Amazing Allure of the Seas! Part 1.

I have just returned from what I have to say was one of the best cruise experiences of my life! The Allure of the Seas is the world’s largest cruise ship, she is 2 inches longer than her sister ship the Oasis of the Seas.

Our journey started on the 30th November flying from Heathrow to Miami and then onto our hotel for the evening the Fairfield Inn, Fort Lauderdale. The Hotel was modern and served its purpose, it was on a main highway and not much in the local area you had to take a taxi if you wanted to even go to the nearest restaurants! After such a long day and flight we decided to order room service and retired for the evening ready for the star of the show, boarding the Allure of the seas the following morning!

Breakfast in the hotel was perfect, sausages, muffins, eggs and more so plenty of choice for everyone. It would have been great to stay in a More central hotel which I would probably choose to do in future but on this occasion the hotel was suited for a quick evening to put your head down.

We then set of on our transfer to Port Everglades which was only 15-20 minutes away from the hotel and once we got closer to the port you could see the Allure standing out from the rest of the ships due to her sheer size!

Check in was one of the quickest and most efficient processes I have ever come across, no queues at all and this is one of the areas I really thought would be a long process getting all of the passengers onboard. They have a large number or check in desks and apparently the terminal had been purposely built to accommodate the Allure of the Seas and you can really see this in the embarking schedule , they really have got it right!

They board you straight onto the Royal Promenade deck so straight away you think or say out loud in my case wow! I have never been on a Royal Caribbean ship before so to start my first Royal Caribbean on their biggest ship I can see myself saying Wow very often! The promenade is filled with bars , restaurants and shops and I would say is the heart of the ship. You have the Bow and Stern English pub, Sorrento’s pizzeria, cupcake shop, boleros salsa bar, On Air sports bar, rising tide bar, champagne bar and cafe promenade. They also host parades and various evening events such as a 70s evening party on the promenade.

Here are some photos of the Promenade;

The cabins opened up at 1pm , which again for a ship on this scale to get the cabin cleaned and ready to go for the next batch of passengers for 1pm is just extraordinary! We had an inside cabin on deck 7 located forward which was a good size, twin beds, a sofa and plenty of storage space, there was even an iPhone/iPod docking station which came in handy!

Unfortunately the ship was at full capacity so I didn’t have the chance to visit any other staterooms but the boardwalk and central park balcony’s looked great, they look inside the ship over with the central park area which is a lush green area quiet during the evening time with piped classical music or a band playing, or you can choose a balcony over the boardwalk, this area is more lively in the evening especially if there is a show in the aqua theatre so will be noisier but both a great for people watching! Or if you want tranquillity definitely opt for the ocean view balcony’s.

Due to the weather being poor on our first day, think cloud, black skies and rain, the sailaway party was cancelled but we still headed up on to the top deck under shelter with a cocktail to watch the ship sail out of Fort Lauderdale. It was great to see locals coming out of there beachfront homes/condos to wave at the ship as it passed by!

We were booked onto the 8.30pm seating in the main dining room Adagio this evening but the food was slightly disappointing. I ordered scallops to start followed by cod and both dishes were stone cold as were other people on my tables! I did send them back and they came out more fresh and hotter but I was a little disappointed!

Following on from our evening meal we then headed to the Aqua theatre which we had pre booked before we left on the cruise personaliser, definitely worth doing as this saves any disappointment with not being able to get into any of the shows onboard. The show was called Oceanaria and was absolutely amazing! By far my favourite show of the week. they had acrobats and divers and of course the main attraction was the swimming pool which had a retractable bottom, so one minute a diver was diving into the pool from quite a height and the next minute another cast member was walking over the pool, really clever an d fascinating, a must watch!