B2B Allure Of The Seas Pictorial Review - 31st March 2013 & 7th April 2013

[AF-1]

I agree with Tara. Your photos are beautiful and make your review more colorful

[ccsci]

I am loving this review!! Can you just go on the beach and swim for free?? There are so many excursions that are at a cost. I just want to go shopping and sit on the beach and swim a bit. I live on the Gulf of Mexico, in some cities along the gulf its extremely difficult to find free beaches, others, its easy. How is it in Phillipsburg?

[milpston]

That's hilarious! Milpston loving your review and pics. Well done!

 

Thank you very much. I'm glad you are enjoying it.

 

Thanks for keeping us entertained with your pictures. Seems like u have a lot of things to do on next weeks sail. U put off flow rider, zip line, belly flop. But I am still enjoying your review, where I am currently thousands of miles west of you on the island of Guam.

 

Thanks for visiting from Guam. We do manage to get all those things covered in the 2nd week :)

[milpston]

Sally and Chloe are both gorgeous! I absolutely LOVE that gown!! I hope we have a relaxed attitude like you guys. What I am most concerned about with doing a B2B is that we will want to do it all in the first week and not leave enough stuff for the second.

 

 

Tara

 

P.S. You need to start giving yourself more credit for your photos. They are beautiful!

 

I will let Sally and Chloe know you said that as they never listen to me :p I think one of my biggest tips when going on the Allure is not to try and do too much and be left getting stressed about keeping up with your schedule. It's definitely necessary to make plans but use them as a guide rather than a rigid plan. There were plenty of things we planned to see and do that we didn't even get around to doing on the B2B so you won't have a problem being left with nothing to do.

 

I agree with Tara. Your photos are beautiful and make your review more colorful

 

OK. I'll concede I am competent with fully automatic mode but I m very pleased that you are enjoying looking at them.

[milpston]

I am loving this review!! Can you just go on the beach and swim for free?? There are so many excursions that are at a cost. I just want to go shopping and sit on the beach and swim a bit. I live on the Gulf of Mexico, in some cities along the gulf its extremely difficult to find free beaches, others, its easy. How is it in Phillipsburg?

 

I'm glad you're enjoying it.

I have only been to two beaches in St Martin and did not pay to go on either. Two years ago when I went to Orient it was free to enter and the one in Phillipsburg close to the cruise port was also free. You certainly don't have to pay to swim but if you want sunloungers and parasols at either location then there will be a fee. At Orient most of the sun loungers are operated by the individual bars along the beach and usually include a drink or something with the price of the sunloungers. I hope that answers your question.

[milpston]

I haven't got much time today due to working soon but I just thought I'd get a couple of posts done.

 

 

This was Sally's selection for a starter..... she said the shrimps were gorgeous.

 

Mine was abviously really exciting here :)

[milpston]

I have never been to a Brazilian restaurant before. I did speak to someone on the cruise who said there are some really good ones in London so may give it a go at some point back home.

 

Basically, this is a meat eaters dream. You have a light on your table which you control. If you put the light on green they will bring you meat....... ( the ones on the earlier posted menu) one at a time. They place a couple of side dishes on your table. I was wondering about this as we only actually got ours after about the third meat came out :confused:. The sides were Steak fries, baked potatoes and corn on the cobs. They were all good.

 

If you place the light on red then they stop bringing the meat. The wait staff usually bring out one type of meat on skewers and serve them up to all the tables. If your light is on red then you may miss a certain type of meat and not see it again for quite some time. I missed out on the lamb chops this way but I think I have got over this now.

 

I enjoyed this restaurant immensely because it really is tailor made for me. However, I would not say the meat was of the greatest quality but it was certainly edible. I didn't like the pork and neither did Sally or Chloe but that was just due to the spicy marinade on it. others will probably love this. Sally and Chloe aren't huge meat eaters so I was obviously eating half of theirs as well!

 

 

 

[rittsail]

As I'm quite new with wine I decided to try one of the wine flights. This is where you get 3 different 2oz glasses of wine. It's a nice way to try a selection.

 

I think we tried the Sensational Sauvignon Blancs as this tends to be my preference at the moment.

 

 

We had one of these each as we had 45 minutes before our dinner reservation in the MDR.

 

 

 

There are ipads on the bar in Vintages which contains all the wine and Tapas menus which I thought was really good. There are also games on them which turned out to be really handy as Chloe enjoyed playing them whilst Sally and I enjoyed our drinks. I have to say that out of the three Sauvignon Blancs the Italian one was the best. No suprise there as it was the most expensive of the three.

 

 

There never seemed to be many people in Vintages whenever we were passing and now was n different. Just a couple of people sitting at the bar with us and a couple outside.

 

 

 

That looks so nice and relaxing! Your review is so great and also giving me peace that you CAN find places on board that aren't crowded. One question on Vintages: do they serve anything else? I love wine, but husband - not so much.

[milpston]

The sausage and the chicken... both very nice actually

 

Beef being cut from the skewer at the table.

 

The pork that we didn't particularly like.

 

 

 

 

[milpston]

That looks so nice and relaxing! Your review is so great and also giving me peace that you CAN find places on board that aren't crowded. One question on Vintages: do they serve anything else? I love wine, but husband - not so much.

 

There are definitely places to find some peace and quiet. The ship was pretty much at full capacity this week with masses of under 18's and I very rarely felt crowded. I like my own space too!

We definitely got Chloe a soft drink in here but I'm really not sure if they did any other bar drinks. I am sure they will get your Husband a drink from somewhere else if you are drinking in there but it would only be about 20 second walk out to the Trellis Bar to grab something from there if it came to it.

