The Royal Caribbean 'Adventure of the Seas'.
The Promenade Deck.
On St. Thomas
Antigua.
St. Lucia.
The birthday boy, his sister and us.
The Pool Deck.
Our dinner companions for the week.
Standing beside the ship you felt totally dwarfed!
Everyone seems to go cruising at some point, so Terri and I decided to give it a try. We couldn't believe the size of the ship. It was enormous! The Promenade Deck was like walking through a shopping mall. Our room was a small, interior room, but we didn't plan on spending too much time there anyways.
The cruise sailed from Puerto Rico and docked at St Thomas, St. Maarten, Antigua, Saint Lucia and Barbados. This was like a "Sampler" tour of the islands in the eastern Caribbean.
When we explored the ship we discovered shops, restaurants, an ice skating rink (we watched a performance there one night), a rock climbing wall, a rollerblading track, a theatre, bars and lots of other decks to explore.
We took one or two day trips on each island. I remember on Barbados we went on a tour of some caves in the morning and then to a beach in the afternoon. The beach was beautiful, the water warm and we swam with some turtles there. But one end of the beach was the container dockyard and the other end was an unsightly Bacardi distillery.
We enjoyed all of the islands for various reasons, but for sheer beauty we both loved St. Lucia the most. The Pintons are magnificent.
The food was amazing and plentiful. On one memorable night they put on a midnight buffet. All the guests were invited for a viewing at 10 and to photograph all the food before we were invited to return at midnight to eat it. This is after the dinner that was already served that day from the la carte meu. I couldn't imagine why they did it so late and who wanted to eat such a heavy meal at that time of day. We had a little sample and then headed off to bed to be ready for the morning tour.
But one of the biggest highlights of the cruise were the people we dined with every night. We all sat at the same table together for meals. There were five couples including us and we all got along very well. One man had brought his saxophone with him and managed to get a guest spot with the lounge band one evening, so we all went to support him. I remember none of their names anymore but, one of the couples were an American man from New York and his sister. They were lots of fun and memorable for a couple of reasons. One, he snored so loud that she wouldn't share his room and slept on the pool deck. And the other is a story.
As a group we noticed that whenever we had dinner the waiters would come to one of the tables to sing Happy Birthday to someone and bring a cake and a bottle of wine. Since none of us had a birthday during the cruise and we wanted the perks, Terri and I decided that we needed to nominate someone. So when the New York man went to the bathroom we told everyone that it was his birthday tomorrow. We all laughed and even the sister thought it would be fun. We told our waiter and he said he'd organize it. We all agreed to not tell 'him' and to buy him some simple gifts as part of the party.
Imagine the surprise on 'his' face when all the waiters came to our table and started singing. When they put the cake in from of 'him' he protested that it wasn't his birthday and I told him, yes it is! We had a great laugh, he enjoyed the gifts and attention and we all enjoyed the wine and cake.
On the last day, the ship cruised back from Barbados to Puerto Rico and we lounged around enjoying the ship facilities. When we docked we had most of the last day to walk around and explore San Juan and the old Portuguese fort on the island before flying home that night.
It was a great cruise and Terri and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
