Allure Sept 30, 2012 - The Most Disorganized Review Ever

[swwake]

This night was the second formal night. When we went back to our room to get ready for the evening, I checked the closet and could not find the cute black sequin dress I had planned to wear that night. I was a bit baffled for a hot minute. Then I realized that I must have forgotten to pack it. Luckily I had packed a cute standby LBD. It wasn't formal, but I'd jazz it up with some jewelry and make it work. TIP: Always bring one extra LBD. It will work in a pinch on any evening.

When we got home after the cruise, I found a space on a rack in our closet that had 7 blouses and dresses I had pulled out to pack, then forgotten to pack. Except for the black sequin dress, I never even missed any of these items. TIP: Follow the "cruising rule" of unpacking half of your suitcase after you pack it for a cruise (or just never pack half in the first place).

Dinner that night was at Chops Grill in Central Park at 8pm and it was excellent. We were immediately seated and really enjoyed our meal. I don't remember everything we ordered, but I got the smaller fillet and Chris got the larger one and later wished he had gotten the smaller one.

 

We ran into a couple we had met near the flowrider and had seen several times over the course of the cruise. Bob and (I can't remember her name - I feel bad - I should take notes). They are super nice and I wish we had had time to get to know them better. TIP: bring business cards, or name cards with your email address, and take good notes!

 

We were stuffed and didn't want to order dessert, but our server, who was great, by the way, talked us into taking the chocolate dessert (mud pie maybe?) back to our room to indulge in later, perhaps with a glass of milk ordered from room service. Chris went to great pains to find room in our mini-fridge to store the dessert, and we promptly forgot about it, until we were cleaning up our cabin on the last day.

 

When we went to the room to drop off the Chops dessert, we found this towel animal, our third and last for the cruise.

 

After going to our room, we stopped by Focus, the photo studio, to see the pics of us so far. We pulled a couple off the wall and placed them into our folder for later. The Oasis class has nailed the cruise photo process. You have an index number on your Seapass card and you go to that tower and binder to see your photos. For example, your card may say 21-76. Go to tower #21 and grab binder #76. That is your binder, with all of your photos. They use face recognition to organize all of them. The system isn't perfect (all photos don't make it into the binder - for example, if your face is hidden behind sunglasses, and we found another couple's photo in our binder - I was flattered, incidentally - she was adorable!), but it works much better than fishing through hundreds of photos of the other 6198 passengers to find your own.

 

From Focus, we could see the 70s party on the Royal Promenade below us. Here are some photos. The Rising Tide bar was stopped a few feet off Deck 5. I believe they allowed the singles and solo cruisers on Rising Tide during this part of the evening.

 

You can see the crowd beyond the Rising Tide bar. I am so glad I wasn't in that mess!

 

One of the cruise staff and our cruise director, Allan Brooks, on the platform that rolls out of the globe above the Bow and Stern Pub. He is dressed as John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.

 

 

I love 70s night on every Royal Caribbean cruise. It is always almost identical, but varies a little depending on the cruise director (for example, Richard Spacey does Austin Powers instead of John Travolta), but it's always great. But this night, we had other plans.

 

So we moved on. To...

[DakarNick]

Subscribed! I think I'm going to pull the trigger on this tomorrow if wifey can get the time off.

 

:D

[swwake]

Subscribed! I think I'm going to pull the trigger on this tomorrow if wifey can get the time off.

 

:D

Oh you won't be sorry! Amazing ship. And I think RCCL customer service is almost on par with Disney. Honored to be your 1st or 2nd post. Welcome to Cruise Critic!

[swwake]

We missed most of the 70s party because we had plans to meet some friends in the Viking Crown Lounge. I was glad we spent some time in the VCL this cruise, because it is the RCCL signature and we often forget about it when we're on cruises. One of the best views on the ship.

 

We showed up about 11pm and our group was already there, plus a couple of more guys who we were to meet that evening. We took a long table near the bar, overlooking the H20 Zone and ordered a cocktail.

 

There was a band playing maybe some big band or swing music, but I won't look up the name of them because we didn't think they were very good.

 

After a couple of rounds, we made our way to one of my favorite events of every RCCL cruise: twenty

 

twenty is a late night party where the Solarium is converted into a dance club. Much of the area is draped in white, and there are blue lights shining on everything (or maybe they are blacklights).

 

My favorite part is that they have these ladies who dress in all white with these cool hula hoops and stand like statues, moving from time to time into various, very cool poses. I don't know what they call them. I call them the "white ladies".

Here is one of them.

 

I must have had the flash on, so you can't see the blue glow here. I wanted this white lady to move, but she stood very still most of the night.

