My review Allure May 1st Eastern!

I've almost got all of my pictures processed, but I thought I'd start the text of my review and get it started here and make it an interactive thing as I go along ;)

BACKGROUND: My wife and I are empty nesters, in our early 50s. This was our 6th cruise, our cruise history is in my signature. We are from Columbus, Ohio and I saw a significant discount for Ohio residents so I chose Allure over Oasis and the Eastern itinerary as we had never been to St Maartin before. Its also worth noting that my wife and I are both successful weight loss surgery patients having lost more than 200 lbs between us and while we love to eat, the food portion of the cruise isn't going to be as important to us as it is to some people.

As usual, this forum was a great help in preparation and with this being a new ship/class of ship, this was never more true that this time. I spent a lot of time in this section as well as the individual port sections. The Roll call group was helpful as well. It was there that I learned that many of the hotels were already full in January for our weekend. There were 5 ships in port that weekend with 2 doing TA runs. It was also "fleet week" so there was also the IWO Jima carrier and a submarine that left when we did. I started looking for hotels in the 2nd week of January and all the recommended ones were already full. I ended up picking the Rodeway Inn Cruise port hotel. It was only $99, which was cheap compared to the most recommended ones. I also booked my first ever flight on Airtran as they have direct flights from Columbus to FLL and return.

Our flight in was uneventful and pleasant. I called Rodeway once we got our luggage (10 minutes) and got directions on where to be picked up. When we got outside they were already there so we were at our hotel by 6pm Saturday evening. Its a 5 minute ride and they had a separate trailer for luggage so it was a comfortable ride. When we arrived I saw a sign that said they had $30 upgrades to a Jacuzzi suite. The clerk reminded me that I had already prepraid the room in January so I figured, what the heck, and we got the upgrade. I had conflicting reports here and on expedia about this place, but it was good enough. I would say it was typical of what you would find on any interstate highway, but not nearly as nice as many of the nearby resorts. If you want to save $100 to spend on the ship I would recommend this place. I use to travel for a living and have stayed in thousands of hotels. If you want to splurge for a nice night, look elsewhere ,this place was good enough. The only additional detail I will add here is that they do run a free shuttle to the cruise ports and they seem to be experienced at it. The advertised the shuttle leaving at 11am, but they had enough people that they ran one at 10:30. We missed that and ended up at the 11am shuttle putting us at the port by 11:10.

I tipped the baggage handlers $10 for two bags, heck I saved $100 at the hotel :D and we walked toward the terminal There were lots of signs directing you to the right place and lots of helpful people along the way. We were through security within 2 minutes and headed to the RCL check in stations. Here is where the staff made their only mistake. An attendant asked me what deck I was on, which was 12, and he directed me to a line that said DECK12 and it had 5-6 people in it. I guess I must look like a commoner and he couldn't tell my elevated Platinum status by just looking ;). I forgive his mistake! Actually this was our first trip as platinum and I was looking for that special check in line. I spotted it and dove into it. There was an attendant there who recognized my superior status and escorted me to the next agent where we had a very pleasant check in experience. We had our picture taken and were on the way up the escalator is less than 5 minutes after hitting the front door! The ship wasn't boarding yet so they were directing people to a waiting area. I had my Seapass card out with my thumb pointing at my elevated PLATINUM status to be sure we were directed to that luxurious special place!

?DISCLAIMER I was reading the CARNIVAL BASHING thread this morning and the OP was complaining about how people in this forum brag about their elevated status and are so obnoxious about it. I am having a little fun with that, and this trend may continue through this whole thread, so I may have to remind you from time to time that I am as blue collar as it gets and don't think I'm better than anyone.

