Trip Report Allure Med 2015

[Keith1010]

Grat report.

 

Keith

[Hardrocknerd]

The call for room service came promptly at 7:30. We thought we might sit on the balcony and watch as we sailed in to port as we ate, but it was a bit too chilly to be outside that early, so we just sat on the sofa and watched out the windows instead.

 

At a little after nine we left the cabin and went to find our tour guide in the terminal. We had booked a tour with Provence Wine Tours and were met by a great woman named Marion.

 

There we also found that valorgirl (along with her mother and aunt) and Steve and Marcy (cruiser_man) had booked the same tour.

 

We were going to two different wineries; one in Cassis and one in Bandol.

Marion was really great, very knowledgeable about both the area and about wine. We started at a winery called Domaines Bunan in Bandol.

 

 

Bandol is known for their red and rosé wines, which we were about to have a taste of. We started the tour outside the winery where Marion explained about the rules for having ”certified” wine, showed different grapes and talked about the history behind the winery.

 

 

Meet Marion, the greatest guide I've ever had.

 

 

We went inside and saw the huge presses and vats where the wine ferments, and the different casks that they store the wine in as it matures. There is a rule that the red wine must be in casks for at least 18 months and that when they make rosé they are not allowed to use white grapes.

 

 

 

 

These big barrels are not just for show. They contain wine, and are so large they had to be built on site as they are too big to get through the door.

[Hardrocknerd]

After that we went to where they bottle and label the wine, and then into the back where they store it until it’s deemed ready to be sold.

 

This specific winery does not sell the wine until it is at least four years old (counted from when it was harvested). We then got to taste two rosés and two reds. They were very tasty and we purchased one rosé and one of the reds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sussi is happy. She has wine.

[Hardrocknerd]

Now it was time for lunch, so we drove to Cassis. Marion pointed out some nice places to eat, and Niklas and I picked a restaurant next to the harbor.

 

 

 

I was afraid I might have to use my school French at this point (oh, the horror!) as the menu was only in French, but since bouillabaisse is bouillabaisse in both French and English and we knew what it was, that's what we had for lunch.

 

 

 

As you can see we decided to drink water to our meal, no reason to overdo it. :) The bouillabaisse was very tasty, but we weren’t really prepared to have to debone the fish ourselves. :P But, we managed anyways.

 

After lunch we went and bought some ice cream and walked around until Marion picked us up again.

 

 

[Hardrocknerd]

We drove up to a really high cliff and got some great photos of the view (and people:)), and then we drove on to the second winery.

 

 

 

 

 

Look, people!

[Hardrocknerd]

At the second winery (called Bodin) Marion again talked a bit about the history of the winery and about the catastrophe when a tiny little parasite ruined pretty much all the grapes in France. But, as luck would have it, a nice Texan had taken some grapes with him back to the US a couple of years previously, so the French went over there and got to bring some back home.

 

In this winery we tasted three whites and one rosé, and one bottle of white got to come home with us.

 

 

 

 

[Hardrocknerd]

Then we made our way back to the ship, and like the tour promises we were there one hour before the ”all aboard”. It’s too bad you can’t take the bottles with you to the cabin, but oh, well.

I have to say that Marion was an absolute treasure, easy to understand and willing to answer pretty much any question you could think of. It never turned pretentious, it was just a fun day talking about and trying out different wines.

 

 

 

We decided to go up on deck and sit in the solarium for a while, as our dinner at Sabors wasn’t until eight, but when we got there with drink in hand, it was so windy that we really couldn’t stay. We managed for about ten minutes, and then we had to go back to the cabin. So we sat on the balcony and looked for pier-runners, but there were none of those this day.

 

We left literary 30 seconds after I'd taken this picture.

[Hardrocknerd]

The dinner at Sabors was both great and not. The great part was the food. We split a tasting menu for 19 dollars. It was enough for us, but if you're a really big eater it won't feed two.

