Allure of the Seas - 4/29/12 - "Raindrops Kept Falling On Our Heads"

[vickiw0318]

We are back from our first trip on a mega-ship. I wasn't sure what I would think about the experience and the answer is that we've already booked for the same time next year.

 

We flew in the day before and headed north to DH's hometown, Jupiter. He'd been craving time by the inland waterway. I found a motel called the Jupiter Waterfront Inn that filled the bill. Turns out that we were just across the water from a beach that was the scene of many a "crime" during his high school years. We had dinner at the Jetty - a wonderful place should any of you ever stray that far north.

 

On Sunday, we drove back to Fort Lauderdale in the rain. We turned in the rental car and looked for the shuttle to the port. Turns out that it quits running about April 15th when the winter cruise season ebbs. So we lugged our luggage over to the airport and caught a cab to the port. Check-in was as painless as everyone said it was. We were on the ship in a flash and headed for the Park Cafe. The inside seating was full so we found a partially covered outside table and ate our roast beef sandwiches. Since there was just a short time until the cabins opened, we went to the Concierge Lounge and enjoyed a dry view of the Boardwalk as we waited.

 

We were lucky to have been upgraded to a Crown Loft Suite and we loved it. DH especially loved the huge TV downstairs and was blessed one rainy night by watching both the Rangers and the Mavs. (He was not blessed by the outcome of the series against the Oklahoma Thunder.) Muster drill wasn't the smoothest ever. We hit the day when they were checking the sea pass cards manually so there was a backup. We then headed to the Boardwalk, ate some very good ice cream and then waved goodbye to Fort Lauderdale from the port side of Deck 6. We had an early reservation for Chops in anticipation of seeing Oceanaria at 9:00. Well, there was no Oceanaria that night due to the weather, but Chops was great - especially the Mississippi Mud Pie. We did a little gambling and then headed back to the cabin and ESPN.

 

Monday found us in Nassau. At least I think I saw Atlantis in the distance through the rain. We didn't get off the ship. I don't think many people did. We had breakfast in a crowded Windjammer. There were tables in the back middle section. It was okay - a typical Windjammer breakfast. We headed to the gym after that. We ordered a late lunch from room service. We had more room service meals than we normally do due to the combination of a great room and yucky weather. Naptime followed. We are both Friends of Bill W. so after the rest, we headed to our "happy hour" get-together before seeing Ice Games. There was a great group of friends on board this time and we all enjoyed each others company throughout the week. Think our version of the Concierge Lounge.

 

We liked Ice Games. After that, we spent Formal Night in a very uncrowded Johnny Rockets. We were both pleasantly surprised. We have both been on several RCI cruises and this was our first visit to Johnny Rockets. We enjoyed listening to a lot of 60's music and had one of the best formal nights ever. The evening ended with more slots and more ESPN.

 

More to follow.

[pabrett46]

Thank you.. enjoying your review so far.

 

Pabrett46

[terpfan101]

Glad you enjoyed it...this makes me even more excited for my upcoming Allure cruise! Congrats on the upgrade too...where were you originally supposed to be?

[poblead]

great review subscribing to follow.. Sorry you had crappy weather I remember checking the webcam that day and couldn't even see the ship !!

 

BTW I see you are from Richardson TX... Just wondering if you have ever heard of the sweet Adeline chorus called the Rich Tone Chorus??

 

 

 

We are back from our first trip on a mega-ship. I wasn't sure what I would think about the experience and the answer is that we've already booked for the same time next year.

 

We flew in the day before and headed north to DH's hometown, Jupiter. He'd been craving time by the inland waterway. I found a motel called the Jupiter Waterfront Inn that filled the bill. Turns out that we were just across the water from a beach that was the scene of many a "crime" during his high school years. We had dinner at the Jetty - a wonderful place should any of you ever stray that far north.

