Review - Allure of the Seas

[cactusflower]

Addendum to Wednesday:

 

I totally forgot to tell you about making a video postcard, which we did on Wednesday. In the On Air Club, located in the Royal Promenade, there is a booth where you can create an electronic postcard – either a picture or a video, which you can then e-mail to your friends and family.

 

Inside the booth, you stand in front of a green wall and look at a video screen & camera. The video screen is a touch screen and it walks you through the procedure. For the still photo, you can select from a choice of several backgrounds. The camera takes your picture and adds it to the background. I don’t remember if we got to choose the background for the video or not.

 

Anyway, if you are creating a video the screen gives you a countdown to start and then a countdown of your allotted talk time. The time goes fast! Being the big dorks that we are, we ended up filming it about 5 times before coming up with something useable. :o You can send it to multiple e-mail addresses. Our family got a real kick out of receiving it. It is a free service (it is a source of advertising for Royal Caribbean). You can type in a message to go in the e-mail. RC also inserts its own message, ostensibly from you, extolling the virtues of the ship.

[darceyg]

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

 

@darceyg... which week are you?

 

 

Week before you, 5th August.

[BillOh]

Thanks for the review! Allure in less than a year for us...can't wait!

 

Oh, they are so sneaky about those shuttles! They must be huge money makers...All those folks,all paying 6-7 bucks a person. Waiting around and then making multiple pier stops...I don't know why anyone uses them, or makes such an effort to find a hotel that has one. ( unless it's free) We took a cab for 12 bucks for 2, left the moment we stepped out onto the curb, arrived at our pier 5 minutes later. Even if you add a couple of bucks for a tip...I don't see the advantage. Sorry you got talked into it...I noticed they really push it at all the hotels!:(

 

Well, looking forward to the rest of your review! Hoping things go smoother:D

 

 

 

My only thought on that is the fear of cab availability on that morning. When we were last in that port there were 5 ships leaving that day and I feared not being able to get a cab. That year we stayed at the Rodeway Dania Beach and the shuttle was free and they had separate shuttles for each ship. Next year I'm staying at the Hyatt 66 where I'll by paying for the shuttle, but wouldn't hesitate calling a cab. Remind me next year when you sail away so I can watch it, though by then I'll probably be watching every sailaway. I don't miss many now :o

[BillOh]

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.

 

I just installed the CALLACAB app on my android phone that I saw in a recent commercial. I'll have it as a backup.

[BillOh]

reasons. They also pointed out a stoplight system that tells the divers if the stage is in position for them to dive or not.

 

There is a fact I didn't know, good to know, it is reassuring.

[BillOh]

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.

 

 

It is a thicker crust, reminds me a bit of the Pizza Hut personal pan pizza if you have had those. They typically only had a few different ingredients to offer each day for that one. Its usually about a 10 minute wait for them BTW.

 

I'd also like to add, I've been on Allure once, have read almost every review done here, but am still finding a lot in yours.

[beachlovergirl]

Addendum to Wednesday:

 

I totally forgot to tell you about making a video postcard, which we did on Wednesday. In the On Air Club, located in the Royal Promenade, there is a booth where you can create an electronic postcard – either a picture or a video, which you can then e-mail to your friends and family.

 

Inside the booth, you stand in front of a green wall and look at a video screen & camera. The video screen is a touch screen and it walks you through the procedure. For the still photo, you can select from a choice of several backgrounds. The camera takes your picture and adds it to the background. I don’t remember if we got to choose the background for the video or not.

 

Anyway, if you are creating a video the screen gives you a countdown to start and then a countdown of your allotted talk time. The time goes fast! Being the big dorks that we are, we ended up filming it about 5 times before coming up with something useable. :o You can send it to multiple e-mail addresses. Our family got a real kick out of receiving it. It is a free service (it is a source of advertising for Royal Caribbean). You can type in a message to go in the e-mail. RC also inserts its own message, ostensibly from you, extolling the virtues of the ship.

 

 

I hadn't heard of this before......looks like we're going to do this!!

