whataboutport

Yup, no wonder so many people retire in FL! Sometimes on the older ships it's cheaper to do a cruise than NOT to cruise! If we do a cruise again, we will def do a smaller ship and really choose our ports of call carefully. Might even do one of those higher end all inclusive cruises.

Thats good to know, i was thinking about doing this same cruise over the summer but $5K is alot of money for a week and ports of call that aren't the greatest. The Allure should do an overnight in St Thomas/St John to really make it worth while as you stated. And also coming from CA where we live makes it a whole day day travel to and from.

Better than work yes but did you get your money's worth? doesn't sound like it.

Yes exactly. And the extra travel time needed, and the extra hotel stay as well. It was really hard to get off the ship from being in a grand ship and nice ocean view balcony room to stay one more night in a crappy motel before coming home. I wish there were better ports of call going out of CA. I get so sea sick doing the Mexican riviera.

Also, doing this ship/itin in summer will be ever MORE $$$. Same with air.

Very cool to see that you can meet people after your cruise as well as before! Love this thread and the review's terrific (plus heartily agree about Maho. It's my husband's favorite place in the Caribbean).

 

Carolyn

 

Carolyn Spencer Brown

Editor in Chief

Cruise Critic

Yes I agree! and thanks for following along!:)

omg this is so funny because it was our exact experience. We had a different driver, but only beer and water, so I couldn't even drown my pain.

 

He was giving out tons of useless info like, "here is the local bank, and right behind it is a bike store!" and "...so and so lives down there in a really nice house, but we can't see it from here. But it's really big, I used to work there!" Just senseless crazy drivel. And it went on and on!

 

And we had to drive past and view a small airport for some strange reason, where we got stuck behind a delivery van for a good 10 min or so, and at the end, we missed the Air France landing at Maho. I'm sure if Bernard reads this he will know who I am because I told him my complaints and he just laughed.

:eek: wow. I guess they won't bother to take constructive criticism huh? I was very surprised I did not enjoy their tour, Bernard's has such good reviews. I also messaged them on their FB page after I got back, and no response, however I am not surprised. I did leave a review on Tripadvisor though.

Too bad you missed Air France, that was the best one! We got out of our prime location right at the edge of the bar, and good thing we did bc it was a better view down on the beach in front of the bar. The camera angle looks so much more impressive.

I do remember you both. I definitely remember the tattoos and long hair. :) Most of my time is spent at the Flowrider.

If we do another cruise soon we will have to try Flowrider more. I thought it would be easier since we both snowboard but it wasn't the same LOL!

regarding your title - 'not as awesome as i thought"..

 

was it the allure specifically that wasn't as awesome as you thought it would be?

was it the ship? the itinerary? something else?

Allure was a grand ship, the staff was magnificent, however I agree with some who think you don't get the "at sea" feel; not enough venues with ocean views, etc. Also the food was just ok.

More so, I didn't feel the itin was great. I know the oasis class is known for the ships and not the ports, but really St Thomas/St John was the only port we really enjoyed. I think they need to scrap Nassau altogether and give more time at the other two, or get to Nassau at a more sensible time. I mean we got there at 7am and most shops don't even open till 9:30-10 ish and sailaway is at 2pm?

Also, for the price we spent on the two of us for a week long vacay, didn't really feel it was worth it. Between the airfare (we flew in from CA) and everything I think perhaps were got in a bit under $5k. If perhaps we did another type of vacay, say go to south east Asia or something, we may have felt a bit more "spoiled". But live and learn, you know? Overall, I was not over the top impressed, but not totally disappointed either. So basically, better than being at work. ;)

Wouldn't happen to know what those three months are? We'll be hoping to go to the beach next February.

I don't remember if he said what months, sorry! Maybe I heard wrong? :confused:

I spend quite a bit of time on the Flowrider when I cruise. I'm sure we ran into each other up there. I'm the short bald, pudgy, bald guy and I have my own board. Curious who you were???

Oh I totally remember you! I was the Asian girl with bangs and my bf was the Asian guy with lots of tattoos and long hair. We said hi to you a while after the Best of the Best competition near the pool. :)

and for your next cruise, you can charter the serene - here are pictures of the interior to convince you it would be a great choice!!

 

http://www.ycoyacht.com/yacht/serene/

 

something to consider if i ever win the lottery (of course to win, i'd actually have to buy a ticket.. :rolleyes: )

Hey that first pic IS the Serene! How about that?! So a richy person had this chartered that day. So now I know it was the Serene, and the white one was just named "A".

