B2B Allure Of The Seas Pictorial Review - 31st March 2013 & 7th April 2013

[milpston]

This may sound stupid, but when you took the water taxi did you just say "take me to town"? I'm just trying to figure out what/where the location is of that little beach by the ships and where those shops are. Last time we cruised to St. Maarten there was next to nothing around at all except a marina. Maybe our ship went to a different port there??

 

 

As far as I can recall the water taxis here just go from the port to the pier by the beach so you don't have to worry about ending up somewhere else.

 

We just walked under this sign.

 

[rednancy1]

Looks like you had a fun day in St Maarten.

 

Your photos were wonderful. :):)

[milpston]

Looks like you had a fun day in St Maarten.

 

Your photos were wonderful. :):)

 

It was a lovely day. Thank you. I'll save Maho Beach for another time.

[milpston]

At about 14:30 we decided to take a stroll down to the boardwalk. We had planned to have a go on the Carousel but soon found that this doesn't open unti 17:00.

 

We took the opportunity to explore around the back of the Aquatheatre.

 

 

This is where the Shuffleboard is located. It doesn't look like it is used too often.

 

 

You get a very different view of the Aquatheatre from here.

 

 

 

[Bella O]

Still following along and loving it....selfishly hoping you finish the western itinerary before we board! Thanks for taking the time to do this review.

[milpston]

Still following along and loving it....selfishly hoping you finish the western itinerary before we board! Thanks for taking the time to do this review.

 

Haha, I'll see what I can do. There next few sea days will be fairly short so that there is a possibility.

[milpston]

We took the steps down to deck 5 at the rear of the running track. This has a nice view to the rear of the ship although I don't think I got there when it was at sea which would probably be the nicest time. We sat on deck chairs here watching people returning to the ship from their day out. The Niew Amsterdam also sailed away whilst we were sitting there.

We decided to do a lap of the running track..... only walking obviously. There were some other lunatics running around it though.

 

I took another picture of my boat before we set off for a stroll.

 

 

I did send Chloe and Sally off on a run though. I think it lasted about 10 steps!

 

 

[milpston]

It's on this deck where the lifeboats are situated. These are probably pretty dull pictures to most.

 

 

I couldn't help but think that they didn't look very comfortable! Maybe I will just hope I never have to have a closer look at the inside of one.

 

 

We also passed this sign whilst walking around. I guess that explains the activity down there this morning.

 

[milpston]

We went at sat at the Boardwalk Bar and had a round of drinks. It was lovely and quiet on the Boardwalk and very relaxing.

We made our way to the Cupcake cupboard for an afternoon snack.

 

They have a fair selecion of cupcakes. I didn't try more than a couple of them throughout the whole fortnight.

 

 

[Sinduf]

Loving your review was away for the last week alas not on a cruise. Not for another 2 weeks anyway. Its taken me 2 days to catch up but worth every minute.

[milpston]

We took our cupcakes and sat and ate them in Boleros. This was probably so I could have a smoke too. I had Chocolate Vanilla cupcake, Sally had Chocolate chip and Chloe had a Key lime one.

 

For some reasons my pictures really didn't come out too well. I must have been feeling to hungry to concentrate!

 

 

 

 

After our little refill we headed back up to the cabin to get ready for the evening activities.

[milpston]

Loving your review was away for the last week alas not on a cruise. Not for another 2 weeks anyway. Its taken me 2 days to catch up but worth every minute.

 

 

Welcome back. I've been busy so have let it slip a bit recently but will hopefully crack on over the next few days!

[milpston]

We spent a little bit of time while we were showering and getting ready just relaxing on the balcony with a drink while the sun went down.

 

 

 

 

At 19:00 we decided to go for a pre dinner drink in Vintages. It is located next to Giovannis Table in Central Park. This is what it looks like during the day.

 

 

[milpston]

As I'm quite new with wine I decided to try one of the wine flights. This is where you get 3 different 2oz glasses of wine. It's a nice way to try a selection.

 

I think we tried the Sensational Sauvignon Blancs as this tends to be my preference at the moment.

 

 

We had one of these each as we had 45 minutes before our dinner reservation in the MDR.

