Dinkachu

RCCL begins putting up their Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving. The ship should be quite festive for your cruise.

Small dogs make great service dogs and they can be trained to detect seizures and blood sugar abnormalities as well as providing emotional support.

Our dog has been trained to alert when my oxygen levels are too low.

He loves his clothes and will often get them from his little suitcase himself.

He has never been on a cruise, but maybe someday!

We checked into this for our son and his friend when they were 19 and 20.

RCCL requires one person in each cabin to be 21 years old.

Unless, it is a married couple under 21.

The only cruise line we could find that would allow them to travel under 21 was Disney, and it is a lot more expensive.

The original booking agent was wrong to let you book. It is a shame that you are the ones disappointed by the mistake of a RRCL employee, and one would hope RCCL would work with you to find a solution - such as re-booking after your 21st birthday.

Is there an over 21 friend or family member who could join you on the cruise?

*Note - we also found that some car rental companies wanted a driver to be 25 years old - or we had to pay for a very expensive insurance rider.

Hope something works out.

We wear them on our the lanyards that contain our sea pass.

We also have a pin from each ship we've cruised.

It was the usual character breakfast with the additional appearance of Santa.

Santa visited each table and posed for photos and passed out candy canes.

Menu was the same and the usual characters appeared.

We've sailed 6 times at Christmas out of Florida.

We've sailed from Canaveral and Ft. Lauderdale.

We could swim at the hotel the day before departure 5 out of those 6 years, and about 6 of our party of 12 did so.

We have not been in a hotel without a heated pool.

My guys even wear swimsuits under shorts the day we board the ship. There is plenty of time to swim on departure day, and the pools are nearly empty, so if you don't get to swim at the hotel, you can swim on departure day.

On our last Allure trip, our roll call did a cabin crawl. We visited each cabin and looked around. Since it was a Christmas cruise, we had our cabin decorated. We volunteered our cabin as we were one of a few in a Boardwalk Balcony and since it is an accessible cabin, it was a bit larger.

A list of cabins to visit and the order in which to visit them was typed up, copied and distributed by a member of our Roll Call at the end of the Meet and Greet. We had 6 cabins to visit, plus one provided by RCCL.

We did ours right after the Meet and Greet party provided by Royal - where there were snacks and drinks available for free. The Royal representative led us to the first cabin - one of the owner suites, which was not occupied and we go to look around for about 10 minutes, then, we were on our own to visit each cabin.

When we were done, everyone went their separate ways.

Our excursions and shows are booked.

Now, we are planning our specialty restaurant visits for our Allure Christmas cruise.

I cannot find my Christmas menu from our last trip on Allure.

Does anyone have a Christmas menu?

We cannot remember if we want to stay for the MDR Christmas meal or book Chops for Christmas Day.

Christmas will be on the 2nd 'Formal Night'. i do not know if that makes a difference. Perhaps they will still have the little lobster tails too?

Thank you.

I was just on this ship on the TA in April and Rita's was there. With what has it been replaced? Thanks!

 

BTW, I had a boardwalk balcony and there was some noise at night, so if you detest that it may not be the best location for you.

Rita's was replaced during dry dock with SABORS. Sabors is supposed to be higher quality Mexican fare. There is no Fiesta party anymore, and you pay a la carte instead of a set fee.

We really had no noise on deck 14 of Boardwalk, if you shut the balcony doors.

If they do 10 week rotations, it looks like we might have Captain Johnny on Allure this Christmas... does that seem about right?

He is so much fun with his motorcycle, live parrot and his sweet wife on board.

All of the Captains are great, but we would love to see Captain Johnny again.I gave him a copy of my alligator cookbook that was published one year when we sailed with him, and he actually remembered me from one cruise to another.

We stayed on Deck 14 to avoid the noise from Rita's Cantina (which has since been replaced). The only accessible rooms available were toward the back of the boardwalk, and we still had decent views.

Yes, we could see the water behind the aqua theater at the back of the ship from our balcony.

The views of the Aqua Theater were great. We had better views of the high dives, trapeze work, etc. than the night we sat in the theater. In the theater, we had better views of the activity in the pool.

You can also see and hear the movies on the big screens from your balcony. We watched Grease and Shrek from the balcony.

We have always had an ice bucket available on Allure.

Let the room steward know you want ice each day, and they will

keep it full for you.

Toiletries are a different matter.

