We flew into FLL the night before our cruise. This was our 14th cruise, and the third cruise on Royal Caribbean. We usually cruise on Princess, but we were taking a professional education seminar on the mornings at sea during this cruise, as my DH is a dentist and I'm the office manager, so we wouldn't have normally selected the Allure. The one thing you need to bring with you when cruising on the Allure is your PATIENCE. The lines can be long and the service a little erratic due to the volume of passengers that are being served.

We had a reservation at the Hilton Garden Inn Cruiseport. We enjoyed this clean, modern hotel...great location and terrific and helpful staff! The hotel provided free shuttle service from the airport , as well as a shuttle which took us to/from the restaurant of our choice for dinner. We had breakfast at Wendy's, which was a short walk from the hotel. We had booked the shuttle to the Cruise Port upon our arrival. At $8 per person this was a great deal!

Embarkation was OK, just a little slow. Once we checked in, we were seated in the large terminal until about Noon, at which time we were allowed to embark the ship with nearly 6300 other passengers. Once on the ship, we couldn't actually enter our cabin until 1 pm, so we went to the Park Café for a salad, vegi wrap and some fruit. During the cruise we enjoyed the Park Café quite often since they seemed to have the healthiest alternatives and it was on the deck we were staying on. Great breakfast oatmeal, bagels and lox, and even the fruit yogurt parfaits were delightful. Deck 8 is so beautiful and you really do feel like you are in a park, complete with birds chirping in the morning and crickets at night, thanks to carefully placed Bose speakers! Read more