Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 15:32:41 -0400
From: mihirmaniar@hotmail.com (Mihir)
Subject: Review
 

This was our first cruise and it was awesome in 1 word! We went on a 7nt cruise to Aruba, Curacao, St. Marten, St. Thomas.
 

First the ship was fantastic, the artwork, the service, decor, crowd, restaurants and facilities were the finest with a lot of detail to service and class. We left our baby with our parents and me and my wife had a gala time. We were upgraded to a room with a balcony and the room was superb with a balcony view of the ocean and ports. The room attendant was very nice. This was a new ship and huge, there is a big advantage of going on such a big ship and new. We picked this line and ship since it catered to a younger audience, we are in our low 30s. The embarkation and departure were very well-handled with hardly any lines anywhere.
 

The best part was the food, they arranged for special veg meals for us every night, the head waiter and waiter would make sure we were well served and fed! The dining room was spectacular and impressive. They changed our seating to second seating since we dont have dinner by 6pm! On the days of formal dressing, it was such a pleasure to see everyone so well-dressed, it was like a fashion night!
 

We had two days at sea, and we had so much fun those days. We spent time around the pool areas and hot tubs. They had live music, games (belly-splat and sexy legs contest)!, we tried rock climbing, roller-blading, ice-skating, just relaxing, they had just so much going on! We went to the gym only once, at home we work out almost every day! The people were very friendly, we spoke with lots of people and made friends.
 

The night activities were always busy. We went to every show all the nights, they had comedy shows, a fantastic ice-skating show, 2 dance shows. We loved the ice-skating show and the second musical dance show "velvet rope". The sets and lights were dramatic, couldnt believe we were on a ship. On 2-3 nights, we went to the nightclub "Jesters", the DJ, music and crowd were excellent, I love dancing and this was an excellent 2storey club. For some reason though, the club was never full, we would've expected a much bigger crowd.
 

For the ports, Aruba was nice but a little let-down since we had high expectations. It is dry and barren. We rented a 4-wheel ATV scooter to explore the resort section and the beaches. Since the cruise was leaving at 1am, we partied at Carlos and Charlies. they have this colorful open bus that takes you to several bars and I heard it was a fun experience. Curacao was nicer with a beautiful colorful downtown. I tried "feeding the sharks" scuba diving adventure at the Seaquarium, was a lifetime experience! The sharks and sea turtles were big, and the depth was not too much to scare me away from this excursion. We had a even better time at St. Marten, its a beautiful place specially the french part and the island music is so lively! We went to the "All-natural" nude beach at the Orient, was an experience! The last stop was St. Thomas, this was the best, mountaneous and beautiful views, Megans bay had a great view, we snorkeled at Koki beach and the waters were crystal clear. At these islands we typically took the island tour from outside the ship and then went exploring on our own. We did not take any of the cruise excursions.
 

We think about our cruise a lot and are really missing it! It felt like home away from home for a week! We would definintely cruise Royal Carribean specially on the Voyager series ships that are big and new. We met a lot of people on the ship who had cruised like 20 times on different lines etc., and they all said this was the best!

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