cruisinmama!

We have a dilemma. We come off our Allure cruise on Feb 15th and don't fly out of FLL until 5:50 pm. I have scoured the boards for ideas on what to do and am really unsure what our best option is.

Our party consists of 4 adults a toddler and an infant. Thus, renting a big enough car for the day that would fit all of us and our luggage isn't really feasible. And the only day rate hotels we can find are either the Roadway inn or the Quality Inn in Hollywood, neither of which get very good reviews on CC. And the idea of trying to occupy a baby and a toddler for 7 hours in the airport sounds horrible...

We would be more than happy to just park our collective butts at a nice beach or pool for the day, but obviously dragging all of our luggage would be problematic at best.

Do any of you have any suggestions for what we should do? Should we just book a regular hotel and check out early? Should we risk the Rodeway Inn or Quality Inn? Should we just hang out at the airport for 7 hours? Should we book one of the FLL excursions through the cruiseline?

What would you do in our circumstance? :confused:

Well, I don't typically like to post bad reviews about things, but since I saw this here and there weren't any more recent comments about this particular shuttle service I will say that we personally will NEVER use them again.

We used them this past August 2014 after reading a couple of reviews here on CC about them. We had four separate trips booked with them - FLL to our Pre-Cruise hotel, the hotel to the Port, the port to our Post-Cruise hotel and the hotel to FLL. Even though we prepaid for the service and had written confirmations from them stating both the times for pickup and the fact that they would come equipped with a carseat (the whole reason we went with them in the first place), they were late for each pickup and only had the carseat once. At the pickup after the cruise we waited almost 2 hours after getting out of customs (in the direct sun with our baby!) for them to arrive. Had I known they were going to simply blow off our request for a carseat and I would end up holding him in my lap anyway we would have just taken a van cab. It would have been the same level of (un)safety and a LOT cheaper and we would have left right away.

Just our personal experience....

Thank you everyone for all of the advice - particularly you Sharon. It was very helpful. We have decided to go with the GalleryOne as it sounds like it has everything we need closeby.

Thanks again!!! I don't know what I would do without this forum :)

I don't know why I am having so much trouble deciding on this, but I could really use the help of you experienced CC folks.

We are a party of 6 (4 adults, a toddler and an infant) sailing on the Feb. 7th sailing of Allure out of Port Everglades. In an effort to save money our traveling companions have asked that we get one room that can fit all of us and have put me in charge of finding such a thing. So now I need to find a single hotel room that has at least 2 beds plus a sofa bed (and can fit a crib as well), that is also within easy walking distance of kid friendly restaurants and a place to get wine.

Now normally we always use the Embassy Suites on 17th, which would have fit the bill for what we need perfectly. But, of course, it is sold out :(

So, I have been scouring the boards and reading up on all of the different suggestions from everyone, but since I don't have any experience with any of these other places or locations I could <really> use some help narrowing down the choices to what would be the best option for us.

The places I have found available are:

--- Homewood Suites -1 Bedroom Suite with 2 Queen Beds and a Sofa Bed for $387

--- GalleryONE Doubletree - Waterview Balcony 2 Queen Suite & Sofa Bed for $431

--- Hyatt Place - 2 Double Beds & a Sofa Bed for $420

--- Holiday Inn Sawgrass Mills - 2 Queen Beds & Sofa Bed for $243

--- Cambria Suites - 1 Bedroom 2 Queen Suites w Sofa Bed for $381

--- Hilton Marina - 2 Double Bed Room (I dont think this one has the sofa sleeper thought so may not work at all) for $320

I would be extremely grateful for any help or advice on any of those, or any suggestions of others I have overlooked that would fit what we need both in space and location. Which would you choose in our circumstances and why??

Thank you thank you thank you!!!!

We normally stay at the Embassy Suites on 17th before our cruises so that we can easily get to the Total Wine and Publix for our last minute pre-cruise purchases. This time, however, the Embassy Suites is all booked up.

Are there any other hotels within easy walking distance of those shops that any of you would recommend for a pre-cruise stay?

Thanks!

We would like to take a cruise in early Dec to celebrate my husband and my dad's big milestone bdays. Would love to try Oasis/Allure - here are my questions:

 

1. Do the pools/kids splash area have warm or cold water? My daughter has avoided outdoor pools this summer as she has complained they were too cold.

2. How crowded does it get for elevators/restaurants/boarding - would it be more frustrating for my parents who are in their 70s than being on a smaller ship?

