Sorry this is a little lengthy but i found the reviews very helpful so i wanted to do the same for someone else. Me and my boyfriend chose royal caribbean for our 1st cruise together (it was my second cruise). We think it was the best choice we could have made. We chose June 15th departure date because most of the kids were still in school and we have heard horror stories about the kids running the ship..it was not the case on this voyage. There were a few kids and they were all very well behaved and very polite. I recommend highly to plan to arrive in San Juan at least 1 day before your departure..just in case of flight delay, you wont have to miss the ship. Trust me, they do not wait for anyone..i'm almost positive that we left 3 people on 1 of the islands because they didn't get back to the ship in time. We arrived saturday morning with a direct flight from Connecticut to San Juan. We rented a car which cost us $20 from Budget (again i booked this well in advance). We stayed in Old San Juan at the Sheraton hotel....very nice hotel...a little pricey but i thought it was worth every penny. (i planned this trip 1 year in advance so we received the best price possible for the room) we paid around $250 for the night. The room was large with a very large double french door balcony, king size bad...very nice view of the water and the ships.(f.y.i. carnival ships are directly across the street but royal Caribbean is on the Pan America pier which is a 2 minute taxi ride for about $8.00..including 4 bags of luggage). The staff at the hotel go out of their way to help you with anything that you need. Our flight arrived around 11am and check was not supposed to be until 3pm but they let us check in right away. (if you rent a car pay the $20/day valet at the hotel...its worth not having to walk to the parking garage) The bellman was very helpful giving us tips on where to go and getting us maps and directions. We dropped off our luggage and hopped in the car, i had arranged for us to go horse back riding in Aquadilla at a place called Tropical Trail Rides (highly recommended) which is about a 1 hour drive from san juan. definitely with the drive, beautiful scenery the entire way. We paid $40 each for a 2 1/2-3 hour ride...they tell you its a 2 hour ride but its actually longer which is nice. Don't book the horseback riding thru the ship..its ridiculously expensive. We road thru the rainforest and on the beach, then we stopped to take pictures and hike up this little cliff ...awesome view. After that we drove directly back to Old San Juan and ate dinner at the italian restaurant in the hotel ( i cant remember the name but i recommend going somewhere else...the sauce was terrible and the rest of the food wasn't that great either, also Don't go there for breakfast, very expensive and the food tasted old, we were still starving when we left) Sunday was our departure day so we woke up early and headed up the the san cristobal fort which we walked to from the hotel..2 minute walk. very nice historic fort ..i liked it because you didn't have to take a guided tour , just went on your own to explore whatever you wanted. Took the rental car back and tried to go to Senor Frogs for lunch but it was closed (F.y.i. it was fathers day and alot of things are closed, fathers day is almost a national holiday for them) decided to head over to the pier around 12pm even though the papers said we can board at 2pm...we got right in line dropped off our luggage and we were on board in about 15minutes. the rooms weren't ready yet so we went to the windjammer for lunch...very good food seeing thats its buffet style..i was impressed. After that we explored the ship for a little while, very beautiful, and then headed to our room. I had upgraded to a balcony room about 4 days before the cruise for only $200.(do your own homework, when i called royal Caribbean they told me it was an extra $1800 to upgrade but i went on the website and looked at a different category balcony and it was only an extra $200, needless to say the girl on the other end felt very stupid when i corrected her and told me she didn't see that on her screen)The room was gorgeous, my boyfriend is a smoker which is the main reason for the upgrade..all the other rooms are nonsmoking but you can smoke on the balcony which was definitely worth it for him. Everynight our room keeper made different animals from the towels and left them on the bed for us...which was nice surprise after dinner. We went to dinner every night in the main dining room except for 1 night when we went to Portofino's. Then after dinner we would go the the shows at 9pm...every show was excellent. The food in the main dining room was very good, we ended up getting a table for 2 which was nice to just have an intimate dinner instead of sitting at a huge table, the staff was awesome, they remember your name and what you like and even what you normally drink which i thought was amazing considering how many people they see every day. I have heard rave reviews for Portofino's so we made reservations for thursday night because we were at sea. i honestly didn't think Portofino's food was anything to brag about, i basically live off of Italian food and dint think they had a good selection. The only thing i did enjoy there was the calamari (only because it wasn't available anywhere else on the ship) and the tiramisu, for my main dish i only order pasta with marinara sauce because i couldn't find anything on the menu that i liked. The second day we were at sea all day, there was alot of activities going on throughout the ship but we just sat on the deck and had a couple drinks (the drinks were surprisingly not expensive only about $5.00-$6.00) then we went to the movie theater on the ship in the afternoon just to relax and watch a movie. We went to the shopping show on the ship and got suckered into buying 2 blue "V.I.P" bags..not worth it Don't waste your time...after spending $50 on the bags which offer small free gems and things you have to run around at every port trying to collect the free items in the jewelry stores but they didn't tell us that no matter how many coupons you purchased the store only give 1 free item per cabin so the 2nd bag we bought was totally useless.

First port of call was Aruba. We were off the ship by 8am but all the stores in all the ports Don't open until 9- 9:30am so we just walked around for a while. We had booked a snorkel excursion but it wasn't until 1pm so we had to find something to do for a couple hours. We were near the ship and there was a guy driving a big pink school bus that said the "love bus" on the side of it, he offered a tour of the island to all the spots that the ship excursion did but for only $15 per person. We were a little weary but decided to go on it, other people from the ship started to come on the bus too which eased our nerves. it had no windows which was nice, all that openness was nice. they let you take drinks (alcohol) on the bus too which the rccl excursion did not...this was very laid back and had island music playing. it took us to the natural bridge, the california lighthouse, the old gold mines, basically a nice tour of the island , you got to see how people live. After the tour we went back to the ship to have lunch before our snorkel trip, we heard many people in the elevators complaining how there tour they booked thru the ship was terrible, so we smiled about that..they paid almost $60 a person and we only paid $30 for both of us. After lunch we went snorkeling, 1/2 catamaran ride and then we were at our snorkel destination...its was beautiful, fish and coral everywhere..i didn't realize how hard it was to snorkel , i couldn't figure out how to breathe thru the snorkel so i just used the goggles and held my breath...that worked well for me :) Then after 1/2 we went back on the catamaran to go to the 2nd snorkel spot which was farther in the ocean. The water was very choppy and cold out there so i didn't go but my boyfriend did because he wanted to snorkel thru the shipwreck, he had an awesome time and i just laid in the sun for the 1/2 hour he was swimming. The weather was nice, warm and a constant breeze which i thought was nice.

the next port was Curacao, again we just kind of walked around for a little while and then we had and excursion planned for 10am so we went back to the ship to meet. We went swimming with the dolphins at the aquarium. we booked thru rccl and it was pricey ($210 a person) but we prepaid so it wasn't so bad..i highly recommend this..it was an awesome experience to swim with these magnificent creatures and learn about them...the aquarium takes pictures for you and also records it on video..it was expensive to buy the pictures and video together so we just bought the pictures ($75) also expensive but we wanted the pictures of it..they Don't let you take your own. After that we just went back to the ship to take a nap...it takes alot out of you having to tread water for about an hour. again perfect weather Read more