I just remembered two more things I forgot to post.

1. I still got my C&A coupons via booklet, so I still don't know how the new system will work yet.

2. On deck 5 (running track) you can get a great view of the wake and it's very quiet, with not many people there. At night, the track is still lit, but at the very back it's a lot darker. A cool place to be for sailaway or just to hang out a bit. It also would seem the most ideal place for one to throw themselves overboard. =/ Sorry to be morbid but that was one of my first thoughts when I was there.

Great review! I was on the same sailing and enjoyed everything. I was very surprised that there was no clothes line to hang wet bathing suits on. Luckily, I had a few suction cup hooks that worked on the inside of the shower door and on the bathroom door.

 

Also, remember magnets. The walls are metal so you can use magnets to hold up things like spa appointment reminder cards.

Oh yeah I forgot to mention magnets. I did bring some, but they have to be pretty strong magnets. It did help a lot to keep clutter off the small vanity table.

Lol yes, yes, we were on the same bus's for Bernards and I remember you guys getting on the bus at Marigot and same coastal tour taxi and on the way back dropping the extra people off at the Mariott in St Thomas :)

How did you get the pics of Trunk Bay without the trees? Were you sitting in the back or were you on a different taxi altogether?

And so what time did you actually get to meet up with John at the info booth? I assume you guys got there before we did then. We didn't see the Iguana farm at all.

What you need to try is the Rum Jumbie, St. Maarten is the only place we can find it, we're leaving on the Oasis this Saturday and the only thing we planning on getting on the cruise is a restock, because we are on our last bottle

Rum jumbie? Never heard of that but sounds interesting! :)

Not only was I on the same sailing as you, but we also did the same exact two excursions. In St Thomas we did the coastal tour, which I also thought in the beginning would go all the way around the island. We also did Bernards Tour in St Maarten. We also had the timing messed up, so when we arrived, they told us we were an hour late and the tour already left, but they would take us and meet up with the tour at the sea urchin place. We stopped at the Iguana farm for about 3 minutes and hurried to the ocean. Once we met up with Sexy and the group, we were only at that point for a few minutes too. I did enjoy the tour over all though and I felt it was a great value for how cheap it was.

 

We also got hasseled by the guy in front of Seraphina's and kept asking for money, but this being our 5th cruise, I knew to just keep on walking and ignore them if they don't take no.. We told him no and he kept asking as we walked away, no biggie. We went and ate in Seraphina's and it was some of the BEST food ever. We ordered a sandwhich type thing with pepperoni, and a few desserts and they were all delicious! We had no idea what we were ordering at the time, or how much, but it was great. I loved Maho beach and got some pretty good shots of the planes coming in.

 

All in all, we loved Bernards Tour.. Other than the time mix up which I felt could have been specified better, it was a good day and I loved St Maarten. The nude beach and topless beach didn't bother us, we just kind of laughed a little whenever we saw something not so pleasant (without them seeing of course).

 

It's odd seeing all your pictures and knowing we were probably like right next to you on both excursions. I have a few pretty good pictures of Trunk Bay from up on the hill if you want any of them (Without any trees blocking the view or anything)

We were on the same bus? bc John (I think?) brought us to La Playa and said the rest of the group was already there, and handed us off to Sexy. When it was time to leave Orient, us late comers were told to board the bus last bc the original people needed to sit in their seats first. We were the Asian couple with tattoos in our mid 30s. I had on sunglasses all the time and with bangs and bf has a ponytail but with the sides of his head shaved. He has both his lower sleeves tattooed. I can't imagine Sexy doing more than one tour per day? Esp if we were on the same sailing.

I would love to see the pics of Trunk with out the trees. You said you also did the coastal tour, were you on a different safari taxi than us? We were on the first one off the ferry after the coastal tour.

Oh also wanted to say, we were the ones late back on the bus from Marigot, and I was carrying that huge coconut. So were you on that bus?

You are doing a fabulous job Missy. Just ignore the snarky comments.

thanks for the support and thanks for following along. :)

I don't think I've mentioned Windjammer yet. Two nights we didn't feel like going to the MDR for dinner so we got a bite at the WJ. There are a lot of choices, but the menu doesn't seem to change. There were several Indian dishes if you're into Indian food. I happen to like it. Also there's plenty of desserts too. Most everything was def edible, but only a few things that were gross. I got a rib that was really tough. There were these noodles that kind of resembled Pad Thai but made with egg noodles instead of rice noodles, I was really craving noodles so that was good. Also in the Asian section there's this spicy and sweet cabbage salad. Well everyone takes the shrimp out of it, so if you want shrimp that's where they are. The "juices" they have there are nasty. Like extremely watered down Crystal Light.

