Allure review...and 6 other vaca. days, too!

[EMcCruiser]

A little background: DH (Jeremy, 34) and I (Elizabeth, 29) cruised on the Allure on June 15-21, 2014. We are from central Kentucky and drove to Ft. Lauderdale as we had some other things we wanted to do in addition to the cruise. This is maybe more of a travel journal than a review, but I figured I would share it anyway. Enjoy!

 

Friday, June 13, 2014 (Day 1)

 

We left Carlisle around 4:30 a.m. and headed south. We stopped in Richmond for a quick breakfast and McD's and then a quick stop at Wal-Mart to pick up a small blanket to use in the car. I was freezing! Then, we were back on the road! Excitement was building as we entered Tennessee and continued our journey. I started seeing signs for Tennessee's Aquarium in Chattanooga and their Amazing Otter exhibit and I knew that we needed to stop and check it out. So, this was our first major detour. We got to the aquarium just as they were opening at 10 a.m. It was not very crowded except for the couple of summer kids groups. After exploring the aquarium for a couple of hours, we grabbed a snack at the end and got back in the car to continue our journey. Our next stop was a late lunch at the Marrietta Diner in Marierra, Georgia. Jeremy had seen this restaurant on an episode of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives on the Food Network. It was very good, and the portions were enormous! After we stuffed ourselves, we again got back in the car and continued south. We drove on and on. We had decided to stop around Jacksonville, Florida, but when we got there, we were in the middle of the metro area and decided to drive on a little longer before getting a hotel room. So, we ended up getting a room at the Super 8 in St. Augustine, FL. This wasn't much of a hotel, but it was clean and cheap, so we went with it.

 

Saturday, June 14, 2014 (Day 2)

 

There were two really nice things about staying at the Super 8 in St. Augustine, FL. One was that there was an IHOP next door where we could have breakfast. It was delicious. The other thing was that the hotel was just yards away from an outlet mall! I LOVE outlet malls! I suppose this was our 2nd major detour on this vacation. We easily killed 2 hours at the St. Augustine Premium Outlets, and we only visited a few stores. After breakfast and shopping... you guessed it... back in the car and keep on trucking south. We had about 4 more hours until we reached Ft. Lauderdale. We had no traffic issues and arrived at our next hotel, The Holiday Inn Express, right at check-in time (3 p.m.). This hotel was much nicer than the Super 8 from the night before. We got settled in and attempted to figure out the Water Taxi route and then walked down to the Water Taxi stop that was near our hotel. We took the Taxi a couple stops down to Las Olas to find something for dinner. There were several options, but we had trouble deciding on something unfamiliar, so we ended up at The Cheesecake Factory. After a good, filling dinner, we spent the next couple of hours just cruising the Water Taxi route and admiring the multi-million dollar homes and yachts.

 

Sunday, June 15, 2014 (Day 3)

 

We woke up at the Holiday Inn, got ready and had breakfast at the hotel. After calling our dad's to with them a Happy Father's Day, we packed up the car and headed to the Ft. Lauderdale Park n' Go. This is a secure lot where we were leaving our car for the week. They provide shuttle and pick up service to the cruise port which is extremely close to their location as well. It was all very easy. If we travel out of this port in the future, I'm sure we will use this company again. We were dropped off right in front of the cruise terminal and a porter took our bags. We walked into the port and started the check-in process. We waited maybe 3 minutes in line before getting to an agent to check-in and get our Sea Pass cards. Next we took the obligatory picture in front of the screen with the cruise ship on it and made our way to the waiting area. I'd say we waited about 30 minutes here before being allowed to board the Allure around 11:30 a.m.

