Thrifty Couples Adventure of the Seas 2/1 to 2/9 Trip Report

[cgolf]

To start with us, we are a mid 40s couple traveling without our college age daughter. Being thrifty we generally don’t do specialty dining mostly because of cost, plus my wife doesn’t like the fancier foods so it would really be money wasted for her. So we are pretty much tied to the main dining rooms and wind jammer. Onboard we generally just chill and are in by 11:30 pm and up eating breakfast by 7:30. We have stayed in most cabin levels including a concierge veranda, but have pretty much settled now on insides and oceanviews. They fullfill the thrifty part of our cruising and we barely used our verandas anyways, so didn’t feel the extra cost is worth it for us.

If you can see my signature you will see we started our cruising journey on Disney and have now done 3 RCCL cruises and 1 Celebrity. Our next 2 cruises will be on Celebrity. After that we will be choosing one line to build loyalty with.

I will have some general ship comments up front, do a day by day with some pictures, and finish with an overall summary. I will of course answer any questions that I actually have the answer too. If I don’t know the answer I promise I won’t make one up

Picture of us is from a different trip, because all pics are not uploaded to iPad yet.

 

[cgolf]

Just wanted to add a little more info about ourselves.

When not cruising, a lot of the time, we generally are homebodies. Hobbies are fishing (me), traveling (day trips and sometimes weekend trips), and cruising. Were our thriftiness comes in play is we only eat out at a restaurant about seven times a year on average. For the two of us we keep our bill below 50 including the tip. When we push close to that amount it is generally a place we will have leftovers, so it is really two meals.

We try to limit our fast food purchases too. When we travel on land we generally pack most meals and maybe only eat one meal out during a 3 or 4 day trip. That fishing hobby, mostly holiday gifts and sale shopping.

Why do we live this way? Well not being independently wealthy we would like to be able to continue to cruise and vacation after we retire, hopefully early, so we are hoping saving more now will pay off in the future

Long story short we are kind of boring people 90% of the year, but that 10% is a lot of fun

 

[cgolf]

We flew down the Friday before the super bowl. Thankfully the flights down weren’t too overpriced. I had made the hotel reservation months ago after seeing on CC that the super bowl was in Miami the weekend we sailed out. The Holiday Inn Ft Lauderdale-Airport, 2905 Sheridan St, was the only hotel available. We booked it and glad we did. We checked a week out and still couldn’t find a better deal.

Overall it was a very nice hotel. It had a gas station next to it to get drinks, and a Mc Donald’s across the street to get supper. I have attached some pictures of the pool (cold) and our room. The shower was huge, wish we could have taken it on the ship

Transfer from Ft Lauderdale airport was free, but it was 12 bucks a person to get to the port. There wasn’t a free breakfast, but not a big deal knowing we would be overeating soon on the ship. We just ate some breakfast bars we had packed in our carry on.

If this hotel is priced right in the future we would definitely stay there again.

 

[cgolf]

Anyone interested in this???

If not I won’t spend the time putting it together over here.

 

[RllngRckBrw]

Anyone interested in this???

If not I won’t spend the time putting it together over here.

I’m very interested. We will be taking our second Royal cruise (first was on the Brilliance, and we did a Disney Dream cruise in 2018) in April on the Adventure. We generally don’t like to spend much other than the drink package on our trips and would like to see how others “do it on the cheap” as well. Also, thank you for your feedback already on the hotel. I am still looking for a hotel for the night before. I will look into it.

 

[cgolf]

The ship
The Adventure felt like a right sized freedom. The freedom was missing a central set of elevators. The Adventure never really felt crowded, except of course the chair hogs, but more on that later. We loved the 2 level mini golf and played that a lot. The flow rider was fun to watch, but I never got the urge to attempt the stand up surfing again after failing miserably many years ago.

For an older ship, it was very well maintained. It really didn’t look it’s age. The crew was always painting, varnishing, and just doing general maintenance. I would say the Adventure was in much better condition than the Disney Magic at the same age.

