d4nigirl

Just off Majesty yesterday, CD was Mauricio Diaz

My husband and I stayed at La Concha for our honeymoon. We loved its location! Right in the middle of everything with an easy walk to where you wanted to go and the hotel was clean and very nice.

Room service breakfast and some more exploration of the ship

 

We decided to order breakfast room service, since DS and I both love this treat at least once per cruise. I forgot to scan the room service breakfast menu, but will do so next week, when we are back home. Watch this space for more documents to come :D

 

We had put the card for room service out the previous night, to be delivered between 8 and 8:30 a.m. We got a call around 8:10 that room service was on the way, and it was delivered around 8:25. After some fun family breakfast and coffee time in our PR window seats, we headed to the Promenade Cafe to meet the captain and his staff again. This was more of an informal visit, where the staff walked around to chat with passengers - not the formal, entertaining Q&A session that we had earlier this week. The Promenade Cafe got too loud and crowded, so we went for another stroll to see some other areas of the ship.

 

We discovered this conference center (I think it was deck 2):

 

We also found some "hands-on" art. You turn the lever to activate the moving pieces.

 

 

Another nice spot for a family picture - The stairs outside Arcadia Theatre:

 

This art was right outside our room when DH and I sailed on Freedom. We LOVED these!

Dining and other souvenirs.

On our honeymoon in 2013 we had more OBC than we thought so we ended the cruise with about $100 left in our account, they credited my CC back

DH and I did this the first time we were in Key West. We both loved it. In fact, we retraced our steps on our honeymoon last summer!

It's a walking tour and the guides are super friendly and personable. We had a guide named Brian. As we walked, he told us a lot about the area, and a bunch of historical things.

Our first stop was to a hotel restaurant, sort of like a beach shack along the water. We got chicken skewers and friend coconut shrimp. I want to say maybe a few conch fritters too (but I'm not 100% sure). You were able to purchase drinks at this venue as well (which were STRONG!). Try the rum punch -fabulous!

The next stop was for Key Lime pie dipped in chocolate on a stick I believe. We stopped at Kermit's for this. Fantastic! I wasn't a key lime pie fan but since then, I adore it.

*****Just saw you already sailed. Hope you went on the tour!

Last stop was at Peppers of Key West for a hot sauce tasting. LOVED this place. I'm not a fan of hot things/sauce but the place's energy was FUN! The store's workers were hilarious and just so hospitable.

We really enjoyed the tour. I think you will too if you do it. You learn a bunch of history and really get to experience some of the Key West "flavor."

The stores started to open, the very first one I hit was Del Sol and Cariloah. I didn't plan on visiting Cariloah but they turned out to be the same store, the first half is Cariloah and the back half is Del Sol. The T-Shirts were a bit on the pricey side. The sunglasses seem a little too good to be true, for $50 you get a pair of sunglasses and they'll send you another pair whenever they break or get lost? There HAS to be some catch.

 

I had come here for nail polish, one of my coworkers is a nail painter and I thought the color changing nail polish would be perfect for her. But at $10, a little pricey. She better be glad I like her.

 

The shirts in Cariloah were very soft, there were women with armfuls of bamboo necklaces to give out as you browsed the store, but everything was so expensive. After buying my nailpolish and some key chains, I continued on to the straw market.

 

The Straw Market is very claustraphobic. It took me a long time to work my way through here because every few feet it was "Pretty girl, come look at my shop." And every stall was the same thing but a lot of the things cost different prices.

 

This is where I found the shark from Coco Cay again. And again. And again. That teaches me a lesson, just because someone is sitting around a bunch of wood figures, apparently carving something, does not in fact mean he carved any of the things in his shop.

 

I got dragged in to several stalls mainly because I am not able to say "No" and I figured there was nothing wrong with looking, but I only bought from vendors who weren't overly pushy. I bought another wooden shark figure, but this one was more of a scene, a wooden lobster that was hanging off of a table. (This lobster, I found out later, did not stand up which is probably why he was hanging off the table.) a few string bracelets.

 

I left through the back end of the straw market to head to the Bacardi store to get some rum cakes. Making my way back to Bay Street through the alley by the straw market, I came across a small store selling Bacardi and rum cakes. It even had rum cake samples, they had coconut out when I went in. It's next to a walk up window service burger king.

 

After making my purchases (including a coke.) I got back on the main of bay street. I had my coworkers covered I still needed something for my mom. I found the perfect store for it called My Ocean. It was down in the Prince George Shopping Plaza, there is a sign where you turn off of bay street.

 

My Ocean is a store that sells candles, soaps, ceramics, sarongs, dishes and various other things for the home. Everything is made by hand in the bahamas. I spent a long time in here because everything in the shop is beautiful and smelled wonderful. I settled on some coasters hand made from sea glass and a soap dish with two soap scrolls. It was pricey, at just under $80, but I was very satisfied with my purchases. They came with beautiful postcards.

 

After I finished, feeling considerably poorer, I headed back to the boat.

Funny thing about Del Sol and those sunglasses.....surprisingly, they're true to their word. My DH got a pair on our first cruise together and he wanted to test out their word about a year later. It's 100% true. They sent him another pair! I believe it was for $10 (which I remember the workers telling us), but SO worth it. Its 100% true!

Love your review!!

She's so beautiful at night.

Sailing her a month after, I'll easily report.

Trying to figure out if this is reasonable, or if I have lost my mind. Experienced folks with past visits to Key West ... please weigh in.

 

Will arrive to Key West (Pier B) on Grandeur on November 26. Scheduled to arrive 9 AM and depart 5 PM.

