We have been loyal Carnival cruisers for over 10 years. We've also done Disney a couple times before that. We always thought that Carnival provided a good value for the price and since we generally cruise at the most expensive time of the year, price was pretty important. Our last cruise on RCL has given us a different perspective. We planned the cruise pretty late (about 5 weeks before departure). At that point the price difference between this 10 day cruise and an 8 day Carnival cruise to the Caribbean was only about $1000 more for 4 of us (we have 2 adult age kids that have a separate room). Generally we get a balcony for us and an inside room for the kids but in this case RCL's price was possible by doing a guaranteed ocean view for both rooms meaning we did not know where we'd be on the ship but knew we'd have an ocean view. I wanted to give this information to set the stage for the comparison.

First, the Oasis class ship (which the Allure is 1 of 3) is just amazing. It holds almost 6,500 passengers. When we saw this we were worried that it would feel crowded. The ONLY time we felt the crowd was on New Year's Eve at midnight when most of the people were on the promenade level to celebrate. Other than that 30 minutes, you would never believe there were 6,500 other people on the ship with you. Windjammers (the buffet area) had a line a couple of times but there are other places to eat on the ship if you didn't want to wait in line or sit with a crowd. Anyone hesitating because of concerns about the number of people or the size of the ship should not be concerned. If you are considering one of these larger ships, you'll actually feel like there is more room on this ship than others in the 3,000 person range.

As for the ship itself - be prepared to be in awe. I won't go through all the details of the ship as many have documented it time and again. Read though those other reviews because the RCL site does not do the ship justice in the information they provide. Here are the key comparison points though between our Carnival experience and this RCL cruise. To be fair, RCL has other ships that are more like the "standard" Carnival ones we have been on (Freedom, Valor, Conquest) but we have also been on the Breeze which at the time was the top of the line Carnival ship so have experienced the best of both. Additionally, I'm looking at this from a value perspective. RCL does charge more for the Oasis class than older ships. Read more