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

[Dolby1000]

The end of the world

 

And just like that it was over. We exited the Bridge and walked back down the hallway and we were in the public area again right by the forward elevators. Our guide said goodbye and we were on our own. It was a rather abrupt ending to our three hours together. Some of us wished each other well etc. and we headed back to wherever we came from.

 

Now, if you read MiddleAgedDramaQueen’s Big Solo Allure review you might notice something missing from our tour compared to her tour. That’s right, the SWAG! We got no SWAG on our tour; no “All Access” badges and no RCCL bag. I found this interesting and I am curious to hear from others who have done the tour to see if there are other differences. It was not a deal breaker but I was going to put the bag to use and having the badge would have been kinda cool in a very geeky sort of way. But alas, there was no SWAG for us.

 

Was it worth it? I thought so. I had a great time on the tour. Got to see lots of interesting things and generally enjoyed the whole thing. After 10 months of researching the ship it was a really fun thing to do and in many ways it completed the whole process of me deciding on the Allure and being so interested in all aspects of the ship. It was also something I was glad my father in law got to do. He is extremely inquisitive by nature and he had a really good time as well as our friend Ross. It was a great morning for all of us.

 

One couple was on our tour. She had to “drag” her spouse to the tour. He wasn’t initially interested in doing it. Mid-way through I asked him how it was, he replied that he was very happy she made him do the tour.

 

My advice is if you think you would be interested in it and you can afford the price, go for it.

 

We took the tour as well, and now that I think of it, no swag either!

 

OWD

 

BTW: love reading your review, as I've also posted a recent review, other than the itinerary, it is like we took the same cruise! We did so many of the same things.

[Jenjer]

I loved your review so very much we leave in 12 days for Allure. I can not wait. This trip could not come at a better time. Having wonderful reviews and tips has helped remind me that good things are coming.

 

Would you mind please emailing me your MDR spreadsheet....Pretty pretty please

 

Thanks

 

Scrappingjen@hotmail.com

[awhcruiser]

Get there early as the lines get very long...

 

GET THERE! You can spend 2 full days at Schlitterbahn and then go to Austin for a few more days. It is great!

 

 

 

]

[tarajean1962]

Awesome review!! Thank you so very much for letting us cruise along!!:D

 

Tara

[ATLJFL]

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.

 

 

rsharp83, loved your review and photos.

 

We went on April 28th and although this was one of many past cruises, I have to say you chose the correct first cruise. The Allure is a marvel and not sure how it can be topped, (but we will try). My hubby took the photos (except for the car and boarding one), and we were celebrating my upcoming 65th b'day. Can't wait for another excuse to go on another cruise.

 

In the attached slide show is our pix of that car. (We manaaged to find it and buy one although the photo gallery system was very different than any other we have experienced). Feel free to photo shop us out and put yourselves in. LOL We posted it to our grand kids and labeled it "Our new car" and now they are all arguing which one of them is our favorite grandkid so they can inherit it. LOL

 

Glad you enjoyed the Allure. We certainly did!

 

Jeanne & Gary

 

http://secure.smilebox.com/ecom/openTheBox?sendevent=4d7a59314f5451334e444d3d0d0a&sb=1

[rsharp83]

Songs to learn and sing

Musical notes

 

The titles in the tour section and a couple of others have musical references. For the interested here they are:

 

The Kitchens of Distinction – 80s Alternative Band and they just announced they have recorded a new album.

 

Melt With You – Classic 80s song by Modern English

 

Road to Nowhere – The Talking Heads, one of many great songs by them

 

Auctioneer Another Engine – Song from REM

 

Do It Clean – Song from Echo & The Bunnymen. As a side note, for those of you that may have lost track of Echo they made a couple of very good albums when they reunited. Check out “What are you going to do with your life”

 

Cutting Crew - A band, not one of my favorites by any means, In fact I likely hated them in the 80s, but the name worked for my purposes. Please forgive me for using them.

 

Entertainment! – Gang of Four album. Also reunited with a very good album out, “Content” in 2011, and a brand new disc I just got!

 

Anchor Song – Bjork song that was released well after the 80s but she’s from the 80s (Sugarcubes) so I used it.

 

Helicopter – Song from XTC

 

The Bridge – One of my favorite songs of all time from the little known one album (Urban Beaches) wonder band named Cactus World News. Look it up on You Tube, great song!