The Adventure opened my eyes a bit about how much I defended the Magic’s condition post reimagining and even a year or two after we last sailed the Magic. I now understand what some of the people were complaining about with the Magic’s condition after seeing the Adventure. There are many things that shouldn’t be written up to a ship being about 19 years old. Tempted to post This on the DCL board, because RCCL of course gets a bad rap, and Disney can do no wrong. I do feel that the Magic’s condition has been talked about enough that I won’t be shouted down. Saying all that the Magic is still in a 3 way tie for our favorite ship.

When we did our tour the first day we found all the daily trivia sheets in the card room. That was the only time we visited the card room all cruise. The solarium area was very nice, but unfortunately we didn’t spend a lot of time there.

I have attached a few random ship pictures. I didn’t take a lot this year of the ship.

 

[cgolf]

Our Room
We had inside room 7669, which was aft and had easy access up and down to food and the sports deck. We love how RCCL sets up the storage in the rooms. The closet held most of our clothes and we had plenty of drawer space for the rest. The room was in good shape with little wear and tear noticed. The showers of course are still to small but you make it work. The only small complaint is it is really tight to get to the side of the bed. It is actually easier to get in bed from the end.

I apologize that some of the pictures are coming in sideways, not sure how to work around that.

 

[cgolf]

My goal is to get to days 1 and 2 done tomorrow. I do have all of the Cruise Compasses so I will post those as well.

 

[iivye]

Following along! I am interested in trying Royal and am looking forward to reading your review.

 

[starvenger]

Anyone interested in this???

If not I won’t spend the time putting it together over here.

I am reading along.

I haven't stayed at that Holiday Inn, but I have stayed in the general area. It's not bad, has everything you need nearby. There's a restaurant called Rustic Inn that I like about a 10 min drive away.

$12pp seems a bit steep for a shuttle. My experience in the FLL area is that Uber is the least expensive way to travel. Even a taxi shouldn't hit $36 after tip.

Pool area seems very tight with Splashaway squeezed in with everything else. Any impressions of that or did you stay in the Solarium?

I've never done an interior room and I'm amazed at how tight it is. If it's just the wife and I we could handle it but I don't think it's doable with the kids. So we're likely gonna stick to oceanview and above.

 

[RllngRckBrw]

starvenger, we did an inside state room on the Brilliance last year with our 2 sons (age 16 and 10 at the time). While it took some coordination, we all managed to make it work. It’s definitely not ideal but it works if you have a family willing to work together. At least it did for us.

 

[cgolf]

I am reading along.

I haven't stayed at that Holiday Inn, but I have stayed in the general area. It's not bad, has everything you need nearby. There's a restaurant called Rustic Inn that I like about a 10 min drive away.

$12pp seems a bit steep for a shuttle. My experience in the FLL area is that Uber is the least expensive way to travel. Even a taxi shouldn't hit $36 after tip.

Pool area seems very tight with Splashaway squeezed in with everything else. Any impressions of that or did you stay in the Solarium?

I've never done an interior room and I'm amazed at how tight it is. If it's just the wife and I we could handle it but I don't think it's doable with the kids. So we're likely gonna stick to oceanview and above.

The pool area is very large. It has two pools that I would say each are slightly bigger than the Magic’s quiet cove pool, if my memory is working today. I believe one is saltwater and one freshwater, but I never confirmed this. The shuttle price wasn’t too bad compared to what we have paid in the past, and it got us there just fine. We have never done Uber, so no idea on pricing.

We did interiors on Disney with 1 child, if we had 2 not sure it would have worked. I think 3 total people would work in that room, but not any more than that. The only tight part is the bed area, the rest doesn’t feel any different than Disney. Well the storage space is definitely is a bonus on a Royal. As a couple it was perfect.

 

[cgolf]

starvenger, we did an inside state room on the Brilliance last year with our 2 sons (age 16 and 10 at the time). While it took some coordination, we all managed to make it work. It’s definitely not ideal but it works if you have a family willing to work together. At least it did for us.

