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

[AF-1]

Great underwater photos. Although you were a little upset with what you saw down there; I thought they were amazing.

[milpston]

Great underwater photos. Although you were a little upset with what you saw down there; I thought they were amazing.

 

It wasn't bad. It just wasn't as good as I was expecting for Cozumel as I have read so much about it. The visibility was good without being stunning and I had hoped to see something 'bigger' haha. It's possible that the better dive sites are further away from the port so you don't get taken to them when only there for the day.

We did a shark dive on our last week where we had about 30 6ft+ reef sharks around us so I think it just overshadowed this a bit :p

[milpston]

Day 7 [14] - Our final sea day

 

 

 

 

[milpston]

[Memsy87]

You will have a fantastic time! Ask away if there is anything I can help with. If I don't know the answer I'm sure there are others here that will.

 

Thanks !

[Peeker28]

OH NO, I hate day 7!! :(

[milpston]

OH NO, I hate day 7!! :(

 

Haha me too. This is the only thing distracting me from looking at future cruises so things could go wrong when I finish this!! That could even happen today haha

[milpston]

We woke up on the final full day of our cruise at 08:30. We stood on the balcony and looked at lovely blue of the caribbean and it looked like being a really hot day. We slapped on a load of factor 50 before heading up to the pool deck.

 

At 09:20 we picked our favourite spot by the main pool once again.

 

Sally logged her dives from yesterday while I gazed at the sea wondering how the last 14 days had gone so quickly.

 

 

We spent the whole morning here today dipping in and out of the pool to keep cool.

 

At 13:00 went to the Wipeout Cafe for lunch today. This is the first time we had been there.

We found some seats outside to enjoy our lunch.

 

 

 

 

There is also a little gift shop almost next door.

[milpston]

The Wipeout Cafe is mainly just fast food.

 

 

 

As you can probably guess. I had.... everything really.

[milpston]

Sally's lunch looked very dull!

They also have a frozen yoghurt machine in the Wipeout Cafe.

[milpston]

We took our ice creams and poked our heads in the arcade that was nearby.

 

 

 

 

Just after 13:30 we decided if we were ever going to have a go at the zip line then now would be the time.

 

 

 

MAke sure you have signed your waivers online before you get on the ship. You have to have socks and trainers on and you must have nothing in your pockets or they will not let you ride the zip line.

 

There was about a 10 minutes queue for it at this time. When you get to the front of the queue they select the right size harness for you and you basically just step into it. They will do the rest.

 

[milpston]

Make sure you sign your waivers on line before you travel. This will save you time. You need to be wearing socks and trainers and have nothing in your pockets or you will not be able to ride.

Sally and I had a go but, as mentioned earlier, Chloe did not make the minimum weight. Luckily, I just squeaked over the minimum.

 

This is the view back from the landing platform.

 

 

You even get to wear a sexy hat!

 

I enjoyed the zip line. I only had to queue for 10 minutes which is good. The zip line is obviously completed quickly so I wouldn't want to have to queue too much longer for it. A great novelty and you really have to remind yourself that you are on a cruise ship. It's great fun. Have a go.

[milpston]

After the zip line we headed back to the pool for our last afternoon there. It was seriously hot today and those shoes were definitely needed just to get around as the floor was steaming hot again.

 

This is Sally coming back up the stairs. No, she's not doing an impression of a gorilla. She is running up the stairs because her feet are burning on the floor!

 

 

I laid on the sun bed and had a little doze whilst enjoying my favourite view. I'm sure I would pay for that later with some more sunburn.

 

 

 

At about 17:00 we left the pool for the final time and headed off to the cabin and cool off. These are the doors to the rest rooms as we headed back to the lifts.

 

 

 

[milpston]

Once in the cabin we sat on the balcony. We filled out our customs forms, did some packing, completed our customer satisfaction surveys (I'll come onto these shortly) and delivered our WOW cards.

I also took my last couple of pictures out at sea.

 

 

 

[milpston]

This evening we headed to the MDR at 19:45 for the final time. As usual, we didn;t have to wait more that a few minutes before we were shown to our, now favourite, table.

I have no notes from here on in so I have no idea what people ate for each of the three courses. I'll just post the food pictures that I have for this evening and those of our favourite wait staff.

Fish of some kind

 

 

 

 

 

The guy at the back wasn't actually in this picture originally. He hust appeared at the exact second that I was pushing the button.

[milpston]

 

This is looking down to the next deck of the MDR.

 

This is one of the entrances to the casino.

 

I'll mention now a couple of my views on the MDR during our B2B cruise. Overall I thought the food was good to very good. I do, however, think that the menu has been cheapened slightly in recent years. I do not like the idea of having pay items on the menu like a lot of others do not. I am guilty of having bought them though so that does make me a bit of a hypocrit. One thing that I found quite annoying though is the persistent begging of the staff to rate them excellent in the customer satisfaction survey. We also got this from our stateroom attendant at times as well. It is obvious that RCI take note of what is said on the surveys to the point that the staff are worried about them. However, I think RCI, somehow, need to stop their staff from being so preoccupied with it. I will always put nice comments about staff who look after me well. I do not need to be reminded of it every two minutes. This seemed to happen wherever we were sitting in the MDR. They would say things like, "remember. Good is not good for us. We need to be marked as excellent". I found this to be a minor irritance that grew throughout the cruise.

