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Just Off Adventure 3/26-4/2 - Review and commentary

5thgirl

By 5thgirl,
in Royal Caribbean International

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5thgirl

5thgirl

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I just completed my second AOS cruise, my 4th with RCCL. I will share my experience and also some observations from this AOS cruise vs. the last time we sailed on AOS about 5 years ago.

 

Let me start by saying we had an awesome time, (Hubby and thirteen year olds). We flew into San Juan a day early as we normally do, however, we spent the entire day traveling with connecting flights and a long layover in Miami, as we couldn't get a direct flight this time and prices were crazy high. We checked in at about 11pm to Condado Plaza Hilton, not too far from the airport about a $24 taxi ride. We had breakfast the next morning at their Cafe Caribe restaurant. Decent food, slowish service, but great coffee and stunning views! We then spent a couple of hours at their pool, which had a small water slide (my 13 year olds are still young enough to enjoy the slide, but too old to go on it over and over again like they would have when they were young!). We asked for a later checkout time and they were able to extend it to 1pm vs. 12 noon for no charge. It gave us some time to clean up and change to head to the pier. Taxi to the pier was about $18. The lines were very long at this time, but it moved swiftly. I'd say we finally got on the ship about 3-ish and headed to the Windjammer for a late lunch.

 

Lunch was okay, I think it was the 'embarkation day' menu, somewhat limited but understandable as they were just getting started. Our kids headed to the pool for a quick dip and for some reason did not seem to remember that it was a salt water pool, so they were not crazy about that. Meanwhile, we had a couple of drinks to get us going......more to come, including pictures and compasses if I can.....

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5thgirl

5thgirl

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Day 1 Cont'd...so, I mentioned we sailed AOS about 5 years ago, when my kids were about 8. One thing I noticed is that the servers at the Windjammer were not as attentive as I remembered. The servers would always come up pretty quickly and ask what drinks they could bring and it was almost always the same person whose name was assigned to the table. This time, it seemed more self service, but I thought I'd wait a day or two as it was still the first day of embarkation. My kids were wary of the teen club, and did not know what to expect. I did not find a lot of useful information applicable to my situation on this forum regarding the teen clubs, so I will offer my experience for those who may find it helpful. They decided to check out 2 activities on Day 1. The Mix and Mingle (9pm), and the Free Arcade Play (10pm). Now, I did read that the teen club was less monitored, to allow the kids to come and go as they pleased, so I knew what to expect there. To make a long story short, my kids were very disappointed in both the activities. The Mix and Mingle was basically all the kids in a small room and it included the older teens as well, so it was 12-17 year olds. It would have been nice to have a staffer at least help kick off intros, or an ice breaker activity but there was nothing. Most of the kids there already had friends they were traveling with, so many were already in cliques. My kids were completely bored. As for the free arcade, the staffer told the kids that the only free games were the ones with green light and since there were so few to choose from my kids did not end up playing anything, as they couldn't really figure out what the staffer meant by 'green'. In the meantime, my husband and I caught the live show at the Lyric Theater - a comedian, Michelle Balan, who was pretty funny.

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dna1990

dna1990

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Lunch was okay, I think it was the 'embarkation day' menu, somewhat limited but understandable as they were just getting started.

 

You might be just getting started as an embarking pax, but there is little difference to staff except the number of suitcases they see being hauled around. Just another day in WJ.

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readytolose

readytolose

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Looking forward to more! We have a long wait for our Adventure cruise but I'm still gathering all the info I can get. We are considering the same hotel, from my research there seems to be lots of restaurants within walking distance. Did you notice the same?

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5thgirl

5thgirl

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Previous Compass that were posted by CC members had teen dodge-ball? Did they have dodge-ball one night and if so did your kids play? Thanks in advance.

 

Yes, actually my kids did do the dodgeball activity, and they did enjoy it. Even after the disappointing first day experience they kept trying different things here and there and tried to find something to enjoy. My suggestion to RC would be to keep the 12-14 yr group as its own and not to combine with the 15-17, but I understand it makes sense sometimes to have a larger group for the different events.

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5thgirl

5thgirl

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Looking forward to more! We have a long wait for our Adventure cruise but I'm still gathering all the info I can get. We are considering the same hotel, from my research there seems to be lots of restaurants within walking distance. Did you notice the same?

 

Yes, there are restaurants in walking distance. We stayed at Condado Plaza for a night after leaving the ship on a Saturday and walked 2 min to a nice restaurant called Ropa Vieja, which is Cuban Puerto Rican food. Good food, great artwork there.

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5thgirl

5thgirl

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Day 2 – St Croix.

So I did some research ahead of time and decided to go to Sandcastle Beach because 1) They have chairs and umbrellas to rent w/ rum punch and 2) We could use their hotel facilities. I even went to their website and completed the online reservation (without pre-payment) just in case….however, it didn’t really matter, as they don’t really check. We departed off the ship and took a taxi to the location. The taxis were easy to find once you walk off the pier. There are organized areas, and a table with a nice lady that asked where we wanted to go. We pre-paid for a round trip taxi, $6pp. Easy to do on your own. Once we arrived, we rented 4 chairs and 2 umbrellas for $50, which included 4 drinks. The kids had fruit punch, we had the rum punches. We had a little trouble finding the guy to help us with the chairs and umbrellas at first, so we started getting our own chairs off the pile, since it was pretty hot just standing around looking. We then saw him, and he began helping. The beach was nice in some areas, some other areas there were small spots of rocks and moss/seaweed, and in front of restaurant there was a dip in the sand. However, we enjoyed the day there. It was nice and calm, a quaint little beachfront hotel. Our teens wanted to use the small pool, but were told it was only for 16 yrs. and above, so they were sent back to the beach – bummer. We also saw a few young local boys playing on the beach a little further down and at one point they seemed to be roaming up and down the beach sort of scoping the area....seemed a little suspicious, but we took normal precaution like anywhere else we would go, even here at home, and it was fine. If we ever go back to St. Croix, I think I may want to check out Rainbow beach to compare, as I have read many posts about both. So, all in all, a nice day for our family of 4 for $75, which is good for me, considering the excursion prices through the ship for a beach trip.

 

We decided not to have lunch at the beach, as we had a big breakfast at the WJ, but there is a nice little restaurant right there that is part of the hotel that you can grab lunch at - so we headed back to the ship about 2-3pm to begin getting ready for our first formal night. I was looking forward to a nice dining room experience and to see if my previous (confirmed) email request for a table for 4 would be honored.

 

Some pics of the beach

SAM_0935.jpg

SAM_0933.jpg

 

You can see the little restaurant on the left corner

SAM_0926.jpg

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