 

 

 

There are ipads on the bar in Vintages which contains all the wine and Tapas menus which I thought was really good. There are also games on them which turned out to be really handy as Chloe enjoyed playing them whilst Sally and I enjoyed our drinks. I have to say that out of the three Sauvignon Blancs the Italian one was the best. No suprise there as it was the most expensive of the three.

 

 

There never seemed to be many people in Vintages whenever we were passing and now was n different. Just a couple of people sitting at the bar with us and a couple outside.

 

 

[RobertNeath]

Wonderful! :D

[milpston]

Wonderful! :D

 

Thank you. I'm glad you're enjoying it :)

[milpston]

At 19:45 we headed to the MDR for dinner. When we got there we were asked to wait in the waiting area. I took my chance to nip down to the casino for a quick smoke. I was only gone for a few minutes by by the time I returned I they had obviously been shown to the table already.

 

I walked around to the area where we were usually seated and could not see them. I couldn't see them anywhere so was pretty much walking around in circles. The staff noticed me looking a bit lost and pointed me in the right direction..... I soon found that Sally and Chloe were hiding under a table so that I wouldn't find them. Our waitress just looked at us all as if we were mad but Sally and Chloe seemed to find it quite funny.

 

For starter I had smoked duck and the duo of beef for main course. Sally had crab cake for starter and a main course the same as mine this evening and a coffee. You'll be surprised to hear Chloe had the Caesar Salad and the Salmon! For dessert I had the chocolate pudding.

 

 

I have to say that the smoked duck was really tasty.

 

Sally really enjoyed the crab cake also.

 

 

The duo of beef was lovely and a was cooked a spot on medium rare as I requested.

 

 

The dessert I had was ok. The only criticism I would have was that there was a layer of marzipan near the top which I wasn't particularly keen on. That's probably a personal taste thing though.

 

[tarajean1962]

Awesome updates and pics!!:D We loved vintages and can't wait to try it again in September! I think it is a hidden gem on the ship. Haven't been to the Cupcake Cupboard yet either. That is definitely on my list for this time!! I am really enjoying this review!!

 

Tara

[milpston]

Awesome updates and pics!!:D We loved vintages and can't wait to try it again in September! I think it is a hidden gem on the ship. Haven't been to the Cupcake Cupboard yet either. That is definitely on my list for this time!! I am really enjoying this review!!

 

Tara

 

Thanks very much. I really do think Vintages is an under used venue on the Oasis class ships.

[milpston]

Chloe was suffering this evening after a little too much sun again. She was feeling hot then cold with a headache and had said she felt a little bit sick a couple of times. She was clearly suffering some minor sun stroke so we decided to get an early night. We went back to the cabin and dosed her up with some medicine. It was when we were back that we realised we had reservations for the Headliner Show (Earl Turner). Chloe said that she would like to see this so we made the decision to go to Guest Services to find out if it was the same Headliner act on the Western itinerary. We asked Chloe if she would like to wait in the stateroom or come with us for the walk down to guest services.

 

On arrival on the Royal Promenade the 70's street party was in full swing. At guest services we got the good news that Earl Turner was indeed performing next week on the Headliner so we didn't have to worry about going to see it tonight.

 

We stood near the Rising Tide Bar with the intention of just staying for a few minutes.

 

There was a female singer performing on a stage in the middle of the Promenade and the atmosphere was really good.

 

 

The Cruise Director, Allan Brooks, was MC'ing from the roll out platform near the cupcake cupboard above the Promenade. Although he clearly works very hard at his job and is entertainment I never really felt much of a connection with him. I have to say though that we never really watched many of his TV shows in the mornings (Babbling Brooks) or went to many of the gameshows and activities that he was running so I don't think we got the full benefit of him.

 

 

YMCA and other songs were being performed by the village people and everyone was getting into it and having a really good time including us. Even Chloe was starting to forget that she wasn't feeling to great.

 

 

 

Allan Brooks was orchestrating everything from the platform and there were free gifts such as T'shirts, flashing plastic rings and other bits and pieces being constantly thrown out by him and the singers/dancers on top of the cup cake cupboard. If you plan to come to the 70's party my advice would be to get there nice and early and get onto the Rising Tide Bar. They raise it half way up above the Promenade and leave it there for a fantastic view of the party. They also tend to throw a lot of the freebies onto there. We managed to catch one of the dozens and dozens of flashing rings being thrown out as Chloe really wanted one. Unfortunately out of all of them I think we got the only one that was broken and didn't light up of flash haha

 

Kung fu Panda also made an appearance on the Rising Tide Bar.

