Allure of the Seas, Eastern Caribbean Review! 9/16/12

[whataboutport]

um...yeah, I ate 4 lobster tails :)

How many did K eat then? :eek: Did you order them all at once? I'm always embarrassed to order more than one entree, but usually order more than one starter. Maybe I should be ordering more? ;)

[lillyroseviolet]

Great review…. We were booked on the Allure for this March but had to cancel due to my mother having a massive stroke. We are rebooked for 2014.

 

I noted you were raised in Hawaii. We did cruise in Hawaii back in 2007. While the NCL ship was nothing to write home about….the islands were breathtaking. We were hooked the minute we stepped out of the cab in Waikiki. The rest of the islands were the icing on the cake for us. Kauai was one of our favorites. We are also hooked on Boots and Kimos in Kailua. Waiting for a table is so worth it there:)

 

I have read that St.John was similar to Hawaii. Is that true?

 

Do you have any other tips you can think of that wasn't in the review?

 

Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed review. It is one of the best I have read on CC:)

[mrsmoku]

 

I am enjoying your review. It has given me many ideas to do when I go back on the Allure or Oasis for the eastern Carib. I was lucky enough to see some big jets come into Maho Beach and was also lucky to get some pictures of them. You can see them in my review and the thread is - Allure 1-6-13 with pictures.

 

I also love your pics of the food...

 

Thanks! I would have loved to see the big jets come in but even the little prop planes seemed massive! Ill have to check it out!

I really made an effort to take food pics so I'm glad you like them!

[mrsmoku]

How many did K eat then? :eek: Did you order them all at once? I'm always embarrassed to order more than one entree, but usually order more than one starter. Maybe I should be ordering more? ;)

 

K doesn't really like seafood but he ate a few of my shrimp. He's more of a meat eater and he ate 3 or 4 plates that night. I had told our waiter about my love for lobster on a previous night so once he noticed that I was finishing my first plate, he asked if he should order more for me. He just kept them coming after that. On the Mariner, the lobsters were smaller and I ate 5 plates and our waiter kept them coming too. I have a different stomach for seafood, caprise, and chocolate...like a cow.

 

I don't feel embarrassed ordering more than one just because I know it will be eaten, either by me or by K. I don't usually order more than one entree though but I have ordered a couple of appetizers before. If you're still hungry, then go ahead and order it! I mean, K orders off the entree menu for his appetizer and he can't be the only one so just remember there's someone doing that! And someone eating 4 plates of lobster!

[mrsmoku]

Great review…. We were booked on the Allure for this March but had to cancel due to my mother having a massive stroke. We are rebooked for 2014.

 

I noted you were raised in Hawaii. We did cruise in Hawaii back in 2007. While the NCL ship was nothing to write home about….the islands were breathtaking. We were hooked the minute we stepped out of the cab in Waikiki. The rest of the islands were the icing on the cake for us. Kauai was one of our favorites. We are also hooked on Boots and Kimos in Kailua. Waiting for a table is so worth it there:)

 

I have read that St.John was similar to Hawaii. Is that true?

 

Do you have any other tips you can think of that wasn't in the review?

 

Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed review. It is one of the best I have read on CC:)

 

 

Oh my gosh, what a compliment! Thank you so much! You made my day :)

 

I sorry to hear about your mother’s stroke. Hope all is well.

 

Yes, we both grew up in Hawaii and are completely home sick! You forget how amazing it is when you’re there all the time but now that we’re gone, all we want to do is go home! Boots and Kimos is amazing. Wailana Café is a staple in our family and Kenekes in Waimanalo is the ONLY place to go after the beach! Yum! I could go on and on and on! Oh, how I miss it!

 

I’ve actually never been to any of the other islands except for the Big Island every year but my parents love Kauai! We used to do the Volcano run every summer on the Big Island and we would run through places that are now covered in lava.

 

We didn’t get to actually tour and visit St. John (or St. Thomas really) but when we stepped of the ship, we knew we would fall in love with it. We would move there in a heartbeat and feel right at home. I would love to spend a week on either island so I could do the day sail again and then walk around and tour the islands.

 

I’ve started a little list of things I either missed or things that don’t really fit into my review but are worth mentioning. I’ll post that after my disembarkation post.

[mrsmoku]

Day 6

Desserts

 

Some type of meringue I think

 

Souffle

[lillyroseviolet]

Oh my gosh, what a compliment! Thank you so much! You made my day :)

 

I sorry to hear about your mother’s stroke. Hope all is well.

