Cheapo dad’s trip report on Allure of the Seas sailing December 14, 2014

[beachbell]

Ok, this made me laugh! Well, actually I have enjoyed all of your review and laughed before when reading, but this brought me out of 'lurkdom' since my DH and I have had similar conversations and made similar comments.

 

Although I am more 'administratively retentive' than 'financially' I do love me some numbers! Our family of 4 (including 2 teenagers) did an Allure cruise for March break last year, and we loved it so much we are heading back this March break to check out the Oasis. I did a cruise report on another board last year, and my spread sheet looked similar to yours - but being an 'admin type', I made my schedule in Word :). And yes, I already have a spread sheet made for our Oasis cruise, lots of pretty colours too.

 

Bottom line we are enjoying your review - I say we, since although I am reading it, every time I laugh I end up having to pass my iPad to DH - it is easier than explaining myself! And yes, that means he has read quite a lot of your review now as well! We also understand the 'camera concepts' you bring up, since we usually travel with a Canon DSLR, an Olympus waterproof camera, and a point and shoot Nikon - and DH grumbles when he has to deal with the time change issues.

 

Looking forward to 'the rest of the story'.

 

Disney Sheep can you please point us to the website of your review of the Allure from last year as my family and I are going to be on the Allure for Spring break this year?

[bobmacliberty]

Yahoooo!!! I finally caught up with you in this review. I have been reading (when I can) for 2 days now. Love your review. We will be on Allure with the crowds for spring break 2015 and counting down every day. Take your time on finishing this review, we don't sail until 3/29. This review is really helping me get through our countdown and prepare. (First time peasant RCI cruisers) You mentioned that Chicago is Rated R, we have it booked with our (2) 14 year olds that will be with us. Do you have any details on why it is R? This may influence our decision to see. Thanks for all the effort and time you are putting into this!

 

Sorry to interrupt Harry's outstanding story, but I wanted to add my perspective on kids and Chicago. Every kid is different, and every parent has a different way of thinking about what's right for their kids, so hopefully another "data point" will help you.

 

We took our then 13 and 16 year old daughters when we were on the Allure and they loved the show. My then 13 year old dances competitively and she really wanted to see the dancing. The theme is definitely mature (adultery, murder) but there's no nudity or swearing. Depending on you perspective, you might think that some of the women are scantily clad (although not much different from many dancers). There is also some innuendo in the dialog/songs. I figured that it was stuff that my daughters had already heard anyway, although I later found that my younger daughter said some of it went right over her head. I took several pictures if you want to get a more visual feel. Jump to posting #34 here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1430874

 

Back to Harry. Bring on Cozumel!

[harryfat1]

Well, *I* think it is interesting. Agriculture, remember? And I inspect a branch of the company, Ambius that did the original planting/design/living wall for Oasis and Allure. It will be a tour we will take when we sail on the big ships. Thanks. :)

 

I was waiting for my morning coffee to brew when I read your post and I got excited for a millisecond when I thought you were excited about my windjammer capacity analysis but after more close reading it was about agriculture…:p

 

Oh, I bet you can spend forever talking to those guys when you are on the ship about landscaping. I will have the rest of the central park pics uploaded later today

[harryfat1]

Just for the record, Harry, I am also laughing (at the appropriate moments) when reading your reviews. And so are the 66,600 or so people who are following this. :D

 

I believe that RCI thought the other dining venues around the ship would relieve the pressure from the WJ. Other ships have fewer choices, so the WJ had to be larger. Obviously, they thought wrong, as the WJ gets quite crowded at certain times. Your observations about timing to avoid crowds is spot on, and we do a lot of that, as well. We do our part to alleviate crowding -- we have never gone to the WJ on either Oasis or Allure (other than the time I stepped inside to take photos). You're welcome. :rolleyes: :D

 

I will be sure to book your comedy show next time we sail with you and your family!

 

Hi, Karen,

 

As always, thank you for following along and providing me insights from your RCI experience.

 

Part of the issue is many people have been “hard wired” to make a bees line for the buffet upon embarkation if they have sailed with other cruise lines previously. It doesn’t matter to them if RCI has other smaller eatery options along the way. Buffet is their target.

