10 years in the making - First Cruise on Allure Eastern 4-14-13

[rsharp83]

I think I'd better go mow my lawn before the neighbors start complaining to the president of the homeowner's association. Oh wait, I'm the president, hmmmmmmm no I'd better set a good example and mow the lawn.

[Dawniepoo]

I think I'd better go mow my lawn before the neighbors start complaining to the president of the homeowner's association. Oh wait, I'm the president, hmmmmmmm no I'd better set a good example and mow the lawn.

 

NO!!!!!!!! We have been trumped by the lawn?! I'm hurt. :D

[rsharp83]

Well, the mower is gassed, oil changed, tires aired up (with the assistance of a neighbor since DD2 broke our air pump this winter). I was ready to mow! Battery dead. So the review continues!

[rsharp83]

Day 2 – Nassau

 

Unlimited Internet

Wide Awake, Wide Awake, I’m not sleeping

 

I should mention that getting the unlimited internet package was important to us, all of us. Leaving the world behind for a week at sea is tempting. However the reality is that we needed some contact with the outside world for various reasons. I started trying to log on to the ship’s internet services right after we sailed.

 

First off, be very careful because it is very easy to choose the one day package and not the unlimited package. You need to pay close attention as you are getting set up. I went through the process numerous times and every time I got an error message at the very end of the registering process. This went on for several hours. We were supposed to contact our daughters (20 and 17) and let them know we were sailing and make sure things at home with the 17 year old who was flying back from a visit with my brother’s family in Albuquerque over the weekend went ok. Back at home she was going to stay the week with her 25 year old cousin. But with no internet, we had no communication.

 

The guest services desk told us that the internet satellite was out and that’s why I kept getting the error messages. Grrrrrrrrr. I tried off and on all night to get it hooked up. Finally at 4:20 am the sign-in worked and we had internet. Now why in the world was I up trying to log into the internet at 4:20 in the morning? Good question. I couldn’t sleep. I had the “no sleeping problem” most of the week leading into the cruise. And now it was continuing on the ship.

 

I eventually got up and headed out to the track on Deck 5. As we pulled into the port in Nassau I watched dawn breaking while listening to U2 and walking the track. This was my view as we pulled into Nassau.

 

 

 

A few more thoughts on the internet service on Allure. After it finally got satellite connection it never went down again. The speed was decent enough to do facebook and check email. We couldn’t do web based phone calls or video chat. Most of us had iPhones (we had one Android user) and we used an app called Viber (which is free) to send text messages to each other and back home. Only one device per room could be connected at any given time. The price was $129 and there is a C&A Coupon that will give you a discount on that rate. Interestingly the people on the Allure the week before us said they got the unlimited internet for $99. And on the morning Cruise Director’s TV show Babbling Brooks, he said the internet was $99. But when I checked at guest services that price was a no go. And of course they had no idea what Brooks had said or not said on his TV spiel.

 

The android phone never dropped the wifi signal. The iPhones dropped off all the time! We constantly had to sign back in. We were sharing the account but even those that were not sharing had to log back into the Allure wifi all the time. So if you have an iPhone make sure your username and passwords are pretty easy to type because you will be typing them in – a lot!

 

You might have noticed I mentioned a C&A discount coupon. You might be wondering how a first time cruiser would have such a coupon. One word – Vegas! If you go to the land of Lost Wages and stay at MGM owned properties you are enrolled in M Life, which is the MGM rewards program. Well DW goes to Vegas as part of her job on a regular basis (every year or two). That’s where their national conventions are held. So she has apparently racked up enough clout (lost enough money) to qualify with RCCL and MGMs new joint promotions program and she was bumped to Gold status when she boarded. So as we were boarding all the RCCL staff kept welcoming her back! At this point we didn’t know why she had Gold status and so we just went with it instead of saying, “Why are you welcoming me back, I’ve never been here?”

