New Year’s Cruise on Allure of the Seas. 3rd Times a Charm?

This will be cruise #3 on Royal Caribbean’s Oasis Class.  We’ve happily and successfully sailed on Oasis of the Seas – once with kids and once as an adult only trip.  This time around, we selected her sister ship Allure of the Seas.  We still wanted the same wonderful experience we had on Oasis and wanted to be familiar with our surroundings BUT we wanted the excitement of discovering what the Allure had to offer that may be different.  I’m happy to say our experiences were similar enough in the main categories that it’s interchangeable with the Oasis trip.  So, I won’t completely recap our trip again.  I strongly suggest you read the Oasis of the Seas review first for the full review of what the Oasis class ships have in store for you.  What I’ll give you here will be things that are specific to our adventure on Allure.  (cleanliness, details on our rooms, customer service, food…things that could change from ship to ship).

Embarkation – gets an A – well, sort of.  We arrived around noon.  Porters immediately took our luggage at the curb and directed us inside.  This would be our first time sailing in a suite on RCI and so I want to give you the experience we had doing suite check in as a group.  As suite guests we had a completely different entrance with separate security checkpoint while regular stateroom guests used security stations in another area.  Once through general security and inside the terminal, we then found there was also a priority line for suite guests for check-in and walked right up – no waiting.   We were a party of 9.  Everyone’s check in was a breeze and we could have walked right onto the ship – until…there was a computer glitch on one reservation that did not allow one stateroom to board.  After waiting 20 mins at least for a supervisor to even appear to begin working on the problem, the others in our party decided to go ahead and board.  We wanted to send them ahead so that they wouldn’t miss out on getting the special ship phones.  (A mistake we made the first time we sailed the Oasis class with the kids!).   Because I had made all of the reservations, I opted to stay back with the party that couldn’t board while Royal Caribbean resolved the matter.  It was a rather lengthy wait.  Although it wasn’t a great way to start off our cruise, it wasn’t horrible either.  Not knowing that this would actually turn out to be a foreshadowing of things to go wrong with this reservation…we happily forged on.   We stopped to get my niece outfitted with her Youth Evacuation Plan armband as we had done on The Oasis and then walked right onto the ship.

Once aboard Allure of the Seas –

Remember we sent part of our group ahead to board without us so they could get the phones?  We were lucky and rectified mistake #1 from the first time we cruised Oasis of the Seas with kids.  THIS TIME:  we got 4 phones.  A set for me and my teens and a set for my sister and her nanny and kids.    These phones were a life line while on the ship.  You can’t use your cell phones to communicate without incurring steep fees since you’re outside of your regular coverage area.  This is fine if there are only adults.  This is nerve wracking when you have teens who want to go enjoy the teen programs and/or you’re traveling with a few other people and want to be able to see where people are to meet up every once in a while.  Remember, you’re on the largest ship in the world…so the idea that you’ll eventually just “run into people”….well not so much.  The phone allows texting and phone calls with any of the other special phones, calls to the staterooms and kids/teens program rooms AND the genius GPS locator screen.  I knew if my teens were in the teen program, in the room or off enjoying something else just by looking at the locator screen and could totally relax.  Very easy for the kids to use too.  And my sisters and I actually found each other several times on the mega ship using the GPS locator.  The daily activities (cruise compass) are also loaded on the phone for an added bonus.  The price at the time of sailing: $30 for the week.  I’d pay it again in a heartbeat.  A+

The ship is beautiful just like it’s sister Oasis.  I encourage you to go back to the review and look at those pictures as well because the spaces are almost identical. But here are few things to wet your whistle.

The set up is great because including the flow out onto the balcony we had a great amount of sitting/lounging room and never felt we had to use our beds for sitting space.   The bed area had plenty of room to walk around.   We asked for a two bed configuration and utilized a 3^rdbunk that folded out of the ceiling.  The sofa could have folded out into a bed as well.  With the sofa bed, we could have slept 5 in the room.   What we loved about using the bunk instead of the sofa for our third bed is that we were able to maintain our sitting room and floor space the entire trip.  Quite a bonus.  The desk/makeup area is twice as long as the balcony cabin’s desk, giving twice as much drawer and cabinet space for storage.   Full walk in closet and full bathroom with tub in the front of the room provided very nice space as well.  The lights were on dimmers which was a nice addition for the suites.  For us, the additional width, floor space, full closet and full bathroom was much appreciated over the regular stateroom.  Add the additional depth of the balcony and the space offered was, to me, more than worth the cost over a balcony stateroom.

