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

[milpston]

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.

 

That's a lovely thing to say. Thank you.

In relation to the pictures. Trust me, I have absolutely no talent with a camera at all so I guarantee you can take pictures which are at least as good. I bought my camera last year because my old point and shoot never took one decent picture after dark. The one I have now I never do anything but leave in on fully automatic so I really can't take any credit :D

[milpston]

Day 6 - Sea Day

 

 

 

[milpston]

[tarajean1962]

What a fun night!!:D How cool that you got to do your first dance again!! I hope Chloe's sunburn gets better. That feeling stinks when you've overbaked a bit in the sun!:( Can't wait to hear tomorrow's adventures.

 

Tara

[milpston]

This morning I woke up at 08:00 with a mild headache. Of course, Chloe was still asleep and Sally was already out on the balcony. I lay there in bed for a couple of minutes and then thought I'd better head out and face the music for disappearing the night before :rolleyes:

 

Of course, Sally was fine and i wasn't in the dog house like I could have been. It didn't stop me from claiming that I was in the dog house all day today though which probably annoyed her more than being late back last night.

 

We had ordered breakfast to be delivered for around 09:00. We had decided to have our breakfast that was included with the Grand Romance package this morning and had handed our completed cards to our Head Waiter in the MDR yesterday evening.

 

There is pretty much nothing better in the world to help a hangover than to walk out on to a balcony on a cruise ship.

 

 

I also had some assistance from a friend to help the early morning fog from the inside of my head to lift a little.

 

 

Whilst waiting for breakfast to arrive Sally and I were standing staring out to sea as per usual. I had thought i had seen some movement in the water a little way out but decided I probably imagined it. Not that long after (but probably not linked) Sally pretty much screamed! I spun around to see that about 40-50 ft away from the side of the ship and level with about 2 cabins to the rear of us...... a whale leapt out of the water and back in again before then flicking it's tail back out above the surface. It was amazing and we felt priveleged to have seen it.

 

When on our cruise in 2011 Sallly's parents had said they saw a whale one day and I have always said that they probably imagined it :p I may take it back now that we have seen one as well. I do know that humpback whales tend to migrate through the Turks and Caicos area in about March and we probably weren't a million miles from that kind of area this morning.

 

I darted back into the cabin and stood by the railings with my camera on burst mode just waiting for the whale to make a reappearance and the result........

 

 

Absolutely nothing :( but this is about where it had jumped out of the water for us.

[milpston]

What a fun night!!:D How cool that you got to do your first dance again!! I hope Chloe's sunburn gets better. That feeling stinks when you've overbaked a bit in the sun!:( Can't wait to hear tomorrow's adventures.

 

Tara

 

Yeah it was really very nice. The spray Todd gave us was much better than the banana boat we had been using so she wasn't too bad at all the next day.

[milpston]

About 09:00 our breakfast arrived. I really do rate the breakfast room service that RCI offer. Ok, there isn't a huge choice but it was usually hot and always on time. I'd encourage anyone with a balcony to make use of it and see what you think.

 

This was breakfast. It was ok but I would probably have preferred the normal breakfast to be honest. My exotic taste in food strikes again :D

 

 

[KPfromCT]

Absolutely LOVING your review! You have a beautiful family:D:D Hope Chloe's sunburn was better!!!! I am waiting patiently for your next installment....:o

[milpston]

After applying the factor 50 .... ( we were going through mountains of it!) we headed up to the pool about 10:00. Being the creatures of habit that we are we headed to deck 16 Port side and found three sunbeds in our usual position looking out to sea :)

 

I could lose myself for hours at a time laying on a sunlounger with this view.

 

 

Today was steaming hot! There was barely a breath of wind and we were in and out of the pool on a regular basis to keep cool and lots of soft drinks were being sunk. The pools were very busy today as everyone seemed to have the same plan.

 

We were nearest to the fresh water main pool again. The floor was so hot that you could barely walk on it in bare feet. for this reason there were rows of flip flops by the pool so people didn't burn their feet.

 

 

Chloe wasn't particularly liking being made to cover up with a hat and top all day but made these hot tubs by the main pool here home on and off for most of the morning.

 

 

[milpston]

Absolutely LOVING your review! You have a beautiful family:D:D Hope Chloe's sunburn was better!!!! I am waiting patiently for your next installment....:o

 

I'm glad you are enjoying it and thank you :) Yes, the worst of the sunburn was over now. With lots of cream and covering up it didn't really ruin any of the time in the sun. It is usually ALWAYS me that gets the most burnt but we were all very careful on this holiday.

[luvsun22]

I read through your whole report last night and this morning, I'm loving it! I've never been too interested in the Allure or the Oasis, but you may be changing my mind. Looking forward to more!

[milpston]

I know every body has seen these guys before but you can't go on the Allure without taking pictures of them looking out over the Sports Pool.

 

 

 

I loved the view when laying looking up towards the Viking Crown Lounge on deck 17. You could always see the reflection of the pool area and the sea at the same time.

 

 

The beach pool was always every bit as popular as the main pool.

 

 

The band playing on the bandstand always lent a bit of an atmosphere with their Calypso music. The frozen ice cream machines are either side of here.

 

 

This is the seating areas by the main pool just below where we liked to sit most days. You can see some of the discarded flip flops by the pool. That floor was seriously painful at times!