 

Yes, we both grew up in Hawaii and are completely home sick! You forget how amazing it is when you’re there all the time but now that we’re gone, all we want to do is go home! Boots and Kimos is amazing. Wailana Café is a staple in our family and Kenekes in Waimanalo is the ONLY place to go after the beach! Yum! I could go on and on and on! Oh, how I miss it!

 

I’ve actually never been to any of the other islands except for the Big Island every year but my parents love Kauai! We used to do the Volcano run every summer on the Big Island and we would run through places that are now covered in lava.

 

We didn’t get to actually tour and visit St. John (or St. Thomas really) but when we stepped of the ship, we knew we would fall in love with it. We would move there in a heartbeat and feel right at home. I would love to spend a week on either island so I could do the day sail again and then walk around and tour the islands.

 

I’ve started a little list of things I either missed or things that don’t really fit into my review but are worth mentioning. I’ll post that after my disembarkation post.

 

I will have to remember those places to eat at. We try to go there every other year…. We may be going back either late this year or early next. I love it there:) Our next plan is to do the inter island flights. We were there when they were talking about doing the ferry. But, as you know that idea was scrapped. It would have been nice to have a ferry run between islands.

 

You are very lucky to have grown up in paradise.

 

Can't wait to read the rest of our review….

[mrsmoku]

I will have to remember those places to eat at. We try to go there every other year…. We may be going back either late this year or early next. I love it there:) Our next plan is to do the inter island flights. We were there when they were talking about doing the ferry. But, as you know that idea was scrapped. It would have been nice to have a ferry run between islands.

 

You are very lucky to have grown up in paradise.

 

Can't wait to read the rest of our review….

 

Hopefully you get to go back soon! Have fun for us! Yes, that ferry didn't last long but I wish it did! My sisters went on it and said it was a rough ride.

[mrsmoku]

Day 7

 

We woke up sad that it was our last full day on the Allure. We had been having such a great time and wanted to make sure the day was just as amazing. Our room service arrived right away and we enjoyed our last breakfast on our balcony along with many other passengers.

 

We were pulling into Nassau at 1 pm so we had some time on the ship beforehand. We got ready for the pool and ran into our room steward in the hallway. We thanked him profusely for the jacket and the strawberries (which might have been eaten during the night by me) and he told us to talk to Guest Relations about what happened with the shirt and jacket and they may credit us back the dry cleaning costs. Normally, we wouldn’t go complain about something that was fixed but I also wanted to let Guest Relations now how amazing our room steward had been so we made our way down there. Guest Relations ended up crediting us the cost of the dry cleaning and the cost of replacing the jacket. This was extremely sweet and not at all expected so we thanked her again for everything and made sure that our room steward would get our WOW cards.

 

We spent a few minutes at the pool but decided that we’d rather get an early lunch so we could go to the bow and watch us pull into Nassau.

 

We decided on Park Café and got salads. They were customizable and delicious and very similar to the Tutti Salad bar at the MDR. The roast beef sandwiches were being ordered left and right so there’s no doubt they are popular! We got chips and a drink and found some seats a little further down the park. It was pretty busy and lots of people were already prepared for Nassau.

 

Once we were done eating, we went up to the bow to watch us pull into Nassau. It’s was gorgeous and Atlantis was easy to find. As we got closer, we all noticed that we weren’t the second, or even the third ship, there that day – we were the fifth! Yes, there were 4 ships already there and the Allure was ship number 5! Not only is the Nassau port a tight squeeze to get in, but I had read that the port needed to be dredged to allow the Allure to dock there.

 

Pulling in was nerve racking! It was a slow process and we should have gone back to the room to get ready but we couldn’t leave! Everyone was glued to the railing watching intensely to make sure we were going to make it. We pulled in next to a smaller Carnival ship and dwarfed them immediately. We were on Deck 14 and quite a bit higher than their highest deck.

 

Nassau

 

See the depth change!? And the lighthouse. And the 4 other ships!!

 

We finally peeled ourselves away and went to get our stuff and get off in Nassau. It seemed like everyone was either going to Atlantis or not getting off the ship. I mentioned before that I wasn’t all that excited about Nassau and we weren’t planning on going to Atlantis but I sure was not going to be in a port and not even get off! So, we disembarked, armed with the walking tour and high hopes.

