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

[cruisemeister8]

What’s the point of underwater camera if I didn’t show few underwater shots:

 

 

 

Is that a PORT HOLE in the pool?? I wonder what it looks at? I don't recall anything on your Small Wonder list requiring a dip in the pool. LOL.

 

I don't know if you ever noticed, or not. But it took me nearly all week to figure it out. There was something odd about the top deck balconies in Central Park. They didn't look like normal balconies. They were missing something. Ah ha! Furniture. And doors. Why would they have empty balconies? Duh! The pools on the deck above dip down into the lower deck. The empty balconies are facades on the outside so CP looks complete, but the pool is behind that wall! Now you're going to have to go back through your pictures and look, aren't you Harry?

 

So there's another secret tip to share with uber-planners. If I recall, the pool deck is 15. (adjust the numbers if I'm off a deck) So there would be no CP balconies directly below on 14. However, the CP balconies on 13 would actually have the pool as your roof! Interesting, huh? Or not.

[janabelle61]

I think Royal Caribbean is probably quite pleased with your review of Allure of the Seas and 93,000+ page views. :D

 

I second that! You can refer to RC any way you want if you have that many viewings of your fabulous review with all the pictures we've had the opportunity to see. Plus, I think you've single-handedly brought about the 'Friends of Excel' meeting as the next must-do meeting onboard :)

 

As a confirmed 'small ship' cruiser, your review really has changed my perspective on sailing a 'big ship' and I've enjoyed following along. It's an experience I'll definitely look forward to sometime soon!

[cruisemeister8]

 

Is this the new add-on of additional rooms on Navigator? I know you may not know much about Navigator, and I've lost track of which ship has been redone. But it sure looks different up there from what I remember of her sister, Mariner. Granted, I've slept a few times since we rode Mariner, but I don't remember a wiggly jogging track. Upon further examination, it looks like the front part of that deck has that new, wide, hat-like room expansion that I've read about. It's nice to be able to see that up close and get a better sense of what it is, rather than just reading about it and seeing deck plans.

 

One deck below, I'm happy to see the side door is still there to lead out on the side deck that went around front to "peeping window" above the bridge. That was one of my favorite features of that class ship. Sorry I don't have a nifty red pen to draw arrows to what I'm seeing in the pictures.

 

Again, thank you. Your detailed pictures are appreciated by many.

[SilkySal]

Hi Harry,

 

Your report has been awesome. I am going to be sad for it to come to an end.

 

We will be on Allure March 8 and I have a question about the secret balconies that you talk about. Do you have to have a cabin near where your cabins were located to access the secret balconies or are they available for everyone to get to? You mentioned that you liked your room location in part because of the secret balconies, so I wasn't sure if that was because they were so close to you or if they can only be accessed by a room in that area. We will be in a GS on deck 10.

 

Thanks again for all of the information. I have my color coded spreadsheet all ready to go, thanks to you.

 

Hey Kim! We are cruising on March 8 with you, along with lots of others waiting to meet you and answer any questions!:confused: Head on over to Royal Caribbean Meet & Mingle Roll Calls to meet your fellow cruisers, and don't forget to register for the official Meet & Mingle free party to meet all of us in the flesh!:cool: I've attached your cruise week "thread" below!;)

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2008683&page=33

 

Our group cabins are in the aft on Deck 11, so may see you on our "secret" balcony!! Sorry for interruption Harry!

Edited February 1, 2015 by SilkySal
add sentence

[harryfat1]

I'm on the eastbound transatlantic in April (right before drydock), and a few people on our rollthread with aft cabins on decks 11,12 have been moved to allow for preparatory construction :( It looks like work will be starting on converting them to suites as we're crossing.

 

I just hope I get a chance to see them as they are, but if they're going to the expense of bringing construction workers on the transatlantic, they'll probably want them working from day one, and probably won't want me stomping around in the middle of their work.

 

Oh, guess they are starting work on the suites before dry-dock. Which makes sense as I recall on the Oasis when she came back to US on the TA in October, I was mildly following couple “live” threads from people on her and they mentioned that during the dry dock, the secret balcony hasn’t 100% been converted. They were working on it during the TA. So that implies the conversion takes a while to do.

 

If you are interested, go do a key work search for Oasis and go back to October time frame and I want to say some cruisers were able to sneak in some peeks of the construction in progress with pictures.