I also wanted to tell you about things that I brought and didn't end up using or barely using:

Extra hangers

Travel mugs (used it more in the plane than on the ship)

Powdered drink mixes

Scissors

Bungees

Lint roller

Tape (I brought electrical instead of duct tape)

Static Guard

2nd Swimsuit

One extra dress

"Waterproof" plastic ID case

Post it notes

2nd highlighter (and to think I was going to bring four!)

Also you don't need to bring a power strip, the three on the desk are sufficient. I was also able to bring on my carry on a corkscrew that also had a little knife on it. It's the cheapo corkscrew/knife/bottle opener type. No problems at security. They were more interested in my mini Bacardi bottles.

For debarkation, we decided to carry off our own since we didn't really have that much. We did NOT have to leave at 6:30. We got a tag number of 40. We were scheduled to get off around 9am. We actually ended up leaving a bit after that and there were no issues. We were able to sleep in till 8, and got breakfast at Park Cafe (they still had the full menu available) and brought it back up to the room to eat. Our cabin attendant didn't knock until about 9:30. Customs was a breeze also. The line was really long but moved fast. If only Disneyland lines moved that fast. I did also notice that even though they only called numbers up to 45 at that point, the luggage for numbers all the way up to 80 were for the most part already all out. These workers are really fast, but I think they just don't want everyone making a mad dash to get off all at once.

We also just returned from the Allure. I wanted to get Guavaberry Liquor in St. Maarten and, too, noticed the place near the ship that was selling it for $21. We walked to the actual Guavaberry Liquor store and purchased it for $19; however, as we were walking back to the ship we passed another liquor store and it was $17!! Now I know where to get it next time.

 

We actually spent two weeks on the Allure and I loved every minute of it and would gladly return any time. There are only a couple things I didn't like and the main one was how loud the music was in all the bars, clubs and at the Headliner Show. I mentioned it several times to the assistant cruise director and others and every time they had a different excuse as to why it was so loud. And, there are speakers everywhere so there were no hidden corners to escape the loud sound. I've never noticed it being so loud on other ships.

 

The other thing we would do would be get an oceanview balcony. We had a Central Park View the first week and a Central Park Balcony the second week. I enjoyed sitting on the window seat and reading the first week and being able to sit on the balcony the second week and listen to the "Concerts in the Park" at night as they were right below us. However, we really missed seeing the ocean.

 

A couple other things I missed was not having an adjustable shower (for height) and no clothesline in the shower. Also, did anyone else notice that the bathroom vanity seemed to be lower than other ships?

 

Hope I can convince DH to try the Oasis sometime.

You are right about the volume of the music/shows. We were mid ship but closer towards the front a bit, so the Amber theater was there. When there were shows there we could easily hear the bass. Same with Boleros, but like I said I enjoy Latin style music so it wasn't too bad for me. Plus it usually was over by midnight.

Also agree about getting an ocean view balcony room. I don't think there are enough venues in the ship with ocean views, so you do sometimes don't get that "I'm on a ship" feel, more like a hotel or mall. And I did notice the vanity was low, but I didn't remember how high they were on other ships. I'm short so not a big deal to me. I did like how the showers had doors instead of those shower curtains on other ships that like to get too cozy with you sometimes.

I already mentioned earlier that this day (2nd to last) had the longest waits for everything, Flowrider, Zip line, even ping pong. Needless to say we spent most of this day standing in lines. If you want to do any of these things, do it on the first day or first sea day. We were afraid we'd get either sore or hurt, so we didn't want to in the start of the week. Don't be afraid to do it earlier. I took a few bad spills on the Flowrider, but really nothing so bad where I would have been too sore to snorkel, so do it!

Also since we hung out towards the sport deck for the most of this day, we did have a snack at the Wipe out Cafe. At first we really had no interest eating here, as we thought it was just sort of aimed as kid's fare, pizza, pretzel dogs, fries, etc. Well this was the only place I found that had nachos, however they don't have nacho cheese sauce. And the way they have the nacho section set up is kind of weird. You get your plate on the right end of the buffet. You would assume the chips would be next right? Nope, the chips are all the way on the left side, so you'd have to get your plate, then if there's a line, wait in line to get chips, then go back and put on your toppings. It was quite strange. They need to either flip the entire line, or put the plates in the middle near the chips. But they had everything you could want to put on nachos, except cheese sauce that is. (BTW the nacho meat is kind of like chili and it has beans in it.) I heard several people complaining about how it was set up, and with the small space they have there it becomes quite a clusterf***.