 

Thanks,

 

Dee

[suizas]

My only thought on that is the fear of cab availability on that morning. When we were last in that port there were 5 ships leaving that day and I feared not being able to get a cab. That year we stayed at the Rodeway Dania Beach and the shuttle was free and they had separate shuttles for each ship. Next year I'm staying at the Hyatt 66 where I'll by paying for the shuttle, but wouldn't hesitate calling a cab. Remind me next year when you sail away so I can watch it, though by then I'll probably be watching every sailaway. I don't miss many now :o

 

I'm pretty much addicted to watching the sail aways... 5:00 Saturday and 5:00 Sunday -- Both Port Everglades and Canaveral =D

[rpettus]

I'm pretty much addicted to watching the sail aways... 5:00 Saturday and 5:00 Sunday -- Both Port Everglades and Canaveral =D

 

Whew!!!! I'm glad I'm not the only one doing this. I'm semi-patiently waiting for my sail date in September of next year. :cool:

[TheIL]

a question about the embassy suites - is there a free parking around the hotel ?

[hopacruz]

Week before you, 5th August.

 

 

We are cruising with you on August 5th!

[cactusflower]

As always - thank you so much for all your comments - I truly appreciate them!!

 

BillOh - thanks for the extra information that you added! Also, I'm glad that I've been able to tell you something that you didn't already know. :)

 

TheIL - I know that there is a charge to park at the hotel, but I don't know if there is anywhere nearby that you can park for free. I tend to doubt it. We did not have a car, so we didn't have to worry about it, though. Maybe someone else that did have a car will have more information.

[cactusflower]

I'm not quite done writing up Thursday, but I am going to go ahead and post what I have so far, since it is already pretty long.

 

Thursday:

 

Today the ship docked in St. Maarten. We had room service again for breakfast. I had decided not to sign up for an excursion for this port and to just do a beach day on our own, instead. When we got off the ship we took the obligatory pictures of the “Welcome to St. Maarten” sign and then went in search of a taxi. We asked some people at St. Maarten information desk a question about the taxi, and my piece of advice to the St. Maarten tourism board is that they get some new workers for the information desk. The people there, that day at least, were not very friendly. Anyway, when we found the taxi stand we saw that it was divided up among popular destinations. We walked over to the Orient Beach sign (which is where we wanted to go) and we were put into a taxi/van along with 3 other people, who were also going to Orient Beach. The number of people in the taxi affects the rate per person. The rates are standardized depending on where you want to go. You can pay in US dollars. The price that we were quoted was in US dollars, so we didn’t have to worry about doing any figuring of exchange rates.

 

Our taxi driver dropped us off at a taxi stand and small parking lot located behind the Kon Tiki on Orient Beach. She said that we could come back to the same spot to get a return taxi. Some people arrange with their taxi driver to come back at a specific time, but we didn’t do that. Also, I’ve read about other people being dropped off at different points along the beach. Our taxi driver was very nice and answered my husband’s question about a statue that we had passed along the way.

 

Orient Beach is a very popular beach on the French side of the island. At one end of the beach there is a nudist area. The majority of the beach is not nudist, but it is acceptable to go topless on French beaches and we did see a few examples of that. All along the beach there are various open-air beach bar/restaurants. They each have loungers and umbrellas set up in front of their space, which they will rent to you. At least some of them will throw in a drink with the rental cost, as well.

 

I had already pre-determined that I wanted to go to Orange Fever, as I had read some favorable reviews about it. In the Kon Tiki area, where we were dropped off, the chairs were nicely spread out. In the area where Orange Fever is, the chairs were all pushed together. The chairs were in rows, 3 rows deep. The only remaining set was in the back row. I was torn between going with what I had had my mind set on, or looking elsewhere. The proprietress of Orange Fever, a French woman, came over and started setting up the umbrella and asked us if we wanted to rent from her and I made a knee-jerk decision to say yes, which I then started to regret. She did tell us that if any chairs at the front opened up that we could move. The 2 chairs, umbrella and 2 drinks were $14. They take US dollars and have a 1 for 1 Euro/dollar exchange rate. While I am sure that all the establishments will take US dollars, I don’t know that they all offer that exchange rate.

 

The proprietress got us our drinks and DH and I decided that after we finished them we were going to go find some other establishment were we could get better seating, even though it would mean paying someone else, as well. However, as we were finishing our drinks, it started raining. We initially tried to ride it out, but then it started really pouring and the owner wanted to put down all the umbrellas because it was windy so she told us to go inside (which was what most people had done already). “Inside” is a little bit of a misnomer, since there are no walls (except for the kitchen and bathroom), but there is a roof, which kept us sheltered.

