Royal Caribbean Allure of the Seas Part 4: Onboard Shows

Time for my last installment of our cruise review! You can read Part 1, Part Two  and Part Three to catch up if you'd like! 

As mentioned before, the weather was crazy and we had a couple of days onboard that were severely limited by it. This affected the shows, too, since some were outside and most would have compromised the safety of the performers since the ship was rocking soooo much (yes, THAT much. It was nuts.). 

Once the ship settled a bit, we were able to see a few of the shows. And the two that my kiddo performed in were towards the end of the cruise, so they went on as planned! 

Blue Planet Aerial Acrobatic Show

The girls and I loved this show. It was elaborate and creative and involved a big nature theme where scenes took place in all kinds of environments and a Mother Nature character united all the scenes. I had to find a few pictures online. We were right in the front and I was unable to sneak my own pics of this one! ;)

How to Train Your Dragon Ice Show

This was actually an awesome ice show! It was fun for all ages in our group, from 7 to 67! And we all love this movie, so it was an extra fun one to see come to "life"! 

* There was a different ice show called Ice Games but we were unable to see it on the limited occasions when it was available.

OceanAria Aqua Show

This show takes place in the outdoor aqua theater on the back of the ship. There is an 18 ft deep pool and there are diving stations up to 62 feet in the air! It's like Cirque du Soleil O "light" (and if you get the chance to see that show in Vegas, DO IT. It's freaking amazing!). The first few shows were cancelled due to the ship rocking and the ship was STILL rocking too much for this show in my opinion when we saw it! Yikes!! Glad it wasn't my kid or husband up there jumping (my 7 year old said she'd happily go from the top!? Noooooo). Was a fun show and good value as part of included entertainment! 

The only fools in the "splash zone"! LOL

Special Guests: Stars at Sea Performances

This is the reason we went! For our 9 year old to shine on stage. And shine, she did! She absolutely rocked it and had a BLAST. They got the chance to have a workshop with some of the performers from the big shows and it was really cool to meet and learn from people who are entertaining for a living. Her school did an amazing job and we were all so proud!! 

That little one on the left in the purple, though! ;)

We were unable to see Chicago because so many of the showings were extremely late and it wasn't appropriate for our kids. I was sad to hear that the guest performer on the cruise the week after ours was Kristin Chenoweth! What??? That would have been cool! 

There were other nighttime comedy shows, etc., that we skipped to spend the time in the room with the girls.

So, final thoughts...

Would we go on a cruise again? Maybe... if the kid is performing again, sure. If it's just a trip that we choose and book ourselves? Would probably need to be a more exciting itinerary and maybe places that aren't necessarily ideal to visit on their own (Turkey, Israel..).

Was it what you expected? Yes and no. We expected the tiny rooms, big crowds, buffet food. We didn't expect entertainment quality to be as high as it was nor did we expect weather to be so chilly and swimming options and desirability to be so limited. The whole thing definitely made more sense to us on the days that we were able to get off the ship and see something destination-wise.

Did the kids like it? Absolutely. They LOVED it. They didn't notice any of the things that the adults found less than ideal. They both say they would pick it over a week at a beach. 

Was it worth it? I would pay any amount to provide such an amazing opportunity for my kiddo and to be there to cheer her on. Was it worth close to twice what it costs to book an all-inclusive in a 4-5 star resort someplace like Cancun just for a regular vacation? Not for us.

Let me know if you have any other questions! It was quite the learning experience, for sure! Happy travels! 

Royal Caribbean Allure of the Seas Part 3: Onboard Activities

Time to get into the cruise even more! You can read Part 1 and Part Two to catch up if you'd like! 

As mentioned before, due to weather and craziness, we wound up spending even more time onboard than expected. The weather limited lots of outside activities but we were still able to try most things! 

Activities:

1. Swimming: There are four TINY pools. As in, each has a posted capacity of like 25 people. And that's it for the entire ship. They are all on the top deck and were closed for hours and hours at a time when weather was bad. When they actually were open, the water was ice cold and only the most die-hard swimmers swam. I never got in the water. Not once (except for a few minutes in an insanely crowded/gross hot tub) but my girls and their blue lips swam anyways. There was a little splash park area that was fun for them for a few minutes but this whole aspect of the ship was actually pretty disappointing. There's not much my girls and hubs hope to do on an "warm" vacation more than swim.

Free unlimited ice cream around the pools was a daily necessity!

2. Flowrider Surf Simulator: I hadn't seen anything about this online, but there are height restrictions on this. My almost 8 year old, who was just surfing for real in Waikiki a few months before, wasn't allowed to do this at all. My 9.5 year old was tall enough to try it laying on a boogie board but wasn't allowed to try to stand up surf (she was also just surfing for real in Waikiki over spring break). We weren't expecting these rules and it was pretty disappointing when the only one who could do it was Papa. The lines were long and the hours were irregular, so even he only did it a couple times. 