 

The End of The World – Bob Geldof or is that SIR Bob Geldof to you and me? He released “The Vegetarians of Love” in 1990 so I still consider that close enough to the 80s. And Bob was the leader of the influential band The Boomtown Rats. This song contains one of my favorite lyrics ever:

 

There’s nothing more useless than a car that won’t start

But it’s even more useless at the end of the world

This is the end, the end of the world

For 5,000 years you must surely have heard

Nostradamus and Jesus and Buddha and Me

We said it was coming now, just wait and see

 

There are also a couple more musical tidbits. A line from a Beastie Boys song (Sure Shot), The Cure (Hot Hot Hot) and a U2 song title (Exit). I had to get U2, the Cure and the Beastie Boys in there somewhere!

[NemoCrownie]

I LOVED your review!

 

We live in Liberty and I had family in St Joe for a few years and I went to MO West my first year of college. Also, we have been up there the last few years for the Jesse James cache bash in October. I am somewhat familiar with your town. You didn't mention that it is home to my favorite candy, the Cherry Mash!

 

It took me at least 10 years to get my DH to go on a cruise. He didn't want to be on something he couldn't get off of and have to follow their schedule with people telling him how to spend his precious vacation time. He also gets bored easily. It's a long story but he finally acquiesced, for one time! We went to a travel agent that recommended either Princess or RCCL and that we sail out of San Juan for a more port intensive 7 day cruise - 5 ports. We chose RCCL only because the ports sounded more interesting - we'd never been to the Caribbean so I don't have a clue why we thought they sounded more interesting!

 

That was February 2010 on the Serenade and it was the best vacation, ever! It was magical - best room steward (towel animals every night), best wait staff, clean beach towels in our room every night, unlimited soft serve ice cream (DH's addiction), fantastic steel drum band playing everyday, etc. We got back and he told everyone "all you have to do is show up and they wait on you hand and foot, you don't have to do anything but get to the ship." He didn't have to do anything because I had done all of the research and made the reservations! He actually found Cruise Critic researching our trip but he never gets on here and I am somewhat addicted. Because of CC and a fantastic Roll Call, I booked the best excursions on each island and knew what to expect.

 

Within a month of getting back we booked a cruise for February 2011, with our friends this time, for the same ship, different itinerary. It has now become our February escape from the Midwest! We aren't very adventurous and tend to stay in our comfort zone. 2012 we moved up to the Adventure, still out of San Juan but only 4 port days, it was good but I preferred the Radiance class so this year we went back to the Radiance Class for a B2B. Again, thanks to CC we had the largest hump balcony - awesome. For 2014 we are going even smaller with the Legend but we are going out of FLL - a first. Alas, we are boring - so back to the Radiance Class for a B2B on the Jewel out of San Juan in February 2015.

 

I am the planner - DH, girlfriend and her DH would probably say I am somewhat obsessive/compulsive - but hey, we always have great excursions and a great vacation.

 

After reading your and KansCocoa's reviews for the Allure, I think we (I)may be ready to take the plunge and GO BIG on the Allure in 2016. I am the planner and they are smart enough to just go along with what I want to do! GF and her DH are more adventurous and he has mentioned that he would really like to go on a BIG ship. The Allure will definately be for the ship since there are so many sea days but I know girlfriend and her DH will love the shows and my DH will love all of the activities. I'll miss the glass and water views - which is why the Adventure with the Promenade was just so-so for me.

 

Anyway, thanks for taking me outside of my box and making me want to try something different, even though I have loved our port intensive cruises everyone else is ready for a change. I just wish the Allure balcony prices weren't so expensive!

[rsharp83]

I LOVED your review!

 

We live in Liberty and I had family in St Joe for a few years and I went to MO West my first year of college. Also, we have been up there the last few years for the Jesse James cache bash in October. I am somewhat familiar with your town. You didn't mention that it is home to my favorite candy, the Cherry Mash!

Thanks neighbor!

 

In my little synopsis of St Joe I left out Cherry Mash and some other important cultural icons. Walter Cronkite was a St Joe native. As is current Kansas State football coach Bill Snyder.

 

However there is a BIG music icon that is from St Joseph but most people think (incorrectly) that he is from Detroit. Eminem was born and lived in St Joe during his childhood before moving to Detroit. My boss was a Head Start teacher back then and had Marshall in his Head Start group.

