Returned from the Allure and it was AMAZING!

[jp2746]

I just wanted to say that we returned a couple of weeks ago and it was the most amazing vacation ever!  I am not good at doing reviews but I will mention what stood out to us.

 

Embarking was almost too easy.  Basically we gave our luggage to the men outside, walked in and showed our passport, and we were on.  The rooms were ready at exactly 1:00 pm.  Our luggage was at our door by 3:00 or 4:00.  

 

The shows were so good!  We loved Mama Mia.  The only thing I would mention is that I researched to see if it was kid friendly. I would say for the most part it is okay.  There were some things that went over our kids head.  However, there are two scenes where a girl is laying on a guy.  The second of these scenes, the man is unbuttoning his pants quickly when someone walks up and catches them.  Just a heads up in case you were wondering what kind of explaining you may have to do.  

 

The diving show was so good that my kids (even my 20 year old) saw it several times.  We also saw the ice show a couple of times.  We didn't love Blue Planet.  My kids thought there was too much singing.  Mo5aic was the headliner and we really enjoyed their performance.  There was a parade that was a lot of fun the last night. And the family comedians were hilarious!  It was so much fun every night to dress up, have a nice dinner and go to a show afterwards.  Royal Caribbean has really made family time so much fun on the boat.

 

The food was wonderful and there was plenty.  In fact, there was so much that we didn't get to try everything.  There was only so much time and belly space.  But we managed to pack quite a bit in. :)  We tried the roast beef sandwiches in Park Cafe that were really, really good.  It doesn't seem like the same roast beef that they use in the other venues.  We only ate at the MDR for dinner and lunch and we had a wonderful time.  Our servers Rolando and Fernand were so fun and Isiah came over and did magic tricks.  We really enjoyed the food and very rarely had something that we didn't like.  At lunch, we ate in the MDR on sea days.  It was better than dinner.  I thought that the Tutti bar would be a regular salad bar... nope.  It was so good. The two days we went there was a build your own pasta bar where they cooked shrimp or whatever you wanted with the sauce of your choice.  It was so yummy. We made the mistake the first time of ordering off the menu and then looking at the Tutti bar.  The next time we just ordered desert and an appetizer off the menu.  Overall, I would give the food an A.  We ate so much that by dinner the last day we felt like we couldn't squeeze another bite into our mouth.  However, we managed to squeeze a couple of appetizers, a main course and two desserts in at dinner.  lol

 

We had a Boardwalk balcony room.  It was small but there were only two of us per room, so it worked.  I can't see four staying in a room that size. You really  wouldn't have room for your luggage and people.  We didn't find it to be noisy at night, but we were up until about 11 every night and that was when most activity on the Boardwalk died down. We did get the drink package as part of our room and enjoyed that when it worked.  It seemed that there was always a problem with our cup, but that wasn't a big deal to us.

 

The ports were okay.  We went to Jamaica and didn't really love it.  We hired Courtney tours for a trip to Doctor's Beach and asked them to take us to a store where we could see some local foods instead of to a restaurant which was in our tour.  They took us to a place and they totally ripped us off.  My sister was going to buy a bag of pretzels and it cost $9.  Since they had just told us that this was about the weekly income for a person on the island, we figured that most people in Jamaica do not pay that for a bag of pretzels.  It changed the way we look at Jamaica and we have no desire to go there again.  Yes, we were offered drugs and a "message". We went to a private beach, but the drug dealers just waited until you got close the the boundary of the private beach.  We also went to Labadee and Cozumel.  Both were also okay.  Labadee was nice because everything was included and no one tried to get $20 to rent a chair.   I think the ship just made it so much fun that the ports were just beach days for us.  We were limited because my FIL has mobility issues, so maybe there were more exciting things at the ports that we missed.

 

Getting off the boat was smooth except for a problem on our end.  My sister left her passport in her room and remembered at the last minute.  We had to get a security person to go to the room and get it.  I was a little nervous about the time because we had a plane to catch at 10:15 at FLL.  But we were at the airport in plenty of time for our flight.  We decided to take a cab over Uber because it was easier to just walk over to one of the cabs lined up.  It only cost $14 plus a tip for four of us to get to the airport.  That was about what it would have cost for Uber.  But with self embarking at 7:00, we were off the boat by 7:10.  

 

Overall, we had such a great time that we can't wait to go back.  The only unfortunate part is that we are spoiled now and RC has really raised prices!  It's so expensive to go on an Oasis class ship.  But I am trying to make it work.  

 

If you have any questions, I am happy to answer them.  We were just a regular family, no pinnacle or diamond.  Just a passenger with no benefits.  But, we had a blast.  The crew was amazing and I would highly recommend the Allure.

