doppelganger2621

Last week on Allure, the effective on-board BOGO price was $72pp

Big fan of deck 8 aft, go to the elevators aft and you’re at Central Park, go down two flights of steps you’re on the Boardwalk

Ours were checked over pretty thoroughly twice at Port Everglades last Saturday

You’re correct that since you are in separate rooms, you would only have to buy one drink package I believe since it’s by room and not party. However, that drink package can only be used by the person the name is under—it can’t be split or shared. I didn’t notice any time limit between getting drinks but if you go to a bar with only one card they will only give you one drink. If your wife also gets the package you can take both cards to the bar and get a drink for each of you. The detractors being if you get caught sharing your drink package, they’ll likely charge you for both, then withdraw your package privileges with no refund. Also it’s just generally being cheap. If you choose for one of you to get the package, that’s fine, but if the other person wants an alcoholic beverage they should go ahead and pay a La carte for each drink they get—or just have them get the drink package too.

Before I went on my cruise this past week—I would have said maybe $70–after, I’m definitely thinking much higher lol. The mixed drinks are pretty weak—we absolutely blew past 7 a day without much effort, even on port days. Mimosa with breakfast and two glasses of wine at dinner and you’re basically halfway there. The drinks go down easy by the pool, especially when many of them only have a shot of alcohol. I totaled up my drinks for the week and could have probably still had value close to $100 a day. There was also some inherent value in just handing my card over and not worrying about the tab I’d racked up that day

We had a ton of dining menus, bar menus, etc just disappear from the app about two weeks prior to sailing. On embarkation day they all popped up accurately again.

Just off Allure and heard varying reports between 5000-5600 for the sailing

Absolutely. My senior citizen dad lives near us so I’m staying away for at least five days while continuing to test. He has Parkinson’s so we’re not taking any risks there. Got plenty of tests laying around here haha My 8 year old got a booster like two weeks ago, the rest of us have boosters but this is the first actual infection in our family

Thanks—seems to be pretty mild thus far. She admits she felt a scratch in her throat as early as Thursday but chalked it up to the fact that she has allergies to fresh fruit and figured the mixed drinks were doing it. So far seems like a normal cold, we’ll continue to monitor obviously. Other person in the group said same thing—scratchy throat that started today and a cough.

Update: wife positive, me and kids negative. One other person in travel party positive, his wife and kid also negative. Two “singles” in the group also negative.

Update: just walked off the ship with the other self assist departure people. No one asked a thing

I posted some midweek thoughts about the sailing earlier this week but felt like I should supplement with a full review now that the week is finally over. I’ll preface by saying this was our first trip on an Oasis class ship, so we did have that “WOW” factor added to our experience. SHIP/CABIN: Just immaculately clean. Maybe others could point out where some wear and tear is but I didn’t see any of it my entire week. The cabin furniture was cleaning, balcony railings had no signs of rust or on the balcony itself. Crew was hard at work all week cleaning common spaces, pool decks, etc. We had a balcony ocean cabin aft and it was great. Little bit of a walk from the aft elevators as we weren’t far from the Aquatheater suites, overall great. Cabin service was great and the attendant was very nice to our kids and we obviously had plenty of towel animals to take pictures of. FOOD/DINING SERVICE: Wow, I was impressed. This was probably what I was most worried about just based on recent reviews. Main dining, in my opinion, was excellent. I had one entree that was average (the Ahi tuna) but I felt everything else exceeded my expectations. We were in a large group (9 of us) and our waiters did a great job keeping the meal moving along. We also had a table literally right next to an oceanview window so that kept the three children in our group entertained. But food was as good or better than previous cruises I have taken, and my entire group agreed. One of our waiters asked if we liked Indian food and would constantly bring some Indian dishes with our entrees to sample—it was great! Kids enjoyed the food as well even though their menu was a little more scaled down from the adult menu. But service all week was great. Windjammer I thought was solid—nothing blew me away but considering the scale of the food being made, it was great for breakfast or lunch. I didn’t find it particularly crowded or the lines to ever be long to get in. We did not specialty dine, but I enjoyed Wipeout, Park, and Cafe Promenade. POOL DECK: I see that pool chair hogs are back in full force. The first sea day, we were out on the deck counting out the number of chairs we needed for our group (all 9 of us were present). As we were conferring in the row, some man came up and just started throwing towels on chairs. When he saw what we were clearly doing he goes “oh how many do you need” and we said “Six” and he moved one towel to give us four chairs together. We moved elsewhere. Of course, the end result is those chairs he was in such a hurry to reserve went absolutely unoccupied for about 2 hours. Overall, pools were great! Definitely got crowded by the afternoons of the sea days—the kids pool was crazy by the middle of day 1, but my kids had a blast the entire time. We frequently went back up after dinner or entertainment to swim more. ENTERTAINMENT: I personally went to the opening night “family” comedy show, the Aqua Show, and the Ice Show. The opening night comedy was a little rough—jokes weren’t very funny because obviously these were adult comedians trying to make family friendly jokes, but of course the jokes were also a little advanced for 8 year olds. But I appreciated they tried. The Aqua Show and Ice Show were incredibly good—just very impressive and our kids loved it. They are a tight 45-50 minutes each and I felt like that kept everyone engaged. A few folks in my group went to Mamma Mia and thought it was quite good, but I can’t personally attest to that. I also really enjoy music in the Schooner Bar. GENERAL AMENITIES: Wow, just the amount of stuff to do on board kept my kids entertained the whole time. I hardly ever heard “I’m bored” which is pretty great for a week on a ship. My son did the zipline, and daughter did rock climbing. Both received two thumbs up. The carousel was much more utilized than expected by the kids, they seemed to really like it. But heck, even just walking around is fun. We liked night walks in Central Park and on Deck 16. Even enjoyed playing checkers in the card room. But we were just constantly entertained and the kids were good sports. BEVERAGE: I know there’s a lot of debate over if the drink package is “worth it” but for me and my wife, it wasn’t even close. Like I felt like I might put Royal out of business. We basically hit the week’s “breakeven” in day 3. I won’t get into it any further than that but the mixed drinks on board are not very strong. If you’re trying to do a La carte and want to get more value, pick the mixed drinks with like multiple liquors like the Rum Punch vs some of the other single-liquor mixed drinks. Favorite drink of the week was the Frozen Blue Hawaiian. We also liked an afternoon boozy drink from Cafe Promenade in the afternoon. The Bow and Stern had good craft beers available and the bartender there (Sumeet), anytime saw me walk in, he knew which beer I was coming for and had it out on the bar top by the time I got to it. It was also nice to utilized on CocoCay. Old fashioneds in the Schooner Bar were really good too. Drink service I thought was good—lines never really got too long at the pool bars since they had multiple but it could occasionally get a little crowded. COVID: Obviously the elephant in the room and is going to vary greatly by sailing. I felt safe generally the entire week. Elevators could occasionally get crowded, but I didn’t find them particularly egregious. Definitely heard an uptick in coughing as the week went on, but I never once saw that Hazmat crews in the hallways on our deck. It’s certainly possible I just missed them, but I never actually saw any people being shipped off for quarantine. However, on a personal note—my wife did wake up with cough and congestion the day of disembarkation. Myself, son, and daughter as well as the rest of our traveling partyC currently feel fine. We’re all wearing our masks in the airport and flight home just in case and will test when we arrive home. We understood the risk obviously and if it is COVID—I’m glad it happened at the end of our trip obviously. There did not appear to be any staffing issues due to COVID and all shows went on as scheduled. OVERALL: An outstanding cruise. I thought the crew did a great job all week and the ship was in fantastic shape. We all had a lot of fun, and made a lot of memories. Only downside is now I have to go home and shed all the pounds I likely gained this week.