3. Best reasonably priced cabin you would recommend I book to comfortably fit my husband/myself/child? Already decided my parents will have a balcony cabin. Would like to be higher, mid ship.

 

Long time since we've cruised and now our first time sailing with a toddler, your inputs would be appreciated. I have minimal time to research all of the great existing threads here for such advice.

We just got off of Allure this past Sunday with our 3 yo and 10 month old. The Baby Splash Pool itself is heated, almost a little too warm sometimes on a hot day to be honest. The Current Pool in the Kids Pool area is also heated - always felt warm and comfy. The other pools are not heated but were never uncomfortably cold and my toddler would definitely have noticed if they were.

As for the elevators, they will seem crowded only during times that, literally, everyone is trying to use them - so going down to the gangway when you first get into port, going down to dinner if you go right before the standard dining times, debarkation. All other times are fine and often you will actually be the only ones on there believe it or not. And the middle bank of elevators are all glass too which will amuse the 3 yo to no end - trust me ;)

As for cabins, I can't really speak to anything but a balcony as that is what we always sail with. But i would highly recommend one as they are fantastic when the little one has to take a nap or go to bed as they give you a nice place to eat, drink and relax in the sea air when you are unable to leave the cabin easily. In fact, when we go with the grandparents we always try to get 2 connecting balconies and have the partition opened up which gives you a double length balcony :)

We have been on both Oasis and Allure and you really can't beat either, especially with a little one in tow and when traveling with a group as there are plenty of options for everyone.

Hope that helps!

Hi Everyone!

As an obsessive planner and the unofficial travel coordinator for all of our group and family travel plans the past few years, I have endlessly scoured the CC boards for info on each of my cruises. So, I figured that it was about time to “pay it forward” and write a review of my own. This will be my first review ever though, so bear with me and I apologize in advance if it is too much useless information. Also, being a mom with 2 little boys time to focus is at a premium, so while I will try to be as comprehensive as possible there will definitely be some things I will miss, but am happy to answer any questions that I can along the way. And for that same reason this review will obviously be from the perspective of a person cruising with little kids, so not all of it may apply to those of you traveling without kids and there are certainly things I won’t be able to comment on as I didn’t experience them (read = the shows). But, I will try to make it as universally helpful as I can :)

To that end, for those that don’t wish to read a play by play style review and just want the basics here is an overall synopsis of my thoughts on Allure:

The Ship

Beautiful. Awesome. Fantastic. A great ship for families, and between the Royal Babies program and the Baby Splash Zone one of the only ships we will consider until DS2 is out of diapers and able to enjoy the kids club and the regular pools. He is a serious water lover and it would just break my heart to make him sit there and watch all the other kids (particularly his brother) having fun in the pools and not letting him splash around as well. So that was a huge factor for us.

As far as how it compares to Oasis, we love them both but our preference is Allure simply for the slight difference in choices (Samba vs. Solarium, Rita’s vs. Seafood Shack and Chicago vs. Hairspray). Now, that being said, with Oasis going in for refurb soon and the show changing to Cats I am very curious to see what Oasis has to offer next year. And we are definitely curious about some of the other ships that have those 2 baby-friendly features, like FOS, but are worried we may be spoiled now. :eek:

With the boys our favorite spots were the Baby Splash Zone/Kids Pool Area and the Carousel. For our alone time our favorite places were Central Park and Vintages.

I will say that the ship is definitely showing her age however. We were on Deck 12 and there was a very noticeable musty/mildew smell in the rooms and hallways and obvious carpet stains all along the port side of the deck as if they had experienced a major leak or something. So, while she is still a beautiful ship, she is definitely ready for a little TLC.

Cabin

We had 2 connecting balcony cabins, 12294 & 12296. The location was great, close to the elevators and very little noise. It was port side and we were able to see each of the ports as we sailed in. We would not hesitate to choose this location again. For those wondering about bed location – 12296 had the bed by the closet and 12294 had the bed by the window.

Entertainment

I honestly can’t say much about this as the only snippet of a show we saw at all was the performance the Ocean Aria stars put on for the Crown & Anchor party. But, if they were any indication I imagine the shows were all great.

Music around the ship was good, and particularly fabulous in Central Park. I only wish it lasted longer as we spent a lot of our time there and were always disappointed when the musician packed up for the evening. I was also surprised at the lack of any kind of music around the pool area until the last sea day of the ship. I know Carnival always has a steel drum or Calypso band playing almost constantly during the day, and although I can’t remember for certain I sure thought Oasis did as well. But on this cruise there was literally no pool area music at all until the very end which I found surprising. Not really a deal breaker or anything, just something I missed since it makes hanging out at the pool feel more like a fun pool party and its absence was definitely noticed.