 

This was the other white lady.

 

This one did move quite a bit, and I loved it.

 

And back to the boring one. I kept saying she shouldn't get paid for that night. But maybe she wasn't feeling well. I didn't like this white lady.

Here's a group shot of all of us.

Dave, Mark, Christy, David, me and Chris

[swwake]

The DJ was a lot of fun that night.

 

More of the "good" white lady who made me happy

I think I want to go as a white lady next Halloween.

We ran into Julia, my Brazilian friend from the flowrider.

 

And somehow, I ended up with David's hat. Seems to be the theme of the cruise. Remember, Harold ended up with it the night before in Blaze.

 

We danced and had a great time, and danced some more, and watched the white lady that moved and the white lady who was not feeling well, and danced some more.

And...

It's not a party 'til someone loses a shoe.

 

Yep, my formal night shoe broke. Chris went back to the room and got me a pair of flip flops to replace them. Yes, I was stylin'!

 

We stayed a little longer at twenty, then headed to sweet dreams before our final Sea Day.

[Jan_In_Maine]

Wonderful review! Thanks, Jan

[Eng23]

Thank you. It was pretty fun. Another thing that makes it so different - on a smaller ship, more people would probably have caught Captain Johnny on his bike. Oh you don't know how badly I want to rebook! But I just can't right now - we have some other plans in the works. Hang with me and I'll share after I finish my report.

 

Is that photo blurry, or is it my memory? Haha. I love it!

No, it's foggy.....:D

[Eng23]

At least you look better with the hat on than I did. I looked goofy with the hat. :D

[out2sea]

The "white ladies" are pretty cool. Have found that one always moves around more than the other. It must be hard to move in those outfits. The drink menu is pretty good -featured drinks by absolute but of course no deals. Very techno music many songs never heard of but it's fun to check out. Lots of people watching!

We didn't take advantage of the Viking Crown this time. Only for pix. Very nice lounge. Last cruise we spent time up there on an unfavorable day. The Chapel this time always seemed to be busy even holding meetings. Very beautiful but hard to go in without intruding this cruise. Great views from in there.

Little dad your review is coming to an end! Boooo hehe

[gambee's_mom]

We missed the late party Twenty. At least we can see it through your pictures.

 

It was nice you have a lot of fun. Thank you for sharing your memories with us.

[kevinsgirl88]

im loving your review!!! cant wait to read more!:D

[Arch713]

Susan...love your review! You and Chris are a fabulous couple!

 

Thanks again for sharing! It's fun to read a review from such a go with the flow (yet I love your daily schedule) type of couple.

[swwake]

Wonderful review! Thanks, Jan

Thank you! Almost finished!

 

At least you look better with the hat on than I did. I looked goofy with the hat. :D

I wouldn't say that. I haven't done hats since my Debbie Gibson days in the '80s!

[swwake]

The "white ladies" are pretty cool. Have found that one always moves around more than the other. It must be hard to move in those outfits. The drink menu is pretty good -featured drinks by absolute but of course no deals. Very techno music many songs never heard of but it's fun to check out. Lots of people watching!

We didn't take advantage of the Viking Crown this time. Only for pix. Very nice lounge. Last cruise we spent time up there on an unfavorable day. The Chapel this time always seemed to be busy even holding meetings. Very beautiful but hard to go in without intruding this cruise. Great views from in there.

Little dad your review is coming to an end! Boooo hehe

I'm glad we spent more time in the VCL this trip. We also stepped into the chapel for a moment one of the early days, but no photos. Because I felt like we weren't supposed to be in there. I hope to finish it up pretty soon. I will leave Tuesday for 8 nights in Vegas (work) and then it's full-fledge Christmas stuff when we get back. It would be nice to have this not hanging over my shoulders :)

 

We missed the late party Twenty. At least we can see it through your pictures.

 

It was nice you have a lot of fun. Thank you for sharing your memories with us.

OH I'm honored that you posted on my review! twenty is a fun party. So great to see how you and your son enjoyed your cruise!

[swwake]

im loving your review!!! cant wait to read more!:D

 

Susan...love your review! You and Chris are a fabulous couple!

 

Thanks again for sharing! It's fun to read a review from such a go with the flow (yet I love your daily schedule) type of couple.

Thank you both for the compliments. So glad you are enjoying.

 

We weren't as go-with-the-flow as Chris would like, but I am a real planner, so it's a good balance we strike.

[swwake]

I forgot to recap Day 6 with our daily calendar/plans.

Day 6 plans per my pre-cruise calendar:

 

9a-6p – flowrider (ride sporadically throughout the day) Done - almost all day

8p – Chops Done

11p – Blue Planet (forgot/skipped?)

