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

[Bimmer09]

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.

 

Harry, I am one of the people reading the review just for pleasure and curiosity even though I have read many photo reviews of the Allure. Not my kind of ship due to it's size but I recognize it as an engineering marvel and another feather in the cap of RCI who are always pushing the envelope with their ship design. I worked on an RCCL ship many years ago and was very proud to be part of their team. While some things over the years may have gone downhill (food quality/service seem to be points for complaint from frequent cruisers) the ships have gone in an upward direction and prices are still similar to the 1980s.

 

I sailed RCI in the days of One MDR but with real flamed cherries jubilee and midnight buffets to look forward to. Strolling bands in the MDR on theme nights, mariachi bands in the MDR at lunchtime in Cozumel but no balconies, specialty restaurants, ice rinks and rock climbing walls etc.

 

Your review is a great read thanks in great part to your humor and your willingness to give up a lot of your time, on and off the ship, to sharing the experience with others such as me who are unlikely to sail on the ship (but never say never, say I)

 

Excellent review-take a bow, even though it's far from finished!

 

Norris

[Thoie]

I'm lurking and enjoying as well - I'll be on the Allure in April, so watching out for things to plan/do.

[disneykins]

Just found your review, read first 4 pages, enjoying your pix, better subscribe so I can keep up with you. Sailing on Allure in March with DW and 10 friends.

 

Tony and Debbie

[harryfat1]

Harry, I am one of the people reading the review just for pleasure and curiosity even though I have read many photo reviews of the Allure. Not my kind of ship due to it's size but I recognize it as an engineering marvel and another feather in the cap of RCI who are always pushing the envelope with their ship design. I worked on an RCCL ship many years ago and was very proud to be part of their team. While some things over the years may have gone downhill (food quality/service seem to be points for complaint from frequent cruisers) the ships have gone in an upward direction and prices are still similar to the 1980s.

 

I sailed RCI in the days of One MDR but with real flamed cherries jubilee and midnight buffets to look forward to. Strolling bands in the MDR on theme nights, mariachi bands in the MDR at lunchtime in Cozumel but no balconies, specialty restaurants, ice rinks and rock climbing walls etc.

 

Your review is a great read thanks in great part to your humor and your willingness to give up a lot of your time, on and off the ship, to sharing the experience with others such as me who are unlikely to sail on the ship (but never say never, say I)

 

Excellent review-take a bow, even though it's far from finished!

 

Norris

 

Hi, Norris,

 

Very very nice of you to say all these kind words. My face is blushing as red as my day 1 Hawaiian shirt. I just clicked on some of your reviews and you are one of the master reviewers out here in the forums in looking at all you have contributed to it. I need to make a note to come back to check out your other reviews later on after I am done here.

 

I hear what you are saying about the Oasis/Allure being too big but not sure I understand the reasoning. From your list of cruise reviews, you have been on some decent size large ships so not as if you dislike big ships. Just like the old saying goes, don’t judge a book by its cover, I also hope people don’t judge a ship purely by its size. As you said, it’s an architectural marvel to build something this amazing for people to sail on, it would be great to stand in the middle of it and think your previous work has some DNA in building the current ship as they improve on the design every generation.

 

I concur with you in that Royal has top of the line hardware but some of their cruise experience is not as good as other cruise line but that shouldn’t preclude you from taking a look at first hand on what the ship has to offer. As I said in my previous posts, cruise ship experience is like the ultimate buffet. Everyone pick and choose what they want from it. Just because someone built the biggest buffet out there doesn’t preclude you from trying it out even if you like the other smaller buffets. If you just want to eat only soup/salad/dessert from the buffet, it will have that as well at the bigger buffets, just more of it.

 

I started cruising back in 1995 with my parents, sister and grandma. Those were tiny ships in comparison to what’s out there now and I, too, remember the old midnight buffets and flaming desserts with the WOW factor. The trade off between the old days of cruising and modern day is you get better hardware but give up something on the software and I guess it’s a question of what each person is willing to trade in to obtain their optimal cruising experience.

