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

[milpston]

Zack was our Activities Manager on the Jewel back in September, we loved him and were disappointed that he was gone when we sailed her again in April. Now I know where he went! I've yet to do a B2B, thanks for all the information on the process and all the pics from the Promenade.

 

Zack was a really nice guy. Your're more than welcome. I hope you are enjoying the review.

[luvsun22]

Zack was a really nice guy. Your're more than welcome. I hope you are enjoying the review.

 

I'm enjoying it very much and looking forward to more!!

[milpston]

I'm enjoying it very much and looking forward to more!!

 

Well I have a couple of days off work so it should come thick and fast now :)

[milpston]

By about 11:45 it was looking a bit brighter up above the promenade so we decided to head up to the sports deck and see if the Flowrider was busy. The rain had now stopped but it was still a little bit breezy and cloudy.

 

As you can see the lines were pretty short.

I'm not sure what I'm doing in the picture below but I'm obviously taking it pretty seriously. I'm not normally one for meditation!!!

[rednancy1]

Still here enjoying your review. :)

[milpston]

Sally didn't take any picture of me on the Flowrider but she did video it. If I can find it I'll up load it at some point. With regards to the body boarding. I think just about anyone can do this as it's pretty easy and really good fun. You just dive down with your chest on the board and your arms in that daft position above. You then just push the front of the board down to go to the front of the flowrider or just lift it slightly to go back towards the top. A bit of leaning from side to side and you're pretty much there. This was my first ever go at the body boarding and I only fell off when I tried to get to my knees :D

When I came off I was even given a high 5 by one of the kids waiting. Initially I thought this was because I was good..... it took a few seconds for it to dawn on me that he just thought it was cool that an old guy was having a go :p

 

Below is the reason I didn't try the stand up surfing. I had the briefest possible of goes in 2011 and broke a rib a split second after this picture was taken by Sally.

 

 

Sally took a picture of the Celebrity Equinox way in the distance while I was recovering from my body boarding.

 

[milpston]

Still here enjoying your review. :)

 

Thank you. I'm glad you're still following along.

[aalden13]

Cant wait for the second week of your trip! This review Is addicting! Great job!

[milpston]

Cant wait for the second week of your trip! This review Is addicting! Great job!

 

Thanks very much. I hope to be onto week 2 by either this evening or tomorrow.

[milpston]

The guy working on the Flowrider looked around and said there looked like some hotter weather coming. I can't say I was overly convinced but we decided to go and get some sun loungers near to our usual spot port side.

 

 

 

As you can see it wasn't a great struggle to get some sunbeds... or space for that matter.

 

I laid on the loungers while Sally and Chloe went off to get an airbrush tattoo for Chloe. They were gone quite a while so I lay there watching the space and sunbeds slowly fill up as the weather was rapidly improving. By 13:00 the skies were clear and the sun was beating down again. Sally and Chloe came back at about 13:30 and I was laying under a towel with an ice cream as I could feel myself getting sunburnt already :p

 

The girls went to the Windjammer for a bit of lunch while I lay relaxing on deck. We spent a couple of hours in the sun and having a dip in and out of the pool.

[milpston]

RCI do move things around a little when the weather is bad. I noticed earlier that the Captain's Corner (Q&A's I think) was moved from the Aquatheatre to Dazzles due to the inclement weather.

 

About 15:00 we left our sunbeds and went for another stroll. We found ourselves down on the Boardwalk by the Boarwalk Doghouse.

 

 

 

Sally and I both had a Coney Island which was a standard hotdog. Sally had onions on hers with a side of Coleslaw where I carried on with my exotic taste and just had ketchup on mine.

 

 

 

Chloe just wanted some coleslaw as they hadn't long had lunch.

 

[milpston]

We then had another one of those moments when we were trying to decide whether to go to Ice Games in Studio B. Eventually we decided we couldn't keep leaving things until the second week so we made our way down.

 

These are the stairs down from the front end of the Royal Promenade down to Entertainment place (This is where you find Studio B, Jazz on 4, Blaze and the Comedy Club).

 

 

The entrance to Blaze. I couldn't get in there to take a picture.

 

[miniwheat]

What a great review, I'm really excited now!!!:D

[milpston]

What a great review, I'm really excited now!!!:D

Yours will start coming round pretty quick now!! :)

[milpston]

By about 15:15 we were sat ready for Ice Games. Just as importantly we were getting refreshed ready for the show :p

 

 

 

The bar is fairly small in Studio B but the wait staff are great. As earlier there is only limited bar service once the show starts.

[milpston]

Ice Games is an ice show based on the board game Monoploy. Basically they throw a large dice to travel to different parts of the Allure. The show is very entertaining and easy to follow. There was one female dancer with rings that was a special guest from Las Vegas. I have also seen her on other reviews of the Allure so she must be a semi-permanent guest. Don't miss this show as I think it's one of the best.

 

The cast consisted of skaters were from the US, Russia and 3 from England. Only one of the skaters fell and he nearly went over a second time. I know it's cruel but, for me, it made it even more entertaining :D

 

 

[IrishLassie]

17:00 finally it was the sail away

 

Well..... actually we didn't sail away until about 17:30 for some reason. I had watched the sail away on www.portevergladeswebcam.com weeks and weeks before we left wishing we were there and now we were :D You can request a wave on there and tell them exactly where you will be for sail away and what type of banner you will have.

