Review - Allure of the Seas

[cactusflower]

Secondly, I was wondering if you could elaborate on your statement above about 'beach chairs'. If you don't have beach chairs, what do they have for people to sit on during the show? And which are the most comfortable?

 

Thanx,

Erika

 

The Aquatheater is made up of alternate rows of chairs and wooden benches. The benches to have a railing behind them which can be used as a backrest. The chairs look similar to a beach chair. The beach chairs are my first choice, but we sat on the benches for a subsequent show, and they were okay. The chairs are preferable both for comfort and for space. The chairs are individual and they are not movable, so you have more space between each person. On the benches you just all squeeze in next to each other. So the time that we sat on the benches, it was a lot more crowded. But, the benches are not bad enough to miss the show over.

[beachlovergirl]

Enjoying your review! We'll be doing the Allure B2B.....Dec 2 and Dec 9th.

 

Dee

[akcruz]

Thanks, looking forward to the rest of your review. It's my turn in just over a week so soaking up all I can get :D

[mo&fran]

We had the same problem with Embassy last fall. they did not want to call a cab, they wanted us to use their van. We replied,"only if it is ready to leave now". It wasn't really but he did leave when we got in. WE had figured it was going to cost $20 to get to the ship, so it was a wash whether the van driver got it or a taxi got it. His first stop was Oasis.

[darceyg]

Brilliant, soooooo looking forward to our cruise August and just love to read reviews. Thanks :)

[chipq]

Thank you for sharing your cruise experience.

 

 

http://luv2cruise.blogspot.com

[cactusflower]

Thank you all for your comments. They help inspire me to keep going. :D

 

I'm going to look into other options for posting pictures, so I'll delay putting more up until I get that worked out - maybe this weekend.

 

Familygoboston - I did see the flowrider in the yard, but it wasn't turned on so I wouldn't have known what it was if I hadn't already read about it on the boards. My husband was so impressed that I knew about it! By the way, your review was one that I enjoyed reading while I was waiting for my turn to sail. :)

[cactusflower]

Monday:

 

Today the ship docked in Nassau, Bahamas. We had signed up for the Blue Lagoon shore excursion. Unfortunately, this involved getting up really early, since we had to meet on the dock at 7:45 am. We are not morning people and it would have been really nice to sleep in that first morning. But, the beach was calling so we got up. We had ordered breakfast from room service. There are room service breakfast menus in your cabin. You just mark what you want and hang it on your cabin doorknob the night before. You can pick from a choice of 30 minute time slots to have it delivered. They call your cabin to tell you that it is on the way. There is not a charge to have breakfast delivered to your room (though, it is nice to tip the person that delivers the tray, so you might want to have some dollar bills handy). When you are done, you just set your tray out in the hallway and they come by and pick it up. This is a great option for those mornings when you know you will be rushing to catch an excursion.

 

When you are heading off the ship on port days (you shouldn't be trying to exit the ship on sea days!), there is a button in the elevator that says “gangway”. It is at the bottom, a little bit separate from the other numbers. If I remember correctly, it has a star next to it – but don’t hold me to that. You just push that button and the elevator knows which deck to take you to. They may have the gangway set up on different decks at different ports so this way, you don’t have to know which deck – you just push the gangway button and they will have programmed it to go to the appropriate deck. Also, be sure to take your seapass card and driver’s license with you.

 

There are different categories of the Blue Lagoon excursion. We did not do any of the animal encounters. We just did the beach day. After meeting on the dock, everyone is led to a ferry boat. On the way to the island, the ferry boat made a quick stop at another dock to let one of their employees board the ferry with the wristbands. As we traveled the rest of the way, employees came by and gave people a wristband that corresponded with which type of activity they had signed up for. DH and I were also given tickets for our lunch, which was included. (I don’t know whether the animal encounter groups got food tickets or not).

