Surviving 2,000+ kids on Allure (Western Spring Break)

[h20skibum]

As James Bond once said Never Say Never Again.

 

 

I debated doing this short trip report, but since I have been doing some lately, I didn’t want to leave a gap in my cruises. Plus, I can load up the report with all those Cruise Compasses that no one reads, but at least the information in them will be almost as useful as what shows up on the app. Anyhow, a little iMovie preview before I get to the report. (Don’t be critical, I am an old person struggling with technology)

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[KuffMUp]

Fantastic start!!!

[L1211]

Love your preview movie!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[queenfrostine22]

I love it! That is movie quality stuff you got there!

[toyman55]

Soliae is a Celebrity ship so I don't think you will find it here. Great intro. Hopefully won't be so bad in September, I hope.

Edited April 12, 2018 by toyman55
typo

[Disnyfan2]

i love you movie. you will need to teach everyone how you did it.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[cruisingnay]

You're a brave soul. Love the movie and can't wait for more!

[champagne123]

OMG....that was INCREDIBLE !!!!!

[tabby50894]

Fantastic! I laughed. I cried.

 

You may have missed your calling - but it's not too late!

[RCLcruiser2012]

Oh my goodness!! This is awesome!! Cant wait for more!!

[chee7]

Bravo!!!!!

[twinmommy08]

Man! I wish I had your skill set! That was awesome

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[h20skibum]

Thanks to everyone who commented on my little movie intro attempt. It is actually not that hard to do. I remember years ago when I got my first video camera, and it looked something like this.

 

 

Hmmm. That does look a little like me in the picture. Back then I made a rudimentary box that I could connect a stereo system to the VCR to overlay a music track to the videos, and use printed title boards to assemble some home movies. I was surprised I still had that old box laying around.

 

 

Apple has made doing videos, like the one I posted, very easy. The technology to do these things has come a long way. All the photos and videos I took on this trip were with an iPhone 6S. I did take my Nikon megazoom camera along, but it never made it out of my carryon bag.

 

The little video was made with iMovie by Apple. I am not sure if it is still a free download, but it was when I got it. There are several templates to make your own movie trailer (which is what I used for this one), and there are others for making longer movies. It is just a matter of changing titles, lead in captions, and dropping in photos and video clips to make the trailer.

 

One of the Roll Call members from our cruise to Hawaii last year posted a link on my review to a long video he made of that cruise. That got me interested to see what I could do, so I made a brief video of sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge at the end of that cruise. ( If anyone is interested, a link to that review can be found by expanding my signature. That way, you can find my very first attempt.) I had to set up a YouTube account to be able to link the video, but that is all I use it for.

 

But enough about that, on to the intro.

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[h20skibum]

Soliae is a Celebrity ship so I don't think you will find it here. Great intro. Hopefully won't be so bad in September, I hope.

 

 

 

I think that is the Solstice, but I hate spell check too. When you said you hoped it wouldn’t be so bad in September, I thought, “Wait, my Harmony cruise is not till November”.

 

Then I thought, “Ah, senior moment, your it is your cruise in September.” Hope you enjoy your cruise.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[h20skibum]

I will start with a little bit about us. DW and I are 60 something’s, but we are very active and still enjoy doing all the activities that the Oasis class ships have to offer. We usually exercise every day, averaging 8 to 10 miles. Of course, sometimes I get a little crazy to see how many miles I can do in a day.

 

 

For those who aren’t math majors, that is around 10 hours to do 39+ miles. For those that are, that’s 10 hours and one minute. On the ship, we never use the elevators, except for disembarkation when we do a walk off with our luggage.

 

I would not classify us as Loyal to Royal, but we do have our next three cruises booked with them. We have also sailed Princess, Celebrity, NCL, and Carnival.

 

You may think the Never Say Never Again reference may be related to all the kids that were onboard, but it is not. It is related to one of those most luxurious of cabins, also known as a Central Park balcony. In a review I did of our trip on Oasis, I made a comment that I may not book a CP balcony again. I not only booked one for this cruise, I booked the exact same cabin number (12203) as we had on the Oasis. It is not immediately under the pool deck, but it is under one of the pools so there is not a cabin above us. It is remarkably quiet with the balcony door closed.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[h20skibum]

We booked this cruise about 9 months out, and used one of our last remaining future cruise credits that we had purchased onboard. It was one of those that you only had to put $100 down, you didn’t need to select a specific sailing, and you would get $100 OBC. I wish they still had those. We were looking for a week we would be able to sail, and DW says “This is the only week we will be able to get away in the spring.”

 

Me: “You know that is spring break, and the ship will be filled with kids.”

 

Her: “Oh, it won’t be too bad. It is a big ship, so we probably won’t even notice them.”

 

And here I am remembering the pool from the last spring break cruise.

 

 

So our plans were made.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[h20skibum]

We made all our entertainment bookings as soon as they came out, then it was just a wait to do the online check in and print the setsail passes.

 

When we checked in, we saw they made some things similar to the Harmony check in process. We uploaded our photos (the same ones we used for our passport renewal so we knew they would meet their requirements), and selected an 11:30 appointment time. Attached to the setsail pass was a page that described the new check in process.

