Trip report for the ship I didn’t think I wanted to be on – photos included

[Lionesss]

Just found your review.

 

Very well done.

 

Great start!!!!

 

Cannot wait for more.

 

Safe travels.

[mslaabs]

Not sure if my DW mentioned the Ice Cream parlor across from the hot dog stand, but I found it and decided to go that route instead of the messy hot dogs. :D I ended up with a quite large waffle cone filled with 3 scoops of ice cream though I only asked for 2 scoops! LOL.

 

Michael (Sheila's Husband)

 

Ok, so now we have to go back to find the small wonder on 16 AND to get a photo of the ice cream cone that I neglected to mention.

[mslaabs]

We have finally made it to the first port - Labadee.

 

In my quest to eat breakfast at as many different venues as possible, we went to the Solarium Bistro. This is what I refer to as the “healthy place”. While I’m sure I didn’t manage to fulfill the healthy role, it is easier to eat healthier here than it is at Johnny Rockets. They had things like cooked vegetables, fruit, turkey bacon, egg beaters (those can be found at other venues). It was an early arrival in Labadee and my family already knows my policy is to get off the ship when it docks and I don’t like rushing through my meals. This meant that we were at breakfast at sunrise on this particular day. Thankfully my family is not doing a trip report because I’m sure they would include a blurb on what they thought of that. They should be all thanking me because we got nice pictures of the sunrise over Haiti, plus we got to see the welcoming parade :D.

 

We had a cabana to get to, but no instructions from Royal on how to get there or what to do once we get off the ship. This is one area that I think the shore excursion department needs a little bit of work on. Fortunately Cruise Critic knows. I had done the research and knew that we had to find the golf cart shuttles and take those to the cabana area. Once you pass through the main arch there’s an information building and the shuttle picks you up out front (more or less). We showed our cabana ticket to the driver and he knew what to do from there. We made a stop at the Suite Beach (Barefoot) where we dropped some people off and got our Cabana number assigned - 5. I assume this would be the time to ask for a specific number if you had one in mind. Last time we were here we had 4 so I was pretty confident 5 would be ok. You do not want 1 if you paid for an over the water cabana (at least most people wouldn’t). 1 is more a beach cabana and faces more towards the beach than the water. 5 turned out to be perfect for us. It was at the far end (farthest out in the water) and had good views of both ship and beach. When we got to our beach (Nellie’s) our escort/cabana attendant was waiting for us. He took us to the cabana and ran through the drill, he will be our bartender, there’s water in the cooler, if we need anything just ask him. We did not get wrist bands, but around lunch time he came back to set up a time for him to escort us to lunch. From what he was saying I got the impression that he would be able to get us to the front of the line, but as it turned out there was no line when we got there. He took us to the general buffet at Columbus Cove, not the upgraded one. The day’s activities consisted of dad sleeping all day, Mom in the water all day, me and my husband doing a little of both. He snorkeled a bit and said there were some fish near the rocks, nothing spectacular (not that he was expecting anything grand). Before heading back to the ship Mom and I went through the shopping gauntlet. I’m not a big fan of pushy sales people and these vendors were very pushy, but I knew that going in. I like to buy those metal lizards and butterflies to hang on my fence at home. Labadee was going to be the only port on this trip that I could get them so I had to endure the “come to my shop”, “what do you want to buy?”, and “how much will you give me” for the items I had no interest in buying. I came out of it with two lizards and two butterflies. When we were ready to go back to the ship, our cabana attendant walked us over to the shuttle stop, but we decided to walk back because I wanted to explore some of the area we missed on the way in. The attendant also said he could call the golf cart for us, but it might be a little bit of a wait since it was late afternoon and half the island was going back to the ship at the same time.

 

Solarium Bistro

 

Sunrise over Haiti

 

 

Welcome parade

 

Docked in Labadee

[mslaabs]

Towels provided as you leave the ship

 

One of the shuttles

 

Our cabana

 

Our view of the ship

 

Our view of the beach. Also notice the ladder, that is how we accessed the water or we could walk down to the beach.

[mslaabs]

Arrow shows the location of our cabana in relation to the surroundings.

 

The cabana closest to the beach is #1. You can see how it sets back a little behind the others, blocking most of the view out towards the ship. Hard to see in this photo, but the chairs face the beach. The plus would be easy access to the water.

 

The shopping area

 

The zip line (no, we did not try it)

 

Beach on the opposite side as the cabana beaches

[mintypixie]

Really enjoying your review!

