Toonjie's AOS Review

[toonjie]

Hi Toonjie!

 

I LOVED your review and advice! We leave for SJ Sat for the start of our honeymoon on AOS leaving Sun. It's great to see a neighbor on here too! We're in Danbury - you guys look familiar - I'm almost postive we've passed each other around town or something!

 

Congratulations on the upcoming arrival of your son!

 

~ Doranne

 

Wow! Hi Neighbor, we just may have crossed paths at some point, it would be interesting to know. Congrats on your wedding and honeymoon, have a blast!

[Nothin' But Sun]

LOVE your adventure on the Adventure:D

I feel like I am reading a short story and I am sad my book will end soon:(

So PLEASE tell us you will be able to do this kind of wonderful review when you sail the Mariner. As I'm sure the story will be told much differently from the eyes of a father.:) It will kind of be like waiting for the next short novel to be published by one of our favourite writers:)

[TXMary]

Hey toonjie!

 

I am still glued to your review and pictures. Both are awesome!

 

One question...I was looking at the cruise ship schedule on this cruise and it shows that the Adventure is the only ship in all the ports except San Juan on the days that we are there. Is that correct? Just curious! Thanks!! :)

[Gon2hwe]

Love your review. Keep it coming. We will be on AOS on July 20. We have an active Roll Call

but still need a few more people to join. So if anyone is going July 20 c

ome join our Roll Call and register for the Meet & Mingle.

[jjtt]

Hi Gon2hwe!!! Reading toonjie's review is REALLY making me excited!!! :D

 

I love your writing and pictures toonjie!! Thanks for taking the time to write and post the awesome photos!!! :D We will be in your cabin (1388). First time in an aft balcony... :eek: Any advice???

[Moon&Stargazer]

What island were the spices on? What types do they have? Thank you!

[London Traveller]

Toonjie

Your reviews are fascinating. We're doing our first cruise on August 17. We booked everything with RCCI and flying in from London. RCCI have put us up at the Courtyard Marriott, is this the same hotel? I went online and it seems there are 2 in San Juan?

 

Congrats on your new addition!

[toonjie]

Hey toonjie!

 

I am still glued to your review and pictures. Both are awesome!

 

One question...I was looking at the cruise ship schedule on this cruise and it shows that the Adventure is the only ship in all the ports except San Juan on the days that we are there. Is that correct? Just curious! Thanks!! :)

 

Thanks so much! Yes, the AOS is the only ship in port except in San Juan where the Destiny is also homeported.

[toonjie]

Toonjie

Your reviews are fascinating. We're doing our first cruise on August 17. We booked everything with RCCI and flying in from London. RCCI have put us up at the Courtyard Marriott, is this the same hotel? I went online and it seems there are 2 in San Juan?

 

Congrats on your new addition!

 

Thanks! :) :) :)

 

The Courtyard Marriott is a different hotel, it is also nice, but not as nice as the Marriott Resort and Stellaris Casino, which is the full name of the one everyone talks about. Many CCers have stayed at the Courtyard so you can search for some reviews or check Tripadvisor.

[toonjie]

What island were the spices on? What types do they have? Thank you!

 

It was St. Lucia, if you look back through this post, you'll see there are pictures with directions on how to get to the market from the ship.

 

We got, Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Cloves, Paprika, Saffron, Arrowroot and Vanilla. They probably have even more, but that is all we were looking for. They make a big difference in cooking! The Vanilla is an especially great bargain, we got a liter bottle for $8, it's not much less for a little bottle of McCormicks.

[toonjie]

Hi Gon2hwe!!! Reading toonjie's review is REALLY making me excited!!! :D

 

I love your writing and pictures toonjie!! Thanks for taking the time to write and post the awesome photos!!! :D We will be in your cabin (1388). First time in an aft balcony... :eek: Any advice???

 

Muchas Gracias!

 

You're going to love it! My mom was in 1388 and we were in 1688, but they are basically identical, just mirror images of each other. Remember to ask for ice twice a day, if you want more loungers or chairs on your balcony, just ask your steward. Enjoy sailaway and arrival on your balcony as well as room service breakfast or even dinner or lunch if you want, it's huge and very relaxing back there.

[jjtt]

Muchas Gracias!

 

You're going to love it! My mom was in 1388 and we were in 1688, but they are basically identical, just mirror images of each other. Remember to ask for ice twice a day, if you want more loungers or chairs on your balcony, just ask your steward. Enjoy sailaway and arrival on your balcony as well as room service breakfast or even dinner or lunch if you want, it's huge and very relaxing back there.

