We sailed on the Allure for Thanksgiving week 2013.
Had 2 staterooms for our family of 4 (2 teenage boys). I was NOT even trying to sail without at least a split bathroom with teenagers. So 2 rooms it was. Hubby & I had a verandah (not a jr. suite) while the boys were across the hall in an inside. We liked the rooms. The boys liked that they could split the beds. The single baths were fine. In fact, when we sailed in a standard inside on the Wonder in 2014 I noted that we functioned sooooo much better in the Royal single bath than we did the Disney single. The Royal just felt so much more useable. I'm afraid to say "spacious" but it did feel bigger even if I'm pretty sure the actual footprint can't be much different. The lack of a tub on Royal was perfectly fine with us. I did miss having my wonderful toiletries on Royal. The mystery stuff in the shower dispenser were a total not-even for me. LOL! Storage wasn't really all that better or worse between Royal & Disney. I guess we are easy to please. LOL!
Food. It was a wash for us, too. MDR food on Allure was pretty lack-luster the 2 times we actually went to the MDR. Like my side dish was a baked potato. It was literally the piece of meat with a potato next to it that had a sprig of rosemary sticking out of the top like a little tree. It wasn't a very appetizing presentation to say the least. The MDR service was pretty meh but I've had that experience on Disney, too, so can't really ding them too harsh there. I did notice our tables for our large family group were kinda primitive in their construction. Maybe it seems nit-picky but it was kinda noticeable that we were eating on a rough plywood surface with a table cloth spread over it. I lifted the single cloth and it was actually just that: a rough plywood cutout. For such an elegant space I was a bit startled by the rigged-up-ed-ness. I guess that's 1 way to save a buck? The rest of our trip I was looking for the folding banquet tables to come bustin' out. LOL! We ate at Chops 1 night as well. Our large family was seated somewhat near where the food comes out of the kitchen. We were privvy to some pretty heated exchanges and yelling back into the kitchen. When my steak came I could see why. I order all my steak medium. What came was a charred hunk of shoe leather. I couldn't eat it. I will say, however, the red velvet cake at Chops was absolutely incredible. The desserts here are worth the price of admission alone. In Palo over all 4 ships I've never experienced anything like the open squabbling we did at Chops and I've never been served something inedible. However, Disney doesn't do anything even close to what Royal does for desserts even in Remy. I've pretty much written off all
DCL desserts with the exception of Remy.
If I'm splurging calories I have standards. Park Cafe salads. OMGoodness! I totally agree! I could eat those create-your-own salads every day. I think mostly we DID! Disney needs to take a note! Windjammer I was eh on but I'm not a big buffet conoseiur either. Again, the dessert offerings were better at Windjammer. Wanna laugh??? On our Allure cruise we ate Thanksgiving dinner at.....Johnny Rockets! We loooooved having Johnny Rockets onboard and paid the fee to eat & have shakes/floats so many times! And the ice cream place on the Boardwalk! Yep, dumped some cash there most every day. Cupcake Cupboard! Holy smokes did we drop some coin there! The cupcakes were fabulous and I'm a picky cupcake girl. I loved going in each day to see what the day's offerings would be. Starbucks? Yep, did that once, too! I'm a Starbucks freak in my daily life. I had to have at least 1 obligatory Starbucks at sea. When it comes to all the upcharge options on Allure people often say they feel nickel-n-dimed. I can see why they'd feel that way but we did not. We knew the inclusive options. We LOVED having more options even beyond the inclusive one. We happily plunked our money down frequently to enjoy those options. MORE options is where I commend Royal. I like options a whole really awful lot. Can ya tell????
Drinks. Again, there's always the arguement that Disney gives you sodas for free while Royal charges for them. Yeah? Well I'd PAY Disney an upcharge for soda if they had Freestyle machines spread across numerous locations in multiple areas of the ship. My family loved them. I loved that they had that many choices in so many locations. Convenient! Worth every nickel. Also, dearest dearest Disney, puuuuuh-leeeeeaaazzz offer me some inclusive adult beverage packages!!!! I wouldn't even bother carrying any alcohol onboard even tho I'm allowed to. Who needs to schlep all that??? Over a 7 night Fantasy cruise it's so easy for 2 adults to rack up over $750 in bar tab even with carrying liquor onboard. When I go to a show I like to have a drinky-drink. In lieu of meh desserts I like a glass of dessert wine. Seriously! I felt the $750-ish (can't remember exactly) we spent for our premium package on Royal was worth it in convenience alone. The fact bottled water was included was the icing on the cake. So Disney, take my money. Hook me up with one of these super-convenient options! ((Confession: I did smuggle a little bit of liquor onto Allure just because I wanted to see if I could do it. I was successful. If I'd ended up in the naughty-room I was planning to get pictures if I could. Because, hey, doesn't everyone have a little bit of curiosity what the naughty-room is really like??)) Oh! And Royal's bartenders are pretty dang awesome. On the Wonder this past fall hubby ordered a Bloody Mary. It was literally tomato juice and vodka. No Worcestershire. No pepper. No Tabasco. No flavor. Thank you Royal for your fabulous (& consistent!) Bloody Marys. We loved you for those bad boys!