 

After about 10 minutes, the rain stopped and the sun came back out. Even though it was still early, some people apparently decide to call it a day because not everyone went back to the chairs and we were able to move to the front row, which was just steps from the water’s edge. With the new seat position, we decided to stay at Orange Fever. We enjoyed relaxing in our beach chairs and enjoying the beautiful scenery. There are a bunch of vendors that walk the beach trying to sell you things, such as massages, music, t-shirts, etc. We were able to just waive them off without any problem. (There was one vendor that we had to say no to a couple of times before she left, but it wasn’t a big deal). There are also vendors along the beach renting jet skis and banana boat rides. We saw some people kite boarding, but I don’t know if they rented the equipment or were using their own. It is a very active beach and was fun for people watching. We were the only ship in port that day so I’m sure it gets quite crowded if there are multiple ships. We didn’t actually swim this time, but the water felt pretty warm when I waded part way into it.

 

After we were done lounging, we gave up our chairs and went “inside” to eat lunch. One of the recommendations that I had read was that Orange Fever had good pizza – which, as I’ve already mentioned, is one of my all-time favorite foods. Thinking that these would be European style, individual size pizza’s, DH and I each order our own. We were surprised when they brought out two pizzas which were both the size of an American large pizza! Needless to say, we had plenty to eat. :eek: They were very thin crust, so that made it easier to eat a lot of it. Despite all that pizza, we wanted some dessert, but the items on the menu that were of interest to us involved ice cream and they were out of ice cream.

 

At one point my husband used the restroom that they have. After putting soap on his hands to wash them, he discovered that there was no running water in the sink. They gave him some bottled water to rinse his hands with. I don’t know if the sink was just broken, or if it is always like that.

 

If we were to go back, I would choose a different location than Orange Fever. While the people working there were nice, and the food was good, I would rather not be so crowded. The Kon Tiki looked interesting to me – I would definitely check it out. What I have read is that the end of the beach closest to the nudist portion is the cheapest end and that as you go further along on the beach the accommodations get a little nicer, but more expensive. We were in this cheaper area and as I mentioned, all the seats were crowded together. I think that Kon Tiki is where it started changing, but we didn’t walk any farther up the beach than that.

 

After we were done eating, we walked back to the place where the taxi had dropped us off, in order to get another taxi back to the ship. When we arrived at the taxi stand, there was one taxi already there that had two other couples in it. The taxi stand guy checked to see if we could join them, but they didn’t want anyone else to go with them. Then, another taxi/van arrived, but that driver was not willing to just take 2 people. So, we sat to wait for more people to show up. After 5 minutes or so, another taxi/van arrived, that was a little smaller and that driver was willing to take the 2 of us (no other passengers had shown up yet). This taxi driver was very friendly and very talkative. She talked the whole way back to the ship and told us some about her life and the island. She said the reason that she drives taxis is to talk to people!

 

Along the walk back to the ship from where our taxi dropped us off are several little stores, including some that sell sweets and various drinks. Several of them were giving out samples. I had a sample of a coconut smoothy which was good enough that I bought one. It was very refreshing. We also stopped at a little store that sold fancy chocolates and bought some.

 

Once back on the ship we went up to one of the secret decks to take some pictures and enjoy the views. There was a steel drum band playing in the port area, which we were able to hear. Also in port was a very fancy private yacht that had a bunch of its own crew members milling about on it. We stayed there until we started heading back out to sea and then we went back to our cabin to clean up for dinner.

[BillOh]

Re: St Maarten, more good info. Last time there we used Bernard's tour, the public one. This year on his website it lists only 40 minutes at Maho beach which I don't consider enough so we might go it on our own and get a taxi to first Orient beach for at least a couple of hours and then Mahor till 2 or 3 before taxing to the downtown/ship area. How much did you cab from the ship to Orient cost?

[Familygoboston]

My only thought on that is the fear of cab availability on that morning. When we were last in that port there were 5 ships leaving that day and I feared not being able to get a cab. That year we stayed at the Rodeway Dania Beach and the shuttle was free and they had separate shuttles for each ship. Next year I'm staying at the Hyatt 66 where I'll by paying for the shuttle, but wouldn't hesitate calling a cab. Remind me next year when you sail away so I can watch it, though by then I'll probably be watching every sailaway. I don't miss many now :o

 

We've never had an issue...I don't even call ahead, just head to the curb and the valet staff calls one over for us. They are usually waiting. We looked at all the dithering and confusion, and luggage being moved around at the shuttle (Marriott 17 th st ) and the price and said " let's get out out of here!". Had the shuttle been significantly cheaper, we might have considered it, but it ws the same price! your app sounds is useful...I'll have to look into that.