 

On Sunday, we drove back to Fort Lauderdale in the rain. We turned in the rental car and looked for the shuttle to the port. Turns out that it quits running about April 15th when the winter cruise season ebbs. So we lugged our luggage over to the airport and caught a cab to the port. Check-in was as painless as everyone said it was. We were on the ship in a flash and headed for the Park Cafe. The inside seating was full so we found a partially covered outside table and ate our roast beef sandwiches. Since there was just a short time until the cabins opened, we went to the Concierge Lounge and enjoyed a dry view of the Boardwalk as we waited.

 

We were lucky to have been upgraded to a Crown Loft Suite and we loved it. DH especially loved the huge TV downstairs and was blessed one rainy night by watching both the Rangers and the Mavs. (He was not blessed by the outcome of the series against the Oklahoma Thunder.) Muster drill wasn't the smoothest ever. We hit the day when they were checking the sea pass cards manually so there was a backup. We then headed to the Boardwalk, ate some very good ice cream and then waved goodbye to Fort Lauderdale from the port side of Deck 6. We had an early reservation for Chops in anticipation of seeing Oceanaria at 9:00. Well, there was no Oceanaria that night due to the weather, but Chops was great - especially the Mississippi Mud Pie. We did a little gambling and then headed back to the cabin and ESPN.

 

Monday found us in Nassau. At least I think I saw Atlantis in the distance through the rain. We didn't get off the ship. I don't think many people did. We had breakfast in a crowded Windjammer. There were tables in the back middle section. It was okay - a typical Windjammer breakfast. We headed to the gym after that. We ordered a late lunch from room service. We had more room service meals than we normally do due to the combination of a great room and yucky weather. Naptime followed. We are both Friends of Bill W. so after the rest, we headed to our "happy hour" get-together before seeing Ice Games. There was a great group of friends on board this time and we all enjoyed each others company throughout the week. Think our version of the Concierge Lounge.

 

We liked Ice Games. After that, we spent Formal Night in a very uncrowded Johnny Rockets. We were both pleasantly surprised. We have both been on several RCI cruises and this was our first visit to Johnny Rockets. We enjoyed listening to a lot of 60's music and had one of the best formal nights ever. The evening ended with more slots and more ESPN.

 

More to follow.

[poblead]

Glad you enjoyed it...this makes me even more excited for my upcoming Allure cruise! Congrats on the upgrade too...where were you originally supposed to be?

 

Yeah how'd you score that ??

[vickiw0318]

This was a cruise deal for us. I had enough Visa points for a seven day cruise in an OV, so we decided to buy up to a grand suite. About three weeks before the cruise, RCI added a grand suite guarantee category. I am guessing that they oversold it because one day when I opened my email, there was one from them saying "here is the cruise documentation you requested". I hadn't requested any so I was very surprised when I opened it to see the upgrade.

 

Tuesday was a sea day. We tried out the jogging track. I am trying to walk several miles each day because of a back problem. I left the track ready to kill a few people. What part of walkers to the right and runners to the left don't you understand??? That doesn't mean walk three across the track. The poor joggers..... DH said he heard one guy yell "MOVE OVER!" I am surprised he didn't hear a lot more. I think the rest of the day involved a lot more relaxing. We saw Chicago that night. I enjoyed it. DH not so much.

 

Wednesday dawned somewhat hopefully. Clouds, but no rain. Captain Johnny's weather forecast was encouraging. He stated he was leaving the ship to play golf with the cruise director. They sure didn't get many holes in. The skies opened up once again and it poured. The shoppers were running for the ship. Not because it was about to leave, but because of the rain. It let up a little towards the end of the day. Our Oceanaria performance had been rescheduled for 5:15. We watched it in the rain. Dinner that night was at Giovanni's table. My fish entree was better than DH's veal. (One of our friends who happened to be two tables over loved his though.) The Unexpected Boys were the headliners. We love Four Seasons music so we enjoyed the show.

 

Got to go to work.

[akcruz]

Keep it coming, loving it. My turn is 1 month so soaking all in I can find. Thanks!

[Movieguy214]

Wow, sorry to hear about all the rain. I was on the 4/22 Allure Western itinerary and it rained on off but not like that.

 

Btw, I live right next to Richardson. Also, The first game of the OKC/Mavs series was on the last night of the cruise. Crappy how that turned out...