 

Once onboard, the ship was just as big and beautiful as I had imagined from reading reviews and doing research. We headed to the Park Cafe for lunch and to wonder about which balcony might be ours in the Central Park area. After lunch, we explored the ship for a bit. Once we noticed others out on their balconies, we made our way to our room, cabin 12207, and were pleased with our home away from home for the week. I quickly got us unpacked and we continued with our exploration before sail away. We made our way to the Promenade to make some specialty restaurant reservations, and someone promptly took care of everything for us. We booked Chops, Rita's Fiesta, Samba Grill, and Giovanni's Table. By waiting until we were onboard to book these, we were able to use onboard credit and we got 25% off at each restaurant, which was awesome! Next, we went to the free wine tasting at Vintages which was very nice. After that, we enjoyed sail away from the pool deck, and then we headed down to the spa for their raffle. Jeremy actually won a 50 minute hot stone massage! This was our only luck as we didn't win anything else for the remainder of the cruise! Oh well, at least we won something! On this night, we had dinner at Chops and it was very good. We were supposed to see the show, OcenAria, but it was cancelled due to possible electrical storms. It was rescheduled for later in the week, so most of the evening we just wondered around the ship checking things out.

 

Monday, June 16, 2014 (Day 4)

 

We woke up in our new home away from home aboard the beautiful Allure of the Seas! Today was our first sea day, and we needed it. I still did not have my bearings as to where things were located, even though Jeremy pretty much had the hang of it by now. We again spent most of the day exploring the ship. I did the zip line across the top of the ship. Jeremy wouldn't do it, as he's not a fan of heights... in fact he told me that he didn't know if he wanted me to do it. Points for being worried about me, but I did it anyway. It was fun, but only lasted like 5 seconds! Next, we stopped by the arcade for some Ski ball, my favorite arcade game, and then we watched people wipe out on the Flow Rider. Later on we sat in on the port shopping talk. Around 5 p.m., we attended the Ice Games show and enjoyed it. It is an ice skating show at sea. The theme of the show is a based on a Monopoly game that is structured after the different neighborhoods of the ship. My favorite part of this show was the hoola-hooping girl. Tonight was the first formal night, so we got ourselves cleaned up and headed to the main dining room for dinner. It was just okay... nothing great. We had some pictures taken after. Later in the week, I ended up buying one professional picture from each formal night. Around10 p.m., we had reservations for the show Chicago, and we went to the theatre. Unfortunately, Jeremy didn't feel that great, so we ended up leaving before the show started. Something he ate at dinner didn't agree with his stomach. Thankfully the discomfort passed within a couple of hours.

 

Tuesday, June 17, 2014 (Day 5)

 

Day 3 onboard the Allure was our first day ashore, and on this day we were in Labadee, Haiti. Jeremy and I did not have any excursions planned for this day and we were treating it strictly as a beach day. The one thing we DID have planned to start our day was a couples massage on the beach. This might as well have been an excursion because we hiked what felt like ½ of the island before we found the place where we were supposed to be getting our massage. We asked 3 different people where to go, and they all gave us different answers. When we finally found the outdoor spa, we felt stupid, because we should have been told to walk straight for much longer than we were told and then we would have seen a sign. We were not told this…we were told to go up this hill, and that hill. Oh well, we finally got there, and we received wonderful massages in paradise! The rest of the day we floated around in the ocean. It was fabulous! That night for dinner, we opted out of the main dining room and just grabbed something at the Windjammer, which is a buffet. We then relaxed in the hot tub for a while before going to the Comedy Show at 9:30 p.m. I can’t find the names of the comedians right now, but they were 2 funny guys. 

 

Wednesday, June 18, 2014 (Day 6)

 

Jamaica Day! Jeremy and I were up early today to again treat ourselves at the spa! Jeremy was getting his free 50 minute hot stone massage (only redeemable on a port day), and I got a traveler's tension massage (25 minutes back/neck and 25 minutes feet and legs). After our massages, we were ready to go see Jamaica! Unfortunately, there seemed to be a little bit of a problem with getting checked in and cleared with customs at the port, so we were late getting off the ship. Instead of making an announcement about this on the ship's PA system, RCI was letting people ride the elevator all the way down to the gangway and then asking them not to get off the elevator. It was a mess! Thankfully, it didn't take too long before they finally had it straightened out and we were off the ship and on our way to check-in with our excursion.