I also wish, simply from the perspective of a family with small kids, it would be nice if they would start some things a little earlier. We are early risers anyway and with 2 little ones that both still take naps, we missed out on a lot of the activities simply because they were mostly either during lunch, nap time or late night. Prime examples of this would be the Boardwalk – a place specifically designed with kids in mind, but the carousel doesn’t even open until 12:30 most days and the family festivals didn’t start until late afternoon. Now I definitely understand that lots of people don’t have kids, especially young ones, with them on a cruise so I certainly don’t expect everything to revolve around that by any stretch. However, if you are going to market yourself as such a family friendly cruise for those with young kids I think it would be nice if a little more thought was put into the timing of things so that those same families could enjoy some of the activities as well. Just my two cents…

Food

Other than the Character Breakfast we didn’t eat in the MDR at all on this trip and instead ate our way around the Allure at the specialty restaurants. Here is the synopsis of our thoughts:

- - Samba Grill: Ok. The food was fine, no complaints at all. Just not what I would call great and in retrospect I’d rather have spent that money for another dinner at Chops instead. One thing I will say – I had posted on the forums about kid friendly places to eat on the first night and Samba was one of the suggestions because it had dancers, music and a livelier atmosphere. Well, evidently for whatever reason RCCL has chosen to change the ambiance of Samba to something more refined/adult since that poster was there. While it was a very nice atmosphere, there was certainly no music or dancers and it was very quiet and refined and definitely geared more towards adults. It would have been a lovely place for a Date night dinner, but we felt very out of place with our baby and toddler.

- Chops: We were a little worried about Chops because of all the flurry of comments about the new menu. Having never experienced it before I can’t really compare it to what it used to be, but my husband and I thought it was great. In fact we ended up going an extra night. The Forest Mushroom Soup was possibly the best thing we ate on the entire cruise! It was phenomenal.

- - Central Park 150: The food was very good and the service was impeccable. The wine pairings were fabulous. And, as everyone else always says, the special Cucumber Martini was crazy-good. That being said, while we definitely didn’t regret going at all and are glad we experienced it I’m not sure it would be our first choice to go back. Now granted, our experience with a gourmet menu like this is very limited so maybe we are just too “mainstream” or uncultured for a place like this, but it just seemed like a lot of money to spend for the amount of food you received. Not that it wasn’t worth it – just that we would probably choose to spend that same amount of money on something else next time.

- - Giovannis: Fabulous. Ambiance was fantastic, as was the service. Food was quite good as well. A top notch place that we enjoyed twice.

- - Izumi: We originally had reservations to eat here, but long story short circumstances with our boys made a dinner out that night impossible. So, instead we ordered a bunch of stuff to go. Obviously that made the Hot Rocks experience a no-go, but the sushi and appetizers we got were phenomenal. My only complaint at all was that on Oasis Izumi was open for lunch and on this sailing it was only open for dinner which was disappointing. I would have really enjoyed grabbing some sushi for lunch instead of the usual Windjammer or Wipeout Café fare.

- - Vintages: We love Vintages. We ate an entire dinner here on our Oasis cruise, but this sailing we were only able to make it for pre-dinner appetizers/tapas. However, if we had had more time we would have gone back countless times as it is one of our favorite and most relaxing places.

- - Overall: We really enjoyed experiencing the various specialty venues, particularly Giovannis and Chops. However, there were also things we missed about the MDR experience as well and we look forward to going back to that experience on our next cruise in Feb.

As for daytime options, I do wish that they had better options available earlier. Not being someone who enjoys breakfast foods much it would be nice if they had some other options more readily available or opened up some of the lunch venues a little earlier as I usually just went hungry until after 11. Just my little aside….

Crowds

Just as you hear over and over on these reviews, RCCL does an amazing job of making a ship full of 6000 people seem uncrowded. The only places you will ever really notice crowds are in the Windjammer, at the pool on sea days (but you can still always find a chair), or at the elevators during peak times like dinner or heading to the gangway. Honestly, on every other cruise I have been on it has seemed more crowded than on Oasis or Allure even though the number of passengers was far less.

Overall

Overall we had a great time and would highly recommend sailing on Allure, particularly if you are sailing with little kids. There is just nothing else out there (except Oasis) with as many options for families with babies and toddlers as there is on this ship. And for that reason alone it is worth the price to us. The rest of what the ship has to offer is a happy and welcome bonus for us. That being said, when the boys are a titch older and DS2 is fully potty trained we will certainly take a look at what our other options are simply because that little milestone opens up a lot of cruising possibilities (and prices).

