Cheapo dad’s trip report on Allure of the Seas sailing December 14, 2014

[Sweet Dreams]

Thank you so so much for one of the best reviews I have ever read on Cruise Critic!

 

Can you please share the costs of the glow items your purchased on ship? Still trying to decide if I want to bring our own.

Thanks again

[cathykb]

Harry,

 

Thanks so much for taking us on your cruise! Your sense of humor is.......priceless. I enjoyed your monologue!

 

Cathy

[harryfat1]

Just blame me! I am still following, until the bitter end! I have learned tons of new information. I am going to be piggybacking on your ideas! :p

 

I love your wife's photo from the pre-Blue planet show, where your son is playing with the Earth!

 

If you stay until the bitter end, then you have to wade through one extra day of mind numbing photos as we stayed in FLL one night after the cruise.

 

Here is one extra photo of my wife trying to squish the blue planet. You can basically do anything you want with it – touch/squeeze/hold it. We spent too much time trying to get the planet inside the hands that the picture wasn’t in focus.

 

 

Go ahead and piggyback any ideas from my posts – just remember me when you come back and upload your 1,000+ pictures in your review…

[harryfat1]

Thank you so so much for one of the best reviews I have ever read on Cruise Critic!

 

Can you please share the costs of the glow items your purchased on ship? Still trying to decide if I want to bring our own.

Thanks again

 

Thank you for the praise. No assurance on the quality of the trip report, just guarantee it will be long and full of blah blah…

 

The glow package we bought was $15. I didn’t track exactly what was in it as my wife and the boys were at the table looking at the various prices – I was too busy taking pictures of the people in line for the Invectia watch sale behind us. My wife said that was the best deal in getting the package with 2 glasses and ring and necklace. Good enough to 2 people to share versus buying each one at $3 to $5 each.

 

Depending in the size of your party, I would definitely at least bring 1 or 2 packet of glow sticks from Walmart/Dollar Store from home as they don’t take up any space in the zipper portion of the luggage and provide colorful accessory to the clothes. For us, the kids took the package we bought from the cruise and the adults used the ones brought from home.

[harryfat1]

Harry,

 

Thanks so much for taking us on your cruise! Your sense of humor is.......priceless. I enjoyed your monologue!

 

Cathy

 

Thanks for the kind words. Glad you are along for the virtual cruise. It's simple/relaxing and best of all, it's free.

 

I just let the pictures/activities tell the story. I just string them together with bunch of gibberish comments on top of my usual “grumpy old man” complaints.

 

Actually I just wrote few words on the glow party and priceless which I will post shortly. Thanks for the segue introduction. Perfect timing…

[harryfat1]

OK, few more pics from the Glow party before we wrap up day 6

 

Here's me with the boys

 

 

The in-laws are starting to get into the swing of things now

 

 

One song over and waiting for next. They played all the dance classics

 

 

Here is what everyone was looking at – the assistant CD up in the front

 

[harryfat1]

Wife has no camera – that meant now I have both the SLR and camcorder around my neck and she wondered afterward why I didn’t dance very much with them? DUH – let me think…

 

 

 

 

Oh, here’s the classic. Y-M-C-A

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Glowing glasses and ring

 

 

 

So as you can tell, we had a blast at the GLOW party. Just like the 70’s party, I like how Royal can bring the family to a dance function that they typically wouldn’t go if it was held at a night club late night setting. At this party, saw many younger kids with parents as well grandparents on top of the younger hip crowd you normally see at the clubs at 1 AM. Good all-around event for everyone.

 

To paraphrase an old MasterCard commercial theme:

 

Cost to go on RCI cruise on B1 balcony cabin - $856 per person

 

Cost to buy the GLOW accessory for the party - $14.99

 

Cost to dance the chicken dance with my kids/wife and watch my in-laws try to do the YMCA dance and capturing it on video – PRICELESS

[harryfat1]

We stayed at the party until 11 PM, then it was time to drag our tired bodies back to the cabin after a long day. Think the official party ends after 11:30.

 

Technically I signed up for the Madagascar breakfast for day 7 mornings at 7:45 AM but there’s no way we would make that. Why would they make it that early is beyond me considering the MDR is opened between 8 to 10 AM that morning.

 

We were grandfathered in not having to pay the $10/pp fee to dine with the characters as we reserved the breakfast prior to September 1, 2014. I thought it would a nice thing to do the breakfast thing if it was free but no way was I going to pay $40 for us to eat there after they implemented the new fee. Now with the tired family, even the free character meal didn’t appeal to me.

 

I did stay up a little bit that night to double check the OBC from the TV screen so that I know how much we have left in the account to spend for day 7. As I posted previously, they gave us an extra $17/pp OBC from some sort of port tax refund, but no idea which one and why. Money is money. Planned to use it both on the aunts and uncles on day 7, our last day on the ship.

