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

[umbluemusic]

I have a limited cruising history and none on royal but I love your report - subscribing for sure!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[NoobCruise]

I'm in the crowd of "That ship's too big! I'll never sail on it!" but I'm enjoying your review. You're a very entertaining writer :)

[shazza_h]

Loving your review so far! Thank you for the superb efforts. I particularly enjoyed your "master spreadsheet". Rock on!!:)

[Megville]

Loving your review. Then again, I'm a spreadsheet kind of gal.

[harryfat1]

If you have been to the Disney theme parks, you know on the map, they outline where the parade route is. On the Allure, they don’t tell you so it’s up to you to figure it out where they parade starts and where its ends.

 

As we were scouring for a good spot to stand for the parade, my wife asked me “So which direction is the parade coming from/going to?” Good question. I never saw any trip reports talking about the parade route so I too was confused on whether the parade starts from the front of the ship going toward the aft or starting from the aft going toward the front? The answer is “yes”. Huh? Yes, as in they are both correct. They have one parade route starting from the front to the aft on the port (left side) and another route from aft to the front on the starboard side.

 

Since we were on the starboard side, the parade route near us goes from left to right. But if we look across the way, the other parade route is coming from our right to our left. If you are following along using the PDF attachment deck plan from my previous post, look at deck 5. The starboard route starts from Champagne Bar and goes toward the front of the ship up to Boleros. Whereas the port side route starts from On Air and works itself down to Guest Services.

 

To me, understanding where the parade is coming from helps in situating for the right camera shot/best angle viewings so position yourself accordingly for the parade.

 

At any rate, here are various parade pics in next few posts. One more note, they also have the same parade on day 7 but that one is a shorter version and it’s between the two dinners set time and more of an excuse for the captain to come out and say goodbye but that’s later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

More parade pics

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

And even more

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Have enough of the parade yet? Your mind turning numb? Almost wish you were back to working instead of looking at this?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Almost at the end…

 

 

 

With the confetti in the air, the parade ends

 

[JamesEM]

I was on the Allure in Nov. and I'm enjoying your review and photos, it's like a recap of my cruise. Also, I wish the M&M was held after lunch, to much going on in the a.m., i.e. sleeping, and a late breakfast.

[Robot41]

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[jimbri]

Wonderful review and photos. Thank you so much for sharing!!!

[BLAMBKY]

I am ready for more! Enjoying your sense of humor and must say, your wife is beautiful with such lovely skin. (Just so it's not too weird, I am a female battling winter dry skin right now) :p Now....move it, move it!

[cruiselover2890]

We also had to rush over to see the parade from the return cruisers event in the aquatheater. We had to stand up top at focus just as you did! There were so many things going on at the same time during multiple days of the trip which bummed me out.

 

Really enjoying the review so far!

[harryfat1]

I am ready for more! Enjoying your sense of humor and must say, your wife is beautiful with such lovely skin. (Just so it's not too weird, I am a female battling winter dry skin right now) :p Now....move it, move it!

 

Thanks for complimenting my wife. I am sure she will be happy to hear it.

[harryfat1]

I just saw your spreadsheet and literally busted out laughing!!! (very loudly I might add). Not because I think it ridiculous but because it is absolutely something I would do - friends and family are always making fun of me for my many spreadsheets.:D

Loving the 'report' so far :)

 

Isn’t it great to know someone else in this world is similar to you? While in our immediate circles of friends and family, we are known as the extreme anal/OCD ones within the set but when you come to cruise critics, boom, you can easily find 10 people who are way more anal/OCD than you will ever be.

 

Then you feel much better about yourself knowing there are people out there way worse than you in being anal/OCD. Going forward, you won’t feel bad whenever your friends/family members ridicule you and your spreadsheets as you know out there know somewhere, someone is creating a brand new spreadsheet for something that you wouldn't do yourself…

 

The best part of it is that this is WAY cheaper than attending therapy.

[harryfat1]

Thanks again to all that have provided feedback. I am glad this reporting process has been helpful/entertaining reading. I am pleasantly surprised (actually humbly honored) that there are readers of the report not using it for their future cruising planning but just for reading pleasure. I had thought the only ones reading this would be people planning to go on the Allure soon to gather info – in that sense I am writing the info for my “evil twin” out there somewhere that wants the extra bit of info to increase their cruise experience by 0.001% in knowing where to stand for the parade.