 

At any rate, I do hope you and others keep an open mind on perhaps cruising on some of these mega ships. Last night, I started having you folks in mind as I told my story. In my original thought, I was going to just upload a handful of parade pictures and then move on but now I know there are some people reading that may never go on the ship, I figure then I can add few more pictures to the upload in case you never go on the cruise, at least you see the more complete picture of what we saw.

 

I am sure we will converse later either in my thread or as I read your thread later on. Meantime, thanks again for the kind words.

[harryfat1]

In case I didn’t say it in so many words, I really liked our boardwalk balcony. I know the cabin of choice on these boards is the basic ocean view balcony but I prefer to people watch more than looking at the deep blue sea. My wife and I see the world though the lenses of our cameras so we prefer to stay in places that we can see/photograph different people/places and if you have your balcony far enough aft, you can also get a glimpse of the ocean. So to me that's the perfect cabin as it has a little of everything. People watch/ocean view/access to not so secret balcony. Just a personal preference thing.

 

From our balcony, we can see the zip line people whizzing by every hour. the zip line platform start on the blue based area by the letter "A"

 

 

 

Our chosen activity this afternoon is a self paced scavenger to track down the “small wonders” throughout the ship . For those unfamiliar what they are, these are “art displays” that looks more like robots (think cousins of the movie Wall-e) in disguise or a copper brass looking drinking fountain. If you look through them, each one has a different picture inside and a description next to it. here are couple samples of what the outside looks like.

 

 

 

If you look inside, you see something like this

 

 

[harryfat1]

There are more than twenty of these “small wonders” scattered throughout the ship. You can find them one of the two way. First one is be methodical and go through every deck front and back and look at every corner. I have seen cruisers posting their accomplishment in doing it this way. I applaud them for their perseverance but I am lazy and as the saying goes, a lazy man is an efficient man. I prefer to limit the amount of searching if possible. To do so, I had to go down to Guest Services and stand in line with my newly found friends to get a list.

 

 

When I talked to the lady at the guest services and asked for a location listing of the small wonders, she looked at me as if I had 2 heads and said they don’t have such list. I knew they had it as someone else on these boards confirmed that the place to get them is at guest services so I asked her to ask others and sure enough, few minutes later, she printed out the list for me. So if you want to do the easy route, be assured that guest services has this info. Just need to ask the right person that knows about the info.

 

After I got the list, I came back to the cabin and rounded up the clan and started our personal scavenger hunt. By the way, later in the week, they also have an official event to do this as well but we jumped the gun on our own on day 2. Before heading out, we stopped off at the back of deck 14, the secret balcony, which is like 70 feet from our cabin to check out the beautiful Caribbean weather was we cruised southward.

 

 

View of secret balcony looking toward the front of the ship

 

 

Now looking toward the back

 

[harryfat1]

Actually on the way to the first item on the list (we decided to just look at the items on the Aft side of the ship for the day and leave the rest later), we had to walk up to the windjammer area and saw this – huge model size of the Allure. Try to fit that in your bath tub. And of course one of the first thing we look for is “where is our cabin” on this?

 

 

 

 

Here’s our cabin

 

 

 

Also in the same area, you see on the wall that Royal paid homage to the first ship, Song of Norway in displaying the black and white pictures from the old days. I liked how Royal always has an eye out for the past (as shown in here and on their C&A sign at the back of the ship). Cruise ships certainly have changed multiple folds in past 20 years.

 

 

[harryfat1]

We saw people swimming in the pool area while up there. I had plans to use the pool later in the week on port days when the people are off the ship instead of day 2. Didn’t know we would have sucky (that an official word?) weather the rest of the cruise.

 

 

So as we walked around the ship finding each and every small wonder, I didn’t take a picture of every single wonder as some pictures are “meh” and “huh? that’s art?”. For example, this is bright and colorful but I don’t see the wow factor.