 

Funny story. My In Laws own the local roller skating rink. Eminem's younger brother was in Jr High when Eminem became famous. His classmates didn't believe that Eminem was really his brother and he was getting teased a lot about it. So one Friday night Eminem, his wife and their bodyguard show up at the skating rink to hang out with the little brother and show all his friends that yes he is Eminem's brother. The kids went crazy of course. But the rink never plays music with cuss words so they really couldn't play any of Eminem's songs! He did sign an autograph and they made photocopies for all the kids.

 

So there is another claim to St Joseph fame!

[Familygoboston]

Thanks to everyone for your kind complements. When I thought about writing this review I wasn't sure it would stand up to some of the other outstanding reviews I read in preparing for my trip. And there is always that thought in the back of your head "No one is really going to read this thing."

 

But as some of the other review writers have told me, it is not about competing with other reviews it's about telling your story and helping others that may be planning a trip or who just want to see your experiences.

 

My special, and heartfelt thanks must go to Kathleen of Familygoboston. Without her, we would have cruised and I'm sure we would have had a fine trip. However, her family's influence and participation (Quest aside!) was so much a part of our trip it is hard to imagine it without them around. And even after we are back on land her help and encouraging words throughout the review were a great help.

 

Thanks to all of you who have responded thus far. And if you have questions I'll be happy to answer them as best I can. I will also have a post wrapping up the whole "musical references" thing in the titles. Stay tuned!

 

Thanks Randy! Same here, we enjoyed sailing on vessels both large and small with you and Amy, and it's my hope we get to do it again one day soon!:D

Enjoyed your review and even some of your musical references once I shook the cobwebs from my head...my what a memory you have!;)

[jakesmom04]

Thanks Rany....this was an awesome review and helped me relive some of the cruise. We are already thinking about the next one....Freedom or Serenade this time around for us.

[rsharp83]

Thanks Randy....this was an awesome review and helped me relive some of the cruise. We are already thinking about the next one....Freedom or Serenade this time around for us.

 

We are thinking about a cruise but one of our group has already BOOKED their next cruise in September on the Jewel. Unfortunately we cannot possibly go on that trip for a variety of reasons.

 

So we will just keep THINKING...

[CntPAcruiser]

The Kitchens of Distinction

 

One machine we saw makes a plate of dough (kind of like a pizza shape) into 36 rolled dough balls ready for baking in 6 seconds. They also have a conveyor belt on a machine that spits out dough rolls at an incredible rate per hour, 12,000 / hour to be exact.

 

Edited May 19, 2013 by CntPAcruiser

[jakesmom04]

We are thinking about a cruise but one of our group has already BOOKED their next cruise in September on the Jewel. Unfortunately we cannot possibly go on that trip for a variety of reasons.

 

So we will just keep THINKING...

 

Our next will not be until 2015 due to other things going on. We are looking at the Serenade out of NOLA.

[RN4Nsy]

Loved your review! We live just south of you in Independence MO. Fond memories of St. Joe when our son was in college at NWMSU we would meet for lunch there. We have cruised quite a bit and your review has me looking at the Allure in Jan. So keep cruising and I hope you go soon. Your review was great.

[rsharp83]

Loved your review! We live just south of you in Independence MO. Fond memories of St. Joe when our son was in college at NWMSU we would meet for lunch there. We have cruised quite a bit and your review has me looking at the Allure in Jan. So keep cruising and I hope you go soon. Your review was great.

 

I'm a Bearcat! Yeah NORTHWEST! My oldest daughter is there now starting her Junior year.

[Familygoboston]

Randy and Susan, You can still join us on Jewel in Nov;) It's not to late.

 

I think Randy might be a wee bit bored on Jewel, (I was a little at loose ends at night on a 5 day cruise on Jewel- to the Jewel boosters- I love the ship too, I'm not saying Jewel is "boring" I'm saying that there are certain people like me, who get bored easily:p)) but the itinerary we are doing is Southern Caribbean out of SJ and is very port intensive...5 ports in 6 days and I think that will keep me plenty busy!:eek: We have a private sail book in Barbados already...there are still cabins available, just sayin':D

[jakesmom04]

Randy and Susan, You can still join us on Jewel in Nov;) It's not to late.