 

Just prior to sail away I called home to my parents to let them know we were safely on board and about to sail away.... and to check that they were all watching of course haha

 

For us, there is only ever one place to be for sail away and that was the privacy of our own balcony with a drink in hand so that is exactly where we headed straight back to after the muster drill.

 

On arrival we had some goodies to get started with

 

 

 

That picture of the champagne really confused me when I uploaded it as that's definitely my wtach on the hand on the left..... but I definitely don't do my nails like the other hand. I came to the conclusion that the bottle must have been much heavier than it looks for it to need two of us to hold it ;)

 

 

The vanilla cup cakes were seriously nice!

 

Really enjoying your review. I do have one question about the above. Are those the items you received from the "Romance Package"? We are suppose to get that on our Oasis cruise in Nov. so I'm hoping that is it as it looks pretty good!

Also, loved your pictures from Ft. Laud. beach as my DH & I both grew up there & spent many, many days & fun filled nights at the beach!

[rittsail]

Ice Games does sound like a good show! Oh, and just to clarify: I actually really do love my husband! LOL! I burst out laughing when I read that post from petesweet!

 

Really enjoying your review! Can't wait to read week 2 as that's the itinerary we have coming up in less than 2 weeks.

[milpston]

Really enjoying your review. I do have one question about the above. Are those the items you received from the "Romance Package"? We are suppose to get that on our Oasis cruise in Nov. so I'm hoping that is it as it looks pretty good!

Also, loved your pictures from Ft. Laud. beach as my DH & I both grew up there & spent many, many days & fun filled nights at the beach!

 

I am glad you are enjoying it. Yes they are the items you get with the Grand Romance Package along with Canapes and petit fours on both the formal evenings and bath robes. You also get the upgraded free room service breakfast one morning and a free formal night photograph in a frame.

The classic romace package is similar except you do not get the robes and only get canapes and petit fours on the first formal evening. You get the items seen in the pictures except the champagne is Domaine Chandon instead of the Veuve Cliquot.

You will need to check which package you have to be sure. There are some higher end packages which include the canapes etc every night as well as spa packages.

Hope that helps

Ice Games does sound like a good show! Oh, and just to clarify: I actually really do love my husband! LOL! I burst out laughing when I read that post from petesweet!

 

Really enjoying your review! Can't wait to read week 2 as that's the itinerary we have coming up in less than 2 weeks.

 

It was a very good line! The second week will be coming up soon :)

[milpston]

At 16:30 we went back to the cabin. Chloe had a lay down while Sally and I went down to the casino with our 1 free spin each from the gold booklets in hand. You hand these in at the cashiers desk and they give you a token to put in the free spin machines.

 

I was hoping to get a cash game of Poker while we were down there but I found that there was rarely anyone playing during the day. This meant I was forced to lose a few $$ playing blackjack.

 

Back we went to the cabin. With my fee spin I won the expected amount..... nothing!

 

Sally, on the other hand, was over the moon!!!

 

 

That was her with the printed ticket from the machine displaying her mammoth win........

 

 

She was chuffed to bits as she was up :D

[milpston]

When back in the cabin to get ready I went on the balcony and noticed land by the side of us. From a quick check on the TV against the map it showed that it was The Bahamas... I'm not sure which island.

 

 

Also, I have just remembered something else that we were told during the consecutive cruisers meeting. We were told that the cruise Director would be changing for our second week and it would be Ken Rush. I actually found out, when we got home, that Ken Rush was at an event for the launch of the Quantum Of The Seas in New York during our first week.

 

We also found out that the Headliner act would be different and not Earl Turner. I was so pleased I took the time to go and speak with guest services earlier in the week to check Earl Turner was on the second week also. They confirmed he would be and clearly didn't have a clue what they were talking about :mad: oh well.

[milpston]

We had an MDR resrvation for our usual time of 19:45 this evening.

 

We decided to head down to the Royal Promenade at 19:00 to get a good spot for the farewell Dreamworks Move it! Move it! Parade. I had read that good spots were sitting outside the Bow & Stern. Anyway, when we got there all tables were taken by the Bow & Stern and everywhere else on the Promenade for that matter, If you want to sit here then you will have to get here earlier than we did. Although, in all honesty, people will pull other chairs in front of your table as the time for the parade gets closer anyway.

 

We decided to go up to the Schooner Bar and see if we could get a decent spot to see the parade from there.

 

This first picture is as we came down to the Promenade at the front end.

 

 

 

As you can see the staff do a good job of clearing the path for the parade to go through.

 

 

 

 

[milpston]

So as we were stood by the railings I said to Sally that we should pull three of the bar stools over the railings to watch the parade. She decided to ask the bar tender if that was OK. When she came back to me I was quite surprised. Apparently he had said they couldn't be moved in case someone with a drink wanted to sit on them :confused:

 

As you can see from the above picture. There are no stools at the bar as I moved them anyway. Afterall, we had drinks and wanted to sit on them. I decided to ignore him..... as I believe did everyone else as everybody was watching the show rather than sitting at the bar. :)

The show parade got started and we sat comfortably to watch :D

[milpston]

My pictures didn't come out great tonight for some reason. The light seemed to be very up and down.

 

Anyway, this is the Schooner Bar... Our spot was right at the far end overlooking The Promenade.

 

 

 

Puss In Boots made an appearance on the Rising Tide Bar.

 

 

 

 

[milpston]