 

 

Anyway, they placed some of these small wonders out in the open but others are tucked away in corners so you need to look around even if the list gives you an approximate area of where it’s located. We soon find ourselves by the central park area.

 

Since the central park area is open space, they have umbrellas for you at either end in case it rains and you have to get across, you wont get soaked. Very thoughtful idea. In case you are wondering, no, those umbrellas are too big to take home in the suitcase. I tried to sneak it in there on the last day. Wouldn’t fit. Mental note to self to bring larger suitcase on next cruise (Oh, just kidding, no need to send out flaming post).

 

 

More walking brings us to Boardwalk where the balloon man is there to make free balloon animals for the younger kids. Mine are too old for this stuff but if you have little ones, be sure to check the daily schedule on when the balloon men is out there as he is there . We would see him again on day 7. Note also the face painting in the background - that is free also and no, I didn't get mine painted.

 

 

As I was walking around and I looked up and saw the smoke from the funnels. Thought this is an interesting picture as the smoke just lines up with the zip line. I guess it would be an even better picture if I waited for a zip line person to go past…

 

[harryfat1]

There was one small wonder back by the aqua theater so we made our way back there and saw the divers from the water show practicing and a large group of people watching them from the top – they rope off the theater area so you can’t sit down and watch from below.

 

 

So we stayed for awhile at the table area and watched them practice before moving on.

 

 

 

By then we were about half way done with the small wonders list and decided that was enough for the day. Then we decided to visit our crazy aunt in the basement to see how she was doing (aka photo area) to see how our pictures turned out from day 1 using the card reading machine to check the digital version.

 

 

We then headed over to the café in the royal promenade area for some free snacks, but the place was full and we couldn’t find a place to sit so we moved over to the starboard side of the ship and sat at the champagne bar to eat the snack and grabbed a cup of coffee. These chairs make you feel like you are in the home of a giant as 2 people can fit in one.

 

 

After recharging our batteries, we headed up to deck 15 as I had read in other cruise reviews to check out some beach towels before we get to Labadee. On the way there, there was an intense dodge ball game in progress.

 

[harryfat1]

We then stayed and watch the flow riders for awhile. Not many people were able to stand upright for very long. Not as easy as it looks.

 

 

They have bleacher stands for people to sit and watch the people try to stay upright

 

 

 

 

 

 

The younger crowd is over at the other flow rider as that one is easier

 

[harryfat1]

Went over to the towel station to talk to the gal working there to inquire about getting the towels for the beach day tomorrow and she said no need to get them now. They will have towel stations at the dock to do that. Sounds good.

 

Few more pictures of the Caribbean before we headed back to the cabins and shower to get ready for the formal night.

 

This was shown previously. As I said before, takes a bit of steady hand to stretch out your arm over the railing with the camera to take this shot. I made sure my camera was strapped around my neck before doing so in the windy top side. If anyone takes this shot with their cell phone with no attachment, I admire your steady hands.

 

 

 

 

 

[Miryam1234]

There are more than twenty of these “small wonders” scattered throughout the ship. You can find them one of the two way. First one is be methodical and go through every deck front and back and look at every corner. I have seen cruisers posting their accomplishment in doing it this way. I applaud them for their perseverance but I am lazy and as the saying goes, a lazy man is an efficient man. I prefer to limit the amount of searching if possible. To do so, I had to go down to Guest Services and stand in line with my newly found friends to get a list.

 

When I talked to the lady at the guest services and asked for a location listing of the small wonders, she looked at me as if I had 2 heads and said they don’t have such list. I knew they had it as someone else on these boards confirmed that the place to get them is at guest services so I asked her to ask others and sure enough, few minutes later, she printed out the list for me. So if you want to do the easy route, be assured that guest services has this info. Just need to ask the right person that knows about the info.

 

 

Now; you would not have the list available and for sharing for the other Very Lazy cruisers like me? I have Allure Transatlantic with 10 seadays ahead, so I should have time to figure it out myself, BUT being at least as lazy as you, i was wondering if I could benefit from you. Saves me from queuing at the Guest relations desk! :cool:

It does not harm to ask. Thanks for the valuable info, I did not know they have a list!

