside. Hid just a couple little gifts for the grandson.

 

They had a Champagne Brunch in the MDR so we did that. Rest of the day we just hung out at the pool, played some mini golf, guys played some basketball, some played ping pong. Early morning almost every lounge chair on the main deck had a towel on it, few people, LOL, that was the day the Deck Police came out and cleared some of that out. Fun to watch THAT LOL

 

Santa showed up somewhere and there was Christmas caroling and other things to partake in if one desired. It was a nice day for our last day.

 

Dinner was great, had a poblano and corn soup which was great, also shrimp cocktail (always 2 appetizers for me, sorry) also good. Have LOBSTER which was yummy and a soufflé of some sort for dessert. Very nice. We had late dinner seating so put our big checked bags out in the hallway before dinner (although they stated to get them out there by 11 pm for pickup).

 

Christmas was a full moon, as you may have known. Had not had a full moon on Christmas since like 1977 and will not see it again until 2034. So I thought that was pretty cool and the full moon was B E A U T I F U L from the ship! Just awesome! I tried hard to take a photo but it just does not capture it correctly.

 

I must mention that our waiters were awesome. Both took such good care of us and especially our grandson. They always called him by name and knew that he wanted cheese rolls up front and brought extra to him. Always asked how his day was. Also our stateroom attendant Charlie was fantastic. Thank you to all the hard working people on the cruises that make our vacations so wonderful.

 

Our bar server was also great, he even would look for me during the day by the pool (they all have multiple jobs they must do, work long hard hours) and greet me by name and say hi. Just a little extra touch.

 

our group with our main waiter

 

 

 

i tried to capture the Christmas full moon, but didnt get it the way i wanted

 

Love this guy, he took such good care of us

 

the last dinner, the waiters all paraded through the dining room and everyone waved their napkins. They had also done that for all the chefs on an earlier night. there are a LOT of chefs!