Allure of the Seas Review

5.0 / 5.0
3,136 reviews

March 4, 2012

Review for the Eastern Caribbean Cruise on Allure of the Seas
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Canusa02
2-5 Cruises • Age 50s

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Sail Date: Mar 2012
Cabin: Superior Ocean View Stateroom with Large Balcony

The Allure is one beautiful masterpiece of engineering & design. I'm sure some people could find something wrong with the layout or some other trivial matter, but why bother? We were on vacation, and thoroughly excited to be there. By far, my favorite public area of the ship was Central Park. I made every effort to spend time there, even if it were to walk through the park listening to the piped in sounds of crickets chirping. Of course, it didn't hurt that Vintages wine & tapas bar were located there. On other ships, I have either enjoyed my morning IV drip of coffee sitting on my stateroom balcony or on the top deck looking out at the Caribbean sea. While that did not change much, I did find myself sitting in Central Park in the early morning hours just relaxing and sipping away.

I was excited to be back on a Royal Caribbean ship, after having sailed twice before with RCCL and once with another line. There were pros and cons to both lines, but the scales balanced a little more in favor of Royal, so that is why we chose the Allure. Sadly, the MDR meals that I fondly recall from 2005 & 2006 are no where near as tasty as they used to be. We generally don't splurge on the specialty restaurants, and it seems that RCCL has started lowering the quality of food in the free venues in order to draw people in to the pay venues. Honestly, I don't think I would want to pay for the options that are available for a fee. If I want Mexican food, I don't want Tex-Mex style. If I order a steak, I don't want someone ruining it by pouring a sauce over it. I could go on, but with the price of flying out of Canada being almost quadruple that of flying from the U.S., a lot of my extra spending money was spent before I even landed in Ft. Lauderdale.

I found the staff onboard were not quite as friendly as I remembered. True, our stateroom attendant and MDR serving staff did a great job. What stood out to me the most were the people that obviously were being "nice" because they had to be. Some invisible person over my shoulder was greeted quite a bit wherever I went. Even when I tried to make small talk or joking about wanting to hide onboard the last day, I had three instances where the people stated that I would then find out how hard there job is. I realize their job is difficult, and their hours are sucky, but I shouldn't have to hear them complain about that. What really got me was the time that I was obviously cussed out by a guy because I used four cups to fill up two water bottles. I stacked all four cups together, set them at the table closest to the kitchen, and turned to walk away. It was then that I heard him. No, I couldn't understand the words he said, but it was clear what the words meant. I didn't dare tell the guy he was out of regular coffee a little later on, so I had to suffer through one cup of decaf.

Cabin Review

Superior Ocean View Stateroom with Large Balcony

Cabin D1

Great balcony, and quiet neighbors the whole week. The nightstands (if you can call them nightstands) were inefficient offering no drawers or cubby-hole. Bed was located by the balcony, which made it convenient to get out of bed and watch the sunrise in less than five steps.

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