While this is my first REVIEW of a cruise, it was the third cruise my wife and I had taken on with Royal Caribbean. When we heard 18 months previously that the Allure was going to have a run in the Mediterranean in the summer of 2015, we booked right away as the couple we went with raved about the Allure specifically.

I will admit I was skeptical about the sheer volume of passengers and worried that there would be constant line ups or denials of activities because of all the passengers. Hence my reading of countless reviews here! So I'll cut to the chase and say those fears were COMPLETELY unfounded and we had a fantastic time. More details......

Onboarding was VERY straight forward. To my recollection, it was quicker and more efficient to onboard in Barcelona's port than when I have previously onboarded with RCI at Ft Lauderdale. That may be a function of the port rather than RCI itself but nevertheless, from arrival to walking on board, and that included purchasing wine and water to bring on board once we had cleared security, took less than 30 minutes. Read more