[hali76]

Pre-planning

 

 

 

With my auditor education and mye job as head of finance (in Norway) I love your approach, being cheap and planning all the details.

Your advantage is that Your wife also is an CPA... my husband is not. :rolleyes:

I'm subscribing to this thread.:D

[B'Elanna]

Thanks Harry for the great trip report.

 

I do one for my trips to (have lots of pen pals, so it's easier to print out and send with my letters) and I also email to all my friends. People have told me that as they read them, they feel like they were on the trip with me.

 

I have subscribed as well to follow your adventure. I hope to go on Allure or Oasis in August/September 2016, so all your tips will be VERY helpful!

 

thanks!

[OttoCal]

Sometimes I think they are called 'Small Wonders' because you 'wonder' why they chose those items to highlight. :cool:

[harryfat1]

With my auditor education and mye job as head of finance (in Norway) I love your approach, being cheap and planning all the details.

Your advantage is that Your wife also is an CPA... my husband is not. :rolleyes:

I'm subscribing to this thread.:D

 

Thanks Harry for the great trip report.

 

I do one for my trips to (have lots of pen pals' date=' so it's easier to print out and send with my letters) and I also email to all my friends. People have told me that as they read them, they feel like they were on the trip with me.

 

I have subscribed as well to follow your adventure. I hope to go on Allure or Oasis in August/September 2016, so all your tips will be VERY helpful!

 

thanks![/quote']

 

Hi, more folks that are spreadsheet/schedules oriented.

 

Maybe in the futures cruises, there can be a meeting of over schedulers/pre planners, similar to those of Friends BillW and Dorothy meetings you see on the bulletin boards. Call it "Friends of Excel/Schedules" and we all can come to the meetings with our own spreadsheets and support each other…

[harryfat1]

Now; you would not have the list available and for sharing for the other Very Lazy cruisers like me? I have Allure Transatlantic with 10 seadays ahead, so I should have time to figure it out myself, BUT being at least as lazy as you, i was wondering if I could benefit from you. Saves me from queuing at the Guest relations desk! :cool:

It does not harm to ask. Thanks for the valuable info, I did not know they have a list!

 

But you have 10 sea days to stand in line at guest services with your newly found friends. Be sure to do the BINGO dance when you get up to the front of the line.

 

OK, for you and those folks that may never be on the ship, here is the list (and you know I am anal enough to bring it 3,000 miles back home an useless piece of paper). It has our check marks on them so you may want to get your own clean copy.

 

 

Now if you are a real anal planner at home, maybe you can come up with a route to walk around the ship to see all of them in a most efficient manner (e.g. less back tracking).

[harryfat1]

Sometimes I think they are called 'Small Wonders' because you 'wonder' why they chose those items to highlight. :cool:

 

Yes, I concur that many of these do not have super wow factor. The artwork on the walls in the staircases is much better in my opinion. Maybe that is why they call it “small” wonders.

 

But a wise man once said, it’s not the final destination that matters but the journey itself. In that sense, even though each of the small wonders are not super spectacular, we liked the scavenger hunt process and it brought us to see certain parts of the ship that we probably wouldn’t have visited on our own schedule so it’s not a bad thing.

 

On the other hand, I think the wise man also said that great journey starts with the first step. But what does he know? He never had to deal with airport security and have to remove his shoes and belts and be wanded by TSA and have to remove all electronic items from his back pack during the first steps of his great journey. So maybe the wise man isn’t that wise after all.

 

But on the other hand, if you think about it, a wise man from the Himalaya probably does not possess any electronic equipment. Heck, he may not even have a belt or wear shoes so maybe he can walk through security area really easily so maybe he has a point…

 

I know, I digress too much…

[harryfat1]

Onward with the vacation story. Now, where were we (scroll back up to see where I last left off)? Ah, yes, getting ready for dinner on day 2.