I did NOT like that on Royal when you book upcharge dinners or anything extra it has to be paid for when you book. I was a bit skeptical on that practice. I get that some like to have as much paid as possible before they arrive. I've always had my additional charge stuff covered by bringing the budgeted amount with me on Disney (cash or gift card). I like to feel like I pay at the time of service, not before. Personnal preference.
Boarding. Totally toooootally agree!!!! For a ship as big as Allure with that many people (remember, we were on a holiday sailing so the ship was pretty full) they have their boarding process so incredibly streamlined in Ft. Lauderdale. We weren't in any suites. We had no priority treatment. We never waited for anything past security which was a very short wait. Check-in was walking up to a counter. Pictures were zero wait. Boarding took as long as walking up the zig zag gangway. Wasn't so wow'd by being dumped into the middle of a busy mall space but it was so easy-peasy! Definitely Royal all day on boarding.
Disembarking. We always do the early debark & take our own bags. Wash for Disney & Royal. It's pretty much the same. We're on the move early and it's a simple walk right off the ship.
Shows. Again, I'm agreeing with the OP. Royal has such a diverse lineup. It's refreshing. I love me some Disney like any self-respecting fan but the shows really aren't that diverse. Remember, we didn't travel with littler kids so taking our boys to see Chicago wasn't an issue. If you have little kids this might not be a good show for the littles. Loved each show we saw for a miriad of reasons. Bro-in-law took care of our show reservations. We always arrived as the doors opened. Always had fabulous seats. Aaaaand, always had time for at least 2 cocktails while we waited for the show to start...thanks to our handy-dandy drinky package!
Characters. We had Dreamworks characters! They were great! I love Dreamworks movies (Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon, Madagascar, etc.). We went to the first parade. Got front & center seats in front of the pub early, sipped Bloody Marys, and enjoyed some solid people-watching while we waited for the start. I was a total child when the characters started coming. The music had everyone totally pumped. It was so festive! I screamed and squeeled and totally enjoyed every last minute. I may or may not have mortified my poor husband. Good things the teens were nowhere to be found. They may have disowned me. LOL!
Speaking of the teens being gone..... There's nothing as awesome as the Wave phones on Disney. NOTHING. We had a much harder time keeping up with and coordinating with our boys on Royal. I brought magnetic dry erase boards and sticky notes to leave each other mirror notes in the rooms. But still, you have to go back to the room to look for the messages and the Allure is a very veeeery large ship.
I didn't find the activities offerings to be all that fabulous on Royal. So much so I don't think I went to any. Like seriously? 10 ways to wear a scarf offered in the Coach boutique. Really?
The zipline was neat. The rock walls only my youngest teen enjoyed (while the rest of us ate ice cream and watched). Enjoyed the wipeouts on the Flow Rider as a spectator only. The pools didn't seem near as frighteningly packed but we so rarely even bother with pools on the ships. One thing I'll note: all these fabulous outdoor things are fabulous but they depend upon good weather and decent seas. We had a lot of big seas and not the best weather. So all these fabulous things were useless. You'd expect more offerings added to swallow up all the people now inside the ship but that didn't happen.
Missed having a dedicated movie theater on the Allure. Why can't they use the Opal Theater as a movie theater? On the inclement days some movies would've been great.
Speaking of those high seas. When we were on Allure it was during the time that one of the azipods wasn't functioning (you know, before the emergency drydock to fix it). As a result, we had reduced propulsion. This not only cut into port time in St. Thomas (prompting me to cancel our private sailing charter) it rendered the ship unable to use the stabilizers. Stabilizers = more drag. More drag = less speed. They were already fighting to get us thru the itinerary. Also, huge seas cancelled 1 of our 3 ports altogether. I am here to tell you I've never been on a cruise ship that had THAT much motion. Rolling in particular. I've been on the Fantasy skirting tropical systems and didn't have that much motion. We enjoy a lot of motion. We loved all the rolling. It was a perk to us. But, it kept some of our lovely outside things-to-do closed and my brother-in-law got pretty sick. Just so people know, booking the biggest ship afloat (at the time, not sure about today) isn't an automatic super-stable ride. Quite the contrary!
One other thing to note about the Allure vs. what we have experienced overall with Disney. The overall feeling of the ships. On all 4 Disney ships we always feel like we're on a classic ocean liner with character. It's an elegance that's understated. On Allure we definitely felt a disconnect from the sea. In the Promenade you feel like you're in a nice mall. You cannot see outside. When you're in Central Park you're in a gorgeous park that could be in any city. But you cannot see the ocean. More than a few times on the Allure we missed feeling like we were even on a cruise. Then we'd go up to one of the top decks or go sit on our verandah and we were okay again. The overall style of the ship was very elegant in a luxurious glitzy way. Like I'd expect Vegas to be like (if I ever went to Vegas)
OH yeah! Just remembered! Casinos! We don't do casinos in any way, shape, or form whether at sea or not. I'm too stingy with my bucks. If I put a dollar out there and it doesn't come back I get angry. So gambling isn't for us. Casino or not doesn't matter not 1 little bit to us.
Overall I wouldn't say I liked Royal any more or less than Disney. It was different. We still had a fabulous time on the Allure even without all our familiar Disney touches. I'd sail Royal again anytime.