 

The M Life perk was not consistent. Others in our group should have qualified higher than Gold and they didn’t get the C&A booklet, they should have. They did check in with the casino host and did get some sort of perks because of their M Life status but not the Gold status on their seapass or the coupon book. If you go to Vegas via MGM be sure and check this perk out; it’s a fairly new thing.

[tarajean1962]

Our experience with the internet at sea has always been a battle. We honestly don't check in that much, but when we do, we get so frutrated.

 

I love your picture of Nassau at Dawn.

 

This is so much fun going back and forth between reviews!:D

 

Tara

[smeck]

Day 2 – Nassau

 

Unlimited Internet

Wide Awake, Wide Awake, I’m not sleeping

 

I should mention that getting the unlimited internet package was important to us, all of us. Leaving the world behind for a week at sea is tempting. However the reality is that we needed some contact with the outside world for various reasons. I started trying to log on to the ship’s internet services right after we sailed.

 

First off, be very careful because it is very easy to choose the one day package and not the unlimited package. You need to pay close attention as you are getting set up. I went through the process numerous times and every time I got an error message at the very end of the registering process. This went on for several hours. We were supposed to contact our daughters (20 and 17) and let them know we were sailing and make sure things at home with the 17 year old who was flying back from a visit with my brother’s family in Albuquerque over the weekend went ok. Back at home she was going to stay the week with her 25 year old cousin. But with no internet, we had no communication.

 

The guest services desk told us that the internet satellite was out and that’s why I kept getting the error messages. Grrrrrrrrr. I tried off and on all night to get it hooked up. Finally at 4:20 am the sign-in worked and we had internet. Now why in the world was I up trying to log into the internet at 4:20 in the morning? Good question. I couldn’t sleep. I had the “no sleeping problem” most of the week leading into the cruise. And now it was continuing on the ship.

 

I eventually got up and headed out to the track on Deck 5. As we pulled into the port in Nassau I watched dawn breaking while listening to U2 and walking the track. This was my view as we pulled into Nassau.

 

 

 

A few more thoughts on the internet service on Allure. After it finally got satellite connection it never went down again. The speed was decent enough to do facebook and check email. We couldn’t do web based phone calls or video chat. Most of us had iPhones (we had one Android user) and we used an app called Viber (which is free) to send text messages to each other and back home. Only one device per room could be connected at any given time. The price was $129 and there is a C&A Coupon that will give you a discount on that rate. Interestingly the people on the Allure the week before us said they got the unlimited internet for $99. And on the morning Cruise Director’s TV show Babbling Brooks, he said the internet was $99. But when I checked at guest services that price was a no go. And of course they had no idea what Brooks had said or not said on his TV spiel.

 

The android phone never dropped the wifi signal. The iPhones dropped off all the time! We constantly had to sign back in. We were sharing the account but even those that were not sharing had to log back into the Allure wifi all the time. So if you have an iPhone make sure your username and passwords are pretty easy to type because you will be typing them in – a lot!

 

You might have noticed I mentioned a C&A discount coupon. You might be wondering how a first time cruiser would have such a coupon. One word – Vegas! If you go to the land of Lost Wages and stay at MGM owned properties you are enrolled in M Life, which is the MGM rewards program. Well DW goes to Vegas as part of her job on a regular basis (every year or two). That’s where their national conventions are held. So she has apparently racked up enough clout (lost enough money) to qualify with RCCL and MGMs new joint promotions program and she was bumped to Gold status when she boarded. So as we were boarding all the RCCL staff kept welcoming her back! At this point we didn’t know why she had Gold status and so we just went with it instead of saying, “Why are you welcoming me back, I’ve never been here?”

 

The M Life perk was not consistent. Others in our group should have qualified higher than Gold and they didn’t get the C&A booklet, they should have. They did check in with the casino host and did get some sort of perks because of their M Life status but not the Gold status on their seapass or the coupon book. If you go to Vegas via MGM be sure and check this perk out; it’s a fairly new thing.