Well, we were directed into that special area after walking past the Pinnacle, Diamond Plus, Diamond, and Emerald sections. There was nothing there to make it any better than the other sections of the boarding lounge with the exception that the Higher Crown and Anchor members boarded first! We sat probably 15 minutes here and I used that time to log into our roll call group and announce IN THE LOUNGE! to the group. I then shut my phone off and was looking forward to no cell phone, or internet for a full week! They did call for the Pinnacle and Diamond Plus members to board about 11:45 and us Emerald and Platinum about 5 minutes later! (Sorry I can't tell you when the commoners were allowed to board :D

I've walked up thousands of "jetways" in the last 30 years, but there is something special about walking up the ramp to a cruise ship. Even when I was two turns from boarding I could hear that wonderful "bonk" sound that occurs when they process your card and you are welcomed to board. At approximatively 11:45 we stepped onboard the new Allure of the Seas!

MORE TONIGHT when I have access to my pics and and my notes. SPOILER ALERT: - What a great week!

PS- We had an active roll call group and I know others of you where on this cruise as well. Please feel free to interject your observations, opinions, or other comments where appropriate. I won't mind at all, I hope future cruisers will find this as valuable as I did every review posted prior to our cruise. I found some value in all of them.

I can already tell this is going to be one of those "can't stop reading" and "can't wait to see the picture" reviews. I'll be on the sister ship soon, but looking forward to mirroring your fun and excitement! Glad you enjoyed yourself.

I can already tell this is going to be one of those "can't stop reading" and "can't wait to see the picture" reviews. I'll be on the sister ship soon, but looking forward to mirroring your fun and excitement! Glad you enjoyed yourself.

You can get a quick look ahead in my MEET THE ALLURE CHAIR HOGS thread I started using the same style (or lack there of) PS to everyone, I am a reasonably intelligent adult, I put more thought into the content and getting the pictures posted than I do proof reading. Despite how it may appear, I do no the difference between there, their, they're and other common mistakes, but my fingers and brain frequently don't cooperate, I hope you will put up with occasional sentences that you have to read twice to understand.

Just wanted to say thanks in advance for your review BillOH, looking forward to the next installment :D

Just wanted to say thanks in advance for your review BillOH, looking forward to the next installment :D

Your welcome, it may be tomorrow for you, I live in the eastern time zone of the US and will work on it tonight at home.

great so far...and I am happy to hear about the Platinum perks...as we are Platinum too:D

Double

Your welcome

There's one! ;) Just teasing. Looking forward to the rest. Especially the pictures. If the chair hog thread pictures are any indication, this is going to be great! Thanks in advance for your review, Mr. Special Platinum.

I am only a lowly gold member, should I wait until everyone else had a chance to read the review before I start :p Love the sense of humor already!!! Cant wait to read more!!!

Yay! Welcome back, we've been waiting for your review! :p

Ok, when I left off we had just stepped on to Allure. I'll mention at this point, I had researched this to death and was prepared while my wife on the other hand didn't want to see anything till she saw it in person. At this point her head was going around like a cartoon video taking everything in. Normally when we get on the ship early we go straight to the windjammer and get that out of the way. I'd heard that Allure's windjammer wasn't that big and gets croweded easily, which turned out to be true. After letting my wife take in the stores on the promenade, we took the stairs up to the Boardwalk and headed to the Dog House. I think everyone has seen the pictures of the big cup with the Dog on it, but here is a picture of the German Bratwurst I got. It was very tasty, could have been hotter, but it was a good quality piece of meat with fresh kraut and a great baggette.

Ok, I said you have already seen the doghouse sign, but here is a view of it you haven't seen. One that includes my lovely wife.

We took a very fast walk around the ship. Gina continued to be amazed and actlng like a kid at Christmas, she had never seen any of this and had no idea what Allure was about. We walked up to the pool deck and found the restrooms. Our carry ons had our swim suits so we decided to grab the best seats by the Beach pool (the one my wife picked out as her favorite) and got an hours worth of sun (pre sun screen :eek: ) till our room was ready.