 

Also I think RCI is a victim of its own success in making the Oasis class ship such a different experience, they are bringing in people from all over the world that have never thought they would be on a cruise ship. This class of ship is especially popular with the overseas Chinese crowd especially during the February period on the lunar New Year period. People from overseas have different food taste and they will prefer the variety of the buffet over other set type of menu elsewhere that only serves burgers or hot dogs or sandwiches.

 

Finally, especially on the holiday cruises where you easily have 3 or more generations of cruisers in the big groups, it’s much easier to please them in a buffet.

 

I haven't checked Quantum's buffet capacity but will be interested to see how they handle the crowd at the buffet when she moves to China later this year.

[petesweet]

Have a wonderful cruise. Hope you enjoy the ship as much as we did. I will try to go as far as I can by Thursday so you can see what we did.

 

Yes, take pictures by all means. After the cruise is over, all you have left are photo memories so take as many as you can.

 

Wish that's all I had left after my cruise last week. I found a few extra pounds somewhere!!:(

 

Kathy

[travelgoddess1]

Hi, Karen,

 

As always, thank you for following along and providing me insights from your RCI experience.

 

Part of the issue is many people have been “hard wired” to make a bees line for the buffet upon embarkation if they have sailed with other cruise lines previously. It doesn’t matter to them if RCI has other smaller eatery options along the way. Buffet is their target.

 

Also I think RCI is a victim of its own success in making the Oasis class ship such a different experience, they are bringing in people from all over the world that have never thought they would be on a cruise ship. This class of ship is especially popular with the overseas Chinese crowd especially during the February period on the lunar New Year period. People from overseas have different food taste and they will prefer the variety of the buffet over other set type of menu elsewhere that only serves burgers or hot dogs or sandwiches.

 

Finally, especially on the holiday cruises where you easily have 3 or more generations of cruisers in the big groups, it’s much easier to please them in a buffet.

 

I haven't checked Quantum's buffet capacity but will be interested to see how they handle the crowd at the buffet when she moves to China later this year.

 

You make excellent points. I think Royal Caribbean could use you as a consultant. :) While we have seen the Quantum's Windjammer, I don't have the specifics as to capacity, or details on how crowded it gets. It was beautiful, and seemed to be well laid out.

[harryfat1]

Loving this review. You are so funny and you can definitely count me into the Friends of Excel group :-) it might or might not be one of my favorite things to create Excel tracking sheets for everything. My DW thinks I'm crazy, but hey how else would I know my vacation utilization rate for any given year and the percent that is on a real vacation vs other life stuff :-P

 

I've become slightly addicted to reading your review and literally spent a good chunk of yesterday reliving your cruise experience. When I first clicked on this and saw the over 400 posts there was no way I thought we would still be on the review or digest should I say (?) and very interested by the end!

 

I now really want to cruise on the Oasis/Allure, but I am also excited for our first RCCL cruise on the Freedom this September :-) I am definitely in the category of this is where I want to go and this is the best value to get me there. We use Costco Travel and we got a screaming good deal on the Freedom cruise :-) not that I monitor cruise prices weekly, daily, hourly after booking or anything.......

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

Upcoming Booked Cruises:

 

Princess Cruise Line- Regal Princess departing March 22, 2015 (Eastern Caribbean)

Royal Caribbean Cruise Line- Freedom of the Seas departing September 27, 2015 (Western Caribbean)

 

Past Cruises:

 

Princess Cruise Line- Grand Princess in May of 2001 (Eastern Caribbean)

Disney Cruise Line- Disney Magic in February 1999 (Bahamas)

 

Hi,

 

Another fellow “Friends of Excel & Schedules” member! Good to join the group.

 

So what are you saying about the 400+ posts? No way any sane person can take this long to describe his boring vacation experience? In theory I could have made it easily 1,000 plus posts if I just have 1 picture per post – that would make a heck of a lot of scrolling down…:p

 

Freedom class is very nice – especially since she is having dry-dock now, you will be getting a newly revised ship. I have only been on the Voyager class with the Mariner in 2010. We had the Promenade view back then overlooking the people below and my kids loved that.

