Nov 4, Allure of the Seas, Western Caribbean - A Review and Complete Pictorial Guide!

[raerom]

Congratulations on the 1000th post Gambee! Awesome review! I follow along religiously!:)

[gambee]

Love love love your review! Thanks for time & dedication!! Can't wait for 150 Central Park edition, hubby & I are trying to decide which restaurant to do on "date" night...

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

 

Thanks for following, 150 review is coming up tomorrow :)

 

 

What a wonderful review. Your writing style invites everyone into your adventures and it feels like I'm there with you. I am typically one of those people who tend to skip a lot of the writing in a review and focus on the pictures, but to my surprise I was actually reading your every word. So sad to see it end but wait for you next adventure. You seem to have a very close and loving relationship with your mother which was also nice to witness along the way.

 

Glad you are all having such a great time and thank you for taking the time to share all this with us!!!! I'll be going on the Oasis in the future and your review makes me so much more excited for the trip.

 

 

Thank you very much for your wonderful comment :), we do indeed have a very close relationship :).

 

I am also sad that this review is coming to and end, but also excited for the next one :D

[gambee]

I meant to comment on this picture from earlier in the review...

 

Man, that car is just sexy! ;)

 

 

 

I've seen a LOT of pictures taken in the Royal Promenade. Sort of noticed those naked 'trees' here and there. But never have I seen detail of the trees like this. Wonderful picture.

 

I loved it too, glad you liked it. :)

 

 

Hi Gambee,

 

Just half way through your review, loving it. I've just recently tried Royal Caribbean I O S for the first time. What I would like to know is with so many passengers on boeard does the ship feel crowded?

 

Just that we found I O S was very busy and we could not always fine a seat on the Royal Promonade for coffee and snacks. The evenings were the worst on some occasions again could not find a seat in so many of the areas.

 

Loving all of you photos, they are very good. Ship looks amazing.

 

I'm from the north east of England and have not done the caribbean before.

 

Catherine

 

 

Ok lets see, crowded, crowded.... The first day is by the worst, you really feel the crowds. Other than that the only real place that feel them is in the aft elevators. Overall not a bad experience. For the most part we never had issues finding seats anywhere.

 

Thanks for stopping by and posting. :)

[gambee]

thank you so much for this review!!! it is the best one i have ever read!!! and thanks to your review im planing my cruise on lady Allure for when the hubby is out of the Army!! Thank you so much!!! Im so sad that this review is coming to end!! Thanks to you i been on a daydream vcay for two days! :D Cant wait to see the rest!

 

Thank you so very much for your comment, I really appreciate it. Hopefully soon with your husband is out of the army you will able to travel in this amazing ship. I am very happy that I could take you with us in our little adventure.

 

Happy holidays :)

 

 

 

Gamby/Gumbee-

 

I just friend requested you here on CC.com. Hope you don't mind.

 

I was wondering if you'd be able to email me copies of the daily compass from your cruise.

 

Many thanks!

 

 

Meapya, aka Neil

:rolleyes:

 

 

I accepted the request, thanks for that.

 

The compass copy, might be complicated. I deleted the original copy, let me think what I can do about it. email me at ccgambee at gmail dot com. Ill try to figure something out.

[gambee]

OOH....pls do share how you did these miniturisations!!!! awsome!

 

lol, I addressed this several time already, but any case, lets do it one more time :)

 

It is called a tilt-shift effect, you can find the effect in most photo editing tools or in some cameras. In my camera is called the mini effect.

 

 

Wonderful review. I've been eyeing this ship (allure or oasis ) for the past year. Priced it for our family and just waiting to pull the trigger. Your review makes me wish I was there or on my way there. But gotta figure out when and find the best price. Either for just dh and I fifth anny sans kids or the whole family ! I can keep reading it as I know I missed a bunch but I've been reading it over the last week in my down time. ,

 

Glad you enjoy the review, hope that you can soon travel on her. You might want to look at hurricane season, although not the best time to travel, but it does however offer the best prices.

[gambee]

Let's get him to 1000 posts!!

 

Great review - I've shared it with non-cruise critic people who are coming with us in February! (non cruise critic people who cruise? is there such a thing?!?)

 

Thanks for following and sharing my thread :) and helping me cross the 1000 barrier :D

 

Great thread! Loved reading along day by day!

Family and I are sailing on February 24, 2013 on DH 40th Birthday, with many other people, we have 9 rooms so far......:)

 

Almost at 1000! Woo Hoo!

 

 

Crossed 1000, yay :D

 

Thanks for following, I hope you guys have a blast on her.

