14th cruise, sixth on RCL. Girls' cruise this time with two middle-aged women and one college daughter. Not many young people on the Jan 10 sailing. Great energy onboard however because of the cruise staff, DJ and bands. Loved the theme parties and dancing each night in the Vortex. Good food in the MDR, Windjammer and Seaview Cafe. Very pleasant crew onboard would do anything to assist you. Very port intensive itinerary made for an exhausting trip since we explorered each port with either RCL shore excursions or independent tours. No annoucements onboard was a real treat!
We arrived a day early in San Jaun and stayed at the Courtyard Miramar. We loved exploring OSJ at night and stumbled upon street festivals with lots of enegy with local residents taking turns dancing on stage. Felt a part of the city. The next day we went back again to OSJ and walked the promendade, went thru the Old San Juan Gates, checked out the Cathedral and a repository for historical documents, seeing one signed by King Ferdinand. Boarded the ship at 2pm, no lines.
Our first port was St. Thomas where we took the ship's tour to St. John for the National Parks, Sugar Plantation and Beaches tour. Very disappointed in this excursion. No guided tour of the plantation and only 10 minutes allowed for our own exploration. Driver had no idea what time we needed to get back to Cruz Bay, leading for much confusion and unnecessarily shortened beach time.
Black marks on the usually dirty window - hard to avoid on this level, goofy tube tv, beds sagged a bit on the outer edges. Top bunk bed very comfortable. Top rail of dresser looked the same as the pull for the drawer below so has been pulled on many times by passengers trying to use the top drawer so fall off a bit. Everything else as you'd expect on a RCL ship. Very quiet even though we were right off the aft elevators. Never heard any noise from outside the cabin.