 

We started with the tortilla soup and the ”Make your own taco”. For the main course we had the shrimp. We were also given tortilla chips and the tableside guacamole.

 

For dessert we had the churros and to drink Niklas had a Corona and I had the sangria. The sangria was a bit strong, and a little sour, but drinkable.

 

The not so great part was the waiter. It started off nice, he greeted us, took the drink orders and so on, but when he had made the guacamole and was bringing out the food, that’s when it started to go downhill.

 

I don’t mind talking to people, but when I’m sitting with a tortilla halfway to my mouth for 10 minutes trying to eat it, it’s gone too far. He didn’t really know when to stop talking! And then he stopped by every five minutes! It was insane.

 

The only time he didn’t interrupt us was when Niklas and I was talking to each other, so we had to make sure that every time he was near by we had to start talking so he would leave us alone. Not the most relaxing dinner I’ve had, but at least the food was good.

 

Cue food photos!

 

 

img]https://farm1.staticflickr.com/593/20245501073_4f8baf013d_b.jpg[/img]

 

 

 

 

If you're wondering why all the food looks half-eaten, it's because it is. I can never seem to remember to take a photo before we start to eat.

[Hardrocknerd]

After dinner we went to Dazzles and checked out the ”finish the lyric” gameshow. Really fun, but maybe they should have picked some newer and more well-known tunes, as there were plenty that people didn’t even recognize, and we are talking people from the US in their 50s who didn’t even know some of the older songs.

 

 

 

But it was fun anyways, and afterwards we went to OnAir to catch some karaoke.

It was supposed to be the second qualification round to the finals, but they only had one person that had signed up so they postponed it until they had at least five contestants.

At right now they had this many...

 

 

 

Before they managed that we had to leave to see the IceGames show in studio B. The line of people that didn’t have reservations to this show was huge! So if you do have reservations, make sure you’re on time or you won’t get in. We got in and got some seats near the top.

 

 

 

They used some sort of smoke machine during the show and for some reason that, combined with the chilly air, made my asthma come out and play. After about half an hour we had to leave the show, as I was having trouble breathing. The show itself was ok, but not so great I feel sorry I had to leave early.

 

After that we just went back to the cabin to sleep.

[Hardrocknerd]

Now, a quick break for some Q&A

 

I saw some questions in the thread and might as well answer all of them at once.

 

• I don't think I have any photos of the formal dress, but I'll take a look. I know we dressed up for Giovannis when it was our anniversary, so I might have that.
   
  
• Am I sure DH is 6'9"? Ah, no. I just go by what he and his american colleagues tell me. He's a bit over 2 meters though, if that helps. :D
   
  
• Did I try the Oceanview buffet? No, I've never heard of it actually. Where do they have that?
  

 

 

I'm going to take a little break as I've (again) been in front of the computer for a couple of hours . I'll be back in a bit.

Edited August 26, 2015 by Hardrocknerd

[transam84]

Sussi, thanks again for this fabulous review. It is so well done with just the right balance of pictures and commentary. I love your pictures. I always have trouble uploading my to CC. Do you upload them directly or from another site like photobucket?

[Miryam1234]

T

 

The only time he didn’t interrupt us was when Niklas and I was talking to each other, so we had to make sure that every time he was near by we had to start talking so he would leave us alone.

.

 

LOL, maybe he was on a mission to make a couple talk to each other? :D

 

Anyways, I am loving your review! Just like I had been on that cruise and now just remembering how it went!

Well, I had the Allure TA in April so the ship part is familiar, just not the ports since we had only Malaga and Barcelona on TA.

 

Extra thumbs up for a cruising Swede from a cruising Finn! Please, more photos!

[Hardrocknerd]

Sussi, thanks again for this fabulous review. It is so well done with just the right balance of pictures and commentary. I love your pictures. I always have trouble uploading my to CC. Do you upload them directly or from another site like photobucket?

 

Thank you so much for the kind words.

