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

[rsharp83]

“O” Junior

Prepare to get wet

 

I am going to compare OceanAria to the only thing I have seen that is anything like it, and I realize it is somewhat of an unfair comparison. If you ever go to Vegas see Cirque Du Soleil “O” at the Bellagio. It’s an astounding water based show with a million gallon pool as the stage. It is jaw-dropping awesome and worth a trip to Vegas just to see that show.

 

OceanAria’s pool isn’t quite a million gallons, unless they decided to dive off the back of the ship that is. But the show is really good and when you consider they are performing on a ship at sea with waves and winds, well that is quite a feat in and of itself. In fact this show’s status is very important and is monitored from the bridge of the Allure. There is a camera focused directly above the highest platforms so the bridge can see what is happening. The schedules for the ice show, Blue Planet and diving show are right on the bridge so the officers can make every effort to stabilize the ship during these performances.

 

The performance has some clowning around at the beginning so don’t arrive late. Also the seating area is a bit deceiving, it looks like it should hold more people than it really does. The chairs are more like beach chairs and there are little tables between them. Benches on several rows hold more people. Another factor of not much seating is the splash zone. (more about that area later).

 

The show combines some visual elements on screen with acrobatics, diving, trampoline performers, aerialists and storytelling. There were also two Romanian guys who lifted each other and held poses in ways that no humans should be strong enough to do. If you have ever seen the Mystere show by Cirque du Soleil this part of the show was very similar to what they do. I am guessing there is no performance enhancing drug testing going on after these shows.

 

The divers that go all the way up to the highest perches to dive really have to target well, the pool is pretty small and unlike a theater this is not a controlled environment. It’s a very enjoyable show for everyone.

 

One issue I had was the splash zone seating, basically the first 4 rows all the way around. I’ve sat in those kinds of seats for similar shows before and it was fine. You might get a little wet when divers go into the tanks or in the case of Blue Man Group there is water based paint splattering around. But they give you ponchos. OceanAria is different. You won’t get splashed or get a little wet, you will get drenched, totally drenched. And the performers will go out of their way to make sure you are completely soaked; even if you are sitting there in with a suit and tie on. There were some nicely dressed adults in front of us and they had to move and stand because the performers were actively splashing them from the pool and it just kept coming. Kids that want to get soaked I understand, but this seemed excessive. So almost no one sat in the first 4 rows of the theater which puts seats at a premium because there is a whole center section reserved for Gold members.

 

I heard several others comment on the splashing at the show. I was told that it is done on purpose as a theatrical element of the show. At one point there were 6 performers in the pool and they splashed the audience for what seemed like 5 minutes (it was probably more like 1 minute) while something else was happening on the stage. So the splash zone is really the super soaker zone, if you sit there, wear a bathing suit.

[funfamilyof6]

“O” Junior

Prepare to get wet

 

I am going to compare OceanAria to the only thing I have seen that is anything like it, and I realize it is somewhat of an unfair comparison. If you ever go to Vegas see Cirque Du Soleil “O” at the Bellagio. It’s an astounding water based show with a million gallon pool as the stage. It is jaw-dropping awesome and worth a trip to Vegas just to see that show.

 

I heard several others comment on the splashing at the show. I was told that it is done on purpose as a theatrical element of the show. At one point there were 6 performers in the pool and they splashed the audience for what seemed like 5 minutes (it was probably more like 1 minute) while something else was happening on the stage. So the splash zone is really the super soaker zone, if you sit there, wear a bathing suit.

 

Great, now I know where my kids will be dragging me and my husband to sit down, I'll make sure he has his bathing suit on LOL! :eek:

 

Still loving your review!!! :)

[rsharp83]

Bring it on!

Competition for crappy RCCL prizes

 

I’m ALL IN when it comes to competition and games. If we’re playing then there is a reason to win, right? So the games on this cruise were intriguing to me and the first one we tried was Majority Rules. It was held in Dazzles and there was a decent crowd. It’s a fun game where the host asks questions that don’t have a right or wrong answer or can have many answers. Each team writes down what they think the majority answer will be and the teams that have the answer that comes up the most get a point. Each team has a runner that will take their answer to the host’s table where the answers are tabulated; which is a fancy way to say that the answers are put in piles of like answers. It was a good fun way to relax and play a game.

 

There were some funny answers given and a couple of women who had ditched their significant others were giving some hilarious answers about the men that were not with them for this game. It’s dangerous to leave your wife unattended at these kinds of events guys. They are apt to say anything!

