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Live AOS 4/30/06

njoyndride

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njoyndride

njoyndride

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I always enjoy live postings and thought I’d return the favor. We are a group of 8 age 30-50ish from California traveling on AOS.

Travel:

Coming from the left coast we need to fly into San Juan the day prior to sailing. We flew AA through Dallas arriving at SJU at 7pm. I had booked the Marriott San Juan through Priceline for $117. I was a little nervous having read good and bad reports about this hotel. I think if I paid $350 I’d be disappointed but for the price I paid I was more than delighted. The property is really pretty, they put us in a corner king city view. The room was nice, no cleanliness issues at all which was initially what made me a bit apprehensive about this hotel. We had a quick dinner in the coffee shop last night and while I’d heard horror stories about the prices it seemed reasonable to me. The quality wasn’t gourmet but for $38 for 2 with a glass of wine I thought it was just fine. If we’d been looking for dinner earlier in the evening I would have ventured out and eaten locally but by the time we were ready to eat it was 9:30 and having been up since 3:30am we were dog tired. Of course we did make time for the casino, thank you Marriott for the contribution to my sign and sail card. :D Starbucks right across the street was welcoming first thing this morning too. I’d heard a lot of negativity about the Marriott staff, the were friendly, helpful and full of smiles. Our friends who had red-eyed and arrived at 9:30am on Saturday did their check-in, went to Old San Juan for breakfast/lunch and by the time they got back to the Marriott around 2pm their room was available. Also a king w/balcony booked through Priceline

Embarkation:

We left the Marriott at approx. 10:45am, I know a little anxious? This is my 16th cruise and I still can’t wait to see that huge ship just waiting for me to board. The ship was beautiful and docked at Terminal 2 at the Pan American pier. We were about the 20th in line to check in and there was no line to drop the bags. Side note, I hear people complain about the line for baggage but having experienced the mayhem in Miami many times with the porters rushing up and whisking your luggage away I’m not sure this is such a bad idea. There is no signage however so we spent our time in line pointing passengers to the baggage line. There was a separate line for platinum, diamond and suite passengers to hand over their bags. We noticed that there were still passengers disembarking and had a small touch of uh-oh :rolleyes: but thought perhaps they were just the last off and doing local tours etc. They opened the doors at 11:30, we went through the x-ray just inside the doors and right up to the counter. One advantage to arriving early…nobody in line. We were ushered to the platinum, diamond and suite plastic chairs, not to be confused with other plastic chairs 10 feet away LOL. DH went to the Duty Free store for soda and water. It is inside the x-ray and you must show your sign & sail before purchasing. No problem carrying the bag on, there is no bag check after the x-ray. It wouldn’t have mattered if we had 72 gallons of alcohol.

At 12:15 they made an announcement that there would be a delay in embarkation due to immigration issues and they estimated another hour before embarking….can you hear the collective groan of all the passengers sitting in the plastic chairs? There was water, lemonade, coffee and cookies already set-up in the terminal to keep up from rioting ;) . Since we were in row 2 right in front of the big roll-up door we looked with hopeful eyes at any security personnel that went anywhere near the button that raised the door. At 12:40 they announced that in 10 minutes we could board, yiiiiipppppppeeeeee!!! About 2 minutes later they raised the doors there was still a line of people going through immigration. We waved at them, maybe a little cruel but we really didn’t mean it that way. They boarded a wedding party then started with the platinum, diamond and suite guests. Three minutes later we were on board!!!! We went directly to guest relations, again no line, to get our in cabin computer hook-up and went directly to our cabin. Although the fire door was closed we were able to throw our carryon in the cabin and then headed for Windjammer.

They are calling us for muster as I type, I will continue tomorrow morning and will attempt to post daily after that.

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ckrobyn

ckrobyn

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:o I'm insanely jealous!

We love the AOS and can't wait to sail on her again next March.....

What cabin are you in? Have a wonderful cruise and thanks for taking the time to post!

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Dreamer2622

Dreamer2622

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"Although the fire door was closed we were able to throw our carryon in the cabin and then headed for Windjammer."

 

Did you have to get someone to let you through the fire door to get to your cabin?

 

Thanks for the post. I look forward to hearing more. We still have 75 days to anticipate and dream....

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MayWed

MayWed

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I leave on Sunday for the AOS and my honeymoon:D . I too am coming from California and just wanted to know how the travel was. We are leaving from Los Angels to Dalles to San Juan. We are unable to travel the day before due to the wedding. Were the planes on time for the most part? Our plane does not land till 6:40pm will it be a stressful event getting to the ship on time? We booked out flight through RCI and they are transfering us from airport to the ship. Anything you can tell me about the travel part would be helpful.