Junior Suite Amenities/Bathroom – As a suite guest we were fully stocked with little shower gel, shampoo, conditioner, lotion and plush robes.  There is a retractable clothes line that will stretch across the tub for hanging wet items to dry.   While it’s still a small vanity – the sink was regular sized in these rooms and there was ample amount of space for toiletries for the 3 of us – if you pack lightly and remember where you are – a cruise ship.   There is the standard shaver outlet in the bathroom like in Europe.

My sister and her child were in the Grand Suite – Along with the connecting balcony room, this was even more spacious as the name suggests.  But before you get all excited, just remember it’s a cruise ship, so not THAT spacious.   You can’t think Grande Suite in a 5 star hotel.  That said, these rooms are really very nice with noticeably more sitting room to relax and store your things.   Added is a kitchen/wet bar area, an even larger bathroom, larger sitting area and longer (but not deeper) balcony.  The perks included access to a concierge lounge where breakfast and mid day snacks are served, complimentary drinks at cocktail hour, beautiful quiet surroundings to relax in and the help of two concierges to book reservations and take care of any issues that may have come up.  We needed their help several times…as I mentioned…this reservation was somehow doomed from the start.  More on that later.  Being in a Grand Suite and above also gives guests access to reserved priority seating in the shows and on the pool deck above the Solarium.  In both suites, everything was very clean, still felt new and upscale as a suite should – a solid A.

Improvements in staterooms over Oasis:  the outlets have been moved to the top of the desk for easy access.  There are also dual ipod docks in each room.   We used these every night to dock and charge the special iphones we had rented for the week.   Easy.  It also has a clock on it so it eliminates the poorly designed phone clocks on Oasis that you can’t see.

I’M PUTTING THIS IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE WE LEARNED A VERY IMPORTANT FACT ON THIS TRIP: LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION:   We were just off the back elevators on deck 6 and out of all the locations I’ve sailed so far – this is the perfect location.  PER-FECT.  At least on the Oasis Class. The central hub of these ships is the royal promenade on deck 5, the Aqua Theatre/Boardwalk area and the dining rooms on decks 3 through 5.  All were within a quick stroll of our rooms.  We were able to use the stairs versus waiting for crowded elevators at dinner time.  We walked right out to any general activities that were held out in the main areas.  A quick walk down our hall to the front of the ship and we were right at the fitness center and spa.  Perfect.

Crowds – gets a B.  This was the New Years Eve sailing so the ship was at full capacity at 6200 guests.  It felt slightly more crowded than my previous Oasis sailings but I really only felt like there were 6200 passengers when we were hung up waiting for elevators after shows or before dinner and naturally when everyone turned out for the big New Year’s events.   I mean, it’s New Years – your expectations are out of line if you don’t expect everyone on the ship to be out for the countdown.   I still maintain that crowds after shows or events let out is NOT a unique problem to these ships.  Doesn’t this happen anywhere you go to a show on land?   Yes.  This time we never sat by the pools but instead used the adult Solarium to sun in and I found seats each time without problem.  As in the previous two sailings I noticed LOTS of unused deck chair areas on the ship and still feel that the outlying chairs around decks 15 and 16 were much better options.  They had great sun plus great water views and were quieter than the busy pool areas.  This time we didn’t do ziplining, flowriders, rock climbing or ice skating since we had done them before so I can’t tell you about wait times for those things.  The kids used the ping pong tables, mini golf and other sports deck areas as they wished and didn’t seem to complain about wait times or number of people.   NOW….Windjammer….that’s where Oasis did a far better job with crowds.  There was no one seating guests or helping to find tables the way they did on Oasis and it was very difficult to find places to sit.  In fact, we cut down on the number of times we ate both breakfast and lunch there.  We ate buffet breakfast twice in the main dining room with no problem.  We ate lunch in Central Park several days at Park Café and never waited for food or tables.  Lesson – there are deliberately MANY places to go on these large ships to help spread out the guests.  Look for alternatives to the main areas when it’s peak meal time in Windjammer or take the steps if you can when dinner hour means busy elevators.  There are some very nice alternative eateries with great food (that cost little or no money) and will alleviate the feeling of being in the crowd sometimes.