Ok, lets talk about the room a little. I originally booked a D3 in the middle of the port side on deck 12. In March the price dropped considerably so I called Crown and Anchor and they upgraded me to a D3 and gave me back $300 in OBC since I had already paid in full. The new room was 12552 near the front of the ship on the starboard side. I knew ahead of time that this was a connecting room and we had no idea who would be on the other side. I'll say now, this was never an issue. I did meet the couple in that room out on the balcony one night, but we never heard a sound from their room, and hopefully they didn't hear us either. I thought the room seemed a little narrower than other rooms we have had, but it was plenty big enough for us and we found the storage sufficient and then put our suitcases under the bed. Oh, by the way, our bags arrived by 2pm. Port Everglades continued to amaze me with how well they operate with this ship. Here is a shot of our room.

As others have said, we also found the beds very comfortable and slept great everynight, except one. The room was 4 doors down from the front elevators, and this made for quick easy access. It was a short 2 flights up to deck 15 where the pools and solarium is (no deck 13 on this ship) The location had two short comings. One was that people in the starboard side hot tub could look down into the first foot or so of our balcony so I had to make sure I kept my clothes on while standing at the railing :o. The second one was it was under the solarium and on the night of the dance party we heard a very loud bass beat until about 2:30 in the morning. We ended up sleeping with the balcony door wide open so the waves drowned out the noise. It may have wasted AC energy, but at least I could sleep.

But lets get back to this first day. After checking out our room we, as is our tradition checked out our table in the dining room. We always take the 2nd seating so we can take our time getting back from ports and there are less kids in the 2nd seating (usually, more on that later) Our table was way in the back, it was a 4 topper. What I didn't like was it had 2 chairs and a bench type seat you might find in a diner. I wasn't fond of that, it just doesn't seem as elegant to me. We just made sure we were first at dinner so we could get the seats we wanted. (That turned out to not be neccesary)

We next took a tour of the SPA Fitness, Vitality area. Normally I hate doing this on the first day as the Spa personnel are very hard sell. This day was no exception. However, day 2 was our 30th anniversary. In addition to the $330 OBC from the price drop I had $250 OBC from my RCI Visa card, so I figured we could splurge a little. The Vitality area is pretty amazing. Its huge and its very nice looking. I think its bigger than many such places on land. We went ahead and booked a couples deep tissue massage with bamboo. More on that later. From the fitness center we walked down to the walking track. I was really looking forward to using the track. I have 4 half marathons under my belt and I'm training for my first full marathon in October. That training had already started and I didn't want to miss a week. BTW, the track is closed during boarding because it crossed the track.

The 2nd seating of dinner was at 8:30pm. We found our table and our waiter introduced himself. He was Oliver from the Phillipians and Erixx from Turkey was our assistant waiter. I've always had good waiters, but I think Oliver was the best ever. He did a great job and was very personable. Early reports here from Allure said the dining room was inefficient and slow. My opinion was things have improved greatly. All of our meals were quick and we were done with dinner by 9:30 if we wanted to be. The first night we both had the prime rib. On Navigator it was excellent, this night it was just ok.

That first night there was a table to 10 behind us and horror of horror this one was filled with kids ages 9 to 12 I would have guessed. We really try to avoid kids and even though RCL caters to families there are a lot of adult only places so we have a good time. The kids were very loud. They stayed at their seats, but they were loud. I tried hard to figure out who their parents were, but no adults ever came any near the table. I did notice they all ate pizza and french fries. Why not send these monsters to the Windjammer? Fortunately they never came back!

At this point I will mention that we booked all of our shows ahead of time. I did book the Oceanaria show in the Aqua theater for 11:30 the first night. I'm pausing now to see if I have any pictures from that show.

OMG, when I first saw your cabin pic, I thought your towel animal was wearing a G-string:eek::D!!! Then I realized it was just a sunglass strap:p.

Enjoying your review!!!

Love the review so far!

OMG, when I first saw your cabin pic, I thought your towel animal was wearing a G-string:eek::D!!! Then I realized it was just a sunglass strap:p.

 

Enjoying your review!!!