 

There was a team in the running next to us and we were in the running as the game wound down. On one answer the runners approached the table and it was obvious that one answer was clearly in the majority. As their runner got to the table she saw that there was a clear winning answer and apparently their answer was not going to get a point. She quickly said to the host “I need to change my answer” and bolted back to her table, changed her answer and then raced back to beat the clock. So basically she cheated.

 

In the end 3 points separated the top 3 teams and guess who won. Yep, the team that cheated. Now I didn’t really care, they won some RCCL hats, big deal. But what bothered me was that they wanted to cheat in a meaningless game on a cruise ship. Really? People amaze me.

 

Since we are on the games subject let’s stay with “RCCL Cruise Games” for $200 Alex!

“This game involves numbered balls linked to a grid of lettered spaces.”

Beep beep beep. “Yes Randy.”

“What is Bingo?”

“That’s correct, and we would also have accepted: What game did Randy and Amy spend the most money playing while on their Allure cruise.”

 

BINGO. How did we get sucked into Bingo? I’m not sure but we did. And in the end it was the largest charge on our account! Amy even got to be the Bingo Commissioner which gave her a free drink of the day and a Bingo T-Shirt that entitles her to 1 free Bingo card for life on RCCL cruises! I’m not even going to tell you what the drink and T shirt cost us. Bingo was a fun way to get inside for a few minutes and all of us played together. For $55 you got several physical Bingo cards to play and a computerized handheld Bingo machine that did everything for you except yell “BINGO!” if you won. Amy punched the cards and I watched the machine.

 

The first Bingo session we played was packed and people were winning $800 plus per game. It was also packed because they had a drawing to win an upgrade to a Crown Suite (I may have the particulars of the name of the suite wrong) Apparently there was a vacant one so why not give it away and drum up interest in Bingo. The last game of each session was blackout Bingo for a cash jackpot that grew with each session where someone didn’t win it. They limit the number of balls drawn in the blackout game in order to grow the jackpot for the last game of the cruise. By the time we got to the end of the cruise the jackpot was $7,000. That’s a tax free $7,000 by the way. So Bingo by that point was pretty serious business. Another added bonus here is that if you are paying to play your kid gets a free bingo card and they can win. It keeps them occupied and increases your chances of cashing in. If you have a horde of kids, the more advantage you have!

 

I am sad to report that NONE of the 8 of us won a penny at Bingo all week. Close, but no cigar. We didn’t play in the casino at all so Bingo was our gaming money for the week. The casino seemed fine but I only play cheap video poker and occasionally cheap craps, cheap games were not to be found so we just didn’t gamble. Not a big deal, I can always go play video poker somewhere but I can’t always enjoy the amenities of the largest cruise ship on earth.

 

Later in the week we also did the Video Scavenger Hunt game. Mostly this was families or teens participating but we didn’t care. They only have so many cameras so the size of your team depends on how many show up to play. It takes less than an hour to do. I have no idea how the judging is done on this game so my best advice is to be creative to impress the staff.

 

I thought this game would be a list of “things or places” on the ship that you had to find and video. But instead it was a list of “stunts” that your team had to perform and get video evidence of doing. There was a list of 10+ things you could do and each team chose 4. Problem: each team chose the same 4 pretty much. The easiest 4. And so everything was pretty similar. You can make up your own and you should! And don’t choose the easy stunts, take on a challenge to stand out from the pack. I would guess that thinking outside the box is going to get you points.

[tarajean1962]

I can't wait to see "O" junior! We missed out on that on the Allure. I am also a Bingo addict. My husband already told me that there is no way I am playing Bingo everyday on a two week cruise.:( I guess spending a ridiculous amount of money on Bingo in two weeks is dumb, but it will be hard for me! :)

 

The other games sound fun and we haven't tried those either. Plus, they sound alot cheaper.:rolleyes: It sounds like you guys are having a great time and I am beginning to suspect that Amy may like cruising a little!:D

 

Tara

[boaterette]

Loving the review. Have never played Bingo on a ship. just too expensive compared to the numerous Indain Casinos around where I live. Most Pate is duck liver by the way. Not on my diet.:D

[jakesmom04]

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.

 

We also had that problem of finding our pictures and not pictures of others in our folder. On a few occasions they took our pass and the pictures showed up in my cousins folder. Thank goodness they where looking a photos the same time we were walking out and got to see and purchase them.

[jakesmom04]

Great review Randy. Glad I had a chance to say hello at the M&M.

[fairweather]

Hi, Bruce Willis. Loving your review so far. I get the feeling that you were always having to rescue this group of die-hard cruisers novices. Can't wait to see what happens when you have to herd them off the ship for an excursion.

