gi_pam

Just back yesterday too!

Studio 54 was Roz Ryan and she was AMAZING! Unbelievable.

The Sin City show was Kathleen somebody, and a dancer named Brittany. Kathleen was very funny and the dancer was OK. They referred to it as "tasteful burlesque." The comedian was very "raunchy" and a few walked out on her. But every time Lisa (cruise director) talked about that show she emphasized that it was R-rated, 18-plus, adult comedy. I don't know what people were expecting with that intro - maybe only the odd bad word? Yes, adult comedy, but nothing my 13-year-old hasn't heard on the bus, I'm sure :)

The "clean" comedian, I forget his name, was also hilarious.

No White Night party.

Newlywed game was a lot of fun. I wanted to take the old couple home, they were so cute!

I have all the dailies. I'll post them shortly...I just have to read up on the best way to do it.

We only ate at the buffet twice, both for lunch. Plus I picked up sushi and pizza for snacks a couple of times. We ate breakfast and dinner in Blu, and moved around at lunch - pool grill, MDR, Bistro on 5, one lunch on shore in Bermuda. DH isn't a buffet fan, I can take or leave them.

I actually liked the little cups/dishes of food concept. I'm sure it reduces the spread of germs and manages waste. The time we ate at the pool grill (Wednesday, I think...) they had the little papers. DH grabbed some chicken from there on Friday after sail away from Bermuda and it had a paper in the basket.

I had pasta one day and it was excellent! DH had Caesar salad and said it was good. The fried calamari a different day was not overly hot. The cake pops were very yummy! I forget what else we had but it was generally good. I can see the complaints about temperature, based on the calamari, if that was typical. I didn't have to run around finding what I wanted for what I was eating (condiments, etc), but that would be annoying too.

They did have problems opening on time. The days we ate in the Oceanview, it was for speed and convenience, rather than taking the time to sit in the MDR and be waited on, sot it was frustrating having to wait. The pool grill was about 10 minutes late opening the day we ate there. The pasta bar was about 10 minutes late opening the day I had pasta. The same day, the panini bar was late opening too. The day we ate at the pool grill, the head chef was there once it opened and he was helping serve the food! There were about 10 of us hovering once it opened and he was asking us all what we wanted and handing us the food.

About the lines and crowds, though...I've never seen a buffet on a ship that didn't have lines and crowds (which is why we avoid them). The line for the sushi on day 2 was outrageous. But that was at 5:30, right when they put it out. The other times I went, I went at about 6:00 and it was no problem. Right at noon, the line for pizza was bad. At 12:45, just walk right up and get a slice.

I can see if you like traditional buffets this would be a big disappointment. It's very different. But not being a huge fan of buffets, I liked it. If they can work out the kinks.

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Just wanted to hop in and say that we're on that sailing too, and you're right - the roll call for our cruise is amazing! I can't wait to get on board and meet them all!

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There will be 6 in port when we're in Cozumel in December, for over 22,000 passengers! :eek:

Allure of the Seas

Carnival Dream

Carnival Magic

Norwegian Sun

Navigator of the Seas

Norwegian Epic

Some big ships! If there are 12 in port, they must be smaller. 22,000 is the highest port load I can find in Cozumel.

http://ports.cruisett.com/schedule/Mexico/155-Cozumel/December_2014

Edit to add - I was wrong, I found two days in January with 24,000!

Pretzel buns!

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I can't specifically recommend it, because we're going in November...but I read this review of Royal Caribbean Allure and she said her girls (16/18, I think) loved Allure (RC Oasis is the same class of ship with similar features).

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1834584

Sorry, you didn't say you wanted info about kids' things...I just assumed because it was the family board!

We were in a balcony cabin, towards the rear on deck 10, but I didn't feel any significant movement. Different itinerary, though.

We ate at Cagney's one night and it was amazing! The Italian place was good too. A hidden gem was the Blue Lagoon. No extra cost, but different than the dining room. Food was really good there. Great place for lunch.

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We were on the Pearl in 2012 to Alaska. They had just started a new kids program then. Our group had 10, including 4 kids, boys ages 7, 9 and 11 and a girl age 9. They enjoyed the ship. It was too cold to swim except the first and last day, but they did like the pool. The kids program had a circus theme, and they put on an awesome show at the end. The boys wanted to be in the arcade more than in the kids centre, but they did enjoy themselves. The youth staff was excellent.

Buffet was a big hit for the kids, but they weren't very patient in the dining room. We only dined as a group of 10 a couple of times because it was just too much! Two of the kids weren't very adventurous eaters and stuck to the kids' menu in the dining room. That's one reason they preferred the buffet, it felt like they had more choice there.

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There's an app called Ship Mate. You can download deck plans so they're accessible without using data or wifi. It's not searchable, just images of the deck plans. No more helpful than a paper map, but if you're going to have a phone with you anyway, then you know you've got the deck plans.

