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Happy Easter and Happy Passover to all that celebrate the holidays!!! Wow, one year flies by so fast! Our last cruise on Icon will be exactly one year ago to the day of this upcoming sailing. It’s been way too long! As always, I’m trying to start the blog a little early before the pressure mounts to get everything done. As @Lovetocruise2002 can attest to… one of the most difficult parts of starting a live blog is creating the name! We’re just about 3 weeks away from sail away! I've also had my iPhone lockscreen ready to go! This trip is a bucket list item for my wife (Christine) and I (John)! I’ve never been overseas, but my wife has been to the UK many times as a child and young adult (family in England & Scotland - my MIL is British). She’s also been to Paris, but has not experienced any of the locations we’ll be visiting on this trip. The extent of my travel has been limited to the continental U.S. and foreign ports that we’ve visited together by cruise ship (Bermuda, Bahamas/Caribbean countries, Mexico, etc.). We will be travelling once again with my wife’s uncle and fiancée (recently engaged)! We of course have been living vicariously through the many amazing live blogs posted here on the forum. Recently, I’ve especially loved the live blogs of the Western Med sailings including the more recent ones from @Lovetocruise2002 and @FionaMG! They really ramp up our excitement level and anticipation! Love all of the photos!!! The last few months have been a little crazy for us. My wife underwent surgery on her left foot in mid-December. She did not believe she could handle the demands of this trip without taking care of her foot. She was non-weight bearing for a full month into January (so much fun for me! ), but she’s really coming along now and her surgeon and PT feel she should be fine on this trip with some minor precautions. We're trying to get out every evening to walk a bit. Around the same time in early December our beloved Golden Retriever, Bella (12 years old), was diagnosed with thoracic carcinomatosis which contributed to fluid build-up in her chest around her lungs (pleural effusion). The diagnosis was grim, but we had hoped she would make it comfortably through the summer with routine check-ups and treatment. Unfortunately, she passed away suddenly a little over a week ago in her sleep just one month shy of her 13th birthday. We rescued her at 13 months, so she’s been with us for almost 12 years. Thankfully, we have some time to grieve before our big adventure. Her loss is also affecting our male Golden, Jake (7 years old). If you know me, I have to include pics of our pups… a couple of shots of our Bella (Jake will be "showcased" later of course ). One of my favorites of her at age 3… in deep thought! ... and one of the last taken this year... almost 13... Don't let the pics fool you... she was always smiling! OK, I’m really sorry for the downer … the good news is we're in discussion with our rescue to hopefully adopt a puppy when one becomes available. We both feel this would be the ideal time to raise a puppy now that I work from home (since Covid) and Christine's office is only 5 minutes away in our town. We definitely think Jake will always need a buddy! The 6 years he's been with us, he's always had Bella. I’ll break for a bit and then get into the fun stuff a little later... the trip details!

I guess it’s never too early to start the roll call! Can’t wait! This will be my first trip to Europe. My wife has been to the UK many times as a child (my MIL is British and has/had family in England & Scotland). She’s been to Paris once, but has not travelled to any of the other locations/countries we’ll be visiting so this should be an amazing trip! Traveling with two other couples (our family and friends from past sailings). The planning is ramping up! This will also be our first cruise as Diamond. We sailed Allure back in 2019… our first Oasis class experience which was absolutely amazing! Can’t wait to see what they do during her amplification!

Just booked!!!

Me and my wife are sailing on allure of the seas from Barcelona on 15th June. If you're sailing on same dates let's get some meets on ship and some excursions together.

Thought I'd mention this. Needed some cash so stopped by the casino cage to ask where the atm is. There's a sign there (I'll post a pic as soon as I go back to the casino) that says Allure no longer does cash advance from the cage. Now you get cash from the table or slot machine. There's no fee I'm aware of as when I took some cash it showed up as a normal charge from Royal. Don't know if it's available on other ships but you might visit the casino cage and inquire.

This will be my first solo and my first sidebyside(Celebrity Reflection Aug 2-5, 3 Night Nassau with my husband). This will help us earn Diamond sooner for our Nov, 2024 14 Night Transatlantic cruise.

This is my first time traveling with Royal Caribbean and I look forward to having a wonderful time wherever we end up. I have watched so many YouTube videos, that I feel as if I already understand every detail about the ship, LOL. I have my concerns about our Port location in Haiti, but I am sure this will be resolved with thoughts of our safety and the crews safety in mind. If there are changes, I hope that we will have more than three days to plan our excursions for another Port location.

