Allure of the Seas 10/23/16

[JordanLovesCruisin]

Hi everyone! We are just off the ship this morning. Thank you for all of your help the past 5 months while we anxiously awaited and planned for this cruise!

 

I'm Jordan. This was my 12th cruise with my 13th booked for a spring break sailing on the Jewel. I cruised with my husband Mark and our two sons, B and F. B is 3 and F is almost 1. I'm sure you're like "Jordan, are you freaking nuts? Why would you travel with two very young kids?"

 

This was B's 4th and each time has been wonderful. F's first cruise. Obviously, each parent knows their children and their temperaments.

 

I wanted to preface this also by saying we contacted RCI's Special Needs department ahead of time to inquire about the children's program and dealing with children that have special needs. B is 3 and we technically can't receive a formal diagnosis of ASD for 6 more months. However, we are aware of his "quirks" and his sensory disorder/speech delay challenges. He is highly intelligent, but he has issues with order and likes things a certain way. He is just slower to warm up to new things and places. He is a VERY sweet kid and minds well for a three year old. I was so encouraged to hear about their offerings for children on the spectrum and with disabilities. They assured me that B would have no different of a time than any other child his age including if he were to have any accidents. We were so excited and felt at ease!

 

So anyways, we saved and saved for this cruise. It was my "dream cruise" as I've wanted to sail an Oasis class ship since they unveiled the plans for the Oasis years ago. However, we are pretty much a 1.5 income family since having children (I work very part time) and didn't know when it would be a possibility to cruise this ship. When they unveiled the Kids Sail Free deal in June, we jumped on the opportunity! Instead of paying $4k+ for an inside or outside we got a balcony room for just under $3k. We were ecstatic! This gave us extra room for "fun" things to do with the boys as a family.

 

Boarding plane now, will start the actual review in a little bit. I will say that it will mainly be a positive review with a few very disappointing negatives. Feel free to ask any questions!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[JordanLovesCruisin]

Oh and this was Eastern Itinerary,

 

 

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[John&LaLa]

Looking forward to the positive and interested in the negatives

 

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[NJporkroll]

Jordan,

 

Been following your posts leading up to your cruise. We are on the Allure next week. Our first cruise ever. Can't wait to read your full review.

I think my wife and I are more excited then the kids are.

 

 

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[mrsaknar]

We were on with you and TOTALLY agree..... many plusses and minuses, however the plusses highly outweighed the minuses!!

[JordanLovesCruisin]

Jordan,

 

Been following your posts leading up to your cruise. We are on the Allure next week. Our first cruise ever. Can't wait to read your full review.

I think my wife and I are more excited then the kids are.

 

 

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You're going to love it! It's truly an amazing ship. Cannot wait to hear about your trip.

 

 

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[JordanLovesCruisin]

We were on with you and TOTALLY agree..... many plusses and minuses, however the plusses highly outweighed the minuses!!

 

 

Whew I am so glad we aren't the only ones that saw a few minuses. I guess where there were minuses it was just disappointing. Most importantly, the dining room. How about you?

 

 

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[JordanLovesCruisin]

So, we are from OK and had to fly to Denver for a wedding that my husband was in on the 21st. The reason we picked the voyage we did was to play off the cheap airfare from Denver to FLL. Man, was it cheap! $79 a person. Flying from OKC to FLL is usually $410+ a person. Same with Miami.

 

We flew from Denver to FLL on Saturday, October 22nd. We stayed at the Comfort Suites in Dania Beach. It was a really reasonable $104 a night. It was clean, had a free airport shuttle, breakfast and a shuttle to the cruise terminal for $10 per person.

 

The negative to this hotel is that it's not close to ANYTHING. I needed to get to a grocery store to get formula, diapers and wipes. Since nothing was nearby, we took our first uber rides :).

 

We ate at Jaxson's Ice Cream shop with some family friends that live in WPB, which was wonderful! Very kid friendly and a fun atmosphere.

 

 

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[JordanLovesCruisin]

Saturday morning 10/23- EMBARKATION-

 

We woke up and were SO ready and excited. The day was finally here! B kept asking us "do you have my ticket, daddy? Mommy is my ticket here?" Needless to say, he was anxious and eager to start his vacation!

 

We took the shuttle from the hotel

To terminal 18 at 10:15, which took about 10 minutes. We were amazed at the size of this ship. I mean, we knew it was going to be huge, but it's REALLY huge. (Enter "that's what she said" joke here)

 

 

We got off the shuttle and checked in. Seriously, it was the easiest process ever. Way easier and more efficient than we have ever experienced. Then, we waited about 45 minutes to board. Since I turned Platinum on this cruise, we had a special section to sit in.

