I just returned today from a 7 night (turned into 8 night) cruise on the Adventure of the Seas. If not for the occasion of my 10-year wedding anniversary, we would not have chosen to sail during hurricane season, but we did! We sailed from San Juan, which was a beautiful city. We flew in 1 day ahead and stayed at the Marriott Stellaris, and it was very nice (great swim-up bar!). Our itinerary had been slightly altered due to Hurricane Irma happening the week prior, so we sailed for St. Croix instead of St. Maarten, which was a BLAST. Since we didn't know what our itinerary change would be until very close to departure, we didn't plan anything big for that island day and chose to just walk to the left of the cruise port to the cute little beach within sight of the ship, and boy are we glad we did! First, walk past the ridiculous sign charging $50 for chairs and an umbrella. Keep walking for another 30 feet and you'll find an adorable beach bar with chairs and umbrellas that cost $20 total. We did some GREAT snorkeling, bought a lot of beers and a couple coconuts filled with rum! The bartender would cut the end off the coconut and stick a straw in it, then have us drink the coconut water as fast as we could while he filled it with rum! It was really fun. This was the absolute highlight of our entire trip.

From St. Croix, we had the rest of our itinerary changed due to Hurricane Maria, which was rapidly approaching. We skipped St. Kitts (stopped just to re-supply), and sailed for Aruba, where we spent 2 days. Aruba was ok. We liked Eagle beach better than Palm beach. We did a snorkeling excursion via Royal Caribbean that was ok - it was the only excursion left by the time we were able to sit through the massive line at the excursion desk after the captain announced our itinerary changes. From Aruba we went to Bonaire, which was not my favorite island. We did a quick snorkeling excursion and then went back to the boat. After that we sailed 2 days to get to Ft. Lauderdale instead of returning to San Juan on Saturday as planned. Our hearts go out to the island of Puerto Rico and all who were hit by Irma and Maria.

I will give Royal Caribbean top marks for the way they kept us updated about the hurricane and itinerary changes. They were extremely communicative and it made it very easy to adjust plans (and expectations) in a timely manner. Read more