This is number two for the year for me. Father-in-law and two of my brothers celebrating Father's Day this weekend. Anyone else planning to be on board?

Sailing tomorrow with the family. Will anyone else be on board?

Rumor has it that RCCL will be eliminating Momma Mia when Allure of the Seas comes to Port Canaveral for the shorter 3 day / 4 days cruises. Please say it isn't true!!! That is the best show they have in their fleet and one of the reasons I have two Allure cruises booked this fall. Any info? Please Save Momma!!!

Any other readers going to be on this sailing? Let’s meet for a drink on embarkation evening! My partner and I will be cruising on Allure for the first time since the pandemic. We’re in our early 30s and are very excited to get back on RCL. We cruised with NCL in January, which solidified RCL as our current cruise line of choice.

It’s cruise day again. This will be our first cruise from Galveston. We didn’t want to fly this time so we arrived yesterday in Galveston after driving for two days. We are getting ready to leave the hotel soon. I’ll be back on the blog after boarding and get this blog rolling. I’m happy happy happy .Oh yes forgot to say it’s just hubby and I this cruise.

https://www.cruisehive.com/yet-another-royal-caribbean-ship-oversold-days-before-sailing/100832

Beware this is a 21st Birthday Cruise. Bring your party hats and we will have some fun.

I’m sailing on Allure of the Seas August 6th. I’m really excited. It I couldn’t help but notice how outdated the ship looks compared to the rest of the Oasis Class ships that are either new or Amplified. If you guys know when it will be refurbished that would be so cool because I’m having trouble figuring out when this will happen considering the losses RCCL has had in the last couple years.

We will be a party of 4 this time. It will be hubby and I my sister Renee and her better half Vithana. Celebrations: Vithana: retirement Cruisin and Boozin: birthday Cabin: Aqua theater suite deck 8 Itinerary: Oct 1: Ft. Lauderdale Oct 2: Sea day Oct 3: Labadee Oct 4: Sea day Oct 5: Oranjestad Aruba Oct 6: Willemstad Curaçao Oct 7: Sea day Oct 8: Sea day Oct 9: Ft Lauderdale and travel day(sad day) Travel We will be driving. It will take us 2 days. Stopping first night in Lake City, Florida. Second night we will be in Ft Lauderdale. We will be using Best Western hotel chain this trip. On the way home we again will drive to Lake City,Florida. Last day of driving on to drop Renee and Vithana off at their house. About us This will be Vithana’s first cruise ever. Having said that we just want him to be wowed. This will be Renee’s 4th star class cruise and our (hubby and I ) 8th star class sailing. Star class info The star class questionnaire never came. 22 Days till we sail no email from a genie as of yet. I have been in contact with both my travel agent and Royal Caribbean and still nothing has been done. Even though we haven’t heard from a genie we are super excited. None us have been to Aruba or Curaçao so this should be fun.

Does anyone know if a Microsoft Book 2 with dimensions 13.5 X 10 inches fit in the cabin safe?

Does anyone know when Allure will be amplified? Rumor on Facebook says this year.