 

Knew you were from MO because you have that Mark Twain-sort of sense of humor that gets smart people through trying circumstances... like family members who didn't want to go but once they got there demand to know why you didn't plan this years ago.

 

See. I'm from MO, too. Been there. It was my husband who didn't want to be drug onto a cruise ship. Now I can't drag him away from one.

 

Tip to the wise. Don't try to link up all the dinner reservations of a larger group. Just meet daily at a bar or activity instead. Then all the relatives can compare notes (and travel horror stories) without disturbing your meals.

 

Looking forward to hearing more of Innocents Abroad....or is that "Innocents Aboard" in this case?

[rsharp83]

Day 3 – At Sea!

 

I started the day with the Meet & Mingle. After 10 months of corresponding on the Roll Call I really wanted to meet a few of the people who I only knew by screen names. Unfortunately I was the person who had to break it to Kathleen that the Boston Marathon had been attacked with bombs. She hadn’t seen any news. Many of the people in our RC and on this cruise were from the Boston area so events of the previous day were a bit of a damper.

 

I went alone to the M&M because the DW had not really been involved in the planning of the trip and of course she wasn’t on CC. She said she’d go but I knew she didn’t really want to. Besides, I would know people, or at least people’s screen names!

 

We got a little RCCL pen and notebook which I put to good use since somehow the little journal I had purchased for the cruise disappeared somewhere in the terminal area and unlike a certain piece of luggage, no one found my little notebook.

 

The staff gave out some prizes and shared some information but not much about Quantum. The announcement was being made that day but we got no inside info. Later in the day though the Quantum video was running all the time on the TV!

 

After the M&M I Headed for…The FlowRider!

[rsharp83]

Go with the Flow

It only hurts if you fall, everybody falls

 

It occurs to me that there were 3 basic types of people on Allure.

1. People who care nothing about the FlowRider and may not even know there is such a thing onboard.

2. People who are up for anything and want to give the FlowRider at least a try and maybe even get to the point where they can remain on it for a short while.

3. People who live to FlowRide.

 

The first FlowRider I every tried was years ago at Schlitterbahn in New Braunfels, Texas. It was the first FlowRider installation site in the world and I remember giving it a try. No one stood up, it was all Boogie Boarding and no one really helped you get going. My ride lasted about 10 seconds after waiting in line for almost an hour.

 

Quick note: If you are part of a “waterpark family” then you really must go to the Mecca of all waterpark innovations and that is the original Schlitterbahn in New Braunfels. Plan a two day trip there, it’s awesome.

 

I decided to do the stand up FlowRider side, more challenging, and when I first went up there the only people on the Boogie Board side were little kids and I didn’t want to be embarrassed by a bunch of little wave junkies. I also noticed that the staff where actively helping and assisting the people on the FlowRider. And the more I watched the more I realized that almost everyone was having some degree of success riding the wave. The staff would help them on the board and hold on to them while edging them out into the flow. Everyone pretty much managed to stay up for at least a little bit. I had not seen this kind of assistance at the other 2 FlowRiders I have been to.

 

I arrived just in time to see Cousin Dave on his first attempt. He did great. And I couldn’t wait to try.

 

Dave on the Wave

[/img]

 

 

We didn’t have a lot of planned activities for the afternoon. Everybody was in “layout on the deck mode,” a mode I’m not very good at doing. I did manage to pull up a chair and relax for a while. There was a nice breeze and it wasn’t too terribly hot. Eventually though I needed action! Which is the thing that is great about cruising Allure, there is plenty to do! So I left the crew sprawled out on the deck and Dave and I headed for the rock climbing wall.

 

Note: you need socks for the wall, the climbing shoes are provided. We harnessed up and waited our turn. My assessment, it’s hard! Neither of my knees work very well anymore so that didn’t help me but honestly I wouldn’t have climbed very high even with good knees. But it was fun to say I did it.

[rsharp83]

I swear to you, I'm like 50 feet up the wall at this point...no really. It only looks like 10 feet, it the angle of the photo. Really.

[Wildcatfish]

50 ft? Hmmm... I think the wall is only 43 ft high.;)

 

Really enjoying your review! Keep it coming!

[Familygoboston]

50 ft? Hmmm... I think the wall is only 43 ft high.;)

 

really enjoying your review! Keep it coming!

 

lol!!

[ksawyercruiser]

Fantastic review! Nice to relive the Allure. Keep it coming!!

[tarajean1962]

Randy, I am truly enjoying your adventure!! I love the flow rider and if I ever win big in Vegas, that is at the top of my list of things to buy!!:D Can't wait to read more!!