 

 

Hi, sorry about that. I knew that either you or your mom was in that cabin, could not remember. THANKS for the advice toonjie!! Was there much soot on your mom's balcony? I heard from other CC'rs that aft balconies get soot and not to leave clothes or anything out there. We'll ask for ice and since we will be cruising with family (small reunion) we'll be sure to ask for more chairs!! Thanks again for taking the time to post your reports!!! LOVE them!!!

[TXMary]

Thanks so much! Yes, the AOS is the only ship in port except in San Juan where the Destiny is also homeported.

 

Great news! Thank you!!

 

How much was the saffron in St Lucia? It's ridiculously expensive here, but oh so good!! ;) :)

[London Traveller]

Thanks for info Toonjie

 

Appreciated

[frito58]

Hi, have really enjoyed your review, we are going back on the AOS this Sept. and was thinking of renting a car at Charlies. My question was it pretty easy getting around San Juan. We are also wanting to go to he rainforest and maybe check out the big shopping mall. I seem to remember all the road signs were in spanish and all I remember of my high school spanish is how to count to ten, so I dont think that will be much help LOL.

[toonjie]

Great news! Thank you!!

 

How much was the saffron in St Lucia? It's ridiculously expensive here, but oh so good!! ;) :)

 

We bought everything together so I would say it was a year's supply of each of the mentioned spices and the liter of vanilla and a bunch of bananas for $20.

[toonjie]

Hi, have really enjoyed your review, we are going back on the AOS this Sept. and was thinking of renting a car at Charlies. My question was it pretty easy getting around San Juan. We are also wanting to go to he rainforest and maybe check out the big shopping mall. I seem to remember all the road signs were in spanish and all I remember of my high school spanish is how to count to ten, so I dont think that will be much help LOL.

 

Going to the rainforest is super-easy, just follow 26 to 66. I'll be mentioning a lot about it when I get to that part of the review. Directional signs were in English. San Juan is easy as well once you learn your way around a little. There aren't that many main roads so once you learn a couple of the main roads, you're all set. There are also great maps available, they give you a paper copy of this one at Charlies. http://www.travelmaps.com/OldSanJuan.html

[Martin and Lindsey]

That's a brilliant map Toonjie, thanks.:)

[01Sweetpea]

Any updates to the trip report?

[toonjie]

Any updates to the trip report?

 

Sorry they've been slow in coming, had to pick up DW in VT. I should start posting more real soon! St. Thomas is up next and then the 4 day post-cruise at the Wyndham Rio Mar.

[toonjie]

Saturday, May 17th St. Thomas

 

 

Today was DW’s day to sleep in, but for some reason she’s up and at ‘em early along with mom and I so we have our last breakfast out on the balcony as we enter the harbor. We’re in St. Thomas from 7:00am-5:00pm and the plan is to get off the ship by 8:00 in order to get a cab to Red Hook and the American Yacht Harbor for scuba diving with Chris Sawyer’s Dive Shop. Everyone has to go through customs by 9:30am, a fact that our tablemate’s 20 something year old daughter was complaining about the night before. Around 7:30am we all head down to the deck 5 dinning room, which is where American citizens were to meet, customs went very smoothly and the only change from other years was that they were scanning your seapass card as you made your way to the rear of the dinning room. Otherwise, this step is simply walking to the back of the dining room on one side and coming around to the front on the other and showing your passport to the customs agent. A crew member then draws a happy face on your seapass card, which you need to have in order to debark the ship. (I thought they might eliminate the happy face this year since they started scanning cards, but no, still the happyfaces-probably so crew members can spot people that haven’t gone through customs before they get all the way to security.)

