My husband and I sailed on our second cruise Dec. 5th, 2015 out of San Juan, Puerto Rico. This was a Royal Caribbean cruise on Adventure of the Seas. Our first cruise was on Carnival on Triumph out of Galveston. These will be the two cruises I will compare in this review. After our first cruise on Carnival, my husband and I had decided cruising was not for us. That is how much we did not like it. A friend convinced me to try this cruise out of San Juan and I am so glad she did. We had so much fun on this cruise.

Food on both cruises was a little above cafeteria style. I did prefer the self service drink stations on carnival for water, tea and lemonade. The only other thing I liked better on Carnival was the air-conditioning. I do not know if this is a captain's preference or if the air-conditioning needs to be replaced on Adventure but it was too hot. I could hardly stand being in the Lyric Theater and the Windjammer. Yes we were on a Caribbean cruise but I had to retreat to my stateroom to cool off. I had the air-conditioning set at the lowest it would go in my stateroom the entire cruise and it was ok. My only other complaint was smoking in the casino. Really??? Please join the 21st century. Smoking in public facilities is not ok. The people working in that casino have no choice but to breath in toxic air everyday at work.

Now on to the positives. My husband and I arrived three days early to enjoy Puerto Rico. We rented a car from Charlie rental cars for two of those days. Charlie picked us up at our hotel and dropped us off at the cruise terminal the morning of our departure. I highly recommend Charlie if you are brave enough to drive in San Juan. I spent much of the time with my eyes covered as my husband calmly joined in the insane traffic. With the rental car we were able to drive to El Yunque. We had a blast there on an unmarked trail we had read about that had two water falls with shallow pools. We got wet in both and walked behind both water falls. The water was very cold. The trail is called Juan Diego and I am not sure why it is not marked. We only passed less than a dozen people the entire time we were on this trail and in the water falls. Ladies please wear appropriate shoes. This is hiking in a rain forest and the trails are muddy. I saw two ladies in pretty sandals struggling and making themselves and their male companions miserable. We were wearing water hiking shoes with fin socks and we had no trouble at all. This combination worked great with hiking and snorkeling the entire trip. a website called puertoricodaytrips.com goes into detail about El Yunque and other places to visit in Puerto Rico. Read more