 

Thanks for this post my wife and I were trying to decide if we wanted to sign up for the unlimited package, based on the info in your post I think we will. If the satellite stays in the sky that is. LOL

Edited April 27, 2013 by smeck

[cruiseturbo]

Hey there’s a car in the middle of this ship

Let’s take a picture with it (Which we will never get to see)

 

On the way to Giovanni’s DW and I had a few minutes to kill on the Promenade and there was the car just sitting there all alone and a RCCL photographer begging to take our picture. We were dressed up and I wanted some pics with the car so we posed. The photographer surprised me when I handed him my seapass card and he just gave it back to me. He didn’t scan it so the pictures he was about to take could be identified and put in our folder/account. He did ask if we had taken an embarkation pic and we had and our seapass had been scanned at that time. He informed us that there was no need to scan the seapass again because they had special photo recognition software that would magically find our pictures and put them in our folder for us to purchase. OK, I thought I guess we will see if it really works or not. The answer, at least in our case and the case of all 8 of us in the group, is NOT. Emphatic and overwhelming NOT. As in complete failure on every level NOT.

 

Now in Disney they take your picture all over the place in multiple parks, hotels, water parks, restaurants and anywhere else the Mouse can find to snap a photo. An area that is spread over miles and miles of real estate and yet every single photo I’ve ever had snapped at the most magical place on earth shows up in our account, every time. (We’ve been there 4 times).

 

When we go snow skiing at Vail Resorts (Keystone, Breckenridge, Vail, Beaver Creek, etc.) they take it to another level completely with EPIC MIX. Your lift ticket has an RF chip embedded in it and every time you go up a ski lift you get registered and you earn points and pins for your runs down the mountains. It all gets posted to Vail’s own social media site. Every picture you take on the mountain is scanned by waving the scanner in general direction of your lift ticket; you don’t even have to take it out of your pocket or anything. Oh, and this technology works on multiple mountains that are miles apart in separate resorts, even in resorts in other states. Every picture, every ski lift, every vertical foot skied is logged and loaded.

 

So imagine my amazement when I went to the photo kiosk to look at our pictures by the car. There were no pictures by the car. Now there were a lot of pictures, pictures of some other family that looked absolutely NOTHING like us. My wife is a petite blonde and the women in these pictures had jet black hair and were not even remotely the same body type as she is (I’m being kind here). After getting help from the staff person we finally found an embarkation pic we took with our group of 6 that boarded together. We didn’t take one of just the 2 of us which may have been a big mistake in retrospect. Maybe the “magical recognition software” would have performed better if it had just been me and DW alone. But no one in our group looks anything like the pictures that were in our file.

 

As the week progressed the mystery family kept showing back up on the computer and in the actual photo print binders. I would delete them and then they would return. I can only imagine who these other people were and what they were going through if they were looking for their photos. My cousin took some pics with his mom at the Prohibition Party and they showed up in my folder! We were not even at the Prohibition Party. We never got the car pics. Finally the staff found some contact sheet that contained our car pics but we never saw them in our folder or on the computer. The last day the photo place was a zoo and it just wasn’t worth the hassle to see if they ever got the pictures printed at all. We would probably have purchased a couple at least.

 

Pretty much the customer service we encountered on board was excellent in every area except the photo department. The photo experience was horrible. And it is so easy to fix – scan the seapass!! Or RF tag the seapass. Do something to make this process work. I encountered several others who were also looking for their lost photos. How often does this happen? How many photos are lost in the digital cesspool of unidentified pictures every cruise? A complete mess that is easily fixable. Really this was my only major gripe with anything on the cruise.

 

Sorry to hear that you had a bad experience with this. :(

 

We have been on the Allure three times and the Oasis once. All 4 times the photo recognition system has worked great and we were amazed how quickly out photos showed up. Wish this was the experience you had!

[Coolcruise02]

Great review! Can't wait for more.

[Cruzin-K]

Great review!

