So prior to embarking to San Juan to leave on our January 8 sailing on the Adventure of the Seas, I peaked at some of the latest reviews on CC to see what to expect. There were a couple complaints about San Juan's difficulties in boarding the ship and smattering of complaints about local passengers. I took some of these with grains of salt as some of the reviewers sounded like they were a bit hard to please to begin with. I am a pretty easy going guy and my wife is pretty low maintenance. We expect things to move smoothly but don't expect "Four Seasons" level service on a cruise. That being said, this was by far the most underwhelming cruise experience I've had. I almost exclusively sail RCCL and I am determined never to sail out of San Juan again and will be considering other lines as well for our next cruise.

Embarkation - Everything you've read is true and worse. We came in on January 7 and stayed overnight so we had a full day on embarkation day. We were told to arrive at the pier at 2pm. Based on the reviews on CC, my wife and I decided to hang around Old San Juan for the day rather than wait in the lines. Unfortunately, that didn't work. We arrived at the pier at approximately 4:30pm. The line to drop off the bags was not that long, however to get in the port to get the Sea Pass was. We waited about an hour outside and watched a number of the locals sneak ahead of the line. We finally got our Sea Passes at about 5:30pm, but of course at that point they had shut the door to board. Yes, that's right. People were filling the embarkation hall but no one could board. There was no communication other than that the door was going to remain closed for about an hour. We watched as we were locked in the hall as the passengers on board completed the muster drill and did not begin embarking again until approximately 6:15pm. Luckily we had the second seating but our bags had still not arrived by that time. My parents, who was Diamond Plus members, arrived at 2pm and complained that it took more than 2 hours for them to board as well. RCCL provided some guests a bottle of champagne - on the 2nd to last night of the cruise - to apologize for the delay in boarding. A nice sentiment but it would have been nicer a little earlier in the cruise.

Debarkation - This was a mess too but less so than embarkation. Our tag said that we were to be called between 9am - 9:10am. We were not called until 9:30am. Once we left the ship, we stood on the gangway to get into Immigration to pick up our bags until about 10am. Once inside the process was smooth. Picked up the bags easily and the customs line moved quickly. I did like how if you hired a porter they managed find another porter further up in line and cut in with them for customs...a fitting end to our San Juan experience. Read more