 

4 of the 5 ships. I don’t know why this picture looks funny

 

I could see immediately why people choose to do Atlantis or stay on the ship. Nassau, in my opinion, was dumpy. We walked through the port shops and went around a few street shops but we weren’t all that interested so we figured we’d start the walking tour. I didn’t print the pictures OR the map so it was just written instructions. Bad news bears. I have a terrible, terrible sense of direction and even though K is like a homing pigeon, he couldn’t figure it out either. So we decided to just walk to the left. We started walking and I got that feeling - that feeling us women get when our intuition is telling us something is not right. My mother taught us girls never to ignore that feeling and I was not about to start ignoring that feeling in Nassau. I turned K around by tempting him with food and we went back to the stores across the port.

 

Note: I mentioned this to someone a few months back and they told me that they thought Nassau was amazing and I just didn’t give it a chance. They reminded me that I wasn’t too excited to go to Nassau in the first place and I was probably just looking to get back on the ship where I would be “safe”. (Isn’t she a delight!?) I admit that I wasn’t really excited about Nassau, yes. But I don’t ignore my intuition and had I gotten that feeling in St. Thomas or St. Maarten, I would have turned around and done the same thing. Had I not gotten that feeling, I’m sure we would have finally figured out where we were and been able to enjoy the walking tour.

 

Back at the port shops, we found some paintings by a local artist. K and I picked up the one of the small lighthouse paintings we saw as we pulled in along with a conch shell from a street vendor. We looked around for some food places but we both decided we’d rather just get lunch on the ship as there wasn’t much else we wanted to see. At the security checkpoint before boarding, they pulled out our conch shell and told us we couldn’t bring it on the ship. K was very hungry by this time and not in a good mood but he nicely explained that we had just purchased it not even 5 minutes ago from a street vendor who told us it would make it on the ship (I asked). The security officer asked for a receipt and told us that if we couldn’t produce one, we couldn’t bring it on because it was illegal. The receipt was still in my hand so I gave it to him and he finally gave it back to us and let us take it onboard. I don’t know what that was about but we got our conch.

 

Note: We later realized that we forgot to go into the Starbucks and see if they had a Nassau mug. Turns out they do so we were pretty bummed to have missed that one. If you collect them, make sure you grab one! The Starbucks is steps away from the port where are the little shops are.

 

We went to the Windjammer for lunch and K was full and happy. We couldn’t think of what to do after so we ended up wandering around the Promenade for a few minutes. The ship was still quite busy and an announcement was made that there were still seats available for the last showing of the Blue Planet show starting in 10 minutes. We high-tailed it to the theater, got a drink, and realized that there was no possible way you could ever be bored on the Allure of the Seas! There was always something to do!

 

Blue Planet started and we spent about 30 minutes trying to figure out what it was (I’m still not 100% sure). There was singing and dancing but there also was some storytelling and some Cirque du Soleil stuff but whatever it was, it was very pretty. We watched and enjoyed ourselves and when it was done, we went back to our room to pack up for the disembarkation.

 

Best part of packing

 

Our tip envelopes, tags, and instructions for disembarkation were on our bed. We had prepaid our gratuities because we had MyTimeDining so we got our envelopes and WOW cards ready to be handed out.

 

Our alcohol had arrived while we were packing so we were able to get that all together before we left for dinner. After we had packed our room and bag for disembarkation and got ready for dinner, we went on the balcony to catch one the ships leaving. It was another tight squeeze for everyone to pull out, turn around, and leave but I got some gorgeous photos of a Carnival ship leaving Nassau.

 

I limited myself to only uploading one

 

We watched from our balcony as we pulled out of Nassau, put our bags in the hallway, and then made our way to the MDR. K ordered and ate 3 plates of the same dish and made me take a picture of one of the finished dishes. They all ended up like that. I ordered an appetizer and a seafood plate but unfortunately, the seafood plate was completely fried. K didn’t want it at all and there was no way I could eat it without getting sick. I felt terrible but our waiter told me not to worry about it and took it back. I noticed someone else also gave theirs back right after mine so it wasn’t just me that thought it was too much. He brought me out the scallop appetizer and I ate 3 of them. (Gosh I sound like a pig!!) Dessert was an apple pie type thing but both K and I were so full, we just had a few bites. The photos are in the next post.