 

We had booked Dunns River Falls and Bamboo Beach Club in advance of the cruise. This excursion took up our entire day in Jamaica. We met up with our guides for the day, Sasha and Makaila, at the tents and they loaded us up (16 people all together in our excursion group) and took us on our way. It took about 45 minutes, by air conditioned bus, to get to Dunns River Falls. Let me just tell you, I had no idea it would be as physically challenging as it was to climb the falls. I kind of thought we would just be looking at a waterfall and maybe splashing around in it- no such luck. We met our falls guide (Noah, I believe) and he instructed us that we would be linking hands and we would climb the falls together in that way. I was the third in line and Jeremy 4th. I don't know how the people farther back in line made it, because I know they didn't get the same instruction we did in the front and I still struggled. In fact, I came home with a souvenir from DRF in the form of a scraped up and scabbed leg from a fall I took. DRF was beautiful, but it was a challenge. When we finally made it to the top, we met back up with our guides and loaded back into our bus and headed to the Bamboo Beach Club. This is the company our guides actually work for, so Sasha and Makaila became our hostesses. They served us lunch, tapas style, and drinks as we relaxed on a beautiful stretch of private beach. We were here for a couple of hours and then had to load up again. We stopped at a souvenir shop on the way back to the pier, and I'm glad we did because there was no time to shop when we got back. This was a great day, but it wore us out!

 

Tonight we had reservations to see OceanAria again. This was the make-up show from day 1. This was a really good show. It was a diving/acrobatics/strength/dance show. We really enjoyed it. Next, we had dinner reservations for Rita's Fiesta, and we didn't have far to go as the Aqua Theatre is right at the end of the Boardwalk where Rita's is located. Rita's was a lot of fun. The food was good, but not the best Mexican food I've ever had. Jeremy is allergic to shrimp, so they had to give us some different dishes from what everyone else was getting. (It was a set menu and they were cooking the chicken in the same area as the shrimp for some of the items). I did let every restaurant know of his allergy in advance, and reminded them the night of, but most acted like they had no idea. Overall, it was good. You can get a package which includes 3 drinks, which we did, and it seemed like a good value to us. After Rita’s Fiesta, we were worn out and ready for bed!

 

Thursday, June 19, 2014 (Day 7)

 

Another day at sea equals another day to explore. This time though, we were doing it a little differently. We booked the All Access Tour. This kind of thing is right up Jeremy's alley. He likes to know how things work, how things are made, etc. I liked the behind the scenes aspect of seeing things that everyone else doesn't get to see. This tour took about 3 ½ hours and took us all over the ship: the gulley where all of the food is prepared, the laundry, the crew areas, the helipad and the bridge. It was very interesting. After this tour, we got some lunch at Johnny Rockets (yummy!), and headed to the hot tub. I left Jeremy there and went to another port shopping seminar. I was trying my best to win a prize, but like I mentioned earlier, Jeremy already used up all of our luck winning a massage! Oh well! Tonight was the second formal night, so we again got cleaned up and headed to the main dining room. I don't recall what I ate, but I believe it was good. When we left dinner, we went to the Promenade to have some pictures taken. Later, we had reservations for the Headliner Show staring Earl Turner. It was okay. Basically it was a man singing covers of songs. His special guest was his son; I believe his name was Aaron. He had been a contestant on a reality TV show, and he tap danced and rapped.

 

Friday, June 20, 2014 (Day 8)

 

Welcome to Mexico! Today we had an excursion planned, but we had about an hour and a half of free time before we had to check in for it. So, we looked around at all of the souvenir shops at the pier and made a mental checklist of things we wanted to buy later. Our excursion for today was called the Tequila Experience by Jose Cuervo. There were 10 people on this excursion, and we had a great time. We went with our guide to Discover Mexico Park via air conditioned taxi van. There are Jose Cuervo tasting rooms here where we were given a brief history lesson on tequila, information about how it is made, where it is made, etc. We were then taught “how” to drink tequila. We were given 3 hearty samples of different tequilas, and 2 different frozen margaritas. They were delicious! Next, we took a brief tour through the park with our guide providing some highlights. At the end of the tour, he took us to the lunch area where we were fed authentic Mexican food and given time to look in the gift shop. After this time we were taken back to the International Pier, again via air-conditioned taxi van. Jeremy and I asked the taxi driver to take us down to the Forum Shops, so we didn't have to get out and arrange another taxi. It worked out really well. We still had 3-4 hours before we had to be back at the ship, so we wondered around the shops and used the free Wi-Fi (very slow) a little bit. Once we made it back to Senor Frogs, we got a taxi back to the pier and got the remaining souvenirs on our list before boarding the ship. We had another wonderful day abroad!