 

On day 1’s dinner pictures, I had assumed that everyone reading it knows what was on the menu. I know, never assume. For those interested to follow along as part of the virtual vacation, here is the link to all the menus items as listed by Royal. Just go and click on the main dining room (MDR) menu and you will have a complete list to follow along. So in case you wonder why I never took any pictures of the menu at meals. No need. You have clean PDF copies here.

 

http://www.royalcaribbeanpresscenter.com/press-kit/9/culinary-press-kit/

 

Royal has a “name” for each night’s menu - like saffron or basil or mojo. Maybe I am too much of a child of the media but when I hear the word, mojo, I think of Austin Powers in his movie. Do I really want to eat his mojo for dinner? yes, I know mojo has another meaning as explained in the menu but just wondering…

 

Speaking of mojo, that was the theme for us on night 1. So cross that one off the list of 7. Also, they show this menu on the TV screen in your cabin so I always have the TV on in both cabins as we get ready for dinner nightly so we all have an idea what’s for dinner. Also, on a classic 7 day cruise, the formal nights are typically nights 2 and 6 but for the western route, Royal changes it to days 2 and 5 because on day 6, we are in Cozumel later so by moving the formal night to a sea day earlier, the guests can spend more time at the ports without having to worry about rushing back to get ready for a formal night.

 

Finally, this menu is only good on the Allure/Oasis until they implement the new dynamic dining scheme later on this year. Was supposed to be earlier in the year but postponed until later as they work out the kinks. So depending on when you will sail on Allure/Oasis, this menu may or may not apply to you. If you are sailing on other Royal ships (other than Quantum), this should apply as I don’t recall seeing other ships destined for dynamic dining but others can correct me.

 

Yeah, yeah, I know, too much blah blah. Here are some pics:

 

My wife and mom

 

 

Me and the boys

 

 

For those following along from the menu listing above, tonight’s menu is “saffron”. My younger son loved these shrimp cocktails. Think he ordered it every night. Picky eaters like him just find one thing they like and won’t venture far from it.

 

 

Believe this was smoked chicken breast ordered by my older one

 

 

I had the scallops. The official online menu said escargot nightly but I read on the forum that there’s a worldwide shortage of these little guys and only on the second formal night did they showed up. Rest of the nights was substituted with tiny baby scallops that you have to look hard to find couple of them.

 

 

Lobster bisque

 

[windjamming]

Hi, more folks that are spreadsheet/schedules oriented.

 

 

 

Maybe in the futures cruises, there can be a meeting of over schedulers/pre planners, similar to those of Friends BillW and Dorothy meetings you see on the bulletin boards. Call it "Friends of Excel/Schedules" and we all can come to the meetings with our own spreadsheets and support each other…

 

 

Harry, I have to come out of lurkdom to comment on your brilliant support group idea. It is genius, LOL! Of course, we'd all need to know the time in advance in order to plug it into our spreadsheets.

 

Your review is a hoot, and your family is awesome in their Hawaiian shirts.

 

Looking forward to more!

 

 

Sent using the Cruise Critic forums app

Edited January 13, 2015 by windjamming

[harryfat1]

The rest of the dinner on night 2.

 

Younger one only ordered the first line items on the menu nightly, which is typically a pasta dish as he loves pasta. Prefers it over anything else. This is his shrimp ravioli. Note the much smaller shrimp compared to the ones in the cocktail appetizer?

 

 

My older one had the beef tenderloin

 

 

I had the duck, which was a massive half sider. Probably the best dish for me on the cruise.

 

 

Dessert

 

 

The sauce came later but I forgot to take picture of that

 

[harryfat1]

OK, after dinner, it’s onto the Royal Promenade for the official captain’s welcome party for all cruisers. For those interested, the captain is right by the red car from 7:15 to 8 PM for anyone interested in taking pictures with him. That’s basically the “in between” first and second dinner settings. At 8 PM, he goes to the top and makes his speech.