 

Can wait to read the about the rest of your trip. Hope you have a great one!!

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nanfromatlanta

nanfromatlanta

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I am SO jealous. We were on the AOS last year & had a ball. We also stayed at the Marriott & were pleased with our accommodations.

 

We are counting the months and days until we board the Radiance again (3rd time) in December.

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bankofdad

bankofdad

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Just wondering if RCI made any mention of the news that the Puerto Rican government shut down today (ran out of money - heard it on CNN this morning), and if there would be any impact to cruisers at all (i.e. imigrations, airport, taxi service, etc.).

 

DW (and her Mother & Aunt) sailed out of San Juan yesterday evening on Carnival Destiny. I spoke with her today from St Thomas, and she's going to stop at the onboard information center and see if they know anything. So far, she hadn't heard anything, but then again, she's been on shore shopping:eek: all day.

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Retired and Ready to Go

Retired and Ready to Go

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Haven't seen any AOS trip reports recently, so was really happy to see yours ~ and even better, it is right up to the minute (almost :p ) We board this coming Sunday on our first RCI cruise. Needless to say, I will be checking this board every day until then, living vicariously until we are actually there ourselves.

 

Maywed: Looking forward to meeting you two newlyweds at the Meet & Mingle.

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njoyndride

njoyndride

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Sorry to leave you hanging :)

Muster was quick and easy, they did check every cabin off but it didn’t take more than 10-15 minutes. Our luggage had arrived around 5 so we quickly changed for dinner which was at 9 tonight. To our surprise the Captain announced we were ready to go, all passengers on board and would be departing at 9:30. We love to be on deck for sail away but since it was raining anyway there was no party and we weren’t too disappointed at the early departure. After dinner we made our contribution to the casino and then went back to our cabin to enjoy the view off the balcony.

Clementine - Meet Jenn and Sem yesterday and again last night. Jenn looked beautiful in her dress. We've run into the quite a few times so I'll make sure and say hi from mom.

Retired - You will love this ship, we'll leave the lights on for you.

Bank - nothing seemed amiss on Sunday and no reports other than what we've seen on the news. Since the port authority is federal there shouldn't be an impact.

ckrobyn - We're in JS 9618 and love being on the hump.

Dreamer - we just opened the door ourselves, even got a nod from a steward who was walking down the hall so I don't think it's unusual that passengers do this.

Maywed - Congrats on your marriage! It's just a loooooong day from the west coast, I read an entire book. All flights were on time and uneventful. It does take a bit for the luggage at SJU, probably 20 minutes or so until they started coming out. This was the case last time too so seems the norm.

We have just docked in Aruba, it's partly cloudy 82 degrees and we're headed to Palm Beach. I'll try to catch up on my posting this afternoon. Doing Kukoo Kunuku tonight so I will refrain from drunk typing.

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ckrobyn

ckrobyn

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So glad to hear you are having a wonderful time!

Your cabin location is awesome - we had GS 1324 on the hump and absolutely loved it :)

Have a wonderful cruise and thanks for taking the time to give us updates!

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bankofdad

bankofdad

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We have 9618 for Sept. 2006, too!!! We have stayed on the other side in 9318 twice (center hump). Love the hump JS.

 

Which side of the ship do you feel gives the better view from your balcony while in port and sailing in/out of port?

 

We'll be in a D2 (8238) starboard on oursailing.

 

Thanks!

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rascalious

rascalious

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Which side of the ship do you feel gives the better view from your balcony while in port and sailing in/out of port?

 

We'll be in a D2 (8238) starboard on oursailing.

 

Thanks!

I couldn't tell that it makes that much difference which side you are on. The ship arrives to each port while we were asleep and it is not predictable which way it docks (bow-in or aft-in). In two cruises, we did the Aruba route and just chose the Starboard side. This year we do the Barbados route, but did not switch to the Port side for any other reason than we thought we should try something "different".

We usually do late dining, so I never really saw sail-away from San Juan, but I would guess the Starboard side is good for the 30 minutes or so that that takes. Anyway, one can always go up two decks and walk to the rail for whatever you wish to see.

We like the view over the harbor at St. Thomas, but again, we have docked both ways there in two cruises. It is a crap-shoot, so picking a balcony cabin for the view is unreliable. Whatever sunrise/sunset you don't have sailing South, you get sailing back North.

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