OMG I just burst out laughing after reading that comment. DH thinks I am crazy now. :) Maybe I am!

I mentioned day 1 ended with the Oceania show. I was very impressed with this show and it was a great start to the week The show is obviously based on diving and they work a show around it, but it is very entertaining. Turns out I don't have any good pictures of the show. Thats mainly because my 5 year old digital camera is a piece of crap. (More on that later) But you may have read that one of Allure's secrets is the balconies at the back of the ship that are public accessible. This photo below is a view of the aqua theater from the starboard deck 12 balcony.

Another spoiler, the pictures get better, this was our 30th anniversary and Gina said I could buy a new camera on this trip. I also mentioned I thought the room and balcony was a little narrower. Below is what a D3 balcony looks like. It maybe a little small, but we enjoyed it a lot!

Day 1 ended with our traditional hot tub soak. My wife and I enjoy a hot tub soak before bed. It really helps get to sleep. Well, as much as I love Royal Caribbean, their hot tubs leave a little to be desired. We started off on our ritual of trying to find an open hot tub that is also at least warm. We went up two decks to the cantilevered hot tub on the port side. As I almost could have predicted, it was marked CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE :mad: So we walked across the ship to the same tub on the port side. IT was open and a comfortable 100 degrees or so. (I can tell a hot tub's temp to within a half degree by feel alone) These tubs most noticably have large flat screens which that night were playing the Mavs/Lakers game) These tubs also have some contured seating that is great for couples vs the open seating of the same tubs on the freedom class. We were just getting comfortable when a crew member came up and told us we had to move to another tub because he was closing that one. Aggrivating, but we went back to the one we first tried to use. That ends day one, Embarkation day.

Day 2 - Nassau

On this itinerary, you wake up already docked in Nassau. Unfortunately the ship leaves at 1pm, so you have to be back on board at around 12:30. I think this makes the single most worthless stop RCL offers. We have been to Nassau 3 times, once on Voyager, and twice on Majesty so we decided to remain on board. At this point, it is worth mentioning this trip was to celebrate our 30th anniversary, and this was the day. Below is the message that appeared as a message on our interactive TV.

Wow, a complimentary 5 minute phone call! Actually we didn't have anyone in the outside world we could contact, but it was a nice gesture. I began our anniversary with 10 laps around the running track (4.3 miles) After a shower my wife and I had our first breakfast at Johnny Rocket's. This was another tip from cruise critic. We were seated outside on the patio and it was a wonderful morning and felt great to be outside. We ordered waffles and home fried potatoes. It was complimentary and a great time. A must do. Speaking of hot tubs, its time for us to go out to ours. I've got to stop for the night. More tomorrow.

Ok, when I left off we had just stepped on to Allure. I'll mention at this point, I had researched this to death and was prepared while my wife on the other hand didn't want to see anything till she saw it in person. At this point her head was going around like a cartoon video taking everything in. Normally when we get on the ship early we go straight to the windjammer and get that out of the way. I'd heard that Allure's windjammer wasn't that big and gets croweded easily, which turned out to be true. After letting my wife take in the stores on the promenade, we took the stairs up to the Boardwalk and headed to the Dog House. I think everyone has seen the pictures of the big cup with the Dog on it, but here is a picture of the German Bratwurst I got. It was very tasty, could have been hotter, but it was a good quality piece of meat with fresh kraut and a great baggette.

 

 

Ok, I said you have already seen the doghouse sign, but here is a view of it you haven't seen. One that includes my lovely wife.

 

 

We took a very fast walk around the ship. Gina continued to be amazed and actlng like a kid at Christmas, she had never seen any of this and had no idea what Allure was about. We walked up to the pool deck and found the restrooms. Our carry ons had our swim suits so we decided to grab the best seats by the Beach pool (the one my wife picked out as her favorite) and got an hours worth of sun (pre sun screen :eek: ) till our room was ready.