[Familygoboston]

Gee Randy, you seemed to have bad karma- we had zero problems with the internet on our ipads- it was even quick, and we just opened our "get the picture" cd tonight and they had everything including some really cute ones of our girls and their "geek squad" that found their way via the facial recognition into our virtual folio. Sorry this happened- you certainly kept things positive on board- I had no idea!! :D

 

I have to say generally, that when it comes ot IT, and CS stuff, that with Royal Caribbean as long as everything goes according to "norm" they are prepared to give "gold anchor" service, but unfortunately with thousands of people sailing every week, once something goes wrong, you get stuck down a rabbit hole and solving the problem becomes very difficult! I always dread having an out of the norm problem because I know it will never be an easy fix!

[rsharp83]

We’re Jammin’ We’re Jammin’

But not for long

 

We all headed to the Windjammer for breakfast. I was hesitant because I had read so much about the Jammer. Breakfast was fine, it was not too crowed. Food was OK. But somehow I knew…

 

Skip ahead to lunch on day 3, a sea day. We decided to go to the Jammer again; I wanted to go to Park Café but noooooo. This time the Jammer was packed, it took a long time to find a table and we had to split up to finally get a seat. The food was iffy and it was just not a good experience. Back home DW never eats at buffets. We come from the Midwest, land of the over blown crazy buffets! We have chocolate fountains, cotton candy, endless this and all you can eat that. She hates such things so that was why I was surprised when she suggested the Jammer for lunch. Well that was our last trip to the Jammer. Again, it’s not terrible or horrible. But there are much better choices on Allure. And we wanted to save room for dinners so we didn’t put a premium on lunch.

 

Among the “better choices” is going to the Solarium for breakfast; much quieter, some healthier food choices and just an overall more relaxed experience. The MDR was also very good for breakfast. We didn’t go there until later in the week but when we did we were happy. The French toast is covered in cinnamon and is great!

[rsharp83]

What to do in Nassau?

 

This was the hardest port to make plans for. We were all going to go together as a group in Nassau and we really didn’t have much time there. I wanted to do an off road Segway tour in a more remote part of the island! But as our group grew I decided that an off-road Segway adventure was likely not the best choice of activity.

 

I chose to book Jermaine’s Taxi & Tours after reading some reviews on Trip Advisor. The port was crowded that day and after looking around a bit to find Jermaine we connected and boarded his Toyota taxi van, and off we went. Jermaine is a very earnest man who will go out of his way to tell you everything you could want to know about his island home. We got history, politics, government structure, historical sites, current events, and a pretty diverse look at the island.

 

The ladies in Nassau

[/img]

 

Barbara and Jerry at the fort

[/img]

[rsharp83]

I am in tourist mode today

[/img]

 

Headed away from the Queen's Staircase

[/img]

[rsharp83]

We then drove around the island and Jermaine showed us some of the everyday life of the island. We saw some very nice homes (not the most expensive homes on beaches but homes of Prime Ministers etc.). We went to some middle class housing areas and he then drove us through a poverty area neighborhood. That was very interesting.

 

We did make it to a small section of a resort beach for just a few minutes. Just to get an idea of what was offered in an all-inclusive resort.

 

This is perhaps my favorite picture of the trip, totally in tourist mode!

[/img]

[tarajean1962]

Your tour looks very interesting and it looks like you had a gorgeous day! :)

 

Tara

[AF-1]

Looks like you guys had a great day; did you stop anywhere for lunch; or just wing it until you got back on ship? I know Allure is only there for about 5 hours; so u have to rush to do anything. When we stopped in Nassau, we got off the ship and hung out in Senior` Frogs. Then back to ship. Lovely pics, thanks for taking the time to write and post.

[Jan_In_Maine]

Thanks for the review ... I'm also reading familygoboston's ... We will be on the Oasis (again) and am looking forward to hearing about the ports. I'll have to check out a tour in Nassau!! Jan

[rsharp83]

Looks like you guys had a great day; did you stop anywhere for lunch; or just wing it until you got back on ship? I know Allure is only there for about 5 hours; so u have to rush to do anything. When we stopped in Nassau, we got off the ship and hung out in Senior` Frogs. Then back to ship. Lovely pics, thanks for taking the time to write and post.

