My wife and I have been cruising for fifteen years and love it. We have never had a bad cruise and we have cruised on Costa, Carnival and Norwegian. The Allure ranks a little higher overall than Costa, Carnival and Norwegian but far below Holland America, Princess, Celebrity, and even the other RCI ships including the Oasis which we cruised on in December 2011.

We live in Tampa, FL so we departed for Fort Lauderdale at 8:00 am for the 4 1/2 hour drive. We arrived at the terminal at noon, dropped off our luggage and parked not more than 100 yards from the terminal. Check-in was a breeze and we were at the buffet within 30 minutes. After a quick lunch, we headed for our cabin to unpack. We were to meet our two sons, their wives, and six other friends for early dinner. The cruise was to celebrate our 60th Wedding Anniversary.

Dinner was good considering the number of meals they serve each day. No cruise ship ever really serves hot food. The service was great. We finished dinner about 1/2 hour before Chicago started so we went to the Amber showroom. We had booked all of the shows months in advance of the cruise. After fighting the crowds to walk the length of the ship we finally got in line for the show. This was the first in a number of lines we were to stand in. Read more