 

Assuming your sailing is the first one that they will start work on, maybe you can still go there as soon as you board and they open the cabins at 1 PM. Make your way down to the secret balcony area that afternoon to see things as the new construction crew might not be ready to set up that early as they are just getting on board the same time as you.

 

Don’t know if you read my post from awhile back, but I posted the info for a port web cam wave request and if they still allow you access to secret balcony on the port side on sail away time, be sure to go out there to have a video of you there on decks 11 or 12. That will be the last sail away on the Allure with people having access to that area – very sad. RCI are greed gravy sucking pigs in taking away these public areas.

[harryfat1]

Just getting off the Allure this morning, be warned there have been several cases of norovirus reported. You won't get it if you use napkins to handle tongs at buffets, sanitize hands everywhere and don't touch elevator buttons and handrails with your bare hands. We avoided it and had a great time. The ship employees are constantly wiping down everything. You know it is brought on board with passengers again and again.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Thanks for the info. I posted the letter from captain saying there was noro on previous sailing when we received when we first arrived at the cruise terminal back in December so it’s been going around for a while.

 

The people that are boarding today are told by RCI to go couple hours later as the ship will undergo ”deep cleaning” as soon as everyone is off the ship trying to kill as much of the germs as possible.

[harryfat1]

Harry,

 

Did you make reservations for any of the shows online prior to boarding? Just wondering if those group of seats you showed blocked off in the prime real estate of the theatre were for reservations.

 

Thanks again for this wonderful review.

 

For show reservations, about 2 to 3 months prior to your sailing, you can log into your sailing account online and reserve a “time slot” for a show. I am attaching a schedule from Allure for 2014 but I think 2015 should be similar until dry-dock.

 

So you reserve a time, say 9 PM for Blue Planet. When you get to the show, at the front entrance are workers with portable hand scanners to scan your sail card that verifies you are reserved for the show. If you don’t have reservation, you have to stand on the “stand by” line that area allowed to enter 10 minutes prior to the show, if there are any seats/no shows from people that had reserved this time slot.

 

Keep in mind you are reserving a “time slot”, not a seat so you still have to go early if you want a particular type of seat/location. At the Aqua theater and the main show theater, they rope off some prime real estate for people with the gold cards to sit in. Those seats will open up also at the 10 minute break. So in theory a stand by person can get lucky and get the golden seats if there are enough no shows. Just have to invest a lot of cruise time to stand in line for a show that you may not even get to go in.

 

This also implies you MUST go to the show at least 10 minutes prior to the show, even if you made reservations, as they will give up your space to stand by lines people.

Allure of the seas showtime.pdf

[beachseasand]

Harry,

 

Did you make reservations for any of the shows online prior to boarding? Just wondering if those group of seats you showed blocked off in the prime real estate of the theatre were for reservations.

 

Thanks again for this wonderful review.

 

You can ignore my comment about the prime real estate. My daughter set me straight stating how that area is for suite people not us peons. I forget cruise lines are like the air lines you have to be VIP or squeeze in with the rest of the cattle.

[beachseasand]

Thanks Harry that helps me a lot. We have made the reservations. Now I have a better understanding of how early we need to get there.

 

New to this making reservations for everything, but I think it will be great time.

:D

[harryfat1]

Is that a PORT HOLE in the pool?? I wonder what it looks at? I don't recall anything on your Small Wonder list requiring a dip in the pool. LOL.

 

I don't know if you ever noticed, or not. But it took me nearly all week to figure it out. There was something odd about the top deck balconies in Central Park. They didn't look like normal balconies. They were missing something. Ah ha! Furniture. And doors. Why would they have empty balconies? Duh! The pools on the deck above dip down into the lower deck. The empty balconies are facades on the outside so CP looks complete, but the pool is behind that wall! Now you're going to have to go back through your pictures and look, aren't you Harry?

 

So there's another secret tip to share with uber-planners. If I recall, the pool deck is 15. (adjust the numbers if I'm off a deck) So there would be no CP balconies directly below on 14. However, the CP balconies on 13 would actually have the pool as your roof! Interesting, huh? Or not.

 

I believe RCI will be making those portholes to be new virtual submarine simulator rides after dry-dock. Similar to Disneyland where you board a submarine, with this, they have a cam underneath and people can pretend they are riding in a submarine during the cruise and notice some big hairy legged sea monsters swim by...

