M&JfromSDL

I've settled my account with cash a couple of times. Frankly, it's more work than it's worth. Last cruise we stood in line for a bit to settle up. So much quicker to just electronically transfer funds to my credit card to cover the bill.

Disappointing to hear. We enjoy the social aspect of cruising and sitting down to dinner with 3-4 other couple for dinner is a big part of that. We keep in touch with many of the couples we have cruised with. While we enjoyed the speciality restaurants onboard Allure we missed some of the camaraderie that developed with our dinner mates from smaller ships.

We rented from National for our 2012 FoS cruise. We picked up at MCO, stayed the night at a hotle and dropped at the Cocoa beach location. The location provided a shuttle to the port after drop off. It was a fairly efficient process. More so than our return to Port Canaveral. We rented a car, drove to Miami then flew home out of Fort Lauderdale. There was a bit of confusion/wait for the shuttle to the rental car office.

Here's 8712. I would have taken 8710 in a heartbeat over our cabin.

Be careful with MegaBus and traveling to Baltimore. Last time I travelled on them them from DC to NYC, "Baltimore" stop was actually in White Marsh, MD.

Don't forget to try the tapas at Vintages. That was our biggest surprise and we raved about it for weeks! It's well worth the money.It's the perfect lunch on a sea day.

 

If you have any more questions, I'll do my best to answer them.

Great point. We discovered Vintages on the last night of the cruise. What a great place. If you are even slightly into wine, it's a fun place to spend a few hours. It totally transports you from the craziness of the ship. We highly recommend.

We sailed on Allure in November of 2011. I was a big fan of the speciality restaurants to the point that I would probably skip the main dining room on the next Allure/Oasis cruise.

We ate at the following speciality restaurants:

150 Central Park: A very interesting experience. Service was great, food was very good. After doing it once we would probably not do it again. $$$ Though the cucumber/basil martini was out of this world. I don't know. After looking back at the pictures maybe we would treat ourselves.

Samba Grill: We would easily do Samba again. Food was wonderful as was the service. Just don't fill up at the salad bar. :-) If you are a meat lover, definitely check this out.

Chops: We skipped it due to a poor experience at Chops on Radiance.

Giovanni's Table: I could eat here everyday. In fact, if we do Allure again we will eat here more than once. Food is great and sitting out on Central Park is a treat.

Johnny Rockets: I think of Johnny Rockets as mall food. Not sure I would go on vacation and pay extra to eat there. To each his own.

Rita's Cantina: We tried to reserve a space for their Cantina party and were unable to because it was prebooked. This is one part of the cruise we regret missing. We walked by while the party was going on and it looked AWESOME!

Much better view! It's giving me the itch to book our next cruise.

RCI should pay you a commission. We were set to go another direction for vacation this year, but based on the photos in your thread...well just check out our signature. Thanks!