nenner1
<font color=darkorchid>I must've been distracted b
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2007
- Messages
- 3,564
About the title: It's an obscure quote from Shrek 3. If you can figure out how it relates to this post, well then you get the trophy. 
And that brings us to sailaway. One of my biggest gripes on Independence of the Seas was the lame sailaway party. On DCL, the sailaway party is entertaining, engaging and exciting. Disney has it all- characters, a countdown, and charm. On Independence it was the steel drum band and 9 semi-drunk chicks doing the Macarena. Oh -and lest I forget and not give Royal the credit they deserve- there was one character- I think actually he would be better described as a mascot. Before you get too excited, though I should let you know our high school football team had a better mascot than this…thing. Wish I could explain it. It was a headless, tear drop shaped..bouncy …THING! made out of hula hoops and one of those parachutes you run under in kindergarten. Now, I only know about The Thing because I saw it on our Cruise in Review DVD, I did not actually attend the sailaway party on Independence. It was quite interesting, I have to say. I have scoured the internet for pictures to share with you of said “THING” however nobody else actually attended the sailaway parties either so google came up empty. Sorry about that. Anyway…..
The good news is, The Thing is no more on Oasis and Allure. Now with the Dreamworks characters , and the addition of an appropriate venue, the Aquatheater, RCCL can have a sailaway party shindig right up there with the likes of Disney. I’d read good things about it and I was anxious to see what it had to offer and if it jacked up my excitement for the cruise like on DCL.
The dilemma is, we wanted to be in a visible area to be seen by friends and family back home on the webcam. This was something we’d done in ’10 on Indy and not only was it a lot of fun, we now have the great keepsake of the video on youtube of us sailing away. We wanted to do the same thing this time…
Luckily, on Allure we could do both!
There are public decks at the back of the ship overlooking the Aquatheater and the aft of the ship. They are still relatively a secret. Most people incorrectly assume the decks are part of the Aqua theater Suite cabins, but those are only on Decks 8. 9. and 10. Decks 11, 12, and 14 are open to the public (both port and starboard). It’s a lot like the Deck 7 “Secret Verandah” on the Magic and Wonder, only better because it overlooks both a venue and the aft of the ship. And oh, what a venue the Aquatheater is. More on that in a bit.
Since we had pre-arranged for the banner and webcam wave from www.portevergladeswebcam.com, we headed up to Deck 11 aft overlook where we had said we would be. We picked that spot to be easily visible on the webcam for our family and friends back home to wave goodbye to us, and also so the kids could still watch the sailaway party. Problem was that sailaway was immediately after muster, and the elevators and stairs were mobbed. And when I say mobbed I mean a crowd of epic proportions. It was hard to even move through the elevator lobby.
Quick stop on the way for this photo. I thought we'd be back but we never did take another picture here:
We were in a hurry to get our spot secured and get the banner up , so we nudged our way to the port stairway and scurried up the 6 flights of stairs to deck 11 and proceeded to collapse. LOL.
Here’s our Spot: Deck 11 Aft Port side. Like I said, these public decks are on floors 11,12, and 14. To get there just go in the port or starboard stateroom hallway and walk all the way back until you encounter a door.
We were further away from the sailaway party than I would have liked. We could hardly hear it. The view for actually sailing away was pretty awesome though.
Now about the party. Because I had the banner to get up and I was further down the wall, I missed a lot of it. Let me explain. We were the first ones out to the deck and got the kids in lounge chairs in the prime area where they could best see the party and also the back of the ship (the direction the camera would be on us from). As Ron and I stepped away to unroll the banner, the kids got up and followed, right as some people came out the door and plopped down in those seats- taking that area from us. We were a little frustrated since there was really no reason for the kids to have gotten up, plus we had our drinks and such on the table right there but the people sat right down in the chairs anyway. We told the kids quite loudly they should not have gotten up from their seats because now we lost them, hoping the people would get up and let us have them back. But they acted like they did not hear (and trust me, I have a naturally LOUD voice- they heard and I hope they feel good about stealing a seat from a 3 year old. But I digress). I tried to not get overly peeved at the time though. It was our fault, we should have all just stayed right in the immediate area by the chairs. Besides how could you be mad on a ship like this at the beginning of a cruise? We moved down a bit and got a new area and that was that.
Whatever, seat snatchers. We're all smiles!
The Aquatheater is an amazing thing. It is a 750 seat outdoor theater at the back of the ship with wide open sky and an endless horizon as your backdrop. But the real feature here, is the pool. The deepest pool at sea, it is 14 feet deep and it accommodates performances that include 3m and 10m high diving, dramatic acrobatics, water ballet, choreographed swimming, trampolines, a Bellagio-style fountain show, and a convertible, adjustable stage that can rise and fall in minutes altering the depth of the water. Seating is provided in colorful beach chairs. They even show movies at night on the twin jumbo LED screens!
The Aquatheater:
The kids could still see the Sailaway party but because I was at the far end where the banner was, I could not. I did see bits and pieces, however, Ron saw a lot of it, and we do have a few videos to give you a taste of it. There is actually a fun part where the Penguins of Madagascar take over the Bridge.
(Penguin sailaway pics from TPR)
That’s basically the plot, the rest of it is just singing and dancing with the characters. The kids liked it, although there was a bit of disconnect being so far up.