 

Tonight we had dinner reservations at Samba Grill. Jeremy was very excited at the concept of a Brazilian Steakhouse. Overall, I would say it was good. Some of the meats I tried didn't seem to be seasoned at all. The filet was very good, probably the best thing I had that night. After dinner we went to the glow party. I had heard of this party from reading reviews, so I brought a tube of the skinny glow sticks with me, you know, the kind you can make bracelets and necklaces out of. So, we donned our glow jewelry and went to the glow party. The problem was, that everyone there seemed to be 15 years old or below. We “people watched” for a little while and then left our glow jewelry for someone else to enjoy. We left and went to the hot tub. This was one of our favorite places on the ship.

 

Saturday, June 21, 2014 (Day 9)

 

Our last full day on the Allure! :( Today was dedicated to trying everything that we hadn't done yet this week! First, we decided to try breakfast in the main dining room as we had been having breakfast in the Wind Jammer all week. We were not fans of the MDR breakfast. No options on the buffet and we did not want to wait around for something ordered. Next, we went to the Captain's Corner Q&A session at the Aqua Theatre, we tried Boardwalk Dogs, which is a hot dog stand with different types of hot dogs and sausages, and I also went and looked around at the $10 t-shirt sale all before noon! We had an appointment at the “Smile” photography studio on the Boardwalk this morning for some goofy, dress-up, professional pictures. This was probably my worst experience of the whole cruise. The costumes available did not come in a large variety of sizes. So after the photographer had suggested one theme, we had to adjust it because they didn't have costumes that would work for us. It was overall an uncomfortable experience. There was also a major issue with glare on my glasses. The photographer wanted me to take my glasses off for the photo shoot. I told him no. I wear glasses every day...that IS how I look. I'm not sure why a “professional” photographer couldn't figure out the glare situation. Either way, we didn't end up buying any of the photos from this session and I wish we hadn't wasted our time there.

 

Next, we headed to the Promenade and over to Sorrento's Pizza to try the “make your own pizza” station. This is nice, but there are really not that many topping options for your pizza. Jeremy was on the hunt for the coconut cookies today, but we didn't find any. We went out on the Sundeck on Deck 14 and looked out of the viewing scope things. ← not sure of the correct name. We located several container ships through them. It was neat to see them in the distance and then be able to zoom in on them. We later went down to the casino, where I had planned to play the “Sex and the City” slot machine that I had seen a couple days before when we were passing through. Only, I couldn't figure out “how” to play the slot machine. I put my card in and it said I had “0” credits. I'm guessing I probably needed to go see one of the casino cashiers or something, but we didn't feel like bothering with it, so we left.

 

That night, we had show reservations for Blue Planet around 5 p.m. This was a singing/dancing show. It was good, and kind of hard to describe. A little later we had dinner reservations at Giovanni's Table. I was probably most excited about this restaurant because I love Italian food. This place did not disappoint. This was my favorite meal of the whole week. After dinner, we headed back to the room to take showers and begin packing. We were some of those people who did not get our bags out in the hallway at the designated 11 p.m. time. We were only like 10 minutes late though. Apparently, we bought a few more souvenirs than I thought we had! We slept very little tonight as Jeremy had an upset stomach and wasn't feeling well. He blamed the dessert at dinner. I felt fine. For the most part, he felt better by morning.