 

This concludes the day 6 trip report.

[OttoCal]

Still following along... lots of fun pictures and great information. It's always interesting to see another perspective on different aspects of a cruise!

 

At Playa Mia beach a few years ago we did a cooking class, which was great fun- for adults mostly, as there was more alcohol consumed than cooking completed, I think :eek:

And Tulum is a beautiful ruin to see, but wouldn't recommend it as a ship's tour, due to the distance- ferry, bus, tour, bus, ferry- a looooong day. This one is better as an adventure if you are on a land trip in Mexico.

[wave rider]

Harry, thanks so much for the fantastic review. I love the photos as well as your commentary. We are sailing in less than 3 weeks and am looking forward to getting out of low temps and into some warm weather for a few days at least.

 

Thanks again!:D

[harryfat1]

Still following along... lots of fun pictures and great information. It's always interesting to see another perspective on different aspects of a cruise!

 

At Playa Mia beach a few years ago we did a cooking class, which was great fun- for adults mostly, as there was more alcohol consumed than cooking completed, I think :eek:

And Tulum is a beautiful ruin to see, but wouldn't recommend it as a ship's tour, due to the distance- ferry, bus, tour, bus, ferry- a looooong day. This one is better as an adventure if you are on a land trip in Mexico.

 

Thanks for the compliment and following along.

 

Yeah, in my opening remarks, I said a cruise vacation is like the ultimate buffet of vacations. Just like buffets, no 2 people will likely eat the same food. And just as on the cruise, no 2 unrelated families will likely have the same experience even if they were on the same sailing.

 

Just being in different category of cabins (especially on these mega ships), eating different food venues and attending different shows/events, all those will greatly impact your experience on the cruise. That’s not counting different land excursion when you get off the ship. So everyone will have different views/experience from their cruise.

 

I read many reviews about the Tulum experience just as you described. I will wait for a better time to see that on another cruise.

[harryfat1]

Harry, thanks so much for the fantastic review. I love the photos as well as your commentary. We are sailing in less than 3 weeks and am looking forward to getting out of low temps and into some warm weather for a few days at least.

 

Thanks again!:D

 

Hi,

 

Thanks for the kind words. Glad this info is helpful in your vacation planning. Appreciate you dropping a line saying so.

 

We could use some of the snow and rain from you folks as we are bone dry here in CA for year 4 of the drought. We are in the mid 60’s in the unprecedented driest month of January in our history – no rain drop at all for the whole month.

 

Have a great cruise in 3 weeks’ time.

[harryfat1]

Day 7 – Time to Say Goodbye

 

Here it is, the dreaded last day for all cruisers. The last day of the cruise that signals your vacation is almost over and back to reality of real world. But before getting that far down the road, we still have a full day at sea to see few other places we haven’t seen before and couple hows/performances to catch. Here is the daily activity in case anyone wants to follow along – a lot of activities on the last day of the cruise:

 

 

Since day 6 was such action packed day, I passed on the character breakfast thing in the morning. Don’t remember if I had a wakeup call or not. The first pictures of day 7 had us standing in line for the breakfast at MDR at 9:30 but I think we spent part of the morning doing some preliminary packing of the dirty laundry – the least part of the vacation.

 

Think many people had the same idea of sleeping in today on the last sea day and there were couple hundred people ahead of us in line at the MDR. But the wait staffs were nice enough to provide people with OJ while in line. Thought that was a nice touch.

 

 

[harryfat1]

This is the first morning we had breakfast in the MDR but the set-up is similar to lunch in that you have the typical order from menu option as well as a smaller mini buffet options as well. Of course you know we would opt for both.

 

 

 

That’s a whole lot of bacon – I can feel my cholesterol level go up by 10 points just looking at it. Wonder if there’s a portable defibrillator underneath the table, just in case…

 

 

 

I ordered eggs Benedict and French toast. Note the French toast in the MD for breakfast is much thicker.

 

 

[harryfat1]

So after the breakfast, came out and smelled some awfully strong chemical – what was that? Oh, the glue for the carpet as they are layering a new section of carpet by the stairwell.

 

 

So this being day 7, it can only mean one thing at the RP – Yeap, the $10 t-shirt sale that you see on every cruise ship. Time to visit the uncle in prison! It was a long visit as there were tons of people and the sizes/types were all mixed up with people picking up and dropping them. If you like a specific design but can’t find the size you want, talk to one the workers behind the kiosk as they have more in the bags/boxed underneath them. I will show you later on which ones we bought.

