Pictorial Review: Allure of the Seas Eastern Caribbean

Hi Everyone!

My name is Nick and I am a cruise addict from Mumbai, India. DW and I just returned from our dream holiday to the United States which included a short stop in Orlando, a 7N Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Allure of the Seas, 5 nights in Las Vegas, followed by a 7N Alaskan cruise on the Explorer of the Seas.

This review will focus on the 7N Eastern Caribbean cruise on the magnificent Allure of the Seas as the heading indicates. I have tons of images to share as well and will try and complete the review over the next few days. For this cruise, we were accompanied by DW's family from India and Australia, as well as some of their friends. We were 8 people in all in 4 staterooms.

DW and I left from Mumbai on the evening of the 19th of May, to board our flight on Emirates to Dubai and then to Orlando. Emirates is our favorite carrier as it has tons of entertainment on board. Our flight to Dubai was a quick 3 hours, followed by a 16 hour flight from Dubai to Orlando.

I was really dreading this looong flight (in economy) but with 2 cruises in the next 3 weeks, I was quite excited and hence the flight didn't seem as bad as I anticipated.

In Orlando, we stayed at the Rosen Inn Hotel, closest to Universal and had a good time there. On the morning of the 22nd, our van arrived to pick us up at 8:30 AM and we were at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale by noon. One of my favorite sights is when my cruise countdown is in single digits, more so when we hit CRUISE DAY!

The lines to check in were long, but we were aware that there would be over 5000 fellow cruisers with us, but the lines moved fast. In less than 30 minutes we were checked in and were given our sea pass cards.

We then proceeded to the ship and got our first glimpse of this mega ship! I could barely believe that we were about to get on board the Allure. I had been waiting to try the Oasis class ships for 3-4 years, I had read nearly every review on these ships, seen 100s of videos on youtube. I had booked this cruise in June 2014 and 700 days later, my dream was about to come true. Woohoo!

We had 4 staterooms and they were all ready at sharp 1PM. All were on Deck 10, starboard side, near the aft elevators (10700, 10710-10712, 10716). We has 10716 since we were the youngest and 10716 was furthest from the aft elevators. Apart from 10710, all other 3 staterooms had the bed by the balcony, which personally is my preference as the rooms seem more roomy.

After checking out our rooms, we grabbed a quick bite at the Windjammer Marketplace buffet. There was a huge crowd as you could imagine and there was a line to enter. The staff was doing a fabulous job of controlling the crowd and there were constant announcements for guests to leave the windjammer and explore the ship to allow fellow guests to eat at the buffet. We grabbed a quick meal and didn't waste any time hanging around. We wanted to make the most of our time and explore the ship as we had read several reviews stating that even 7 days is not enough to do everything on board the ship.

DW and I headed up to the sports deck and got a fantastic birds eye view of the boardwalk, zipline and the ALLURE OF THE SEAS sign.

We walked across the ship to the indoor Solarium area where we had the most amazing view from one of the whirlpools. This ship was definitely starting to impress, or should I say WOW us as Royal Caribbean rightly puts it.

We were finally on the ship that we'd waited so long for and were ready to begin our vacation!

Following along, can't wait to hear more. Great pictures! I sailed her in May and had a blast!

Looking forward to more!! Thanks.

Following, too. Marvelous pictures to re-live our memory on the Allure (we were on the Western route so would be happy to compare).

And hopefully waiting your review of the Alaska trip!

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Can't wait for more!

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Great start, looking forward to more.

Since we had some time to ourselves before the mandatory muster drill, DW and I decided to start exploring this mega ship. DW's family were in absolute awe of this ship. Many members of her family were skeptical about this cruise holiday since they thought that they would get sea sick with the constant motion. They could not believe that they were on the ship.

From the moment you enter the ship via the amazing amazing Royal Promenade, you feel that you've entered a resort. Having sailed on the Voyager class ships earlier, we knew how good the royal promenade was, but even we were absolutely amazed by the sheer size, colours and grandness of the Allure's Royal Promenade. Even after seeing multiple pictures online over the years, it still had a WOW feeling to it.

After checking out the Royal Promenade, Solarium & Sports Deck we continued walking to the main pool areas. There's a separate pool for kids which looked extremely tempting as well.

Here's where we also got our first glimpse of the Central Park from a Bird's eye perspective. It looked much smaller in pictures and this portion of the ship is HUGE. Over the last 2 years, we contemplated multiple times on the kind of balcony stateroom we wanted. Personally the Central Park staterooms were never in our consideration set, it was a toss up between the usual Ocean view staterooms or the Boardwalk staterooms since I love the view of the ocean. I must say that both DW and I absolutely loved the serenity of the Central Park. Inspite of having no sea views, the staterooms overlooking the Central Park were definitely better than the Boardwalk. I don't think I'd cruise in a non-oceanview balcony, but if I had to, the Central Park balcony would be our 2nd choice.