In the suites, we had lovely little bottles of shampoo, conditioner and lotion. There were also individually wrapped mini bars of bath soap.

In the balcony room we had a big dispenser of some 'all in one' soapy, shampoos stuff that smelled a bit odd. There were individual wrapped mini bars of bath soap.

Now that Allure has been in dry dock it will be interesting to see if they replace the all in one dispensers with individual toiletries.

If you are picky about products, bring your own.

There are a few key words in the list of prohibited items you posted:

 

"The following are examples of items that guests are not allowed to bring onboard. These and other similar items will be confiscated upon being found."

 

As stated, the list is just examples and not a full list of all prohibited items. To me, golf clubs would seem to fall into the "similar items" range of items on the list like Baseball Bats, Hockey Sticks, Cricket Bats.

 

I guess they could have explicitly said to you "we must keep them because they are prohibited", but I don't see that as a big deal. Is there that much difference to you between them keeping the clubs as a courtesy and them keeping the clubs as a necessity? When I was getting back on the ship in Mexico I had a Tequila bottle with me. The guard at the x-ray scanner just said "Put the tequila over there". He didn't say if it was policy or courtesy that they were going to hold my liquor for me for a few days. This thing with the clubs sounds the same to me.

We travel with a full set of clubs and have never had them confiscated. We would not mind if they were - more room in the cabin. I think that is the point - it is well known that certain items are confiscated, but golf clubs have routinely been allowed in the cabins fleet wide. I think we are all just curious to know if this is the new norm.

Our next cruise will be for our son's graduation from UCF and part of his gift is a new set of clubs for the cruise. If they take them - okay, at least we have a head's up!

We are on this itinerary soon and are very grateful for the compasses so

we can plan.

We travel with a wheelchair bound person, an 83 year old, two 20 somethings and 3 50 year olds, so planning really helps take the stress out of our cruises.

If you have a set dining time, you can ask the head waiter to replace your chair with an armless one when you first board the ship and they will have it for you at every meal. With MTD you may have to request the armless chair at each seating, or they may remember and have it ready. Don't miss the specialty restaurants because of seating either - they have seating options too.

We found more of an issue with some of the theaters. Go to the theater ahead of time and check out seating. In some venues, the seat arms lift up, in some, such as the Aqua theater on Allure, they have some bench seating in addition to the individual seating, but in the comedy club, the chairs were small and had arms. We asked about it and they brought me a piano bench to sit on for the show.

Royal is very accommodating and wants every cruiser to have a good experience, just plan ahead a little so that you can enhance your cruise experience.

The poster was correct - on Allure and Oasis (not sure of any other ships) you no longer have life jackets in your room. They are stored somewhere near your muster station.

Our last muster was in the dining room and the life jackets were in closets near there. The trip before that, on Allure, we mustered in the theater and were told the lifejackets were stored near the lifeboats we were assigned to.

I think they did this as a convenience and to give people more room in their closets. We used to have to go back to our cabin and put on our life jackets for muster drill and we actually mustered near the lifeboats.

The lifeboats on Allure and Oasis hold well over 200 people each - in a real emergency it seems it will be chaotic to get everyone's life jacket out of the common storage area, but I guess we have no choice but to trust they have this figured out. My great-great uncle was Captain Smith of the Titanic, so I am thinking I might carry our own life jackets from home - just kidding - maybe.

Check often - everyday if possible.

Our travel agent booked all of our entertainment right in her office with us, then, two weeks later, it was all gone from our cruise planner. I had email confirmations printed too.

Called RCCL - got the 'just book onboard' answer from 3 different people.

Finally, the reservations were available online and I booked them again for our party of 6.

Now, I check frequently to make sure they have not disappeared again.

Booked on the same ship - same Christmas cruise for 12 a couple of years ago with no problems at all - so clearly something has changed.

Don't give up - keep trying.

We are booked on Vision in 2016 and we really appreciate your detailed review. Looking forward to learning more about your cruise. Thank you for sharing.

We travel with a wheelchair and scooter. We have cruised lower decks when nothing else was available in accessible cabins.

On several of the RCCL ships, we found the hallways more narrow on the lower levels. We can get a wheelchair and a scooter side by side on the upper hallways and find we cannot make it past the cleaning cart with one wheelchair on the lower decks.

This may not be an issue for you at all.

On a positive note, we found less traffic and less noise on the lower deck.