That’s impressive. Realistically it comes down to how people value the room space and how much they use it. If it is just to change clothes and sleep, insides are perfect. If someone likes to spend time in the room, insides are probablynot the best choice.

Brilliance is an amazing ship. We got lucky to have the house band Kronos onboard. Super talented singer and guitarist always had the centrum packed up to 2 or 3 levels above where they were playing. We skipped a theatre show to listen to them.

 

[Lynne G]

Enjoy reading your report. First time we are trying RC next year. We tried Carnival for the first time, after only doing DCL, this year, and well, there were things we liked, and things we were not fond of. But, like you, cost is the biggest part of my family's decisions, and we have not paid for food on the ships, we are fine with the main dining room and buffets. We were on an old Carnival ship, the Legend, but I thought the ship was very well taken care of, and the crew were great. While we are not going on the ship you were on, we are trying RC on the Harmony. And we have 2 college kids, which is why we now sail in January.

 

[cgolf]

On to Day 1
Boarding as usual was simple. We got to port around 11 and drop off to stepping foot onboard took less than 30 minutes. RCCL and Celebrity have this down to a science. We walked around the ship prior to getting into our rooms and it was similar enough to the Freedom that we felt like we knew where we were going. We were happy to find that deck 4 had plenty of seating. We love sitting out on that deck watching and listening to the ocean go by.

We found out that our online dining 5:45 reservation got lost, so did a lot of others, and we were able to get 5:15 which for the most part worked out. We ate lunch in windjammer and being a gluten free person I was disappointed that RCCL isn’t marking all items with allergens like their sister line Celebrity. I knew enough to make it work, but was limited. To those that say you can ask for a chefs tour of the buffet, you are correct that I could have done that. The problem is you have to wait on average probably 10 minutes for the chef to come out and then the tour of the buffet. This is a 10-25 minute process. Which means the rest of your party is essentially done eating as you are starting. Hopefully RCCL follows Celebrity’s lead in the future.

I have also attached the day 1 Cruise Compass and a picture of the safe with a smaller purse and iPad mini in it to give an idea of size.

 

[cgolf]

Also wanted to add that the cruise compass was put in the room every day. We didn’t need to ask for it.

 

[Lynne G]

Nice, glad to see they still gave paper compasses. Carnival did the same thing. I could see it on my phone's Carnival app, but having to view it on paper, was something I always liked to look at. Thanks for posting one.

 

[starvenger]

The interesting thing I found about the Compasses was that it didn't always match up with what was in the App. Sometimes the App omitted activities that were still happening, sometimes they had a more updated schedule. So it was best to just check between the two just to be sure that you didn't miss something.

Oh and the app has an "add to calendar" option so you can (optimistically) set your day and reference your phone instead of carrying the papers around.

 

[cgolf]

The interesting thing I found about the Compasses was that it didn't always match up with what was in the App. Sometimes the App omitted activities that were still happening, sometimes they had a more updated schedule. So it was best to just check between the two just to be sure that you didn't miss something.

Oh and the app has an "add to calendar" option so you can (optimistically) set your day and reference your phone instead of carrying the papers around.

Some of the typos on the paper are funny too. I have a great one you will see later

 

[cgolf]

Muster Drill
Normally this wouldn’t get a blurb but the people behind us were ridiculous. It took all my willpower not to say something to them. The muster drill was to start at 4:30. We happened to get there about 4:15 and a group of 3 people were already there with a bunch of other people. Not long after we got there they started complaining about it not starting and how disorganized RCCL was, mind you this was 4:20. Complaining continued and was both amusing and annoying to listen too. At 4:30 the complaining intensified when ‘rude’ people were showing up after the alarm sounds went off. Not long after that one of the ladies left before the lecture we have all listened to many times. I felt like calling out that she left but I didn’t. It sounded like these people were frequent cruisers.