 

When we arrived at the island they sent encounter people one way and beach people another way. If you are a beach visitor, don’t stop at the first lounge chairs you come to. Keep walking. As you get farther along the beach, around the bend, there are more chairs and umbrellas available and it is a nicer setting (I think). We plopped ourselves down in a couple loungers, under an umbrella, and relaxed. Because it is a lagoon, the water is very calm and clear. There are also a lot of areas where it is not very deep, so it is good for children or those that don’t like to swim. After awhile we decided to get into the water. When we first entered the water, it was still quite cold. I had a hard time taking that first plunge, but, after you get into it, your body adjusts and it feels good. We did a little swimming and then walked over to where the lagoon meets the ocean. The water is much rougher on that side of the island and they don’t want you getting into the water.

 

After that we headed over to the lunch pavilion to eat. You go through a buffet line with a choice of hamburger/chicken burger/veggie burger, fries and fruit. You also get one glass of fruit punch or lemonade. (There are places on the island where you can buy other drinks). The food is nothing to write home about, but that is not what you come for. After lunch we just had a few minutes left to lounge in a hammock before we needed to make our way back to the dock to catch the ferry boat. I think we had a total of about 4 hours on the island. I could have easily stayed longer, but the Allure has a short stay in Nassau. Oh, about the time that we headed to lunch, another ferry boat arrived and bringing a bunch of new people (not from our cruise). The island got a lot more crowded at that point. It had been nice when it was a much smaller crowd. But, we were leaving the beach area about that time anyway, so it didn’t really impact us too much.

 

When we were standing at the dock waiting to catch the ferry, they had us line up along a bridge that spanned some of the dolphin area and we were able to see some of them. It was very cute – one of the dolphins was playing catch with people standing on the bridge. The dolphin would flip a football up towards a person who would catch it and toss it back down.

 

I would recommend the Blue Lagoon beach excursion – especially if you don’t mind getting up early. I think it would be a good choice for people with kids, as well, since the water is so calm and shallow.

 

When we got back to the ship, we went back to our room and got cleaned up. We had reservations for the 5pm ice show, “Ice Games”. Before that we grabbed some pizza from Sorrento’s in the Royal Promenade and then went across to the Café Promenade for dessert. I love being able to get food whenever you want! We really enjoyed the ice skating show and I would recommend it. It had a lot of variety to it and there was one couple in particular that was quite impressive – especially when you think about the fact that they are doing these lifts and jumps on a moving ship.

 

That night was formal night so after the show we went back to our cabin and changed into our fancier clothes. When we went to the dining room, we asked to be seated in a different area than the night before. While the people watching the night before had been interesting, we decided that we’d like to try sitting farther into the restaurant. We were given another table for two and had another good meal. After dinner we were able to catch the captain’s welcome aboard speech in the Royal Promenade. We then wandered around a little and went out to one of the secret decks (I’ll talk about them more later). The Oceanaria show was going on which we could see from the deck, but we were too tired to stay and watch very much of it, so we called it a night and went back to our cabin.

[Familygoboston]

 

Familygoboston - I did see the flowrider in the yard, but it wasn't turned on so I wouldn't have known what it was if I hadn't already read about it on the boards. My husband was so impressed that I knew about it! By the way, your review was one that I enjoyed reading while I was waiting for my turn to sail. :)

 

Aww thanks...I'm really enjoying yours!

[cactusflower]

Tuesday:

 

Today was our first “at sea” day. After sleeping in, we went to the Park Café for breakfast. They have various options such as bagels, fruit & yogurt parfaits, egg McMuffin type sandwiches and pastries. This is also one of the places that serve flavored waters, which are quite good. Neither of us are coffee drinkers, so I can’t speak to the quality of the coffee.

 

After eating we went to the C&A Recognition Party, held in the Aquatheater. This was very entertaining. The hand balancers from the Oceanaria show did a performance. Also, they had fixed the stage problems by then so they had a couple of the divers do a dive from the highest perch. They explained that due to the depth of the pool, the divers that go in from the highest level actually land feet first, rather than head first, for safety reasons. They also pointed out a stoplight system that tells the divers if the stage is in position for them to dive or not.

 

The captain and the hotel director came out to give a little talk. They were very funny when they came out because they did an “impersonation” of the hand balancers. They also introduced a number of other officers.

