Adventure of the Seas Review 1/21/17, post drydock with pics!

[MaineTraveller]

Loved the youtube video, thanks for sharing!

[easyboy]

Vacation video time!

 

Very nice video! Your enjoyment shows!

[cjdixon4]

Does anyone know if the Adventure is really strict about sticking to their check in times? We have to be out of our hotel in San Juan by 11:30 but our "check in time" isn't until 4? Just wondering if they would let us on the ship earlier?

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When hubby and I sailed on Adventure in 2015, we were on board and eating in Windjammer at 12 noon. You don't need to wait until your "assigned" time to board the ship.

[catspaws65]

sorry if this has already been asked may have missed it what camera did you use for the great underwater shots?

[aubreyc1988]

sorry if this has already been asked may have missed it what camera did you use for the great underwater shots?

 

 

its a Go Pro Hero+LCD, a few generations old go pro we bought last year for 200.00 - Best underwater camera we have had so far. We use filters with it underwater, mostly the RED filter. Definitely a good purchase. The new generation of Go Pro is like 400, but older generations are pretty good too, we like the ones with the LCD screen. I am sure you could get the Hero+LCD even cheaper now! :cool:

[Russ Lomas]

Enjoying your review and your comments. We had a good experience with Cosol Tours and are thinking of taking our kids on it when we are in St. Lucia later this year on our cruise. I can fully understand how there could be stress about missing the ship's departure. We were there after a bad storm and had to miss the waterfall visit portion of the excursion since the bridge had been washed out in the storm. Even when missing the stop, we were worried we may be cutting it close for getting back to the ship on time. We ended up back 45 minutes before departure, but if we had done that one extra stop, it would have been very tight. That said, we loved the tour so much we may do it again. Yes, it is a long time in the van driving but I enjoyed the stops, and there were so many of them. We loved the lunch they provided and that is one of our best memories of the excursion. The rum punch was out of this world!

 

We recommended this trip to friends of ours and they did it and it was their favourite tour of their cruise. They did say that there were about 10 vans that pulled in for lunch and it was a free-for-all grabbing the food. I am not sure how many ships were in port that day they went. We only had two ships in port when we were there and there were 5 or 6 vans there for lunch and it was a much more relaxing experience. I have checked and we are the only ship in port when we are there this December, so this could really be a good thing for us since each of the stops should be a lot less busy.

 

Looking forward to reading the rest of your review. I had my GoPro Hero 2 leak when I was in the water in Barbados. I have replaced it now with the Hero 4 Silver (with the built in screen) and look forward to diving the wrecks in Carlisle Bay with it. Keep up the excellent review.

[aubreyc1988]

Barbados

 

We did the Cool Runnings Catamaran there. My friends cruising with us wanted to do a catamaran since they had never done one!!! :eek: So I booked this one because it was highly rated on TripAdvisor, as well as it was a longer catamaran excursion for 90.00pp, included lunch and drinks, and had multiple snorkeling stops.

 

https://www.coolrunningsbarbados.com/index2.html

 

It was a great time and the Cool Runnings staff were great, high energy. It was a larger catamaran (As you can see in the vacation video) and it was nice being able to sit in the front and back of the catamaran as some don't allow you to do that.

 

You will have to wear a vest when snorkeling. They do allow you to drink BEFORE you snorkel, which I was surprised at. Previous catamarans we have done never allowed that. It definitely wasn't allowed until after all the snorkeling stops on Adventure Antigua. The snorkeling was so so. LOTS of people on near by catamarans, so really all you could see were butts and legs. Shipwreck was probably the best snorkel stop of the whole trip. Each snorkel stop was SHORT, like 20-30 minutes, and only 2 stops, so that part was a HUGE disappointment to me, as I was hoping for more snorkeling. Lots of sailing time/drinking time.

 

The buffet lunch was one of the best I've seen offered on catamaran excursions, as well as the drink selection.

The beach they stop is decent, has a lot of seaglass if you are interested in that sort of thing.

 

I didn't take any pictures, except the ones that were in the video :D

 

Next up, I'll wrap up with some overall thoughts about the cruise ship, shows, casino, cruise food, cruise service, etc

[ch214]

Great video! Thanks for sharing!!

Loved your video. Thank you for sharing!

 

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[cruznqueen]

Loving your review. We sailed on AOS a few years ago and are sai,in again next year.

 

Last time we were in st Lucia we did our tour with Spencer Ambrose. He was fantastic. I would totally recommend him.

[Tobleronebar]

when it's mentioned there's also a charge for bags is that only suitcases or does it include the usual backpack and "purse" taken on the plane and kept in my lap on the taxi ride?