 

Sunday, June 22, 2014 (Day 10)

 

We were up at the crack of dawn, well, actually before that! We got up at 5 a.m., got ready and headed up to the Wind Jammer for breakfast and to see the sights. We had wanted to watch the ship arrive at the port, but we were already there. Oh well, we did get to see the sun rise. We then gathered our carry on luggage from our room and double and triple checked to make sure we weren't leaving anything behind and headed down to the Amber Theatre to wait for our number to be called for disembarkation. We were number 6. We were scheduled to be called around 7:30 a.m., and for the first part of the disembarkation process everything seemed to be going smoothly. Numbers 1-2 were called. A little later 3-4 were called. Then nothing... we waited and waited. Now I was just anxious to get off the ship. I couldn't do anything else here and I had other places to go! After 8 a.m., they finally called 5-6 and we made our way to the gangway. The best decision we could have made was to ask a porter for help with our bags. Not only did we have a lot of bags (we're on an almost 2 week trip), but the porter we got told us that he always uses a certain line, so he went straight there with our bags, and then he gave the immigration officer in that line some candy, she barely glanced at our declaration form and passports, and we were out the door. No questions asked. He took us right to our Park n' Go people (we had no idea where to go) and he helped them load up our bags. He got a nice tip from us. He was amazing! He made our morning that could have been long and painful, easy and carefree instead!

 

Park n' Go loaded us up in their bus and took us back to their lot. They actually let us out right at our car and unload our bags for us. When you leave the parking lot they give each passenger in the car a bottle of cold water. I booked and paid for this online in advance, so I'm not sure how the check-out works if you need to pay on the way out. I'm sure it's still fairly easy. I'm sure we will use this company again. We were pleased with the service provided.

 

Now we were on our way to Orlando, Florida. It was about a 3 hour drive and we arrived at our next hotel, the Red Roof Inn, around 1 p.m., unfortunately, the hotel would not allow us an early check-in. So, we got back in the car and went to find some lunch. We found a Panera Bread just down the street and close to our next destination: Aquatica, Sea World's water park. So, we ate and then made our way over to Aquatica. In the parking lot, we had to rummage through the suitcases and fix up a beach bag; since the hotel would not allow us the convenience of an early check-in. (I was pretty disappointed in this fact.) Either way, we weren't going to let it ruin our day. Aquatica is fairly small, and definitely something you can do in one day. We were only there about half of a day, and we did everything we wanted to do. I couldn't get Jeremy on the water slides ← just like with the zip line on the Allure, it's the heights that bother him, and so we spent most of our time in the wave pools and the lazy rivers. Oh well. We enjoyed ourselves and had a relaxing day. When we left we went back to the hotel and got checked-in (finally) and changed for dinner. I had seen a TGI Friday's somewhere on the way in, and we went out to find it. Apparently SURI decided to take us to a different one...one that has a LOT of traffic to get there...stop and go traffic :( We finally made it there and had to wait for another 30 minutes to get a table. I was so hungry by the time we finally go to eat! I was so used to all of that cruise ship food all of the time with little or no wait! By the time we got back to the room we were exhausted!

 

Monday, June 23, 2014 (Day 11)

 

Sea World Day! We slept in a little bit today as we figured we had the entire day to spend at Sea World, and if it was anything like Aquatica, we would see it in a few hours and be done- boy were we wrong! We stopped and got breakfast at IHOP on our way to the park and were there within minutes. Our hotel was a great location. I would recommend it, unless you need an early check-in! We parked in row 25 which seemed to be forever from the entrance and made our way inside! I've always wanted to go to Sea World, so I was very excited to be here! The first thing we did was scan our print-outs and retrieve our all-day dining tickets which we had to trade in for a wrist band. This was an awesome deal. I don't remember exactly what we paid for this online, I'm thinking $20-$25. We tried to look at some prices inside Sea World to see if we got a good deal. We decided we did. Here's what I remember: a hot dog was $6, a drink around $3, dinner at the BBQ place $14, the pasta buffet $15. We drank a lot because it was really hot outside and we were walking around a lot. Jeremy estimates he had 7 drinks and I think I had 6. So, basically, the money we would have spent on drinks paid for the wrist bands, and we had lunch and dinner there, too.