The kid who was allowed...

The biggest kid ;)

3. Ziplining: This looked amazing online but in reality was a super short zipline than ran diagonal over a very short section of the ship. The girls were still super pumped to do it but weren't allowed to. Again, restrictions we didn't know anything about until we got there. Riders have to be a minimum of 75 pounds and neither of them are. 

4. Rock Climbing Wall: Yippee!!! Something they were allowed to do! Haha! And, boy, did they rock climb! This was the first time any of us had tried a rock wall like this and the girls were obsessed! They went multiple times, on all levels of difficulty, and were some of the rare kids onboard that were able to reach the top and ring the bell! 

Climbing obsession! We want one at home now!

5. Ice Skating: The hours didn't really work out for us to ice skate on the rare occasion that the water was calm enough and it was actually open. No biggie, my girls aren't huge fans anyway.

6. Dreamworks Character Experiences: I think there were some meals with characters available, but we didn't do any of those. There were several parades that were lots of fun for the kids. We were able to meet most of the characters by walking up to various times posted on daily schedules. One super annoying thing, though, was that we were often not allowed to take our own pictures. Um, WHAT? Even Disney takes photos with the Photo Pass then lets you take your own. This resulted in me coaching my kids to try to look over at me on the side so that I could snap a quick picture before I got scolded (again) for taking my own. So annoying. A couple of photo ops let us take our own and the couple that I bought from the ship were cute. Whatever.

The girls thought the parades were fun!

So many creeper pics from the side. So annoying.

But a few of my own that were cute! 

7. Kids Club: Another thing we didn't do because of a rule issue. The girls were 7 and 9 and were going to be put in separate rooms, which the 7 year old didn't want. We never use the free babysitting on vacation like this but were going to let them do some art or something for an hour on one of the rainy days. Fail.

8. Dance classes: These were super fun! We went to the Beyonce Class and the Country Line Dance Class. Super informal, all ages welcome, and a nice little surprise workout! There were lots of other options that we didn't do and things like Zumba, that we saw when walking by! 

9. The Boardwalk: The outdoor "Boardwalk" area was a fun place to hang out. This is where the rock wall is and also has a carousel and the Aqua Theater which has shows, shows movies, etc. This whole area was shut down during the bad weather times but when open there were often ship employees here hosting free games and face painting and stuff for the kids. The Mexican restaurant here was amazing, btw! ;)

"brown bear" and "panda bear" :)

10. There are lots of other things around the ship that we tried for a minute or two: ping pong, basketball, miniature golf, karaoke, pay to play Bingo. There is a big teens-only club that my 9.5 year old was drooling over and a pay arcade that we never stepped foot in. 

I'm sure there are things that I'm forgetting, but I think I've hit all the big ones! One more post coming on onboard shows/entertainment. Again, if there's anything specific you'd like to know, please ask! This is such a pricey family vacation and I'm hoping to do my part in helping people be informed consumers!! :D

Royal Caribbean Allure of the Seas Cruise Part 2: Weather and Ports

Time to get into the cruise a little bit more! You can read Part 1 here! 

So... the weather. The weather on our cruise was not good. I mean, really. It was often BAD. Bad enough that the people who are scared of the water stayed for hours and hours in one seat, in the middle of the ship, close to their emergency meet point. Bad enough that things were falling over as the ship rocked side to side. And, by things, I mean usually people. People were stumbling everywhere. People were seasick. There was vomit involved. People were unable to sleep. Basically worse case scenario for anyone with reservations about cruising.

All we had heard was that you never even know that you're on a big ship, it's SO BIG that you never feel it. Well, you could feel it SO MUCH our entire week that it became a running joke between hubs and me after we'd walk into a wall or something "Wow, you'd never even KNOW you were on a boat." I was at home sitting at the computer 36 hours after getting off the ship and noticed I was STILL swaying inside.

I know that the weather is out of the ship's control, but it was the way the weather was dealt with that was kind of an issue. The ship was unable to go into port at our first stop, Nassau, since the water was so rocky. And it rained and rained nonstop. And it was SO WINDY that you couldn't even walk outside. All of this resulted in 5,000+ people stuck indoors in artificial light on a ship that massively rocked from approximately 6pm Sunday until we docked at St. Thomas at 7am or so on Wednesday. Seriously.

And for those 2.5 days... things ground to a halt. Many of the shows couldn't go on because of the weather conditions. No ice shows, water shows, etc., (understandably). The entire massive boardwalk area was mostly useless. No rock wall, no surf machine, no zipline, no putt putt, no basketball, no kiddie splash park. Every pool is outside and each one had a net thrown over it to keep people out. All of a sudden, having almost every activity OUTSIDE didn't seem like such a brilliant plan. I know, I know, sh*t happens, but the entire ship spent 2.5 days of our cruise bunkered down indoors with little to do.... Not a great start for those of us who weren't completely sold on a cruise to begin with! 

