Cheapo dad’s trip report on Allure of the Seas sailing December 14, 2014

[harryfat1]

Still reading with rapt attention - another 70-odd days before I'll be on the Allure :)

 

Hi,

 

Thanks for reading along. Hopefully there's something in here that will help in your cruise planning.

[harryfat1]

When we were there, we sat up there at the bar and got served and watched the zipliners. Maybe they don't keep it open all day? But we had a drink there and relaxed probably in 2012.

 

Yes, I assume that could be the case as we were there later in the afternoon. I assume if they built such a nice place, they would use it for various functions.

[harryfat1]

OK, here is nighttime activity list for day 6.

 

 

Tonight’s two main events for us are Blue Planet and GLOW party.

 

Tonight’s dinner menu is called “Shiitake”, here is the menu listing in case anyone is following along

 

http://www.royalcaribbeanpresscenter.com/press-kit/9/culinary-press-kit/

 

As soon as we sat down to look at the menu (still in my son’s hands), the Navigator next to us sailed away. We caught a glimpse of her sailing away through the window

 

 

One more view of her rear as she sails away

 

 

Our sail away is later than the Navigator’s. Here are some people down below – the infamous pier runners (or walkers) as they were in no hurry to come back to the Allure even though the time stamp for the picture was 6:28 and all aboard is 6:30.

 

This is why they switched the second formal night between days 5 & 6 so the people can have more time ashore on day 6 and not need to come back to dress up for the formal night, which is the more typical to have it on day 6 on a 7 night cruise.

 

[harryfat1]

Seafood Ceviche

 

 

Chilled Mango & Pineapple Soup

 

 

Think this was the hot Harira soup

 

 

New England Clam Chowder

 

 

Fillet of Sole

 

 

Conchiglioni Pasta

 

[harryfat1]

Rack of Lamb

 

 

Desserts

 

 

 

After stuffing our faces, it’s time to walk out and up one deck to RP. Don’t recall if we visited any uncles or aunts that night before going to the show. I think we may have at least visited the aunt as we took this picture by the Boardwalk area, which is next to the aunt’s basement so we may have stopped by quickly to look at our pictures by the Cozumel pier taken this morning on the way out.

 

[janabelle61]

Still loving the review and all of the pictures!! Had to take a couple days "off" for silly tax season work stuff, but I'm happy to have caught up again. Your pictures and commentary have me rethinking going on the Allure someday, so Royal owes you a commission!

 

On a completely odd side note - tell your oldest son I love his 'Save the Planet - It's the only one with Baseball' shirt :)

[harryfat1]

All righty, off to the show. Oh, before the show starts, I want to get on my blah blah soap box once again.

 

Just as a heads up for all the newbie/peasants/commoner (like me) cruisers to the RCI caste system. RCI treats their VIP guests well. Very Very well as matter of fact given what charge the guests to be in the premium suites. As such, there are many reserved prime real estate seats in aqua theater and in Amber theater – those smack in the middle seats – as a peasant cruisers, you/we are not allowed to sit in those areas no matter how early you arrive at the theater.

 

You are not worthy to sit there as they are reserved for the VIP guests – which you clearly are not as you don’t have a “gold card”. On day 5, we had to go to many options in the Amber theater before finding out spot on the side with an elbow rest to take pictures as the prime spots that my wife wanted was all restricted. So just a heads up to those of us that think you can get premium seats by going early. Nope. You might luck out with them if you are in the stand by line 10 minutes prior to the show.

 

Off soap box. On with the show – Blue Planet. I will give my summary and comment about the show at the end of the photo presentation.

 

We got there early. Not many people there yet.

 

 

My wife like these photo gimmick tricks so we spent few minutes trying to take various pictures with the blue planet holding/touching/squishing it. What the heck, right? Free to take pictures and we have time to kill as RCI schedule their shows with plenty of time after dinner. In retrospect, we should have gone back to the cabin to grab our GLOW party accessories and take them with us to the show so we didn’t have to waste time going back as the GLOW party starts almost immediately after the Blue Planet and we were late for I going back to the cabin.