 

Welcome those readers in that particular grouping of not planning to go on the cruise. Until recently, I had assume everyone knows the ship’s layout and background but starting last night, I tried to add in deck plan maps for those unfamiliar with the ship so it’s easier to follow along on their virtual vacation with me and my family.

[harryfat1]

There have been few comments on my spreadsheet. Actually didn’t think anyone would even talk about it. Sure, it’s me being my anal self but it’s the first time I use it for a cruise. If you read the Unofficial Guide to Disneyland/world, they have a check list of where to go next and that’s no different. In that sense you can say I approached this cruise as if I was going to theme park. You can do it without any spreadsheet and probably have a better time than we did. Not saying our way is the best way.

 

But as Billoh pointed out in an earlier post, having a schedule will be easier to track things, especially on this class of ship where you need to reserve shows ahead of time. For those people unfamiliar with the Allure, on many shows, you need to reserve ahead whether online or when you get to the ship. When you get to the show, someone will scan you sail pass to see if you are registered for the event. If not, you have to stand on the side in the “standby” line. Up to 10 minutes prior to the show time, if there are no shows/empty seats, they will allow the standby crowd to come in. So it’s very important to reserve shows that are important to you ahead of time couple months prior to sailing. I had read that they allocate around 20% of the seats to be reserved while on the ship so if your show is fully booked online, try to book it as soon as you get on the ship.

 

For those that have cruised on other ships, the typical set up is on any given night there is a main performance of a s how in the main theater and you just go before or after dinner. Simple, right? No spreadsheet necessary. That works for non Oasis class ships but not here. Take a look at the fact sheet page of the Oasis/Allure (attached below), focus on couple numbers, first is the theoretical max capacity of 6,360 guests total near the middle top. Then go to the left side where the Boardwalk public room area is and pick out the aqua theater seating number of 735. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do the math that if half of the ship’s guests (3,000+) wants to watch the water show, they will blow up the aqua theater’s capacity of 735 by many times over.

 

Other words, they built the facilities smaller than capacity usage and they assume/hope not everyone wants to go to the show. The water show is scheduled to perform 6 times per cruise (2 in each of the fist 3 nights on the western Caribbean route) as to spread out the crowd. So reservations are really necessary and you need to track your reservation for this show and every other show you signed up for – unless you enjoy standing in the stand by line every night. Not my preference.

 

For those of us who can do the math quickly in our heads, yes, you are correct in that even at 6 shows of 735 each, that only seats 4,410 and not 6,300 max capacity. So you hope that not everyone will attend the water show or if they do, they are standing in the back somewhere watching it.

 

The hottest ticket on many cruises seem to be the comedy show from what I have read on the boards. Why? Look at the fact sheet once again, it shows the comedy place having a capacity of 120. Per the cruise calendar, there are 16 scheduled comedy shows for the cruise. So take 120 X 16 = 1,920. Which is way less than 1/3 of the ship’s guest capacity so you can see why it’s such popular ticket so if you like comedy, book it early. Granted, not everyone like comedy show, socially if English isn’t their primary language. And if you have anyone under 18 years old in your party, they are not allowed to go to the show or book it online. They have one last show on day 7 in main theater for the family. I have a bitch session on what I think of Royals comedy set up. That

will be a later topic.

 

So my point is there are many shows on the ship that requires reservations as they didn’t build the venues big enough to accommodate everyone so you need to know what you want and plan ahead. After which, you need a spreadsheet or just a copy of a blank 7 day calendar day planner to write down your info.

 

Yeah, I know, after reading all this, you still think I am anal with my spreadsheet. Whatever.

 

I know, I know, too much yada yada on a Monday when people just rather look at pictures instead.

Oasis of the Seas.pdf

[Shar27]

Another bean counter checking in!

 

Absolutely loving your review.

 

I will be on the Oasis in March for the first time and am really enjoying learning the little secrets of the ship, although some of them have disappeared from Oasis.

 

Can't wait to read more.:D

 

Back to work....blah, blah...:rolleyes::p

[Candycane_76053]

Loving you review! It's like taking a free cruise without leaving the office.

