Allure of the Seas Aug. 14 Sailing - Experienced Disney Cruiser

I'm going to cut and paste my live trip report here that I am posting on the other forum that covers cruising since I can't link to it for you all. But we want to help fellow Disney cruisers with our insights wherever possible. We are 20X DCL cruisers on all four ships and are sailing on Royal's Allure of the Seas tomorrow! Here goes:

Well at last our time is here. I'm sitting in our room at the Hyatt Pier 66 looking at the Oasis and we are ready for tomorrow. Our first ever Royal Caribbean sailing after 20 Disney cruises, we are excited but a little anxious about sailing a new line. We have done all the research, asked a ton of questions here and gotten great feedback from many of you. Restaurants and shows are booked, forms completed and printed, cameras charged.

For background, we will eat at Chops, Izumi Hibachi and Giovanni's. We have the late dining time in the MDR as well. We have booked all the shows - whether we see them all is another thing but we will definitely see Mama Mia and Oceanaria. I have booked a premium drink package for myself and my wife is bringing 2 bottles of wine onboard for her primary consumption. My daughters (12 and 17) have their own cabin - an inside across the hall from our 8th deck balcony cabin - for the first time ever and that has brought a lot of excitement their way.

I won't be posting pics because I find having to use photobucket too much a pain, but I will try to offer some insights here to help future cruisers like us.

Today we are hoping to paddleboard (me) and kayak (girls) here near the hotel, then plan to dine on Las Olas later tonight after some pool time and maybe a quick trip to the beach. It's vacation time folks! Woo Hoo.
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Really excited to hear about your trip. We are sailing on the Allure in 2 weeks and after having only sailed DCL in the past, we are looking forward to everything new that the Allure has to offer.

Can't wait to hear all about your trip! We have only done Disney and this will be a first for us as well. We'll be cruising on the Allure in mid September. Very excited!

Looking forward to your review, we've been on Oasis and loved it!

Sorry I have been remiss in copying and pasting my posts here. Will try to catch up here!

Wow. What a beautiful ship. Love Central Park. Promenade and Boardwalk very cool. Love our room location just steps from Vintages in Central Park. Everyone we have encountered so far has been super nice but not that fake level of nice we were starting to feel on Disney. Cabins are very nice but definitely smaller than DCL so glad we booked two cabins instead of one. Having drink package is awesome. Just walk up to a bartender and get whatever. Whenever. Flow rider looks super fun and I will attempt at least the boogie board version hopefully tomorrow. Lunch was on Park Cafe and was very good. Love the make your own salads. Our room host is sweet and very nice. All in all a great first few hours.
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Let the Disney comparisons begin!



We were worried that we'd spend the whole time comparing to Disney but there hasn't been a need because this ship is so unique in its own way but we do have some points that are obvious at first.



Cleanliness/Freshness - I see no difference here. The Allure is every bit as **** and span as the Fantasy. And I'd say that it far outperforms the Wonder which we were on last spring and was showing its age in many ways.



Friendliness - I have encountered nothing but amazingly friendly happy staff so far. From the bartenders at Vintages to the room host, store personnel and wait staff, it's been top notch.



Main Dining Room Experience - Last night was perfect. I mean perfect. The staff was very nice, efficient and friendly, but not over the top creepy friendly. My daughter can't eat gluten and they were extremely sensitive to this and accommodated her very well. I will say that Royal Caribbean beats Disney hands down on the first night dining experience. We always find the dining rooms at Disney stressful on the first night and have always written it off to "it's their hard day when they have to turn around the ship and they are getting used to a new group of guests." After seeing how the RC staff handled it last night, I'll never think that again.



Live music - It's stunning how much live music there is around the ship. We covered a ton of ground late afternoon into the night and found steel drum bands, classical music and pop performed by live performers everywhere. This is a HUGE advantage for Royal.



Central Park - I totally love this. Love it.



A couple of things I was worried about on this ship.



1. A lot of people say that they don't feel like they are on a ship and that you can't see the ocean from enough places. I get this, but I think if you WANT to see the ocean, there are tons of opportunities. Spent a lot of time on the upper decks watching the water and our oceanview balcony cabin allows me to see the sea anytime I want. No longer as worried about this.



