*Live* Rogueperson's Allure of the Seas December 1 - 8

[Rogueperson]

posting the video kind of made it difficult to put anything after it.  So here is my thoughts on Chefs table this time around.

 

 Chefs Table is easily the best meal on the ship.  However this time around, the wine was a little stingy.  No one really got more than 1 glass, each.  on previous Chef’s Table, wine flowed much easier.

 

 Even though, we only got one glass of wine, myv low tolerance self got trashed.  My night was done after that.  

 

This event is very dependent on who you are dining with.  For the most part, we’ve had good luck throughout our cruises.  This last night was probably the best group we’ve had.  These guys wanted to get me shots after this.  That would probably kill me.

 

 Despite a couple hiccups, this was successful

[Tee & Chilli]

The World dessert looks like the one served in Wonderland.

[Rogueperson]

2 minutes ago, Tee & Chilli said:

The World dessert looks like the one served in Wonderland.

Its possible.  I went to wonderland 3 years ago so i don’t readily remember.  Wonderland was awesome.

[Rogueperson]

So apparently we are celebrating the birthday of the Allure.  They made a cake!!

 

 

[bobmacliberty]

Were you able to climb on the ruins?  We went to the Chacchoben ruins by Costa Maya a couple of years ago and they were roped off.  How was the "vomit comet" ferry ride to the mainland?  I've heard bad things (seasickness) but don't know if that's a regular or unusual situation. 

[Rogueperson]

42 minutes ago, bobmacliberty said:

Were you able to climb on the ruins?  We went to the Chacchoben ruins by Costa Maya a couple of years ago and they were roped off.  How was the "vomit comet" ferry ride to the mainland?  I've heard bad things (seasickness) but don't know if that's a regular or unusual situation. 

 

There is no vomit comet here is Costa Maya.  Thats at Cozumel.  It depends.  I’ve crossed it several times.  I normally don’t get sick, but the last time i did.  You need to take that if you want to visit Tulum or Coba.

 

I climbed a total of 3 ruins yesterday.  1 at Kohunlich and 2 at Dzibanchi.  I was told that the tallest one that’s climbable is Coba near Cozumel.  I climbed up that one 5 years ago.  Also, Coba was way more treacherous coming down than any of these ruins down here.

Edited December 7, 2019 by Rogueperson

[Rogueperson]

So this despite my mixed results with the specialty restaurants, I have or will have eaten at a specialty restaurant 5 out of our 7 nights.  they were offering a sale.  25 bucks per person for Samba.  We took it.  I actually wanted to eat there but decided against it earlier on my 3 meal plan because my wife does not eat red meat much.  But 25/person is less than what the meal would have costed if i used my plan so i am not upset here.

 

So later tonight or tomorrow, there will be a review of this place as well.  The only restaurant we did not eat in was Sabor, but we were not going to because of our horrible experience on Navigator.

Edited December 7, 2019 by Rogueperson

[MD_Dan]

Rogue,

    We're leaving home now and will board on Sunday.  I wanted to let you know how much I appreciated your posts.

    I'm certainly not a foodie but I did enjoy your posts.  Maybe I will start a thread of all the Bass ales I drink!!!

    Enjoy the last 1.75 days!  Make every minute count!

 

Dan

[Rogueperson]

1 hour ago, MD_Dan said:

Rogue,

    We're leaving home now and will board on Sunday.  I wanted to let you know how much I appreciated your posts.

    I'm certainly not a foodie but I did enjoy your posts.  Maybe I will start a thread of all the Bass ales I drink!!!

    Enjoy the last 1.75 days!  Make every minute count!

 

Dan

You’re welcome.  This has been fun documenting my vacation.  By the time i post my final thoughts, you will be on the ship.

 

Enjoy

[bilyclub]

5 hours ago, Rogueperson said:

So apparently we are celebrating the birthday of the Allure.  They made a cake!!

 

 

 

Yes, nine year anniversary of the first 7 day cruise out of PE.   What a great cruise that was with Captain Zini.

