Just Back from Allure 8 day Southern Caribbean-thoughts

[Big_G]

On 6/7/2022 at 10:02 PM, topnole said:

I suspect a lot of folks are spreading it without coughing. Just normal breathing.   I think we all have high sensitivity to coughing being Covid, but is it?  

 

On the flight home from our May sailing we thought we were doomed. A guy in our row and a guy behind us were coughing incessantly. The guy in our row wore a mask but the guy behind wasn't. If I used the armrest I could feel is breath hit my arm when he coughed. We both tested before going back to work and were negative. Not even a cold that week. 

[topnole]

On 6/8/2022 at 9:34 AM, Itchy&Scratchy said:

DS will be back in school later this summer, so we can only cruise during school breaks and only about a couple of times a year. Plus, it gets a bit more hurricane-y closer to August in the Caribbean (and that's where we like to cruise). At least we had a fantastic weather on this sailing and didn't even get affected by the tropical storm on the way back.

 

P.S. And I am still hoping that DS will not get it. He tested negative yesterday, and if all goes well - I hope to keep him that way.

Hurricane season starts in June and ends in December.  Of course more chance in the middle of those months.  

[bucfan2]

1 hour ago, topnole said:

Hurricane season starts in June and ends in December.  Of course more chance in the middle of those months.  

IMO…Cruising is best place to be during a hurricane….avoids having to evacuate (ships obviously avoid the storm).

[Itchy&Scratchy]

37 minutes ago, bucfan2 said:

IMO…Cruising is best place to be during a hurricane….avoids having to evacuate (ships obviously avoid the storm).

Atlanta doesn't really have many of those "hurricane evacuation" moments... But many of our FL vacations in August were completely spoiled by the storms.

[topnole]

2 hours ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

Atlanta doesn't really have many of those "hurricane evacuation" moments... But many of our FL vacations in August were completely spoiled by the storms.

 

Last year the first one hit in late June/early July.   Last week we had our first potential scare of this season.   

[DakotaDisneyLover]

On 6/7/2022 at 8:48 PM, Itchy&Scratchy said:

Thank you!

 

we wore masks in the taxis (drivers didn't cough) and stayed away from the other people on the islands, so chances are - it was on the ship. Plus, the last port day was on Thursday, and with the current variant people usually become symptomatic in a couple of days, or so I've read. I am thinking - most likely the Mamma Mia performance, because it was 2.5 hours long and a lot of people were coughing around us. We sat in the last row during all of the theater and ice shows. Who knows... However, I was a bit shocked that the OceanAria captain called for the crowd to yell loudly and repeatedly. Not the brightest idea, even though it was outside. If I had known he was going to do that, we would have sat in the last row as well.

 

Basically, we took all of the possible precautions, but they weren't enough, because nobody else was taking the same precautions. And with the current variant being very contagious - it was pretty much a given. May have as well not taken any precautions and ended up with covid much sooner - during the cruise instead of becoming symptomatic the day after disembarkation.

 

Yes, we usually figure at least an hour in MDR - in our experience one hour is super speedy, but we are fine with 1.5 hours or more, especially for a larger party.

First of all, I wish you a speedy recovery. 

 

Just saying, there is absolutely no way you can pinpoint where you contracted Covid.  My husband recently got Covid for the very first time.  We, along with our adult son, took a 5.5 hour road trip overnight.  We stayed in a hotel room, etc.  Two days after getting home hubby started feeling crappy, and tested positive the next morning.  Son and I never got it, even after 11 hours in the car together and hanging out up until hubby tested.  It's a crazy thing.

 

I would imagine your previous cruise sailed at much less capacity.

 

13 of us will be on the Allure in August, and the ship appears near capacity.  Fingers crossed we will all remain healthy!

[SUSIEK]

On 6/6/2022 at 11:59 AM, eabplus2 said:

Thanks for the information. We are sailing on July 9th. We have MTD. What times are early and late dining?

 

We sailed on May 28th and did have MTD.  We did make reservations each night that we planned on being there....6:30pm.  We did not find the "reservations" line to be bad.  When we came out.... the lines were.  That would have been around 8pm.  

 

Also, I did not notice anyone coughing excessively on our sailing.  There were 6  of us.  No one got sick.  We did not mask.  We did avoid over crowded elevators.  However, that wasn't a problem.  So many elevators.  Most of the time it was just us!       Happy Sailing!!!!

Edited June 10, 2022 by SUSIEK

[momtogo]

On 6/6/2022 at 11:59 AM, eabplus2 said:

Thanks for the information. We are sailing on July 9th. We have MTD. What times are early and late dining?

 

We're on July 9th too, I just hung up from customer service to switch from MTD to the early seating.  Early is 5:15 pm and late is 8:00 pm. Only the early seating is still available. We were on Mariner in April and saw extremely long lines of people waiting for MTD, I can't imagine how bad it will be on a ship as big as Allure.