2. Smell of smoke. I despise it and it makes me (and my girls) physically sick when around it. This is the only negative difference I can really see on a ship with a casino. We walked down to Izumi to check on a reservation for tonight and as soon as the elevator door opened, we were struck hard by the smell outside the casino that seemed to permeate the floor. I would hate it if we were in the dining room adjacent (as luck would have it we are in Silk thank goodness). We will visit that part of the ship exactly one time - for our Izumi reservation - and then never see it again after tonight.



3. Guest Services - I had read so many negative posts about people's experience with long lines and not so helpful staff. We had the exact opposite experience. The line wasn't short, but there were so many staff on hand that it moved very fast and our questions were answered quickly and efficiently by a lovely young lady.



I also don't love the towel checkout procedure and the fact that towels are not all over the pool deck like on Disney. But it's not that big a deal and not enough to complain about. I just prefer the honor system of multiple points where you can find towels vs. check out/check in from one desk. But if that's the biggest complaint I have on this ship, I'd say it's going to be an amazing week.



We had dinner as I mentioned in Silk and the food was every bit as good as anything we had in main dining at Disney - dare I say a little better overall. And the selection was better. For those asking about menus - as it is our first sailing, I don't know if the menus have changed but I don't think so based on what little I remember reading about menus prior to the trip.



We are not getting off the ship today. Combine the ridiculously short stay in Nassau (onboard is 1:30 p.m.) and the fact that we have been here many many times and the adventure of a new exciting ship and we will be exploring, using the pools and more today.



I'm not sure how well I will do in keeping up on this during the week, but i want to make sure I get my thoughts together as I think them.



Time to start our day!

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Awesome review.. This makes me even more excited for our Allure cruise in 12 days... I can't wait to hear more.

This is great! Thanks so much for taking the time to give us your opinions. It makes me even more excited for our LOTS sailing in a week and a half. I went to "the other site" and found your review there too. We have 14 DCL sailings under our belt and LOTS will be our first RCI cruise.

Day 1 - Nassau

So today we chose to stay on the ship. Combine a very short day (7 a.m. to 2 p.m.) with the fact that we have been to Nassau many times and don't have a "must do" there along with the chance to explore this big beautiful ship and staying on was a no brainer.

We had breakfast in the Solarium and it was perfect. Not crowded, good food, nice service and great view. What else could you want?

From there, we decided to just hang out at the beach pool for a bit. Chair hogs are truly in force like everyone says. When we walked out of breakfast, there were chairs available everywhere but but the time we regrouped and came back up, all the "good" chairs with umbrellas and in that areas were taken. The sports pool was closed for some reason which I think made it more crowded than it would have been.

Adventure was our next plan and that meant my 12-year-old wall climbing and then she and I both zip lining. What fun!!!! At that point she said "I wish Disney ships had all this stuff!" I wanted to try the flow rider but it was quite crowded since it didn't open until right around all aboard time. I will get there before the week is out.

The rest of the day was spent at the pool. I had lunch at the Hot Dog House while girls went to the Park Cafe. Spent some time chilling in the Solarium later afternoon while girls got ready for dinner., Tonight was our first formal night but we had reservations at Izumi Hibachi so I didn't wear a suit but girls were beautiful in their dresses.

Izumi was in a word great. We do this kind of thing at home all the time but this was truly a step above in terms of fun.

Tonight was the Ocean Aria show and we had great seats just one row back from the splash zone. What an amazing show!

All in all a great day and we kept finding more things we loved about the ship. The whole family agreed we would book this ship again in a heartbeat. One thing I would change is to book us in connecting ocean view balcony cabins instead of across the hall balcony/inside since there is a lot of time going back and forth between cabins.

Today is a day at sea. Let's see what adventures we can find.

I was remiss in posting pics yesterday. Our day at sea was relaxing. Pool time. Zip line. Mama Mia. Love and marriage game.