 

A brief fountain show choreographed to music completed the event. (Oh, also at the beginning of the event there were waiters available with complimentary drinks in souvenir glasses).

 

After the party was over, I informed my husband that we had to ride the carousel. It was not something that he would ever do on his own, but he indulged me and I thought it was fun (I think he secretly did too). ;)

 

We had some time to kill before a trivia event that I wanted to go to, so we went to visit one of the secret decks and read our books and relax. Of all the information that I learned from these boards prior to my trip – I think that learning about these decks was the most valuable! At the back of decks 11, 12 & 14 (there is not a deck 13), there are small open air decks with lounge chairs. They are kind of like over-sized balconies. They have a covering over them so that you are shielded from the sun, but you can still enjoy being outdoors. There is a great view of the ship’s wake, as well. To get to the decks, you just walk down the cabin corridors as far as you can go. I think one of the things that help keep them secret is that you can’t actually see the doorway when you look down the hall. When you get to the end, you have to make a turn to the side and there is the door.

 

The majority of the time that we spent out there, we were the only people. It was like being on our own private yacht! From decks 11 & 12, you can also look down on the Aquatheater and see the shows (the view is more limited on deck 14).

 

After enjoying our secret deck, we made our way to the Schooner Bar to play a round of trivia. In this particular trivia game, they played snippets of music and you had to write down which movie the music was from. We didn’t win, but we had fun.

 

We then made a beeline back to the Boardwalk for a photo opportunity with the Madagascar Penguins. Throughout the cruise, various Dreamworks characters make appearances for photo opps. These are listed in the daily compasses. What is nice is that you bring your own camera and a staff person will take your picture with it – as opposed to having to purchase a picture from a ship’s photographer. These were the only characters that I made an effort to get a picture with. I just love those penguins! On another day we also had our picture taken with King Julien, because we happened to be where he was.

 

That night we went to the 7 pm show of Chicago, and then had dinner afterward. The production of Chicago was excellent! I am a theatre lover and have seen many plays and musicals and I thought this ranked right up there. One thing that really impressed me was the excellent sound quality. I was able to understand everything the actors were saying/singing. It can be so frustrating when you see a show and can’t make out the words to the songs. Later in the cruise we met the actress that played Mama Morton when we were in the Viking Crown Lounge and we were able to compliment her on her performance and the production. She said that they had the technical crew from the Broadway production come out and help set things up for the ship’s production. The Amber Theater, which is the main theater, is really nice. My only complaint was that my legs were freezing because the air conditioning comes out from underneath the seats.

 

After the show we went to the MDR for dinner. A lot of other people did the same thing, so it was pretty crowded. We told them that we were willing to sit anywhere and we were fine with sharing a table if need be. After a little bit of a wait, we were taken to a table for 6 which we shared with another couple and also with 2 brothers that were traveling together. We really had a great time visiting with everyone! The brothers had purchased a wine package and generously offered to share it with anyone else at the table that wanted some.

 

After dinner DH and I went back to the Amber Theater to watch the Love & Marriage Show. This show is like the old Newlywed Game where they get 3 couples in various stages of marriage and ask them questions about their spouses. It was very funny. It is emceed by the cruise director. Our cruise director was Alan Brooks and we really liked him. He was very funny and energetic. After the show it was time to call it a night.

[cactusflower]

Just popped in to say that I won't be able to post a new installment today, due to working late. But, I hope to get more up this weekend. I hope I still have readers! :)

[suizas]

Brilliant, soooooo looking forward to our cruise August and just love to read reviews. Thanks :)

 

Thank you Cactusflower! we are on the Allure August 12th and can't wait! (did Oasis last summer)

 

@darceyg... which week are you?

[birdylady]

Yep, you still have me. :)

 

Erika

[CleveRocks]

I'm SOOOO loving reading this. New to cruising, going on Allure (western) in late-August, and I'm loving all the tips and insider info. THANKS! Looking forward to more when you get around to it!