Sailaway Party from up high:
First, the Madagascar guys! (minus the Penguins, they were still on the Bridge ya know)
Decent crowd:
Then the gang from Shrek:
**Continued**
And that brings us to sailaway. One of my biggest gripes on Independence of the Seas was the lame sailaway party. On DCL, the sailaway party is entertaining, engaging and exciting. Disney has it all- characters, a countdown, and charm. On Independence it was the steel drum band and 9 semi-drunk chicks doing the Macarena. Oh -and lest I forget and not give Royal the credit they deserve- there was one character- I think actually he would be better described as a mascot. Before you get too excited, though I should let you know our high school football team had a better mascot than this…thing. Wish I could explain it. It was a headless, tear drop shaped..bouncy …THING! made out of hula hoops and one of those parachutes you run under in kindergarten. Now, I only know about The Thing because I saw it on our Cruise in Review DVD, I did not actually attend the sailaway party on Independence. It was quite interesting, I have to say. I have scoured the internet for pictures to share with you of said “THING” however nobody else actually attended the sailaway parties either so google came up empty. Sorry about that. Anyway…..
The good news is, The Thing is no more on Oasis and Allure. Now with the Dreamworks characters , and the addition of an appropriate venue, the Aquatheater, RCCL can have a sailaway party shindig right up there with the likes of Disney. I’d read good things about it and I was anxious to see what it had to offer and if it jacked up my excitement for the cruise like on DCL.
The dilemma is, we wanted to be in a visible area to be seen by friends and family back home on the webcam. This was something we’d done in ’10 on Indy and not only was it a lot of fun, we now have the great keepsake of the video on youtube of us sailing away. We wanted to do the same thing this time…
Luckily, on Allure we could do both!
There are public decks at the back of the ship overlooking the Aquatheater and the aft of the ship. They are still relatively a secret. Most people incorrectly assume the decks are part of the Aqua theater Suite cabins, but those are only on Decks 8. 9. and 10. Decks 11, 12, and 14 are open to the public (both port and starboard). It’s a lot like the Deck 7 “Secret Verandah” on the Magic and Wonder, only better because it overlooks both a venue and the aft of the ship. And oh, what a venue the Aquatheater is. More on that in a bit.
Since we had pre-arranged for the banner and webcam wave from www.portevergladeswebcam.com, we headed up to Deck 11 aft overlook where we had said we would be. We picked that spot to be easily visible on the webcam for our family and friends back home to wave goodbye to us, and also so the kids could still watch the sailaway party. Problem was that sailaway was immediately after muster, and the elevators and stairs were mobbed. And when I say mobbed I mean a crowd of epic proportions. It was hard to even move through the elevator lobby.
Quick stop on the way for this photo. I thought we'd be back but we never did take another picture here:
We were in a hurry to get our spot secured and get the banner up , so we nudged our way to the port stairway and scurried up the 6 flights of stairs to deck 11 and proceeded to collapse. LOL.
Here’s our Spot: Deck 11 Aft Port side. Like I said, these public decks are on floors 11,12, and 14. To get there just go in the port or starboard stateroom hallway and walk all the way back until you encounter a door.
We were further away from the sailaway party than I would have liked. We could hardly hear it. The view for actually sailing away was pretty awesome though.
Now about the party. Because I had the banner to get up and I was further down the wall, I missed a lot of it. Let me explain. We were the first ones out to the deck and got the kids in lounge chairs in the prime area where they could best see the party and also the back of the ship (the direction the camera would be on us from). As Ron and I stepped away to unroll the banner, the kids got up and followed, right as some people came out the door and plopped down in those seats- taking that area from us. We were a little frustrated since there was really no reason for the kids to have gotten up, plus we had our drinks and such on the table right there but the people sat right down in the chairs anyway. We told the kids quite loudly they should not have gotten up from their seats because now we lost them, hoping the people would get up and let us have them back. But they acted like they did not hear (and trust me, I have a naturally LOUD voice- they heard and I hope they feel good about stealing a seat from a 3 year old. But I digress). I tried to not get overly peeved at the time though. It was our fault, we should have all just stayed right in the immediate area by the chairs. Besides how could you be mad on a ship like this at the beginning of a cruise? We moved down a bit and got a new area and that was that.
Whatever, seat snatchers. We're all smiles!
The Aquatheater is an amazing thing. It is a 750 seat outdoor theater at the back of the ship with wide open sky and an endless horizon as your backdrop. But the real feature here, is the pool. The deepest pool at sea, it is 14 feet deep and it accommodates performances that include 3m and 10m high diving, dramatic acrobatics, water ballet, choreographed swimming, trampolines, a Bellagio-style fountain show, and a convertible, adjustable stage that can rise and fall in minutes altering the depth of the water. Seating is provided in colorful beach chairs. They even show movies at night on the twin jumbo LED screens!
The Aquatheater:
The kids could still see the Sailaway party but because I was at the far end where the banner was, I could not. I did see bits and pieces, however, Ron saw a lot of it, and we do have a few videos to give you a taste of it. There is actually a fun part where the Penguins of Madagascar take over the Bridge.
(Penguin sailaway pics from TPR)
That’s basically the plot, the rest of it is just singing and dancing with the characters. The kids liked it, although there was a bit of disconnect being so far up.
Sailaway Party from up high:
First, the Madagascar guys! (minus the Penguins, they were still on the Bridge ya know)
Decent crowd:
Then the gang from Shrek:
**Continued**
with that smilie!!!
(And, no none of this will be mentioned on CC! Dis exclusive death content!!!)
I'm liking the RC a/c treatment. I could sooooo go for that! 
about your zip-lining experience!
And WHY is she so expensive a year after her maiden? The Dream didn't stay sky high. DH said maybe they took the Fantasy name so literal that they are making sure it's a 'fantasy' for most of us to ever get on? 
Luckily we can go that same week on the Allure again for $4700. Same room configuration too.
I'll bet they saw your drinks there and just didn't care.