[homedepot124]

3 hours ago, momtogo said:

We're on July 9th too, I just hung up from customer service to switch from MTD to the early seating.  Early is 5:15 pm and late is 8:00 pm. Only the early seating is still available. We were on Mariner in April and saw extremely long lines of people waiting for MTD, I can't imagine how bad it will be on a ship as big as Allure.

We were on Allure in May and had MTD.  We had a reservation at 7:00PM each night and never waited in line more than 10-15 minutes.  They key was having a reservation.  People without reservations were checked in but then had to wait for a table. 

[Mum2Mercury]

Thanks for the information -- I"m looking forward to this cruise in a couple weeks.  Questions and thoughts: 

 

- I've always enjoyed My Time Dining, but y'all have me thinking about switching to Early Seating.  We'll probably only eat dinner in the MDR 2-3 times anyway.  

- As for Covid and coughing ... when I had Covid (the week after our school went mask-optional ... can't be a coincidence) I didn't cough while I actively had Covid, but for WEEKS AFTER I'd cough intermittently.  This is a weird, unpredictable virus.  

- I'm a little nervous about hurricane season; but we're driving, which means we're a little more in control than people who must fly.

- What did you do on the islands?  We don't seem to be able to settle on any island plans. 

[jagsfan]

Can you tell me if bottled water is available. At one point people were posting that they could only get canned water. 
we lugged a case of water on board Harmony in March. I’d rather not do that again. 

Edited June 13, 2022 by jagsfan

[Mum2Mercury]

You can always get glasses of ice water from the Windjammer /pour them into your own reusable bottles.  

I bought a canned water the other day when we were in the Emergency Room.  It tasted just as good as bottled, but -- wow -- it cost $2.50.  

[4everAfamily]

33 minutes ago, jagsfan said:

Can you tell me if bottled water is available. At one point people were posting that they could only get canned water. 
we lugged a case of water on board Harmony in March. I’d rather not do that again. 

Yes, bottled water is available for purchase at the bars.

[momtogo]

23 hours ago, homedepot124 said:

We were on Allure in May and had MTD.  We had a reservation at 7:00PM each night and never waited in line more than 10-15 minutes.  They key was having a reservation.  People without reservations were checked in but then had to wait for a table. 

Thanks for posting, we had our MTD reservations for the week but didn't want to take a chance.  It'll be a great trip regardless, it's nice to be cruising again.

[luv2sailAgain]

On 6/12/2022 at 6:41 PM, homedepot124 said:

We were on Allure in May and had MTD.  We had a reservation at 7:00PM each night and never waited in line more than 10-15 minutes.  They key was having a reservation.  People without reservations were checked in but then had to wait for a table. 

I haven't done MTD in a while. We will be on Allure in July. Our reservations are at 6:30 each night. Did you have a different table each night?

[Itchy&Scratchy]

10 hours ago, luv2sailAgain said:

I haven't done MTD in a while. We will be on Allure in July. Our reservations are at 6:30 each night. Did you have a different table each night?

we had a different table every day, except for once- same table 2 days in a row. Some of these tables had a great team, one table had a waiter who seemed to forget about our existence, some - had random waiters and asst waiters serving us throughout the evening (literally, completely different people taking orders, bringing appetizers, main course and desserts), one table had a team who tried very hard and were super friendly, but brought us the wrong food and forgot our desserts, etc.

 

All in all, wasn't too bad - it averaged out to acceptable and not worthy of a scathing review, especially since we knew about staff shortages.

 

I'd advise showing up at 6:15-6:20 for your 6:30 reservation. Even earlier on the first formal day - the line was longer than on other days. Other than that day, we didn't wait longer than 5-10 minutes at the most (6:30 pm reservations).

Edited June 20, 2022 by Itchy&Scratchy

[luv2sailAgain]

On 6/20/2022 at 8:52 AM, Itchy&Scratchy said:

we had a different table every day, except for once- same table 2 days in a row. Some of these tables had a great team, one table had a waiter who seemed to forget about our existence, some - had random waiters and asst waiters serving us throughout the evening (literally, completely different people taking orders, bringing appetizers, main course and desserts), one table had a team who tried very hard and were super friendly, but brought us the wrong food and forgot our desserts, etc.

 

All in all, wasn't too bad - it averaged out to acceptable and not worthy of a scathing review, especially since we knew about staff shortages.

 

I'd advise showing up at 6:15-6:20 for your 6:30 reservation. Even earlier on the first formal day - the line was longer than on other days. Other than that day, we didn't wait longer than 5-10 minutes at the most (6:30 pm reservations).

Thank you for the great information! 