 

[Hammergirl]

I am so happy to see this review. We are headed on her in October and I cannot wait! We have sailed Oasis and Harmony so I am anxious to try Allure!

[drrich2]

Glad you had a great time! I've been off it a week, so I guess I was on the week after you. Impressions on some things vary - as far as kid friendly, I heard God's name taken in vain 3 times, 1 'bastard' and 1 'ass' early in Mamma Mia and we left. Blue Planet was indeed a musical production, but enough athletic 'running around' to keep our daughter happy, and the prop.s/costumes kept it interesting. And I was surprised how much we enjoyed Labadee! 

 

Did you have a good view of the Aqua Theater show Ocean Aria from your Boardwalk balcony stateroom? I imagine that'd be a treat; we watched it, then our daughter and I saw it again.

 

We were interior stateroom - yeah, cost is a thing!

[Waterluv]

I’m glad you enjoyed the trip overall. I was surprised to read about your experience with Courtney Taylor Tours he was absolutely wonderful the 2 times we have used his services. Courtney is part of the reason we enjoyed our stop in Jamaica so much 🤗

[Setting Sail Gal]

3 hours ago, jp2746 said:

 

Overall, we had such a great time that we can't wait to go back.  The only unfortunate part is that we are spoiled now and RC has really raised prices!  It's so expensive to go on an Oasis class ship.  But I am trying to make it work. 

 

Thank you for sharing your experience on the Allure.  I am so excited to go in December. I understand your pain when it comes to expenses as I travel solo so I pay for two people.  The key I have found is to book early.....very early.  As soon as December 2020 was published I booked my rooms for B2B cruises on the Oasis.  So my cruise planner has a cruise only 113 days away and two that are over 500. Best price is always early.  Good luck and I hope to run into you on board someday.

[Esprit]

Another positive Allure review. Thank you.

There will be 11 of us on board for a B2B in October. My last experience of RCCL ten years ago wasn't great so I'm apprehensive.

[nalatrixie74]

do you recall if drink cards were offered?

[Judyrem]

Excellent enthusiastic fun review!  I loved the Oasis class and I am I think I am spoiled for other ships!

I am going with my friend on Allure this Sunday and once again in Sept.  

 

It's a milestone birthday year🤩 and I treated myself.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Judyrem

[cruisegirl1976]

Thank you for your review.. looking forward to sailing on the Allure.

[A boat named Jenny 1]

15 hours ago, jp2746 said:

I just wanted to say that we returned a couple of weeks ago and it was the most amazing vacation ever!  I am not good at doing reviews but I will mention what stood out to us.

 

Embarking was almost too easy.  Basically we gave our luggage to the men outside, walked in and showed our passport, and we were on.  The rooms were ready at exactly 1:00 pm.  Our luggage was at our door by 3:00 or 4:00.  

 

The shows were so good!  We loved Mama Mia.  The only thing I would mention is that I researched to see if it was kid friendly. I would say for the most part it is okay.  There were some things that went over our kids head.  However, there are two scenes where a girl is laying on a guy.  The second of these scenes, the man is unbuttoning his pants quickly when someone walks up and catches them.  Just a heads up in case you were wondering what kind of explaining you may have to do.  

 

The diving show was so good that my kids (even my 20 year old) saw it several times.  We also saw the ice show a couple of times.  We didn't love Blue Planet.  My kids thought there was too much singing.  Mo5aic was the headliner and we really enjoyed their performance.  There was a parade that was a lot of fun the last night. And the family comedians were hilarious!  It was so much fun every night to dress up, have a nice dinner and go to a show afterwards.  Royal Caribbean has really made family time so much fun on the boat.

 

The food was wonderful and there was plenty.  In fact, there was so much that we didn't get to try everything.  There was only so much time and belly space.  But we managed to pack quite a bit in. :)  We tried the roast beef sandwiches in Park Cafe that were really, really good.  It doesn't seem like the same roast beef that they use in the other venues.  We only ate at the MDR for dinner and lunch and we had a wonderful time.  Our servers Rolando and Fernand were so fun and Isiah came over and did magic tricks.  We really enjoyed the food and very rarely had something that we didn't like.  At lunch, we ate in the MDR on sea days.  It was better than dinner.  I thought that the Tutti bar would be a regular salad bar... nope.  It was so good. The two days we went there was a build your own pasta bar where they cooked shrimp or whatever you wanted with the sauce of your choice.  It was so yummy. We made the mistake the first time of ordering off the menu and then looking at the Tutti bar.  The next time we just ordered desert and an appetizer off the menu.  Overall, I would give the food an A.  We ate so much that by dinner the last day we felt like we couldn't squeeze another bite into our mouth.  However, we managed to squeeze a couple of appetizers, a main course and two desserts in at dinner.  lol

 

We had a Boardwalk balcony room.  It was small but there were only two of us per room, so it worked.  I can't see four staying in a room that size. You really  wouldn't have room for your luggage and people.  We didn't find it to be noisy at night, but we were up until about 11 every night and that was when most activity on the Boardwalk died down. We did get the drink package as part of our room and enjoyed that when it worked.  It seemed that there was always a problem with our cup, but that wasn't a big deal to us.