Anyway, on to dinner. This was lobster night. For one of our apps we asked if we could have the crab salad (which was actually an entree) and of course Austin said no problem. This was really good, but can't imagine someone having this as an entree. The legs are sliced open so it's easy to get the meat in one big chunk and stuff it in your mouth. =)

The other app was a mixed seafood salad. It had another piece of crab leg, one large shrimp and some mixed seafood (crab and fish?). I also enjoyed this.

Excited about the lobster, bf and I both ordered one each of the Fisherman's Plate. Unfortunately for both of us it was dry and overcooked. Auston asked us if we wanted some extra melted butter on top before we had a first taste, and we said no, but it really needed it. However, the four shrimp the dish came with were perfect and SO good. Wish it was just a whole pile of them. We ignored the veggies again, except the carrots. LOL

We also got another beef dish. I think this was another prime rib, but with a different sauce. The outer edge was really good and tender and tasty, but the center part was kind of blah. We asked for some horseradish on the side. The potato cake was kind of cold.

This meal turned out to be the last time we dined in the MDR as on the last night we weren't hungry at all by our seating time. Too bad that our last meal wasn't that great. But we did have great service throughout the week, so we returned on the last night to give Austin and his asst a little extra. The Maitre D really tried to get us to sit and eat but we just weren't hungry.

Funny side story too, on one of the sea days, we saw the maitre D in the Solarium talking to this really hot chick sunbathing. Heh heh. She was lying on her belly with the tie undone in the back, and I'm sure she was face down too, as that would be the only comfortable way to lay in that position. He must have really had something important to say to her to disturb her. LOL No one ever came by to ask me how I was doing but whatevers.

This day is the first of the two consecutive sea days on our way back to Ft Lauderdale. The first sea day I was excited to eat in the MDR for lunch, however I missed it! It's only from noon till 1:30 I believe, so a pretty small window. I was really excited to try the Tutti salad. Well guess what? It's exactly the same as the salad at the Park Cafe, but with a few more ingredients. I thought the shrimp were going to be bigger than at the Park Cafe but they are the same little bay shrimp. =( So in addition to what they have at the Park Cafe, the Brasserie 30 lunch in the MDR had several different kind of lettuces, and more toppings like grilled eggplant (though it was cold), two types of tomato (diced or cherry), more cold cut meats (ham, smoked salmon, chicken, etc), more cheese (in addition to mozz balls at Park Cafe, there was feta here). Since I like certain things on my salad, it turned out pretty much the same as the Park Cafe salad, except I added feta and eggplant. That was kind of a let down. The other thing for me is dressing. I usually get a creamy balsamic dressing, but they just had oil and vinegar.

The best of lunch was the Tomato Risotto. It had three large shrimp and lots of small bay scallops, and a deep fried basil(?) leaf on top.

We also got the beef dish. This was very tough. We did not eat a second bite of it. =/ Also you see the squarish thing on the right that looks like a mille feuille type thing? It's potato. I read on the Food 52 blog about doing potatoes like this with them shaved on the mandoline and them being crunchy on the out layers and creamy on the inside. I was excited they made this. however, the potato had cheese between the layers and the cheese cooled down and made it hard and chewy. Not good. I would skip this dish. We were sat and served very soon after they opened at noon, so I don't know how long these were ready before they were actually served.

So besides the risotto that we enjoyed, we also got a side of fries. We didn't want a burger that it came with, but we asked for just fries and that was fine. When you get the fries fresh and hot, they are some of the best fries I've had. The funny thing is that they give you this huge squeeze bottle of ketchup, and halfway through eating they take it away and give it to the next table. I think they should have smaller bottles and more of them. We ran out of ketchup so we didn't get to eat all our fries. Oh well.

Ok so now we are back on the ship after the final port day. Dinner that night was just so so. I think the dinner was better towards the beginning of the week, at least for us it was a lot more of what we like.

We love crab cakes and whenever we see one on the menu we have to have one, even though we are really particular about them. This one you could def see large chunks of crab meat, but there was a good amount of filler. I feel if there's a lot of noticeable filler, the outside would be crispy. This one wasn't crispy, but had good flavor. Also the green sauce was really yummy. We used up all of that. The slaw was nothing special for us, being Asian, we eat that kind of thing all the time.