 

Ok, lets talk about the room a little. I originally booked a D3 in the middle of the port side on deck 12. In March the price dropped considerably so I called Crown and Anchor and they upgraded me to a D3 and gave me back $300 in OBC since I had already paid in full. The new room was 12552 near the front of the ship on the starboard side. I knew ahead of time that this was a connecting room and we had no idea who would be on the other side. I'll say now, this was never an issue. I did meet the couple in that room out on the balcony one night, but we never heard a sound from their room, and hopefully they didn't hear us either. I thought the room seemed a little narrower than other rooms we have had, but it was plenty big enough for us and we found the storage sufficient and then put our suitcases under the bed. Oh, by the way, our bags arrived by 2pm. Port Everglades continued to amaze me with how well they operate with this ship. Here is a shot of our room.

 

 

 

As others have said, we also found the beds very comfortable and slept great everynight, except one. The room was 4 doors down from the front elevators, and this made for quick easy access. It was a short 2 flights up to deck 15 where the pools and solarium is (no deck 13 on this ship) The location had two short comings. One was that people in the starboard side hot tub could look down into the first foot or so of our balcony so I had to make sure I kept my clothes on while standing at the railing :o. The second one was it was under the solarium and on the night of the dance party we heard a very loud bass beat until about 2:30 in the morning. We ended up sleeping with the balcony door wide open so the waves drowned out the noise. It may have wasted AC energy, but at least I could sleep.

 

But lets get back to this first day. After checking out our room we, as is our tradition checked out our table in the dining room. We always take the 2nd seating so we can take our time getting back from ports and there are less kids in the 2nd seating (usually, more on that later) Our table was way in the back, it was a 4 topper. What I didn't like was it had 2 chairs and a bench type seat you might find in a diner. I wasn't fond of that, it just doesn't seem as elegant to me. We just made sure we were first at dinner so we could get the seats we wanted. (That turned out to not be neccesary)

 

We next took a tour of the SPA Fitness, Vitality area. Normally I hate doing this on the first day as the Spa personnel are very hard sell. This day was no exception. However, day 2 was our 30th anniversary. In addition to the $330 OBC from the price drop I had $250 OBC from my RCI Visa card, so I figured we could splurge a little. The Vitality area is pretty amazing. Its huge and its very nice looking. I think its bigger than many such places on land. We went ahead and booked a couples deep tissue massage with bamboo. More on that later. From the fitness center we walked down to the walking track. I was really looking forward to using the track. I have 4 half marathons under my belt and I'm training for my first full marathon in October. That training had already started and I didn't want to miss a week. BTW, the track is closed during boarding because it crossed the track.

 

The 2nd seating of dinner was at 8:30pm. We found our table and our waiter introduced himself. He was Oliver from the Phillipians and Erixx from Turkey was our assistant waiter. I've always had good waiters, but I think Oliver was the best ever. He did a great job and was very personable. Early reports here from Allure said the dining room was inefficient and slow. My opinion was things have improved greatly. All of our meals were quick and we were done with dinner by 9:30 if we wanted to be. The first night we both had the prime rib. On Navigator it was excellent, this night it was just ok.

 

That first night there was a table to 10 behind us and horror of horror this one was filled with kids ages 9 to 12 I would have guessed. We really try to avoid kids and even though RCL caters to families there are a lot of adult only places so we have a good time. The kids were very loud. They stayed at their seats, but they were loud. I tried hard to figure out who their parents were, but no adults ever came any near the table. I did notice they all ate pizza and french fries. Why not send these monsters to the Windjammer? Fortunately they never came back!

 

At this point I will mention that we booked all of our shows ahead of time. I did book the Oceanaria show in the Aqua theater for 11:30 the first night. I'm pausing now to see if I have any pictures from that show.

Words I thought I would never say. That is a very nice bratwurst picture LOL Thanks for the pics

Thanks so much, I am loving your review! Can't wait for more!

A couple of quick thoughts I had on the way to work today.