I upload the images to Flickr, and then I use the "Share"-button to get the code to paste in my posts. I have to use the BBCode, otherwise it won't work. I then take away the URL part of the code and just keep the IMG-part, just so I wont get that "Shared by blabla, on Flickr" after every image.

 

LOL, maybe he was on a mission to make a couple talk to each other? :D

 

Anyways, I am loving your review! Just like I had been on that cruise and now just remembering how it went!

Well, I had the Allure TA in April so the ship part is familiar, just not the ports since we had only Malaga and Barcelona on TA.

 

Extra thumbs up for a cruising Swede from a cruising Finn! Please, more photos!

 

If so, he was doing a lousy job, as our conversations at the end were pretty much:

"He's coming, say something."

"Why do I have to say something? OK, look, the sky was blue again today"

"Oh, yes, it was. And the ocean was blue too."

 

Not the most romantic conversation I've ever had... :D

 

Thank you as well for letting me know you like the report. Always nice to meet other Nordic people around here. :)

[Hardrocknerd]

We woke up at about nine and went to the MDR to get some breakfast. On time today, yay! You get asked if you want the buffet or order from the menu. We decided to go with the buffet, but I got a picture of the breakfast menu in case you were interested.

 

 

If you don't pick buffet this is what you can choose from.

 

 

The different kinds of cereals available

 

 

This is what a real breakfast looks like. *prepares mentally to hear about the dangers of carbs and how bacon and scrambled eggs are the only way to go*

 

 

 

After breakfast, we changed and went up to the solarium. It was very calm, and we thought we would take a quick dip in the pool. Boy did we change our minds fast. It was sooo cold!

 

 

The coldest pool in existence. No, really. They did a study.

 

 

So down in the whirlpool we went instead. We stayed in the solarium until lunch, and then went to windjammer for something to eat.

 

It was really empty at that time, perhaps because most people had gone ashore. I wasn’t too fond of the food, but we both found some things we could eat, so no problem.

 

 

A quick return to the cabin to change and then off we went to our afternoon excursion ”Wine Tasting in Tuscany”.

The tour guide with the bus was not really the best one could hope for. He had a pretty good accent, so it wasn’t that we couldn’t understand him. It was just that he wasn’t any interesting. He tried, but it didn’t really work.

 

We went past some fields where they grew basil, and he acted like it was THE MOST AWESOME THING EVER! Sorry, it just isn’t. It’s great that you tell us, but you don’t have to tell us every Italian dish ever made with basil. It was like he was really afraid to let the bus go quiet. It's fine man, just relax!

[Hardrocknerd]

When we got to the winery (called La Torre), we were met by a nice lady who told us a little about the wine they made there, and showed us where the wine was being kept in barrels. The winery is also a hotel, and have their own restaurant, so if you want you can go live there. They even have a pool.

 

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to drink we go!

 

 

 

 

I approve of this motto.

 

 

Wine in the making

 

 

The different wines they create at this winery.

[Valentyna]

Okay, officially best review I've read. Now I'm thinking I have to book this cruise.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Hardrocknerd]

After the tour of where they made the wines we were led to the small diner where they had put up some nice cuts of meat; prosciutto and salami, and some olives, bread and olive oil.

 

 

Food, glorious food!

 

 

We tried two white wines and one red to the food. The red was without a doubt the best, and we bought a bottle to bring home with us. We then had a hour to walk around on the property and look at the grapes and olive trees, and then we started the trip back to La Spezia.

 

 

Wine au naturel

 

 

Sussi has wine, Sussi is happy. Simple!

 

 

Probably wouldn't mind living here for a few days.

 

 

I had been worried because the weather forecast for La Spezia had been rain and thunderstorms, but we were lucky and had a very nice day without rain.

 

Although this made me a bit nervous.

 

 

 

Back at the ship. Isn't she a beauty?