[BillOh]

Hi Vicki,

 

Looking forward to returning to Allure when you do next year. A couple of quick questions related to my last cruise. I loved the cruise, but are wondering if they have made some small improvements,

 

Did you fill out the flowrider/zip line waivers ahead of time? If so, did they have that record when you went to use them?

 

Do they have the ships position shown on a TV channel like other RC ships? When I was on this cruise last year, they said it was still in the works.

 

Hoping for better weather next year, it was great this week in 2011.

[BillOh]

After that, we spent Formal Night in a very uncrowded Johnny Rockets. We were both pleasantly surprised. We have both been on several RCI cruises and this was our first visit to Johnny Rockets. We enjoyed listening to a lot of 60's music and had one of the best formal nights ever. The evening ended with more slots and more ESPN.

 

More to follow.

 

 

 

Good idea, I didn't think of that, on our next cruise I doubt we will be bringing formal wear. We may do the WJ for one of the 2 formal night dinners, but I didn't even think about Johnny Rockets. We will probably go to Chops one night, but not sure whether that will be a formal night, or our anniversary. (Last year the two coincided in Nassau.)

[BillOh]

Tuesday was a sea day. We tried out the jogging track. I am trying to walk several miles each day because of a back problem. I left the track ready to kill a few people. What part of walkers to the right and runners to the left don't you understand??? That doesn't mean walk three across the track.

 

I don't remember if you read my review or not, but I had one lady taking up the entire track because she used dual walking sticks. (think like a pair of collapsable ski polls) They stuck out at 45 degree angles and took up the entire track. Then I had the old guy reading his Nook while he walked and he couldn't keep a straight line.

[hollon]

Thanks for the review, I'm leaving in 18 days :) I am booked for oceanaria, the first night like you, If it rains does rccl rebook your entertainment selection to another night?

[cactusflower]

Enjoying the review so far - thanks!

[vickiw0318]

Back from work. I came out of retirement for a few weeks to make cruise money. :)

 

RCI does rebook Oceanaria performances. We saw it a few days later in light rain, but no wind and no movement since the ship happened to still be in port.

 

Bill, I think their cousins were there in spirit. No nooks. Just small groups of people -some holding hands - taking up the entire track. We didn't sign waivers for the zipline, so I don't know if the advance waivers worked. My back problem is asymptomatic so the recent diagnosis was an unpleasant surprise. Sudden impact probably isn't great for it. This is a toughie because I love ziplines. Make that I LOVE ziplines.

 

As to your next question, do the TVs pick up anything but ESPN and ESPN2? I wouldn't have known it from this trip. I think I may have seen part of a Turner Classic movie between channel changes. No, basketball was the theme of the cruise. Even our cabin steward was an avid fan. Basketball was then followed closely by baseball and soccer. Give a sports nut like DH a great cabin, a 60 inch TV and lots of rain and you have a happy camper, er cruiser.

 

I think I have made it to Thursday. We arrived in port with another encouraging weather report from Captain Johnny. This one held for most of the day. We had clouds and some sprinkles and the sun even came out for a little while. We toured with Bernard. Our driver was the "Mailman" because he always delivers. He did give us a great tour, but I think his deliveries were to the ladies of the island with help from eggs from white sea urchins. Seems the island population is 60/40 female/male. Anyway, we saw iguanas, sea urchins, Orient Beach, Marigot and Maho Beach. We skipped the downtown shopping. One interesting aside was that when we got to Orient Beach, there was a guy - totally nude - standing to the left of us. The commentary was that he is the local exhibitionist and he always stands there.

 

I forgot to add that on Wednesday I found the Solarium and the Solarium Cafe. There were dry spots to sit and read in the former and good food and no crowds in the latter. The gazpacho was wonderful as were the Mexican style grilled shrimp.

 

We were invited to a special sail away from St. Martaan that was to have taken place on the helipad. Guess what? By the end of the day, the rainclouds had formed again so there went that activity. We had the third dinner of our Allure dining package in the Samba Grill that night. One of the pork loin choices was actually my favorite. We caved before all the selections came around. We did leave room for the chocolate dessert, but it failed miserably when compared with the Mississippi Mud Pie in Chops. No featured event for us that night. We spent a little time in the Casino and called it a day.