[JustCruisin2012]

My DH and I were on the May 13 sailing of the Allure of the Seas. We are in our 40’s/50’s and it was just the 2 of us. We had been planning this trip for almost a year and I had so enjoyed reading other people’s reviews during that time that I wanted to try and return the favor by writing a review of my own. It won’t be as cleverly written as some others have been, but I hope that it will still prove useful.

 

I will try to balance my tendency to go into too much detail, with not wanting to write a full-on novel (not to mention time constraints). So, if it is too long, I’m sorry, or if I end up condensing a subject too much, feel free to ask me questions. I will post periodically as I get a chance. I’m not sure how long it will take me.

 

Hi there, cactusflower! We were on the Allure the week before you 6-13 May on the western itinerary. Didn't you see us as we were leaving, the middle-age couple with the very sad faces? :( I must say, you are doing a VERY commendable review. It's like déjà vu all over again! As for everyone else awaiting an upcoming cruise, YOU WILL HAVE A GREAT TIME!! Stick with this thread, and you will be very prepared. FYI, we stayed in a grand suite on deck 11 and frequented the CL very often along with the Suite Sun Zone above the Solarium Bistro (nothing like having your own private bar for only a handful of people). The only show we missed was Chicago (seen it on Broadway a few too many times). We're thinking of returning to the Allure one day...that's how much of a wonderful experience it was. Again, thanks cactusflower, and keep this labor of love coming! :)

[Familygoboston]

Just popped in to say that I won't be able to post a new installment today, due to working late. But, I hope to get more up this weekend. I hope I still have readers! :)

 

Yup, patiently waiting!:D

[TNcruiser829]

After unpacking it was time for the muster drill. One word of warning – if stairs are difficult for you, be sure to be on the level of your muster drill at least 15 minutes before it starts. When they make the announcement that people need to head to their stations, they shut down the elevators and make everyone take the stairs. While I can do stairs if necessary, they are hard for me due to knee problems, especially going downstairs and having to do 4 flights at once. I assume that there is an alternative for people that literally can’t do stairs at all, but I didn’t seek that out. But, had I known, I would have just planned to already be on deck 4 ahead of time.

 

Thanks for this bit of advise. We'll be sailing in 2013, and this is the first I've read of this. If anyone knows of a alternative route, my wife will be in a scooter, I'd like to know about it.

[cactusflower]

Thanks soooo much for all your kind remarks. It gave me the boost to keep going! I almost have my next installment done and will definitely get it posted tomorrow. (Have to run to a graduation party tonight).

[sleepless]

Thanks for this bit of advise. We'll be sailing in 2013, and this is the first I've read of this. If anyone knows of a alternative route, my wife will be in a scooter, I'd like to know about it.

 

 

Can't really answer that, as we need to know your muster station. That info will be supplied to you when you embark the cruise ship. The number is on your sea pass card. The muster station is based on the location of your stateroom.

 

You might be able to find out earlier by asking for information based on your cabin number. There is a chance that someone who was previously in your stateroom will remember where there muster station is located. I wouldn't think the muster station would change often.

[seacrystal]

Thanks soooo much for all your kind remarks. It gave me the boost to keep going! I almost have my next installment done and will definitely get it posted tomorrow.

 

Cactusflower, thank you very much for taking the time to help everyone else. We will be 1st time Allure cruisers in 2013 and while we have cruised Princess 9 times, we are newbies to RCL. All your information is soooooooooo helpful and I am making notes.

 

Thanks again:D

[cactusflower]

Sorry for the delay - here is the next installment!

 

Wednesday:

 

This morning the ship docked in St. Thomas. We had reservations for the St. John Half Day Champagne Cat Sail excursion. Fortunately, it started a little later in the day than our Nassau excursion. We didn’t have to report to the dock until 9:45 am. For breakfast we went back to the Park Café. While we were sitting in Central Park eating our food, we saw Captain Johnny come to the Park Café, as well, accompanied by his beautiful, green pet bird (a parrot?) riding on his hand. He went into the café and got a breakfast sandwich to go.