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My sister and her family were 4 in an inside on the Pearl, we were in a balcony on the same cruise. Her boys were 7 and 9. It was tight, but doable. They had two bunks that dropped down from the ceiling. With the bunks down, you had a double bed right under the two bunks. Also not much room to be able to get ready. BIL would get ready with one boy and leave, then my sister would get ready with the other. Even 4 of us in a balcony, we weren't anxious to spend time in the cabin. Incentive to get out and enjoy the ship!

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We went on the Pearl to Alaska end July/1st week of Aug 2012.

Weather - I can't say how May will be. But even for July/August we packed rain jackets (to be layered with sweaters), hats, gloves. We didn't wear the hats, but we had hoods up a few times. Gloves were used. But, it was also warm enough to be in the hot tub many of the days (but we're Canadian!). Sail away was gorgeous, like a Caribbean cruise! Then rainy and cool after that.

We flew, but my sister and family drove. They parked at the pier. We stayed in Seattle (well, just south of Seattle) for a couple of days before and they could have parked at the hotel, but they would have had to pay a cab to get downtown to the pier, and then a cab back. For the hassle and money, they decided it would be easier to park at the pier. There is a discount for booking ahead. We didn't find any hotels close to the pier that offered park and cruise. The ones near the airport offered it, but no free shuttle to the cruise port.

We bought the kids the soda package, so that they could order something other than iced tea. You can bring soda on board with you too. My BIL managed to get booze on board, we didn't try. We didn't drink a lot, but wine with dinner, a few buckets of beer, etc. So our bar bill, soda package for the kids, a dinner at a specialty restaurant, that sort of thing. We booked and prepaid our excursions, but if you book those on the ship, they'll be on your bill too.

Excursions - we did "Whales and Rainforest Tales" in Juneau and it was excellent. Our boat captain found us lots of whales. Even a couple of orcas, which had been hiding he said. We got soaked walking to see the glacier, but it was nice. That was all we had time for in Juneau. My sister and family went up the trolly thing, and said it wasn't really worth it. BIL said it was like paying to go to a gift shop.

We did the train trip in Skagway, with a bus back and a stop at Liarsville. It was fun. But costly. Liarsville was kinda cool. The boys (7-9) thought they were going to get rich panning for gold.

The lumberjack show in Ketchikan was fun too. We bought tickets for that and walked from the ship to the show, then walked around town after.

We didn't do any of the helicopter, fishing, etc. kind of excursions. Zip lining was on the table for a while, but my youngest nephew was too young for most of them, so we didn't even offer it to the kids. The grandparents were along too, so we were trying to do things that people in their 70s could do with us.

Bring binoculars!!! Glacier Bay is amazing and binoculars just add so much to it. We also saw some whales and other wildlife there.

Good luck! It's a great cruise. We had a blast.

Not with the kids club, but both of my children vanished (at different times) for short periods of time during our Freedom of the Seas cruise.

DD was 6 - her dad accompanied her to the bathroom. She was taking forever and DH wondered if she had slipped past her and gone back to the table in the dining room. He asked a woman coming out if DD was still in there, she said no, there was no one else in the bathroom. So he went back to the table. No DD. Back to the bathroom, asked someone to go in and look for her, no DD. Back to the table, still no DD. Back out of the DR, and there were two crew members with a teary DD. Missing for about 5 minutes. The only thing I found odd was that she was wearing her sea pass on a lanyard with our dining time and table number on it. Right near the dining room. And they were about to call to have us paged, rather than take her into the dining room to our table. Since I'm sure she could have told them we had been at dinner.

DS (9) vanished for a few minutes on Coco Cay (RCI's island). He just vanished in the crowd. We found him within about 15 minutes, but I wasn't overly worried since we were on the private island and if I hadn't found him that quickly, I would have tracked down a crew member pretty quickly to see what they could do to help find him.

They take stuff like this very seriously - when we were on a cruise without our kids, a "child" (young teenager, I think) was missing. First an announcement just in the public areas for *name* to contact the purser's desk. Then an announcement that went into all the cabins as well for her to contact the purser's desk (maybe 10 minutes later). We were just leaving our cabin to the dining room so we heard that one in our cabin. We had our tv on in our cabin, so we had heard the previous announcement too. Then when we were seated in the DR, they did their missing person protocol. Our waiter sort of filled us in on it - the announcement meant that all crew had to immediately stop what they were doing and check the area that they are assigned to check in that situation. Rumour was that she was found in a cabin (not hers). But she was found pretty quickly. The whole thing was over within about 20 minutes.

Lessons learned - we've never had or noticed a problem with the kids programs, just when kids are supposed to be in the care of their parents (since we were the ones that lost our kids :) not the youth staff!)