RCCL Adventure of the Seas Sept. 3, 2016
Return to DiscussionsThe Voyager class (of the Explorer) is OUR favorite size. We've done a dozen RCL cruises, including 5 transatlantics, with the last transatlantic being on the Vision. We like RCL ships having a promenade. We sailed an outside cabin on the Freedom last year with nudist friends in a connecting cabin. That was fun. Orient Bay is nice to visit, even is only for a day. I've been going there since the 1980s. Back then I would stay at the Club for 7-10 and had great times.
I love the Voyager class ships except for the seating in the buffet (too many extra large seating arrangements). The sauna and steam room in the locker room are huge and still free to use.
We were disappointed in the food on our last two RCCL cruises on the Grandeur (Vision class) and the Liberty (Freedom class). Buffet quality and variety were awful. The main dining was good but nothing outstanding.
We started our cruising life on the RCCL Majesty and have since done 35+
cruises with RCCL, Celebrity, NCL, Princess and Carnival.
Speaking of visiting Orient Bay just for the day and the February
nude cruises, St. Maarten was one of the stops on the 2015 nude
cruise. We had a feeling to stay away from Orient Beach that day,
so we did the Peggy & Paul nude charter around the island. I've
never seen the Club O beach so crowded. 4-5 yellow umbrellas deep
from Papagayos all the way out to Pedros. It was insane.
And the textile part of the beach wasn't very crowded at all!
Club O has gotten MUCH busier over the years. When I was going in the early 1990s, they had plenty with a single row of umbrellas spaced more that 50' half way down to the rocks. Now, always, it's three rows of umbrellas spaced 25', all the way to the rocks. Of course, we're happy to see many more nude birds joining the flock.
On a normal day its nice to have a crowd on the beach (although it
can take a while to get to the bar during happy hour!) But this day
it was rediculous. I wish I had thought to get my camera out to take a
picture. Everyone was packed in like sardines. I guess Celebrity
thought it would be a good idea to drop off a bunch of nudists
doing the Orient Beach shore excursions way up at the north end of
the beach. They all promptly walked down past Pedros! They must
have gotten the curiosity of all of the other ships' passengers (or
scared them away from the beach outright), since the rest of the
beach was practically deserted. Maybe some of the shop owners
should have paid the Gendarmes to just take the day off and let the
nudists have the whole beach for that one day, because they weren't
getting a whole lot of business in return for paying the cruise
ships to drop passengers off at their end of the beach.
I know we would visit some of the other shops more if we could walk
down the beach nude past 8am. When we do walk down the beach,
nothing is open yet so we end up spending all of our time at the
Perch or Papagayos.
I love the Voyager class ships except for the seating in the buffet (too many extra large seating arrangements). The sauna and steam room in the locker room are huge and still free to use.We were disappointed in the food on our last two RCCL cruises on the Grandeur (Vision class) and the Liberty (Freedom class). Buffet quality and variety were awful. The main dining was good but nothing outstanding.We started our cruising life on the RCCL Majesty and have since done 35+ cruises with RCCL, Celebrity, NCL, Princess and Carnival.
The only down side to the sauna and steam room being in the locker rooms is if your SO isn't same sex, you can't go together. That's why we like the nude cruises - the saunas end up co-ed. We were on the Grandeur once. I remember it had propulsion issues and we missed our stop in Cabo San Lucas for our 5th anniversary cruise. This was after missing the same stop on our honeymoon cruise due to a hurricane. Finally made it there for our 10th anniversary cruise on the Carnival Pride. That's the same ship for the next Bare Necessities nude cruise in February... Needless to say, we really like that ship!