 

The ports were okay.  We went to Jamaica and didn't really love it.  We hired Courtney tours for a trip to Doctor's Beach and asked them to take us to a store where we could see some local foods instead of to a restaurant which was in our tour.  They took us to a place and they totally ripped us off.  My sister was going to buy a bag of pretzels and it cost $9.  Since they had just told us that this was about the weekly income for a person on the island, we figured that most people in Jamaica do not pay that for a bag of pretzels.  It changed the way we look at Jamaica and we have no desire to go there again.  Yes, we were offered drugs and a "message". We went to a private beach, but the drug dealers just waited until you got close the the boundary of the private beach.  We also went to Labadee and Cozumel.  Both were also okay.  Labadee was nice because everything was included and no one tried to get $20 to rent a chair.   I think the ship just made it so much fun that the ports were just beach days for us.  We were limited because my FIL has mobility issues, so maybe there were more exciting things at the ports that we missed.

 

Getting off the boat was smooth except for a problem on our end.  My sister left her passport in her room and remembered at the last minute.  We had to get a security person to go to the room and get it.  I was a little nervous about the time because we had a plane to catch at 10:15 at FLL.  But we were at the airport in plenty of time for our flight.  We decided to take a cab over Uber because it was easier to just walk over to one of the cabs lined up.  It only cost $14 plus a tip for four of us to get to the airport.  That was about what it would have cost for Uber.  But with self embarking at 7:00, we were off the boat by 7:10.  

 

Overall, we had such a great time that we can't wait to go back.  The only unfortunate part is that we are spoiled now and RC has really raised prices!  It's so expensive to go on an Oasis class ship.  But I am trying to make it work.  

 

If you have any questions, I am happy to answer them.  We were just a regular family, no pinnacle or diamond.  Just a passenger with no benefits.  But, we had a blast.  The crew was amazing and I would highly recommend the Allure.

 

What were your thoughts on Cozumel?  We haven't been there in about 4 - 5 years.  But it will be one of our stops in Dec on Allure.

Thank you!

[jp2746]

14 hours ago, drrich2 said:

Glad you had a great time! I've been off it a week, so I guess I was on the week after you. Impressions on some things vary - as far as kid friendly, I heard God's name taken in vain 3 times, 1 'bastard' and 1 'ass' early in Mamma Mia and we left. Blue Planet was indeed a musical production, but enough athletic 'running around' to keep our daughter happy, and the prop.s/costumes kept it interesting. And I was surprised how much we enjoyed Labadee! 

 

Did you have a good view of the Aqua Theater show Ocean Aria from your Boardwalk balcony stateroom? I imagine that'd be a treat; we watched it, then our daughter and I saw it again.

 

We were interior stateroom - yeah, cost is a thing!

To put things into perspective, our youngest is 13.  So language is a concern, but unfortunately he hears the same stuff at sports games and practices.  Also, we were sitting high up and at the back of the theater since my FIL is in a wheelchair.  Because of that, we could not always hear exactly what they were saying.  However, I do remember hearing "bastard" but we couldn't hear it that well and I don't think that is a word he has heard before.  Since he is a 13 year old boy, sexual content is always a concern and this did seem to have a lot.  In all honesty, I had my husband take him to play mini golf at intermission because there was so much in the first half that I couldn't really enjoy it with him there.  I kept waiting to see what would happen.  I think 13 and up would be okay, but I was uncomfortable and wanted to enjoy the play.  He was ready to leave by that time anyway.  I thought it was REALLY good. But I also thought that they could have cleaned it up just a bit.  It would not have taken away from the show and it would have made it much more enjoyable for parents IMO.  I'm sure a lot of people would disagree though.  

 

We did have a good view of the water show from our balcony, but my son insisted that we go down and watch it from the rock climbing wall balcony.  I guess the view wasn't good enough for him but I thought it was great.  

 

I also enjoyed Labadee.  However, I had some bad news that day about the sudden death of my 23 year old nephew.  They had been trying to reach me for a couple of days but we had our phones off on the ship.  That put a damper on the vacation and especially Labadee since that is where I learned of the death.  Everyone loved Labadee though.

 

4 hours ago, nalatrixie74 said:

do you recall if drink cards were offered?

Yes, drink cards were offered but for coffee only.  