I am not sure where to begin with this one. It has been 867 long days since I stepped off Symphony’s gangway. I don’t even know if I remember how to blog anymore lol. The lead up to this sailing was precarious at best. Being a Type A planner like myself, the last few weeks have been quite stressful in terms of having whiplash from the ever-changing travel restrictions (we are Canadians, but we fly out of the US), testing requirements, right down to the, “Will we unknowingly test positive two days prior to cruise day and need to cancel the cruise?” I’ve had a hard time allowing myself to get excited for this sailing, in fear of devastation should anything go wrong. Words cannot describe how much I have missed sailing, what this sailing means to me, and the utter gratitude I will feel stepping onto that gangway in two days time, God willing. This pandemic has taken so much, caused so much upheaval and uncertainty, but there are several things that remain certain, my love for cruising has not faded, and I will never take another cruise for granted again. Allure … captivating, charming, grabs hold of you and doesn’t let go … I could go on and on. You think I’m talking about sailing right? I am, but more importantly, I am thinking of Hubby. This sailing is not only a joyful return to the seas, but a very special celebration for us. As silly as it may sound, on a cold December day, 25 years ago, a story of love began over a $50 bill, a 1st year university Calculus textbook, Jerry Maguire, and two cups of Tim Horton’s coffee at midnight (Note: Hubby doesn’t even drink coffee, but he had one that night, already a winner then lol). Tomorrow, we celebrate our 25th “Dating Anniversary" and what better way to celebrate than with our beloved La Bamba, margaritas, queso, fajitas, fried ice cream, and of course…CRUISING! Who’s Going? It’s just Hubby and I on this sailing. Flight It feels so good to say that we will by flying out of DTW. Praise God for the land border opening and staying open! We double-booked flights for this one out of Detroit and Toronto, but we’ve cancelled the Air Canada flights for obvious reasons. Pre-Cruise Stay Allure sails out of Port Everglades so we will be staying in Fort Lauderdale on 17th Street. When we have the girls with us, we usually choose a more family friendly property like Holiday Inn Express or Hyatt Place. Since it’s just Hubby and I, we picked Renaissance Fort Lauderdale Marina Hotel. We’ve stayed here before when we sailed Allure in 2016 and it’s modern, clean, very close to Port Everglades, and most importantly, a short walk to La Bamba! Itinerary This 4-night sailing was supposed to take us to Cozumel, but Royal changed the ports a few months ago. We are now headed to Nassau and Perfect Day Coco Cay. Personally, I could care less where it goes, I might not even leave the ship! lol Cabin #teamDeck17 of course! This is the way. Pre-Cruise thoughts - There might be major tears when I step back onboard on Sunday. I already warned Hubby. He has promised to record it to show the girls so they can see how ridiculous their mother is. People who are not cruise junkies just won’t understand lol - Once again, in the spirit of a live blog, please do not hesitate to ask any questions. I will do my best to find out whatever I can for you. - When responding to a post with a series of pictures, please do not include the pictures in your reply. It just makes for easier scrolling. - Lastly, I will try to post videos and stories on Instagram. You can follow me @lovetocruise2002

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2019/07/11/royal-caribbean-announces-165-million-upgrades-and-enhancements-allure-of-the-seas

Well my husband has been after me about blogging our trip, so here goes. He claims that he will be helping me blog, but I'll believe it when I see it. Atleast at this moment he is sitting next to me looking at the screen and not reddit for once. A little background on us: I'm Tiffany, and he's Steven. Our circus consists of four kids who are nine, seven, one, and eight months. Steven retired from the Army last year, and I'm a stay at home mom. We knew we wanted more time to be able to cruise, so we decided to take a stab at homeschooling this year. So far so good, and to make it even better, it is significantly cheaper cruising when it's not over school break. Our cruise plans: We were originally on the Allure of the Seas September 1st cruise that got shortened by three days due to Dorian. We stuck with the cruise, and had an amazing time and got a nice future cruise credit since we were in a 2 bedroom aquatheater suite. It was so great, in fact, that we had to do a "grounding cruise" in a non-Star class cabin to bring us back down to Earth. Guess it didn't work, because here we are doing another Star class cruise on November 17th. The ship and cabin: Allure of the Seas 10730 (2 bedroom aquatheater suite) We would have loved to be back in the deck 8 aquatheater suite, but since it's a last minute booking for a family of six, we were lucky to find this one open. We will try to keep this as live as possible but with four kids and star class food coma, no promises.

We just got an email informing us that our August 15th sailing out of Port Canaveral has been changed. Like, really changed. Only one destination is the same (Perfect Day). The reason given was due to "port availability". This is our first cruise and we actually don't mind the changes so much, but I am worried that this is the first step before cancellation. Or...could it be that they really hope to sail and have planned stops based on what they can realistically deliver. Is this a normal practice outside of Covid19 times? I know everything would be speculation at this point, but I would appreciate any insights.

I've read about a number of RC ships in port for vaccinations for the crewmembers, but haven't heard anything about Allure. Since we're due to board on Aug 1, I'd love to start hearing some positive news.

Hi Everyone, Looking to make a reservation on Harmony. As much as I would love an ocean view balcony, its not in the budget. :angry: :( Has anyone stayed in boardwalk or central park balconies? Advantages? Dislikes? Recommendations? Looking forward to hearing from you! Thanks! Mel :)

Hello! My family and I will be onboard Allure of the Seas Holiday Sailing taking off from Fort Lauderdale on 12/22. Anyone else going to be onboard? There will be 6 of us adults plus one under 2. The more the merrier!