 

 

 

[Rogueperson]

So rumor has it that these people got into a fight and are confined to their cabin and they posted a guard.

 

 

 

There has been someone standing guard since last night.

 

I also heard someone else is also guarded on 6.  I haven’t investigated.  

Edited December 7, 2019 by Rogueperson

[Rogueperson]

Tonight’s dinner is at Sambas.  As I said, this was not really a restaurant for my wife as she doesn’t eat meat much.

 

So this place is a combination buffet and churriscaria.  Its just lots of meat.  I took some pictures of the buffet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Note this buffet is superior to the windjammer.  It has a more Brazilian flair to it.  All in all, it was pretty decent as far as buffet go.

 

 The main course is of course the meats.  They have 8 kinds of meat.  Some were good, some were mediocre and some was bad.  I did not take photos as they were not very inspiring.  Regardless, it was a lot of food and I waddled out of there.  Would I do it again?  Probably not.  It did not stand out.  At a retail price of 30/person without tip, it would not be worth it.  At 21 without tip (25 quoted to me was 21 with tip), it made this place barely worth it.  Not something that will get me coming back over and over like Chefs Table.

 

 Tonight is the last comedy show of Rodney Johnson and Jeff Nease.  I didnt do research on them.

 

I will treat tomorrow as an excursion day because i dont fly out until 9:40 tomorrow night.  I will recap the cruise later this week when i’m at a real keyboard.  

[Rogueperson]

Tonight’s comedy act was pretty good.  We had a two comedians doing their boys.  Jeff Nease was ok but Rodney Johnson has me in tears.  He sounded familiar.  I’ve probably heard good act somewhere. Maybe even seen him on a previous cruise.  But despite that, it was a fun night.  Hence ends our first Oasis class adventure on the Allure.  

 

Tomorrow is a full day.  Prices were insane flying home.  I originally had the latest flight home from Fort lauderdale.  I changed out to fly out a little earlier, but out of Orlando.  So the adventure is that we rented a car, driving up and visiting Disney Springs.  Specifically, we are going to the Void and doing the Star wars virtual reality thing and having dinner at Art Smith’s Homecoming. It was way too expensive to try and visit the Galaxy Edge at Hollywood Studios when at most we could probably only get  5 or 6 hours there.  We’ll be back for the full Disney Experience next year.

 

 So, we’re not done yet.

[Rogueperson]

How could I forget Mamma Mia.  WE went to this show after dinner.  

 

This show was phenomenal.  My wife nailed it on the first show.  The men were hired to do Mamma Mia, but they were contracted to do “something else”, Which Blue Planet was that something else.  As much as they butchered the songs in that production, they killed it here.

 

 

[Andy C]

On 12/4/2019 at 11:33 PM, Rogueperson said:

I’m getting a little annoyed at these computer glitches.

 

The app is supposed to make things easier but it really isnt.  In fact its kind of hard to keep track of activities correctly when sometimes something is listed in the cruise compass but missing in the app and vice versa.

 

For example, we went to the Harry Potter trivia.  A bunch of us was at the schooner bar because thats what the app said.  But apparently, it was in the on air bar.  There was a mass migration when we all realize the mistake.

 

Reservations.   I set a reservation for dinner for tonight at 9:00.  Yesterday,  My wife saw on the app it was set tomorrow, not today.  I called reservation and reset it for tonight at 9:15 as thats all they had available.  I asked if the app would reflect that and they said it would.   It popped up at 9:15 quickly after.

 

 Fast forward to tonight.  Our app reflected 9:15 which correlated with my conversation with reservations.  We walk into Izumi’s and they go “well, it’s about time you showed up”. We were 10 minutes early for our reservation.  We were confused.  Apparently they thought we had 5:00 reservation. I never made a reservation for 5 obviously.

 

 Dinner was Izumi’s Hibachi.  

