Adventure Of The Seas - Southern Caribbean

 We went on another cruise July 18 - 25.  This time we went on the Adventure Of The Seas which is a Royal Caribbean ship.  This is one of their older ships and you can tell.  It really needs some freshening up.  We had a great time but not the best cruise we've ever been on.  The Wow that Royal Caribbean talks about just wasn't there.  We started in San Juan, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, St. Kitts, Aruba & Curacao.

Embarkation (getting onto the ship) was badly done.  We were transported by one of their shuttles from the airport and at the terminal we had to stand in line outside of the terminal for over an hour.  It was hot and we were tired.  We were finally let into the terminal building where we waited in another line to check in for another hour.  It was even hotter here with no air conditioner.  I'm surprised that nobody fainted from the heat.  It would have been nice for Royal Caribbean to hand out water and apologize for the long wait.  Finally we were allowed to board the ship.

Neal and I decided to play some mini-golf.  There is a big difference playing mini-golf on a ship and on dry land.  There is more wind at sea and the ball does some weird stuff.

 Here Neal and I are all dressed up for our first formal night.  I think both of us would rather not having any formal nights anymore.  When it's really hot and humid the last thing anyone wants to do is dress up.

 Neal and I went to a mystery dinner theatre at a specialty restaurant called Giovanni's.  This was a special treat to belatedly celebrate our anniversary.  This was a really fun dinner.  As you are eating dinner there is a murder that is committed and you get all of the clues and you and your table teammates must try to solve the case.

We arrived late as Royal Caribbean changed the time on us 3 times but didn't bother to let us know.  We didn't miss much as the service was really slow.  I'm vegetarian and they seemed to have a problem with that as their menu for this dinner was very limited.  I was served anti-pasta with meat on the plate.  I told the waiter that I don't eat meat and he told me to just push is aside.  I told him no that I didn't want the meat on my plate.  A new one was brought.  Then there was no non-meat option on the menu so I asked for pasta.  They brought tiramesu at the end an most people asked for ice cream instead.  This seemed to throw the server for a loop.  If a guest pays for a dinner, the least the cruise line could do was make a menu that everyone could find something to eat.

 Here we decided to do a little ice dancing at the ice rink.  Yes there was an actual ice rink at sea.  We had a blast here.  It was a very popular thing to do too.  Because there were so many people who wanted to skate you were only allowed a 20 minute session.  It wasn't nearly enough time.

They also have roller skating up on the sports deck.  I didn't go as it was just too hot to get all of the gear on.

 Here we are on a tour of Aruba arranged by the cruise line.  We had a great time on the tour and saw many of the island's attractions.  Here we are standing in front of the natural bridge.  There are many lave rocks all over the place.  You should always do the cruise tours as if something goes wrong and you arrive back late, the cruise ship will wait for the tour to return.

 Here we are visiting the California lighthouse.  I'm still not sure why they call it that.  The best part of the entire tour was the hour we spent at the beach.  The water was really nice and warm and calm.  There were little fish swimming around but nothing big that could hurt us.

 Here we have just arrived in Curacao.  I've been here before so I played tour guide for Neal.  We walked through a fort to get into the city.  We had to cross the floating pontoon bridge and then we walked around the city.  I showed him one of the island's two synagogues.  This was a beautiful old building with a sand floor.  We also saw the many old items from their past history in the museum.  It was well worth seeing.

Then I took Neal to see the floating fish market.  And of course what's an island visit without a little shopping.  Did you know that the island has free WiFi everywhere?  Yup, we were able to sit on a bench and use free WiFi.  It was great!  While we were sitting there we got to see the pontoon bridge open and close for the boats.

 Here we are at our 2nd formal night.  On each of the Royal Caribbean ships they have these old cars on the Promenade deck.  I'm not sure why.  On the Promenade deck there are shops and restaurants and a pub where you can just sit and people watch.

At last we ended our trip with a tour back in San Juan.  We got to see the old city and the new city.  It was a great tour.  My favourite part was a trip to this old fort.  I like old forts.  Be warned if you go to this fort make sure to wear comfortable shoes you can walk in as there are some steep inclines and lots of uneven walking surfaces.  At the end of the tour we were dropped off at the airport.  As we walked into the door of the airport we saw that there were huge lines.  We waited to check in with WestJet for almost an hour.  I have to say that this was our second flight with WestJet and they were amazingly kind.  We will make sure to try and book with them again.  Everyone from the ticket counter to the gate agent to the flight attendants were kind and helpful.  What made it even better, we were bumped to 1st class.  We're still not sure how that happened but we are grateful.  Thank you WestJet.

All in all our trip was a lot of fun.  I think next time we go on a cruise we will try to get on a newer ship.  We met a lot of very nice people along the way and we had a lot of fun.