 

We said our goodbyes and thanks to our waiter and team and strolled around the ship. There were some sales happening on the Promenade and music was playing everywhere. We spent a few minutes in the hot tub and took even more photos of the gorgeous ship. I wanted to ride on the carousel but it was closed for the night (for the rest of our Allure time actually) so we went up to the room, ordered room service one last time, and called it a night.

 

Boardwalk - completely empty!

 

This may seem like a lame way to end a cruise (compared to dancing the night away) but there is more to our story - this was only week one of a two week adventure. Right after disembarkation, we were headed to Disneyworld for a week and boy, were we already tired!!

 

Edited January 24, 2013 by mrsmoku

[alaska_planner]

i just found your review!!

woo hoo!!! an allure eastern!! perfect..

 

that's a great tip about parking at the hampton!!

[mrsmoku]

Day 7

Dinner

 

Goat cheese and tomato

 

The fried seafood

 

K’s dish

 

K’s dish 10 minutes later

 

Scallops

 

Apple Pie dessert

 

[whataboutport]

Day 7

Dinner

 

Goat cheese and tomato

 

The fried seafood

 

K’s dish

 

K’s dish 10 minutes later

 

Scallops

 

Apple Pie dessert

 

Oooh looks so yummy! Except the fried seafood.

[OhioCruiserDude]

Great review do you remember if Gemma was still at the Champagne Bar best bartender in the fleet

[mrsmoku]

i just found your review!!

woo hoo!!! an allure eastern!! perfect..

 

that's a great tip about parking at the hampton!!

 

Seems that Allure Easterns are slow! Happy to help!

Yeah, we definitely scored there and Hampton said they have a security guard at night. Whether or not that's true, it was a small lot with only one way in and out so it seemed safe.

[mrsmoku]

Oooh looks so yummy! Except the fried seafood.

 

I know! It doesn't look appetizing at all! But those scallops...yum!

[mrsmoku]

Great review do you remember if Gemma was still at the Champagne Bar best bartender in the fleet

 

We didn't hit up the Champagne Bar this time :( but hopefully so!

We actually got really strong pours for the entire cruise whether it was at the MDR or the pool or at shows. A few times, I actually had K drink some down on mine so they could put more juice or soda in it!

[whataboutport]

I have a question. You did the Bernard's Tour right? the ship got in at 8am, but local time that's 9am right? I just got an email confirmation from Bernard to meet at 9am LOCAL TIME, then I realized I said we got into port at 8am SHIP TIME. Did you meet at 9 or 9:30?

[beigedog]

My wife and I are first time cruisers and we booked cabin 12723 on Allure of the Seas for the May 12th Eastern sailing. We were so worried about the view we would have from this cabin so, on a whim, I searched these forums and saw that you guys had this same cabin! Now we're not worried and looking forward so much to this cruise! Thanks for all the pictures! Any tips we should know before we get there?

 

Thanks!

Matt & Heather

[mrsmoku]

I have a question. You did the Bernard's Tour right? the ship got in at 8am, but local time that's 9am right? I just got an email confirmation from Bernard to meet at 9am LOCAL TIME, then I realized I said we got into port at 8am SHIP TIME. Did you meet at 9 or 9:30?

 

I'm 99% certain we got off the ship as soon as possible and met the tour right away. K agrees. We were told not to switch our clocks and we were an hour off at Maho so I think we met as soon as we got in.

 

If you don't hear otherwise, I would suggest planning on getting off right away and walking to the meeting point to see. If you have some time to kill, the port shops are just seconds away.

[mrsmoku]

My wife and I are first time cruisers and we booked cabin 12723 on Allure of the Seas for the May 12th Eastern sailing. We were so worried about the view we would have from this cabin so, on a whim, I searched these forums and saw that you guys had this same cabin! Now we're not worried and looking forward so much to this cruise! Thanks for all the pictures! Any tips we should know before we get there?

 

Thanks!

Matt & Heather

 

I'm glad I can help! I'm was worried when I booked the cabin too but someone sent me a pic he took from the same cabin and I got so excited!!

 

You will have an amazing time. I wish I could go again!

 

You're welcome for the pictures! I'm glad everyone seems to like them.

 

I'm working on a tips/forgotten things post so I'll make sure I post that soon. You may find something helpful!

