RCCL Allure of the Seas - Huge Photo Trip Report!

On Feb 22, 12:41*pm, Chrissy Cruiser wrote:
I'm with you on this one, Pal, wait until you have to tender in to one
of the Carib islands when these massive beasties are a float!

Oasis and Allure do not visit any ports where you have to tender.
They only visit ports that the ships can dock at. In fact, in the
last couple of years of doing RCCL ships, the only place I've had to
tender at was Grand Cayman. Maybe we just got lucky with our
itineraries, but it seems like the ships we do rarely tender anymore.

--Robb Alvey
www.themeparkreview.com

Labadee's not a tender anymore?

Well, the alpine coaster wasn't there either in 1990...times change I
guess.

On Feb 22, 1:11*pm, Pathetic Old BaSSclown
wrote:
Labadee's not a tender anymore?

Well, the alpine coaster wasn't there either in 1990...times change I
guess.

^ Nope! They build a dock there last year. Seriously, Labadee has
gone through a ton of changes in the past three years we've been
there. Check out this page of photos specifically:
http://www.themeparkreview.com/parks...10080&pageno=7

That shows the ship docked and all the things they have added to the
resort. If you haven't been since 1990, it probably looks like a
completely different place now!

--Robb

On Feb 22, 1:11*pm, Pathetic Old BaSSclown
wrote:
Labadee's not a tender anymore?

Well, the alpine coaster wasn't there either in 1990...times change I
guess.

Nope! Check out this page of photos specifically:
http://www.themeparkreview.com/parks...10080&pageno=7

That shows the ship docked and how much there is to do at Labadee
now. If you haven't been since 1990, the place probably looks
completely different!

--Robb

On Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:45:13 -0800 (PST), Pathetic Old BaSSclown
wrote:

On Feb 22, 3:33*pm, Theme Park Review wrote:
Disembarkation was even easier. *RCCL allows to stay in
your stateroom until your time to head out. *We walked right off the
boat, picked up our bags and we were off to our car. *No waiting for
anything. *No having to go to a certain area of the boat and wait for
your number to be called.

Wow! So glad that's a thing of the past. I hated having to sit around
in a lounge or on deck, not being able to do anything fun. It's like
"your vacation is over, you probably have to fly across the country
now, and god help you if you're going through Atlanta". Our group
always seemed to be the last one called, LOL!

Live in ATL and I can attest that when we hit Hartsfield, it was a
relief to grab the tram and head home instead of trying to muscle your
way across 6 or 7 concourses.
--
http://moourl.com/CruiseCheep

On Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:55:58 -0800 (PST), Theme Park Review wrote:

On Feb 22, 12:41*pm, Chrissy Cruiser wrote:
I'm with you on this one, Pal, wait until you have to tender in to one
of the Carib islands when these massive beasties are a float!

Oasis and Allure do not visit any ports where you have to tender.
They only visit ports that the ships can dock at. In fact, in the
last couple of years of doing RCCL ships, the only place I've had to
tender at was Grand Cayman. Maybe we just got lucky with our
itineraries, but it seems like the ships we do rarely tender anymore.

--Robb Alvey
www.themeparkreview.com

No ****? Yeah I guess you're right considering the itineraries. Just
got off the Jewel OTS, tendered in GC. Thought we did in Labadee.
Don't remember, my boobs were sore, not enough Vit E. LOL
--
http://moourl.com/CruiseCheep

On Feb 22, 2:36*pm, Pathetic Old BaSSclown
wrote:
Continuing to represent the "old fart" demographic...

I don't get this trend toward these huge boats all of the lines are
putting out. I understand it increases their profits to pack more
asses in the tub, but to me that's gotta lessen the experience
somewhat. I took a bunch of cruises back in the 80's/90's and it
seemed like the boats were big enough back then! I can only imagine
the extra time involved with embarking/disembarking that many
thousands of people, much less the impact on a port when 2 or 3 of
these monsters show up.

I think it depends on the line. Princess didn't seem to have moving a
thousand or more people at once mastered when it came to on ship
events, but I'd hope that RCCL would. Between them and Norweigan
starting to hand out "tickets" to the various shows to prevent
crowding, I think that's probably a big help on either of the really
really big vessels out there.