 

I'll be back in a bit. All my talk about chocolate has made me hungry. Since I am staying in a motel right now, I can't just head to the kitchen.

[mchin]

Hi Vicki...love reading your review. I don't have any questions right now, but am sure I will as we get closer to our cruise next year.

[vickiw0318]

Just wanted to add a general observation about crowds. I found the ship to be a little crowded. DH kept commenting that it wasn't crowded at all. It will be interesting to be on it under normal weather circumstances. For the first 5 1/2 days, everyone was inside. For the last day and 1/2, everyone was outside to make up for the 5 1/2 days prior. There wasn't a mix. Before the cruise, I thought I'd spend time in Central Park. I never saw it unless we were there to go to a restaurant. I thought I wouldn't go to the Broadwalk and we were there a lot. There's great ice cream in the ice cream shop.

 

There was light rain on Friday morning. This was the day of the Mixed Nutz' scheduled cabin crawl. (Thanks Denise.) We saw an inside cabin, a hump OV balcony, a regular OV balcony, a Broadwalk balcony and our Crown Loft. For those of you interested in OV balconies, the actual balcony in the hump cabin seemed twice as deep to me. Anyway, it was lots of fun and fun meeting some of the Nutz. There was a C&A event in the Aqua Theater after that. I missed some of it and watched the rest in the rain. I am happy to report that those were the last drops to fall on my head. The sun broke through and I spent the afternoon sunning. The pools and decks were mobbed. Like I said earlier, I am not sure how the turnout would have been had we had sun earlier in the week. But there wasn't, so everyone jumped at the chance to be outside.

 

This was the second formal night and we spent this one in the Windjammer. The plates of Royal Chocolate Cake were a beautiful sight. I ate some other food too. We were supposed to see Blue Planet that night, but decided to save it for the next trip.

 

The sun was out on Saturday too. DH and I headed out early and had breakfast in the Solarium. On the way, I watched a pair of dedicated Chair Hogs stake out their territory by the Sports Pool. It was a very complicated process. The first set of chairs were apparently not to their liking. The towels came off them and went on to the second set. Then, they tried to decide if the towels were sufficient or would it be best to turn the chairs over someway. DH made me leave before they reached their final decision. We enjoyed the sun for awhile.

 

We had a 12:15 theater tour to go to. We were introduced to some of the Chicago cast members, one of the acrobats and the dance captain and heard some of their stories. One of the most interesting things to me was the number of shows they were in during the week. Many of the Chicago cast also appear in Blue Planet and another show so they work about 9 shows a week. The acrobat appeared in about 11 in various capacities. They can also choose to work at other areas of the ship. We then walked through the Promenade, grabbed some of the yummy small sandwiches from the Cafe Promenade and went to the Aqua Theater the Madagascar Water Show "Let You Entertain Me". I had fun learning the audience participation dance. The rest of the afternoon was devoted to more sun and saying goodbye to most of the Friends of Bill we'd met.

 

Dinner was at the Windjammer again. We went to the Comedy Show and really enjoyed both comics. After that, we went next door to the Jazz Club for a salute to the Big Band Era and its singers. Even as old as we are, we are too young for that music, but both sets of our parents loved a lot of what we heard. We'd both grown up with Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra.....

 

Sunday, we said goodbye. it was a bit easier knowing that we'd be back. Their were some lines getting off, but not too bad. We got to the airport early enough that we could have taken an earlier flight back to Dallas.

 

Overall, I think we hit a lot of the food venues: Park Cafe, Chops, Ice Cream Shop, Windjammer, room service, Giovanni's Table, Solarium Cafe, Samba Grill, Cafe Promenade, Broadwalk Dog House and Johnny Rockets. We did eat breakfast in the Concierge Lounge one morning. DH loved getting made to order fried eggs without having to wait in line. We had some small cupcakes from the Cupcake shop delivered to our room and they were very tasty. We didn't go to 150 Central Park or the Chef's Table. We aren't foodies so the experiences would be lost on us. I have tried to like sushi (really)and just don't get it, so no Izumi's either. No main dining room, no Sorrentos. I don't feel bad about skipping either of those since they can either be found on all or many of the other ships. No Rita's Cantina either since Tex-Mex is a part of our regular fare around here.

