We are a family a five with a 17 year old son, 13 year old daughter and 9 year old son. We like vacations with both family time and a chance for everyone to do their own thing. We are on a budget and look for ways to save money.

My son decided on a cruise for his senior gift and picked the southern Caribbean as where he wanted to go. We looked the different boats and itineraries over and picked Adventure of the Seas. We have been on several other cruises and feel comfortable making our own arrangements. I booked the cruise through the Royal Caribbean phone number. The agent was very helpful and we had no problem with the booking process. Family friends with a son the same age decided to go on the same cruise with us along with both set of grandparents. This gave us a nice cross section of experiences to compare on our cruise.

Getting to San Juan from the Northwest is a bit of a hassle. I was looking for the cheapest airfare and US Airways was $200 to $300 cheaper. The only problem was because of the economic downturn, US Air kept changing flights on us and eventually we ended up flying to Chicago on United then to Philadelphia and San Juan on US Air. We flew back to Charlotte then Chicago then home. We flew to San Juan a day early and stayed at the Courtyard Marriott Miramar. The hotel room was nice and met all our needs. I got 2 rooms for $80 each on Priceline. The hotel location was great as there were some restaurants and fast food places nearby and the bus line to Old San Juan ran right in front of the hotel. The bus was 75 cents each way which was much cheaper than a taxi. We did have to wait about 20 minutes for the bus going into town. Read more