[gambee]

Congratulations on the 1000th post Gambee! Awesome review! I follow along religiously!:)

 

 

That is all thanks to you all :)

 

 

I don't post very often but I have so enjoyed this review, would love to go on the Oasis or Allure some day.

I check in every day for updates and will really miss this thread when you have finished.

Thank you for such great reading and photography!:)

Irene.

 

Thank you so much for posting, when people with few post history take the time to post here it means a lot to me.

 

I am glad you enjoyed our trip, hope you continue to enjoy the ending :)

[gambee]

I will attempt to finish the review tomorrow, I should be able to do it. Thanks for all the posts and helping cross the 1,000 post barrier.

 

Have a great night everyone, sweet dreams and sleep tight :)

Edited November 27, 2012 by gambee

[mechcc]

WOW!!!

 

Your eye for photography is amazing. We were on the Allure the week before you but your pictures bring it more to life then I actually remember it being. And you captured the flavor of Cozumel beautifully. You certainly have a special unique talent.

[canadiancruiser13]

Synopsis

 

I have all the Compasses, Menus, Wine lists, Drink lists, Activity planers, tips and much much more.

I took over 6000 pictures, more than 80 videos and pages of notes.

If we ate it I took a picture of it(with one exception in Cozumel :-( I forgot).

I guess you could say that my cruise was centered around this review.

It will take me some time working around the pictures and notes, please be patient.

I will try to make this review/guide as organized and easy to follow as possible.

I hope everyone enjoys.

 

 

 

Introduction,

 

 

For those of you thinking that I am a beautiful sexy lady just because of my CC screen name "Gambee", sorry to disappoint you, I am a guy :p. And if you're wondering where Gambee came from? Well I can't really remember, but I think it came from the cartoon character Gumby, I guess I just got a little creative with the name or maybe it was just bad spelling, who knows… Anyway who cares, it gets the job done ;)

Image courtesy of Gumbyworld

 

This will be my first attempt at a detailed review with lots of pictures, I reviewed the NCL Sky before, but that was a short and quick review(there is a link for it in my signature). I am sure this review is not for everyone because it will have some non-essential information, for those not interested in reading you are welcome to just scroll down and look at the pictures, there will be lots of them. But for those interested in tips and opinions I will include a lot of details in the text. I have read a lot of reviews preparing for this trip and I have a lot of useful information to share. I guess you could say that I am attempting to make an almost complete guide to the Allure of the Seas, will I accomplish it? who knows, but I will sure try.

 

In advance I like to apologize for some grammatical errors and exclusion of words, I tend to do that from time to time. English is my second language and sometimes I struggle with it. I will however proof read everything prior posting and try my best to do a good job so its easy to read and understand. I hope you all enjoy.

 

 

I will start from the beginning, four months ago I went on my first cruise it was on the Norwegian Sky for a short 3 day cruise to Bahamas with my mom. Don't ask me why this was my first cruise, I live in FT. Lauderdale and I travel extensively, but had yet to cruise ::dunno::, although now that I think about it, maybe it had to do with the fear of getting nauseous. Anyway, the cruise was absolutely fantastic, a new addiction was created that weekend. There was so much going on that we really did not know what to do, all in all we had a great time, with very little hiccups (Aside from Atlantis, but that was not the cruise fault).

 

Here are a couple of pictures from that cruise.

 

This was on the tender going towards Stirrup Cay. She is one beautiful ship and holds a special place in my heart. Nothing like the first time you experience something, right?

 

A lot of our time was spend at that bar from where the picture was taken. It had a great view! You can see Miami all around us, ahhhhh the memories…..

 

 

Next up; Planning….

Both my wife and I and a friend had just booked for October 20 and 27th., 2013 a (b2b).

 

I've been reading and enjoying your review and the many awesome pictures you have taken.

 

It just make the waiting time seem sooo long until we cruise the Allure.

[gambee]

WOW!!!

 

Your eye for photography is amazing. We were on the Allure the week before you but your pictures bring it more to life then I actually remember it being. And you captured the flavor of Cozumel beautifully. You certainly have a special unique talent.

 

thank you very much, I really enjoyed close up photography, it allows to tell stories that are easily forgotten. Thank you for taking the time to post on my thread. I hope you continue to enjoy.

 

Both my wife and I and a friend had just booked for October 20 and 27th., 2013 a (b2b).

 

I've been reading and enjoying your review and the many awesome pictures you have taken.

 

It just make the waiting time seem sooo long until we cruise the Allure.

 

It might sound like a long wait, but just wait and see, it will be here before you know it.