[mslaabs]

Really enjoying your review!

 

Thanks to everyone that is just joining and to those who have been reading along. I'm hoping now that work is out of the way for two days I can move this report along a little bit faster.

[mslaabs]

We had reservations at Giovanni’s, but had some time to kill between sail away and dinner. We ended up on the rising tide bar. When we were on the Oasis it seemed like the bar moved so slow that you almost had to schedule time in your planner for it. The one on the Allure was more like the speed of an elevator (a little slower). If your thing is to hang out at the bar I would recommend this one. Changing scenery (as it goes up and down), smaller crowd, meet new people with each up and down cycle and good service.

 

At Giovanni’s the food was good, the service was good, but the waiter was not as interactive as we had been experiencing with other waiters. He was more like the waiter you would have at a restaurant back home, take the order and bring the food. Not a negative, but just not what we were looking for from a cruise ship waiter. Our previous experience with specialty dinning waiters has been similar to the dining room waiters asking how our day was, offering menu suggestions, answering questions, etc. It was still an enjoyable dinner and we would go there again on another cruise. We paid full price because we booked online at home, but throughout the cruise (not just day 1) there were several waiters trying to sell reservations to many of the specialty restaurants at a discounted price.

 

 

Rising Tide Bar

 

 

 

[mslaabs]

Giovanni’s Table

 

 

 

My steak dinner with some weird sauce on the side. Steak was very good and cooked to my specifications, but I skipped the sauce.

 

The specialty coffee that I thought we had a coupon for, but did not get the discount.

[mslaabs]

Giovanni’s is the only specialty restaurant that we went to, but here are some photos of others.

 

Chops

 

 

150 Central Park

 

 

Izumi

[Khsh08]

Loving it! Please keep going.

[mslaabs]

After dinner we watched some karaoke. Our idea of a good karaoke session is when people who have taken full advantage of their drink package get up on stage. This was not one of those sessions. There was a lot of good/average singers giving it a go. Karaoke is held in On Air which is on the promenade. It never really seemed crowded in there, we only went in twice but just walking by we could see it was not crowded. My guess is that there is so much more to do on this ship that karaoke is a less attractive event unless you know someone participating. I usually enjoy the entertainment at the schooner bar and the pub on the ships that have them. This time around the choices did not really appeal to me. The guitar player at the pub alternated between familiar songs and ones I have never heard before. The piano player was female and just did not draw the crowd sing along that I’ve experienced in the past, but I only stopped by there once so it could have been an off night. I found plenty of other things to occupy my time. That is a good feature of these overgrown ships, plenty of choices. Just walking around looking at the night time lights was fun. We did that before ending our day.

 

On Air

 

Central Park at night

 

 

Boardwalk at night

 

A moon lit night. One of my favorite things about having a balcony room is being able to sit out at night watching the stars and the listening to the sound of the ocean as we cruise into darkness.

[Whittyone]

I am so wanting to cruise on one of these ships.......maybe next time

 

Great review

[mslaabs]

Good news…there’s WiFi in the women’s bathroom on the promenade deck forward. When they say ship wide coverage they really mean it.

 

[mslaabs]

Today the sun was already up when we had to be up, but I overruled the majority vote to meet for breakfast at 9:00 and established the meeting time shortly after 8:00. Today’s breakfast was in the main dining room. When you get there the head waiter on duty asks if you are having the buffet or menu. We never all eat the same thing so we said both. I’m not sure what the reasoning is behind asking; maybe you get to sit closer to the buffet if that’s all you’re having. Making full use of my increased food capacity I ordered the quiche off the menu and went through the buffet line while I waited for that to arrive. At the table they start you out with your choice of pastries that you select from a tray. I had the raspberry Danish which was good. The buffet has scrambled eggs, hash, bacon, shredded hash browns, fruit, and a few other items. Once again, my family should be thanking me because when we left the dining room around 9:00 there was a HUGE line to get in. Note to everyone, 9am is a popular breakfast time for a 10am docking day. Another option could be the donuts from a case out on the boardwalk. I never did try these, but I had visited the donut shop on the Oasis so this was not on my must do list. While making our way to the outer decks to watch us dock, we saw the crew doing a lift boat drill in the aqua theater pool. Kind of cool to watch the training they go through.

 

Sun was already up

 

Dining room buffet

 

Quiche off the menu

 

Donut place

 

Life boat drill

[pinkroses]

Looking forward to the rest of the review. Definitely subscribed!

