Allure OTS Photo Heavy Trip Report – The “allure” of the Eastern Caribbean

[fletch1027]

Your pixs are amazing! They are getting me so excited for our 40th anniversary cruise on May 14th.

 

Thanks for the compliment - glad you like them! It's like the shotgun principle, shoot 100 photos and maybe 10 are usable! :)

 

Congrats on the 40th anniversary! We cruised on Freedom for our 20th back in 2013...

Edited January 20, 2017 by fletch1027

[fletch1027]

My last few posts for the review will be of random photos and comments over our last two sea days as we go full steam ahead towards Fort Lauderdale

 

 

 

Tip for balcony doors. This is definitely the case on Oasis. Not sure about other classes, but the door handle is designed that if it is in the "open" position it turns off the room A/C because it assumes the sliding glass door is open. Keep that in mind and keep the handle in lock position after shutting the door.

 

 

 

Only a couple of days left and DD wanted to insure that no section of the Windjammer felt left out!

 

 

 

The chilled soup / fruit smoothie of the day! Yes, I got one whenever one was on the app menu

 

 

 

Tip: I always take a photo of our MDR wait staff for later (good) reference with extra tips, post-cruise survey, etc. I do this mostly because I’m terrible at remembering names. :-)

 

 

 

We attended our first Quest. It was interesting to say the least. I’ll leave it at that since it seems no one speaks openly of Quest on CC. Not that it was bad, but I cropped down the photo a bit anyway... :-)

 

 

 

 

to be continued…

 

[tiffy2by4]

 

 

 

Tip for balcony doors. This is definitely the case on Oasis. Not sure about other classes, but the door handle is designed that if it is in the "open" position it turns off the room A/C because it assumes the sliding glass door is open. Keep that in mind and keep the handle in lock position after shutting the door.

 

 

 

 

 

Do you happen to remember if there were locks at the top of the balcony doors? Cruising in a few months in a balcony room with the little ones anda little nervous about them being able to open the doors. Thanks and great review!

[fletch1027]

Do you happen to remember if there were locks at the top of the balcony doors? Cruising in a few months in a balcony room with the little ones anda little nervous about them being able to open the doors. Thanks and great review!

 

Others may want to verify, but if memory serves there was a second bolt type latch higher up on the door...

[txgal247]

Not sure about a 2nd lock, but doors are pretty heavy so prob difficult for little ones to open.

 

 

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[fletch1027]

Always some downtime for relaxing on a sea day. I tend to stay out of the direct sun, however, give me a little shade, my earbuds, and a lounge chair and I’m good for a couple of hours feeling the sea breeze and watching the world go by…

 

 

 

Another in our series of towel animals. This one must be a bunny rabbit

 

 

 

DD doing karaoke with some friends right after our trivia team won the Majority Rules gameshow. See, I told you guys it was the coolest muster station ever! (also gotta love the sweet iPhone zoom - not!)

 

 

 

Who says you need to be on an Alaskan cruise to see a whale in the wild?

 

 

 

Speaking of our trivia team, here we are. We had a great time playing trivia @ Schooner as well as and we still keep in touch with most of them a year later:

 

 

 

Here’s our great MDR waiters

 

 

 

to be continued…

 

[troykahack]

 

Always some downtime for relaxing on a sea day. I tend to stay out of the direct sun, however, give me a little shade, my earbuds, and a lounge chair and I’m good for a couple of hours feeling the sea breeze and watching the world go by…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

to be continued…

 

 

 

 

 

Nice review and nice toe paint. [emoji15]

 

 

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[Kingart99]

Alright I want to know where and kind of dancing on Allure of the Seas. Depart 1/29/2017

 

 

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[fletch1027]

Nice review and nice toe paint. [emoji15]

 

 

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Yeah - upon further review that is a photo my wife took - not sure how it got onto my batch of photos. Anyway, that's what happens when I wait 11 months before posting my review... :eek:

[fletch1027]

There was a popular song in the 60’s by The Drifters called “Under the Boardwalk”. This next series of photos is the opposite of that – over the Boardwalk:

 

 

