spazzyjanet

"I can't wait for this review in a couple weeks."

As someone who has suffered from insomnia in the past and is NOT the kind of person who can sleep in any environment does this concern me? Yes. Sleep can affect mood, health, and a whole host of other things. I actually travel quite often and I consider a bed that I can sleep on a basic requirement, not a luxury.

That said, you can bet that I will go looking to have the best vacation that I can possibly have. And my review will be very fair and honest.

Thank you to the poster who mentioned the cool room- glad to know that isn't universal.

We will be following along! I assume that there are a lot of kids on your holiday sailing? They must not be too out of control yet :)

I'm glad that we switched to early seating in leiu of MTD since reviews have been pretty consistent as far as waits. Also glad that we are doing Giovanni's Table the first night.

How so?

Yikes. I guess this is not the ship for people who like to sleep at night. Hot cabins and brick-like beds. Honestly, if I'd have known this a year ago I would be switching to a Disney Cruise. Too late now. With just a few days before sailing I can't even buy a travel fan off of Amazon.

If it is warm in the room, can you prop open the door to the balcony?

Hmmm... that stinks about the mattresses. Sorry, but like you with this being a holiday cruise, the cost of our cabin isn't cheap. I would expect the mattress to not be a step down from the comfort of a Hampton Inn.

Like you, we will of course try not to let that damper the trip. Let us know how the first night went. Do you have a balcony? If so, is it possible to prop the door open overnight?

Have fun! Would love to hear how your trip is going- we'll be getting on when you get off.

Sorry to hear about the mattresses. Apparently that has been a problem on other ships, and I wasn't sure whether they had replaced the mattresses on Allure yet, and it appears that they have :(

I just hope that I can sleep, and that my kids can too. If not, the whole trip could have a damper.

How was the air temperature at night? If you had a balcony, can you prop the door to the balcony open at night?

I can't answer any of your questions, unfortunately, but I do hope that you have a good time. I hope we do too, since we will be sailing with you!

"Family vacation was just that, a vacation with the family, everyone included in everything. We wouldn't have done excursions they couldn't do too."

Not even for a few hours? That's great if that's your parenting choice, but you have no business butting in and judging this parent. You can have a perfectly balanced family vacation that involves one day where parents and kids each have their own type of fun.

I'm right there with you! Hard to direct myself to packing when we still have to wrap all of the kids' presents for their surprise early Christmas tomorrow....

Packing for 5. Yikes.

And I still have two days of work to get through, making it even harder to get into that 'mode'

You will find that any time you mention the word "kids" in a post that armchair parents come out of the woodwork. Some of these people are the same ones who write Facebook posts about the "glory days" when they were kids and left the house in the morning and didn't come back until after sunset in a time without cellphones, etc. Then expect that today's parents hover above their children like helicopters 24/7 and don't recognize the disconnect.

We scheduled excursions with our kids, but our kids are older (youngest is 5), and most of the fun will be to see them having fun.

Your kids are younger. They will have a great time in kids club for a few hours. I assume that if you had strong fears about one of them having a meltdown that you would not have chosen this option to begin with. And if you want to have 5 hours of adult time interspersed with lots of family time on a 7-day cruise more power to you. The only caveat is that I would take a ship's tour so that the ship has record of where you are in the extremely unlikely event there is an emergency that requires immediate medical attention.

Thank you so much for the review! I appreciate the input on the sail-away show. I was already thinking of steering the family to deck 14 forward for sail-away so that the kids wouldn't know that it was going on. Glad to see that my instincts there were correct.

How were the mattresses? Did you find the night-time room temp comfortable?

Let us know how it goes!

If you can send a note on how hard the mattresses are and the room temperature at night- those are the only things I'm feeling worried about right now.

We will be getting on when you get off. Hard to believe that we are this close to sailing!

Have we confirmed that these are already on the Allure?

I was just looking to clarify- it appears that these are daily tournaments where you are competing for a chance to be at the final table on the last sea day? Can anyone confirm this? If you don't make it day one, can you enter the second one, etc?

It also appears that the 10:30 nightly games are standard sit and go's with I assume a cash prize for winner or top 1,2, or 3?

Hopefully the switch on Allure isn't until after our sailing. As someone who has suffered from insomnia in the past, this is the one thing that could make or break a cruise for me. Bed comfort is something that should NEVER be skimped on.

Cool!

We've sailed twice in April, once early December, and once in early November. The only bad weather/rough seas experience was the one in early November. We were on Freedom and missed Coco Cay, had rain lots of days and the pool turned into a wave pool on the last sea day heading into port. We will probably not attempt any cruises between August and early November again. However, good weather and bad weather can of course happen on any cruise, any week of the year.

Ah, yes- complainers. I still remember happily sitting and playing cards in the card room on one of our first Carnival cruises and listening to a group of older people (also playing cards) complain for 40 minutes straight before finally leaving. My favorite quote from them- "these people (other passengers) just don't get it. They don't know what a good cruise is- they don't know any better.."

How is payment the day of usually covered? Do we need to bring enough cash to pay for the whole tour, or do they take credit?

For the NYE cruise on Allure, cabanas first opened at $250 for beach, $350 for OTW. As of this morning, they can both now only be booked online and are up to $350 for beach and $450 for OTW. We booked our OTW when they first opened up at $350.

This isn't something that I've been deeply concerned about, but there is a thread already here so...

Are there different muster stations for staterooms 7600, 7602, and 7604 on Allure? We are in 7604, kids are split up (at least on paper) between 7600 and 7604 with Grandpa. Thanks!

I've added the kids planners and the teen planner.

Note that the kids planners are page 1, days 1-7, and then in order, page 2, days 1-7.

Thank you!

Yay! Finally! Does anyone have the kids compasses for this sailing?