Short Cruise Review Allure 5/26 Sailing

[pjack61]

My wife and I sailed on Oasis last spring and we looked forward to sailing on the sister ship Allure and we had a great time.

Highlights:

 

All shows were incredible oceanaria, ice games, blue planet, Chicago. All high end production.

Room attendant Dominic, awesome.

Cruise Director Ken the best.

Windjammer food was the best we have had in (6) cruises. We do not eat there often, but were so impressed by the lunch and dinner offerrings on this cruise that we ate there 4 times for dinner. MDR dinner first night was good, prime rib was phenominal.

Park central roastbeef and make your own salad, delicious.

Hot dog stand what a great place, fresh baked hot dog buns, 7 offerings all excellent! If I were 20 years younger i could have camped there!

Stops in St Thomas, avoid the crowds, find the ferry to water island, rent a golf cart ( kellys carts) cruise around the 600 acre island, then drive right up on the Honeymoon beach at " Christy's" i think that was the name, great food, beautiful beach, quiet, friendly. 6000 cruisers on our ship and there were about 50 at this beach...nice, will not dissapoint.

St Maarten, did the Bob Cass speedboat tour. This is amazing and worth double the cost. Lunch is all fresh island bbq, fish or chicken with red beans rice. Snorkeling at tinttamare and the sea turtles, awesome. Snorkeling at creole rock the best snorkel spot for us so far! 3 more remote beach stops and pinnel island, jumping waves on the atlantic side, Maho, flying at 70 knots the last 5 miles! Book this!

 

Lowlights

 

Samba Grill was awful, and i am guarded in my criticism, but the meat was tastless, the pork, lamb, sausage all over cooked. This is not close to the quality specialty restaurant that we are used to on Royal, Princess or HL.

Giovannis...seafood soup was just awful, and I hate to say this, but I literally took one bite and had to push it aside...and I am a seafood lover. Salad average.

Bread, tastless. Crustini appetizer excellent, gnocci average at best, lamb chops were best part of the meal, but the accompanying side of sauteed spinach and squash was very bitter and was a complete disconnect with the lamb. Desserts average. These were our only 2 specialty dinners on the cruise and they were both a dissapointment, and Im being kind...although waitstaff always good.

 

This has been mentioned recently in other allure reviews, but we noticed a general " sadness, overworked, attitude" and pop up smiling now and then.

We have not seen this so comprehensively before in our 5 other cruises. This is not to say that everyone had this " malaise" ther were occasional happy staff, especially our room attendant.

 

In spite of the lows, this was still an excellent cruise and we loved it!