 

 

We were not charged for our purses, backpacks and briefcases. Just the luggage he put in the back.

[missymac]

Thank you for your thorough review! We did the COSOL Tour and really enjoyed it, but that was a few years ago. Looking forward to more of the ship information as we will sail her next year.

[piglet57]

Hey all! I will be beginning to write my review for my cruise on Adventure of the Seas which departed on 1/21/17 here tonight and wanted to give people some time to subscribe while I am putting together some photos and details!

 

Here are some of the topics I will cover and if you have any questions, feel free to ask away!

 

- Food (MDR, Buffet, Johnny Rockets, Giovanni's Table

 

- Drinks (Ultimate Beverage Package, Limits/pricing, upcharges, coffee on the promenade, bar service

 

- Ports of Call, which were St. Maarten, St. Kitts, Antigua, St Lucia, and Barbados, as well as a day and a half pre cruise in San Juan in which we did the San Sebastian Festival, El Yunque Rainforest and the Bio Bay in Fajardo, PR. One excursion we almost missed the ship, so be sure to subscribe to hear about that! :eek:

 

- Production Shows, including comedians and ice show

 

- Cleanliness of the ship and the new carpeted areas

 

- Casino

 

and much much more so stay tuned, first entry will be posting tonight with pictures and at the end of the review, my husbanwd will have finished our vacation video which features a lot of cool go pro videos, including one of a sunken ship snorkel dive :D

 

 

-What are your thoughts on the El Yunque Rainforest

[aubreyc1988]

Ok, So finally some of my thoughts on the below categories

 

- Food (MDR, Buffet, Johnny Rockets, Giovanni's Table)

 

MDR was delicious most nights, some nights were very good. I think it was the "Old" menus, and it was so much better than the ones on our Oasis trip in September. But that could be more due to having a better chef than a better menu!

 

Johnny Rockets was just OK, burger was good. Its only 7.00 per person, so not bad price for what you get. Plus it just changes up the pace for places to eat.

 

Giovanni's table was AMAZING. We did the BOGO cruise planner deal, and they let me change to whatever days I wanted once I was onboard, so you aren't stuck with Day 1 and Day 2. They did have a filet, which I got both times. I liked it MUCH better than Chops on Oasis.

 

- Drinks (Ultimate Beverage Package, Limits/pricing, upcharges, coffee on the promenade, bar service)

 

Service for drinks was great, super fast and most of the bartenders were great! I did have quite a few more troubles with this new drink package vs the old one. I did get charged 2.38 a couple times for drinks and I was never made aware of it. :rolleyes: When I went to guest services to have it corrected, took like 10 minutes and the girl had to call 2-3 different people get permission to take a 2.38 charge off my bill. How can the people at guest services not have enough power to wipe of a 2.38 charge? They seriously have to call 2-3 people to do this! I can't imagine what would happen if someone had a real problem! Coffee on the promenade was very good, love that it is included in the new Ultimate package.

 

- Production Shows, including comedians and ice show

 

The shows were not as good as Oasis or Allure, but still pretty good. The Ice show is the best one, be sure not to miss it and get there EARLY. We got to our seating 30 minutes before and it was mostly full! Comedians were great! I wasn't a HUGE fan of the production shows, was just a bunch of singing really.

 

- Cleanliness of the ship and the new carpeted areas

 

Ship was VERY clean and well maintained for the most part. I did have one issue with some carpet turning up that was such a trip hazard and no one ever fixed it, even after I told several staff members about it. The rooms (at least the inside staterooms) are in pretty bad shape. They are going to have to address this issue soon, because a lot of our cabinetry was literally falling apart. Not a big deal to us, but I can see some people having a fit about it.

 

- Casino

 

Casino is OLD OLD OLD. It's definitely the worst area where you can see the ship's age. Theres even this art installation in the floor where you are supposed to see Wizard of Oz props, but its so badly damaged you can't really see anything. The machines are all SUPER SUPER old. I wish I could say this is something just with Adventure, but on Oasis I also saw some really old machines that needed to be replaced (Like the reels looking washed out, etc" But it's a casino, still a great place to lose your money (and hopefully win a little bit of it back!)

[Eeyore1962]

Thank you for the detailed review. There are some great details and info here.

[gottalovecruising]

Glad to hear the let you ditch your days for the BOGO. We would rather to the MDR in the first night. Who did you speak to to arrange a different night?

 

 

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[aubreyc1988]

Glad to hear the let you ditch your days for the BOGO. We would rather to the MDR in the first night. Who did you speak to to arrange a different night?

 

 

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I just went to Giovanni's to schedule my days and asked them if I could choose any day and they said "of course" [emoji5]

 

 

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[LBumb]

great job

I really enjoyed your review