[Poorplaya]

Great review so far, cannot wait to read the rest

[cactusflower]

How much did you cab from the ship to Orient cost?

 

The taxi going to Orient Beach was $7 per person, because we had 5 people in the taxi. The number of people, in part, determines the price.

 

On the ride back, it was just the 2 of us. My husband took care of paying and I didn't actually hear the driver say what the amount was. But, on the St. Maarten port of call board, if you do a search, you can find a picture showing the taxi prices to different destinations, broken down by number of people, and according to it, the cost for just the 2 of us would have been $18.

[LBumb]

excellent job, i am really enjoying your review.

[Familygoboston]

I'm not quite done writing up Thursday, but I am going to go ahead and post what I have so far, since it is already pretty long.

 

Thursday:

 

Today the ship docked in St. Maarten. We had room service again for breakfast. I had decided not to sign up for an excursion for this port and to just do a beach day on our own, instead. When we got off the ship we took the obligatory pictures of the “Welcome to St. Maarten” sign and then went in search of a taxi. We asked some people at St. Maarten information desk a question about the taxi, and my piece of advice to the St. Maarten tourism board is that they get some new workers for the information desk. The people there, that day at least, were not very friendly. Anyway, when we found the taxi stand we saw that it was divided up among popular destinations. We walked over to the Orient Beach sign (which is where we wanted to go) and we were put into a taxi/van along with 3 other people, who were also going to Orient Beach. The number of people in the taxi affects the rate per person. The rates are standardized depending on where you want to go. You can pay in US dollars. The price that we were quoted was in US dollars, so we didn’t have to worry about doing any figuring of exchange rates.

 

Our taxi driver dropped us off at a taxi stand and small parking lot located behind the Kon Tiki on Orient Beach. She said that we could come back to the same spot to get a return taxi. Some people arrange with their taxi driver to come back at a specific time, but we didn’t do that. Also, I’ve read about other people being dropped off at different points along the beach. Our taxi driver was very nice and answered my husband’s question about a statue that we had passed along the way.

 

Orient Beach is a very popular beach on the French side of the island. At one end of the beach there is a nudist area. The majority of the beach is not nudist, but it is acceptable to go topless on French beaches and we did see a few examples of that. All along the beach there are various open-air beach bar/restaurants. They each have loungers and umbrellas set up in front of their space, which they will rent to you. At least some of them will throw in a drink with the rental cost, as well.

 

I had already pre-determined that I wanted to go to Orange Fever, as I had read some favorable reviews about it. In the Kon Tiki area, where we were dropped off, the chairs were nicely spread out. In the area where Orange Fever is, the chairs were all pushed together. The chairs were in rows, 3 rows deep. The only remaining set was in the back row. I was torn between going with what I had had my mind set on, or looking elsewhere. The proprietress of Orange Fever, a French woman, came over and started setting up the umbrella and asked us if we wanted to rent from her and I made a knee-jerk decision to say yes, which I then started to regret. She did tell us that if any chairs at the front opened up that we could move. The 2 chairs, umbrella and 2 drinks were $14. They take US dollars and have a 1 for 1 Euro/dollar exchange rate. While I am sure that all the establishments will take US dollars, I don’t know that they all offer that exchange rate.

 

The proprietress got us our drinks and DH and I decided that after we finished them we were going to go find some other establishment were we could get better seating, even though it would mean paying someone else, as well. However, as we were finishing our drinks, it started raining. We initially tried to ride it out, but then it started really pouring and the owner wanted to put down all the umbrellas because it was windy so she told us to go inside (which was what most people had done already). “Inside” is a little bit of a misnomer, since there are no walls (except for the kitchen and bathroom), but there is a roof, which kept us sheltered.

 

After about 10 minutes, the rain stopped and the sun came back out. Even though it was still early, some people apparently decide to call it a day because not everyone went back to the chairs and we were able to move to the front row, which was just steps from the water’s edge. With the new seat position, we decided to stay at Orange Fever. We enjoyed relaxing in our beach chairs and enjoying the beautiful scenery. There are a bunch of vendors that walk the beach trying to sell you things, such as massages, music, t-shirts, etc. We were able to just waive them off without any problem. (There was one vendor that we had to say no to a couple of times before she left, but it wasn’t a big deal). There are also vendors along the beach renting jet skis and banana boat rides. We saw some people kite boarding, but I don’t know if they rented the equipment or were using their own. It is a very active beach and was fun for people watching. We were the only ship in port that day so I’m sure it gets quite crowded if there are multiple ships. We didn’t actually swim this time, but the water felt pretty warm when I waded part way into it.