Pools weren't as crowded as I expected on a sea day. We sat on the 16th deck overlooking beach pool. We did wait quite a while for zip line and ran out of time to line up for flow rider. Mama Mia was fantastic. Have seen it on Broadway a couple of times and this production was every bit as good. Love and marriage was quite fun and our dining room experience was on point again. Didn't take any pics this day but here are some from yesterday.

Today is St. Thomas and we have some plans so gotta get moving!!

Great review so far, really makes me remember and misd our great week on Oasis

subscribing!

oyal Promenade.


And coming in to st Thomas.

So St. Thomas is the stop for Wednesday and we have been here many times so we decided to combine things we like and do a two-parter. First, we decided to just hit Magen’s Bay for the morning and hang out in the water. I was thrilled to have a chance to paddle board as well and we had a super day. Had to leave a bit earlier than we would have liked because we had a “pre-sunset” sail on a Catamaran. Supposed to be a sunset sail but because all aboard was 6:30 p.m. we didn’t quite get to see the sun go down. Nonetheless it was a great time on the Castaway Girl. Great sail, great crew and we even got to witness a marriage proposal live!



Upon return we chose to hit Sabor for dinner. Had a great meal but I will admit that the guacamole that everyone raves about was okay. Service was fantastic. Food was okay. This is becoming a theme on the ship. I really want to like the food better than Disney because I don’t think DCL food is all that great, but so far it has been in the “just as good to not as good” spectrum. Hoping for big things at Giovanni’s and Chops later this week.



We once again stopped into Vintages for a drink before dinner and had such a nice time thanks to server extraordinaire Gemma. Central Park in general and Vintages in particular will be the reasons we book with Royal again!



Had our first real bump in the cruise as we were watching sailway from our balcony the person in the cabin next to us started smoking. I thought this was happening previously but hadn’t heard the distinctive click of a lighter followed by the smell until now. The smoking issue has been our primary reason for being hesitant to leave Disney and go to another line, so I was extremely disappointed in this moment. Called guest services and they say they “handled it” and so far so good. But since I’m on the subject, the whole smell of smoke issue is a big deal for me. Everyone in my family is extremely sensitive to smoke (some would say we are allergic but I don’t know that you CAN be allergic to it) and my youngest has asthma that can be spurred on by the smell. So this is a non negotiable item for me. What has disappointed me most beyond our neighbors is that you DO smell it when you go to the dining room for dinner since dining rooms are close to the casino. I kind of hate this. And moreso, you notice it in places like elevators, the theater and other venues probably because anyone who goes into the casino (we haven’t and won’t) comes out reeking of smoke and it lingers in the air, on theater chairs, etc. The fact that the smoking area is also adjacent and above the SPORTS pool is a little ironic too and also is way too pervasive for me. Don’t bother to flame me. This is my cruise too and I’d rather not have to smell someone else’s issue – be it smoke or strong perfume. This is the one area where Disney wins hands down. It just doesn’t exist as an issue.



Still having a great time and love the ship. Was hoping no warts would show but I guess with any cruise line there are going to be bumps in the road!



On to St. Kitts tomorrow! A brand new island for us.

If it is Thursday it must be St. Kitts. I was probably most looking forward to this day since we had never been to St. Kitts. I had big plans of a catamaran to Nevis or an island tour but ultimately got outvoted and we hit the Marriott for a day pass and while it didn’t afford us the chance to see the whole island it was a great choice. I had hoped to see some of the island sites on the way back to the port but a mixup with the cab driver had us back in port almost too quickly. My fault completely but it happened. We shopped a bit and found the town to be lovely and in all of our experiences on St. Kitts, the nicest people in the Caribbean. Our driver TO the resort gave us pretty much a full history of St. Kitts which was great and everyone we encountered wanted to make sure we were enjoying ourselves.



The Marriott itself, as we knew going in is on the Atlantic side, so it is rough waters but they did have a couple of coves that were quite swimmable. The resort is beautiful and the pool was great too. Somewhere I’d consider coming back to for a longer stay.



