After 15 Disney cruises I tried Royal and I liked it:)

[starvenger]

We are die hard Disney fans, and have only cruised Disney. I plan to book another cruise for this October and checked the pricing for the same exact itinerary (minus Castaway Cay of course) on Royal (Allure). The 7 nite Western Caribbean on Disney for our family (kids are now 21yoa and 18yoa) in one verandah room is $5900/Interior Deluxe $5100. We can get 2 ocean view balcony rooms on Royal for a total of $3500. I have to admit that the Allure looks like a lot of fun but I'm worried we'll get on board and regret it. Disney's customer service and cleanliness are top notch and I worry Royal will disappoint. I know for my adult kids there will be a lot more to do on the Allure than on Disney. Has anyone been on the Allure? What was your impression of it?

I love the Allure. Not sure you can compare the two because you are talking a "megaship" versus more of a "classic" ship... who am I kidding? Of course you will - it's human nature.

I found the DCL service to be top notch, and while the service I got on the Allure was not as good, I would say that it's only a couple of steps below. DCL does set the bar quite high in that regard. The ship *is* huge, and there are a lot of people on board, but all things considered, it probably won't feel as crowded as DCL, especially in the pool area. Pool smoking area is annoying, as is the smoke around the casino. You will try to avoid the smell, but you'll inevitably forget and walk around in that quadrant.

Food in the MDR is probably about the same, but YMMV based on what you eat.

Specialty restaurants... I'm partial to Giovanni's. Will be trying Jamie's Italian when I go on Harmony this summer so I'll see how that compares. If Samba (Brazilian) is available, I suggest going for that.

Show booking will be confusing at first, but there will probably be a printable grid online once you are allowed to book, so that will help you work around both the show times and your dining time (regardless of whether you're doing fixed or my time).

At the end of the day, I can't say that you'll love Allure more than DCL - obviously, I can't speak for you. You may still love the Mouse more. Just remember that it's still a cruise, and you are still going to have a great time.

 

[Weedy]

Website: The website was easy to use. Although there was a lot of times it wasn't working.

Paying for excursions and specialty restaurants: unlike Disney you pay for these when you book them.

Specials: Royal does have a number of specials. Some are advertised. We received an email that many of the excursions were 10% off. We had already booked the jet skis in Labadee (Royal's private Island), so I had to call and rebook. They refunded the full price jet skis and then charged at the discounted price.
Some just showed up: After we booked Royal ran a special for our category of cabin. A free bottle of wine (delivered to our cabin!!) a free lunch at the Mexican Restaurant (usually an extra charge). The food was great!! Also a gaming lesson in the casino ( there were lots of these offered throughout the cruise). Royal just added this to our cabin.
Some I had to look for: I had read that the soft drink packages go on sale. I checked the website a couple of times a week. A few weeks before we sailed it went on sale. We purchased two soda packaged for my husband and son. The cups are delivered to your cabin (very nice cups). There are many free style machines available throughout the ship. Or you can show your room key at any bar and get a glass of soda. It's printed on your key card if you have the soda package.
It was nice to have soda available in places other than the pool deck but a pain to carry the cup around.

more to come...

 

[Bree]

Just want to note that the Coke Freestyle machines are not on every ship!

http://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2015/07/20/coca-cola-freestyle-machines-royal-caribbean

 

[m1ckeym0use1]

Are you doing that 'Super Bowl' cruise? I just read about that. Sounds interesting.

Not that I'm aware of. We're going in mid January and the superbowl isn't until Feb. 4th 2018.

 

[riot23]

My first ever cruise was on the Oasis of the Seas, and while I thoroughly enjoyed it, there's just something about DCL that just can't be matched in my opinion!

 

[DnA2010]

Nice review We've been on Oasis, Freedom and then went on the Fantasy- I don't know if we were too built up from these boards, and while we loved our cruise and had a fantastic time, we equally loved Oasis and Freedom. We actually found both our MDR service and stateroom host better on Royal and found we preferred the food (other than Palo) on Royal...I can't say we will never say Disney again, but right now would rather spend our vacation dollars on more vacation- we'll cruise on Royal and add on WDW sort of thing

 

[disneyholic family]

We are die hard Disney fans, and have only cruised Disney. I plan to book another cruise for this October and checked the pricing for the same exact itinerary (minus Castaway Cay of course) on Royal (Allure). The 7 nite Western Caribbean on Disney for our family (kids are now 21yoa and 18yoa) in one verandah room is $5900/Interior Deluxe $5100. We can get 2 ocean view balcony rooms on Royal for a total of $3500. I have to admit that the Allure looks like a lot of fun but I'm worried we'll get on board and regret it. Disney's customer service and cleanliness are top notch and I worry Royal will disappoint. I know for my adult kids there will be a lot more to do on the Allure than on Disney. Has anyone been on the Allure? What was your impression of it?

we LOVE DCL, but we also LOVED our cruise on the Allure of the Seas.
i don't think you'll be disappointed.
You have to plan in advance more than with DCL (online reservations for shows, my time dining, etc), but on the other hand, you then know you have the big things scheduled.
We thought almost everything was on par with disney: the service, food, room, activities, shows (except for the disney evening theater shows), etc.
when you first think about 6,000 passengers on a ship, you think it's going to be packed with people...
but we found the opposite to be the case....
most of the time, DH and i looked at each other and said, "where IS everyone????"....
the ship is so cleverly designed, it just somehow swallows up people and you rarely feel crowded...in fact, we never felt crowded..
i've felt more crowded on ships with far fewer people on board...
go ahead and book it, you won't be sorry!!!!!

the trip report linked below is what first got me interested in cruising the allure (before that i couldn't imagine going on such a big ship and not going on disney).
The moment i read it, i couldn't wait to cruise the allure.
And the cruise was even better than i was hoping!!!
http://www.disboards.com/threads/sh...ce-aboard-allure-of-the-seas-9-18-25.2810383/

Booking the shows: You can/should book reservations for the shows. You can do this precruise online. All the shows run more than one night. Booking took us a little bit of time to figure out. We finally wrote out a little grid to see what night each show was on. For example Cats was on Tuesday and Thursday and the Dive show was on Monday and Thursday I had to book Cats on Tuesday so I could do the Dive show on Thursday.

i don't think there's any other way to cruise the oasis class ships.....you really HAVE to create a grid schedule to manage all the pre-cruise reservations...
if not for that chart, i would have lost my mind....even with it, i nearly lost it..
DD and i worked on it for days to get everything in..
we used old cruise compasses (same as the dcl navigators) to figure out when our favorite activities might be scheduled, so that we could fit the shows in around them...
i probably have them saved on my computer somewhere...i should post them here, just so you can see how nuts we really are