12a - twenty Done

 

For Day 7, here's what my pre-cruise calendar looked like:

9a-5p - flowrider

5p-6p - watch Best of the Best at flowrider

 

Not too ambitious of a day, huh?

 

Well, as I mentioned before, things changed a little. The port side flowrider, normally used for stand-up surfing, was closed all day. They were planning to replace the pumps on Sunday while in port, so they needed to disassemble it.

 

This meant they ran a staggered schedule on the starboard side flowrider, alternating between stand-up and boogie board during the day.

 

We knew this, and we wanted to get as much water time as possible on our last day. So we got up and made it to the flowrider at 9am. They ran "advanced" (load yourself) for the first hour. Then stand-up from 10-11. We stayed until 11, then went to the Windjammer for breakfast.

 

We ran into our friend Dave from the flowrider at the Windjammer and he was walking around with his head cocked to one side, turning his whole body to see things, because he couldn't turn his neck. We found out that he had hurt himself on the flowrider that morning and couldn't move his neck. This meant he was out for that evening's Best of the Best competition. And Dave was the best rider on the ship, so this was a real shame. :(

 

After breakfast, we walked around the ship for awhile, just taking in our last day. Then Chris went to the gym and I wandered around a little, checking out the various events like trivia contests. I ran into Captain Johnny on the Royal Promenade. With his parrot. (?)

I took some pictures of things I hadn't earlier. Like this little puppy sniffing about.

 

This artwork is next to Sorrentos in the area leading out to the jogging track and one of the gangways when the ship is in port at Port Everglades. I remember on Oasis, this same spot has some painters removing the "Genesis" graffiti. Genesis was the working name of the Oasis Class ships during the design phase.

I ran a few errands, including stopping by Focus to check out all of our photos and organize in our binder which ones I wanted to purchase. I also filled out our comment card back in the room.

 

We had a late lunch at Johnny Rockets. We had no problem getting a table outside on the Boardwalk. Lunch was pretty good, but we each cut our burgers in half and ate only half. We just don't eat as much as a lot of people.

After lunch, we strolled a bit more, then went back to the flowrider for its 3pm conversion from boogie board back to stand-up. While we were wandering the ship, we kept wondering aloud who would be asked to ride in the Best of the Best contest. We had a pretty good idea that Chris might be asked.

 

When we got to the flowrider at 3, we witnessed a very angry father. He had brought his kid(s) to ride boogie board right at 3pm, only to find out that there would be no more boogie for the rest of the cruise. I did feel a little bad for him, until he made a bit of a scene, asked to see "who's in charge" and was walked around a corner to continue his discussion. In Allure's defense, they couldn't control the fact that the port side flowrider had to be disassembled on a schedule, and they had attempted to notify everyone of the modified hours by posting them on the sports deck Friday and Saturday, making announcements Friday and Saturday on the sports deck, and publishing them in the Cruise Compass.

 

We rode the flowrider from 3 until 5:30, when it was time for the Best of the Best contest.

[swwake]

While we were surfing the flowrider that afternoon, they made several announcements asking for people to sign up to enter the "Best of the Best" competition. This has become tradition on Royal Caribbean ships with flowriders. The last 30-60 minutes of the last day of the flowrider is dedicated to the best riders of the week. The winner gets the honor of autographing the ship's "Best of the Best Flowboard". Here is the Allure one.

I was impressed to see that several of the names were obviously females!

 

So we surfed and surfed and eventually some of our new friends AND Chris signed up for the contest (Chris was asked by the sports staff to enter - go Chris!). Then right before one of my runs, the guy from the sports staff said "right after your run, you are going to the desk to sign up, right?" Um...what?

 

I am decent, but not good. It was just ironic that I may have been the best girl riding that week. (Keep in mind this is off-season for cruising, and all the younger, agile, athletic girls are in school, or smart enough to avoid hurricane season in the middle of the ocean.) I am not an attention seeker (any more - ha!). I prefer to go out there and surf and do my thing. I don't like the pressure of having to perform. So I politely declined. Flattered, I was.

 

So at about 5:30, they shut down the wave and pulled the four contestants up to the wave. Each got 2 minutes (I think) to show their best moves. Then, the audience got to vote by applause.

Chris is on the left, just to the right of the guy with the microphone.

 

Here was his time to get the crowd going!

 

Ultimately, Chris didn't win, but the guy to his right did. He was excellent and deserved to get to autograph the board. It was all in good fun and everyone was a great sport.

