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

[Mjoellnir]

Thank you for an excellent review Harry!

 

We are going on our honeymoon in just over a year with Independence, and I will most definitely use your review as a guide to Royal cruising :) And maybe even make my own review!

I am probably just as anal as you, so I have already started with excel sheets and I have even bought luggagetagholders from Cruisecritic ;)

[Miryam1234]

Ive enjoyed cruising with you and your happy family. Special Thanks to you Harry for the list of small wonders.

Save travels, take care!

[OttoCal]

Thanks a bunch, Harry! I really enjoyed looking at the new posts each morning to see what you did on your cruise. The photo interspersed with commentary made the review more enjoyable than a review that was heavy on one or the other.

Including pictures of your family really personalized the whole thing, which was nice.

 

Now... off I go on Independence this weekend, with an incomplete excel chart, only 1 excursion picked and My Time Dining with no reservations made. Although I like to over-plan for my adventures, this time it didn't work out that way. but that's OK too. It's still a vacation! :D

[janeyzee]

Feeds me – self-explanatory with all the food venues on the cruise

Relaxes me – these are the spa/beach/solarium/pool/water related activities

Entertains me – All the shows/parades/activities on the ship

Educate/enrich me – Learn new things while on cruise.

 

But each family/cruiser will allocate their time differently within the 4 buckets.

 

That's an interesting way of looking at it. I love the "R" part, we always relax on a cruise, usually on our balcony with a good book. "E" and "E" are important too, but now that I'm dieting the "F" is not as important (although I will be tempted and overindulge I'm sure. Leaving on 2/16 on Enchantment)

 

I agree, everyone will have their own cruise experience and thanks to you my next one will include the mini photos and a few other camera angles that I found interesting from your photos.

 

Great review, thanks for taking all of us along. Have a wonderful next vacation! I only wish there was a spot in CC for Road trips, I'd read along :)

[Megville]

I'm sad this review is over, but no worries Harry...this thread will live on for awhile. I am going back to search for that excel spreadsheet right now for my Oasis cruise in April. While I will spend most of my time on the "R" part of the trip (just the hubby; no kids this time), hearing about the "e" and "e" was different than any other review I've read. Well done, sir.

[cruisemeister8]

Thanks again, Harry. This has been fun. And the fact that you met up with your brother from another mother by the end of the story was just the cherry on top of the sundae!

 

Have a good time on your next family adventure. And I'm sure if there was a

"road trip critics" message board somewhere, you'd be sure to detail your trip to that audience as well. Let us know if you find one!

 

Take care and best to you and the family.

[IndyKat]

3 words for you Harry. BEST. REVIEW. EVER.

 

Now that I've said that, this has been the most informative & detailed Allure review I have read.

Thank you so much for all the tips you have given.

 

I look forward to your next cruising adventure.

All the best to you & your lovely family.:)

 

Kath

[rncruiser]

Thanks Harry for letting me re-live my cruise. I wish we had met on board. My husband would have been impressed to find someone who obsesses about cruising more than I do.

[bobmacliberty]

Standing. Applauding.

 

[harryfat1]

I'm sad this review has come to an end but wanted to thank-you one last time. It's been a great ride and I'll miss checking in every day to read the latest installment of "Harry's Family and their Marvelous Adventure"!

 

Thanks again for your information, your humor, and your willingness to share your family's vacation (and your family!) with us through pictures and your own, unique, narration.

 

Thanks again for your compliment. Glad you enjoyed the info.

 

Hope you do decide to book the Allure for a later cruise. The ship does have its short comings but it's a very different experience than your typical cruise ship. Have fun on the Serenade in couple months.

Edited February 12, 2015 by harryfat1

[harryfat1]

Thanks for all the time and effort it took for you to produce your trip report, I really enjoyed checking in nightly to checkout the new updates. Having been on both the Allure and the Oasis recently I really liked reliving the my past cruises. Best wishes to you and your family, and hope you do not have a National Lampoon type land vacation.

 

Thanks for following along. Glad I was able to bring you back to the ship to relive your previous vacation and not taking shoes off for TSA searches.

 

Maybe National Lampoon should have done a movie on vacationing on cruises…

[harryfat1]

Thank you for an excellent review Harry!

 

We are going on our honeymoon in just over a year with Independence, and I will most definitely use your review as a guide to Royal cruising :) And maybe even make my own review!

I am probably just as anal as you, so I have already started with excel sheets and I have even bought luggagetagholders from Cruisecritic ;)

 

Thank you for the compliment.