 

Tara

[Peeker28]

Awesome review!! I have cruised before but my DH hasn't and it took many years to talk him into going on one. We are going on the oasis June 1st.

[rsharp83]

Thanks to all of you for the feedback! Sorry I didn't post more yesterday but I promise there is more on the way this evening. Just happy to see that people are reading and enjoying my thoughts and musings about the Allure and our week aboard her.

 

And of course by the end of it all I will address the question of whether DW Amy will ever cruise again...stay tuned!

[Peeker28]

RSharp83, you posted on the first page that you hand off your bags according to which side of the ship. Did I read that correctly? That is valuable info, I'm not sure what side we are on, I'm going to check right now.

[CruisinAg]

I'm enjoying it. Always fun to see a trip through the eyes of a first timer!

[rsharp83]

RSharp83, you posted on the first page that you hand off your bags according to which side of the ship. Did I read that correctly? That is valuable info, I'm not sure what side we are on, I'm going to check right now.

 

Now remember, I was dealing this whole time with the lost luggage of Familygoboston. But when I finally got back to our luggage my FIL and Cousin were working with the porter because (I believe I'm fight on this) the Starboard side bags had green tags and went on one side of the cart and the Port bags had red tags and went on the other side.

 

They had put some of the port bags on the starboard side. Now it may have all worked out in the end... but from my very limited experience I would make sure that you didn't leave that area until you physically saw your bags loaded on the baggage cart that is headed for the ship.

[Peeker28]

 

Now remember, I was dealing this whole time with the lost luggage of Familygoboston. But when I finally got back to our luggage my FIL and Cousin were working with the porter because (I believe I'm fight on this) the Starboard side bags had green tags and went on one side of the cart and the Port bags had red tags and went on the other side.

 

They had put some of the port bags on the starboard side. Now it may have all worked out in the end... but from my very limited experience I would make sure that you didn't leave that area until you physically saw your bags loaded on the baggage cart that is headed for the ship.

Good tip thank you very much!!

[rummenroman]

Good tip thank you very much!!

 

In the end it won't really matter. The bags will make it to your room. It is just a way to help the crew sort out the bags of 5000 plus people before it hits the ship. All the bags go in at the same place and are sorted from there.

[rsharp83]

The Adagio Dining Room

Food, food, food

 

In all the research I did for this trip I think the two topics I read the most about were dressing for dinner and eating dinner in the main dining room. At different points in my preparation for the trip I was amazed at the comments about the food in the MDR and vast differences of opinion concerning food served here. I remember distinctly someone referring to the MDR food as being akin to “dog food”. I have to say it was pretty confusing at first to sort out the food situation. My advice to first timers, if you have reasonable expectations for your dinner the MDR will be fine. If you expect “fine dining” on the level of a top notch restaurant then it may not work for you. Remember 6,000 or so people are eating dinner somewhere on the ship every night. That’s a lot of cooking!

 

Here is the handy dandy guide I pieced together from a couple of sources that outlines the basic menu for the MDR all week. It may not be 1000% accurate in every detail but I think its pretty close.

 

[/img]

[Familygoboston]

That right there folks, is the most useful piece of Allure info you will ever get! Randy and I worked together on our roll call to suss out exactly which menu was a served which day.

 

A similar spreadsheet is floating around that is wrong. It had the names of the menus wrong and also the nights they were offered mixed up. I went through multiple reviews and looked at photos of the food and photos of the menus on the nights they were posted by the reviewers. A bunch of CC'ers participated in a thread where we weighed in about the likelihood of formal night being on on St Martin day (as was erroneously listed) and sorted out what we thought was the most likely configuration based on pics and first hand accounts.

 

Then I posted on my findings our Roll Call, and Randy created this great spread sheet based on and improving the incorrect one. ( No blame for the first person who posted the spread sheet, their sailing could have changed up menus for some reason, or been experimenting.:confused:) This had been a great service to all future Allure Sailors, Randy and we thank you for doing it!

 

Having sailed now, we can report that the right menus are now in the correct days they are served for Allure Eastern, and thanks to Randy, we now have a tool for whenever anyone asks..." Which night is formal night" or "which night should I go to chops" ...

Thank you kindly, sir!

( now I might steal the image and post it my review too;))

[rsharp83]

This is what happens when I am bored at home alone on a Friday night (Amy works every Friday night and teen daughter only wants me around as a taxi driver).

 

So a few weeks before the cruise I used Kathleen's instructions with the erroneous menu and came up with the corrected menu. It took a LOT longer than I thought it would. But once I started...I was obsessed and would not stop until it was done.

 

Kind of like this review, obsessed and not stopping until I'm done!