It was then time for the muster drill which we attended dutifully. Once the muster drill was completed, we headed back to our rooms to check if our luggage had arrived. Fortunately most of our bags were already outside our stateroom. We met our stateroom attendant who was excellent throughout the cruise. For the sailaway, we went up to the boardwalk Aqua Theatre for the sailaway party with the Dreamworks cast. It was fun, the kids seemed to have a better time dancing with the cast of Madagascar.

DW and I then changed into our swimwear and headed to the Solarium jacuzzis and spent the rest of the evening unwinding on our dream cruise ship.

Unlike our previous cruises in Europe which was all about seeing new places, we knew that on this cruise, the ship was the destination itself. Hence this cruise was ALOT more relaxed, slow paced and perhaps thats why we enjoyed it alot more as well.

We dined at the windjammer on the first night since we had an early start to the day and wanted to be well rested for Nassau the next day. The food at the Windjammer was much better than we remembered. Our last 3 cruises were on Celebrity and we absolutely loved the food in Celebrity's Oceanview cafe. My inlaws who had cruised Celebrity twice before with us, and were trying Royal Caribbean for the first time, thought that the food on RCCL was better than on Celebrity.

Next up: Our (half) day exploring Nassau, Bahamas!

Great start, looking forward to more.

Following, too. Marvelous pictures to re-live our memory on the Allure (we were on the Western route so would be happy to compare).

And hopefully waiting your review of the Alaska trip!

 

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Thanks! Yup, we had an amazing time on our Alaska cruise as well. As soon as I finish this review of the Allure, I will begin a detailed review with pictures of our Alaskan cruise.

We ticked 3 things off our bucket list in 1 dream holiday which we planned and saved for, over 2-3 years. Alaska was everything we imagined and more, as was our Caribbean cruise on the amazing Allure of the Seas.

Excellent review so far, Nick! Keep it coming :)

My wife and I went on Allure of the Seas back in December of 2013 and had an absolute blast with our friends. She is my all-time favorite ship! Harmony of the Seas may have something to say about that next year, though ;)

Excellent review so far, Nick! Keep it coming :)

 

My wife and I went on Allure of the Seas back in December of 2013 and had an absolute blast with our friends. She is my all-time favorite ship! Harmony of the Seas may have something to say about that next year, though ;)

Thanks John. I know what you mean. The Allure snatched the title of my favorite ship from Celebrity Silhouette. :-)

Great review and photos!

Enjoying the review.:)

Great review!

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great start

Great review! We are also doing Oasis class Eastern Caribbean and the Explorer in Alaska, with a Vegas trip somewhere along the way! I'd love to hear some comparisons between the two cruises!

Will be on her in a few months. Following along. :)

Great review! We are also doing Oasis class Eastern Caribbean and the Explorer in Alaska, with a Vegas trip somewhere along the way! I'd love to hear some comparisons between the two cruises!

Wow! That's the exact same itinerary! Since we live in Mumbai, India, it made sense for us to see as much as we could since the airfares to the US are quite high as is the travel time.

Personally, both cruises had its plus points. The Allure is a destination in itself, having never sailed on an Oasis class ship, we loved it. We were also pleasantly surprised with St. Thomas, the beach day was awesome.

For the Alaskan cruise, the beauty of Mother Nature exceeds all expectations and I now know why this one is on everyone's bucket list of places to visit. The explorer was more personal, the service was much better and some of us felt that the food too was better.

The casino on the Allure was huge and more expensive ($5 min in roulette vs $1 min on the Explorer)

Since most of the time is spent looking outside in amazement, the explorer worked for us just fine. Our first choice was the Celebrity Solstice but the price on the explorer was almost half of that on the Solstice (we snagged balcony rooms at $999)

In Vegas we stayed at the Elara Hilton and we thought that hotel was absolutely brilliant. Bang on centre strip, large modern rooms, great value for money. We felt only the Wynn was better than our hotel but would stay at the Elara again.

Love looking at the pictures..:)

Enjoying your review yet I have a 10 month wait I have time to read and learn a lot about the allure

Thanks Nick for doing this review. Great start.

We are sailing on the Allure later this year and like you - so far we have read every Allure review possible - LOL :D

Keep it coming.

Great review. Thanks!

Following. Great review can't wait for more. We board the Allure in 39 days. Can't wait

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Subscribing. Great review so far. We were on Allure in April. I love hearing other people's experiences.

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OK I have to ask... How do you pack for the Caribbean and Alaska????

Thanks for the review.