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Mpeter1569

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    Family Cruise, May 27th Allure of the Seas

    in Royal Caribbean International

    Posted

    Glad you and your family had a wonderful time! My family boards this Sunday and we can hardly wait! Also glad to hear your kiddos enjoyed their Central Park View cabins. Would you mind sharing cabin numbers? We are in 9609, 9611, 9613 and 9615. We are hoping they were a good choice with some sort of view.

     

     

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    Our OV balcony was 9604. The kids rooms were 9603 and 9605. Over one of the Central Park Restaurants. Kids said there was never any noise. Just remember that when the curtains are open it is not private.

     

     

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    Family Cruise, May 27th Allure of the Seas

    in Royal Caribbean International

    Posted

    A few extra thoughts...

     

    Johnny Rockets is not worth the $13 charge per person. All six of us went and the food was the worst on board. We had the BOGO coupon for shakes and they were okay. Not something we will repeat in the future.

    Food: We did not do any of the specialty dining. We were on the 8 pm seating in The Grande. We all enjoyed our meals each night. The cheesecake and the warm cookie and ice cream were the favorite desserts. We had breakfast at the Park Cafe almost every morning. I loved the bagel station and fresh fruit. Kids loved the egg, ham and cheese English Muffin. Most days lunch was in the Windjammer though we did try the main dining room for lunch on the last sea day and wished we would have done that more. The salad bar there was wonderful!

    Dining Attire: The men in our group wore collared shirts with pants or nice shorts. My girls wore summer dresses and I wore dress pants and blouse. On formal nights the men wore shirt and tie and ladies a nice dress. I would venture to say the majority of others were the same. Some a little more, some a little less. One thing for sure, what others had on did not affect our dining at all. And I never saw anyone turned away for shorts.

    Rude people: I have read a lot of reviews lately about rude behavior. Our family had a great time, we interacted with other travelers and crew, and felt the atmosphere was wonderful. Only encountered rudeness from a cruiser toward a crew member on the last sea day at the end of Bingo and once on an elevator when an elderly woman yelled at a young man not to get so close to her. He did not touch her. Elevator was packed but not there was room to move. The young man apologized and exited to wait on the next ride.

    Tips: We don’t ask others how they tip, we don’t tell others how or how much we do. I do wish the cruise lines would call it a service charge and add to the cost of the cruise. Anything beyond that, people could decide if they then wanted to do extra and “tip” someone for above average service. I feel for the workers because they are the ones getting screwed. But enough about that. I will let others hash that one out.

    Our entire group had a wonderful time and e are already looking forward to next summer to a group of 25 family members going! The planning for that has begun. The crew of the Allure did a great job making our cruise one we won’t forget!

     

     

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    Family Cruise, May 27th Allure of the Seas

    in Royal Caribbean International

    Posted

    “Traveling- it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” ~Ibn Battuta

     

    Cruise Critic was a great place to find info, advice and suggestions on what to do/not to do for our family cruise, as well as providing some chuckles, i.e., Hucifer’s fabulous solo cruiser review. I decided I would do my “duty” and provide some input.

    Our family: my DH(54), the Queen (29+), our 19 year old, one year of college complete triplets (2 girls, 1 boy) and our 17 year old, recent high school graduate, son.

     

    I started planning this cruise back in August. Again, CC provided a wealth of knowledge and made my planning easier. We have been on other cruises but not any of the big boats. I will try to address all the areas that were helpful or stood out to me.

     

     

    Pre-cruise: GET A PASSPORT!

    MAKE YOUR RESERVATIONS! From shows, to specialty dining, drink packages, excursions, even loungers for the private beach. (Labadee for us). A lot of things fill up and if you don’t have a reservation, you’ll be standing in the dreaded lines.

    Those luggage tags people mention from Amazon. Worth it. It was nasty when we arrived at Port. Kept my luggage tags nice and dry. I’m going to make an ID insert for them for my other travels.

    Pre purchase your parking. It is cheaper online ahead of times at places like Park n Go. We have used them on 4 different cruises and have never had any issues.

    Do independent reviews of the ports you will visit and don’t be afraid of using private excursions. You usually can find a better deal that way and more personalized. That being said, know ship departure times. We did use the RCL excursion for the menfolk to do the ATVs in San Juan. The time frame was so short I didn’t want to risk it. RCL excursions guarantee the boat waits on you.