 

I was super appreciative of this monster in the waiting area for the kiddos.

 

 

GENIUS!!

 

We dinged on and started to explore! WOW! Simply amazing and beautiful ship. The detail they put in is phenomenal.

 

 

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[mrsaknar]

Whew I am so glad we aren't the only ones that saw a few minuses. I guess where there were minuses it was just disappointing. Most importantly, the dining room. How about you?

 

 

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Ya, most meals were definitely average at best. We LOVED our head waiter. We requested escargot and shrimp cocktail as appetizer options each night and he happily brought those. We went to Chops one night and Sabor the other and they were both WONDERFUL!!!

[vrock]

Looking forward to reading your review. We will be on board in about 40 days. :)

[2nsmom]

We will be on this ship in June with our extended family....can't wait to hear all about it :)

[Ourusualbeach]

65 more days for us. Looking forward to the rest of the review

[molsonschooner]

looking forward to your review. We have a family cruise next year on Harmony, which will include our 3 year old granddaughter. I will be interested to hear how your kids did on a ship this size

[JordanLovesCruisin]

Day 1- FLL

 

After grabbing a bite of pizza at Sorrentos, which my husband and I are in total agreement that Sorrentos' pizza is 3000000x better than Carnivals. It's perfect.

 

Even B agreed.

 

All week he asked when he could have more pizza. The staff at Sorrentos were fabulous.

 

I will say this about the ship. I'm not sure how many total pax we had on the cruise, but it never ever felt crowded. I loved that. It was busy, but not a hot mess. The most crowded I saw it was for the 30-50% off purse sale on day 6 on the Promenade where women acted like hyenas on Black Friday to get a bag they could probably get on Amazon cheaper. Windjammer was never a wait. Elevators a slight wait after shows. That's one thing about the last few Carnival ships we have been on, was that it felt so crowded.

 

After the pizza we purchased the Soda package. The freestyle machines were very nice. I loved not having a bartender roll his eyes on me when I presented my card with a sticker for soda. AND, there was Diet Dr Pepper. We love our DDP in Oklahoma.

 

Our cabin was 9686 on the port side. Our beds faced the aft side. The balcony was a nice size and the door slid easily. We had a sofa bed for B and then F slept between us. I also requested a mattress topper because of a recent surgery.

 

So here's my BOO/Negative #1:

 

Our room was freaking hot. All the time. It never cooled down to a temperature we were used to. It just always felt humid and maybe 77 ish cranked all the way cold. As if the balcony door was open. FYI the AC won't come on if the balcony door isn't locked. :). We called maintenance and they were like "hmm that's weird maybe tomorrow it'll be better? We can work on it in Nassau." So we just rolled with it in hopes that it would be fixed the next day. Well, it never got any better. Maybe for three hours on night 4. We were pretty disappointed in that. Especially since we were sleeping three across in bed. Maybe I'm just too much of a diva for expecting "cold" to be 72-74? I think what bothered me more was that they brushed it off. When I would walk the decks with the baby at night I heard others talking about their warm rooms as well.

 

Our room steward was okay. She didn't make an effort to talk to us like others have before. Our room was clean and TP was stocked so what more can I ask for? [emoji6] other than climate control! Lol.

 

We then went to sign the kids up for Royal Babies and Tote/ Aquanauts....

 

TBC

 

 

 

 

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Edited October 31, 2016 by JordanLovesCruisin

[frank808]

Funny thing you mention the rooms. One room on the 12th deck would stay relatively warm all week. Our cabinn 9729 was pretty cold with climate control knob in the middle.

Had a great cruise and wish more people showed up at the meet n mingle.

 

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[JordanLovesCruisin]

So we sign the boys up for the AO programs and go ahead and book F's nursery hours for the show times we had pre-booked online. You know, so we could enjoy ourselves and throw back a few.

 

Up until Wednesday, you're allowed to book 16 hours or nursery time. After Wednesday, they open up the bookings again. It's $6/hour until 6 pm and after 6pm it's $8/hour. The facility is clean and very up to date. The staff were all so wonderful with him. When you check the baby in, they ask you what food they can have, if they can have juice, will they take a nap? Etc. they gave us a cute Adventure ocean tote bag with his Name on it to be used as a diaper bag to take back and forth. I kept diapers, wipes, a paci and some formula in there for them to use. They would give me a phone and said they would call if he was unhappy for 15 min or more. They never called me. Whew. He ended up going 6/7 days of our cruise. We dropped him off for dinners and shows. I believe our total babysitting charges were $112 or so. About 2.5-3 hours a day.