 

When you said "The peasants are coming, the peasants are coming" I literally laughed out loud. Not good since I work in a quiet office with 7-8 others around.

 

Am enjoying it immensely!

[CruisinBarb63]

I LOVE this!!! While I have no plans to cruise on this ship anytime in the near future (check my signature, I will be taking my first cruise in 30 years this fall), I am dreaming away the days from now until October by reading the reviews (and trip reports) of others.

 

Your humor is outstanding! Thank you!

[harryfat1]

Oh, before we get back to the story telling, I just want to point out that on the floor of every elevator on the ship (on other Royal ships as well), there is day of the week sign that changes after midnight. Typically a cruise vacation is measured in day since embarkation (day 1, day 2 etc) such that you lose track of which of the day it is to the rest of the world (which is actually a very good thing as you are then on vacation mode and be detached from issues back at home at least for a short while), I use this as an organizer for my online photo album to separate out the pictures by the day. The challenge to taking this picture daily is you don’t always have the elevator to yourself to take the picture or you are so rushed that it's blurry as you feel really stupid with people outside the glass elevator on the other side waiting for you to take a picture and thinking to themselves - that guy needs to get out of the house more. He is taking pictures of the floor.

 

 

Here are couple pictures of the “crowd” right after the parade as some people seem to worry about having to deal with the crowd. If you are not in a hurry to get anywhere after the show, just stand around and it will dissipate quickly but we wanted to go to one more event – port talk. I know what you are thinking, why go there? Yes, I know it’s all sales pitch for jewelry and clothes. If you have never heard of Diamonds International before you cruise, you will hear more than your share by end of the port talk/cruise. Conversely, if you are in the market for jewelry from the cruise, drop by there. We just stopped by to see if we won any raffles contest (we didn’t) and left after a while.

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

We then headed for lunch in the MDR as we still had bad visions of the super long lines at Windjammer from this morning. The atmosphere at the MDR is much quieter than windjammer and for those of us who prefers to eat more than just 1 or 2 items for lunch (sampler types), the MDR lunch has the option of the mini buffet setup in the middle area as well as giving you the option to order from the menu. You can have either or both. So after we were seated, we placed our orders from the menu as well as grabbing something from the mini buffet area.

 

 

 

They have this bread at lunch but not for dinner. I didn’t try it but m younger son said the spread/dip thing was too spicy for him but my wife liked it as she likes spicy food.

 

 

 

For the salad fans, the custom made to toss salad area have received good reviews from other cruisers and from the few times we ate there, we found the salad to be very nice as well. Here is a picture of the salad as well as what was available in the mini buffet area that I ate – pork chop with chicken and curry shrimp over rice. On top of that, I ordered an enchilada. Yeah, my food taste runs all over the map and I love mixing different regions in my food selection. It may not be what you like but food is subjective.

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Here is the enchilada I ordered

 

 

Couple people from our table ordered the fish, don’t remember whom but heard it was good

 

 

 

My son ordered the “Royal Burger” which is piled high with bunch of condiments. He wanted me to take a picture of him trying to shove it into his mouth to see if it fits. Wouldn’t catch my wife trying to get me to take this type of picture. Difference in mentality between boys and grown ups. Also noticed being a picky eater, he removed the tomato from the burger before eating it (he won't eat tomato but loves the ketchup next to it on the burger. Go figure.)

 

 

Dessert time – my older son ordered the crepe thing for dessert and he said it was excellent

 

 

 

Quick side note – while at lunch, we ran into some family friends that I have known for the past 40+ years as they are on the cruise with their extended families as well. Small world to have California families meet up on a cruise in the middle of the Caribbean all by luck.

[harryfat1]

After lunch, we went back to the cabin to chill out and rested while the boys decorated the door/balcony glass with holiday theme things. I had shown these pics previously but for complete story telling, will show again.

 

 

 

 

Meantime, down at the aqua theater, they have the world’s sexiest man contest. Not my kind of event. Here are few pics from the balcony with picture of the winner on the screen. As with all ship board “fun” activities, they video tape and play this over and over on the TV afterward so if you miss the actual event, you can catch the replay later on. Great to have zoom capability to see from high above

 

 

 

 

The judges for the showing trying to pick a winner