 

We tried to eat a big breakfast (at the Jammer) and then we really did not eat while we were on tour. We had an early dinner and a big dinner planned for the evening. I think we got a hot dog or something when we got back aboard. The tour really didn't give us any time to eat.

 

If we were to ever cruise again... I'd moist likely try to do something more beach oriented with a ship sponsored tour (just because of the tight timelines involved in Nassau).

 

This is obviously my first ever CC review and it does take time but I am finding it very rewarding and it will provide the rest of my group a chance to look back and remember our adventures. As a bonus I hope I can be helpful to folks that are planning a cruise on the Allure.

[joysav]

I guess the moral of the story is do not leave your bags in the hands of the porters until you see them physically loaded on the cart that is going to your side of the ship!

 

Good Advice ;)

[redcrown]

Why did I bring this?

A few words about what we packed

 

After reading endless lists about what to bring and not bring I can only offer our experience. Things we took that we found very useful:

 

Over the door hanging shoe bag thing - This was great and we put all kinds of stuff in it. Very handy, very useful, very cheap. And as a bonus I used it to wrap up something fragile in my luggage at the end of the trip!

 

Colored ribbon for marking our bags for disembarkation – really makes your bags stand out in the very crowded crowd of bags.

 

Spray Lysol – for obvious reasons. That bathroom is small people!

 

Extra wire hangers – never enough in your closet.

 

Spray on wrinkle remover and lint roller – the Florida humidity will wrinkle everything you ironed and packed.

 

Things we didn’t use: clothespins, the curtains closed just fine; most of our medical emergency stuff, thankfully we stayed pretty healthy; laundry detergent, too much trouble (Lysol spray can be helpful here).

 

As for clothing I kept reading on these boards to, “pack less, pack and then take half of it out, don’t over pack.” We wound up with 3 large suitcases and 2 carry on bags plus my trusty travel backpack. Part of this is due to the fact I have a c-pap machine and a knee brace for exercise, these two things take up a great deal of real estate in a suitcase.

 

My advice, pack plenty of socks and underwear and don’t count on bag laundry day to save you. The bag-o-laundry day was Wednesday but you won’t get your clothing back until Friday. To me that really doesn’t help you much unless you are doing B2B or going somewhere after the cruise.

 

We did over pack on shorts. On most vacations I live in shorts. In fact the thought of having to wear suits and slacks on vacation is the one part of a cruise I was not thrilled about. I wear this stuff everyday to work, on vacation never. I packed shorts but didn’t wear many of them. In the morning it was shorts for a while, and then bathing suits then dress wear.

 

Even though I was not excited about wearing a suit or dressing for dinner I knew that it was expected and I was not going to try to bend the rules. And in the end it wasn’t bad. My DW took dresses for most of the nights and then also had some Capri pants for others. She looked amazing so I needed to look as good as I possibly could! Everyone in our group dressed up for MDR and Specialty dining. It was fun and not that hard to get used to.

 

I only saw one guy bucking the trend in the MDR. He was in a t-shirt and shorts (not even dressy shorts). I saw him twice and quite honestly he looked a bit foolish when everyone else was dressed nicely.

 

Randy,

 

The most interesting type of dress I have ever seen happened on this cruise. For dinner I saw a gentleman wearing scrubs. On the second formal night I ran into him at Chops and he had his formal scrubs on.:)

[rsharp83]

Park 150

Don’t ask, Just eat

 

I knew this was a somewhat risky choice compared to all the other dining we were doing. Park 150 is a set menu of gourmet foods, and I had 8 people to please. It was the first formal night and we had show reservations for OceanAria at 9pm, dinner started at 6.

 

If you’re a “Foodie” you might just want to skip ahead to the next section. I have very limited food porn to offer and basically no experiences from which to draw upon to properly evaluate gourmet food. However, if you are not a foodie and debating on dining at 150 then read on. (Foodies, please stop now, just avert your eyes, please don’t flame me endlessly for what follows).