As for our final thoughts:

- - Very family friendly. An excellent choice for those with little ones, and one of the only options if they are still in diapers and you want some pool time

- Food - Overall good. Lots of options and quality is good. Although, as I said, I do wish they had more non-breakfast options earlier and that there was more variety available at lunch. Highly recommend Chops, Giovannis, Izumi and Vintages.

- Service - For the most part the service was quite good, and in some cases exemplary. The only negative that we noticed was that almost all of the MDR staff seemed *very* unhappy/surly when we went in for the Character Breakfast. Don’t know if they had just gotten out of an unpleasant meeting, or received bad news that morning or what. But it was extremely noticeable and it affected almost everyone we encountered. Literally, out of about 20 different crew members we encountered only one was actually smiling and friendly. It was very weird considering how nice the staff usually is. So… don’t know what was going on there….

- Ship - Ready for a little TLC and freshening up, but still a fabulous and beautiful ship. Tons of things to do and places to explore or just relax.

So that is the basic synopsis of our cruise for those of you looking for a quick review. If you want the nitty gritty details and specifics I will be doing more of a day to day review as well, complete with Cruise Compasses, Adventure Ocean Daily Compasses, pictures, etc. as soon as I can….. :)

We are a family of four (2 adults, 2 toddlers) and are currently booked on Oasis in an OV balcony cabin, the only kind of cabin we've ever had. The same sailing has a Jr Suite for $900 more.

My understanding is that a Jr Suite would get us:

- a bathtub for the kids

- a larger balcony

- a little bit more cabin space

- double cruise points

- and earlier boarding.

For those of you that have sailed in a JS, would you consider $900 worth it to upgrade for those things? And am I missing anything else that you get with a JS? Would we be better off sticking with our current cabin and jsut checking bacak to see if it gets cheaper later?

Thanks!

We are a family with 2 little kids (ages 3 and 1). We have been on Oasis, which was absolutely great for the little guy and are booked on Allure next. We are considering booking our first B2B cruise ever and are trying to decide if we go with the old standby Oasis class since it is so kid friendly or try out the Freedom which would save us about $2,000.

Obviously the money is a huge factor but we don't know much about the FOS as we've only ever been on Oasis. Apart from the difference in size what other differences should we be considering or aware of? And are the kids facilities (the nursery, baby splash pool, kids club) equally as awesome (I assume they are!) as the Oasis?

Any input would be greatly appreciated as we have holds on both that expire tonight and need to make a decision. Thanks!!!! :confused:

We are planning on possibly doing our first B2B on Oasis and have the option of booking a D4 or a D1 hump balcony. The deck and location is essentially the same, but the price difference is just over $200 per sailing so $400 total to have the D1 hump balcony for both legs vs. the standard balcony for both legs.

I've never seen a hump balcony before but I understand that they are a bit bigger. Are the views obstructed at all? Are there any downsides we should be aware of with them?

Thanks for the quick replies everyone. I really appreciate it. Sticking with our balconies :)

Ok, so we are a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 young children) currently booked for 2 connecting D3 balcony cabins on Deck 12 on Allure. The opportunity has come up to upgrade to a "W" Deluxe guarantee balcony cabin for about a $100 over what we paid for the 2 balcony cabins. I assume this will likely be a Jr. Suite.

So, having never even seen a suite before much less been in one, do you think we would be better off keeping our dual balconies or upgrading to a JS?

Thoughts??

Yay!! Thank you SO much for the update :)

Thanks Gigi65! I will give them a call and let you know if they are any more helpful...

Yeah, on our Oasis sailing they showed up about 90 days out. I did sign up for the notification email but have heard nothing yet about our sailing and we are only 20 days out. Seems odd.....

We did the Unlimited Photo Package last time we cruised and loved it. it was a fantastic bargain for the number of pictures we got. As such, we have been planning all along to get it again this time. We sail on August 31st and I have checked, literally, daily, and every week there are less and less sailings showing on the MyCruisePhotos.com site. Now they only show 2, stopping with the one right before ours.

Does anyone know what is going on? Are they not going to be offering this package anymore? Has anyone been able to sign up for it for a sailing after August 24th?:confused:

The Solarium Cafe is usually much less crowded for lunch on embarkation day. There's also Park Cafe, but you would have to be there early on embarkation day.

Do they allow kids in the Solarium Cafe? I thought it was for adults only because its part of the Solarium.