[The Fun Researcher]

On 6/12/2022 at 4:36 PM, momtogo said:

We're on July 9th too, I just hung up from customer service to switch from MTD to the early seating.  Early is 5:15 pm and late is 8:00 pm. Only the early seating is still available. We were on Mariner in April and saw extremely long lines of people waiting for MTD, I can't imagine how bad it will be on a ship as big as Allure.

Other than the first night, when we waited perhaps 60 seconds :), we never waited for our traditional 5:15pm early seating a couple of weeks ago on the Allure.  We just walked directly to our table when we arrived.  5:15 is pretty close to a normal eating time for us at home but is pretty early on a cruise.  It really cramps the afternoon activities, whether it's on the ship or in port.  However, this particular cruise was about family time (three generations) and we could not have been happier with our time, table location, the food quality, and our waitstaff.

 

On 6/12/2022 at 8:31 PM, jagsfan said:

Can you tell me if bottled water is available. At one point people were posting that they could only get canned water. 
we lugged a case of water on board Harmony in March. I’d rather not do that again. 

We pre-purchased a cases of water for two of our rooms.  It showed cans in the description when we purchased, but it was actually plastic bottled water once we arrived to our rooms.  Was MUCH cheaper than buying once onboard.  

[smogfarmgirl]

On 6/5/2022 at 10:43 PM, kateg said:

 

 

Wifi-WIFI was as bad as others have said.  We had six devices worth of Zoom.  I was rarely able to open a web page, For some reason Facebook worked pretty reliably.  Checking email was a struggle some days.  Streaming hahahaha.  I mean if you are lucky or of you stay up really late it might work for you.  It was very hit or miss and mostly a miss.  And if you NEED to keep in touch with the outside world (work as it was for us) you can't count on the Voom.  We did get a nice credit because it was "down" for a few days.  We only learned this because we heard a few other couples discussing it...Because "down" and "working" ...there wasn't much difference.  We had better service on Labadee through Verizon than we did on the ship.  Bottom line-Its a LOT of money for very slow and very unpredictable internet.  Especially when we have had excellent service on other ships.  And not everyone has the luxury to unplug during a cruise.  If it weren't for internet we wouldn't have been able to go at all.

That is terrible, horrible news. Going on our first cruise in September, but I run an online business and have to be able to check in with customers, e-mail orders, handle issues while on board. I would never have booked if I knew the internet was unusable. I don’t need to stream video, etc, but need to have a decent WiFi connection for the basics. I don’t have the luxury of a week unplugged. 

[ReneeFLL]

 

On 6/12/2022 at 8:31 PM, jagsfan said:

Can you tell me if bottled water is available. At one point people were posting that they could only get canned water. 
we lugged a case of water on board Harmony in March. I’d rather not do that again. 

I haven't seen the canned water since about March I think. This was on the Allure, Odyssey and the Wonder.

[doppelganger2621]

6 hours ago, smogfarmgirl said:

That is terrible, horrible news. Going on our first cruise in September, but I run an online business and have to be able to check in with customers, e-mail orders, handle issues while on board. I would never have booked if I knew the internet was unusable. I don’t need to stream video, etc, but need to have a decent WiFi connection for the basics. I don’t have the luxury of a week unplugged. 

I was on Allure last week and I didn’t find it to be that bad. I would definitely spend the money on the Voom Surf + Stream if you must have the internet, but I didn’t find it to be unusable. It will be slower than what you’re accustomed to, and you may find there are certain times/areas of the ship that are better than others. 

Edited July 3, 2022 by doppelganger2621

[Biker19]

6 hours ago, smogfarmgirl said:

That is terrible, horrible news. Going on our first cruise in September, but I run an online business and have to be able to check in with customers, e-mail orders, handle issues while on board. I would never have booked if I knew the internet was unusable. I don’t need to stream video, etc, but need to have a decent WiFi connection for the basics. I don’t have the luxury of a week unplugged. 

For that kind of need, never go to or book any vacation where you are dependent on sat based internet.

[bucfan2]

6 hours ago, smogfarmgirl said:

That is terrible, horrible news. Going on our first cruise in September, but I run an online business and have to be able to check in with customers, e-mail orders, handle issues while on board. I would never have booked if I knew the internet was unusable. I don’t need to stream video, etc, but need to have a decent WiFi connection for the basics. I don’t have the luxury of a week unplugged. 

If it’s a work trip, you should be concerned. If it’s a vacation, your therapist should be concerned. 

[Ocean Boy]

3 hours ago, ReneeFLL said:

 

I haven't seen the canned water since about March I think. This was on the Allure, Odyssey and the Wonder.

I liked the cans with the screw tops that Allure had in January. I wish they had continued to use them.

[cruisebabe50]

I saw that you got a few good deals on Black Friday!  I didn't even know they did this.  What was the deal for the refreshment package?  We definitely will be checking on Black Friday from now on!