[Hardrocknerd]

When we got back to the ship, we rested for a bit in our room, and I decided to look at our current bill. There I saw that for some reason we had been charged double for our lunch at Giovannis on embarkation day, so I dropped by Guest Services to fix it. There was practically no line, and when I got there, they had already caught the error and amended it; it just hadn’t show up on our stateroom TV yet.

 

 

Now it was time to get changed to go to dinner. We had no reservations for tonight so we went down to MDR. It was about 7:30 and no line. But when we were about to walk in we were approached by a waiter from Chops who gave us 20 percent off for any night. So we decided to go there right away. In the elevator on the way up to Central Park we were talking to the waiter and I mentioned that it would be our anniversary the day after.

 

 

When we got to Chops we took a table outside. We decided to forego the starters and just go straight for the meat. We had after all had a pretty big “snack” at the winery. Two filet mignons were ordered along with fries, asparagus and mushroom. It was as good as on the first night. For dessert I had the red velvet cake (very good), and Niklas had the Mudcake. And as a surprise we got a small cheesecake with Happy Anniversary written on it. And then they actually sang for us! It was so cute, and we were very glad we hadn’t purchased a starter because at the end we were so full you could probably roll us back to our cabin.

 

 

 

[Hardrocknerd]

To burn some of the calories, we went up to deck 14 and played some minigolf. We did two rounds and won one each. I was very proud over that as Niklas is a golfer with a four handicap, but I did cheat a bit as I went over some of the green grass thingys that were in the way instead of around them. :D

 

 

While we were playing a helicopter came flying really close to the ship. I think it might have landed on the helipad, but when we went to the front of the ship after finishing our round, it was gone, and no announcement was made what I could hear.

 

 

We went down to central park again to listen to some jazz guitar. It was so relaxing to just sit there in the park in those deep, soft, green chairs and listen to music.

 

 

 

 

 

After he had finished we saw that there were a lot of blinking lights coming from one of the skylights, so we went closer to take a look. The 70’s disco party had started, and I got some nice videos of that.

 

 

 

 

 

However we were both starting to feel like our throats had gotten cold after sitting outside for so long, so we decided to call it a night and go back to our cabin. After all, we had an early morning the next day.

 

 

When we got back to the cabin, the TV was on and turned to the excursion channel. We thought that was weird as the only other time the TV had been on was when we embarked. But as we pulled away the curtain that divided the room, we found this little guy who apparently wanted to go on some trips of his own!

 

[Hardrocknerd]

The next day we both woke of with a bit of the sniffles. Apparently you should wear warmer clothing in the park at night. We didn’t feel too bad however, and we felt a lot better after room service had arrived with our breakfast.

 

A quick bite, getting changed, and the grabbing our tickets and going down to the MDR on deck five to meet up with our tour group. We had the shuttle and express train to Rome, as we had been there before, so we didn’t want a guided tour, but still have the security of knowing the ship would wait for us in case of delays. As long as we made it to the train station on time, that is.

 

We left the MDR at twenty to nine, and went to the shuttle bus to meet up with the guide. Her name was Jackie, and she was clear, concise and English-speaking. She gave a quick explanation of what was and wasn’t included in the tour, told us where she would drop us off and pick us up, and at what time.

 

This is where the bags are collected when you get of the ship in Civitavecchia.

 

 

 

When we got to the train, she gave us more information about what we could do in Rome, and some do’s and don'ts when it came to beggars and pickpockets, restaurants and cafés and how to easiest get to where we wanted to go. Included in the tour is a bus tour on a hop-on, hop-off bus by the company RomaCristiana, BUT it’s only complimentary if you use it once.

 

So you can get on and get off once, after that there’s a charge. You could buy an upgrade from the guide for $11:50 per person that would be charged to your onboard account, or if you changed your mind when you had already used the complimentary on-off, you had to pay €20 in cash at the bus. We opted to buy the upgrade straight away, as we knew we wanted to move around a bit.