 

Is this doable?

 

* Fury Parasailing (am told it's an hour round-trip?)

* Lunch on the water, somewhere (Sunset Pier? Hot Tin Roof?)

* Hemingway House

* Butterfly Conservatory

* Stop for slice of key lime pie

* Visit the Pelican Poop store for souvenir (my son loves anything with the word "poop" in it -- he's 10)

* Photo opp at Southernmost Point

 

Yay or nay?

I'd add on an extra 45 mins or so just in case for the parasailing (people may move slower, check in, pictures, etc.)

Hemingway house can be self-guided and is a few blocks (about a 15 min walk) from the Southernmost Pointand the Butteryfly Conserv.. The Southernmost Point can get a bit busy. Last time I was there, my DH and I stood in line for about 45 mins to get a quick photo.

For the Butterfly Conserv. it's a guided path that can take a while depending on how many people are there and how long you spend there.

Key Lime Pie can be a quick grab on the walk back to the ship.

As for the rest, you just have to think of travel time between everything. It can be doable but definitely a lot. Might want to think of cutting something(s) out to do the remainder leisurely.

Meg be safe! If I remember correctly, there was wifi in Falmouth around the fast food areas in port (Quiznos and such). Safe travels. I bet you're missing the smudge!

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There are a few places that sell wine. Especially key lime wine. Look around!

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We then came back to town and went to dinner at a restaurant called “Coast”. It specializes in seafood. It was fantastic. Expensive but great.

Cold seafood for two. - half lobster, prawns, king crab, dungeness crab, oysters and various sushi.

 

 

 

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I LOVE this picture. Your father looks genuinely happy. By far one of the best pictures I've seen in a long time (including other posts).

Enjoy your trip!

Yes, what I said about Havensight. Repeating, no guarantee, things can change.

This but when we sailed there on Freedom, our room was on starboard and docked facing the city.

But there's no guarantee.

So, after a day of water play, we went to the cabin, got cleaned up, and went searching for dinner. The buffet was an utter disappointment, so we wound up at the sushi place. They hand you a menu and a pencil (it's like The Counter if you have that burger chain near you). You check off what you want. It's priced per item. I think each roll was around $7-10.

 

I was happily surprised that this is good quality, authentic sushi, not the crap they used to give for free. Like Mexican Food, LA knows its sushi (I just ate some for lunch as we speak). This was pretty darn good, and affordable.:)

 

I had an Ebi app., and a spicy tuna roll, DH had a shrimp tempura roll, DS California roll. We all had miso soup. And DS had some sake. It came out to under $50 I believe, thank you OBC!!!

Elijah had sake?! Whoa! Can he handle it better than I can? lol

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*sidenote* I love the fact that most of the public transportation in all the countries we visited showed you the estimated time of arrival of the next tram/metro/bus etc. We don't have that in NYC.

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It's starting! A lot of the Manhattan and downtown ones do now!

Loving your review! I wanted to take a cruise/trip like this for our honeymoon but we didn't have the time! I get to live it through you now!

Only ships I've seen popcorn onboard is on the Boardwalk on Allure and Oasis.

I consider myself a kid at heart, so when we were on our Freedom cruise, we were at Labadee, and I ran through some of the soakers/sprinklers since it was practically empty. I wanted to do it at a port bc I knew I'd get some strange looks from parents if it was busy. Even when I did though, I received no weird looks (except from my husband of course)!

Go for it!

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There are booths all over the place, just ask them!

There's a lovely webcam right outside Sloppy Joe's bar that you can have your loved ones view to see you and be jealous of while you're vacationing and they're not.

Walking around Old Town is just lovely in itself since there's so much to see, it's great for people watching. We did this a lot on our visit down last week for our honeymoon. It was definitely a highlight of our trip!

I've ordered breakfast room service, it should be delivered here shortly. You can order real scrambled eggs or boxed eggs. Know I saw a thread on here recently on the subject of eggs. The more I think of it I think it was on the Carnival board. Oh well. :-)

 

Breakfast room service menu

 

 

 

 

 

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Love the breakfast menu for room service, thing I hate though is that each time I order, I need to hand-write in peanut butter. Some times we'll get it and others I need to run up to WJ Some days its nice on toast with butter.

Enjoying the "live" thread!

Nice shots of the Falmouth port area. It looks so much better than it did when I was there in 2011. I'm guessing that you have a thing for the #13, but (I know I'm nitpicking here) there is no Deck 13 on the Allure. I think it is some kind of a mariner's/seaman's superstition and because of that there usually is never a Deck 13 on any ships (at least as I've been told). Although the deck plans for the new Quantum show a Deck 13 (maybe it's a misprint), so that would buck the superstition. :)

Didn't realize this!

In the words of the great Mitch Hedberg, "those on 14 will really know whats up."

Sherri,

I was wondering if you have a spreadsheet of some sort for your Allure planning.

I know you carry/use a binder (I read your Med. review -amazing btw), and was wondering what you use to organize your events and such. I'm trying to find/gain ideas to help create my own for upcoming Key West/Allure trip.

Thanks!

sounded like they just did a muster drill before they leave PC for the last time...

Heard that too!

They all seemed to be in good spirits. About 60% are going on their vacations before starting new contracts on other ships. Some are still in their contracts and will be going to them within the next few days.

Thanks!

What a great experience!

I wonder how the staff were taking it, do they get moved to another ship?

Oh Sherri, always a pleasure to read your reviews!

Sailing on Allure in August for our Honeymoon can't wait.

Come July, I'll be searching this thread again for additional tips and pointers!

Hope you're feeling better!