 

 

It talked about downloading Royal IQ, tracking your luggage with RFID tags, and using your seapass in a slot to turn your lights on. Well, in the terms of the day, “All Fake News.” None of those things are used on the Allure. The Allure uses the Royal Caribbean app, and this is what I used for reference in some of my planning.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[nelblu]

As James Bond once said Never Say Never Again.

 

 

I debated doing this short trip report, but since I have been doing some lately, I didn’t want to leave a gap in my cruises. Plus, I can load up the report with all those Cruise Compasses that no one reads, but at least the information in them will be almost as useful as what shows up on the app. Anyhow, a little iMovie preview before I get to the report. (Don’t be critical, I am an old person struggling with technology)

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

 

I SURVIVED THE 2000 KIDS on our Easter week Allure.

 

Ps. Had 3 of them with us and had they :Da great time in the D Lounge.

[SG65CB]

How do you survive 2,000 kids? Hide out in the solarium and the casino? Sleep during the day and use the pool at night after 1 a.m. curfew for the kiddies?

[nelblu]

How do you survive 2,000 kids? Hide out in the solarium and the casino? Sleep during the day and use the pool at night after 1 a.m. curfew for the kiddies?

 

Many were well behaved. There was a few who loved to ring the door bell to suites on the 12th deck and then scatter. I could hear them running in the corridor at about 1:30 am. Must be new as in prior cruises it was the elevator buttons.

 

Most, seemed well behaved. The ship was totally sold out, but other than the Character Parade, Captain's Night, embarkation/disembarkation, and those silly sales, it never seemed overly crowded.

[h20skibum]

I SURVIVED THE 2000 KIDS on our Easter week Allure.

 

 

 

Ps. Had 3 of them with us and had they :Da great time in the D Lounge.

 

 

 

That’s great. Let me just say, that I have nothing against kids on a cruise. I was a kid once, and had kids and now grandkids. DW says many times I act like a kid. I am not that old guy that yells “Hey kid, get off my lawn.” At least not yet. I think it is great that families can travel and enjoy these experiences together.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[h20skibum]

How do you survive 2,000 kids? Hide out in the solarium and the casino? Sleep during the day and use the pool at night after 1 a.m. curfew for the kiddies?

 

 

 

As nelblu said, most of the kids we saw were well behaved. Since we never use elevators, I don’t know if there were issues there. We did see some racing up and down the staircases, but we were quick enough to get out of the way. Some people may be on the same sailing and have a totally different experience.

 

I was surprised at the number of free range kids there were, especially in the 6-8 year old category. It looked like they were able to navigate the ship on their own better than some older passengers.

 

We did have a few kids in the under 16 range that were in the hot tubs just outside the solarium. These are the ones that are restricted to age 16 and up. Only once was there a little splashing going on.

 

You can always find someplace that is not too crowded. It just may not be at the pool or pool deck.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[Russ Lomas]

We booked this cruise about 9 months out, and used one of our last remaining future cruise credits that we had purchased onboard. It was one of those that you only had to put $100 down, you didn’t need to select a specific sailing, and you would get $100 OBC. I wish they still had those. We were looking for a week we would be able to sail, and DW says “This is the only week we will be able to get away in the spring.”

 

And here I am remembering the pool from the last spring break cruise.

 

That photo looks just like our 5 day cruise on the Navigator this past March. We had NEVER seen that many college aged students before. They said there was only 130 kids on our entire cruise and that was our March break week. They combined all the kids clubs into one single group since there were so few kids.

 

As for the old $100 open sailing deposits...I miss them so much. We only had to pay $63 Canadian (like $1.97 US I think now) for each certificate. Only got one of those left. They were one way that I always had some RCCL cruises booked. Now having to pay that full deposit for cruises 2 years in advance, I have started looking at other cruise lines and booking with them when they offer their reduced deposits on refundable cruises.

[h20skibum]

I was glad I completed the online check in and printed all my documents before the “New and Improved” website went live. After several failed attempts to log in, and calls to RCI, I was finally able to log in to the new site. I wanted to make reservations for a specialty restaurant, using some of my OBC, and received this error message.

 

 

What do you mean, payment error, I am using OBC!!! So I try again, and get tossed to the Customer Support Page with the “error locking the cruise reservation message”.

 

 

On the phone to RCI again to get the specialty restaurant booked, and they sent me an email confirmation. (Note to self: Make sure to bring confirmation in case they screwed things up)

 

So now that I can log in to the new site, I thought I would check my cruise document information. Uh oh, not a good sign.

 

 

Maybe I can just fill these in at the pier. Guess there is still some growing pains to the site. Now I am starting to hate the new site.

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[h20skibum]

After all of this, I decide to just stay off the site until after this cruise is finished. Then, 71 hours before sailing, RCI sends out this email.

 

 

Why do you send out an email that says be sure to check in at least 72 hours ahead at 71 hours? I couldn’t resist checking.

 

 

Sure enough, reservations are locked by then. Oh well, think positive. Things will be great.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums