Allure Review, Pictures and Other Great Information: Aug 7, 2011 Sailing

[ILuvCruisin']

We had some tweens (7 and 9 year olds) and some teens (17 and 18 year olds) in our group....below are the reviews their parents wrote...

 

 

From the Teens (17 and 18) Dad:

This was the first time cruising with my two teenaged daughters. I thought they would become bored after just a few days (seven days is a long time for teens) but on the contrary. The cruise had just the opposite affect. They were entertained with a wide selection of activities and events which kept them occupied throughout the excursion. They felt perfectly safe exploring and roaming the ship without me by their side (they needed their own space and time without dear old dad). This was great as it allowed me to venture out on my own to enjoy the adult entertainment throughout the ship.

 

I was really pleased with how tight the security was in regards to ship departure and embarking. My youngest daughter of seventeen was not allowed to leave the ship without being accompanied by myself or another designated supervising adult of my choosing. This was also very reassuring. I was able to relax, enjoy and have a great time and would recommend to any single parent traveling with teens to prepare for great family/single time!

 

 

From the Tweens (7 and 9) Mom:

 

During the day there are activities for various age groups and they will receive a Compass that lists all of these activities. Adventure Ocean during day time is free.

 

The evening fee is $6/hr per child and starts at 10pm. It closes at 2am or earlier if all kids are gone. I don't think that ever happened. That room was full at 1:30am when I picked the girls up every night! Parents should include an Adventure Ocean budget on their SeaPass! I know I am for now on! Well, well worth it! lol!

 

On my Survey at the end of the cruise I did mention the time should start at 11pm for after hrs rather than 10pm on the survey for the last cruise and this cruise. Didn't think about the sibling discount until yesterday or even just a few days where they offer "specials" for siblings. Like the drink specials. AO sibling specials. 25% off on Tues/ Thurs. Something to help us out! lol!

 

One night when I went to pick up my girls before the 2:00 am time they begged me to come back later to pick them up but they insisted that I go get them pizza (at Cafe Promenade Deck 5) and bring it back to them right away. True Cruisers!!!

 

I was shocked my 7 yr old wanted to do the FlowRider, but she is a daredevil!!!! I was happy she could and enjoyed it. She was just tall enough.

 

They have expedited dining for AO. You let your waiter know and you arrange for AO to pick the kids up from your dining room. They get served quicker and the AO person then takes them right to AO. I didn't have to take them if I didn't want. But, I liked them hanging around and getting to mingle with everyone at dinner. During the day we are so scarce and at night, they had their own agenda!! LOL!!

[ILuvCruisin']

From a Single Cruiser in our group:

Single cruising-not a problem. staff, bartenders very friendly...always find someone to talk to of course I may not be a good judge since I was mostly with some one in our group and my kids.

 

Karaoke's a blast! Once you do it once, you got the bug!!

[ILuvCruisin']

BEAUTIFUL!

 

 

 

 



 

[mstelly]

 

We asked our Cabin Steward if she wouldn't mind removing all of the items from the fridge as we had gallon jugs of water and our own juice and sodas...she checked with her manager and it was ok...

 

I assume that they allowed you to carry the water and juices on, or did you pack them?

 

EDIT: Sorry, I see it has been asked and answered! Thanks, great review!

[StrangeD]

just curious' date=' why did you choose Allure for your first cruise..[/quote']

 

My family said that they wanted to go on a cruise in early November or late October and the timing for with me. I choose Allure because of the timing and because I want to experience the best RCCL has to offer. Go big or go home. :) I feel Royal Caribbean meets my needs with more activities and overall fun.

[ILuvCruisin']

I assume that they allowed you to carry the water and juices on, or did you pack them?

 

EDIT: Sorry, I see it has been asked and answered! Thanks, great review!

 

You are so welcome mstelly. Thanks for stopping by. Be sure to come back for more.

[ILuvCruisin']

My family said that they wanted to go on a cruise in early November or late October and the timing for with me. I choose Allure because of the timing and because I want to experience the best RCCL has to offer. Go big or go home. :) I feel Royal Caribbean meets my needs with more activities and overall fun.

 

IMHO she is the BEST....:D

 

Thanks for posting and I hope you continue to stay tuned

[Nan1052]

We were on Aug 7th sailing as well. We saw kids ages(14+) sitting next to us and everything was fine.

 

Regarding kids in the alternate dining rooms - The minimum age for kids is 13. For those under that age you need to make you reservations onboard and before 7 PM.

[monkeygirl55]

I'm loving your pictures!!!!!

[yellosno]

I'd like some input on this one as well. We are already booked on Allure for March with a group and I'm kind of concerned about this as well... I guess I should specifiy that my concern is this sailing will be super kid-oriented as it seems that not only the characters but a lot of the shops and activities are geared more toward families.

This was my biggest concern as well, but as it turns out, unfounded. The characters are in the parades and the sailaway party by the pool. Other than that you won't see them.

[libertybelle41]

You occasionally will see them walking around the promenade, but more adults were getting their pics taken than kids.

[bkr50]

ILuvCruisin, I love your review, it's the best one I've read. As you will see in my signature line, I'm braving the Allure during Spring Break next year although I don't have kids. My nephew has been begging to cruise on the Allure and my sister is surprising him with the cruise next year.

 

In an earlier post you mentioned the picture CD and I believe the photo binder. Can you share your insight on these two items please? Great pictures and great information. Oh, and I love your "theme night" idea.

[ILuvCruisin']

I'm loving your pictures!!!!!

 

Thanks much monkeygirl55. More to come. My Sis is sending me a CD of hers and she took 1,900+!!!! ;):D

[ILuvCruisin']

Regarding kids in the alternate dining rooms - The minimum age for kids is 13. For those under that age you need to make you reservations onboard and before 7 PM.

 

Nan1052 is correct also see my post #23 on this thread for additional info...

[ILuvCruisin']

ILuvCruisin, I love your review, it's the best one I've read. As you will see in my signature line, I'm braving the Allure during Spring Break next year although I don't have kids. My nephew has been begging to cruise on the Allure and my sister is surprising him with the cruise next year.

In an earlier post you mentioned the picture CD and I believe the photo binder. Can you share your insight on these two items please? Great pictures and great information. Oh, and I love your "theme night" idea.

thx bkr50. You are "brave" :eek: to do any cruise during Spring Break but with Allure at least you have all of that space and plenty of activities. How old is your nephew?

Glad you are enjoying the pics and info and I appreciate my cabinmates and the people in the group for indulging my “Theme”nites…

We always spend $200+ together on cruise pictures any way so we decided if the CD had all of our pictures on it then that was a pretty good deal...then we could print them when we got back home in the sizes that we wanted and how ever many copies we wanted....me and my sisters all live in different houses so we each want our own set of pictures...

we paid $239.95 for the pic CD online before the cruise and saw an advertisement to purchase it on the cruise for $299.00..

the photo binder holds all of the pictures you take during the cruise...the location of your photo binder will be on your SeaPass Card...you can use the PB to view your pics or you can use one of the computer screen available. Pics gallery where all of your pics can be viewed (and purchased) is called Focus and is located Aft Deck 6

For the Newbies there was a time when you had to go thru walls of photos to find your own and a running joke by Cruise Directors is that someone would invariably ask them how could she tell which pictures were hers…haha…but that’s how tedious it was to look thru the walls and walls of pictures to finally find yours …..

they use face recognition to figure out what pictures to put in the PB…supposedly it goes by cabin…we did have some pics missing that we had to go to the walls to find and we did have a couple of pictures of other people in our binder…it’s not an exact science…we were very diligent about chkg our PB

makes it a lot easier to view your pictures this way however we tried to keep track of what pics we took as we discovered that some of them were still put on the walls or not printed at all and it is very important to have all of your pictures in the photo binder or at least know what pictures you took because of number one and number two below…

several times we had to request the photographers in Focus to send some pics to our Photo Binder or to search for some that we didn’t see on the wall even…we still missed the group shot of our Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle

 

Two things that we weren't aware of that caused us a little concern:

 

1. You are responsible for making certain all of your pictures are listed in the preview screen before the photographers actually make your CD on the last day....this is why it is very important to keep the Photo Binder up to date...there are computers in Focus for you to view all of your pictures and when you feel it is complete you select the print/ok button and your CD will be done at that point and ready for pick up the next day…thank goodness we found this out before our final day…I don’t believe the site where we purchased the CD mentioned anything about finalizing it and sending it to the print shop…we didn’t finalize ours until the night before debarkation so that we would have enough time to think about it…We took pictures everywhere we could…along with the CD they will give you a black and white copy listing all of the pictures on the CD…the copies of the pics are real small but you can tell what they are

2.none of your pictures will have any of the nice borders that you see on the actual hard copies of the pictures in your photo binder...this was very disheartening as some of the borders were lovely...at some point I will print the two versions of one of our pictures (with and without border) so you can see the difference…

 

For example…the embarkation border holds all of the statistics about the cruise (date, ship, etc) and some ship statistics...the pic CD doesn’t have this info…the border of the captain picture which we took the night of the captains ball has Captain Johnny's name on it...the Border of the Port pictures taken when you get off the ship at each Port have the ship name, Port name and date on them...the pic CD pics do not have any of this info….it would just be a shame not to get some of these pics so yes we succumbed and purchased a couple of the pictures..it was still nice to have the CD with ALL of our pictures on it but they got us!!!...