 

 

 

As far as hibachi restaurant, this was probably the best hibachi experience i’ve had in a long time. the food was tasty.  I had the filet and chicken.  The one thing i noticed was they didn’t have yum yum sauce.  However, the guy knew what kind of sauce i was looking for.  They gave me a spicy aioli sauce that’s BETTER than yum yum sauce.  Unfortunately, the food is not very photogenic here so no food pics.

 

 

On 12/4/2019 at 11:33 PM, Rogueperson said:

 

 However, this night was not a seamless meal.  My wife ordered the scallops and lobster.  Unfortunately, it was way too salty.  It was disappointing.  So all three out of three my specialty restaurant experience had issues.

 

I still have Chef’s Table left.  I’ve never had a bad experience with that, but i worry because of my track record on this cruise.

 

My brother in law was on Allure a month ago and they found the food and service to be bad.  They have fairly low expectations and are not fancy eaters.  So for him to complain says a lot.  At one point they even encountered a waiter and hostess from Chops having a tense exchange in front of them.  

 

Also, the wine pairing for your Chef's Table dinner that you posted was exceptionally bad/cheap especially the Pinot and Sauvignon both of which barely break the $10 a bottle threshold.  

[Clarea]

4 minutes ago, Andy C said:

 ...

Also, the wine pairing for your Chef's Table dinner that you posted was exceptionally bad/cheap especially the Pinot and Sauvignon both of which barely break the $10 a bottle threshold.  

 

I've seen other reports that also indicate they have significantly reduced the quality of wine served with Chef's Table.

[Rogueperson]

8 minutes ago, Andy C said:

 

 

 

My brother in law was on Allure a month ago and they found the food and service to be bad.  They have fairly low expectations and are not fancy eaters.  So for him to complain says a lot.  At one point they even encountered a waiter and hostess from Chops having a tense exchange in front of them.  

 

Also, the wine pairing for your Chef's Table dinner that you posted was exceptionally bad/cheap especially the Pinot and Sauvignon both of which barely break the $10 a bottle threshold.  

 

Personally, I know nothing about wine.  Although, I did do research on some of those wines.  They may not be expensive wine, but they paired with our food quite well.  Their presentation was more scripted then usual, however the product is still good enough for us to keep going to chef’s table.

 

 However, the other specialty restaurants experience has been wondering if i should do them anymore.

Edited December 8, 2019 by Rogueperson

[Andy C]

3 minutes ago, Rogueperson said:

 

Personally, I know nothing about wine.  Although, I did do research on some of those wines.  They may not be expensive wine, but they paired with our food quite well.  Their presentation was more scripted then usual, however the product is still good enough for us to keep going to chef’s table.

 

 However, the other specialty restaurants experience has been wondering if i should do them anymore.

 

Cheap wine is cheap wine.  People are being charged (ripped off may be the more accurate term) for that $10.99+ swill.

 

 

[Rogueperson]

I usually have low expectations for debarkation.

 

This is ship to door.

 

 

We did self disembark because we needed to get to the airport to get our car, but we didnt need to be the first out.  Plus, I didnt get to sleep until 3 so i needed a little sleep.  Again, we did not show our passports nor did we ever see a customs agent. It was all automated using facial recognition.  I don’t know whether to be impressed or terrified.

 

We decided to use this company that also took us to the port.

 

 

I may not have been happy with them going to the port.  But I am definitely happy with the airport transfer.  They were already waiting for us when we got off.  

 

 

 

 

Edited December 8, 2019 by Rogueperson

[Rogueperson]

8 minutes ago, Andy C said:

 

Cheap wine is cheap wine.  People are being charged (ripped off may be the more accurate term) for that $10.99+ swill.

 

 

 

The minimum charge I saw on board for wine was 11 bucks.  Add the gratuity and you are paying a minimum of almost 13 bucks/glass for wine.  That wine is many times the same quality so overall, drinking on the ship is a ripoff in my opinion.  Yet people will pay.  