 

After breakfast, we headed down to the dock. This time, the dock situation was a little more disorganized and we had some confusion in trying to find the right contact people for our particular excursion. Once we found them, we were led to an open air shuttle and asked to sign a waiver form. After everyone was loaded into the shuttle, the driver took us to the place where we got on the catamaran. It was probably about a 20-30 minute drive. As we approached the catamaran, everyone was asked to take off their shoes. The crew puts all the shoes into a big bin, which they take along on the sail. This is to help prevent people from getting onboard and then taking off their shoes, setting them aside and having them accidentally get knocked overboard. Due to some foot surgery, it is uncomfortable for me to walk barefoot so I asked if I could keep my shoes on and they were fine with that.

 

The crew were young, friendly and hardworking. They did a great job. On the way to our destination, the only beverage available was water. It rained a little bit on the trip over, but there is a covered portion of the catamaran, with some seating, if you wanted to get out of the rain, or the sun, for that matter. Some people just stayed out in the rain. Hey, we were all going to be jumping into the ocean in a little while, so why not! During the first half of the trip, they played music, then a crew member gave a talk about some of the islands in that area. Unfortunately, due to various circumstances, I wasn’t able to hear it all, but what I did hear was interesting. She was a trooper, and kept talking even during the brief rainstorm.

 

The place that they took us to is a beach, located in a National Park, on the island of St. John (much of the island is National Park land). The beach can only be accessed by boat. There were several other boats visiting at the same time, but it did not seem crowded. The catamaran stopped offshore and one could choose to get directly into the water, or ride a dinghy to the shore. The dinghy is, understandably, rather small so it took several trips to take everyone that wanted to ride it. Normally, we would have just gotten directly into the water, but since this was the first time I was going to try using swim fins since my foot surgery, I thought it might be better to start from shore. Unfortunately, this lost us quite a bit of time waiting for the dinghy, since we were not in the first group to go over. As it turned out, I didn’t have any trouble with the fin, so when it was time to return to the catamaran, we swam back rather than take the dinghy. The water and the beach were absolutely beautiful. I couldn’t get over the color of the water. However, we found the snorkeling to be disappointing. There is a coral reef, but it was not very colorful and we didn’t see a whole lot of fish. I was also really hoping to see a sea turtle, which they said are sometimes around, but I didn’t.

 

On the sail back to St. Thomas, they played music and served drinks. We just drank soda, but I think they also had rum punch, in addition to the champagne. They also set out platters of bread, cheese and fruit, which were very good. Also on the way back, one of the crew members did a humorous presentation to try and sell souvenir catamaran t-shirts.

 

Upon arriving at the dock, we boarded another open air shuttle to return to the ship. Some people had asked the driver if he could drop them off at a shopping area in town that we had passed on the way over, and he did. The ride back was a little scary – we were sitting in the first row of the shuttle, where we could easily see the driver and in addition to driving, he was also working 2 different cell phones! :eek: Upon returning to the ship, we were dropped off at a different spot from where we had been picked up. You have to walk through a little shopping area on the docks in order to get back to the ship. About the time we arrived at the docks, the skies opened up with rain. Previously, I had contemplated trying to go to Paradise Point when we returned, but it didn’t seem like a good day for that, so we didn’t.

 

To sum up the excursion – the catamaran ride was fun, and the scenery was beautiful, but the snorkeling was just so-so. So, depending upon what is important to you, this may or may not be the right choice for you. (Fyi – they do provide snorkeling equipment, including inflatable vests, if you need it – we brought our own, however). If you do go, be sure to take some cash with you for tips and in case you want to buy a t-shirt.

 

(Note: In my discussion of Tuesday, I forgot to mention that we had lunch at the Park Café and tried their paninis and chips. I had the grilled cheese panini, which was very good.)

 

Back on the ship, we cleaned up and then grabbed some pizza. The pizza is “okay” – not the best, but not the worst. Pizza would have to be pretty bad for me not to eat it, however, since it is one of my favorite foods. There are two options for pizza at Sorrento’s. First, they always have a few pre-made pizza’s, which you can order by the slice. In addition to the old standards plain cheese and pepperoni, they also offered a few more creative choices. My husband had one with potato on it and said it was good. There is also an option of creating your own individual size pizza, which they put together for you and cook it while you wait. We always ended up just grabbing a pre-made slice, but I would like to try the make your own sometime. It looked like it had a thicker crust to it.