 

 

 

Think they are selling handbags over at this kiosk

 

Edited February 2, 2015 by harryfat1
Haven't learned how to type with my toes yet....

[harryfat1]

Cupcake area – of course I didn’t get anything from here as it wasn’t included in the cruise price. This is as close as I came to one. This area is no more for the Oasis readers and I will assume it too will be gone on the Allure once she goes drydock and be replaced by a retail shop.

 

 

 

Pretty quiet RP on this side, away from the t-shirt sale so if you don’t like the crowd of the sale, just move down 100 feet and you will have plenty of space

 

 

This guy wasn’t the most friendly guy on the ship. He saw me taking pictures and some of the more friendly people would pose and smile and wave. He just ducked his head down and pretended he didn’t see me

 

[harryfat1]

By now those of you reading all my posts are probably thinking this weirdo takes pictures of everything except the men’s urinal. Haha, you don’t know me well – here it is

 

 

 

Now, I didn’t take a picture of one just for the sake of doing so. I did it for the artwork above it. Being slightly whacky in my humor, I just find it hysterical to have a movie theater full of elephant people sitting there looking at us using men’s room. I bow down to the person that did this artwork/bathroom design.

 

Give credit where credit is due, I actually saw this picture from another cruiser here on the boards, Mike Preisman, on his own web site. Mike is a seasoned world traveler/cruiser and he has all his cruises up on the web site – which has great pictures and one of the most organized shot by shot pictures and description of the ship I have ever seen. I saw this picture in there and I had to email him to ask about it and Mike was kind enough to respond and gave me an idea where to find it. So kudos to Mike for guiding me to find it.

 

Do note that due to the width of the elephant mural, it was not easy taking a picture of the whole thing with nobody using the facilities. Don’t think anybody will be happy of me taking a picture of them in the process of doing “their business”. And no, I didn’t bring the SLR into the men’s room to take picture. Trying to be a tiny bit discreet…

 

Since I am here taking pictures of the men’s room, why not one more?

 

[cruisemeister8]

By now those of you reading all my posts are probably thinking this weirdo takes pictures of everything except the men’s urinal. Haha, you don’t know me well – here it is

 

 

 

 

OMG! ROTFLMAO!! We don't have fun stuff like this in the women's rooms. Jealous!

[LuCruise]

Harry, your reports are hilarious, and one of the best I've read so far. I am sad that your cruise (and thus report) will be coming to an end soon. Thank you for sharing your experience, pictures and sense of humor.

[Desertbelle]

Still here, and very much enjoying your report! Thanks.

[harryfat1]

OMG! ROTFLMAO!! We don't have fun stuff like this in the women's rooms. Jealous!

 

Haha, matters not even if any female cruisers are quadruple Diamond levels and have sailed on the Allure X number of times, odds are slim that they have seen this mural up close & personal...

[harryfat1]

Harry, your reports are hilarious, and one of the best I've read so far. I am sad that your cruise (and thus report) will be coming to an end soon. Thank you for sharing your experience, pictures and sense of humor.

 

Thanks for the kind words. The goodbye is for the workers on the ship on day 7.

 

I still have a little bit more to go before I am done here.

[harryfat1]

Still here, and very much enjoying your report! Thanks.

 

Thanks for the check in. Glad you are following along. Hope there's something helpful here for your upcoming cruise

[harryfat1]

OK, so after we were done visiting the uncle in prison (aka shopping), we made our way back to the cabin and started to do more packing. I noticed the cabin steward has dropped off the luggage tags for us to get off the ship. Recall that we are staying one extra night in FLL post cruise so I requested a late as possible departure as we were in no hurry to get off. Guess what number they assigned me? 12. Really? 12 for a late departure request? WTH? Group 12 is supposed to get off the ship between 8:10 and 8:30. Way too early for me.

 

 

In the RCI web site as part of online registration for checking in, I told them I will be staying one day in FLL after we disembark. Then on day 4 night time, I told them again that I want late departure and “linked” our 3 cabins together. Well, we got number 12, the kids’ cabin got 24 and the in-laws got 66. The RCI software system sucks. What was the point of me using the software late at night to combine the 3 cabins when they just seemingly randomly assign numbers to us? Like playing BINGO, just call out whatever number the ball lands on. You guys are groups B-12, O-66…

 

Sigh. Found our cabin steward at the hallway and talked to him about it and he gave us extra tags for the highest number of the group, 66, so that we can be together and I don’t have to stand in line at guest services with 100+ of my newest found friends as everyone knows guest services on day 7 is NOT the place you want to be.

 

Yes, I know I could have kept the early number and then just get off later but I just hate the idea of my luggage sitting there unattended by its lonely self. Just paranoia on my part as I have had my luggage taken by others at the airport before.