 

 

Damn you, of course you know I would need to scour my thousands of pictures to look for these and CP is one area I have the least number of pictures. Once I found it, you KNOW I would feel obligated to highlight and show it so the rest of people can see it.

 

So for everyone else, look at the red box area – notice there are no chairs/tables/partitions outside and the inside is a blank wall with no access?

 

 

 

 

Good eye. I saw them also from other people’s pictures but never really thought about it as I just thought they were used to storage area.

 

 

I am also attaching the deck plans for 12 and 14. See the light green central area (C1). Look for cabin 12593 toward the front center on deck 12. Then go to deck 14, right above 12593, you would find 14593, but then you would have nothing next to that? So layer deck 12 plan on top of 14 and you will see 14 has many “gaps” in the light green cabin areas – those are the blocked off cabins…

 

 

All this work/discussion and I bet only 2 people cares…

 

-

al_deck12_v2013_sep.pdf

al_deck14_v2013_sep.pdf

Edited February 1, 2015 by harryfat1

[harryfat1]

I second that! You can refer to RC any way you want if you have that many viewings of your fabulous review with all the pictures we've had the opportunity to see. Plus, I think you've single-handedly brought about the 'Friends of Excel' meeting as the next must-do meeting onboard :)

 

As a confirmed 'small ship' cruiser, your review really has changed my perspective on sailing a 'big ship' and I've enjoyed following along. It's an experience I'll definitely look forward to sometime soon!

 

Yes, these mega ship experiences are different. I started cruising back in the 90's on the 40K+ ton small ships so not as if I started and only like big ships. There are good and bad about the big ships. Everyone can decide what works the best for them, but I just think people should at least try to keep an open mind about each type of ship instead of a quick knee jerk reaction - this is not for me - and walk away.

[harryfat1]

Is this the new add-on of additional rooms on Navigator? I know you may not know much about Navigator, and I've lost track of which ship has been redone. But it sure looks different up there from what I remember of her sister, Mariner. Granted, I've slept a few times since we rode Mariner, but I don't remember a wiggly jogging track. Upon further examination, it looks like the front part of that deck has that new, wide, hat-like room expansion that I've read about. It's nice to be able to see that up close and get a better sense of what it is, rather than just reading about it and seeing deck plans.

 

One deck below, I'm happy to see the side door is still there to lead out on the side deck that went around front to "peeping window" above the bridge. That was one of my favorite features of that class ship. Sorry I don't have a nifty red pen to draw arrows to what I'm seeing in the pictures.

 

Again, thank you. Your detailed pictures are appreciated by many.

 

Gotta run to take my son to basketball practice. Chat later.

 

Look at this wiki piece on what changes they made to the ship in 2014

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Navigator_of_the_Seas

[RCJ1]

 

Damn you, of course you know I would need to scour my thousands of pictures to look for these and CP is one area I have the least number of pictures. Once I found it, you KNOW I would feel obligated to highlight and show it so the rest of people can see it.

 

So for everyone else, look at the red box area – notice there are no chairs/tables/partitions outside and the inside is a blank wall with no access?

 

 

 

 

Good eye. I saw them also from other people’s pictures but never really thought about it as I just thought they were used to storage area.

 

 

I am also attaching the deck plans for 12 and 14. See the light green central area (C1). Look for cabin 12593 toward the front center on deck 12. Then go to deck 14, right above 12593, you would find 14593, but then you would have nothing next to that? So layer deck 12 plan on top of 14 and you will see 14 has many “gaps” in the light green cabin areas – those are the blocked off cabins…

 

 

All this work/discussion and I bet only 2 people cares…

 

-

 

I am one of the two Harry, we are in 12599 next week. Keep up the good work

 

RCJ

[harryfat1]

 

Damn you, of course you know I would need to scour my thousands of pictures to look for these and CP is one area I have the least number of pictures. Once I found it, you KNOW I would feel obligated to highlight and show it so the rest of people can see it.

 

So for everyone else, look at the red box area – notice there are no chairs/tables/partitions outside and the inside is a blank wall with no access?

 

 

 

 

Good eye. I saw them also from other people’s pictures but never really thought about it as I just thought they were used to storage area.