     

    Embarkation Day: Whatever time you arrive, don’t be in such a rush to “get on board.” There are a lot of people and everyone’s got to do it. That being said, we arrived at the port a little before 1 pm. Weather was nasty. We generally don’t use porters but did this time. He was nice and took care of our 8 pieces of luggage. We tipped him and moved along. We were through the whole process and at our room by 1:30. Left our carryons and got our Sea Passes. After all the negative reviews I have read about eating at the Windjammer on embarkation day, I was nervous as we headed that way. I can report that we had no issues dining a table for our group of 9 (3 friends traveled with us). It was busy but the staff did a great job while we were there keeping tables cleaned and food areas full. None in our party went away unhappy about lunch. We explored the ship and was it something to explore! My kids were ecstatic with all the stuff for their age. (Our last cruise on another line disappointed them.) DH and I headed back up to our rooms around 3:30 and luggage had arrived. Except one...[emoji51]

    Was able to get things put away and luggage fit perfectly under the bed. Went to the drill and before we knew it, we were leaving the port and the rain behind!

    Now about the one missing piece of luggage. I packed a steamer. Apparently that’s a no-no. I knew irons weren’t acceptable but a steamer? Had I read the cans and can-nots ahead of time...well my hubby would not have had to take the “walk of shame” to collect our bag, minus the steamer of course.[emoji51] So the point here is, read your paper work ahead of time.

    Room Type: We were on deck 9, mid-ship,

    starboard. DH and I had a hump balcony. We loved our room! No noise issues at all and we loved sitting out on the balcony different times of the day. Room was clean, plenty of storage. Only issue we had was midway through the trip around 11 pm the safe malfunctioned and started making this beeping noise. Couldn’t open it. So security had to come open it and then another group around midnight came and replaced the whole thing. No big deal though.

    Our kids were in two rooms directly across the hall from us in Central Park View rooms. They loved their view, quiet, nice sized rooms, plenty of storage and clean. We were all happy with our accommodations and location on the ship.

    State Room Attendant: Mary Jo was awesome! She took great care of all three rooms, remembered all of our names and chatted with us frequently throughout the day. Of all the cruises we have taken, she was the best room steward ever. She asked if we needed anything special and all we requested was ice in the rooms. My DH had a bad ankle injury a week before we left so doctor said he needed to continue icing. After reading other CC reviews, we gave Mary Jo a cash tip at the beginning of the week.

    Dining Staff: This is one area we have always had superb service on every cruise line we’ve been on so saying they were the best we’ve ever had is saying a lot. But like Mary Jo, our dining staff was awesome! Reford and Doris handled our table of nine with no problem. We all had our favorite drinks waiting for us, Reford was spot on regarding the choices for our meals each night and Doris was a sweet spirit. They both made sure no one was wanting of anything. I wanted them to sit and join us. It was great getting to know them through the week.

    Sports Staff: Kids (young adults really) had a great time with all the activities. All four are athletes so the Flowrider, sports court activities were a big appeal to them. The staff interacted well with everyone. DH and I and the other set of “parents” enjoyed spending some of our time out there watching all the activities. Staff kept it going and did a great job of running everything.

     

    Customer Service/add’l staff around ship: This is a well run ship. We truly never had any rude staff in any position on the ship. Always courteous and greeted with a smile.

     

    Shows: We all loved Mama Mia. Cast did a wonderful job. I have never seen the movie but my girls have and they said the show was very good. The “mom” has a great voice. Blue Planet was good. Different from any thought of what we had preconceived of what it would be. Kids had mixed reviews. OceanAria was very good even with the technical difficulties causing some parts to be cut. We had to see at a rescheduled time due to bad weather the first night. Our rescheduled show started at 6:30 pm. We definitely enjoyed but I’m sure was even better later when lighting would be more affective. The performers were phenomenal in the things they did. We never made it to the Headliner show or any of the comedy shows. Did trivia, kids loved the karaoke each night (not the family one[emoji57])and the lip sync battle. Loved the 80’s night! Great music and fun! Visited the casino and lost about $100 in that stupidly addicting quarter game! My hubby had to cut me off! Shockingly only played Bingo once. There was just so much to do!

    Disembarkation: We did the express check out like always. Left our rooms at 6:50 and were heading north on I95 at 8:15. Customs was a breeze. Have your passport out and you move right through. Park n Go is waiting when you get off the ship, loaded our luggage and dropped us right at our car in their lot. Every cruise we take we do express check out and never once have we had a problem or back up.

     

    Later tonight or tomorrow I will address some of the more “controversial” subjects, i.e., food, tipping and Johnny Rockets, and others. [emoji848]

    Family Fun on the Freedom!

    in Carnival Cruise Lines

    Posted

    A few more from HMC....it was our favorite stop!

     

    Early morning before the crowds. We were on first tender. We rented Villa B.

    HMC.jpg

     

    We loved the location of Villa B!

    HMC3.jpg

     

    Crowds on the beach before the storm came thru...

    HMC2.jpg

     

    Our floating hotel waiting off HMC....

    IMG_5801.jpg

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