[milpston]

For dessert they have a trolley. It had a choice of three different desserts on it the night we were there. Sally and Opted for a chocolate cake of some description. We nearly didn't have anything as, believe me, I was almost at the point of splitting I was so full!

 

Below is it cut open. Meat and chocolate cake. I couldn't ask for too much more really :D

 

I was pleased to be able to have a smoke straight after dinner because we exitted out of the Samba Grill onto the port side. We had a bit of a debate at this point. We were all quite tired and also had eaten far too much and made ourselves uncomfortable!! We had to decide whether to go and see Blue Planet tonight which we had reservations for or whether to leave it until next week.

[rednancy1]

Still here reading and enjoying the photos. Thank you. :)

[drmomsc]

Thanks for your review-- I am enjoying following it.

[tarajean1962]

What a great meal!! We missed out on Samba Grill and if we ever do the Allure again that is near the top of my list.

 

 

Tara

[joand452]

That looks so nice and relaxing! Your review is so great and also giving me peace that you CAN find places on board that aren't crowded. One question on Vintages: do they serve anything else? I love wine, but husband - not so much.

 

DH is not a wine drinker, either (at least he wasn't then), but there is a full service bar there. I'm pretty sure he had a beer. Now he'd be likely to have a glass of wine. We loved it!

[lag9122]

That was the best review I ever read.It took me many hours but I enjoyed it I want to do the Allure now.

[luvsun22]

My DH would love the Samba Grill, I'll have to show him your pics! Wondering if you made it to the show or not???

[mais318]

What an amazing review! I'm writing notes not only for my Oasis cruise but for my review after! Thanks so much for the time you put into this! :)

[milpston]

Still here reading and enjoying the photos. Thank you. :)

 

Thanks for your review-- I am enjoying following it.

 

Thanks for following along. I'm enjoying looking back :)

[milpston]

What a great meal!! We missed out on Samba Grill and if we ever do the Allure again that is near the top of my list.

 

 

Tara

 

I found it quite difficult to sum up Samba Grill. Was it worth the extar fee? Probably. Would I go back again? almost definitely. Would I shout from the roof tops about it? No

 

DH is not a wine drinker, either (at least he wasn't then), but there is a full service bar there. I'm pretty sure he had a beer. Now he'd be likely to have a glass of wine. We loved it!

 

Thank you. I couldn't remember seeing what the bar served as we only had the wine in here. It's a nice place for pre or post dinner drinks though.

[milpston]

That was the best review I ever read.It took me many hours but I enjoyed it I want to do the Allure now.

 

Thank you very much for the compliment. There is plenty more to come on the second leg of the B2B so stick around :)

 

My DH would love the Samba Grill, I'll have to show him your pics! Wondering if you made it to the show or not???

 

I do think, in general, it will be more popular with the men..... a bit of stereotyping there :p Hopefully I can get day 6 finished before I go to work later.

[milpston]

What an amazing review! I'm writing notes not only for my Oasis cruise but for my review after! Thanks so much for the time you put into this! :)

 

Thank you, I'm glad it is proving to be helpful. I'm even starting to enjoy doing it now.

[milpston]

So we decided to trudge back to the cabin for a bit of a rest. I felt like I had ate half of a farm! Chloe and Sally were the same (even though I think I ate half of theirs too :p). Tiredness was also setting in. I think my late night from yesterday had caught up with me a little.

 

Eventually we decided that we couldn't keep putting everything off until next week or we wouldn't manage to get everything done that we planned.

 

After having a quick chat with Monique, our state room attendant, in the corridor (this became a twice daily catch up) we headed down to the Amber theatre for the 21:00 show.

 

We arrived about 15 minutes before, handed over our sea pass cards to show that we had reservations and headed in to take our seats. We chose to sit on the upper deck right at the front.

 

 

It really is a good theatre on the Allure. It is up there with the theatres I have been to in London and Broadway (not very many though). Bar service is available in your seats prior to the show but they announce that it is limited once the show commences. We stocked up with a couple of drinks for the show.

 

Before the show starts there is a large globe hanging in the middle of the stage.

 

 

It may be a bit of a let down but I took no pictures of the show again. They do ask that no pictures of the shows are taken and I like to respect this. Also. I think it's nice to have some things that remain a surprise.

 

The show is basically about the changing of the seasons with the lead character playing the lead. I think I had to be told this afterwards as I always struggle to follow things like this for some reason. There were some excellent singers and dancers in the show and there is a section of gymnasts using trampolines which I thought was fantastic. Sally was clearly enjoying it as I caught her with her eyes closed a couple of times. She denies snoring though :p

 

Although I thought the storyline wasn't particularly discernable I would recommend not missing this show. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

[milpston]

The show was 55 minutes. Leaving the Amber Theatre after the show is one of the few times you notice just how many people there are on this ship. Luckily we were just a couple of flights of stairs away from Deck 8.

We called into the Trellis Bar in Central Park and grabbed a few more drinks before heading back to the cabin. It had been such a tough day what with all the relaxing we had been doing :D

On arrival back to the cabin we had another guest.

 

Chloe went straight to bed on our arrival as she was beat. If you have the pull out bed in your cabin the stateroom attendant really does a good job with it. She learns what your general movements are and we always found the bed had been put away whilst we were at breakfast and would be pulled back out and the bed made whilst you were out during the evening.

Sally and I went out onto the balcony with our drinks. It was very muggy tonight. There was not a breath of wind out there. I could actually lean over the balcony to light a cigarette with barely a flicker of the flame. After a while out here and after our drinks we also collapsed into bed with the air conditioning on full blast. (Sally and Chloe would usually turn this down while I wasn't looking)

[milpston]

That's all I've got time for today. Tomorrow I will be scanning more compasses and moving on to day 7. I'm hoping to get lots done in the next 3 days.