 

[harryfat1]

Show Spoiler Alert – As before, if you don’t want to be spoiled by the pics of the show as you will see it in person soon, skip these next few posts. My wife took all the pictures of the show as my camera doesn’t do well in low lights

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

More pics of the show - Yes, the living tree moves

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

And more pics:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

And more...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

This reminds me of the scene from the Disney movie, Little Mermaid, where Ursula became super-sized

 

 

 

 

Dude singing "Bridge Over Troubled Waters"

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Almost done

 

 

 

Note that when I first saw this, I thought, oh, cool, there will be many trampoline artists bouncing up and down, just like the Cirque shows.

 

Well, not exactly. Think there were only 2 people on the trampoline out of the whole group. The rest are singers/props/stage dancers that are there for the show but not like the actual Cirque shows of many of them jumping up and down like dog fleas on Uppers. Must be easy part of the show for many as all you need to do is just stand there and move/dance a little and pretend you are really an active part of the show

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Last set

 

 

 

 

 

Grand Finale

 

 

OK. Not that anyone give a rat’s poop on what my thoughts of the show were as art taste is subjective. Everyone likes whatever they like but since it’s my trip report, I will write about it and you are free to skip this part. Before I comment on the show, I need to qualify my extreme bias in that I am a huge Cirque du Soleil fan. I have seen their permanent shows in Vegas as well as Orlando and the various travel shows when they came to California. I am on their fan club spam list on when they have any road shows coming my way. I have Cirque music on CD, have their shows recorded on DVR and their t-shirt. So you you get the idea I like them.

 

So when I saw pictures and previews of Blue Planet, I had HIGH expectation of this to be “Cirque lite” show. I know the cruise can never be as good as Cirque shows on land given the price paid per sailing. The business side of me understand that so that’s why I say “Cirque lite” in that I was expected them to sing some weird exotic French songs I have never heard of and will never hear again and have a haunting melody that will ring my ears for days/weeks.

 

HA! Not exactly. They sang American songs based on various elements of the world (fire/air/water/etc). Like Bridge over Trouble Water. Get out of here. That’s a Simon Garfunkel special song. Don’t touch it. So for you folks expecting this to be a Cirque like show with French singers, sorry to say, it’s not. You get all the elemental songs. BOO!

 

Having said that, my initial reaction after the show was that I hated it. HUGE disappointment on the music and the acrobatics (only minimal number of people on the trampoline). But as I sort and post the pictures, I will give them higher marks on the more technical marks for the props of the human tree (that was cool) and the water screen with people in the back and animations in the front – that is Disney like. You don’t find these on the average cruise ships.

 

So I will give them higher marks (for technical merits) than my initial reaction for them trying to do some “wow” stuff but still not my favorite show on the ship (that goes to the Ocean Aria). If you tone down your expectation, maybe you will feel differently than me. For what’s worth, my wife loved this show and the songs so that goes to show you these artistic stuff is purely subjective.

Edited February 1, 2015 by harryfat1

[Kim225]

Hi Harry,

 

Your report has been awesome. I am going to be sad for it to come to an end.

 

We will be on Allure March 8 and I have a question about the secret balconies that you talk about. Do you have to have a cabin near where your cabins were located to access the secret balconies or are they available for everyone to get to? You mentioned that you liked your room location in part because of the secret balconies, so I wasn't sure if that was because they were so close to you or if they can only be accessed by a room in that area. We will be in a GS on deck 10.

 

Thanks again for all of the information. I have my color coded spreadsheet all ready to go, thanks to you.

[harryfat1]

Hi Harry,

 

Your report has been awesome. I am going to be sad for it to come to an end.

 

We will be on Allure March 8 and I have a question about the secret balconies that you talk about. Do you have to have a cabin near where your cabins were located to access the secret balconies or are they available for everyone to get to? You mentioned that you liked your room location in part because of the secret balconies, so I wasn't sure if that was because they were so close to you or if they can only be accessed by a room in that area. We will be in a GS on deck 10.

 

Thanks again for all of the information. I have my color coded spreadsheet all ready to go, thanks to you.

 

Hi, Kim,

 

Thanks for the kind words. Glad the spreadsheet was helpful.