We didn’t return to the ship almost until sailaway and while I hit a bar and sat near the pool for a bit, we are now getting ready for our night. We have reservations to Ice Games but I don’t think everyone is going (I know I’m not) and then later for the headliner act. We will visit the main dining room probably for the last time tonight as well. Really like our serving team so it will be nice to see them again.



For now I’ll leave you with some photos from our day on St. Kitts.

The last word

We are back home and have had time to think about and discuss everything we liked and didn’t like about the cruise. This is not going to be a popular review here but it is our honest assessment based on our real experiences. Here is what we really liked:


1. Central Park. Loved it.

2. Flowrider/Ziplining/Rock Climbing - Great

3. Mama Mia and Ocean Aria - so much fun.

4. Vintages Wine Bar - great atmosphere and great service.

5. Cleanliness - We were overall surprised about how clean the ship was. Compared well to Disney

6. Staff friendliness - Overall we had some really nice experiences with staff. But it was much more mixed than on Disney. The level of engagement varies wildly among staff and you can have a great experience and a horrible one all within minutes. So while we were pleasantly surprised at many experiences, some were not so good. If you read earlier in this thread, you will note we had some really good early experiences but things seemed to go a bit downhill as the week went on.


What we didn’t like as much.


1. The food. I have never thought that the food on Disney was all that great but now that i have something to compare it to, I have to give Disney credit for hitting it out of the park more often than not. We had a really nice dinner the first night in the dining room but after that thought the food was pretty awful.


DD17 had a very difficult time finding things she could eat with her gluten (and shellfish and peanut) allergies/sensitivities. Staff was not all that educated about gluten and would often overlook the fact that a sauce had nuts in it or some such thing and after she took one bite, had to take a benedryl. At lunchtime the Windjammer put out a “gluten free” buffet but since all guests have access there is so much cross-contamination they shouldn’t bother. And the Park Cafe claimed on day one they would have many more choices after that first day - when she went there, they would pull out a pathetic looking Turkey or Tuna sandwich and say “here’s what we have today!” All in all, this made for a very stressful dining experience. We also ate in four specialty venues.


- Our favorite among the specialties was Izumi Hibachi (the one we almost didn’t book). The food was decent (not great, but the best of the specialties we experienced) but the chef was so entertaining we overlooked any food issues. He was a star - and probably the best staff member we experienced on the ship.


- We ate at Sabor one night. The server was pretty good and he seemed to be paying good attention to the gluten situation, even bringing corn tortillas and salsa separately which he said were prepared to be gluten free (chips fried in separate oil). But we can’t blame the gluten that night. I’d say the food was pretty tasty and it was, but both DD17 and I got pretty sick afterward. We had similar meals, but hers was gluten free. We were sick the whole next day.


- Giovanni’s. This was the oddest experience of the week. I thought the food was mediocre at best. There were a couple of good dishes but many of the items we got were Olive-garden quality. Not a top tier Italian restaurant. And the service was horrible. Our waiter was robot like and awkward. We were seated much later than our reservation and the attention paid was also Olive Garden-ish.


- Chops - The food was also mediocre here. Best thing I had was the mushroom soup. My steak was cooked correctly (medium) but was chewy and tasteless as if it had been overcooked and then colored with a marker to look the right temp! Side dishes were just okay and everyone else’s meal was similar.


Bottom line is that Remy and Palo kill RC on these restaurants. Because we really liked our main dining room team, I wished we hadn’t scheduled these specialties (except Izumi) and just struggled through the menus in the MDR.


2. The pool situation overall was a virtual tie with Disney. While there were MORE pools and hot tubs on the Allure, they still were all the equivalent human soup, which I assume is the same on all cruise ships. Where Disney beats the Allure is having the Aquaduck or Aquadunk (dependng on ship) and the water play areas (with fountains, and big buckets and such) that the whole family can use.


3. The bars. With the exception of Vintages, I have never seen a more unfriendly group of bartenders anywhere ever. Went into the champagne bar one night and felt so uncomfortable that i ordered a drink, chugged it and left within 5 minutes. Never went in again. I’ll take Disney’s innovative, interesting venues like Ooo-la-la and Skyline all day long.


