Adventure of the Seas

On March 2, Jamey and I set sail on Royal Caribbean's Adventure of the Seas from San Juan, PR. However, the real journey started the night before; when, after driving around Old San Juan until 4:00am, we ended up at the Hotel Las Americas. Despite the ornate entrance, it was by far the grossest place we have ever stayed in (or even seen). From dirt on the floor, hair on the sheets, dead bugs in the corners and the gaping wooden slats for windows, I was impressed at how much of a trooper Jamey was. If it wasn't so late, we would have been out of there in seconds. Jamey has since discovered that the Hotel was featured in the 2006 "hit" vampire movie properly entitled Slayer starring Wonder Woman's own Lynda Carter. How bizarre! Exhausted, the next morning we shopped for a few items and headed to the pier to board the cruise ship. Luckily, the following day was our first day at sea. We needed the time to relax and find our way around the ship.

Aruba
Aruba was our first port of call. Since we traveled there on our last cruise, we had a decent plan as we set out to explore the island. We rented a Jeep and set out for Arikok National Park. Despite the size of Aruba, getting anywhere was a slight challenge. There are few street signs, and we found that several did not even match the map we were using.

Jamey drove us to the highest point in Aruba, Cero Jamanota. From there we drove to the coast and enjoyed our packed lunch near Boca Prins. After lunch we went through the Quadirikiri Caves. Then we left the park and headed to the northern most part of Aruba near the California Lighthouse to snorkel. We started at Arashi Beach; but, unimpressed, we quickly drove down to Malmok Beach (one beach south from Arashi) where we able to see well over 20 species of brilliantly colored, exotic fish It was quite the experience, and we spent nearly all of our remaining time on the island in the water exploring.



Curacao

After the physically demanding day in Aruba, we got a late start in Curacao. We walked through the colorful town and headed for the Curacao Sea Aquarium where we were scheduled to swim with sea lions. We arrived at the park to find that our appointment was delayed slightly. It gave us more time to see all the displays and watch the dolphin show. Fortunately, we were the only people booked for the Sea Lion Encounter and Snorkel; so, we were able to spend more time with them than most do. We had a private training session with a biologist/trainer; and, we were able to touch and pet a 6 year old female named Dori. At the conclusion of this portion of the program Jamey and I both got big, stinky (fish-breath) kisses on the cheek from sweet Dori. After that we went snorkeling with 4 sea lions in the channel. We had one trainer in the water with us and 3 spotters above us on land telling us where the sea lions were. They swam very fast and were sometimes difficult to see, until they were right in your face! Near the end of the swim, I discovered there were a couple nurse sharks, up to 18 ft. long, on the other side of the chain link fence that divided the animals. I was surprised that the trainers did not mention that until after we got out of the water. After our visit to the Aquarium, our real adventure started. It was 4:08pm as we walked out of the park; and, we were supposed to be at the ship by 4:30pm. We walked to the bus stop only to find that the first bus would not take us back to town. The driver dropped us at a second stop to catch another bus. The second bus took us to town were were had 5 mins. to walk through town, across the floating bridge, down the pier and onto the ship. We arrived at the bridge about 4:30pm where we found the floating bridge to be on the other side of the channel, along with the ferry (the only two ways to cross the water that separated us from our ship). We then hear the load blast from Adventure, signalling that they were ready to depart. We quickly jumped into a taxi and made our way back through town, towards the highway and high-level bridge (our only hope at this point). Our taxi driver was great, and even said that his only job that day was to get us to the ship before it left without us. We exited the highway at 4:40pm; and, he quickly told us to get our ID's out.
We drove right past the dock security and Immigration Officers, waving our Sea Passes out the window. He dropped us right at the end of the gangway were he received a well-deserved tip. My slow walk (Jamey was running and yelling at me to do the same) turned to a slight jog as we were cheered by nearly all of the 3,500 passengers from the open, upper decks of the ship. I say "nearly all" because we were the only 2 NOT already on-board. As soon as we stepped aboard, they pulled up the last line and released the ramp. Needless to say, we were "greeted" by the head of security who reminded us that his ship did not run on the floating bridge's schedule. Here's a tip, you should never be late returning from port when you're on a cruise. We were very lucky to get on the ship, and were later told that if the regular Adventure Captain was sailing with us, we would have been flying to our next port of call (thank goodness he was on vacation and Capt. Tommy was filling in, because flying out of Curacao would have been interesting since Jamey doesn't have a passport).

After another long and exciting day, we headed directly to the Sky Bar (Oh yeah, we changed our clothes first so as not to be recognized as the couple that held up the entire ship). At the bar we met some new friends. We spent all night hanging out with Andrew & Dianne(dating, from Toronto) and Stewart & Laura (honeymooning, from Ireland).

St. Maarten
We celebrated my 32nd birthday in St. Maarten. Jamey organized the ultimate birthday present fro me. We sailed around the island as we watched the 28th Annual Heineken Regatta. Once again, we were late to our excursion - missing the boat. This time it was traffic that delayed us, not our tardiness (a 15min. taxi ride took over an hour and a half, due to all the Regatta Traffic). We were blessed by the owners of the Random Wind, who came and picked us up in another boat of theirs. We headed out to sea for a mid-Atlantic transfer, while hundreds of sail-boats tacked all around us. It was quite a site. We sailed for several hours and then stopped for some more snorkeling and a great lunch. We took turns riding on the bow throughout the day. The Random Wind then dropped us in Philipsburg (right at the cruise ship pier); so we would not be late again!

St. Thomas
We did not plan on doing much in St. Thomas. It was our second visit to the island, and we really needed another wind-down day. We spent part of the afternoon at Megan's Bay. It was nice; but, it rained off and on the whole time we were there. We headed back to Charlotte Amalie to try to finish our shopping for everyone stuck back at home. It was nice not to have a set schedule, other than being back on-board by 5:00pm.

That night we said our goodbyes to our table-mates. We had a good group from Boston (Ryan & Annie), Barbados (David & Christie) and Puerto Rico ("Groucho" & "Juanita"). We had many laughs while we traded stories all week long. We also enjoyed our servers Edmond (Dominica) and Crazy Lui (China).
We opted not to pack that night or have our bags out by midnight. Instead, we spent the night having fun with our new-found friends. We met up late and started at the Duck & Dog Pub on the Promenade. We quickly moved to the Lyric Lounge for some good 'ole Karaoke. We closed the lounge with our multi-national rendition of Garth Brook's "Friends in Low Places."
How appropriate for this motley crew! From there, we headed to Jester's Night Club for some late night dancing and drinks. I can't believe we did not discover either of these places sooner. We ended the night in Stewart (Sean) and Laura's Himalayan Suite, were we talked and sang until 4:00am.

San Juan
We were herded off the Adventure around 9:00am on Sunday morning. We planned on staying an extra day in San Juan to save some money on our return plane tickets. We stayed at the Intercontinental Resort, which was nothing like our first accommodations in Puerto Rico. We spent most of the day around the pool and on the beach. What a nice end to a great vacation!

Click here for the rest of our cruise photos



Special thanks to both of our parents, Jen and Jen. Without their help we would not have been able to share this wonderful experience.