 

The "secret" (or not so secret) balcony is public balcony that anybody can get to. They are located at the very end/aft of decks 11/12/14. Just walk all the way to the end and you will see a glass door and push that open and you will be there. Think you have seen enough of that so I won't attach again.

 

The reason I like it so much is because I am lazy and it was an easy 70 feet down the hallway for me to go to but anyone can get to it. From deck 10, just walk up 1 deck to 11 and go to the very end and you can see the back/aqua show.

 

The common conventional wisdom is Allure will turn these public balconies into suites, just like the Oasis and therefore the public will lose them come Spring after Allure goes through dry dock but no official word from RCI as far as I know on what they will do.

 

Have a great cruise in March. Wow. GS location. You will be in the prime location seats in the theaters that everyone will envy. Wave to the peasant cruisers behind you as you board...

[harryfat1]

Still loving the review and all of the pictures!! Had to take a couple days "off" for silly tax season work stuff, but I'm happy to have caught up again. Your pictures and commentary have me rethinking going on the Allure someday, so Royal owes you a commission!

 

On a completely odd side note - tell your oldest son I love his 'Save the Planet - It's the only one with Baseball' shirt :)

 

I hate it when real life gets in the way of cruise vacation planning. Thanks for reading along and appreciate you dropping a note saying so.

 

Oh, not sure I am on RCI’s favorite customer list as I keep calling them “greedy gravy sucking pigs” in my report. Think they prefer more “homey” reviews that love many things RCI does. I like some of what they do, other things I think Carnival and other ships are better.

 

My older one is a big sports fan so he likes many sports related things. He was the reason I was getting a price quote on the backpack with the football team logos on them in Cozumel.

[JamesEM]

Glad to see you the rain did not spoil your pool day and you treated it as liquid sunshine.

[Coralc]

I think Royal Caribbean is probably quite pleased with your review of Allure of the Seas and 93,000+ page views. :D

[harryfat1]

Glad to see you the rain did not spoil your pool day and you treated it as liquid sunshine.

 

Yeah, it was actually nice to be out in the area without a ton of people. We didn't see much sun the entire cruise. There was more sun back in foggy San Francisco the day we flew out than Jamaica and Cozumel combined during the cruise week.

 

I see you are in the east coast - isn't it like past 2 AM your time? Still awake and reading this? I thought my blah blah stuff would be a cure for insomnia..

[harryfat1]

I think Royal Caribbean is probably quite pleased with your review of Allure of the Seas and 93,000+ page views. :D

 

You still awake also? Must be up late reading your 180 pages of Canon SX50 camera's user's manual. I know that stuff is hard to put down once you get past page 47...

[Thoie]

 

The common conventional wisdom is Allure will turn these public balconies into suites, just like the Oasis and therefore the public will lose them come Spring after Allure goes through dry dock but no official word from RCI as far as I know on what they will do.

 

I'm on the eastbound transatlantic in April (right before drydock), and a few people on our rollthread with aft cabins on decks 11,12 have been moved to allow for preparatory construction :( It looks like work will be starting on converting them to suites as we're crossing.

 

I just hope I get a chance to see them as they are, but if they're going to the expense of bringing construction workers on the transatlantic, they'll probably want them working from day one, and probably won't want me stomping around in the middle of their work.

[sjudis]

Just getting off the Allure this morning, be warned there have been several cases of norovirus reported. You won't get it if you use napkins to handle tongs at buffets, sanitize hands everywhere and don't touch elevator buttons and handrails with your bare hands. We avoided it and had a great time. The ship employees are constantly wiping down everything. You know it is brought on board with passengers again and again.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[beachseasand]

Harry,

 

Did you make reservations for any of the shows online prior to boarding? Just wondering if those group of seats you showed blocked off in the prime real estate of the theatre were for reservations.

 

Thanks again for this wonderful review.

[theatrebabe]

When we were there, we sat up there at the bar and got served and watched the zipliners. Maybe they don't keep it open all day? But we had a drink there and relaxed probably in 2012.

 

Yes, I assume that could be the case as we were there later in the afternoon. I assume if they built such a nice place, they would use it for various functions.

 

A little research pays off! Check out this page from Jane's New Year's Explorer review, and you can see how this space was utilized. Looks like fun! (and delicious!)

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2146596&page=36