[mrsmoku]

Disembarking

 

Our last morning on the Allure was a sad one, as expected. We didn’t want it to be over and we weren’t the only ones! We decided to have breakfast in the MDR and for the first time for the entire cruise, we were seated with others at a table for 10. We didn’t mind sitting with other passengers but we’re glad we had our table for 2 for our meals in the MDR.

 

We had our normal breakfast of eggs, bacon, and sides and once done, we slowly made our way up to the room. Many people had already disembarked but many more were heading to the pool or to breakfast to savor the last few minutes of their vacation. All of the shops were closed, as was Starbucks, so definitely don’t wait until the last day to buy gifts or souvenirs. K and I walked around the Promenade for a bit but then decided to disembark and start the second leg of our vacation.

 

From ship to the terminal, it took 5 minutes. The terminal had separated the bags (how, I don’t know) and scattered them around the terminal so we all ended up in a slow, searching, shuffling walk while trying staying in line. Everyone was very nice and didn’t mind people jumping in and out of line so it wasn’t stressful at all. Our 3 bags were all in different piles but we (read: K) got them easily and we resumed our place in the line. Passports out, customs cleared, and we were on our way 10 minutes later. There were taxis all over so it only took a second to grab a taxi and head back to the hotel to pick up our car. From ship to taxi took 15 minutes easy.

 

We had the best time and have the greatest memories from sailing the Allure of the Seas!

 

 

I forgot to mention some things or they didn’t fit into cruise review so I’m working on an ‘Other’ post. It should be posted soon. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them and I will try to answer as much as I can!

 

[keat53]

Day 7

 

We woke up sad that it was our last full day on the Allure. We had been having such a great time and wanted to make sure the day was just as amazing. Our room service arrived right away and we enjoyed our last breakfast on our balcony along with many other passengers.

 

We were pulling into Nassau at 1 pm so we had some time on the ship beforehand. We got ready for the pool and ran into our room steward in the hallway. We thanked him profusely for the jacket and the strawberries (which might have been eaten during the night by me) and he told us to talk to Guest Relations about what happened with the shirt and jacket and they may credit us back the dry cleaning costs. Normally, we wouldn’t go complain about something that was fixed but I also wanted to let Guest Relations now how amazing our room steward had been so we made our way down there. Guest Relations ended up crediting us the cost of the dry cleaning and the cost of replacing the jacket. This was extremely sweet and not at all expected so we thanked her again for everything and made sure that our room steward would get our WOW cards.

 

We spent a few minutes at the pool but decided that we’d rather get an early lunch so we could go to the bow and watch us pull into Nassau.

 

We decided on Park Café and got salads. They were customizable and delicious and very similar to the Tutti Salad bar at the MDR. The roast beef sandwiches were being ordered left and right so there’s no doubt they are popular! We got chips and a drink and found some seats a little further down the park. It was pretty busy and lots of people were already prepared for Nassau.

 

Once we were done eating, we went up to the bow to watch us pull into Nassau. It’s was gorgeous and Atlantis was easy to find. As we got closer, we all noticed that we weren’t the second, or even the third ship, there that day – we were the fifth! Yes, there were 4 ships already there and the Allure was ship number 5! Not only is the Nassau port a tight squeeze to get in, but I had read that the port needed to be dredged to allow the Allure to dock there.

 

Pulling in was nerve racking! It was a slow process and we should have gone back to the room to get ready but we couldn’t leave! Everyone was glued to the railing watching intensely to make sure we were going to make it. We pulled in next to a smaller Carnival ship and dwarfed them immediately. We were on Deck 14 and quite a bit higher than their highest deck.

 

Nassau

 

See the depth change!? And the lighthouse. And the 4 other ships!!

 

We finally peeled ourselves away and went to get our stuff and get off in Nassau. It seemed like everyone was either going to Atlantis or not getting off the ship. I mentioned before that I wasn’t all that excited about Nassau and we weren’t planning on going to Atlantis but I sure was not going to be in a port and not even get off! So, we disembarked, armed with the walking tour and high hopes.

 

4 of the 5 ships. I don’t know why this picture looks funny

 

I could see immediately why people choose to do Atlantis or stay on the ship. Nassau, in my opinion, was dumpy. We walked through the port shops and went around a few street shops but we weren’t all that interested so we figured we’d start the walking tour. I didn’t print the pictures OR the map so it was just written instructions. Bad news bears. I have a terrible, terrible sense of direction and even though K is like a homing pigeon, he couldn’t figure it out either. So we decided to just walk to the left. We started walking and I got that feeling - that feeling us women get when our intuition is telling us something is not right. My mother taught us girls never to ignore that feeling and I was not about to start ignoring that feeling in Nassau. I turned K around by tempting him with food and we went back to the stores across the port.