 

[milpston]

I read through your whole report last night and this morning, I'm loving it! I've never been too interested in the Allure or the Oasis, but you may be changing my mind. Looking forward to more!

 

Thank you. I'm pleased it's being of some use. I am, by no means, an expert having been on each of them once now. I do not think they are perfect for everyone but definitely worth trying once. I want to try smaller ships again at some stage but I really do think the Oasis class spoil you a little :confused:

[milpston]

We had planned to go to the Aquatheatre at 13:00 to watch the International Belly Flop cometition there. The problem was we were so relaxed by being in and out of the pool that we never made it there. The view was too good to be dragged away from. We did our usual thing and decided there was always next week!

 

 

I do think that RCI do the drinks service around by the pool really well. They have bar staff roving around the sun loungers constantly. You cannot lay for long without hearing them pass calling out their usual lines, "It's sippy sippy time", "The Doctor is here. I have your medicine" or just walking past with a bottle of run balanced on their heads!

 

 

 

They really do work hard and is one of the reasons I never found that you had to wait long at the bars to get served if you went to them.

 

We just laid and enjoyed a B52 which was efficiently delivered to us :D

 

[joysav]

 

Below is a picture of a roadsign that made us smile....

t's just not something we would see anywhere at home!

 

 

Would not be sure of that mate ;)

 

Follow this link

.

[milpston]

Would not be sure of that mate ;)

 

Follow this link

.

 

Haha.... you can't argue with advice that good! :p

[milpston]

By about 1400 we decided we should get out of the lovely sun for a while. We went and sat in the shade below where we had been sitting all day. This area gets a little smokey at times so I wouldn't want to spend to much time there.

 

 

There is of course an area the same that is on the starboard side which is non smoking. Most of the time you walk through here there are lots of people snoring!!

 

We took a seat down here and Chloe was clearly very happy to be photographed :D

 

 

Chloe and Sally headed off to get some lunch whilst I sat resting my eyes for a while!

 

Theycame back following their trip to the Wipeout Cafe. The Wipeout Cafe basically does fast food and I'll have some pictures of it next week.

 

Chloe came back with a bowl of chips (..... sorry fries), Sally had Nachos and a couple of slices of pizza for me.

 

 

 

 

This place is fine for a pit stop for food. It's nothing special but does a job for a snack.

[milpston]

After lunch we decided to go and check out the Flowriders. We walked out passed the sports pool and towards the rear of the ship.

 

 

 

On the way there you pass the zip line. I will cover this in more detail next week when we have a go.

 

 

A, i'm sure, you all know, there are two Flowriders on the Allure. Port side is for stand up surfing and starboard side is for body boarding. My only advice is to sign your waivers online before travel. If you want a go you just go to the Flowrider desk where you are given a wristband and go and join the queue if there is one. You can also do private lessons for a fee which are also best booked online beforehand.

 

 

 

Whether you have a go or not it's good fun to sit and watch.

[milpston]

The queues were definitely longer here than earlier in the week. This marries up with information I read on here before going. We decided that on this occasion we would wait and have a go early next week. We were starting to make a habit of that!!

This is the area behind the Flowriders. A lovely view to the rear of the ship on a sea day just like down on the jogging track on deck 5.

 

[milpston]

At about 16:00 we headed back to our room and lay there in the air conditioning to cool down. It was heavenly. When heading back west towards Fort Lauderdale the sun really beats down on the Port side balconies in the afternoon. I found on the D1 balconies that you could actually sit in the shade at the back of it where they are that little bit bigger. At least you then have the choice of being in or out of the sun.

As I hadn't been very good at taking pictures of the MDR menus I spent a little bit of time taking a video clip of all the menus for the week on the TV. I will try to get round to posting this video at some stage.

Tonight was the second formal night so at some point early evening our canapes were delivered to the room along with some petit fours. I can't say I actually remember eating any of these.

 

[milpston]

Sally looked stunning as usual tonight dressed up for formal night wheras I..... broke one of my cardinal rules and just wore trousers and a shirt! The main reason for this was that I had plenty of sun today and didn't want to be too hot especially as we were eating at Samba Grill this evening. if we were in the MDR I would have put my tuxedo on.

 

 

The solarium turns into Samba Grill in the evenings. It is a Brazilian steakhouse that I had really been looking forward to.

 

This is the menu.

 

 

 

They did make it look very nice of the evenings although I don't recall anyone else having dressed up for formal night in there.

 

 

[milpston]

The starter in here was in the form of a salad bar. You already know, and by looking at my build, that salad isn't really my thing :D

 

 

 

 

[voyager70]

Would not be sure of that mate ;)

 

Follow this link

.

 

That's hilarious! Milpston loving your review and pics. Well done!

[AF-1]

Thanks for keeping us entertained with your pictures. Seems like u have a lot of things to do on next weeks sail. U put off flow rider, zip line, belly flop. But I am still enjoying your review, where I am currently thousands of miles west of you on the island of Guam.

[tarajean1962]

Sally and Chloe are both gorgeous! I absolutely LOVE that gown!! I hope we have a relaxed attitude like you guys. What I am most concerned about with doing a B2B is that we will want to do it all in the first week and not leave enough stuff for the second.

 

 

Tara

 

P.S. You need to start giving yourself more credit for your photos. They are beautiful!