4. The amount of drinking. I’m no prude. In fact, I bought a drink package for this trip because it was on sale and thought it’d be fun to try new things and not worry about “wasting.” But most of the people on the ship I encountered were truly trying to get their money’s worth. I have seen some big drunks on Disney ships before, but never so many in one place as I did in the Solarium human soup pool late afternoon nearly every day.


5. Cabins were a bit smaller with much less storage. Thank goodness we got two because we would never have been able to unpack all of our stuff in one cabin. I did, however, like the bathroom set up much better than the split bathrooms on Disney.


What we hated.

1. The disembarkation process. Not knowing exactly how it worked, we “signed up” for 9:30-50 departure because we weren’t in a hurry and thought it would be good to sleep in a bit. What we didn’t know was that they wanted us out of our rooms by 9 (it was not on any of the documents provided). And then we had to go and wait in the theater for our time. Which kept getting pushed back - until 10:15. And then we had to line up in the terminal, where we were stopped so that people who were late for their times could be put ahead of us. What advantage is there in following the rules and going at your time when they are going to allow those who go when they are ready to get ahead of you? Then when we got our luggage and got in line with a porter, he pointed out that there were only four customs agents which is why the line was so crazy long. Told us that Royal could hire additional agents but instead go with the bare minimum-those actually provided by the gov’t. If that is true, shame on them because they left such a bad taste in our mouth in leaving the ship. Ending vacation is hard enough but to make it this painful, terrible.


2. The towel check out. It’s not like they are handing you luxury linens. The amount of manpower spent on this process is, in my opinion, more expensive than the few towels they would “lose” every sailing. It’s just stupid.


3. Adult pool/Solarium. While I am no huge fan of the Cove Pool on the bigger ships at Disney, I hated this Solarium. A couple of hot tubs and a disgusting human soup pool with people spilling drinks into it while they just marinate, ick. And all the glass that keep it hot and block the direct views of the ocean were just a turn off.


4. The lack of sea views. Thank goodness we had an ocean view balcony and we used it more than ever (except for the 3 times that our neighbors started smoking after we went out there). I had to call guest services by the third time because it was ridiculous. But overall not being able to see the ocean from many venues was quite disappointing. The people who sit all day in the promenade baffle me. Why don’t they just stay home and go to the mall?


5. Family activities. I have to say that we did miss the constant stream of family activities on Disney ships. Besides a few trivia contests, there didn’t seem to be much that appealed to all of us. And the Cruise Compass is so much more difficult to read/follow than the DCL Navigator. And it seemed that everytime I looked for “what can we do now?” it was something related to the casino or a sale on purses. Not our cup of tea. We spent much more time sitting on the pool deck which was nice….but I could do that at a hotel anywhere and we would like to have a better mix of options.


6. Smoking. This is such a hot button for us and it was worse than I imagined and is likely why we will never sail RC again. The smoking section adjacent to and above the Sports Pool is ridiculous. We had to be careful to not walk on the wrong side after coming out of the elevators every time we went up on deck. The first day of the cruise, we wanted to talk to host at Izumi about daughter’s gluten allergy and make sure they could accommodate that the next night. Took the elevator down and when the doors opened we were overcome by the stench from the casino. Over the course of the week, we rarely used the Aft elevators or went to that part of the ship to avoid the smell. But on a few occasions, we jumped on that side and even when the elevators were on 15 or 16, they stunk. And it got worse as the week went on. By Thursday the lingering smell of smoke was pervasive throughout the aft area of the ship from the Promenade on up. Our DD12’s asthma began acting up by week’s end and I am sure it was due to this inescapable smell.


We also missed a last day stop at Castaway (or anywhere really) as we didn't love ending the cruise with two sea days. Overall we had a good time. We roll with the punches pretty well and didn’t discuss what we liked and didn’t like until after we had left the cruise because we wanted to enjoy the moments we had when we were having fun. But I highly doubt we will cruise RC again - unless it is an itinerary that we can’t get on Disney and really want to do. As a family we decided that we’d rather cruise less often and go on a ship we really like (The Fantasy or the Magic).