TIP from Oasis trips – Use the Daily Compass to stalk opening times of things like the zipline, rock climbing wall, flow riders, etc. and utilize any special teen or adult hours they list. This will give you the best shot at less waiting.  On port days, the hours are short, on and off throughout the day so this will be key.

Kids/Teens Progams – gets a solid A+ overall.  I won’t go into depth on the Adventure Ocean program again.  I maintain my previous rating of a solid A and you can read all about it under my review of the Oasis of the Seas.

Infants – Quick mention – we also had my 10mth old niece this time.  We used the Fisher Price play group times and open play times in the infant/toddler play room.  This room is filled with Fisher Price toys and soft play mats and slides to give people someplace to bring their young ones to play during the day without leaving them in the nursery.  This is not supervised by ship personnel as it’s designed for you to stay and play with your child.  It was nice and clean.

My boys were in the teen groups.  The first time they sailed they didn’t really get the whole run off from mom and hang with other teens idea.  But this time…well, I only saw them at meal times and then again when the ship’s teen curfew hit at 2am each night!  They happily picked activities to do each day from their special Teen Compass and planned their days around the teen program hours.  This time we had the special iphones so I knew where they were and they could text me and give me updates on when they’d be back to the room, etc. so I had no problem with them being out and about.  I think this made all the difference in their confidence too.  The teen areas appear to be well supervised inside their “Living Room” space.   The large area with spaces for music and Wii, sitting areas, a “bar” for soft drinks and a dance club and is conveniently located right in the heart of the sports deck in the middle of all the action.  Some of the daily activities included dodge ball competition, scavenger hunts, Wii competitions, teen karaoke, teen only dance club events in the evenings, movie nights, trivia competitions and DJ school to name a few.  An eatery called Wipeout Café is located among the teen areas so they have food, drinks and soft serve ice cream/yogurt right there as well in the afternoon.   I said this last review but it bears repeating:  I think having everything in one compact area on one deck keeps teens from wandering all over the ship – and if this is deliberate planning, thumbs up RCI.  It.  Works.

Food – gets a B (Main Dining Room waiters get an A)   I maintain my same sentiments from my Oasis sailings even though the new menus were in place in the Main Dining Room on Allure.  As before, we thought the food was good.  Nothing spectacular…but good, decent, hearty meals.   That’s it.  I will tip my hat to the pastry/dessert chef as they had beautiful and tasty dessert offerings each night that still stand out in my memories.

We did no specialty restaurants this time for dinners.   We ate in the MDR every night.  We thought about making reservations at Samba Grill for at least one night…but we never did.  So I guess that’s saying we didn’t hate the dining room. One night we had a show to get to at 7pm – our waiters said no problem and our service was in high gear.  We ate and they got us out of there with time to spare.  (Normal leisurely dining pace is 1.5 to 2 hours in the MDR)

Here’s how we broke it down outside of the Main Dining Room:   Snacking – the teens frequently grabbed something from Wipeout Café since they were usually on the pool/sports deck.   They grabbed pizza late night from Sorrento’s Pizza on the promenade since it’s open til 2am.  I got late night snacks and tea from either the Café Promenade or room service – depending on how tired I was at the time.  We had lunch in Windjammer a few times, at the Boardwalk Dog House hot dog shop on the Boardwalk &  Johnny Rockets once (which has a small cover charge) and Park Café which has amazing made to order meal salads, roast beef sandwiches, fruits and other sides.   All of the food at these places was good too.  The Park Café salads were my favorite lunches and you can eat outside in Central Park and enjoy the greenery.   When we did go to Windjammer Café we were happy with the selection and the great views of either the sports deck or the water.  Great selection of many types of food and quick, all you can eat buffet is what the Windjammer excels at if you can plan to go at non-peak times to avoid the crowds.  If Allure helped seat guests like on Oasis there would be nothing holding us back from eating there.

Improvements/Changes over Oasis in Food/Beverage:  We happened to catch the addition of the new Coke Machines that have been added for those who have purchased the soft drink package.  You have a much wider selection of drinks from the machines than from the traditional soft drink offerings in the restaurants and bars.   The new MDR menus include a section of daily staple items you can always order instead of the nightly menu specials.   Basics like baked chicken, baked salmon and steak with vegetables are always available now.  The added Boardwalk Dog House hotdogs and sausages offered yet another quick and delicious option for lunches.   Rita’s Cantina replaced The Seafood Shack on the Boardwalk.  (We didn’t eat there so no review of the food.)