 

Note: I mentioned this to someone a few months back and they told me that they thought Nassau was amazing and I just didn’t give it a chance. They reminded me that I wasn’t too excited to go to Nassau in the first place and I was probably just looking to get back on the ship where I would be “safe”. (Isn’t she a delight!?) I admit that I wasn’t really excited about Nassau, yes. But I don’t ignore my intuition and had I gotten that feeling in St. Thomas or St. Maarten, I would have turned around and done the same thing. Had I not gotten that feeling, I’m sure we would have finally figured out where we were and been able to enjoy the walking tour.

 

Back at the port shops, we found some paintings by a local artist. K and I picked up the one of the small lighthouse paintings we saw as we pulled in along with a conch shell from a street vendor. We looked around for some food places but we both decided we’d rather just get lunch on the ship as there wasn’t much else we wanted to see. At the security checkpoint before boarding, they pulled out our conch shell and told us we couldn’t bring it on the ship. K was very hungry by this time and not in a good mood but he nicely explained that we had just purchased it not even 5 minutes ago from a street vendor who told us it would make it on the ship (I asked). The security officer asked for a receipt and told us that if we couldn’t produce one, we couldn’t bring it on because it was illegal. The receipt was still in my hand so I gave it to him and he finally gave it back to us and let us take it onboard. I don’t know what that was about but we got our conch.

 

Note: We later realized that we forgot to go into the Starbucks and see if they had a Nassau mug. Turns out they do so we were pretty bummed to have missed that one. If you collect them, make sure you grab one! The Starbucks is steps away from the port where are the little shops are.

 

We went to the Windjammer for lunch and K was full and happy. We couldn’t think of what to do after so we ended up wandering around the Promenade for a few minutes. The ship was still quite busy and an announcement was made that there were still seats available for the last showing of the Blue Planet show starting in 10 minutes. We high-tailed it to the theater, got a drink, and realized that there was no possible way you could ever be bored on the Allure of the Seas! There was always something to do!

 

Blue Planet started and we spent about 30 minutes trying to figure out what it was (I’m still not 100% sure). There was singing and dancing but there also was some storytelling and some Cirque du Soleil stuff but whatever it was, it was very pretty. We watched and enjoyed ourselves and when it was done, we went back to our room to pack up for the disembarkation.

 

Best part of packing

 

Our tip envelopes, tags, and instructions for disembarkation were on our bed. We had prepaid our gratuities because we had MyTimeDining so we got our envelopes and WOW cards ready to be handed out.

 

Our alcohol had arrived while we were packing so we were able to get that all together before we left for dinner. After we had packed our room and bag for disembarkation and got ready for dinner, we went on the balcony to catch one the ships leaving. It was another tight squeeze for everyone to pull out, turn around, and leave but I got some gorgeous photos of a Carnival ship leaving Nassau.

 

I limited myself to only uploading one

 

We watched from our balcony as we pulled out of Nassau, put our bags in the hallway, and then made our way to the MDR. K ordered and ate 3 plates of the same dish and made me take a picture of one of the finished dishes. They all ended up like that. I ordered an appetizer and a seafood plate but unfortunately, the seafood plate was completely fried. K didn’t want it at all and there was no way I could eat it without getting sick. I felt terrible but our waiter told me not to worry about it and took it back. I noticed someone else also gave theirs back right after mine so it wasn’t just me that thought it was too much. He brought me out the scallop appetizer and I ate 3 of them. (Gosh I sound like a pig!!) Dessert was an apple pie type thing but both K and I were so full, we just had a few bites. The photos are in the next post.

 

We said our goodbyes and thanks to our waiter and team and strolled around the ship. There were some sales happening on the Promenade and music was playing everywhere. We spent a few minutes in the hot tub and took even more photos of the gorgeous ship. I wanted to ride on the carousel but it was closed for the night (for the rest of our Allure time actually) so we went up to the room, ordered room service one last time, and called it a night.

 

Boardwalk - completely empty!

 

This may seem like a lame way to end a cruise (compared to dancing the night away) but there is more to our story - this was only week one of a two week adventure. Right after disembarkation, we were headed to Disneyworld for a week and boy, were we already tired!!