 

 

I am also attaching the deck plans for 12 and 14. See the light green central area (C1). Look for cabin 12593 toward the front center on deck 12. Then go to deck 14, right above 12593, you would find 14593, but then you would have nothing next to that? So layer deck 12 plan on top of 14 and you will see 14 has many “gaps” in the light green cabin areas – those are the blocked off cabins…

 

 

All this work/discussion and I bet only 2 people cares…

 

-

 

I am one of the two Harry, we are in 12599 next week. Keep up the good work

 

RCJ

Glad this effort was useful to someone else and not just 2 photo geeks looking at every picture with a magnifying glass.

[harryfat1]

Hey Kim! We are cruising on March 8 with you, along with lots of others waiting to meet you and answer any questions!:confused: Head on over to Royal Caribbean Meet & Mingle Roll Calls to meet your fellow cruisers, and don't forget to register for the official Meet & Mingle free party to meet all of us in the flesh!:cool: I've attached your cruise week "thread" below!;)

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2008683&page=33

 

Our group cabins are in the aft on Deck 11, so may see you on our "secret" balcony!! Sorry for interruption Harry!

No worries. Glad to have people connect to their roll calls and also sign up for the meeting and mingle. I signed up for ours but could not wake up in time for it as ours was day 2 morning and we were still recovering from time zone changes.

 

For all those that attend the meeting on the ship, each person gets a freebie gift from royal and there is a drawing for freebies as well.

[janeyzee]

Saw this photo at one of the staircases. Thought it was interesting. I am sure you might feel otherwise. Art/photos are pretty subjective.

 

 

 

I loved looking at the artwork in the stairwells and on the walls in the hallways too. I also found all the small wonders on Oasis during the Transatlantic cruise in October. Loved them all, even the strange ones.

[janeyzee]

I had an Andy Rooney moment and wondered how much Purell does RCI buy annually? For you young kids reading this and don’t know who Andy Rooney is, he was the backup singer to Justin Bieber.

 

OMG I am cracking up!!! and yes laughing out loud! I'm 60 and I do remember Andy Rooney and I now have this vision of him singing behind Justin Bieber and it's still making me laugh. Thanks for the hilarity today.

[janeyzee]

 

I loved that guy! He did our tour in November 2013 on Allure and I thought he was great. Loved the tour, took it on Oasis too. As you said, free is good!

[mechcc]

 

All this work/discussion and I bet only 2 people cares…

 

-

 

Sorry Harry, you were off by at least 50% as I am the 3rd person who found this interesting.

 

And loved the aft pictures of the Allure next to the Navigator in Cozumal. Our next cruise is on the Navigator followed by the Oasis. So really don't care whose butt is bigger but loved the perspective and appreciate the pictures.

 

Shared the big win of the Coco Loco with several people - all thought your storytelling was wonderful.

[harryfat1]

Is this the new add-on of additional rooms on Navigator? I know you may not know much about Navigator, and I've lost track of which ship has been redone. But it sure looks different up there from what I remember of her sister, Mariner. Granted, I've slept a few times since we rode Mariner, but I don't remember a wiggly jogging track. Upon further examination, it looks like the front part of that deck has that new, wide, hat-like room expansion that I've read about. It's nice to be able to see that up close and get a better sense of what it is, rather than just reading about it and seeing deck plans.

 

One deck below, I'm happy to see the side door is still there to lead out on the side deck that went around front to "peeping window" above the bridge. That was one of my favorite features of that class ship. Sorry I don't have a nifty red pen to draw arrows to what I'm seeing in the pictures.

 

Again, thank you. Your detailed pictures are appreciated by many.

 

Sorry Harry, you were off by at least 50% as I am the 3rd person who found this interesting.

 

And loved the aft pictures of the Allure next to the Navigator in Cozumal. Our next cruise is on the Navigator followed by the Oasis. So really don't care whose butt is bigger but loved the perspective and appreciate the pictures.

 

Shared the big win of the Coco Loco with several people - all thought your storytelling was wonderful.

 

Per the wiki info, looks like they made changes and added new cabins to the Navigator.

 

I just figured no matter how many pictures you take on your cruise of your ship, you can’t take a picture of the ship itself as you need to be on another ship, which would be impossible to do the same week. So maybe the picture would be useful to somebody.

 

Guess I was wrong on the number of people that enjoy various interesting tidbits. Just figured that was already a well known info among the veteran cruisers and the newbies don’t know/don’t care. Glad to be wrong as I like info sharing.