Customer Service – C -.  Look, we’re pretty easy going and can still have a good time when things are going wrong.  But outside of the concierge staff, this staff is not up to par with the amazing over the top service provided by every single member of the team on The Oasis.  There.  I said it.   People were never out and out rude… technically – but no one from the room attendants to the managers at Guest Services knew how to tactfully handle any situations that arose (and we had an unlucky couple of situations come up that had it not been for our AMAZING suite concierge stepping in to tirelessly deal with, our cruise would have been far from enjoyable).  No one seemed to know the answers to things when we had questions.   I am willing to give a certain amount of this over to the fact that it’s one of the busiest sailings of the year – also on the heels of the Xmas week sailing which also must be very hectic.  Both weeks are “specialty weeks” with all kinds of activities and offerings that don’t normally exist throughout the year.  That part, I’m willing to excuse somewhat.  But when I compare this to our Oasis sailings…I guess there really shouldn’t be much excuse.  One sailing was a regular summer week.  The other was a hectic Spring Break sailing at full capacity and more kids than ever.  And guess what?  We saw absolutely NO decline in the quality of service just because it was a Spring Break week.  I don’t know.   So…I’ll just end by saying Allure’s staff needs some fine tuning.

The Adult Activities – get an A.   Here I also maintain my thoughts from The Oasis:  From line dancing to disco parties on the Royal Promenade or an afternoon of scrap booking or a late night in one of the dance clubs or karaoke…or even an art auction…there is no shortage of things to do.  I will say, the activities director needs to pep up the evenings just a teeny tiny bit if I’m comparing it to evenings on The Oasis of the Seas.

The Ports of Call & Excursions – gets a B.  Ok we’ve already done this sailing itinerary.  So just like the first time to these ports of call, based on the excursions offered, we knew ahead of time that we were just going to enjoy the ship.  Because one of our reservations was a Grand Suite we had access to the Labadee, Haiti beach cabanas in the Gold Card area on the island.  Having 2 cabanas for the day in Haiti made ALL the difference in our experience this time.  We had a wonderfully relaxing day in good weather in our private cabanas with a great cabana attendant.   Well worth the money for the cabanas.

In Falmouth, Jamaica we did about 45 mins of afternoon souvenir shopping just as before and the kids were happy with that.  In Cozumel, we originally had snorkeling booked but changed to a mini-sub ride to see the coral reefs and fish in the clear waters.

This was enjoyable, short and was an easy morning activity.  We were back on the ship by noon to enjoy it in all its glory without everyone else (who were out at the lovely, but hot, and already seen Mayan ruins all day).

To wrap it up:  Allure of the Seas:  gets a B+

The Good:   As on Oasis – Fast, easy, efficient check-in.  (Until our botched reservation glitch.)  Good food w/plenty of dining options for all meals.  Clean, well kept, upscale accommodations.  The Boardwalk & Central Park = unique and fun.  Easy on and off procedures when you dock in the ports.   The improvements made over The Oasis are all well worth it and make the ship feel a little more well thought out.   Areas like Central Park, the Royal Promenade and The Boardwalk have small but noticeable enhancements in décor.

The Bad:    The Windjammer Café would benefit from adding 2 people at the door to help seat people as they do on Oasis.  Also, shockingly, the stage shows were ALL poorly executed on this ship.  While every show was top notch on The Oasis both times I cruised her, these casts feel amateurish and even the sets and choreography seem stereotypically cruise ship based.  The customer service fell woefully short.

The Best of it all:  Plenty to do for ALL ages every day.  Quality kids and teen programs.   Much better value for the $$ compared to our usual resort choices.   Would book again…but am honestly torn between the great service and shows on The Oasis or the great improvements made to the Allure.

Of Special Consideration:  This was a specialty cruise in my opinion because it was over New Years.  Those New Year’s events were great too!  HOWEVER this came at a price – The staff was probably taxed with changes to their regular schedules to accommodate these holiday changes.   They didn’t handle it as well as they should have unfortunately and customer service was at an all-time low.  Will it stop of from sailing her again?  No.