 

After we were done lounging, we gave up our chairs and went “inside” to eat lunch. One of the recommendations that I had read was that Orange Fever had good pizza – which, as I’ve already mentioned, is one of my all-time favorite foods. Thinking that these would be European style, individual size pizza’s, DH and I each order our own. We were surprised when they brought out two pizzas which were both the size of an American large pizza! Needless to say, we had plenty to eat. :eek: They were very thin crust, so that made it easier to eat a lot of it. Despite all that pizza, we wanted some dessert, but the items on the menu that were of interest to us involved ice cream and they were out of ice cream.

 

At one point my husband used the restroom that they have. After putting soap on his hands to wash them, he discovered that there was no running water in the sink. They gave him some bottled water to rinse his hands with. I don’t know if the sink was just broken, or if it is always like that.

 

If we were to go back, I would choose a different location than Orange Fever. While the people working there were nice, and the food was good, I would rather not be so crowded. The Kon Tiki looked interesting to me – I would definitely check it out. What I have read is that the end of the beach closest to the nudist portion is the cheapest end and that as you go further along on the beach the accommodations get a little nicer, but more expensive. We were in this cheaper area and as I mentioned, all the seats were crowded together. I think that Kon Tiki is where it started changing, but we didn’t walk any farther up the beach than that.

 

After we were done eating, we walked back to the place where the taxi had dropped us off, in order to get another taxi back to the ship. When we arrived at the taxi stand, there was one taxi already there that had two other couples in it. The taxi stand guy checked to see if we could join them, but they didn’t want anyone else to go with them. Then, another taxi/van arrived, but that driver was not willing to just take 2 people. So, we sat to wait for more people to show up. After 5 minutes or so, another taxi/van arrived, that was a little smaller and that driver was willing to take the 2 of us (no other passengers had shown up yet). This taxi driver was very friendly and very talkative. She talked the whole way back to the ship and told us some about her life and the island. She said the reason that she drives taxis is to talk to people!

 

Along the walk back to the ship from where our taxi dropped us off are several little stores, including some that sell sweets and various drinks. Several of them were giving out samples. I had a sample of a coconut smoothy which was good enough that I bought one. It was very refreshing. We also stopped at a little store that sold fancy chocolates and bought some.

 

Once back on the ship we went up to one of the secret decks to take some pictures and enjoy the views. There was a steel drum band playing in the port area, which we were able to hear. Also in port was a very fancy private yacht that had a bunch of its own crew members milling about on it. We stayed there until we started heading back out to sea and then we went back to our cabin to clean up for dinner.

 

Shhh! Don't tell anyone else, but go to our secret place ( we spent a week and went to this beach to avoid the cruisers:p) if you keep walking North, away from the undies, you will find CoCo ( not koako...different place) it is quiet, the chairs are spread out and run $20 for 2 and an umbrella, but they are padded and you won't be literally on top of eachother. They waived our $20 when we had drinks and lunch there on our last visit ( as cruise pax), but the food at the beach was better than on Oasis ....sigh!

 

So don't tell ANYONE!:p:p

[cactusflower]

Familygoboston - thanks for the tip. It will be our secret. :)

 

Sorry it is taking me so long to continue. Life has been busy lately (with no sign of letting up). Also, I've been trying to get my photo situation worked out to post photos more easily. For some reason, I'm having trouble getting the right sizing.

 

I'm going to try to post a few photos from sail away in a moment. We'll see how it goes.

[cactusflower]

Here are a couple photos from our sail away:

 

[cactusflower]

Here is another sail away photo:

 

 

Here is a picture of the Aquatheatre:

 

This is the show that we saw the first night in the Aquatheatre:

[cactusflower]

Here are some photos from our Blue Lagoon Beach Excursion in Nassau:

 

 

[cactusflower]

This is the area where they serve lunch on the island:

 

 

[cactusflower]

Here is a photo of Atlantis, which we passed by on the way back to the ship:

 

Here is a picture of the Allure parked next to a Disney and a Carnival ship. You can really see the size difference!