As far as the lure of big ships, people like big buildings and big
cars and big coasters (for us RRC folk, see also; TERA, TERA TERA).
RCCL having the enormo ship that they do limits the kind of ports it
can visit, but the places they do go are where people are gonna want
to visit at this stage, or at least will be most comfortable at like
the new cruise port at Falmouth or the private island on Labadee.


Hope that Royal Carribbean is still holding up...they were by far my
favorite of the three companies I tried.

As I've said previously, my attitude is basically "mass market is mass
market". Which is good and bad. If you want what RCCL offers in terms
of onboard activities and you really like their itineraries, then go
for it. I think Allure is going to be doing both Labadee and Falmouth
(which is their new gateway to Ocho Rios) on the same cruise soon
should you decide to eschew any sense of wanting culture out of the
experience and want them credits. I count 'em at least.

On Feb 22, 3:36*pm, GodsOnSafari wrote:
On Feb 22, 2:36*pm, Pathetic Old BaSSclown
wrote:

Continuing to represent the "old fart" demographic...

I don't get this trend toward these huge boats all of the lines are
putting out. I understand it increases their profits to pack more
asses in the tub, but to me that's gotta lessen the experience
somewhat. I took a bunch of cruises back in the 80's/90's and it
seemed like the boats were big enough back then! I can only imagine
the extra time involved with embarking/disembarking that many
thousands of people, much less the impact on a port when 2 or 3 of
these monsters show up.

I think it depends on the line. Princess didn't seem to have moving a
thousand or more people at once mastered when it came to on ship
events, but I'd hope that RCCL would. Between them and Norweigan
starting to hand out "tickets" to the various shows to prevent
crowding, I think that's probably a big help on either of the really
really big vessels out there.

This worked insanely well. We were all really impressed. Your
Seapass card was your "ticket" and they scanned it when you entered
the theater. The scanners were all hand scanners, so they could add
or remove staff if needed during busier times before a show would
start. We always got to a show early anyway, so we never had any
issues (nor did we see anyone else) waiting to get into a theater.

One of the shows at the Aqua Theater was rescheduled due to high wind,
and oddly enough the system knew what other activities we had booked
and picked the best possible day to reschedule us, and it worked out
just fine. We didn't have to do anything, talk to anyone, it was just
done automatically, and if we wanted to change the time, we could have
done so via remote control on our TV.

One thing I did forget to note is that Liberty just came out of dry
dock, and Freedom is going in soon, but it's been reported that RCCL
is upgrading some of those class of ships to have some features of the
Oasis class, like the touch screens, Dreamworks characters, ship wide
Wi-Fi, and a few other "little" things that seemed to work so well on
Allure.

I still can't believe how impressed we were with the ship. So much so
that the ports really didn't matter to us. We got off the ship and
"Did a lap", but we took that time when the ship was quiet to explore
it some more.

FYI - if anyone is interested, TPR had a very in depth look at the
Disney Dream a couple of weeks ago:
http://themeparkreview.com/forum/vie...996498#p996498

I tell 'ya, that ship is only 128,000 GT, a whole 100,000 tonnes
smaller than Allure, but wow, it looks insanely awesome as well! We
are planning to do the Disney Fantasy when it comes out next year (we
always tend to wait until a sister ship of a newer ship is released so
they can fix any problems in V2.0) and I am just more and more
impressed with where the cruising industry is heading. We have been
covering cruises since 2003 and this is probably going to be our most
exciting year so far!

--Robb

In article
,
Theme Park Review wrote:

Please also note that our sense of humor can be "PG-13" if not "R
Rated" at times, and if you are easily offended, you probably
shouldn't click this link! Although RCCL tweeted about our updates so
I guess if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for anyone!
You've been warned! Here's the link:

http://www.themeparkreview.com/parks...0&linkid=10080

Excellent. Thank you for sharing. Did Oasis last October and I am doing
Allure in December. Many things are the same and some are different.
Your great photos and trip report are building my anticipation!

--
Charles

On our last three cruises we opted to take our luggage off
ourselves,therefore we had no wait to get off the ship.Took our bags and
got off and in our car within 10 minuets,And they did have people that
would help you if you needed it.





cruise lover(~~~~~)






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