View from looking over carousel towards the aft end

 

 

 

Another view looking from Aqua Theater towards the carosel. Johnny Rocket’s on right and Sabor on left

 

 

 

Speaking of Johnny Rocket's, we got some lunch here – also for all you C&A members (even lowly Gold like us) don’t forget to redeem your BOGO shake

 

 

 

Birds eye view looking down on the Boardwalk

 

 

 

Another similar view but this one emphasizes the zipline route

 

 

 

 

to be continued…

 

 

[fletch1027]

Alright I want to know where and kind of dancing on Allure of the Seas. Depart 1/29/2017

 

 

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I'm not the best person to answer as we did not do any dancing on our cruise. :(

 

Maybe search around the boards for threads about dancing on the Allure...

[fletch1027]

Some more shots of Central Park from our cabin balcony. Did I mention I love the view from here? :)

 

 

 

 

 

The Rising Tide bar – never rode it but it looked pretty cool moving between Central Park and the Promenade. This was from the Promenade entrance while the bar was up at Central Park

 

 

 

One of the elevator banks had floating dresses hung between the groups of elevators which were pretty cool to look as we went up and down during the week

 

 

 

My last cold soup smoothie of the cruise :-(

 

 

 

 

 

to be continued…

 

 

 

[FunCruiser56]

thankyou for doing a good picture filled review.. we visited the Yoda Guy and enjoyed the whole shop, bought a very nice watercolor from his wife, both so friendly..

 

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[fletch1027]

thankyou for doing a good picture filled review.. we visited the Yoda Guy and enjoyed the whole shop, bought a very nice watercolor from his wife, both so friendly..

 

Awesome - glad you liked it! Yes, we had a great time at the Yoda Guy museum!

[fletch1027]

This will be the last official post of photos and stuff from this cruise, however I’m subscribed and will bounce back on to answer any questions or comments that anyone has. It’s been a lot of fun to go back in time and share these photos that I took almost a year ago. They sure do add up. By the count of the Flickr album, I have posted 302 photos including these. That’s a lot of URL’s to copy & paste! :eek:

 

In general, we loved the Allure (did I mention that we liked the Central Park balcony?). It compared very favorably to our cruises on the Freedom. Despite her size, we were able to find our way around very easily. Not saying it wasn’t a hike to get there, but we never got lost.

 

The St. Thomas & St. Maarten ports were fun in that this was our first time sailing an Eastern itinerary. However, for a 7 night cruise to only have 3 ports and one of them is Nassau, the port selection was a bit lacking. Good thing the “ship is a destination”. One other minor complaint is that I much prefer the Schooner Bar location on Freedom. On Allure it is long and narrow on the deck overlooking the Promenade right next to the Rising Tide bar. It gives it a much less intimate feel and with all of the noise around it, it is very hard to hear in there at times.

 

We will definitely sail Oasis class again, especially since Oasis herself is now home porting in Port Canaveral and driving from Atlanta to PC is a lot more convenient for us than Ft. Lauderdale.

 

 

 

Over by the forward elevators, there is an overlook balcony that gives a great view of Central Park from front to back

 

 

 

Since I have posted many photos from the perspective of our cabin, I figured I would also post a photo showing the approximate (best guess) location of our cabin looking up from Central Park. Maybe I should have left a towel on the railing to know for sure. :-)

 

 

 

Here’s a photo looking down the royal promenade right below the glass skylight that was below our balcony. Looking down you can see Sorrento’s on the left, the Rising Tide halfway between floors, the Schooner up and to the right of Rising Tide, and Starbucks & the karaoke bar directly to my right..

 

 

 

My last photo is of a ziplock bag of my favorite coconut ranger cookies that our trivia friends got for me as a to go treat bag that I hapilly ate on the long drive back to Atlanta!