 

 

[Miamia65]

Susiecruisey. The luggage valet service is wonderful , your bags arrive at your home airport and you have boarding pass delivered to your stateroom. We have used it twice. Johnny rockets is a very good place to eat breakfast. Usually quiet with good scenery. The coffee on the boardwalk is same as cafe promenade. So if u have had coffee on the promenade then u know what it tastes like.

AF-1

I am from australia and we are doing a B2B on oasis in december, so am not familiar with this type of service! Our flight from FLL to DCA is around 6pm, so does it mean that our luggage is taken by the airline and checked in and we are free to spend the day doing whatever we like? So long as we get to the airport in sufficient time to catch the flight?

 

Does it also mean that as we have the boarding passes we just go to the airport terminal for our particular airline and go through security and straight to the gate?

[Miamia65]

Awesome review, can't wait to read more!!!!

[milpston]

Awesome review, can't wait to read more!!!!

 

Thank you very much. I am back into it now :)

[shorbr]

No offense to other reviewers of Allure, but IMHO you have absolutely the best review of them all. Your review is getting me so excited about our upcoming cruise...I can hardly wait. Your photos are very nice. Wish I knew how to take pictures like that...haha.

[milpston]

Kung Fu Panda didn't really hang around for any photo ops so we got onto the Rising Tide bar and had another drink or two. By this time the earlier night had really gone out of the window and Chloe was quite happy although her hands and arms were still looking pretty pink!

At 22:30 we decided to head into Dazzles for a drink. This place had definitely taken over as our favourite night time bar from Boleros on our last cruise. Its amazing that it happened to be another place where I could enjoy a smoke :-)

It was fairly busy again in Dazzles tonight but we were invited to join an American guy by the name of Todd at his table. He was a solo cruiser originally from Conneticut and now living in Florida. Tonight was 70's night with the Frontliners. It wasn't quite as well attended as the 80's night earlier in the week but was still a good atmosphere. Todd was a really nice guy and good company to be with. He actually had the premium drinks package at $55 per day and said he was getting good value from it. It allowed trying drinks that maybe you usually wouldn't. I really think you have to be a fairly heavy drinker to make this worthwhile though.

Sally was at the 'dancing in her seat stage' and I was chatting with Todd. What I didn't realise was that Sally had spoken to the lead singer of The Frontliners on a bathroom trip. Just a short chat where she had let it slip it was our honeymoon. Anyway, a little later she congratulated us on our recent marriage over the microphone which was a really nice touch. What I didn't expect was a few minutes later when the dancefloor was clear she announced that we would be doing our 'first dance' again and invited us down on to the dance floor. We politely declined as neither of us are great fans of being the centre of attention.... especially in a room full of strangers. Before we knew it all the other guests were clapping in time to encourage us down. We weren't really left with a choice and reluctantly headed down the stairs and took our place on our own on the dance floor..... Sally's face getting redder by the second from embarrassment :D haha.

We were serenaded with an excellent rendition of Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You. She really can sing. It was a lovely memory to look back on actually but probably not something I would volunteer for again!

Chloe was starting to not feel great and at one point Todd said he was going to the bathroom and when he reappeared he had an aerosol which he said was fantastic for sunburn and insisted we took it for Chloe and he would find us if he needed it again.

By about 01:00 Sally took Chloe to bed but was happy for me to stay chatting in Dazzles and have another drink. We soon realised that the bar in Dazzles closed at 01:00 sharp and we couldn't get another drink so Todd and I headed down tro Blaze. This is the nightclub down on deck four opposite Jazz on 4 which is adults only.

There weren't many people in Blaze but I stayed there for a couple of beers as there is smoking area right up the corner. Before I knew it Sally was standing next to me at about 02:30 as I had been a little longer than expected. Chloe was asleep so she came to check on me and found Dazzles to be closed and got a little worried. Sally went back to the room happy that she knew where I was... I think ;)

At 03:00 the lights came on in Blaze and I staggered back to the stateroom, via a smoke on the balcony, before collapsing into bed :D