 

So if you have my time dining or wish to do specialty dining on day 2 but seeing the captain is still high on your list of “to do”, plan your meal time accordingly for day 2.

 

The line to have the picture taken with captain isn’t very long as it’s only 1 picture per family so it moves very quickly. As opposed to the other photographic set ups that typically take several minutes with various poses. Here is the picture with the captain again (we took an informal one earlier in the day):

 

 

We would have one more picture with him on second formal night by the Christmas tree but we didn’t buy that one. By day 5, he had recognized us from previous pictures and said, we meet once again so he does have a good memory and cares about who is on the ship even though there are 6,000 of us.

 

Here are few pictures of the Royal Promenade as we had few minutes to kill before the event starts at 8.

 

 

I don’t know who this couple is. My wife took this picture. I included as I don’t have any other picture of the tree/promenade looking this way so whoever you are, you made it to my trip report. Also look up in this picture on the top and you get a glimpse of the central park above as these glass canopies let in lights and scenery above from central park. Like the way these neighborhoods connect with each other.

 

 

For those that are worried about big crowd at events on the ship. This was taken at 7:52 PM, less than 10 minutes ahead of the start of the party. Note how much space there is? Also note the free champagne being served to the right of the picture next to my wife.

 

 

Yes, I know to have equal time to display nonalcoholic as well as alcohol drinks for the readers’ under 21.

 

 

We found a table to sit and wait for the event. Great place to be as it’s right by the bridge where the captain will speak and it’s literally within 10 feet of where they were opening bottles and bottles of champagne so if you want to get max booze, chill out by this area

 

[maryjaden]

Hi, more folks that are spreadsheet/schedules oriented.

 

Maybe in the futures cruises, there can be a meeting of over schedulers/pre planners, similar to those of Friends BillW and Dorothy meetings you see on the bulletin boards. Call it "Friends of Excel/Schedules" and we all can come to the meetings with our own spreadsheets and support each other…

 

I love this.....sign me up!

[harryfat1]

All right. In case you are counting, so far many of my great “pre planning” ideas haven’t exactly panned out (seating arrangements/sail away wave/meet & mingle). So it should come as no surprise that the next idea bombed as well – although I have nothing to do with it not working.

 

From previous photos and YouTube pictures, I know the “ball” thing above Royal Promenade opens up and out comes a bridge (ingenious design) for various street parties/parades. So we positioned ourselves close by for the captain to come out to the bridge and make the speech.

 

Ok, get ready guys, here comes the ball

 

 

Here it is opening up some more. Almost as exciting the as New Year’s eve ball drop in NYC. Maybe not.

 

 

And almost to the end now. Just couple feet more

 

 

Then it stopped. As in not moving. Dead. Huh? The people standing there are looking up and staring at zero movement for couple minutes. Then it retracted and closed up.

 

 

What was that? Is that it? Now what with the bridge dead and not working. So we waited and waited standing there with the music still playing and not knowing what will happen. Then all of sudden we heard the captain’s voice over the PA system in the promenade and wondered “where is he?” As it turned out they went to plan B as the bridge wasn’t working so he went over to the rising tide bar.

 

Before I go on with the rising tide bar, for those unfamiliar with the ship, they have a bar that goes up and down like an elevator between decks 5 to 7 and connects to the open area on central park and then it comes down again. They have some characters on it during the parades. So I guess they are using it for this occasion as backup as it’s higher in the air so people from far can still look up and see the captain speak.

 

 

To me, the first thing in my when I saw that many years ago, I immediately thought, that’s Star Wars. See the resemblance between the two? I look any minute for Luke to show up and have a light sabre fight.

 

[suep]

Thank you, Harry, for your awesome review! I am enjoying it immensely and am using some of your tips for our upcoming trip on the Oasis in August. I do have one question (seeing that you have informed us you are cheap....lol...I am the same way!) You had breakfast in Johnny Rockets one morning. I know JR's is a fee venue; did you have to pay for breakfast as well?

Can't wait to read more! Thanks for all the time you are putting into this!