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Sarah Collins

Age: 25
Occupation: teacher
Number of Cruises: 3
Cruise Line: Royal Caribbean
Ship: adventure of the seas
Sailing Date: August 22nd, 2004
Itinerary: Western Caribbean

We arrived in San Juan without any issues. Our flight landed at 4:30. We met the transfer group at the luggage claim. We were able to get right on the ship..no lines at that time. This was our second time on the adventure. We went on our honeymoon in October and had a great time. The itinerary was different for this cruise. We were very bored on the two days at sea. We spent a few hours poolside..watching the typical pool games-bellyflop contest, horse race, sexy legs etc. It was like de-ja-vu! It was a different cruise director than in october...but he said the same lines! All of his comments and jokes were from the last guy. We thought since it was different ports and 10 months later we would have different on-board shows. wrong!! Velvet Rope, Can't stop the Rock, cool art hot ice were all repeats from our last trip. we were so dissapointed!! Granted these 3 shows are wonderful...it was kind of boring to sit through them again. As I said before, we were kinda bored an the ship. we don't like bingo, lost too much money too quickly in the casino, and aren't big drinkers. thats about all there was to do besides swim in the over crowded with children pool. nothing like getting jumped on by a group on 6 year olds in the pool. The adults only pool didn't have the band and was also crowded. our dining room service in october was EXCELLENT! this time it stunk!! we were at a table of 8 (fun people from NY - two sisters, their husbands, and a 25 yr old daughter and her 25 year old friend) dinner took close to 2 hours to finish. in october it took 35 minutes! the waiter fell all over one of the 25 year old girls. i soon realized why! my husband and i are only 25, we look even younger, and i'm sure the waiter assumed we didn't have much money and wouldn;t generously tip. The other couple was in the 50's and very well dressed. I believe the waiter felt that if he paid special attention to their daughter then he would receieve a bigger tip. we were practically ignored. but anyway...service in the main dining room sucked! we were greatly dissapointed and did in fact give him a smaller tip than suggested (we are usually generous). now on to the food....gross!! the windjammer food was cafeteria style...poor quality, but many options. the dining room food was no better, but less options. the presentation was beatiful, but the portions were miniscule and the quality was horrible!! i work in a school and the cafeteria serves better tasting meals. this was also and issue in october...but i had forgotten just how bad it was. One particular night i ordered jerk chicken...i hated it so i didn't end up eating it. we had been in the dining room for an hour and a half already and i just wanted to get out. so we went to the prominade for A sandwich...but all they had was tuna (i hate fish) so we went to johnnie rockets and ordered a grilled cheese with tomato. 20 minutes later it came out...no tomatoe. it was 2 pieces of toast with a warm slice of cheese in it. no butter, no grill, not melted gooey cheese. it was so dry i took one bite and we left. the wind jammer was closed at this point. needless to say i went to bed hungry that night. this should never happen on a cruise! our stateroom attendant was very quiet and almost angry. she did clean our room very well so we tipped her the suggested amount. she just didn't seem to like her job or the peopel on the ship. in october our stateroom attendant was very friendly and went out of his way to say hi and ask how our day was. this lady saw us coming, mummbled hi and took off. noty a big deal, but a little strange. We loved all 4 islands we visited. curacao was very pretty. we found an almost deserted beach that a crew from a magazine was taking pictures of models at. in aruba we went to palm beach..very nice water but busy with boats and jet ski's. we had booked a quad tour with Rancho Notorious months in advance. come the day of the tour the guide showed up 10 minutes late to the meeting area and brought us to his house in a beat up car!

His yard looked like a junk yard, his wife was running the "office" (a shack made out of drift wood) it was very dirty and scary! apparently rancho notorious overbooked and sold us to the guy! he owned 2 quads (both pieces of junk!). he got in the car and had us follow him (because he didn't have enough quads for himself!) mine kept back firing and my husbands stalled a few times. he brought us on a very long tour to some pretty sights. we had never laughed so hard! we wore old army helmets and filthy goggles. at the end of the tour my husbands chain fell off so he had to get in the car to go back to the guys house. once there he brought out all kinds of food...salmon on crackers, tuna on crackers, lime juice. my husband was brave and took some...i just stuck with my bottle of water. this guy was very nice and tried hard. i will NEVER again book with rancho notorious. we paid almsot $140 for the tour and ended up in some guys yard. in st thomas we went to saphire beach. it was absolutely gorgeous. the swimming wasn't the best because it is mostly a reef, but the snorkeling was great. they rent gear there for $5 an hour and we saw some amazing fish. we did an exsersion in st martin called sensation beach esacpe or something like that. it went to marigot(french capital) and was soooo boring! the bus was so hot everyone was grouchy and miserable. the beach was nice. the water was very rough and the waves were like 6 ft high. we had a great time but people with little kids, and older people were very unhappy. they couldn't even go in the water. i think we should have been told how rough the atlantic side was and that the beach would have huge waves. in san juan our flight wasn't leaving until 5:45pm so we booked the bacardo rum tour. bacardi tour was ok, but again the bus was too hot. we went to a fort and had 30 minutes...of course one lady took 45 minutes so we all had to sit on the hot bus and wait for her. we then went to old san juan for 30 minutes. again the same lady was late!

! we circled around for her andf finally found her still shopping!! i was so mad...i think we should have left her there. she wasn't even embarrassed about keeping us waiting (again) for another 20 minutes!! so then we get to the airport where our luggage is waiting for us. we have a few hours before we can board our plane. this city/island is disgusting. the amount of poverty is crazy. 45% klive in government housing. but anyway...the airport bathrooms were disgracful. some were so dirty that i couldn't even use them. we had to hunt around for cleaner ones. i have been in cleaner/fresher smelling outhouses!

so thats our trip....nice islands, poor food, not so great service, beatiful ship, not enough activities/entertainment

here are my own personal ratings

ship appearance: A+
interior stateroom: B+
dining room service: C
dining room food: C
windjammer service A
windjammer food C-
Rancho Notorious F-
St martin sensation excursion: B
san Juan excursion C
San Juan cleanliness F

feel free to email me with any questions you have about the ship or itinerary
 

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