 

If I was a drinker, I would have cashed in the Coco Loco winner number card. If you assume that is worth around $8+ to buy one brand new, it would still be cheaper than 2 Popsicle and then the whole family has something to eat/drink, but cheapo dad is thinking cash flow more than enjoyment.

[harryfat1]

I loved that guy! He did our tour in November 2013 on Allure and I thought he was great. Loved the tour, took it on Oasis too. As you said, free is good!

 

Yes, the landscape specialist was very good in his presentation. Passionate about his work. Will be interesting to see how much of the garden gets transformed when they move over to Europe for the summer. He said for Oasis, they removed up to 4,000 plants so that’s almost 1/3.

[harryfat1]

OK, trying to breathe after the exciting Superbowl ending. Doing some quiet cruise talk to calm the nerves.

 

Oh, one last comment on Blue Planet before I move on. For those that will be on the Allure soon, do note on the day 6 evening planner I scanned that for the 9 PM show, it mentioned in the calendar it is maxed out capacity.

 

Meaning everyone has already reserved the show either online or at the ship. So if you don’t have a reservation for the show, the odds of you seeing the show is not very high as you have to stand in the “stand by” line to see if there are any “no shows”. So if seeing this show is important to you, be sure to make reservations ahead of time.

 

The 9 PM show, for obvious reason is the most popular as is after the regular 6 Pm dinner seating. The 11 PM show is likely too late for little kids and some seniors. The final option is the 5 PM show on day 7, but you have a lot of things happening on day 7 so that’s not a great option but the best alternative if you don’t have a 9 PM reservation.

[harryfat1]

You would think after waking up early this morning, getting off the ship to the ruins and then walking around the island. After which we went swimming and now a show, it’s time to go to sleep. You would think wrong. Like I said, we don’t cruise for relaxation. Not our style. We have one more event to go to = GLOW party.

 

So what is this GLOW party thing? It’s like a neon disco party. Supposedly RCI stole this idea from another cruise line but I can’t confirm that. Matters not who got the idea from whom, what’s important is that Allure has it and it starts at 10 PM on day 6 for us. As I said in previous day’s report, I knew about this party and I bought some cheap neon sticks from Walmart just have something as I didn’t want to pay the hefty premium the ship charges but since we have some OBC to burn and the boys/wife think it’s nice to buy 1 set of stuff to share, we bought more stuff for the party.

 

After the Blue Planet, we rushed back to the cabin on the other end of the ship to get the stuff out. In hindsight, get all the stuff out before Blue Planet and have everything ready when you come back and get it as by time we had everything ready and distributed to everyone, we were late to the party.

 

Came back to the cabin to see our last set of towel animals for the cruiser – remember the RCI only has them on every other night, unlike other ships which are nightly.

 

 

The monkey started the GLOW party without us

 

 

OK, got all the GLOW party stuff and run back across the ship (dang, it’s a long walk at 10 PM after a full day already). The party is being held at Studio B – yeah, the ice skating rink but they covered it up and converted the area into a giant dance floor. When we got there, the party was already in full swing and the Bon Jovi song, ”Living on a prayer” was blasting away.

 

We started with the four of us on the dance floor – I took over camcorder duty as the younger one wanted to dance and my wife was taking pictures. Somewhere down the road, she got into the spirit of things and wanted to dance also. That mean I had a camcorder on my neck AND a full sized SLR also. But I somewhat manage to do couple dances even with all the stuff. As an added bonus, my wife brought in the inlaws were siting in the stands so you will see them in the pictures also. Most of the pictures are in different color shade – not done by me but they purposely changed the lighting so the GLOW accessories would stand out.

 

 

Note they sell the GLOW accessories at the party if you wanted some last minute

 

[harryfat1]

The boys with the GLOW accessories we bought the previous day

 

 

 

Here come the in-laws on the dance floor. Also note couple gals doing selfies in the background and me recording

 

 

 

Lots of cameras/camcorders at the scene

 

[Miryam1234]

Hi,

 

I figure you would be interested in all my pictures as we have been talking about them. I tossed my free Cozumel map as I knew I had a picture of one from the bus driver but I typically keep maps of many places we visited. Hey, even brought home the list of small wonders that I no longer needed so I can scan for a fellow cruiser (guess whom am I looking at?)…

.

 

Just blame me! I am still following, until the bitter end! I have learned tons of new information. I am going to be piggybacking on your ideas! :p

 

I love your wife's photo from the pre-Blue planet show, where your son is playing with the Earth!