The interactive TV and signage around the ship is very cool! And its helpful. One complaint. On the TV in your room anytime you moved around the menu when you went from one choice to another, an "Allure tip" would flash on the screen. When you are trying to move across a menu, it is very annoying. It pops up and you try to ignore it as you are trying to navigate the menu. It won't go away until you decide to break down and read it, then it goes away before you can finish. You can also find the MDR menu for the whole week so you can avoid crowding around the sample menu outside the dining room. On the digital signage the find the nearest restrooms was very helpful. There are plenty of them on the ship, but they are tucked out of sight. Once you do find them they are spacious and very nice.

Elevators - We had almost no elevator issues the entire week. There are plenty of them and a tip - When you go from a busy location like the promenade after the parade, walk past the first bank of elevators and go to the ones on the other side. Most people stop at the first elevator. It seemed to me that most people waited until people got off before they got on, I didn't see any people forcing themselves on all week. As I mentioned, we are both runners with former weight problems so we used the stairs a lot. As in other RC ships, there is a lot of artwork on the landings between decks and it is very amazing. I'm no art critic, but what they had was very diverse, pleasing to the eye and worth stopping to look at. A tip from me about the art. Use the stairs, take a different route to get to the same place and even take a different side of the same stairway to make sure you see it all. I will post a picture of my wife's favorite pieces, but I totally forgot to take a picture of mine. There is a photograph in the center of one landing that shows a scene that appears to be of kids in an Eastern European village driving goats or sheep through the village. They are wearing what I would assume is authentic clothes of their culture, what ever that is ;). But its a high quality photograph blown up to about 15ft by 10ft so its a modern photo. Take a look at the young boy in the photo. He is wearing make up and a large earring. Clearly this was done as a local celebration and he isn't happy with the makeup, the earring, and the guy taking the photo. On either side of the main photo is an enlargement of one of the kids, including this boy. His PO'd look is priceless.

Hi Bill, loving your review. Makes me even more excited about my May 29th sailing. I just had a quick question about the hotel shuttle. Was it an actual shuttle bus? The reason I'm asking is because I'm cruising with my 2 year old son and am wondering if it's a shuttle or a car (curious because of a car seat for him). Thanks and can't wait to hear more of your review!

Hi Bill, loving your review. Makes me even more excited about my May 29th sailing. I just had a quick question about the hotel shuttle. Was it an actual shuttle bus? The reason I'm asking is because I'm cruising with my 2 year old son and am wondering if it's a shuttle or a car (curious because of a car seat for him). Thanks and can't wait to hear more of your review!

In the case of the Rodeway Inn, it was several large 15 passenger vans with the normal seat belt configuration. I did see a few young kids get belted in, but didn't see any infants brought on in with car seats. This is probably a great question worth calling the hotel directly ab out. (The vans towed a trailer for luggage by the way)

Cab fare between hotel and the cruise port is reasonable, it might be worth getting a cab to ensure you can use your car seat safely. (I haven't operated a car seat since 1990 so I'm not up on current technology and how easy it is to use in public vehicles)

Its my lunch hour and I don't have access to my pictures, but a couple of things I can add. My wife Gina tried the zip line the first day around 1pm. There were no lines. They have very limited hours most days, but extend those hours on the last Sea day. I got harnessed up and backed out. I have a horrendous irrational fear of heights. I got through parasailing, but couldn't convince my self to jump off the cliff.

I mentioned Tuesday (Nassau) was our anniversary and we stayed on the ship. I had our couple massage scheduled for 11am. I didn't take any pictures here, but again this really is an amazing facility. Its totally unrelated to anything but the massage was done by two young attractive Asian girls. Somehow this seemed to add to the value :o (ok no more semi racist, in appropriate comments for the rest of the review!) I think we got a 60 minute massage for the 45 minute price based on the first day special, but I'm not sure about that. We had so much OBC and this was our 30th anniversary, we didn't worry too much about the cost. They did talk my wife into a $60 facial as an adder that day. Seems pricey to me, but she liked it and was happy, so I just shut up. (30 years of marriage experience here guys, there is a time to just shut up and take it!) At the end of the massage they did start to go into a product sales pitch, but I shut that down quick. (They accepted my no grasciously) I think we did tip additionally. This ended up being around $300. More than I would have paid on land, but it was a special occasion and not real money. We both felt great afterwards.