 

6 hours ago, Esprit said:

Another positive Allure review. Thank you.

There will be 11 of us on board for a B2B in October. My last experience of RCCL ten years ago wasn't great so I'm apprehensive.

The last RC cruise we were on was the Adventure.  We tried Carnival last year and it just wasn't for us.  We felt that it was geared more toward leaving your kids in the kids camps and letting the adults have fun.  I get that but we go on cruises for family time.  So, we will be sticking to RC.  The Allure had so much to do with family that we couldn't do it all and want to go back!  I am jealous of people going on back to back.  There was a family there that were doing three b2b cruises.  I gained seven pounds in a week so I'm not sure three b2b cruises would be a good idea for me.  lol

 

12 hours ago, Waterluv said:

I’m glad you enjoyed the trip overall. I was surprised to read about your experience with Courtney Taylor Tours he was absolutely wonderful the 2 times we have used his services. Courtney is part of the reason we enjoyed our stop in Jamaica so much 🤗

 

Yes, I had researched so much before this trip to make sure we had a good, safe time.  I was so disappointed that the excursion ended the way it did because that is what made the biggest impression in Jamaica.  There was a lady and man driving us and the lady said that she always shops at this place when she is in Montego Bay to grocery shop.  That was impossible because all they had were t-shirts, coffee and spices.  It was an obvious tourist trap.  When we were in Honduras last year, we asked our driver to take us somewhere so that we can get some local foods to take home.  He took us to a grocery store and pointed out all the things that are made in Honduras.  It was so much fun and we brought back a lot of good spices, vanilla, coffee and banana ketchup.   That is what I asked them to do and they took us to a tourist store.  My sister was very flustered because the credit card company initially declined her credit card because it was a large purchase and she did not tell them she was going out of the country.  Because she was stressed they were able to charge her $15 for a small bottle of after sun aloe that you can get at the $1 store without her realizing it.  But at least she caught the pretzels before she paid.  

 

15 hours ago, Hammergirl said:

I am so happy to see this review. We are headed on her in October and I cannot wait! We have sailed Oasis and Harmony so I am anxious to try Allure!

 

How did you like Oasis?  We are looking at that one for next year after it is in dry dock.  It looks like they are adding some fun stuff.

 

I'm not sure how Allure compares with Harmony but we really loved it!  Have fun!

[jp2746]

24 minutes ago, A boat named Jenny 1 said:

What were your thoughts on Cozumel?  We haven't been there in about 4 - 5 years.  But it will be one of our stops in Dec on Allure.

Thank you!

 

This was our second time in Cozumel and both times we went to Paradise Beach.  The kids really enjoyed it there.  I'm sure there are a lot of fun things to do in Cozumel but since my FIL is in a wheelchair, we were limited to what we could do.  If you are looking for a beach day Paradise Beach if fun for kids.  Make sure you go to the shopping seminar on the boat.  They give you a coupon for a free bag at Del Sol which is really nice!

[lovelife]

So good to see a glowing review of my favorite ship.  Have sailed her 11 times -- that's how much I love her! 🥰

[Hammergirl]

8 hours ago, jp2746 said:

 

How did you like Oasis?  We are looking at that one for next year after it is in dry dock.  It looks like they are adding some fun stuff.

 

I'm not sure how Allure compares with Harmony but we really loved it!  Have fun!

We liked Oasis, but liked the shows on Harmony better. It is just my husband and I this time on Allure, so we don't need all the bells and whistles that Harmony has. I have heard the most positive about Allure and it seems that everyone loves it. 

[jp2746]

4 hours ago, lovelife said:

So good to see a glowing review of my favorite ship.  Have sailed her 11 times -- that's how much I love her! 🥰

I’m so sad that they are sending her to Europe.  That trip would be too rich for my pocketbook. 😢. If she was still in Florida we would go on her again this summer. My FIL can’t stop talking about how much fun he had. 😊 

[lovelife]

1 minute ago, jp2746 said:

I’m so sad that they are sending her to Europe.  That trip would be too rich for my pocketbook. 😢. If she was still in Florida we would go on her again this summer. My FIL can’t stop talking about how much fun he had. 😊 

 

She'll be back!  You must also try Symphony - simply outstanding in all respects!

[puppycanducruise]

Thanks for taking the time to post your comments.

Glad you enjoyed your cruise.

[jp2746]

1 minute ago, lovelife said:

 

She'll be back!  You must also try Symphony - simply outstanding in all respects!

 It's soooo stinking expensive in the summer!  My sister does not want to take her kids out of school and I completely get that since her son is a senior, but we just can't afford summer prices on the Symphony with 8! I am dying to go though.  Even if we have to share a teeny, tiny interior room to make it work!