On Allure, we had a boardwalk balcony room near the diving show and it was not there were lots of people using the hallway to get from one place to another - making it a bit more crowded and noisy. This did not bother us at all, and we've booked the same room for our next cruise.

The cabin placement is not as important as the fun you will have cruising.

My next cruise roll call for Dec. 2015 is the least active roll call we've ever been a part of. I tried to get 25 people to commit to a meet and mingle and I offered to do the research to set it up - but no response.

It is not just because it is a Christmas cruise either - this will be our 6th Christmas cruise. Our last Christmas cruise on the same ship - Allure, we had over 60 people show up for the Meet and Mingle onboard. We did a cabin crawl and played a white elephant gift exchange.

We have noticed less from Royal over the years. Officers no longer show up, snacks are now peanuts and cookies. Gifts are smaller and there are fewer of them. I don't know if that is why no one is interested anymore.

When I booked Allure for 12 a couple of years back, it was so much easier to navigate the RCCL website. I had no issues reserving shows, meals, excursions, etc.

This time, it has been a nightmare. I will get everything ready to check out and it will say, "payment failed" on free shows. The site is often 'on vacation'.

Calling the help line does not help. The 4 people I have spoken to seem clueless, and certainly were not able to help.

We went to the travel agent and had her try to book for us. RCCL dropped her call twice and then told her to go to the website to book. She said the new system has been a nightmare for travel agents as well.

I don't know what their problem is, but if it becomes frustrating enough, we'll go back to Disney or try Holland American.

We are taking our 23 year old son on the same itinerary you went on in December for his college graduation cruise.

We'll be looking for you review and photos.

Did you, by any chance, go to see the planes land and take of on Maho beach? That is something our son really wants to do on St Maarten.

Happy belated 18th birthday!

Any opinions on Samba Grill??

The men (50, 57 and 80) and the young men (22, 23 and 25) in our group LOVE SAMBAS. All you can eat grilled meat and a few sides really appeals to them.

The ladies in our group are less enthused about all you can eat meat on a sword.

Here are some of the highlights:

SAMBAS has the BEST grilled veggies anywhere on the ship and there are plenty of them on the open vegetable buffet. We find the portions of veggies in other dining rooms small.

You can ask for FISH. I had grilled salmon and it was WONDERFUL. A nice, thick grilled piece of salmon. This is not on the Samba menu, but they bring it every time I eat there - just ask.

The lamb chops were very nice and so was the top sirloin. Some of the beef was a bit tough and salty. You can taste it and just not eat what you don't like. They will bring you more of what you do like - just ask.

Desserts were good too. There was a nice selection of desserts.

Oh - They have ladies dressed in Brazilian costumes and the men enjoy dancing with them.

We're booked for Sambas on our next cruise.

I'm trying to book Mama Mia for my upcoming cruise in November. There are 9 of us in our party which includes my 5 kids aged 21-6. We've never watched the show. When I go online and select 9 and select passengers it gives me an error saying I haven't selected 9. (Yes, I've triple checked that all 9 are there so that isn't the issue.) Will it only allow me to select adults? Is it appropriate for children? I thought maybe there is a glitch but I've tried it several times over the course of 3 days. I've contacted guest services via email but haven't gotten a response.

I just did this today for our large family - sailing Allure in December.

1. Select 2 passengers. Your names will come up. Click on them. Then pick day and time.

2. Next - there will be a line that says, "add other passengers". Click on that.

3. Now, put in their reservation number and their names for that cabin will pop up. Click on them.

4. Repeat until you get everyone registered. You have to do this for each reservation number.

5. Check out. Be sure to read the confirmation email when they send it to make sure everyone was listed.

*IF YOU GET a MESSAGE that says "Number of Guest invalid" - they may not have enough room for everyone at that show. Try another time or date.

This worked at about 2 this afternoon (eastern standard time).

Hope this works for you!

We're going on Allure again. Last time, we went to a character breakfast and had disappointed kids as the characters were all from Shrek. They were looking for the lemurs and other characters from Madagascar as advertising photos showed.

I found out that they have different characters on different days. Called RCCL and the sweet young lady had no idea what I was talking about and just kept saying, "yes, the characters will be at breakfast and pose for pictures". I asked her 3 times how to find out which characters appeared on which days, and got the same answer.

Does anyone know which mornings the lemurs will be on Allure for the character breakfast?

Thank you!