Lunch that Tuesday was in the Windjammer, our only meal there all week. By noon some people were coming back on the ship and the Windjammer was crowded enough that the only seats I could find was one large table for 10. I sat on the very end of that table, and as I hoped a family of 6 had no problem grabbing chairs on the other end. I think for the rest of the week the only time we went in there was to grab a banana, orange, or glass of lemonade. It was your typical RC Windjammer. Nothing more to report.

Tonight when I get home I'll finish day 2, which includes dinner at Chops. I think we saw Chicago this night too, but I'll have to check my notes at home. Till then.

Hello fans and detractors! I'm finishing up day 2, Nassau and our 30th anniversary. After our massage and lunch we did spend time by the beach pool and had no problems getting chairs. We were there for sail away and you had to go to the edge of the ship and verify we had actually moved!

I think it was during lunch in the Windjammer that I heard the buzz that Osama Bin Laden was dead. After a couple hours at the pool, I left Gina there and headed back to the room to catch a little CNN and see what was known. Once Gina finished her time in the sun we got ready for our dinner at Chops.

Our first time at Chops was on our 27th anniversary onboard Freedom while we were leaving Cozumel. It was a totally perfect night as good as you hear it is. A year later we ate at Chops on Navigator and it wasn't quite as good. I could have tried something else, but we went for what we knew and weren't dissapointed.

Chops is in Central Park and on the 2 previous visits we enjoyed sunset views of the ports we were leaving and it was beautiful. We could have eaten outside, but it was still a little warm so we stayed inside where it just seems like a nice land restaurant. The food was perfect (Petit Filet, and NY strip. I had a baked potato, she had the onion soup. When they brought us our dessert it had a candle on it and the staff sang Happy Anniversary to the Happy birthday tune. I had the wonderful chocolate cake and my wife cheesecake with strawberries.

When dinner was over, the sun had set so we found a couple of very comfortable chairs and just veg'd for awhile enjoying the night sea air. Later in the review I will have better photos of Central Park at night, but here is one of Central park at Sunset.

After our food settled, we decided to splurge a little more and went to Candy Beach on the Boardwalk. I got a bag of dark chocolate non-pariels and Gina got a medly of her childhood favorites. Our last event of the big day was the comedy club. We had talked to one couple who went to the comedy club and they told us one guy was funny and the other bombed. I guess the guy who bombed got told to take some material out of his act and it showed. Had I actually paid anything I think I would have felt cheated, but what the heck, it was somewhat entertaining.

We finished our 30th anniversary with our ritual hot tub soak and once again, RCI made it an adventure. We first went to the port side cantivlevered tub, just got comfortable and the maintenance guy asked us to get out as he was closing it. We went to the starboard side and it was closed, so we went to plan C and went to one in the solarium. It was warm enough, but no jets. It took me 2 more days to figure out how to turn on the jets. It was quiet and we had the whole place to ourselves with the exception of staff cleaning up in Samba. Well folks that is the end of day 2!

Hi Bill, Loving the review can't wait to see more picture.

Hi Bill, Loving the review can't wait to see more picture.

I'm working on it. For everyone else, Angel was part of the best ever meet and mingle aboard Freedom.

Previously I mentioned the art. I'm trying to put together some pictures you haven't seen before. Below if my wife in front of her favorite piece.

In keeping with the spirit of posting pictures you haven't seen before, I offer the following. I had heard on Monday that Bin Laden was buried at sea, but the two days later, I spotted this. I'm just sayin! You be the judge!

Ok, again, semi racist and in questionable taste, but not as bad as the first comedian that night!