 

If you want to us some of my ideas for you vacation, be sure to jump up and down and dance when they call your group to board the ship. After the cruise, you can write in your trip report about the greedy gravy scum pigs of RCI in not giving you extra OBC and complain about being treated like peasant cruisers…

[harryfat1]

Ive enjoyed cruising with you and your happy family. Special Thanks to you Harry for the list of small wonders.

Save travels, take care!

 

Thanks for following along since the beginning. Hopefully they won’t change the small wonders during the TA/pre dry dock.

 

Maybe you still should stand in line at guest services to double check they hadn’t added any extra small wonder or two between December and May.

 

Be sure to give your husband the camera to have him take pictures of the men’s bathroom for your photo collection…

 

Have a great TA cruise

[harryfat1]

Thanks a bunch, Harry! I really enjoyed looking at the new posts each morning to see what you did on your cruise. The photo interspersed with commentary made the review more enjoyable than a review that was heavy on one or the other.

Including pictures of your family really personalized the whole thing, which was nice.

 

Now... off I go on Independence this weekend, with an incomplete excel chart, only 1 excursion picked and My Time Dining with no reservations made. Although I like to over-plan for my adventures, this time it didn't work out that way. but that's OK too. It's still a vacation! :D

 

Thanks for the kind words. Figure I add in some dumb jokes here and there keep things from being too boring in showing the days of our lives.

 

You have a wonderful time on your cruise. We only have 1 excursion ourselves so not like we had port intensive activities for our cruise. Just have a great time on your cruise and no need to over think it.

 

Our next cruise could be a last minute thing with less than 3 months to book everything as that’s probably the only way to get an affordable holiday cruise. Don’t be surprised if you see me posting frantic research questions come fall season when I just booked a ship/itinerary I know nothing about…

[harryfat1]

That's an interesting way of looking at it. I love the "R" part, we always relax on a cruise, usually on our balcony with a good book. "E" and "E" are important too, but now that I'm dieting the "F" is not as important (although I will be tempted and overindulge I'm sure. Leaving on 2/16 on Enchantment)

 

I agree, everyone will have their own cruise experience and thanks to you my next one will include the mini photos and a few other camera angles that I found interesting from your photos.

 

Great review, thanks for taking all of us along. Have a wonderful next vacation! I only wish there was a spot in CC for Road trips, I'd read along :)

 

Thanks for the compliment.

 

You KNOW I would somehow tie cheap and cruises back together at the end with the FREE word. Accountants are predictable on how we like all i's dotted and t's crossed. Everything all ticked and tied.

 

Road trips are not very interesting to photograph compared to cruises.

 

Way too many hours spent in car and the dry heat of the west coast looking at “dirt” (real ones) and rocks. Can’t even photograph long rows of pool chairs on road trips.

 

The only interesting thing would be urinal photos at various smelly rest stops. Maybe I come back and post of some of those here.

 

Besides, just like all the movies, all the sequels suck so odds are my second trip report will suck badly as well. I will have no new jokes, just talking about the same relatives (uncles/aunts) ad nauseam and no wow photograph of a mega ship. So I am pretty sure I am just like those one hit wonders of top 40 songs – not good enough to have a decent second trip report, be it on land or water.

Edited February 12, 2015 by harryfat1

[harryfat1]

I'm sad this review is over, but no worries Harry...this thread will live on for awhile. I am going back to search for that excel spreadsheet right now for my Oasis cruise in April. While I will spend most of my time on the "R" part of the trip (just the hubby; no kids this time), hearing about the "e" and "e" was different than any other review I've read. Well done, sir.

 

Hi, Megan,

 

Thanks for the wonderful praise.

 

Think my excel spreadsheet is back on page 1 or 2, I gave it out pretty early in the report. Just remember don’t be too dependent on it during the cruise. Schedule is useful to track your show reservations/meal time. But do spend more time looking up and see things around you on the ship and take pictures of chairs/clouds/people in line rather fretting over your schedule.

 

Have a wonderful cruise in April.

[harryfat1]

Thanks again, Harry. This has been fun. And the fact that you met up with your brother from another mother by the end of the story was just the cherry on top of the sundae!

 

Have a good time on your next family adventure. And I'm sure if there was a

"road trip critics" message board somewhere, you'd be sure to detail your trip to that audience as well. Let us know if you find one!

 

Take care and best to you and the family.

 

Thanks again for being with me in this process. I had fun and memorable time in chatting with you. Unless people have written one of these long reports, you don’t realize the value of having a group of folks to banter with you in the interim.