We also had the cold duck breast app. For me this was too sweet. It had slices of orange on it, but the sauce it came with wasn't my thing. Pretty though. Sorry about the blurry pic. The lighting was behind my head so all the pics in front of me didn't come out well, but all the pics in front of bf came out better. I opted to take food pics with my phone since it takes better pics without flash, so keep from bugging people with flashes going off all the time.

I think this was supposed to be barramundi, but it ended up to be a different type of fish. I did notice there were a few differences in menus from the ones posted on here, and what we were eventually presented with. I made notes of what I wanted each night, and a few nights what I wanted was not even on the menu, nor was it later in the week. So there have been a few tweaks I suppose. Anyway, I usually like fish, but this one was soft and kinda gummy.

I think this was the beef two ways. We liked the beef on the bottom better, I think it was the short rib? Anyway, again we didn't care for the sauce. I don't wanna say sweet again, but it was like a red wine reduction? I"m not sure. Again, even though cooked to our liking, we didn't like the taste. =(

Hi all!

 

whataboutport ~ enjoying your review & was able to see the video.

I used Bernards too & didn't get to stop at Maho Beach as we waited too long at the port for people who never did show up!:(

 

I'm going on Allure in November & am so looking forward to it.

 

~ Jo ~ :)

Ugh! That sucks! I really think that if it's advertised as such, you should get it, and if you don't, you should get at least a partial refund. Maho was one of the highlights! I read many reviews on Bernard's and did not read one single bad or even slightly critical review!

Oh yeah I remembered a few tips also for SXM before I go on back to the ship. If you want a cheap souvenier, at the Creole Cafe/Tin Tin we ate at (I'm sure lots of other places have it) we bought a can or Orangina and it said St Maartin on it. We had no issues getting it back on the ship, nor in the plane on our checked bag. We did put it in a good quality zip lock bag just in case though.

Also remember how I complained about the vendors bugging us on the beach? Turns out a lot of the stuff they try to sell you there, you can get at Rima Beachworld (last part of the tour on Bernards) and a lot of the items are actually cheaper at Rima's. For example, these beach towels that turn into backpacks. The vendors were trying to sell them for $20, but you can talk them down to $12-15. Regular price at Rima is $9.99.

Also if you want to buy any Guavaberry rum, there is a few stands at the cruise dock. Buy it last so you don't have to lug it around all day, and these stands are open when you come back to the dock. We bought a bottle for $21, and they give samples in a smoothie drink, very yummy, tastes like a fruit frozen yogurt, but not overly sweet. The liqueur by itself tastes good, and not syrupy like most sweet liqueurs are. We ended up having it straight, all it needed was some ice. And at 35% alcohol, it's not that far behind say Bacardi, so I think the buzz sneaks up on you. I remember seeing t shirts saying "The guavaberry made me do it" Well while we were drinking it, I had a bit of a faux pas that I won't get into, but I really think the guavaberry made me do it! LOL Oops.

Also I want to add, we had been tipping out stateroom attendant daily with a little extra here and there, and I think that played into how fast we got our booze delivered to us on the final day. I thought it would be during the turn down service while you're away at dinner but we got ours much earlier, I think 3 or 4? We appreciated that. We also got back those four tiny bottle of Bacardi too. :)

Please let me know if this link is working for you guys.

https://vimeo.com/61970698

Thanks for posting this review! We'll be on the Allure in about 2 weeks - can't wait! This will be our 1st time to St. Thomas & St. Martin, so I've enjoyed seeing your pictures.

Cool! Please do a review whe you get back! It really helps other first timers. I wish I read more first timers reviews before I went.

Very well done.

I really enjoyed reading your review.

Thanks

Sea Ya

Thanks for following along!

Thank you SO much for the Trunk Bay info! I think we'll do the ship excursion shopping tour to cut out the coastal cruise and not bother stopping to eat, as you suggested, to give us more time at the beach itself. I really appreciate your taking the time to respond, and am continuing to read along with your wonderful review.

 

MouseGirl

Cool, glad I could help! If I were to do it again, I'd def bring some chips or snacks from the ship. I'm thinking chips, brownies, cookies, etc, since you won't have any refrigeration and it'll probably be warm to hot out.

I'm really enjoying your review! Good to see the review through the eyes of another whom was also on the same sailing! Keep it coming!

Thanks! I've got your review book marked and I'm gonna read that next after I'm done with this one. Just a few more posts to go. :)