 

As I said, I got the experience I wanted.  Despite the wine selection, it was a great experience.  I have some qualms about THIS specific chef’s table which i will cover in my recap.

[Andy C]

The wine by the glass selection on RCI is atrocious.  The bottle selection is better but only if you like mass produced and heavily marketed juice like Caymus, Honig, Hall, Rodney Strong, etc...

 

We always have the drink package but we exclusively drink Stoli Elit vodka which retails for over $50 per bottle for the 750ml size (here in Miami a pour of that vodka at some high end establishments is around $35) and the Macallan scotch in all it's iterations of which no bottle retails for less than $60 for the 750ml size.  So we break even at the 2 drink mark a day not mentioning the tons of Evian water and Pellegrino we drink daily.  

Edited December 8, 2019 by Andy C

[bobmacliberty]

On 12/7/2019 at 12:53 PM, Rogueperson said:

There is no vomit comet here is Costa Maya.  Thats at Cozumel.

 

Oops.  I was thinking you were at Cozumel.  🥴

[Rogueperson]

2 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

Oops.  I was thinking you were at Cozumel.  🥴

 I WAS at Cozumel.  I just didnt do the ruins this time.  We’ve been to both Tulum and Coba and Even though Chitchen Itza was offered, it is a 3 hour drive.

 

The funny thing was, there was a slight chance my wife would not be able to cruise.  due to some emergencies, she ran out of leave and did not have enough to cover our vacation.  The likely situation was she would have unpaid leave. Worst case was her leave approval could be rescinded.  The best case happened where her job allowed it paid and for her to make it up.

 

 If she has not gone, i may have gone with the flight to Chitchen Itza which was a whopping $675.00!!!  She would have never gone on the tiny plane needed fort that trip.

[Rogueperson]

8 hours ago, Andy C said:

The wine by the glass selection on RCI is atrocious.  The bottle selection is better but only if you like mass produced and heavily marketed juice like Caymus, Honig, Hall, Rodney Strong, etc...

 

We always have the drink package but we exclusively drink Stoli Elit vodka which retails for over $50 per bottle for the 750ml size (here in Miami a pour of that vodka at some high end establishments is around $35) and the Macallan scotch in all it's iterations of which no bottle retails for less than $60 for the 750ml size.  So we break even at the 2 drink mark a day not mentioning the tons of Evian water and Pellegrino we drink daily.  

They don’t mark your drinks up?  I thought they upcharge for premium stuff. We got the drink package once and that was before they make both people in the cabin get it.  I remember the limit is 13 bucks or else you had to pay the difference plus tips.

 

 Me, I’m cheap.  my drink of choice is Iced tea.  I don’t drink enough soda to make that worth it, much less the refresh package so even if i convinced them i don’t normally drink, I still would not break even.  And since I have no real medical reason I don’t drink, there or no way i would even qualify.

[Rogueperson]

So our day began in West Palm Beach.  We rented a car from FLL and came up here in the off chance of setting a friend of mine. That didn’t happen.  But we did find this place.

 

 

 We got brunch.  It was quite good especially for the price we paid.

 

 

 

 

 After that, we made our way to Disney Spring in Orlando for this.

 

 

 This is at a place called The Void. It is a hyper virtual reality hybrid.  You interact in the VR world, but there can be a real life correlation.  It is really hard to explain.

 

Dinner was Art Smith’s Homecoming.  I failed to get many pictures here.

 

I got the cheese board and my wife got the fried catfish.  The fried chicken here is amazing.  Sorry, i screwed up the picture.

 

 

 

They also have moonshine.  I tasted everything but that’s it.  This will send be away if i drank all of this.

 

 

 So now I made it to the airport and my flight is on time... supposedly.  We remember the last time.  Its a trap!

 

We also had a little adventure trying to fill up the tank to our car rental.  The two gas stations nearest the airport was trying to charge $4.80/gallon?!?!?  Go one more mile down the road and it’s normal price.  I should have been suspicious when they didn’t post their prices.

Edited December 9, 2019 by Rogueperson