 

If you like to track price movements, look for them around the final payment time frame as that’s when others have to either pay up or give up their reservations. If a large number of people give up their cabins, RCI will need to drop prices in order to move them.

 

That’s what happened to our cruise as we had already made final payment on the 2 connecting central park view cabins (CV) but with the price dropping, we were able to get the Boardwalk balcony view for only $20/pp upgrade. Best $20 I have ever spent given how much we used the balcony to people watch below and access to the secret balcony.

 

Have a great cruise.

[harryfat1]

Sorry to interrupt Harry's outstanding story, but I wanted to add my perspective on kids and Chicago. Every kid is different, and every parent has a different way of thinking about what's right for their kids, so hopefully another "data point" will help you.

 

We took our then 13 and 16 year old daughters when we were on the Allure and they loved the show. My then 13 year old dances competitively and she really wanted to see the dancing. The theme is definitely mature (adultery, murder) but there's no nudity or swearing. Depending on you perspective, you might think that some of the women are scantily clad (although not much different from many dancers). There is also some innuendo in the dialog/songs. I figured that it was stuff that my daughters had already heard anyway, although I later found that my younger daughter said some of it went right over her head. I took several pictures if you want to get a more visual feel. Jump to posting #34 here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1430874

 

Back to Harry. Bring on Cozumel!

 

Thanks for your input on Chicago. We have an 11 year old in our group so we thought he was a little too young for this and we opted out. Every family can decide what works best for them. If unsure, just reserve the seats and sit in aisle toward the side/back and can leave the show easily if it’s not to your liking.

 

Cozumel? Not yet. Need to upload the central park pics for Coralc first.

[harryfat1]

Wish that's all I had left after my cruise last week. I found a few extra pounds somewhere!!:(

 

Kathy

 

Welcome back. Hope you had a great cruise.

 

I got rounder myself when I came back – from all the pre-dinner snacks at the RP.

[cruisemeister8]

Hi Harry,

 

Another lurker coming out of your 67,000 viewers. I just wanted to say that I love this story.

 

One, it takes me back to relive our trip on Allure a couple of years ago.

 

Two, it's very informative and entertaining. I love the details like your WJ seating analysis and blah, blah, blah about the garden tour. (I never knew they switched out plants that often or that that thing is a crane up there. I thought it was some sort of satellite communication thingamabob. Maybe I should have taken the garden tour instead of visiting the uncles on sea days.) I digress.

 

Three, I relate, as your humor is similar to mine. (I think the crack about "why are you getting stock tips from a stranger" brought me out of the mysterious, lurking shadows.)

 

Four, you're as anal of a photographer as I am. I thought I was the only one who took pictures down the viewfinders of the Small Wonders. Nope! CC is full of members of the Society of the Photographically Obsessed. It's our mission to document every square inch of the ship in a week or less and end of with more pictures of "water" and "dirt" than the next guy. We need a support group.

 

And lastly, you better finish this story and not leave us hanging like other trip reports!! When I started this story it was at 20+ pages, and I honestly thought that for a guy who went before Christmas, the story would be complete by the time I slogged through the the last page. Nope! I've been caught up for several days, and now *have* to come back everyday to see the latest. Please keep up your details and don't cheat us at the end. I appreciate how much time it takes to write all this, because it's exactly how I write. And I'm sure your kids want to see you sometime before the next vacation. And the wife probably has a chore or two for you as well. But just another word of encouragement. This is great! Thanks for the entertainment.

 

Signed on behalf of,

Your Loyal Lurkers

[harryfat1]

You make excellent points. I think Royal Caribbean could use you as a consultant. :) While we have seen the Quantum's Windjammer, I don't have the specifics as to capacity, or details on how crowded it gets. It was beautiful, and seemed to be well laid out.

 

Since you are VIP status with RCI, next time you are on ether Oasis/Allure, I would be interested if the hotel director can share with you if the Oasis class of ships attract more overseas crowd than other class of ships fleet wide.

 

My bet is this class of ships grabs the most headlines overseas and the ship must be “special” to get people to fly 14+ hours out for a cruise. Whereas they are not likely to come all the way to Florida for an average Visions class ship that they can get to closer to their home but they are willing to make the journey for a mega ship.

