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San Juan - gr8tocruz's Rating: 5.0
We flew in to San Juan a few days before the cruise. We stayed at the Luquillo Beach Sunrise Inn in Luquillo on the East side of the island (about 45 minutes from San Juan airport - all highway). It was a beautiful inn on a very quiet beach. The rates were very reasonable and included a full breakfast on a beautiful terrace overlooking the ocean. The staff there was spectacular and directed us to the Brass Cactus, a great restaurant only a few blocks away. We drove to Fajardo (about 15 minutes) one evening and did the Bioluminescent Bay Kayaking trip through Kayak Adventures of Puerto Rico. It was awesome! I highly recommend this tour and company. Just don't forget to lather on the bug spray before you go. We spent the next day at the El Yunque rain forest - only a 10 minute drive from our hotel. It, too, was an awesome way to spend the day. On the date of embarkation, we drove into Old San Juan and toured the forts for a few hours prior to boarding the ship. Our only complaint was that we didn't save more time for this part of the trip. There is so much to see in Old San Juan - especially for history buffs like my husband. We really needed a whole day there without a whining teenager.
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Aruba - gr8tocruz's Rating: 5+
Aruba is a beautiful place where the desert meets the ocean. We did the De Palm Island tour. My husband and daughter did the snuba tour and I just did the snorkeling. De Palm island is a beautfiul, all inclusive water park. You spend a half a day at the park and for the cost of your ticket, you get all you can eat breakfast and/or lunch, drinks, snorkeling, beach chairs, etc... We were there on a Tuesday, and had the place to ourselves. The staff there said it is overly crowded on the weekends, though, and that might have been a bad thing. For smaller kids, there is a water park with several slides, a huge water dump bucket, etc... again, all inclusive. My husband and daughter loved the snuba. They saw tons of rainbow and blue angel fish. The water in Aruba is crystal clear and makes a non-adventurous ocean-goer like myself enjoy the experience.
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Curacao - gr8tocruz's Rating: 3.0
Curacao itself is spectacularly beautiful. The excursion we chose, however, was not. We did the Aqua Boat Adventure tour. This tour began at an industrial dock in a make-do office made of a shipping container. We were led down a sinking dock to our "aqua boats". An aqua boat is a jet-ski like machine that has an outboard motor instead of a jet and a typical car-like steering wheel (or so they claimed). After 10 minutes of trying to get the motors pull-started, we were led by a crew of two into the very rough ocean where we learned that there was a good reason why our crew was driving the brand new sea-dos and not aqua boats. The equipment in one word was "unsafe". In more than one word, it was dangerous and incredibly scary to be out on the ocean in boats that wouldn't hold their speed, with steering so loose that you had to turn full rotations for the boat to turn... all the while with a member of the crew driving up along side you to counsel you on the proper way to drive a run-down aqua boat. This tour was over $100 per person, and was by far the biggest waste of money we spent on this cruise. I, and several other people on the tour, wrote up very explicit comment cards on all that was wrong with this tour and company (much more than I can fit here) and unfortunately heard nothing back from RCC regarding our displeasure with this tour. My recommendation... stay away from the aqua boats.
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Dominica - gr8tocruz's Rating: 4.0
Dominica was quite a surprise... a beautiful place with an interesting history and people. My husband and daughter did the High Ropes! High Hopes! tour and LOVED it. This tour is for the adventurous sort and involved zip lining and climbing across obstacles on a mountainside and over a river. They highly recommend this tour.
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