 

I also finally got my first cupcake from the Cupcake Cupboard. I had a German Chocolate one and it was very good. I think that was my favorite of the 3 I had during the cruise, but they were all good. The other two I tried were Chocolate/Chocolate and Carrot Cake. My husband had Peanut Butter/Chocolate and Key Lime. He is a huge peanut butter fan, but thought that the cupcake actually had too much peanut butter in it. He liked the frosting on it, however, and he liked the Key Lime cupcake. Some of the flavors vary from day to day. I’ve heard people mention about the cupcakes being cold and the first one that I had was. However, the other two I had didn’t seem to be as cold. Here is a secret that I learned from these boards – the Cupcake Cupboard offers a frequent buyer card that gives you your 7th cupcake free. They don’t advertise it, however (at least not that I saw). I asked the clerk if they still had that special and she said yes and gave me the card. We didn’t quite make it to our free one, because DH didn’t keep pace with me, and I ran out of time. I also kept forgetting to get it marked – which would have really bummed me out if we had made it to the magic number. If I had had more markings on it, I would have given it to someone to use on the last day.

 

At dinner that night, we went back to the same table for two that we had on Monday night. This was the first time that we ended up repeating wait staff. We had been pretty happy with this team, so we had asked for them again, if it was convenient.

 

After dinner we went to the Headliner show, which was in the Amber Theater. This time we sat up in the balcony. The performer was Ronn Lucas, who is a comedic ventriloquist. I have seen him on TV before. He was very good. He does a great job with the voices and he is funny. Interestingly, he didn’t board the ship until St. Thomas. The Headliner act changes frequently from week to week, so you may see someone different.

 

After the show we went up to the Viking Crown Lounge for a short while to listen to some music before turning in for the night. The Viking Crown lounge has some pretty lighting above the bar (though, we, lovingly, referred to some of the lights as upside down Q-tips), and comfortable seating. It is a nice place to sit back and relax.

[cactusflower]

Thanks for this bit of advise. We'll be sailing in 2013, and this is the first I've read of this. If anyone knows of a alternative route, my wife will be in a scooter, I'd like to know about it.

 

 

Your question reminds me of something else I wanted to mention. To find out where you go for the muster drill, look on the back of your cabin door. There is an emergency information sign on the door that tells you where your muster station is.

 

As far as your question - while I said that they shut down the elevators, that may have been a poor choice of words. I doubt that the power was turned off. But, they had crew blocking the entrances to the elevators, directing people to use the stairs. My guess, though I don't know for fact, is that if they saw someone in a scooter, they would direct them to the elevators to use. But, maybe someone with actual experience in this will be able to tell your for sure.

[cactusflower]

Okay, I'm going to attempt to post a picture. If this works, you will be seeing a photo of Captain Johnny with his bird.

 

[ALSEAU]

Your question reminds me of something else I wanted to mention. To find out where you go for the muster drill, look on the back of your cabin door. There is an emergency information sign on the door that tells you where your muster station is.

 

As far as your question - while I said that they shut down the elevators, that may have been a poor choice of words. I doubt that the power was turned off. But, they had crew blocking the entrances to the elevators, directing people to use the stairs. My guess, though I don't know for fact, is that if they saw someone in a scooter, they would direct them to the elevators to use. But, maybe someone with actual experience in this will be able to tell your for sure.

 

That is the normal protocol that is used by all the cruise lines.

 

One of the reasons the able body passengers are requested to use the stairs is to keep the elevators available for those passengers that have difficulty navigating the stairs.

 

After the Muster Drill is one of those times when the elevators are overwhelmed.

 

Enjoying your review keep it coming.

[ALSEAU]

Okay, I'm going to attempt to post a picture. If this works, you will be seeing a photo of Captain Johnny with his bird.

 

 

 

Just curious but does Captain Johnny have a peg leg?