Thinking ABout First RCCL Cruise

[theshowmestate]

DCL is going to be out of the ballpark for me price wise to do their European stuff in 2015 so I'm thinking about the Allure of the Seas to the Med. sailing from Barcelona. I'm looking for info. on:

How are RCCL's pre-curise hotel choices & flight packages? Do their's or do my own?

I'm concerned about getting nickeled & dimmed on board between drinks, drink packages, speciality dinning etc., how do you manage that?

Concerned about crowd level on board,that's a lot of people on one ship, do you feel crowded on board such a big ship?

How's the spa pricing?

Anything else that would help a first time RCCL cruiser.

[BillOh]

If you read a lot of reviews, Allure does a great job of handling the crowds for a ship that size. Many reviews, including 2 of my own remark about never feeling crowded.

 

Spa pricing I consider over the top, but I doubt it much different than Disney. I'm going to leave the rest to people who know more. I've been on Allure twice and loved it.

[CathyCanada]

I have to agree with Bill that I have never felt crowded on my 3 Oasis cruises, other than coming out of the muster drill, but that happens on every ship. ;)

 

As for being nickel and dimed, I think that is based largely on your preferences. You don't have to get drink packages and can get a soda package if you wish. You just have to do the math and decide what would work for you. That goes for the alternative dining as well. The dining room food is great, but do your homework and find out all you can about the alternative restaurants to see if that may be something that interests you and plan for it.

 

I have found the pre-cruise hotel prices to be on the high side and book my own hotel as well as air. If you are not a researcher, use a good travel agent.

 

Hope that helps and good luck in your planning.

[cb at sea]

The ships are designed for the max. number of passengers....crowding won't be much of an issue!

 

You don't HAVE to do any of the specialty restaurants, or buy any of the "for fee" items, if you don't want to! That's why the base price is lower....but you could conceivably spend as much on the extras as you would pay on a more inclusive line.

[mgoblue19]

Our Allure trip didn't feel crowded at all.

 

We did 12 night Serenade in Mediterranean last July and it was very port intensive (until the last 2 days I think). I'm not sure how much you'll do on the ship if you're getting off at every port and keeping active.

 

Just something to think about, we found that European cruises (and excursions) require you to be more active to get stuff out of it (not really many "beach" type days or anything).

 

You'll love Allure though, and we would have welcomed more stuff to do on Serenade by the end of 12 nights.

 

We enjoyed our European cruise (was with a bunch of family) but won't be rushing back. Once you see one bunch of old stuff it all starts to blur together.

[LBumb]

ships have so many venues, we rarely felt crowded

we stayed away from windjammer

[tidygirl]

DCL is going to be out of the ballpark for me price wise to do their European stuff in 2015 so I'm thinking about the Allure of the Seas to the Med. sailing from Barcelona. I'm looking for info. on:

How are RCCL's pre-curise hotel choices & flight packages? Do their's or do my own?

I'm concerned about getting nickeled & dimmed on board between drinks, drink packages, speciality dinning etc., how do you manage that?

Concerned about crowd level on board,that's a lot of people on one ship, do you feel crowded on board such a big ship?

How's the spa pricing?

Anything else that would help a first time RCCL cruiser.

We are booked out of Barcelona for Sept 2014 I've been watching prices on cruises and airfare for a year and a half. This is what I've found the pre and post cruise hotels really expensive booked one on my own hopefully ok Trip Advisor said it was good. Flights from Pa if I did on my own have been running close to $1200 .Through choice air $1000 to $1035 plus they will help you if any flight delays etc. I have been checking the flight prices 2 to 3 times a day and one evening a couple of weeks ago I checked at 5:00Pm and at 8:00 Pm the price for some reason dropped to $780!!! I jumped on it right away as I am paying for 6 people! (It was back up by morning) As far as extra expenses we have been on 8 or 9 cruises with RC and never have eaten at the extra restaurants, we don't drink alcohol, and are satisfied with the free lemonade, tea and water . I'd rather spend my money seeing stuff than eating or drinking it. So you can limit what you spend if you want too and if that's important to you. My biggest temptation is the photos as I'm sucker for pictures and as my kids are all grown and we no longer do a yearly Christmas photo this makes up for it!!