Thanks for the follow up post and your thoughts on comparisons between the two. I can understand all of it, and the part of me that is skeptical about RCI already has the smoking and the towels on my radar. It sounds like you had a good vacation but overall DCL wins out and you'd rather sail with them. We sail this Sunday on Liberty of the Seas, I'm looking forward to it and to seeing how we feel about RCI in general. I am going into it with an open mind and we are really looking forward to a new ship to discover.

I definitely understand the smoke issue. It really bothers me, although it's not a medical concern, just an "I can't stand it" kind of thing. I grew up with smokers as parents and I just can't breathe when people are smoking near me. I literally hold my breath. On carnival there were times when the elevator that opens right off the casino smelled like smoke. I learned to avoid it. I couldn't even walk through the casino's non-smoking section. And what bothered me the most, as it turned out, was on debarkation day when we were assigned deck 5 as our waiting area. We were outside the casino and it was fine until I needed to change my infant's diaper. The only bathroom with a changing table on the entire deck was...believe it or not, INSIDE the casino. WHY???? Anyway, it was quite a trick to hold my breath long enough to rush to the bathroom, change a baby, and rush back.
But all that said, it was easy enough to avoid the smoke since it isn't a health issue for me, just a preference. I would absolutely sail Carnival again--especially since it's half the price of DCL. We sail on the Freedom of the Seas next month and I'm hoping we can make it work to avoid the smoking areas there, too. It does make it an issue when there's a medical need to avoid smoke, and I'm sorry that was such a problem for you

Wow sorry to read that in the end you had so many negatives from your cruise I didnt really see that end post coming- your early posts seemed like you were having a really good time, but your summary post - sorry to hear the cruise didn't work for you. I was a bit confused, for example in your update you mentioned points like tones of places for sea views but in your review you mention the lack of sea views, things like that.
Sure shows how cruises can differ as we actually didnt find the pool decks/pools that busy at all on Oasis, where as that was one of our biggest turn-offs of the fantasy, we didn't notice smoke (I react to smoke also) and loved our dining (we only did the sushi restaurant other then the main dining room), we also had some fun relationships with some of the bartenders. I can't remember the disembarkment process, so it sounds like it's really gone down hill.

Our kids were younger at the time, do I'm thinking that makes a difference for sure with entertainment, as they were really into character meets, parade, character breakfast, kids club etc.

DnA2010 said:

Wow sorry to read that in the end you had so many negatives from your cruise I didnt really see that end post coming- your early posts seemed like you were having a really good time, but your summary post - sorry to hear the cruise didn't work for you. I was a bit confused, for example in your update you mentioned points like tones of places for sea views but in your review you mention the lack of sea views, things like that.
Sure shows how cruises can differ as we actually didnt find the pool decks/pools that busy at all on Oasis, where as that was one of our biggest turn-offs of the fantasy, we didn't notice smoke (I react to smoke also) and loved our dining (we only did the sushi restaurant other then the main dining room), we also had some fun relationships with some of the bartenders. I can't remember the disembarkment process, so it sounds like it's really gone down hill.

Our kids were younger at the time, do I'm thinking that makes a difference for sure with entertainment, as they were really into character meets, parade, character breakfast, kids club etc.

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Maybe I wasn't clear about the sea views. Sure we found places to see the ocean but you really had to look for them and at the end of the cruise we realized the only time we saw the sea was on our balcony or when we went to the top deck above pools and turned our chairs around. On DCL, you can't help but see the ocean nearly everywhere. Bars, hallways, restaurants have windows, lots of open decks - it's the getting TO and FROM places where we always saw the ocean that didn't happen on this cruise. I think the Solarium design is flawed and represents a missed opportunity for this. You are right, every sailing is likely different (if you had uncrowded pools God bless - the only time our pools were uncrowded was VERY early and VERY late. At 4 pm. the Solarium pool looked like a Spring Break party gone bad. And smoking on our ship must have been higher than normal because by the second night in the dining room (we were in Silk) the smell was wafting up and in.