 

If my assumption is true, then the taste buds/eating habits of the Oasis class of ships could be different than the other ships that has more north American cruisers and that would be an interesting discussion with the hotel director in knowing what type of food “sells” well and what won’t sell well comparing an Oasis class to others.

[harryfat1]

Hi Harry,

 

Another lurker coming out of your 67,000 viewers. I just wanted to say that I love this story.

 

One, it takes me back to relive our trip on Allure a couple of years ago.

 

Two, it's very informative and entertaining. I love the details like your WJ seating analysis and blah, blah, blah about the garden tour. (I never knew they switched out plants that often or that that thing is a crane up there. I thought it was some sort of satellite communication thingamabob. Maybe I should have taken the garden tour instead of visiting the uncles on sea days.) I digress.

 

Three, I relate, as your humor is similar to mine. (I think the crack about "why are you getting stock tips from a stranger" brought me out of the mysterious, lurking shadows.)

 

Four, you're as anal of a photographer as I am. I thought I was the only one who took pictures down the viewfinders of the Small Wonders. Nope! CC is full of members of the Society of the Photographically Obsessed. It's our mission to document every square inch of the ship in a week or less and end of with more pictures of "water" and "dirt" than the next guy. We need a support group.

 

And lastly, you better finish this story and not leave us hanging like other trip reports!! When I started this story it was at 20+ pages, and I honestly thought that for a guy who went before Christmas, the story would be complete by the time I slogged through the the last page. Nope! I've been caught up for several days, and now *have* to come back everyday to see the latest. Please keep up your details and don't cheat us at the end. I appreciate how much time it takes to write all this, because it's exactly how I write. And I'm sure your kids want to see you sometime before the next vacation. And the wife probably has a chore or two for you as well. But just another word of encouragement. This is great! Thanks for the entertainment.

 

Signed on behalf of,

Your Loyal Lurkers

 

Hi,

 

You are my “evil twin” in the lurker dome in sharing my various bad habits/OCD syndromes.

 

That’s what I like about cruise critics. No matter how bad your friends/family members at home think you need professional help in being anal/OCD in your vacation planning, you log onto these boards and voila, you find 10 people that are much worse than you and then you can sleep comfortably at night thinking you are not that anal/OCD after all. Best of all, it’s free type of counseling.

 

To the extent I still remember, I will drop in the various useless detail in my posts as another evil twin/clone in the lurker dome will need this info on their next cruise. I didn’t bring laptop or write down any daily journal during the cruise. These are all from my head, which is why I have gaps in memory – old age.

 

As you said, it does take time to sort out the various pictures we have and decide what to upload and then write a post to connect the pictures into somewhat cohesive reading. Maybe even add in a dumb joke or two to break the monotony of recounting the “days of our lives”. Of course, there are many real life obligations to attend to on the side as well but unless something bad happens to me, I will complete this. Will just slog away in my bean counting mentality of going step by step in my snail pace.

[harryfat1]

OK, Continue on with the central park tour

 

All the plants have name and background on them

 

 

 

 

 

Holiday season

 

[harryfat1]

For those folks that likes photography, I had grandiose plans for the cruise to wake up butt early daily to take pictures of sunrise and then come out to central park to take pictures of flowers and get great bokeh with the SLR and even thought I could take pictures of the moon at night as with the Caribbean “clear sky” (never thought I would get rain clouds instead) that I couldn’t get from home from the bay area fog, I could get great moon shots.

 

Yeah, right. That was the plan/dream. The reality was that I slept in and did none of what I planned to do. This was my one and only photo shoot at central park. All the filters that I brought along in my discussion with Tom previously sat mostly untouched. Any rate, I am sure nobody cares. Onward with the pics.