 

After the contest, Chris and I picked up a cocktail from our friendly bartender at the Sand Bar and went to join some new friends in the cantilevered hot tub for awhile. That felt really nice after a long week of surfing!

 

For dinner this night, we planned to meet our other new friends (the ones from twenty) for dinner in the Main Dining Room. We agreed to meet at 7:15 at the Bow & Stern Pub on the Royal Promenade.

 

Bad idea. Next time, we need to check the Cruise Compass. There was a Dreamworks parade starting at 7:30 and the Promenade was very, very crowded. We were lucky to find our friends near the Rising Tide Bar and quickly make our getaway before the characters arrived.

 

This was the only time we ate in the MDR the entire week. We enjoyed dinner with a large group, and realized how much we had missed the MDR. The food was good. The company was better. It was great to relax, reminisce the past 7 days, and laugh with new, good friends!

 

After dinner, we went to pack our suitcases to set them outside. We had opted for the Luggage Valet, since our flight did not leave until 4pm the next day.

Then it was off to Focus to buy our photos, and we met our dinner friends one last time for hugs, kisses and photo opportunities.

 

The rest of the evening, Chris and I took a stroll up on the pool deck. It was quiet, breezy, and very romantic. Another thing I wish we had taken the time to do every single day.

 

Later, we went back to our room and relaxed on the balcony for one last evening of star watching. What a great last evening!

 

And "Best of the Best" was not just the theme for the flowrider contest. It is a great summary for the ship and this particular cruise. Chris and I both agreed that this was our best cruise ever. You can't beat that for free!

 

Daily calendar recap:

9a-5p - flowrider Only surfed part of the day

5p-6p - watch Best of the Best at flowrider I watched. Chris was *in* the contest!

[Bella O]

I have loved following your review! Thanks for bringing me "along on the cruise", I have so enjoyed being on the Allure with you!

[gambee]

After reading and catching up to your review, I can't believe I missed the contest in our cruise. You know there is so much to do in the these ships that you really need 2 or 3 times around in them to get to do everything.

 

 

Thanks fro sharing your adventure with us. :)

[Eng23]

After reading and catching up to your review, I can't believe I missed the contest in our cruise. You know there is so much to do in the these ships that you really need 2 or 3 times around in them to get to do everything.

 

 

Thanks fro sharing your adventure with us. :)

You are absolutely right! That's why I'm heading back to the Allure next year! Now I gotta go back and catch up on your review Gambee! :)

[out2sea]

Great review. Let me tell you, I have been once on the Oasis and three times on the Allure and still have missed things like Best of the Best! Just so much going on. This time I thought I would take it all in but still didn't happen (some for good reasons).

Enjoy your trip to Vegas ! Thanks for sharing your trip feels like I was on a different vaca in a way but that's a good thing :) love new tips and view points

[DakarNick]

Oh you won't be sorry! Amazing ship. And I think RCCL customer service is almost on par with Disney. Honored to be your 1st or 2nd post. Welcome to Cruise Critic!

 

Thank you! We booked it and we're sailing in 10 days! We're bringing a few cameras and some money for the All Access Tour. I can't wait!

 

:D

[SueBabe]

Susan, I just finished reading this entire thread and it's now 12:45 p.m.; it is so entertaining, I didn't want to stop reading and didn't realize it was so late! Thanks so much for your time and sharing your cruise experience. DH and I will be boarding the Oasis on April 20, 2013, for our 40th anniversary. I will also be using your spread sheet, very helpful. Question, if you were going back to St. Marten, would you consider getting a taxi and staying at Orient Beach for the day? It really looked beautiful. Again, thanks!

from another "Susan"

[oracer]

Does anyone know how to get the actual spreadsheet? Didnt see it posted, if possible, someone has it send it to john.morris@wellsfargo.com

[swwake]

Susan, I just finished reading this entire thread and it's now 12:45 p.m.; it is so entertaining, I didn't want to stop reading and didn't realize it was so late! Thanks so much for your time and sharing your cruise experience. DH and I will be boarding the Oasis on April 20, 2013, for our 40th anniversary. I will also be using your spread sheet, very helpful. Question, if you were going back to St. Marten, would you consider getting a taxi and staying at Orient Beach for the day? It really looked beautiful. Again, thanks!

from another "Susan"

I don't think we would do Orient Beach for a day, simply because we're not beach people. We would be wanting to go back to the ship for flowrider. But if you love the beach, this is one amazing beach, and if I were going to pick just one beach to spend a day at, Orient would be it.

 

Does anyone know how to get the actual spreadsheet? Didnt see it posted, if possible, someone has it send it to john.morris@wellsfargo.com

I will try to get this to you when I get to my home computer and have access.