Finishing up a 6 night adventure on the Allure and my wife and I paid for the cost of our drink package (60.99/pp) by day 3. Honestly, the mixed drinks aren’t that strong and anyone who drinks even socially can get their money’s worth pretty easily IMO. I was a TAD fearful we wouldn’t be able to, but by the end of the first day, literally just our embarkation day, I knew we would have no problem getting our money’s worth. Plus being able to use it at CocoCay was a big plus. Cafe Promenade does boozy coffee drinks. Couple glasses of wine with dinner, we would have had no problem hitting the “breakeven” at $84 probably. Plus it was so nice just to not worry about. Hand over the card, get your drink, that’s it.

So we were given luggage tags with obviously an assigned time to depart the ship (i.e not given a choice to self-disembark). If we want to do that, do we just…leave when the self disembarkation process begins in the morning? I wasn’t sure if we needed to notify anyone of our intent.

Forgot to add: COVID: Haven’t really heard much coughing or general illness on board this week. Someone in an elevator mentioned they had someone with a Hazmat suit on their floor on Tuesday, but I haven’t heard much about COVID going around or symptoms from other passengers.

Doing the ice show tonight—Aquatheater show was outstanding. Definitely a highlight of the trip for us. Half the group I’m with went to Mamma Mia last night and really enjoyed it, the rest of us just did some late swimming, casino, etc.

I would say very very few since “fully vaccinated” for every child at this point requires two doses of a vaccine since J&J was never an approved vaccine for kids. This isn’t a recent CDC change—it’s just always been the way it is. The CDC did just approve vaccines for children under 5 on June 19th but that’s a completely different thing than what you’re talking about. And those vaccines are either 2 or 3 doses depending on manufacturer

Just wanted to share some observations midweek aboard our first cruise since the pandemic started—also happy to answer any questions. 1) The ship: What can I say, Allure is amazing. Just an incredible ship. This is my first Oasis class journey and I just can’t believe all that is available on board for us to do. Even just “walking around” is fun. We’re traveling with three children in our party and haven’t heard any “I’m bored”. Embarkation could not have been easier. 2) Food: This is what I was worried about reading some more recent Royal review. I’m pleased to say we’ve had absolutely excellent food at all venues. We don’t specialty dine, but every night the MDR has delivered very good food and no one in my party is disappointed. Windjammer food has also been great. Haven’t had a bad meal on board yet. 3) Service: Again, another thing I was worried about but Allure has delivered. It has seemed sufficiently staffed at all times. Sailaway day at the bars I felt was maybe a little understaffed but every day since then has been great. Room steward service is excellent. Dining service has been excellent. 4) Adventure Ocean: probably the only “low point” of the cruise. Our two 8 year olds in the travel party didn’t care for AO. The programming was mostly large group stuff and there weren’t a lot of options for them to do anything specific. Our second at sea day we just let the kids explore the pool deck all day with a couple of adults on the deck in case they need anything and they had infinitely more fun. 5) Bonus: Deluxe Beverage Package has been worth every single penny and more. It’s day 4 and we have well passed our “breakeven” for the package. Like not even close. If you’re teetering, I have to say get it. We paid $60.99 a person but it’s absolutely worth it even at $72+ for us. If anyone has questions—I’m happy to answer

Yeah it seems like a problem literally the last day or so from Walgreens.

Was this today? I only ask because like there’s a thread on my sail page on the site that must not be named about 30 comments long that no one got their emails

My entire sailing group had delayed results. We tested this morning and around 8:30 got a barrage of emails. However, I did go to my Walgreens after four hours and had them print them off for me. If you haven’t received them by the morning I would go get a print out. Seems to be a nationwide issue.

Walgreens is currently having some system outages which is preventing them from being able to email COVID test results. I confirmed this through my local Walgreens and more than a few folks in my RC setsail group is having the same issue. The solution was to go to Walgreens and physically get a copy. Just in case you set sail this weekend and are awaiting results!

Had a friend on Liberty last month and they said it was still out. Not sure current status.

Nope, same here. We leave on Sunday for our cruise, and while our reservations appear, it still says to "Checkin" and doesn't have our SetSail passes anymore (thankfully all of this has already been printed).

It just occurred to me I hadn’t prepaid my gratuities so those are hanging out there. If I do a $500 charge with the expectation of using for gratuities and I have OBC leftover, can I get that back in cash?