 

The restaurant is beautiful and very intimate. Even more so if you get the clam back chairs. The service is outstanding and they take great pride in mirror serving your party (presenting the plates in synchronization). Three people ordered the Cucumber Martini; I don’t think they realized it was $17. It was good, I’m not sure any of them thought it was $17 good.

 

David took good care of his mom all week!

[/img]

 

The turning point was the main course. I specifically wanted to dine at 150 early in the week for this menu because of the main course, Modern Shepherd’s Pie. It’s described on the menu that has my name printed on it (a perk of dining at 150) in the following way: Guinness braised lamb shank pavé, glazed thumbelina carrots, pickled mustard seeds, caramelized cippolini onions and rosemary-hot potato espuma.

 

Now I will describe it in a way that makes sense to me and hopefully some of you. (Foodies, I implore you, just don’t): Shredded lamb molded into a small brick like shape, shredded carrots, caramelized onions, and mashed potatoes so finely whipped that they pour it over the lamb brick like hot thick gravy.

 

I thought it was great. But there were two regular lamb eaters in our group who pretty much hated it. They prefer their meats on the very rare side and this lamb was anything but rare. It suited my tastes fine but they didn't like it at all. Again it all comes down to preference and taste.

 

The potato espuma (I’ll never get to use that word again, espuma, outside of reference to this meal so I’m going to use it a lot because it seems like a cool foodie word) was incredible and I wanted the waiter to just load me up with a big bowl full of potato espuma.

 

We finished off with Toasted Pistachio Genoise. It was a brownie like texture and had orange foam and meringue. It melted in your mouth. But one in the group was allergic to pistachios and I didn’t know it. They quickly brought out an alternate dessert that looked wonderful but I can’t recall exactly what it was.

 

This brings home the point that at most restaurants you can easily order what you want. So it really isn’t a problem, if you don’t like seafood you order something else. Park 150 is not like that at all. I should have perhaps tried to understand the menu better beforehand to see if anyone had specific allergies etc. to the foods. Honestly, I doubt that would have happened.

 

The meal lasted over 2.5 hours, but it was NOT our longest meal. In the end everyone enjoyed the meal. They all said it was an “experience.” However, if I would have asked them where they wanted to dine again between Giovanni’s and 150 they would have all picked Giovanni’s.

 

I’d go to 150 again and I think my wife and cousin would as well, not sure about the rest of the crew. Again, its vacation and if you get the dinning package it’s only $70 pp for 3 specialty restaurants, basically you get Giovanni’s for free! Oh, one more thing… espuma.

[tarajean1962]

Oh, one more thing… espuma.

 

I must be easily entertained because that whole review just cracked me up!!:D

 

I consider myself to be somewhat of a foodie, but I had to read it anyway! I loved 150 Central Park. I loved the Cucumber Martini. But that's me. A restaurant like that is very hard pressed to please that many people with one menu. We love Vegas too BTW, and your experience reminds me of one we had when we ate at Aureole. I had wanted to eat there for like 10 years and when we finally did-well let's just say that the 'experience' was not worth the hefty price tag.

 

Anyway! You seem like a guy who makes the best of it and it does sound like at least you mostly enjoyed your meal. Especially the espuma!!:p

 

Tara

[rsharp83]

I loved the meal! I ate pretty much everything. Except some pâté thing that I swear the waiter said was made of duck liver. I may have miss heard that. But we all heard it the same way.

[maxs mom]

Randy....really enjoying your review. Sounds like you all had a great time and I hope you will cruise again! We've spent 28 years cruising with Royal Caribbean and I still get so excited before each cruise. Love reading about your experiences. You're doing a great job!

[rsharp83]

By the way folks. I apologize for the improper reference to the restaurant above. It's true name is 150 Central Park. For some reason in my notes I always just wrote "Park 150" which is not the correct name.

 

Thanks for reading! More to come.