 

Loved your review and all the pics! My wife and I are sailing on the Allure in May on a western cruise and have a boardwalk balcony one floor down and on the other side. The view from your room made me glad on the room my wife picked out, can't wait. We are also big Disney fans; did you do a Disney trip report too? Can't wait for the rest of your pics.

[mrsmoku]

Loved your review and all the pics! My wife and I are sailing on the Allure in May on a western cruise and have a boardwalk balcony one floor down and on the other side. The view from your room made me glad on the room my wife picked out, can't wait. We are also big Disney fans; did you do a Disney trip report too? Can't wait for the rest of your pics.

 

Glad to help!! I loved the view. If we booked again and couldn't get a full ocean balcony, I would definitely book the Boardwalk Balcony agan! I thought about writing a Disney review but I didn't take notes and we didn't have any dining reservations so I don't know how detailed it would be! Maybe though :)

[mrsmoku]

Other Stuff

 

Travel Binder:

I started a travel binder once we booked and found it to be very helpful! I printed out all of our confirmations for payments, excursions, reservations (you name it!) and brought it with us on the cruise. It was much easier than the folder I used on the Mariner and I was able to save stuff I wanted. I got a ½ inch binder and put some plastic sheets in there and it pretty much made itself. I suggest making a travel binder if you don’t/haven’t already.

 

Copy of Passport:

I know everyone has their own opinions on whether or not to bring their passport with them to ports but, if you’re interested or wondering, I bring a color copy of ours to port. K brings his military ID, just in case something happens, but I figure all of our important stuff if safer on the ship than with us.

 

I also make photocopies of all of our IDs, credit and debit cards, passports, marriage and birth certificates and leave it with someone (usually parents) who could be reached and fax it over to us in the case of an emergency. It might be overkill, but whatever.

 

SeaPass account:

We chose to put money on our SeaPass account before we cruised to help prevent the account withdraws after disembarkation. On the Mariner, they accidentally took out a few hundred more than our bill was for (causing our account to be wiped clean and a LONG few days of phone calls) and since we were headed to DisneyWorld, that wasn’t going to work. We will definitely do that again on our next cruise.

 

MyTimeDining and prepaid gratuities:

We chose to do MyTimeDining with prepaid gratuities. I think MyTimeDining is the best of both worlds because we could make reservations but we could also come when we pleased. We only waited for dinner once or twice and each time, it was no longer than a 10 minute wait. As for the prepaid gratuities, we didn’t think we were treated any different because of it, good or bad. It was just easier for us and I like to pay things beforehand.

 

Water:

We bought a 12 pack of water and slapped a luggage tag on it with some clear packing tape. I read on CC that some have been able to get it through and some weren’t so we decided to just take a gamble and see. Our water arrived with our bags! I don’t know if it makes a difference but it was SmartWater.

 

It’s big!:

Allure is big; there is no doubt about it. And there is soooo much stuff to do that it can be overwhelming. There was always something happening or something to try and it can become too much very quickly. I mentioned in my review quite a bit that K and I would just go to the pool and read or go back to the cabin early but it was a great way of relaxing and doing nothing. We are “active” vacationers - in the sense that we are always doing something while on vacation – so relaxing for a bit help us calm down and actually enjoy the vacation part of a vacation!

 

Jackets:

Ladies, if you get cold, pack a few sweaters or jackets! I thought the ship was cold, most notably in the theaters and MDR.

 

“Hidden Wings”:

Decks 12 and 11 (and possibly 10) have “hidden wings” on the stern. We frequented these often and only ran into another person once. They had shaded and full sun portions so we could relax out there and enjoy the wake. You have to walk all the way down the hallway, even though it looks like a dead end and then you’ll see the door to the hidden wing.

 

Video Postcard:

K and I found the video postcard recording room and decided to give it a go. It was fun and our parents liked their e-postcard we sent to them from the ship. We had to do a few takes though as we are both incredibly awkward on camera.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll add more if I think of anything else and please feel free to ask me any questions. I am going through my pictures and if I find any that I missed, I'll add them.

 

Thank you all so much for reading my review! It was a ton of fun to do and I'm glad everyone enjoyed it!

 

Thanks again!

 

Love,

G

Edited January 28, 2013 by mrsmoku

[lvstitch]

Thanks so much for sharing :D Loved your report and pictures.