RCCL link to Picture CD info: http://www.royalcaribbean.com/findacruise/experience/html.do?exCode=806

 

Cruise Critic: Picture thread:

http://forums.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=29418171

[ILuvCruisin']

I think I mentioned that we took the

FREE hotel shuttle

Saturday (precruise) to Hard Rock Casino...

here are a few pics





 



 

 



 

 

[bkr50]

A spring break cruise for me isn't "brave", I consider it a "sacrifice for my wonderful nephew. :o He wants a boardwalk view, I'm a die-hard ocean view balcony person. And, I have 2 nephews, one will be 11 and the other 13 at the time of sailing. It's the 11 year old (now 10) who is hooked on cruising although he's only been on 1. He has a picture of the Allure as his screen saver on his i Pad. We tried to convince him to consider another ship due to the expense of sailing on the Allure, but he said if he couldn't sail on the Allure, he didn't want to go. I tried to convince him that the Oasis was the same as the Allure but he immediately corrected me and stated that the Allure was XXX feet longer than the Oasis. The older nephew could care less about cruising.

 

Of all the cruises I've been on, I never realized there was another option to purchase pictures. I do however like to have the titles/borders on my pictures. I'll have to check this out on my next sailing.

 

Again, thank you for the informative review. Cruise Critic members are the best!!

[yj2cute]

Thanks for the review. I'm very excited about sailing the Allure in January. Was wondering if you visited Vintages during your cruise. Do you know if the tapas served there are free or for charge?

[BillOh]

This was my biggest concern as well, but as it turns out, unfounded. The characters are in the parades and the sailaway party by the pool. Other than that you won't see them.

 

I will +1 that remark. If it wasn't for a near collision with a 7 foot gray hippo in a pink tutu on the running track, I would have never seen any of the characters, but I read reviews from others with kids who enjoyed them on the same cruise.

[Jules2]

Great review and AWESOME pictures! We're sailing on the Allure in 65 days, and I am loving that I can hear.....and see......before we go!

:)

[ILuvCruisin']

Great review and AWESOME pictures! We're sailing on the Allure in 65 days, and I am loving that I can hear.....and see......before we go!

 

 

Jules2 Glad you are enjoying it and thx so much for taking the itme to read it and view the pics. Please be sure to come back...I have a lot more...:D

 

you are going to have an AWESOME time!!!

[ILuvCruisin']

A spring break cruise for me isn't "brave", I consider it a "sacrifice for my wonderful nephew. :o He wants a boardwalk view, I'm a die-hard ocean view balcony person. And, I have 2 nephews, one will be 11 and the other 13 at the time of sailing. It's the 11 year old (now 10) who is hooked on cruising although he's only been on 1. He has a picture of the Allure as his screen saver on his i Pad. We tried to convince him to consider another ship due to the expense of sailing on the Allure, but he said if he couldn't sail on the Allure, he didn't want to go. I tried to convince him that the Oasis was the same as the Allure but he immediately corrected me and stated that the Allure was XXX feet longer than the Oasis. The older nephew could care less about cruising.

 

Of all the cruises I've been on, I never realized there was another option to purchase pictures. I do however like to have the titles/borders on my pictures. I'll have to check this out on my next sailing.

 

Again, thank you for the informative review. Cruise Critic members are the best!!

 

bkr50: Thx for the kudos...so glad people are enjoying it.

 

Good for your nephew and yep Captain Johnny boasted that his vessel, the Allure of the Seas is 3 inches (or2?) longer than the Oasis of the Seas...na na na na :p

 

Your nephew sounds like a good candidate for a review by a "Tween" when you all return....I would love to interview him as he goes about the ship each day...

[ILuvCruisin']

I'd like some input on this one as well. We are already booked on Allure for March with a group and I'm kind of concerned about this as well... I guess I should specifiy that my concern is this sailing will be super kid-oriented as it seems that not only the characters but a lot of the shops and activities are geared more toward families.

 

This was my biggest concern as well, but as it turns out, unfounded. The characters are in the parades and the sailaway party by the pool. Other than that you won't see them.

 

I will +1 that remark. If it wasn't for a near collision with a 7 foot gray hippo in a pink tutu on the running track, I would have never seen any of the characters, but I read reviews from others with kids who enjoyed them on the same cruise.

 

BillOH that is such a funny story....I will have to see if I can find a pic of Ms. Gloria...(BTW: I grew up in OHIO...go Buckeyes!!!)

[ILuvCruisin']

Thanks for the review. I'm very excited about sailing the Allure in January. Was wondering if you visited Vintages during your cruise. Do you know if the tapas served there are free or for charge?

 

Hi yj2cute Thx for posting...I did not go to Vintages but perhaps these links will help you:

 

RCCL Vintages clip:

 

All about Allure Dining:

 

http://www.beyondships.com/RCI-ALOS-art-FB.html

 

http://www.beyondships.com/RCI-ALOS-Tour-6.html

[ILuvCruisin']

 

Bet you will never guess who wore this costume