 

Next, we started looking over the show schedule. The shows are the whole reason to come to Sea World, right? So, Jeremy started navigating and we were off to our first show, then our second, third and fourth. When it came time for the fifth show, they were having technical difficulties, so it was cancelled. This was a show that only had two performances. So, we had a couple hours before the next showing. Don't get me wrong, the first four shows weren't all back to back, we had time to wonder around some and see different things in between, but this was the first big hunk of time we had to explore. We grabbed some lunch and walked around taking in as much as we could. I couldn't possibly explain everything we saw, because we saw so much. We did end up seeing the show that had the technical problem, and then we stuck around the park for the two night time shows, so I guess we saw 7 shows all together. We didn't end up leaving the park until around 10:30 p.m. We spent a solid 12 hours at Sea World and didn't see all it had to offer. We DID see ALL of the shows being offered. We did not go on any of the thrill rides. Jeremy, of course, doesn't like heights, and I don't like to wait in line for an hour for 1 minute of fun. We got some souvenir photos, and some other trinkets before leaving. It was a good day. If I had it to do over again, I would plan more than one day for Sea World.

 

Tuesday, June 24, 2014 (Day 12)

 

We were up before the sun again today! I don't know if you would call this the 4th leg of our journey or what, but we checked out of our hotel, grabbed some breakfast at McDonalds and hit the road again. This time, we were heading to the Florida panhandle. My sister lives in Pace, so we headed there for a quick visit. It's about a 6 hour drive from Orlando to Pace. Once we got there, we picked up my niece and headed to Ft. Walton, which is about another hour away. At Ft. Walton Beach area, you will find the Gulfarium Marine Adventure Park. This aquarium is different from the one we have here in KY because they have dolphins and sea lions and they do a show for you, too. It was almost like being back at Sea World, but on a much smaller scale. This aquarium was nice. It seemed a little run down, but they were also working on one part of it, so maybe they are working on sprucing it up a little. We spent a couple hours at the Gulfarium. We saw the shows, we saw the penguins get fed, we saw the otters play with ice, and we looked at all of the other animal exhibits. It was a nice time and I was happy to be spending time with my niece. When we were finished at the Gulfarium, we loaded up and headed back to Pace. When my sister and brother-in-law got off work we went out to eat at a really good BBQ place, and I can not remember the name of it for anything. When we got back to their house, we stayed up talking for a while and then headed to bed. It was an early day for everyone, as they had to go to work and we were hitting the road again.

 

Wednesday, June 25, 2014 (Day 13)

 

On the road again! We stopped at McD’s this morning and actually ate in the car because it was pouring rain in Pace, FL and I didn’t want to get out and get soaking wet. So, we got something to eat and then headed north. It was strange putting “home” in the GPS after using it to go so many other places in the last couple of weeks. We drove and drove and we only had one more stop to make, besides the normal road trip pit stops. Once we were about 7 hours into our drive and in Kentucky, we stopped at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green. I had never been here, and Jeremy had been here once about 20 years ago. So, we took a couple of hours to explore this museum. The most interesting part to me was definitely the sink hole and then being able to see the cars that they pulled out of the sink hole and the condition that they are in. It’s crazy how things like that can happen. Once we finished the tour of the museum and stopped by the gift shop, we loaded up and headed on home. We were only about 3 hours or so away at that point. We arrived home about 9 p.m. that night. The kitty cats were happy to see us, and we were happy to see them, too!

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the report!

[rilco33647]

Sounds like a great time!! Thanks for sharing!

[Lionesss]

WOW

 

Power packed review.

 

 

Very very nice!

 

The same cruise we will be re-experiencing in 29 days.

 

Thanks

 

Sea Ya

[dacsmom]

Thanks for the review, did you reserve the massage on Labadee in advance?

[EMcCruiser]

Thanks for the review, did you reserve the massage on Labadee in advance?

 

 

We just went down to the spa on the first day of the cruise and asked about getting a couples massage on the beach. It was fabulous, once we found the location. :)

 

 

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