A boat named Jenny 1

Just off Allure (Dec 29-Jan 5). We too were affected by the propulsion issue unable to go to Honduras.  Then we were suppose to go to Costa Maya but a MSC cruise ship was in our berth and couldn't leave due to winds.  So we were stuck out at sea missing a port (at least you were able to go to another port, but Labadee is not Coco Cay).   Usually I don't mind sea days.  But this NYE cruise was so crowded.  The first time on a cruise that I felt crowded.  Needless to say, we made the best of it. We chose this cruise for NYE and the ports of Costa Maya and Honduras (which got changed to Nassau)….didn't work out that way...cursed cruise!

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!

On 7/26/2019 at 1:47 PM, CruisingDaddy said:

This will mostly be a rant because our itinerary changed on our upcoming AOTS Jan 19, 2020 cruise.  Here's why I feel ticked off this time around and I have to take on some of the blame... long story but stay with me on this one.  So my saga started back in January 2019. We were about to sail on the OOTS when one of our friends got ill and they had to cancel the cruise.  So we decided at the time to push our cruise out by a year, after paying $200 to move the booking due to non-refundable deposits... I knew about the fee if we needed to change and am ok with it.  We changed the cruise to Feb 2, 2020 and still on the OOTS then a few months back I get a lovely email from RCCL advising the have charted the OOTS and I would need to either change ships, change sail date or cancel and get a refund. 

 

After looking at their website, I found the itinerary for the AOTS worked for us.  So I call up RCCL to make the change and they were accommodating on doing the changes without any hassle.  They even gave us like $100 OBC or something like that for our inconvenience.  In locking up the new sail date and ship, I then needed to make changes with work to move my vacation days as well as start looking for a new hotel since the date and port was different.  It was a bit of inconvenience, but hey, I was lucky enough to find something suitable for the 4 of us and no big deal.

 

Here's where my ticked off part starts coming into play.  A few months ago, I saw messages that the AOTS were having propulsion issues and the ship was going at a slower pace and they needed to modify like 25 cruises because of it... and I only found out after I had made the changes.  The good news was that ours was not going to be affected... Hurray right!!  But last night I get the dreaded email saying that due to ongoing propulsion issues we need to modify your itinerary.  It says, instead of going to St. Thomas for a day, we'll be stopping in San Juan instead for 6 hours (7am to 1pm).  Our option was again to keep this cruise, cancel and get a refund but not for our flights (so no good to us) or change cruises again.  I thought, ok, let's take a look to see if anything comes up that would still work with our flight schedule because I really don't want to go to San Juan especially with all that's happening there right now.  So I call RCCL and asked them to move my cruise. they said sure, we can do that for you but I will need to pay for the difference in price.  I'm like really?? It's like double the price of what I have now and no way I'm going to pay double.  I asked for some OBC or discount at least if I keep this cruise and again they said no....

 

Am I being unreasonable in asking for something?  I normally don't ask and I know in our cruise contract it does say that they can change the itinerary for any reason but I feel this issues was in their control and it could have been remedied.  They have a broken ship and they choose to not fix it and affect all their next cruises until they bring her into dry dock.  I mean if we were our to sea and something happens to the ship and we miss a port it's one thing, or unrest in a port like in San Juan I'd have no issues with changing our ports of call, but this I feel should fall on them.  What do you guys think?  Am I crazy in asking for something in return?  I would like to get your thoughts on it.  Thanks

I agree, got the email too.We are on Allure in Dec 29 new years eve cruise.  Suppose to go to Roatan, now we will be in Nassau (my lease favorite port)  I would be more understanding if it were something that just came up, but RCI has known about this for months.  Feel a little taken advantage of, yes we are still happy to be cruising.  But this is their fault and they are  passing the problem on to us.  

38 minutes ago, sabbo55 said:

We did!

 

It was worth it and a lot of fun.

 

More than half had some sort of  theme dress items on.

Thank you!  Was it just music, dance and drinks?

Thank you!  Was it just music, dance and drinks?

Has anyone attended the Prohibition Event on Allure?

Was it worth extra charge?

Details about it?

Did people dress in the theme?

Thank you!

3 hours ago, later said:

I assume that your cruise was more than 7 nights. Roatan is off the Yucatán and Nassau is in the Bahamas. 

It is 7 nights..Was Coco Cay, Cozumel, Costa Maya and then Roatan.  Now Coco Cay, Nassau, Cozumel and Coast Maya.

Instead of …"Over the past few weeks, we’ve been working feverishly to find alternate ports for Allure’s sailings"  Maybe work feverishly to fix the problem.  

Yes our Roatan has been replaced with Nassau (New Years Eve).  Port days and cruise days have been flip flopped.  I understand when emergencies happen and they have to make changes, but they have known about this since at least April.  Still happy to be cruising, but I think that they should have fixed the problem instead of changing everyone's plans for the last several months.

We are on Dec 29 New Years Holiday Cruise.  Going to Nassau instead of Rotan, and flip flopped port days with cruise days.  Happy to be going, but not happy to be in Nassau on New Years Eve. 

We were on Freedom a couple of years ago with same "pod" issue and we stayed the night in Nassau, a semi brought in new equipment and divers replaced it over night.

Web cam radio says allure was coming back to port and patient transfer will happen off shore.

We are on that same route Dec 29 (holiday cruise).  Now a little concerned.  We were on Freedom a few years ago and St Martin was changed because we stayed over night in Bahamas and had it repaired.  Then did Cozemel and Coco Cays.

On ‎5‎/‎23‎/‎2019 at 10:36 AM, Maraprince said:

What else besides items made from straw do they sell?  Any wood carved items?

 

MARAPRINCE

When I was there 3 years ago, it was like a little local market.  Tshirts, wood carved items, trinkets....all the little island tour stuff.  They had coco nuts that they would carve with your name and date on them.  It was a nice little area!

Thank you!

I have looked at the map, does anyone know if the "straw market" is still there where you can buy things from local vendors?

2 days, Oasis Feb 25!!!

I agree with you, we were on Harmony a year ago. She is beautiful, lots to do, crew was great....but the dinning. Which has been in issue lately on all the ships we have been on. We started cruising 7 yrs ago on Serenade. The dinning was wonderful. But since (even on Princess) the lack of dressing up for dinner has suffered. If you don't want to dress up, go to the buffet. And something can be done about it if the cruise line would put rules in place and follow them.

We have been on Serenade 2 times (honeymoon w/ suite and 10 day south Caribbean) crew was great! She is a beautiful ship, But not a lot to do after 9-10 pm. The spa was awesome.

Freedom had good food, you had the large ship feel but not the large ship activities to go along with it. A lot of things were closing or done at 10pm. She was going into dry dock in two weeks, so that might have had something to do with it. Her crew was great.

Harmony is my favorite. She is beautiful, large ship with out feeling crowded. (only at the times you would think like shows or sales). The adults only pool was excellent. The shows were great. Crew was wonderful. We personally felt that the food was good but "to fancy" for us.

We sail on Oasis in 30 days, so we will see how she is. Then next year, Allure for a New Year's Eve cruise.

Does anybody know if the Oasis of the Seas is going back to St Maarten and San Juan yet. I am sailing on 2/11/17 and haven't scheduled any Excursions yet because they keep changing Itineraries on alot of the Sailing dates.

The cruise ship tracker shows Oasis in St Maarten, she looks to be the only ship in port right now. Glad to see that RCI is back there. We will be on the Feb 25 cruise.

We are also on that cruise, sitting here at work and can hardly wait to head to Ft Lauderdale tonight and set sail on Harmony tomorrow!

37 days....Serenade of the Seas