 

There is so much to see and I am so glad that we are coming back. I want to do a search for the hidden art, eat at Chop's again, see Blue Planet and the Madagascar Ice Show. Sorry this review doesn't cover any of the pubs/bars/etc. Heard lots of good music coming from all corners of the ship and I need to check out more of that. I've probably missed a lot. For all of you getting ready to go, you will have a blast.

 

P.S. I did remember something else. Some of the raindrops falling were wonderful - the ones from the rain shower head in the upstairs bathroom. I'd never been under one of those before. I love it!

[out2sea]

We were on the Oasis Western and for most of the week it rained too..don't feel badly! Disappointing but still had a great week!

[#1packerfan]

Hi Vicki,

 

Looking forward to returning to Allure when you do next year. A couple of quick questions related to my last cruise. I loved the cruise, but are wondering if they have made some small improvements,

 

Did you fill out the flowrider/zip line waivers ahead of time? If so, did they have that record when you went to use them?

 

Do they have the ships position shown on a TV channel like other RC ships? When I was on this cruise last year, they said it was still in the works.

 

Hoping for better weather next year, it was great this week in 2011.

 

I was on the Allure on April 22nd, and we filled out the zip line waiver ahead of time online. When we went to actually do the zip line, it must have been in the system because we didn't have to fill out anything else. Not sure about the flow rider, we didn't do that.

[Familygoboston]

Thanks for your review! Sounds like a soggy week:(. That's always unfortunate if you are on one of those " once in a lifetime, saved up for years" trips...I'm glad that's not the case for you amd you made the best of it and you'll be back 2 weeks after we cruise her!:D

[vickiw0318]

When we did the cabin crawl, one of the Nutz was wondering how many people were on their first cruise. I later heard Captain Johnny say that out of 6000+ passengers, there were about 2200 returning C&A members. Of course that doesn't mean that some of them hadn't been on other cruise lines before. There's a lady at church that was on this cruise and it was her very first cruise. I'll have to stop by the bookstore Saturday night and get her views on her week.

[BillOh]

One interesting aside was that when we got to Orient Beach, there was a guy - totally nude - standing to the left of us. The commentary was that he is the local exhibitionist and he always stands there.

 

.

 

He, or a substitute was there when we were there too, just standing right on the border between the nude side and the rest of the beach, right near the famous sign.

 

 

To be there all day most every day, he must use some good sunscreen, I'll have to ask him what kind next time. I think we will probably do this tour again.

[BillOh]

Just wanted to add a general observation about crowds. I found the ship to be a little crowded. DH kept commenting that it wasn't crowded at all. It will be interesting to be on it under normal weather circumstances.

 

That might be the key, the only time I felt crowded was when I watched the flash mob dance from where you see your photos.

[BillOh]

Thanks for your review! Sounds like a soggy week:(. That's always unfortunate if you are on one of those " once in a lifetime, saved up for years" trips...I'm glad that's not the case for you amd you made the best of it and you'll be back 2 weeks after we cruise her!:D

 

We just miss again ;) I'll look forward to hearing how the weather was when you get back. This spring has definitely been one of the oddest ever for weather here in Ohio. I regularly speak with colleagues in Boston, so I know yours was similar.

[Familygoboston]

He, or a substitute was there when we were there too, just standing right on the border between the nude side and the rest of the beach, right near the famous sign.

 

 

To be there all day most every day, he must use some good sunscreen, I'll have to ask him what kind next time. I think we will probably do this tour again.

 

No one uses sunscreen:eek: We love Orient beach, while under an umbrella, slathered in SPF, but the folk who spend the season look like old brown, leather handbags:p Never saw anyone looking even remotely like the sign:D

[vickiw0318]

LOL. Me either. The older couple walking the beach wearing bright yellow matching thongs sure didn't either 1) wear sunscreen of 2) look like the sign.