 

You could also buy an express pass to get in to the Vatican museums for $30:50 per person also charged to your onboard account. No guided tour, but you didn’t have to wait in line for an hour to get in, and once you got in you could do whatever you wanted. We chose not to do that as we were there the last time we were in Rome. Maybe if we stay more than a day, we will go back. The express train left the station an 9:40 sharp and took 45 minutes to get to St Peters Station. St Peters station is a lot smaller, and a lot closer, to the Vatican than the major train station in Rome which is located at the other end of town.

 

The first look at the Vatican. After about 5 minutes walk from the train station we were at St Peters Cathedral.

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

Great review and pics so far.

 

Was your excursion in Rome through the ship or private?

[Hardrocknerd]

Once we got to St Peters Station Jackie showed us where at the station we would meet up for the return trip home.

 

All in all we had about 5 hours on our own in the city. At that point anyone who was going to the St Peters square could follow Jackie as she was going there to get the tickets to the Vatican Museum.

 

The colorful guards

 

 

One of the fountains on the square

 

 

The heart of the Vatican

 

 

At the square the group split up and we got on a Hop-on hop-off bus and started our trip to the Coliseum. We had been there two years ago on another tour, but that was guided and we had very little time at the Coliseum that time so we really wanted to go back and do it on our own.

 

Since the tour bus had multiple stops it took us about 30-40 minutes to get to the Coliseum. However, as Jackie had said on the train, August is the time when the Romans have their vacation and leave the city, so there was really very little traffic.

 

We had pre-purchased tickets to the Coliseum, but we hadn’t printed them, so we went to Palatine Hill to collect them. This is a tip for anyone going to the Coliseum: Pre-purchase the tickets! The line if you haven’t got tickets are miles long. If you really can't pre-purchase, or if you haven’t had time to print them; go to Palatine hill to buy/collect them as the lines are much shorter there and the tickets are for both sites. When you have the tickets you can go by the fast track which will save you at least an hour.

 

 

See the line of people behind Niklas? Those are the people that don't have tickets... And you have to go about 100 meters inside the Coliseum to get to the ticket booth. So, yeah. Pre-purchase tickets.

[Hardrocknerd]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hardrocknerd]

After spending about an hour at the Coliseum we went back to the bus stop and hopped on the bus. At the stop Isola Tiberina we got of the bus and walked to the Pantheon. On the way there we stopped in a shop that sold pizza slices. They were so delicious I could eat a dozen.

 

 

 

 

 

The Pantheon was absolutely beautiful. The way the sun shines through the hole in the roof an lights up the paintings and sculptures is amazing.

 

 

 

 

After that we slowly made our way back to the St Peters square to take some more pictures and buy some icecream.

 

 

 

 

Then we started back to the train station. All in all it was a good day in Rome and we are more determined than ever to come back and spend a few days. You really need to in order to see everything you want to see.

 

Everybody was back in time for the train ride except a couple who had already informed the guide they would be making their own way back. So we all got on and the train started the trip to Civitavecchia.

[Hardrocknerd]

If you want to go to Rome completely on your own it is really simple. The train station in Civitavecchia is pretty close to the harbor and in Rome it is less than a ten minute walk to St Peters Square. All you have to do is buy the correct tickets and make sure you leave time to miss a train. So don’t take the last train you can, take the one before that, just in case.

 

 

Our tour was through Royal Caribbean, but like I said you can really do it on your own. I just liked the security of knowing we were on a "ship tour", so as long as we made it back to the train station on time we wouldn't miss the ship. The train we took was chartered, so there were no other stops and no other passengers. That will of course not be the case if you go on your own.

 

 

Everything ran so smoothly that we actually got back an hour before scheduled. That was fine with us as we were having our anniversary dinner at Giovannis at eight and we really needed to shower. So we relaxed in our cabin for about an hours and then started getting ready for dinner.

Edited August 26, 2015 by Hardrocknerd