 

I think Randy might be a wee bit bored on Jewel, (I was a little at loose ends at night on a 5 day cruise on Jewel- to the Jewel boosters- I love the ship too, I'm not saying Jewel is "boring" I'm saying that there are certain people like me, who get bored easily:p)) but the itinerary we are doing is Southern Caribbean out of SJ and is very port intensive...5 ports in 6 days and I think that will keep me plenty busy!:eek: We have a private sail book in Barbados already...there are still cabins available, just sayin':D

 

We would have loved to join you but at this time it is a no go. We have so much on our plates right now and in the near future that will be costing us arms, legs, and whatever else I can use. LOL. Can't wait to read your review from the Jewel. We have narrowed down to the Serenade, I know it is much smaller then the Allure. We are going very casual this time around....no formalwear for either of us, no specialty dining. Just to kick back and relax is our goal.

[Familygoboston]

We would have loved to join you but at this time it is a no go. We have so much on our plates right now and in the near future that will be costing us arms, legs, and whatever else I can use. LOL. Can't wait to read your review from the Jewel. We have narrowed down to the Serenade, I know it is much smaller then the Allure. We are going very casual this time around....no formalwear for either of us, no specialty dining. Just to kick back and relax is our goal.

 

Sounds wonderful! And Radiance Class is perfect for that kind of cruise!! Thats why we go on them, DH insists that we take a cruise where I will actually SIT!:p

 

I'm already calling this one the "no planning" cruise...I have booked my excursions, but for the rest of it, we will do it DH's style..."what do I feel like doing right now";)

Ok, so I will probably book MTD for the same time every night too before we go (I can't be helped:o)

[BillOh]

Familygoboston Cruise Critic fame! In fact as I looked at my Tap a Talk phone app I realized that Familygoboston was just minutes ahead of me as she was posting a live thread entitled “Allure 4/14 LIVE boarding – You and the Sequester”.

 

And our whole roll call was tuned in to see how that went. We arrived in mass around 11am.

[Familygoboston]

And our whole roll call was tuned in to see how that went. We arrived in mass around 11am.

 

Happy to help!! So much had been asked on these boards when the sequester went into effect and we all were getting these email messages from Royal saying to come later...I just thought we needed a little "live" reporting";) And your RC ended up with an extra hour+ of enjoyment, so glad it did some good to post!:D

[LisaT91403]

Thanks for the great review, Randy!

 

I'm interested in hearing more about how Viber worked for you, as I've never heard of it. You could text and make phone calls using your regular ol' iPhone on the ship? Did you do this in lieu of renting the phones from Royal Caribbean?

[rsharp83]

Viber worked well but it won't be a perfect solution for every situation. When you get the unlimited Wifi package it is per room and for use with only one device at a time. We had 4 rooms of people with Viber/wifi. But only 4 actual devices at any given time could be connected. We did a lot of group messaging.

 

Where it breaks down is for example when my DW and I were separated. I could send a message then I would need to log off the wifi and HOPE that she would log on to see it. Back and forth texting conversations were way to tedious to be practical. However, if she was with someone from our group then she could borrow their phone to text with me.

 

We also used it for texting with our kids back home. Although they didn't miss us very much! Lol.

 

We didn't use voice calling much. It works but it depends on the wifi strength and we found it easier to text. Especially for coordinating with the group.

[CTRussxiii]

Only two pages into your review and LOVING it. Leaving a comment so this thread will laod to my mobile app subscriptions. Come on Quantum in 2015! Would love to read your lead-up and post-cruise thoughts.

[travellink]

Just finished reading your review and enjoyed your writing style. Thanks for sharing. I have only sailed on Celebrity S-class ships and reading all I can about the Allure to see if it's a good fit for my wife and I.

[rsharp83]

Only two pages into your review and LOVING it. Leaving a comment so this thread will laod to my mobile app subscriptions. Come on Quantum in 2015! Would love to read your lead-up and post-cruise thoughts.

 

 

Thanks! I am glad you are enjoying it. And it's nice to see that people are still reading it several months after it was finished.

 

We actually hope to cruise again in 2015. But I doubt it would be Quantum, if DW gets to the NY area, she won't leave!

 

In all truth we would likely do Allure Eastern again. Such a great ship and there were many things we didn't see or do. And on a return trip there wouldn't be the pressure of "doing everything, seeing everything, this is our only shot". I'm all about bang for the buck on a trip and maybe if we went again I could dial that down a little and experience Allure from a different perspective.

 

The other option would be to go on a Southern Caribbean trip. A certain woman from the Boston area is trying to get us to go on that route!