 

 

 

Well, that about wraps things up. To those that stuck with my ramblings all the way to the end I say thanks a lot! These trip reports are a lot of work but also a lot of fun to do, and for me they are almost like my version of a scrapbook that I refer back to. That being said, I hope CC doesn’t ever go away! If it does, I will only have my Word document with tons of URL links for a reference! :D

 

Like I said up top, I’ll always be subscribed if anyone has any questions or comments going forward…

 

[clskinsfan]

Thanks for the report and pics! I am going on Allure in October. My first time on an Oasis Class. The only other RCI ships I have been on are the Granduer and the Adventure. So Allure is going to be a BIG step up in size for us. I had been traveling almost exclusively Carnival the past few years after having some issues on my last RC cruise. But we need to get onto one of the mega ships for something new/different. Your pics make me think we made a good choice. We have a Boardwalk Balcony on deck 10 BTW. We are looking forward to it.

[Sun Lover]

Thanks so much for such a great review. The information you provided was very helpful and also entertaining. It's much appreciated.

[fletch1027]

Thanks for the report and pics! I am going on Allure in October. My first time on an Oasis Class. The only other RCI ships I have been on are the Granduer and the Adventure. So Allure is going to be a BIG step up in size for us. I had been traveling almost exclusively Carnival the past few years after having some issues on my last RC cruise. But we need to get onto one of the mega ships for something new/different. Your pics make me think we made a good choice. We have a Boardwalk Balcony on deck 10 BTW. We are looking forward to it.

 

 

 

You should have a great time! There are several threads here on CC that show ocean / Aqua Theater photos from several of the BW balcony room locations. I had subscribed to a few of them. I'll look for a link and post it here when I find it...

 

 

 

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[fletch1027]

Thanks so much for such a great review. The information you provided was very helpful and also entertaining. It's much appreciated.

 

No problem at all! Glad you enjoyed it!

[moopetguy]

Thank you for the detailed review with all of the photos. Glad to have members like you willing to share your time and memories with us :)

[Hydrophilic]

We were on the same cruise with you! As I scrolled through the photographs, I kept looking to see whether my family was pictured in any of the crowd shots. I knew the odds were pretty small. As luck would have it, we did the same tour in St. Thomas (one of my all time favorite RCL excursions) and there was my son in the waves, and my husband and kids playing in the water! My kids were so excited to see themselves in your review. My son is convinced that he is "famous". We reminisced about last year's cruise and talked about our upcoming 5 days in Independence. It was a lovely way to spend a cold, icy afternoon here in upstate NY! Thanks for sharing. [emoji3]

 

 

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[A Pisces]

I loved your review, and all of the pictures! I will miss the chilled smoothy soups, since they aren't on the newest menus for the Anthem, my next cruise.

 

Funny thing I realized, while reading your review, you live very near by us. We live in Newnan, GA, and often shop and have lunch, in Sharpesburgh. So if a stranger comes up to you and says hello, it's because I recognized you from your pictures. :)

[mimirdh]

Just curious, do you work for the airlines? My DH has for almost 25 years and LOVES airplanes. We will have to go to Maho beach. Transportation details appreciated.

 

When you get off the ship in St Martin, just behind the marquee to the right is the path to the taxis. Once there, they post the fees to the airport on the pillars of the taxi cab awning. When we were there last, it was a flat rate: 1-2 people was about $10 each/each way I believe. If there are more in your party, the price goes down from there (price per person, each way).

[fletch1027]

Thank you for the detailed review with all of the photos. Glad to have members like you willing to share your time and memories with us :)

 

Thanks a lot for following along through my ramblings... :)

[fletch1027]

We were on the same cruise with you! As I scrolled through the photographs, I kept looking to see whether my family was pictured in any of the crowd shots. I knew the odds were pretty small. As luck would have it, we did the same tour in St. Thomas (one of my all time favorite RCL excursions) and there was my son in the waves, and my husband and kids playing in the water! My kids were so excited to see themselves in your review. My son is convinced that he is "famous". We reminisced about last year's cruise and talked about our upcoming 5 days in Independence. It was a lovely way to spend a cold, icy afternoon here in upstate NY! Thanks for sharing. [emoji3]

 

 

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That's really funny. It seems every time I do a trip report, someone posts that they see themselves in a photo. It's either a small world or a large percentage of cruisers on CC! :)

 

Thanks for following along!