DW returns to the cabin and got a much needed nap and also began the packing process. Mom and I debark around 8:00am and make our way to the cab station, which is quite a ways, at least when you’re pushing a wheelchair, by the entrance to Havensight Mall. We catch a cab with a couple going to Secret Harbor, again they are from the NY Metro area. We get dropped off first even though the entrance to Secret Harbor is first, we are getting close to dive time and our cabbie tells the couple we are only a minute further up the street. We arrive at Chris Sawyer’s at 8:45am and fill out all our paperwork. This is the 4th time I have dived with them since 1995 and I’ve always had great dives and service. My mom just loves going to watch and enjoy the scenery, 2 years ago she went swimming off the boat, but since then has just watched and they only charge her the snorkeler rate, which is around $35. I picked St. Thomas to have my mom come with me in the boat since it is so scenic with all the other small islands around and usually we do a dive off the coast of St. Johns. Chris Sawyer does the diving for Caneel Bay Resort and last year we went over there to pick up some divers and got to see that amazing resort, it’s just gorgeous! Our first dive of the day is called Rays Rise and it was very good. It was around a 15 minute boat ride to the site and we did a 50 minute dive. Ironically we only saw 1 stingray and it had no tail, undoubtedly from an encounter with a shark. In between dives they serve us some yummy pineapple and lots of cold water. The next dive was Castle Reef, named for the castle-like house on the shore nearby. We saw a large Hawksbill turtle, an enormous lobster and a 5-6 foot nurse shark. Nurse sharks are one of the few that can breath without swimming and they eat crustaceans and they love to tuck themselves into crevices and caves, usually with only their tails hanging out, which is the case this time. I was able to hover over this shark and get to within 2 feet of it without scaring it away. Its skin appears grey from a distance, but has iridescent tones from up really close with the sun shinning on it. Finally, the shark inched its way out of the crevice and took off, I’m sure not happy its nap was interrupted by 10 divers hovering all around her! Two years ago, we were at another site nearby and spent a half an hour going through all kinds of caves and caverns looking for Nurse Sharks and just as I came out of the last cave of the day, one happens to just be swimming by in open water, so you never know where you’ll find interesting critters! On the way back in the boat, I call DW and tell her to leave the ship and meet us for lunch. We arrive back at American Yacht Harbor around 1:00pm and mom and I head right next door to the dive shop, to Molly Malone’s, which is a nice Irish pub type restaurant that has very good food. This is the third year in a row we have eaten lunch here. My mom just loves feeding the iguanas that hangout all over the Mangrove trees that line the harborfront. It’s a gorgeous sunny day and very hot, but since I’ve been underwater for almost 2 hours the blazing sun feels good and we sit right out near the Mangroves. I call DW to see how she is progressing and she’s in the cab and whispers she has a story to tell me. I get her order and then go out front to meet her and pay the cab fare. She arrives in one of the open air cabs that hold like 20 people and after we pay and the cabbie leaves, DW says that the cabbie and the dispatcher got in a fight because the open air cab driver was upset she had to drive just one person all the way across the island, but it was her turn in line and that’s the breaks! It was a very awkward ride over, but at least DW was a little less apprehensive being alone with a female driver. The best news is that DW has finished all the major packing- Got to love her!

We enjoy a delicious lunch and feed all the lettuce from our buffalo wing platter and our hamburgers to the iguanas, who by this time are perched right under our feet.

 

These guys just love lettuce!

 

They hang out in the mangroves waiting for friendly patrons:

 

After lunch, we catch a cab to Sapphire Beach. We get a really grumpy Palestinian cab driver who at first tries to charge us $5 extra for my dive bag and mom’s wheelchair. He claims it is the norm, but when I tell him we weren’t charged on the way over, he backs down and doesn’t charge us. As a professor, I have led a couple of month-long trips over to Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Greece and know a lot of Palestinians, but I didn’t even bother to get in the conversation he was so unfriendly. Oh well, Sapphire Beach more than made up for this grouchy rip-off artist. It was so nice we spent the entire time in the water just floating around. There were loads of people from the ship, (you can tell by the towels), there’s a bar and restaurant and everyone seems to be having a blast.

 

 

 

 

At 3:30pm we catch a cab back to Havensight, the cabs are conveniently waiting right at the entrance to the beach. A much nicer cab driver strikes up a good conversation with us. We arrive at Havensight at 4:00pm and shop until 4:50pm, catching up on a lot of obligatory gifts for friends and family, then back on the ship for the last time.

I convince DW to give up her beloved coconut cookies from the Promenade Café and for the first time we do our after-island snack from room service. Both the sandwich and the pizza were actually better than at the Promenade Café. We enjoy our snack on the balcony as we back up and turn and then head out the channel. As we head out of the channel the ship gave an extremely long blast on the horn and a small sailboat off to our port side responded with a tiny peep-very funny!