Rita's food is not comparable to MDR. Even for free I'd still choose MDR. There's a reason Rita's is going to be replaced (it isn't good). Royal is learning that people will pay upcharge for good food, not junk food.

 

MDR on Royal is pretty good. You are doing yourself a disservice, in my opinion, by completely writing it off to go for specialty only.

It isn't that we are necessarily writing off the MDR at all. :) We are just going on Allure again in February with a group, so will be eating in the MDR every night on that cruise because the crowd we will be with won't do specialty venues at all. So we figured if we were going to ever try the specialty places now was our best shot. But if the MDR ends up being our best choice for this issue we will definitely go. I just feel guilty for some reason putting the servers through all that for just one night. They try so hard to remember all of your preferences and do everything so perfectly I just wouldn't want them to misinterpret our absence later as a reflection of the service or anything. Probably my own dorkiness.... I know... I'm just trying to make sure we don't hurt anyone's feelings or anything.

They are all kid-friendly to a degree. We went to Samba Grill on our 1st night and had a couple toddlers with us. It was a good atmosphere for a family of 10 and there is plenty of space close by to walk around and give them breaks. We've also taken them to Chops and Giovanni's Table. They were fine too but Samba felt a bit more open, fun and comfortable for them. Plus, a samba dancer will come by and entertain for a bit which they enjoyed.

 

 

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Fred,

Thanks for the suggestion! I hadn't thought about Samba.. I just assumed it was more of an "adult" place but I've never seen it as this will be our first time on Allure. :)

Bob,

Yeah, we thought about JR but since we can get that on land anyway we were trying to figure out something specific to the cruise if that makes any sense.

And we are certainly open to switching our Giovannis to dinner instead if that is the best option, but then need to figure out what to do for lunch on embarkation day since we were trying to avoid the giant lines by having a reservation someplace.

Hi All,

For those of you with little ones - are there any of the specialty restaurants on Allure that you would recommend for the first night that our little boys (3 and 1) would be welcome in?

They are both well behaved for their age and are quite used to going out to eat as we do it at least weekly, but we also are very cognizant of the fact that there are people who don't enjoy children being in the venues that they pay extra for and we don't really want to start our vacation off by making other people unhappy.

That being said, since this is a trip to celebrate our anniversary our intention is to spend the days as a family, feed the boys at the Windjammer, then utilize the nursery and kids club for an hour or two most evenings so we can enjoy "date nights" at some of the specialty restaurants on our own such as 150 and Chefs Table. However, since the kids club isn't open the first night we need to either find a specialty restaurant that would welcome us as a whole or we are looking at doing the MDR for just that one night, which doesn't really seem fair to the servers.

I looked at Rita's Fiesta, but it seems like it might be geared more toward the partying crowd than families. And we are currently scheduled to do Giovannis for lunch that day (although we could change that). Is our only other choice the Windjammer?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!!!!

They are 3 and 10 months. So just little guys :)

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We requested one when we sailed on Oasis and it was great. Condition was near new and very clean, although we brought our own sheets and pillow both to make it more comfy and also so it would be something he is used to.

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Hi,

Not only are we headed on a cruise this summer with our 2 boys, but I am also going to have to take an unavoidable trip with them solo on a plane next month (yikes!) :eek:.

Given that their regular carseats are pretty heavy and bulky (Chicco Keyfits) I have been trolling the boards for what other parents are using for travel that might be a little easier to lug along, but still provide the safety of a carseat during the plane and/or shuttle ride.

Would any of you that have experience with this type of car seat recommend it for a lightweight option (for travel only, not for regular everyday use)? And would you say it is easy for a not-so-mechanically-inclined mom to install on the airplane by herself? Or are there better ideas or options out there that you would recommend?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

We bought it on our Oasis cruise last January. The way it worked was that any pictures that included ANYONE from the cabin were included, and if you had kids under 18 in another cabin they would be included too.

So, on our cruise we were a group 7 across 3 cabins (me, DH, DS, the Grandparents and my BFF and her husband). I bought the package and because our son was listed in the Grandparents cabin, his cabin was also linked to the package. So, as long as 1 of us from either of those cabins (me, my husband, our son or one of the grandparents) was in a picture it was included. So for our friends, they just made sure most of their photos were group ones. And, for whatever reason, a lot of their solo pics were also somehow tagged as part of our group and ended up on our disc as well. although technically I think that just an oversight on RCCL's part. :)

I would be happy to answer any questions about it, but I will say that it worked so well for us that we are doing it again on our next cruise as well.