 

They also have this play area for kids. I LOVED it, and so did the little ones.

 

It was open 9 am to 10 pm every day for free play. They also had wonderful bathrooms right outside of the play room. They even had baby wipes for you to use. I know it doesn't seem like a big deal, but it's a big deal. It's just one of those little details that really is helpful, and can be quite inexpensive. Just a nice touch.

 

So here's my BOO #2:

 

We went to register B in the Aquanauts program and it asked for us to list any special needs. I wrote his challenges down and explained them to the staff that was on duty. I asked if they could call me if he stated he needed to go to the restroom, or if they would assist him like the RCI rep had talked to me about when I called the special needs department. He flat out told me "nope."

 

Hm. Well that threw a wrench. It's also a pull up free zone. While B has done really well with letting us know when he needed to use the restroom, I wasn't sure if he would let a stranger know. And since I couldn't put him

In a pull up, we were in a pickle. I can understand not wanting to help a newly three year old child use the restroom, or any child. Whether it's liability or what, the Special

Needs department doesn't need to be assuring parents that these special needs children's needs would be accommodated for. Seems like a communication issue. For months, we had shown B pictures of AO to get him familiar with the area to help with transition. And no, we weren't planning on putting him in there all day long. Just for a few dinners or whenever he communicated that he wanted to go play with his camp friends.

 

So, we just made sure that he went RIGHT before we dropped him off. It went great, until night 4. When we picked him up at 9:00, he was crying, as he had an accident and told us nobody would help him. Nobody called us and told us. We picked him up, clearly in soaked shorts and left. After that, he would not go back. He would scream and cry when we would try to drop him off, almost having an anxiety attack. We didn't force the issue, just offered it. And when he would start hysterically crying when we would go by the room to drop F off.

 

Soooo that was the end of AO. I'm not sure what happened that night, but it made me sad that we weren't notified that he had an accident. Sorry, just wanted to get that out there while on the subject.

 

The times B did participate, they were wonderful! He had a great time. I'm just not exactly sure what happened that night. I just wish the communication between SN department and parents and the ships were more consistent.

 

 

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[JordanLovesCruisin]

Funny thing you mention the rooms. One room on the 12th deck would stay relatively warm all week. Our cabinn 9729 was pretty cold with climate control knob in the middle.

Had a great cruise and wish more people showed up at the meet n mingle.

 

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Really? That's so crazy.

 

When was the MNM? I never got an invite and checked the communication board daily.

 

 

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[easyboy]

Enjoying your review. How did the kids react to the A/C problem? I can't imagine how uneasy they can be like my grandkids when in that situation.

 

 

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[JordanLovesCruisin]

Enjoying your review. How did the kids react to the A/C problem? I can't imagine how uneasy they can be like my grandkids when in that situation.

 

 

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Thank you for the kind words! The kids were surprisingly okay with it. It was us parents that were cranky ;). We kept them in just a diaper/pull up at night and nap for sleeping. We tried to only be in our room for sleeping, which was a bummer because we wanted to use the balcony more. But using the balcony made the room feel worse. I'm sure you will have a great time!

 

 

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[reallyitsmema]

Enjoying your review so far. I would make sure to point out the Adventure Ocean problem on your survey and even send off a separate email addressing the issue. The Special Needs information states that there is a potty training exception for kids with special needs. Common sense says that if you are going to allow an exception, that child should be allowed to wear a pullup or diaper. Isn't that the whole point? You must have been so frustrated! I feel so bad for your son, I can understand why he didn't want to go back, but that doesn't give you any adult time.

[easyboy]

Thank you for the kind words! The kids were surprisingly okay with it. It was us parents that were cranky ;). We kept them in just a diaper/pull up at night and nap for sleeping. We tried to only be in our room for sleeping, which was a bummer because we wanted to use the balcony more. But using the balcony made the room feel worse. I'm sure you will have a great time!

 

 

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Nice to know the kids weren't affected. Will be following along.

 

 

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[flczr]

My wife and I were on the same cruise. I agree it is an great ship. I don't think we saw everything. In the beginning the food in Icon was so-so it did improve later in the week. We were not impressed with CHOPS in fact Judy said the steak she had the night before in the dining room was better. We were in 14249 overlooking Centeral Park the first two nights our cabin door didn't seal completely and howled like a banshee.

 

The negatives out of the way. The shows were fantastic and well done. The roast beef sandwiches were as everyone else has said tasty. As were the hot dogs. The jazz band that popped up around the ship were true professionals. We were lucky in catching a truly spontaneous moment when one of our fellow travelers started dancing to the band when it was on Boardwalk.