 

Road trip reports are not that exciting. It’ll just be “we woke up/ate breakfast/drove/took pictures/ate lunch/drove/took more pictures/check into hotel/took even more pictures/ate dinner/swim in pool/going to sleep."

 

Rinse and repeat daily.

 

If I find any interesting urinals in my travels, I will post them here…

[harryfat1]

3 words for you Harry. BEST. REVIEW. EVER.

 

Now that I've said that, this has been the most informative & detailed Allure review I have read.

Thank you so much for all the tips you have given.

 

I look forward to your next cruising adventure.

All the best to you & your lovely family.:)

 

Kath

 

Hi, Kath,

 

Oh, wow, thank you for the strong endorsement. I don’t come close to earning such high accolades.

 

As I said in the beginning, there are numerous better writers than me (English is not even my primary language as some can tell from the inherent grammatical structural errors in my writing). There are certainly many better photographers than I will ever be. I take pictures “by the numbers” as I just steal photo ideas from others and have no creativity of my own.

 

The only difference in this report is I am anal in pounding out the small details in time stamp many activities and providing more than necessary amount of photos.

 

Just like the windjammer buffet – there’s nothing good about the food there compared to any of the restaurants on the ship but in terms of sheer quantity/variety, the windjammer is the place. Quantity versus quality…

 

Have a great B2B cruise later this year.

[harryfat1]

Thanks Harry for letting me re-live my cruise. I wish we had met on board. My husband would have been impressed to find someone who obsesses about cruising more than I do.

 

Thanks for the compliment. Not sure your husband would have been that impressed to talk to me as I am pretty quiet in person.

 

There are many more people on these boards that are more obsessed about cruising than me. At most we cruise once per year and I don’t read/post here on cc when I am not researching for a cruise as I am on trip advisor and yelp for the road trip planning.

 

I only have 1,600 posts in my history and 600+ of those came from this trip report. Whereas you see many people here with 10,000+ posts to their resume.

 

If you do the math, by doing 5 posts here per day and doing it for 365 days a year, that’s 1,800 per year. To get to the 10,000 plus posts, you have to do it for about 5.5 years - meaning you have to log in day in and day out for 5.5 years straight to talk about cruising to get to that achievement. Those are the dedicated people your husband should meet…

[harryfat1]

Standing. Applauding.

 

 

 

Thanks for the applause and ovation.

 

Haha, I like the clipart picture.

 

Is this how you are dressed when you board the ship or do the flow rider?

[ucfalli]

Thanks for the info.

 

We don’t see this type of palm tree here in CA. The ones we see are imported from elsewhere and the top looks more like a pineapple or something from King Julian’s head

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=san+francisco+palm+trees&espv=2&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=HkjYVJfZD_XesATgt4HQBQ&ved=0CB8QsAQ&biw=1745&bih=868#imgdii=_&imgrc=fgvYHmTG1u0VPM%253A%3Bovn7Y1R6WvRWFM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.socketsite.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2013%252F05%252FEmbarcadero-Palm-Trees.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.socketsite.com%252Farchives%252F2013%252F05%252Fsan_franciscos_dying_palms_mystery_was_solved_two_years.html%3B510%3B406

 

 

We get palms like that here too. Look like date palms. I'm surprise you don't in California have a lot of the same palms.....

[h20cruzer]

Harry, have loved your review. By any chance do you have a link to all your photos?

Norma

[Coralc]

We get palms like that here too. Look like date palms. I'm surprise you don't in California have a lot of the same palms.....

 

There are more palm varieties in Southern California, not in Northern California...we have much colder temperatures and a wetter climate. :)

[mangs8]

I was waiting for a sharp eye person like yourself to mention that. With a name like that, you figure it's a good deal.

 

Thanks for staying with me through this process. Enjoy talking to you - finally get to know your name. Since we live in close to each other, there is a good chance we might run into each other down the road. Although you would need to find me as I won't be able to ID you:p

 

First thing I saw when you sent me the link originally, Cheap Cheapness watermark! FREE is ME.....not cheap, just value-conscious!

[generalchadwick]

Great Review have been in it since page 2 seems like so long ago. I should probably get up from my desk now and shower my wife has been complaining of my smell.

 

I commented early on to have your sons post their un-dad-edited thoughts on the cruise and you asked for a reminder of this request.

 

Also after seeing all the pictures with the video camera being used, can we see some of the videos that were taken?