mom4mom

Hope it comes back before the end of Feb. we were on her pre-inaugural and it wasn’t ready yet and I was hoping to see it this time.

I, too, pre-booked space for playing games and LCR and was given the port conference room on deck 3 outside the dining room. If you go past the stairs on that side and enter the cabin corridor, you just turn left and enter that door. It is actually part of the dining room at night so they ask us just to keep it neat and put glasses etc on the serving station as one of the wait staff comes after you leave to reconfigure it for dinner.

I wasn’t aware that we need special access into deck 17 but I hate to start with the Grand Loft first as that’s the one everyone wants to see and I’m afraid they’d drop out after that one. Thanks for your suggestion to use the less crowded forward elevators. Since the lowest deck cabin I have is on deck 6, I think I’ll suggest meeting in front of the carousel near the donut place and go up from there. Most people don’t mind walking up a deck or two and then only those who need it will use the elevators. I can’t wait to get back on the Allure again. Thanks for sharing your travels with us.

I’d like to pick your brain since you are so recently on Allure. I’m arranging a cabin crawl on our 2/26 sailing and need to determine the least crowded place to gather to start this activity. My plan is to have it the first sea day at 2pm but don’t want to interfere with any planned activity. Any ideas?

We were in both of these ports in Nov and took free walking tours. You just tip the guide at the end of the tour based on what you feel the value was. Some give as little as 5 euro and as much as 50. We took the Essential Valencia tour from FreeTourValencia dot com. in previous stops in Valencia we went to Oceanografic and it was an amazingly huge aquarium. Another time we went to the Science Museum which was also fantastic. We did a free walking tour with Guru Walk in Malaga years ago and had friends who had never been there so we booked them again. But then we were offered space in a different tour with other friends. But those who took our spots loved it. On both tours you walk through the city for 2 or more hours and hear lots of history. We usually like to see out free walking tours wherever we go. another time we were in Malaga we went to La Alhambra but you really need a long port day. I think the drive is at least 1 1/2-2 hours away. This year we didn’t have that kind of time, this the choice of walking tour. no matter what you choose, have fun. These are 2 beautiful cities.

Palma is one of my favorite ports and that may be because I hired the most awesome guide on both visits there. I have also been in touch with Miguel Corral to guide us again in Nov. The cathedral is a must see. We loved going to Valdemossa and had a Mallorca buffet followed by a winery tour. Some went to the cartons while we were at lunch and was treated to a Chopin concert. Have fun in this beautiful city.

He was on the Odyssey transatlantic 10/31-11/13/2022

Roll your clothes and get packing cubes. It's a game changer for us. We're flying out today for a 3 week trip in 1 checked bag, 1 carry on and 2 personal items.

Be careful to look at stopover times, especially if in a foreign city. You usually need to get off the plane and go thru customs which may take a while. I usually look for layovers of 2.5 hours minimum. Sometimes they are as little as 1 hour and connecting flights get missed.