 

Our favorite spot was sitting in Central Park after dinner watching people.

[JordanLovesCruisin]

My wife and I were on the same cruise. I agree it is an great ship. I don't think we saw everything. In the beginning the food in Icon was so-so it did improve later in the week. We were not impressed with CHOPS in fact Judy said the steak she had the night before in the dining room was better. We were in 14249 overlooking Centeral Park the first two nights our cabin door didn't seal completely and howled like a banshee.

 

The negatives out of the way. The shows were fantastic and well done. The roast beef sandwiches were as everyone else has said tasty. As were the hot dogs. The jazz band that popped up around the ship were true professionals. We were lucky in catching a truly spontaneous moment when one of our fellow travelers started dancing to the band when it was on Boardwalk.

 

Our favorite spot was sitting in Central Park after dinner watching people.

 

Chops wasn't worth $42 a person IMO. Totally agree. Central Park was so peaceful at night. Glad you guys had a great time!

[JordanLovesCruisin]

Sorry, yall. Life caught up with me now that we are home. BOO.

 

After signing the boys up for "Camp", we went to scope out our table. We were #625 in the Grande Dining Room. I was slightly nervous that we would be put at a large table that hated children. We were relieved to find that it was a table for four tucked away from the main drag of the MDR. It was right next to a window on the port side. We were pleased!

 

We went to our room and it's a room. It's tight. We requested a mattress topper and it was on the bed. I do wish it had better storage options. like, putting the space to sit in front of the mirror over to make three large drawers/cabinets for clothes, rather than two separate, small compartments. We had two car seats with us and three suitcases. The car seats fit in the closet with a suitcase and the other two suitcases slid under the bed. We had a room with a sofa bed for B. F slept between us.

 

Our muster station was at the Aqua Theatre which B thought was SO NEAT.

They made the muster video as "cute" as can be.

 

After that, we put the boys down for a quick nap and then got ready for dinner.

 

I couldn't tell you our waiter's name. Or the Assistant. I really couldn't. They were horrible. I do not like to complain, and I am REALLY easy to please. I was so thrilled to be on this ship. But the MDR service was the worst I have had in 12 cruises.

 

Issues we had:

 

1. Never asked us our names or wanted to chat. Okay, fine. Maybe the waiters aren't like Carnival's and dont care to know your name or where you're from?

 

2. SLOOOOOW service. Our waiter had 4- four person tables. The three nights we went there was only us and another family that showed up. IMO there is no excuse for the service to be that slow for 8 people.

 

3. Biggest issue- Our waiter/asst would disappear. Nobody filled up our water glasses. They filled them up at the beginning and then would never bother to fill them up again. We got smart and started filling up the children's glasses so we could have two glasses of water.

 

4. Two out of the three nights we had to send food back. The first night, my husband asked for ranch on his salad. When asked if he could have ranch, the waiter said of course. It came out with a raspberry vinaigrette. He's allergic to raspberries. The third night, we ordered our steaks Medium and they came out super bloody.

 

5. My son would ask for milk with dinner. The first night we asked him if that would be okay, to have milk with his dinner. He rolled his eyes and said "sure". The next two nights, we would ask for milk and he would say yes, then never bring it.

 

6. The Head Waiter never came to talk to us. He skipped over our table the first two nights. He seriously went to every table but ours in the area and asked how the food was, how their day was, etc. On Wednesday, we were fed up. He came by and asked how we were enjoying Grande. I said "honestly?"

 

"of course"

 

"honestly, we are very disappointed. our food is coming out incorrectly, our drinks are not being taken care of, and we never see our waiter. Service is taking two hours and it has now been 25 minutes since we ordered dessert."

 

So, he brought out a "peace offering" of whipped cream with a strawberry on top with our desserts. That warm chocolate cake and creme brulee? They were cold. We left. I went to GS and complained. This was on night 4. We decided we weren't going back.

 

So, anyways, after the first night of crappy experience, we decided to take the Chops hostess up on that $85/pp 3 specialty restaurant plan. We booked Chops for Tuesday, Giovanni's for Thursday, and the Brazillian Steakhouse for Saturday. We decided to do JR on Friday.

 

After dinner, we realized "holy crap. there's no welcome aboard show!" Is this a new thing? An Oasis class thing? It made us super sad because that's what "sets the cruise off" for us. Like, our tradition is to have a cocktail during the welcome aboard show.

 

That night, we sent B to camp from 745-9 and went to have a drink at the bar. Nothing too exciting. We walked the ship and just soaked it all in. I can't stress it enough, they put so much detail into this beauty.

 

NEXT UP: NASSAU