 

[milpston]

After dinner we headed to Dazzles for a few drinks on our last evening.

The Headliners were playing again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The female lead singer had a fantastic voice and the group as a whole was excellent. During the first week there was also a male lead singer who unfortunately had to go home due to a family bereavement. He was a big loss to the group but she managed really well without him. They gave us hours of entertainment throughout the cruise.

We got chatting to a couple of cast members from Oceanaria this evening. Rhiannon was one of the divers. from Australia, who had chatted with us a number of times in the last couple of weeks. She was really nice and her and a male member of the cast (I can't recall his name but he was from New York) chatted to us for about 20 minutes and they were very friendly. They really seem to have a great time on the Allure and have lots of nights out. The only downside for them is that they have to wear their RCI name badges which must put a bit of a dampener on it for them.

At about 01:00 we headed back to our room. We had decided to go for the express check out tomorrow morning. This basically means you have to be off the ship early and carry your own luggage. One of the added bonuses is that you don't need to have your bag fully packed and outside your room this evening. When we got back to the room we placed the clothes we were wearing and our last few bits in our case.

[milpston]

Our wake up call came at about 06:00 this morning!

This is the view we were met with from the balcony.

 

 

 

For the express checkout we had to meet at the MDR and walk off the ship between 06:45 and 7:30. We were pretty much packed and ready to go. There was an air of sadness but luckily we had more to look forward to. Chloe was going with Roy and Maureen to Fort Lauderdale for 3 nights and then flying to New York for 4 nights before going home. Sally and I were heading to a Butler suite at Sandals in the Bahamas for 7 nights on our own. For this reason Chloe stayed with Roy and Maureen last night so they didn't have to get up as early as us. I, later, found out that I left a camera lead in the cabin but Monique found this and gave it to Roy to bring back home for me.

We walked out of our cabin and down to the MDR at 06:45. We didn't even get to the entrance when staff asked us if we were doing the express checkout and guided us to the exit and straight out of the door!

Within seconds we found ourselves outside the cruise terminal and I was having a smoke before getting in a taxi to Ft. Lauderdale airport.

 

I'm sure this place is alot more peaceful than it would be in an hour or two's time.

A taxi form the port is a lot cheaper than booking a transfer through RCI. We soon hopped in a cab and, bearing in mind we left our cabin at 06:45, we arrived at Ft. Lauderdale airport at 07:15.

 

The only downside was that our flight wasn't until about 17:30. We were lucky enough to get waitlisted for an earlier flight and get flown out to The Bahamas a lot earlier at no extra cost.

The next post will be my final one. It just gives 6 highlights of our final week.

[milpston]

Our week in The Bahamas. Highlights.

Our view

 

The Allure sailing out of Nassau during our stay

 

One of our Butlers

 

Our shark dive.... There were about 30 of them around us.

 

A powerboat trip to the Exumas

 

Shark wrangling on the beach on the powerboat trip.

Ok one more post haha

[milpston]

Overall, we had a fantastic honeymoon and wouldn't change a thing!!!

 

Thank you for following along. I will certainly keep an eye on the thread and answer any questions you may have.

The end

[Peeker28]

Thank you for taking us along on your trip. Best of luck to all three of you!!:D

[milpston]

Thank you for taking us along on your trip. Best of luck to all three of you!!:D

 

Thank you very much. Have a great time on the Oasis. I am sure you will :D

[shrimp56]

Thank you so very much. I am a dedicated Holland America cruiser and not likely to take a megaship, but it was absolutely fascinating to hear about it from the inside out. (I found your report when I was looking for info about the Grandeur fire) You are a great couple and wonderful family. Here's to many more wonderful trips for you all!

[cruzinlady1947]

So sorry to see this review end. It was so great. The pictures were fantastic. Loved the underwater ones, although the shark pictures were pretty scary. :eek:

 

You have a great sense of humor and a great personality. Your family is adorable. Sally and Chloe are beautiful girls.

 

Thanks so much for taking the time for this review. And may you have many happy years together and more cruises together. Love that last picture of you and Sally.

 

Gwen :)

[milpston]

Thank you so very much. I am a dedicated Holland America cruiser and not likely to take a megaship, but it was absolutely fascinating to hear about it from the inside out. (I found your report when I was looking for info about the Grandeur fire) You are a great couple and wonderful family. Here's to many more wonderful trips for you all!

 

Never say never ;) I'm glad you enjoyed it. Thank you for the kind comments. I hope you have a wonderful cruise in 15 days time!! I'm not jealous... much :p

 

So sorry to see this review end. It was so great. The pictures were fantastic. Loved the underwater ones, although the shark pictures were pretty scary. :eek:

 

You have a great sense of humor and a great personality. Your family is adorable. Sally and Chloe are beautiful girls.

 

Thanks so much for taking the time for this review. And may you have many happy years together and more cruises together. Love that last picture of you and Sally.

 

Gwen :)

 

I'm glad you have enjoyed it. Sally is delighted it is over so that I won't be glued to the laptop as much in the coming weeks! (Although I'm now getting told off for sitting here looking at Quantum prices... I'm being banned haha)

The sharks were awesome :D

It's really nice of you to say such lovely things. Thank you.