 

Thanks for commenting, Happy Holidays :)

[gambee]

After the tour around the lido deck we decided to go back to the room and change so we could have lunch. I took a few pictures of details that caught my eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gambee]

 

 

 

We really only saw one other door decorated on this ship. I know that in my roll call about 6 couples were going to decorate them, but I guess I never walked through those hallways. Next time I will make sure I walk the entire ship, I bet there are a lot of little details that you miss by not walking all the hallways.

 

 

Our immigration documents waiting for us. =(

 

 

The form to order breakfast the old way.

 

 

 

[gambee]

 

Back in the room I decided to one last tour of the room, I tried to be more detailed this time. Mom in the meantime got changed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am not sure if any of you recall, but but had a funny thread of someone asking about the brand of the toilet paper. I had a quick laugh when taking this picture =)

[gambee]

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah! gon't dispose of toy cars in the toilet =), lol

 

 

Back in the room.

 

This keyboard comes in very hand when filling things like the wifi setup.

 

[gambee]

To bad they are not compatible with the newest generation of Apple products. Notice how the left one is the only one that supports audio. I remember reading that some people said that the audio would not come out. We never really tried it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The weather had improved, that brought a smile to our face =)

 

 

 

 

The NCL ship still with us, she was going to Miami. Someone asked the captain why was he letting the NCL win the race and he replied "we are winning, the perspective just makes you think he is winning". I am not sure about that, he looked much further ahead.

 

 

 

The safe is very simple to use.

 

 

 

The closet space was enough for all 3 of us.

 

 

 

[gambee]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gambee]

 

 

Ok that was pretty much it for the final room tour, it was just some little details that I noticed. I will now start working on the next set and post it when I am done.

 

 

Next up Lunch and Ice cream parlor.

[Dett]

Love all the detail pictures. They are things that I have never thought of photographing but will next time. Leaving next week on Indy and feel like I have been on a cruise with you. Thanks so much.

[gambee]

Love all the detail pictures. They are things that I have never thought of photographing but will next time. Leaving next week on Indy and feel like I have been on a cruise with you. Thanks so much.

 

Glad you enjoyed following along, I hope you have fun your cruise next week.

 

Thanks for following :)

[gambee]

My mom changed pretty fast and I got ready in about 3 seconds, we asked my bf if he wanted to tag along and go eat lunch with us in the windjammer, but he said that he rather stay in the room and finish packing everything. I guess it was a good thing, I had nothing to worry about and we could go enjoy the ship a little more.

 

Once we got to the windjammer as usual I went looking for a table and my mom went and got her coke and her food.

 

She came back with these tinny plates and tells me I am not really that hungry… I said ok, thats fine.

 

 

 

So I took off to get my food and left my camera with her, they had a good selection that day and a few items that I had yet to see. Well I made myself a little plate and went back to the table. As soon as I sat down, my mom goes "where did you get that? Can I have some?" ughhhhhhh, lol. So I gave her my plate and left to make another one for myself. lol

 

left to right. Shrimp, asian noodles with fried tofu, asian pork and fried rice.

 

 

I pretty much got the same thing but this time I added a few extra items, it was all very good, we both enjoyed it very much. I also remember someone asking me were the shrimp where, they basically hide them in this cabbage salad and most people get the shrimp and leave the cabbage.

 

 

I usually eat my pasta with just butter on top, the ribs were pretty tasty.

 

 

I also remember them having some indian food, but I am not a big fan of it, too spicy for my taste.

 

[gambee]

This is the mushroom soup that I was talking about, it tastes very similar to the one at Chops. Not bad at all.

 

 

 

Then I went to check out the dessert station to get some dessert for myself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gambee]

Nothing in the dessert station really called my name, so we decided to go try the ice cream parlor one more time. Maybe they had something that appealed to us this time around. I do remember the lady next to our table trying the mango panacotta and she said it was good.

 

 

 

Mom loves those little bottled cokes.

 

 

You can see there that if you buy 6 ice creams you get one free, I guess if you have a large family that can come in handy.

 

 

We ended up getting one cone of the cookies and cream flavor. I heard plenty of people complaining about this venue and about the quality of the ice cream. We found it to be very good ice cream and ate all of it =), no problems there.

 

 

[gambee]

After that we went for a little walk around the boardwalk and enjoy our ice cream, I ate some of it and them mom had the rest. Again she refused to get one for herself, but later asked me for a little, ughhhhhhh, you figure I learned my lesson by now, lol.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I never got to try try the pineapple special, but then a gain it is not my kind of drink.

 

 

 

 

They have a small playground next to the Rita's cantina

 

 

[gambee]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This baby is hidden behind the canvas.