 

 

That thing that goes across the top is a wind breaker to protect the area from having too much strong wind from coming down the back

 

 

Hey, wow, check this out. How about that? Take a picture of “dirt” (hand washing fountain) in case you don’t have one in your area

 

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Birds

 

 

More birds

 

 

And more

 

[harryfat1]

Last bird pic

 

 

People getting breakfast at Park Café

 

 

Looking up the living wall

 

 

 

Edges look kind of brown to me

 

 

[harryfat1]

Display signs throughout the area to show you what each types of plants are

 

 

 

I like how they connect Central Park area with the RP down below. Just wait for the Rising Tide Bar to come up and you can ride the “elevator” down in style

 

 

Drainage area – obviously since this area is outdoors, when it rained like it did yesterday, there will be water accumulation in the area and they need to have drainages throughout the park for run offs. The water goes down into the deep part of the ship below

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

Ahh, here is the stowaway butterfly

 

 

Close up from different angle

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Chairs in the area

 

 

 

 

 

 

On day 1 of the cruise, I had a selfie using the glass reflection of the windjammer area. This time I have a selfie with the ball in central park. Yeah, yeah, go ahead and steal the idea for your cruise. Note the umbrellas in the background - if only I can fit it into my suitcase…

 

 

That pretty much wraps up the central park tour.

 

I need to help with my kid’s science project this afternoon so will upload more pics when I get a chance later tonight

[Coralc]

Thank You! Those are beautiful photos. It is amazing to have all that on a ship. And much more interesting than a lawn, like Celebrity has. :D

[skylight]

Hi Harry loving your cruise review and great pictures of Allure we are going end of May. Just a question are all the power points in the cabin for USA or is there a European one as well. On Celebrity they have both. Thank You.:)

[harryfat1]

Hi Harry loving your cruise review and great pictures of Allure we are going end of May. Just a question are all the power points in the cabin for USA or is there a European one as well. On Celebrity they have both. Thank You.:)

 

Thanks for the kind words.

 

Here is Royal's official info on voltage:

 

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/customersupport/faq/details.do?pagename=frequently_asked_questions&pnav=5&pnav=2&faqType=faq&faqSubjectId=334&faqSubjectName=Life+Onboard&faqId=320

[janabelle61]

I hear whole lot of snoring and crickets in the background…

 

No snoring at all Harry! I'm another lurker - and a tax accountant/analyst who is loving the details!! Also a member of the future "Friends of Excel" club :)

 

It would take some convincing to get me off the Radiance class ships where I can see the water everywhere, but your review of the Allure is the best I've read and really gives us the sense of what life on board is like!

 

Thanks for taking the time :)

[bobmacliberty]

 

On day 1 of the cruise, I had a selfie using the glass reflection of the windjammer area. This time I have a selfie with the ball in central park. Yeah, yeah, go ahead and steal the idea for your cruise. Note the umbrellas in the background - if only I can fit it into my suitcase…

 

 

 

Great minds think alike. :D

 

 

Loving your review! Very entertaining. You're also bringing back great memories that I haven't thought about in quite a while.

[Disney Sheep]

Disney Sheep can you please point us to the website of your review of the Allure from last year as my family and I are going to be on the Allure for Spring break this year?

 

Since I am not sure of the specific etiquette on this board, I will simply say if you Google, Disney Sheep Go Rogue an Allure-ing trip report you should find it. In general, I compare our Allure cruise to our previous cruise experiences (see my user name :).

 

On this board I found FamilyGoBoston, Gambee and Middle Aged Drama Queen to have great reviews. FamilyGo Boston's was a family vacation with teenagers, so that was a good basis for us.

 

Now, back to Harry's entertaining tales. DH and I hope to check out the Central Park tour in March.

[harryfat1]

No snoring at all Harry! I'm another lurker - and a tax accountant/analyst who is loving the details!! Also a member of the future "Friends of Excel" club :)

 

It would take some convincing to get me off the Radiance class ships where I can see the water everywhere, but your review of the Allure is the best I've read and really gives us the sense of what life on board is like!

 

Thanks for taking the time :)

 

Hey,

 

A fellow tax colleague. Let’s talk shop and we can REALLY put everyone to asleep.

 

Thanks for the high praises. Actually when I started to write this, I knew I was going to be detailed but didn’t think I would get THIS detailed as I thought I would be just writing mainly to my evil twin for him/her to gather info for their upcoming cruise.

 

But as I read other folks like yourself commenting that you are just reading along to have an idea what life is like on board and you may never be onboard yourself, then I figure I can add in “slightly” more details and “just a few more pictures for people who will never be on the ship” and here we are still on day 5 and me slogging along after hundreds of picture uploads. Glad my effort is worthwhile.