Blowing away on the top deck! 

Then.... on Wednesday. We docked!! And the sun was out! And everyone ran off the ship and kissed the ground! LOL! 

Hubs and I were married on St. John and we have talked forever about taking our families back to see the beach where it all began. We were so excited to use this day to show our girls! We took a taxi across St. Thomas to the Red Hook dock and took the ferry across to Cruz Bay on St. John. This was definitely a lengthy and somewhat expensive process, but was totally doable. 

Sea turtle spotting on the ferry ride between the islands! Gorgeous!! 

Lunch at Across the Street on St. John

Of course my little one thought this was serious (and a great idea! LOL)

Sweet wild deer at Hawksnest Park

Hawksnest Beach where we were married was just as lovely as we remembered. Seriously. It is pretty much perfect. The WAVES, however, were out of control and we all got knocked around and lost a few things. Everyone was talking about how uncharacteristic this is.... Oh well. One more crazy weather situation to add to the trip! LOL! 

We caught the return ferry just in time for it to start pouring rain again... Ugh. St. Thomas is kind of gross so we were actually excited to get back on the boat!! Haha! 

The third and final stop was St. Martin/Maarten. The grandparents took the girls on a day tour of a local butterfly farm (was kind of a long and uneventful day for young kids) and the hubs and I caught a taxi to Orient Beach. We just randomly picked this beach off a map and it was really gorgeous. It is on the French side, so there is a nude section (um... def too much old man nudity, as expected... hahaha). 

It was interesting to hear our Dutch taxi driver ranting about how much she hates the French. The island is divided in half between the two countries and it is obviously VERY divided. She spent lots of time talking about how the French try to get you for every dollar they can. This was 100% our experience as a guy tried to charge us $20 a chair on the beach for a couple of hours (we sat on a towel on the sand) and a lady at a gift shop ran our credit card in Euros instead of dollars (made it 1.5x more expensive, we didn't notice until on our way back to the ship). And, of course, it rained while we were there... but it was pretty! haha! 

View of St. Martin from our room's balcony!

Orient Beach, St. Maarten

I was surprised that hubs didn't want to try these water jet pack boot things!

So... the ports were SO nice for a change of scenery. All of a sudden, when we could get on/off the boat, cruising made a lot more sense. We have already talked about how cool it would be to cruise an area of the world with fabulous cities that are maybe not the safest to spend a long amount of time in (like Turkey, for example!). 

Stay tuned for more info on the ship itself - food, shows, activities! Let me know if you have any questions at all! I'm so happy to share!! 

Royal Caribbean Allure of the Seas Cruise Review Part 1

So... let's start with this. My family and I have been fortunate enough to travel quite a bit. Hubs and I have been to all continents except Antarctica (and plan on making it there eventually!). We love all-inclusive experiences and have spent quite a few vacays enjoying them. 

All of that being said, we've never had much interest in going on a cruise. We'd rather GO somewhere, you know? Put us in a place for a week, let us really explore and see the destination, give us a passport stamp and a thorough experience. It has always seemed like, on a cruise, the SHIP is the destination, and we've just never been inclined to pick that over all of the other options out there. 

And then, back in the spring, our 9 year old was given the opportunity to perform on Allure of the Seas over Thanksgiving break. She has taken voice and piano since she was 5 at a Louisville fine arts school and the school's performance groups were invited for a 5th time to join the official onboard entertainment. The opportunity was too good for her to pass up so... all aboard! We packed up and headed out to see what cruising is all about! 

Packed up and ready to roll! 

Our Eastern Caribbean cruise departed from Ft. Lauderdale at 6pm on a Sunday night. To avoid the stress of traveling on cruise day, we flew to FLL the day before and spent the night at the Pelican Grand Resort on the beach. We got upgraded to an amazing massive room and could happily have spent the week here! The place was amazing. Seriously!!

View from our balcony

Kids faking trauma... haha

Ahhh... family happy place!

Wouldn't be south Florida without the expensive rides parked out front! ;)

On Sunday we checked out and headed over to the port. The entire boarding process was organized and quick, kind of like a "light" version of airport security! Before we knew it, we were aboard the Allure, the largest cruise ship on the water! 

Checking it out! 

The view from our balcony!

The week was packed with all kinds of stuff! We tried to experience everything the ship had to offer and definitely learned a lot about the whole cruising experience! I'll be doing posts on the food, the ports we visited, the onboard activities and the shows! I tried to do lots of research before we left but still traveled with lots of unanswered questions. Hopefully I'll be able to offer some helpful, unbiased advice to  some of you who might be considering a vacation like this! Stay tuned! :D