soccerdad72

Was on the cruise this week as well. I think it was our second at sea day (day 5) when I heard the captain mention that there were norovirus cases reported and I also noticed they were wiping things down 24/7.

I spent many hours back at the Flowrider. Unfortunately for me, they require an adult to be there for anyone under 13, so I needed to be there for many hours with my 11-year old. Thankfully there's the Wipe Out Bar.

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Flying out to Fort Lauderdale tomorrow. :cool:

Allure on Sunday. :) :)

General consensus of the CC community is yes.

I'll let you know in a week or so - we have a 10:20am flight next Sunday after our Allure cruise. :)

We've had them too - unfortunately, we've been related to them. :p :o

Great report - thanks! We're back on the Allure for Thanksgiving this year, after sailing the Med on Allure last summer. I'll have to try out the Solarium for breakfast this time - we ate a lot of our breakfasts at Wipeout Cafe last time and that always worked out pretty well.

Looking forward to Blue Planet this time - the show wasn't playing while Allure was in Europe.

I wouldn't consider bringing my own putter, but it would be hilarious to dress as a PGA golfer, complete with gloves, visor, etc ... maybe even go old school with knickers and then have a buddy wear a white jumpsuit and caddy for you

Maybe a guy from this tour will be cruising one day:

http://prominigolf.com/

:cool: :D

Really enjoying your trip report, Bill (another former Erie-ite now living in Ohio). :)

We just booked Allure for Thanksgiving with the same itinerary, so I'm starting to bookmark some ideas for excursions. :)

What browser do you use? DH has trouble completing any transaction with Firefox but has no trouble using Internet Explorer.

I normally use FireFox, but also have IE. Just tried IE and got the same error message.

I'll try clearing my cookies and see if that works. Otherwise, I guess I'll be calling. :o

Has anyone been experiencing problems booking on the site?

The last two days, I've been trying to book a cruise for November - I've gotten all the Guest Info filled out and then when I hit Continue, it is just sending me to an error screen and linking me back to the Home page.

It's getting pretty frustrating, since I've now filled in everything 3 or 4 times only to crash out and have to start over again.

You are wasting your time if you plan on waiting on a reply from her. Wont happen. :o

That's a "her"??

Why do I have this mental picture?

We ate dinner in the MDR every night on our Western Med. cruise a couple weeks ago. I can somewhat understand where the OP is coming from.

Overall, while I thought the food was fine, it seemed to lack something compared to our previous cruise (Thanksgiving 2013 on Freedom of the Seas). I can't pinpoint one particular thing, just that it all seemed kind of generic in general.

The worst of the cruise (and again, this is a minor rant) is our final night, when we had a duplicate menu from a couple nights earlier (and not one we were that enthralled with in the first place :p ).

Our last two cruises, nothing, unless you count drinks.

Thank you!

Your photos look fab - really can't wait to go now !

 

When you boarded early - are the bars / restaurants / cafes open ?

 

Thanks again!

Everything was pretty much open while in port in Barcelona. Because of the interporting (two embarkation ports), it was just a regular day in port for those of us who got on in Rome. :)

Can I ask what time you booked? i.e. not sure if they are all so full

Originally, we had a 4:30pm show booked, but once we changed our dining from late seating to early, we knew we wouldn't be able to make it to dinner on time afterwards. So we switched out reservation to an 8:30 show a night later.

I don't know if the same show times will be available for your sailing date, however.

Saw it last week - it was incredible!

From what I could tell, there was not a single empty seat in the house. I know the standby line was really long, but I don't know how many people got in via that line versus reservations.

I don't think I'd see it twice on one cruise, though - at 2 1/2 hours, it's time I would spend elsewhere on the ship.

The dining room on Deck 3 was 6pm and 8:30pm and Deck 4 was 6:30pm and 9pm. Deck 5 was MTD.

Originally, we had late seating for dinner set up for 8:30pm, but when we checked in, they had given us 9pm, which we thought was just a little too late, given that we had a 10 year old. We kept the 9pm the first night, and they were able to switch us to 6:30pm the rest of the cruise. A couple nights we were a little rushed, and got to dinner late on La Spezia day (quite a few were, due to excursions to Florence), but overall it worked out better for us.

I forget the show times, but I know we had to rearrange a couple shows because of the change in dining times, but none of it was too bad to manage. Fortunately, the ship wasn't too full the first few nights of our cruise, so we were also able to do standby for a couple shows as well.

do you think that an international flight at 11:30 is too early? Thank you.

We had an 11:30am flight and had plenty of time - we used RomeInLimo for the transfer.

Sorry for bumping an old thread, but I wanted to thank you for your review!

Thanks to reading your review, I booked Joe Banana for their Sorrento, Positano and Pompeii all inclusive trip for my group of 8. It was, by far, the highlight of our cruise!! What an awesome day we had!

We opened ours last week. Simply ask your stateroom attendant when you get to your room.

Last week, they said 7:30 on the in-room material, but we got down to the Amber Theater at 7am and we were let go around 7:15am. Part of it depends on when the ship arrives and clears customs. The ship was ahead of schedule last week.

Oops - read that wrong - you asked for embarkation, not disembarkation. :o Sorry.

I think the earliest time I saw listed on our Set Sail Passes was 11:30am. We didn't get there until mid-afternoon, though, because we were touring the Vatican in the morning that day. Terminal was a ghost town when we got there - maybe two other families there at that time. Ship was mostly empty too, due to all the Barcelona cruisers being on shore touring Rome.

Sunnyjw

 

Do you remember if they had the laundry special?

 

Thanks.

It was $30 for the wash and fold special. I believe they mentioned the laundry bag special on Day 4 for the Rome passengers. We were on the same cruise as Sunnyjw (disembarked on Jun 25th).

We had an 11:30am flight to Montreal and had the same experience - walked off the ship around 7:15 and was at the airport in under an hour. Departed from Terminal 5, which wasn't too bad, except that we were delayed leaving because of busses and other flights leaving the same time. Made for a tight connection at Montreal, but we made it with a couple minutes to spare.

You could always get a private tour like joe bananas. They can design wherever u would like to go. I have used them, am using them again in two weeks...whoohoo!!

 

I too would not drive there...less stress hiring someone else

That would be my recommendation as well - we just got back from our cruise yesterday and our tour with Joe Bananas to Sorrento, Positano and Pompeii was one of the highlights of our trip.

Single Cruiser posted these the other day:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2215174&highlight=allure

Thanks for the review - we embark in a little more than 2 weeks (June 18th), so hopefully some of the service issues are ironed out by then. :)

Awesome! Thanks for doing this! :)