 

Is Tunkhannock where you live?

[mslaabs]

We shared the port with the Independence. When you leave the ship you go directly into a town square area with all the ship sponsored shops. Margaritaville is here too. If you walk towards the back of the square you will eventually come to a gate, which once you leave is no longer the area I call the “ship shops”. Outside the gate are street vendors that operate out of tents. This is where you can do the price haggling if you want. There are several law enforcement type guys walking around and other tourists so we felt pretty safe as long as we stayed within the immediate area. While all the shop/tent keepers wanted you to come see their stuff (“free to look today”) I did not find them to be overly pushy. I walked into most tents, but didn’t buy anything. As I left each tent I said “thanks” and most of the time I got a “thanks for looking” without any other harassment to buy something. They were all friendly, some of them asking where we were from and if it was our first time there. My dad was looking for a “Jamaican Bobsled Team” t-shirt, but found none. He had an in depth conversation about it with one shop keeper and by the end, the shop keeper said she was going to look into getting some of those t-shirts. I don’t really think she was serious, but I guess we’ll have to go back sometime to find out. We finished up outside the gates, leaving with one magnet and one bottle opener (both were on our shopping list). Waiting to get back inside the gate was a long line of locals having their passports/papers examined. I thought we would have to stand in that line, but the guards waved us around and the sea pass card got us right back in. The shops inside the gate are the typical ship shops like “Diamonds International” and souvenir stores, no price haggling.

 

We returned to the ship and tried Johnny Rockets for lunch, but they didn’t open until later in the afternoon. I can’t remember where we ended up, but I know I didn’t let us go without food and that we found something. After lunch we went to the deck 12 back balcony, starboard side. From here we overlooked Margaritaville and could hear their sound system just fine. We watched some sort of scavenger hunt they were doing and then listened to their music. We spent the rest of the afternoon here, catching up on some sleep. This was going to be a busy night for us. We had another welcome back party to go to and our headliner show. I was mid way through my nap when the Independence blew its horn, effectively putting an end to nap time. That began a back and forth horn blowing session between the two ships as the Independence sailed away.

 

 

The Independence is there waiting for us.

 

 

The ship shops area

 

 

The tent shops outside the gate. The white tent in the foreground is the exit gate.

[mslaabs]

The street outside the gate.

 

 

 

Don’t do something dumb

 

On the ship right after you ding your sea pass card and have your mug shot flashed on the screen for everyone in the near vicinity to see.

Edited March 22, 2015 by mslaabs

[mslaabs]

Margaritaville from deck 12 aft/starboard

 

 

This buildings walls and windows is actually a big canvas wrapped around the crumbling frame. Looks like an attempt to improve the view.

 

Independence leaving

 

I'll finish up with Wednesday tomorrow. The 2nd welcome back event, 70s on the promenade and headliner show to come.

[Tunkhannock]

Is Tunkhannock where you live?

 

Further east, in Pike County. I just like the name, lol. ;)

[sg1phileshipper]

Can't waitfor the rest of it

Cindy

 

 

Verzonden vanaf mijn iPad met Tapatalk

[mtns2sea]

I have a couple of questions about the cabana. Did your cabana have sun if you were on the uncovered deck area? Did the cooler with water bottles come included or was it extra? I thought they had done away with that last year. Thanks.

[Ocean Boy]

I was mid way through my nap when the Independence blew its horn, effectively putting an end to nap time. That began a back and forth horn blowing session between the two ships as the Independence sailed away.

 

 

 

There is nothing like a good horn battle to bring a smile to my face!:):):)

[mslaabs]

I have a couple of questions about the cabana. Did your cabana have sun if you were on the uncovered deck area? Did the cooler with water bottles come included or was it extra? I thought they had done away with that last year. Thanks.

 

The sun was on the uncovered part late in in the afternoon. The cabanas acrossed from us (1-4) looked like they had sun most of the day. The cooler of water was included. We didn't drink it all and took 2 bottles back on the ship with us, no trouble getting it on.

 

Sheila

Edited March 22, 2015 by mslaabs

[mslaabs]

There is nothing like a good horn battle to bring a smile to my face!:):):)

 

I've always wanted to be in port with a Disney ship for one of these horn battles, but have never gotten the chance. We were in port with the Love Boat theme blowing Princess ship one time and that was pretty cool.

 

Sheila