 

"The little sailboat that peeped"

 

Captain Per makes his last farewell announcement, he was extremely funny all week, especially saying how he was in a good mood and was going to wait for a few stragglers. It’s amazing how many people come back late and would miss the ship if he didn’t have mercy on them! He again said we’d feel some rocking because we were going so slow the waves off the Atlantic would catch the ducktail. We again noticed that the slower we went, the more rocking we had in the aft. We get all the rest of our pictures and do some shopping, since the shops on board all have last minute bargains going on. We then hit the 7:00pm closing show. Juggler Scott Cavanaugh was excellent, but they didn’t give him enough time. Comedian Kivi Harrison was very funny. Cruise director Mike Szwajkowski was very good throughout the cruise, they did a funny video on the day in the life of a cruise director and it was very similar to the one I saw 2 years ago when Richard Spacey was the cruise director, but Richard Spacey is just the funniest cruise director I’ve ever seen. Dinner was good, but DW and I both chose the turkey, which wasn’t so great.

At dinner, my mom and I tell our tablemates about our final day at sea 2 years ago on the AOS when the ship sailed into a freak storm, the kind of phenomenon that you see on the Discovery Channel. (Stay tuned for another post with the full details) After dinner, DW and I take one more stroll to the front of the ship and we see the lights of Puerto Rico off in the distance. It’s a sad sight because the cruise is over, but knowing we have a 4 day post cruise all to ourselves is exciting! We head back to the cabin for some last minute packing and get all our bags tagged and out in the hall, then off to bed dreaming of exploring Old San Juan and the rainforest.

[toonjie]

We had 4-5 of these guys under our table at lunch:

 

Sapphire Beach has a view of lots of small islands just off the coast and good snorkeling:

 

A fond farewell to St. Thomas:

 

Marriott's Frenchman Reef:

 

Fading into the distance:

 

Last towel animal trumpets us a good night:

[63galaxie]

I want to say thank you once again for all of the info. and pictures.

We did Eli's Eco Tour in Antigua and stayed at the Marriot's based upon your reviews. We also did Cosol's in St. Lucia, took the public bus to the Blue Monkey Bar and Beach in Barbados (for $3 roundtrip) and stayed at the Normandie pre-cruise. They all made for an incredible vacation.

We also fell in love with the AOS and actually, have found that we love RCI more than we have loved Celebrity! I never thought I'd find another cruise line that I liked better, but I was wrong.

We stayed in cabin 9390, just below the room you stayed in and we found it to be perfect for us. Next time, we'll try to stay a deck up so that the room will be a bit bigger.

I hope your DW had a restful time at her relatives! I'm sure you are glad to have her home!

We're looking forward to your San Juan review. It's one of our favorite places on the planet.

Karen in Kentucky:rolleyes:

[toonjie]

I want to say thank you once again for all of the info. and pictures.

We did Eli's Eco Tour in Antigua and stayed at the Marriot's based upon your reviews. We also did Cosol's in St. Lucia, took the public bus to the Blue Monkey Bar and Beach in Barbados (for $3 roundtrip) and stayed at the Normandie pre-cruise. They all made for an incredible vacation.

We also fell in love with the AOS and actually, have found that we love RCI more than we have loved Celebrity! I never thought I'd find another cruise line that I liked better, but I was wrong.

We stayed in cabin 9390, just below the room you stayed in and we found it to be perfect for us. Next time, we'll try to stay a deck up so that the room will be a bit bigger.

I hope your DW had a restful time at her relatives! I'm sure you are glad to have her home!

We're looking forward to your San Juan review. It's one of our favorite places on the planet.

Karen in Kentucky:rolleyes:

 

Thanks so much and glad you had a great time! It's great to see other people who love San Juan, it's one of our favorite places as well.

[kehlx2]

We had 4-5 of these guys under our table at lunch:

 

 

Sapphire Beach has a view of lots of small islands just off the coast and good snorkeling:

 

 

A fond farewell to St. Thomas:

 

 

Marriott's Frenchman Reef:

 

 

Fading into the distance:

 

 

Last towel animal trumpets us a good night:

 

Thanks ever so much for this review--I think I asked you a day too early on Sapphire Beach (over under Priceline--as that is where I found your messages--being short on time) Question on the sand at Sapphire--is it ground up coral?--I have seen pics that it looks coarse & your pics look like it is fine...should we bring along water shoes? How far out can you get before there is coral in the water? I most likely will just wear the water shoes. The restrooms are they pretty much clean--I know after 2 ships of people arrive that will go down hill FAST.

Love the pics of the iguana's...I downloaded one for my screen saver..:eek: as this will be our 12-13th--not sure cruise--funny that we've only had ONE towel animal & that was on our first cruise for our 25th anniversary. I am hoping they do it in all cabins as our son/dil will be on their 2nd cruise & she'd get a real kick out of it. (our FIRST on RCCL)

thanks again for your great reviews..