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Allure of the Seas March 10-17 *Attempting to LIVE Blog*


MorganMichelle2001

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While I am a new Royal Caribbean Blog poster, I have been a quiet voyeur on the page for almost one year! We booked our Spring Break family cruise back in May of 2018 during a Kids Sail Free event. Man, did we score an amazing deal! Oasis Class was not in our price range, but the sale was too good to pass up. We are anxiously awaiting (T minus 12 days) our first family vacation (excluding Disney with the whole extended family 2 years ago). 

About us: My husband and I are in our mid/late thirties, and we love to travel. We’ve been on vacation together almost once/per year since we started dating almost 13 years ago. We enjoy going to warm, tropical locations (since we live in a frozen-tundra: Minnesota). I cruised with my family when I was in college and absolutely fell in LOVE with cruising, but, ironically, haven’t been on a second cruise until August of 2018. We already had our March 2019 Spring Break booked and, Surprise! My husband earned President’s Club through his work, and we were treated to a 5-night Italian Cruise on Celebrity Reflection (ADP chartered the entire ship- it was an absolutely unbelievable experience). That was my husband’s first time cruising. He is a rather tall/big drink of water, and his hesitation with cruises in the past was the size of the room/bathroom and feeling claustrophobic. He had NO issues on our Presidents Club cruise and really enjoyed the experience (though it will be very different cruising on a 100% booked Mega Ship @ Spring Break).

We have a seven-year-old son who will be celebrating his eighth birthday on the second day of the cruise, which he is rather excited about. We also have a five-year-old daughter who is an absolute joy, a social butterfly if there ever was one (don’t be surprised if she befriends you and your children at the pool or Adventure Ocean). We normally do adults-only vacations- when our kids were little it was imperative for us to take time to connect as a couple, and we are blessed with amazing parents who BEG to take their grandkids for the week! During our last AO trip in March 2018, I found myself missing the kids like crazy! They are not babies anymore, much easier to go out and do things with (plus SO MUCH FUN to hang out with), and decided that they are old enough to start taking on our “relaxation” vacations. We know this vacation will be more “work” than AO, and we will have times of stress and chaos, but I know we will have an amazing time as a family.

We are flying into Miami on Saturday, March 9th. We booked The Key, so we plan to be at the port as early as possible to board/start enjoying the ship right away! We do not have any specialty dining plans (other than Chops with The Key), and only a beach excursion booked for St. Maarten (Orient and Maho beach). Other than that we plan to hang out as a family by the pool and around the ship, hopefully the kids will enjoy some time at Adventure Ocean, check out the cruise activities (my son is ALMOST heavy enough to try the zip line!) and eat, drink, and play!

With The Key, we have internet access so I will try my best to post updates LIVE. If nothing else I will update you all when we get back. What else will there be to do in the remaining frozen months of MN winter (no more Cruise planning/daydreaming…might as well reminisce with pictures/write-ups of our adventures!)

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2 hours ago, irishgirl0525 said:

We'll be getting off Allure as you are getting on!  I'm sorry we'll miss you, it sounds like our 5 year old daughters would get along very well, we have a social butterfly too! She is very excited about Adventure ocean! 

Would love to hear about your experience or tips once you get home! Our kids will be in different age groups for Adventure Ocean but I already asked if it would be possible for her to bump-up to his grade (in case they want to be together; they might enjoy forming their own social groups/circles ?‍♀️) They said they can certainly do that after observing for a while and feeling confident she would do well with the bigger kids. 

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Have a blast and I look forward to following along! I will have the Key on Allure in May so I'm especially interested in how you like it on Allure and what to expect (seems certain things are a bit different ship to ship). If you could snap a picture of the Allure Key Chops menu that would be fantastic but no worries if you can't ?

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We are in the single digits!! T-minus 9 days until we leave for Miami!! Luckily, we are so busy the next few days that I’m hoping time will fly by: Kindergarten Orientation, basketball and dance lessons, early birthday parties and celebrations for my son, and of course last minute shopping and packing!

Speaking of packing, I started about a week ago, pulled out all the kids’ summer clothes, made them try stuff on to see how many new outfits I need to buy, set aside my kids’ formal night wear, started folding and organizing my clothes, and organized all the little “extras” we need for the cabin:

 

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And here is my husband’s packing progress:

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It just remind me of this funny meme ? How true it is!!! 

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5 hours ago, MorganMichelle2001 said:

It just remind me of this funny meme ? How true it is!!! 

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For pretty much all of our land vacations, this is very true. But when it comes to cruising, it's almost 100% reversed. My wife likes to hear about the excursion options and have a say in which ones we book, and she'll do some research on that front, but apart from that I'm managing every micro-detail of the planning process. She's probably relieved there's one type of vacation where she gets to sit back through the lead-up! ?

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49 minutes ago, marti314 said:

Ill be on Next Weeks Allure sailing also.  Ill grab photos of the cruise compass' and all the specialty dining menus throughout the week.

Ill be the tallest one on the ship (usually its the case) if you happen to notice me

Haha, fun, I will look for you! My husband is 6 foot 4 so I have already developed the skill of "looking up" in a crowd to spot the tallest head (normally its his!)

We are not doing specialty dining except with The Key, so I will TRY to remember to get pics of the Main Dining Room menu as well as Kids Compass. 

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2 minutes ago, MorganMichelle2001 said:

Haha, fun, I will look for you! My husband is 6 foot 4 so I have already developed the skill of "looking up" in a crowd to spot the tallest head (normally its his!)

We are not doing specialty dining except with The Key, so I will TRY to remember to get pics of the Main Dining Room menu as well as Kids Compass. 

I am 6'9, most of the time i am the tallest but sometimes there are some 7 foot gentlemen hovering over me.

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3 more days until we leave for Miami!!! And just in time too, it seems. Thank goodness we decided to fly out a day early, Minnesota is expected to get major weather starting around Saturday night into Sunday. I just hope and pray for all of the spring break travelers' safety and hope no one (including us) miss their vacations! 

I have another secret/tip to share! We booked a Central Park Balcony room which came with certain "perks": bottle of wine, lunch for 2 at Giovanni's, and a "Casino Lesson". Well, hubby and I are already knowledgeable Blackjack and Poker players (we don't play other casino games other than Roulette which is easy peasy), and we have the Deluxe Beverage package, so we didn't really care about the wine. On a whim, I Facebook Messaged Royal Caribbean back in October and asked if there was any chance they could switch our perks to what the Boardwalk Balcony gets: Lunch for 4 at Johnny Rockets, 2 Soda Packages , and a family Rock Climbing session. They needed to check with a manager, and after a few days wait, much to my surprise, they said YES! They did say it was a "one time exception" which I take to mean I probably can't ask this of them again in the future (understandable). I just wanted to share my experience and suggest that if you too want to swap your "perks", it can't hurt to ask! You might be pleasantly surprised! 

Royal's Facebook team is great! I have used the message feature about 10 times when planning this trip. Someone gets back to me right away, usually within minutes! I needed to reach out to Royal the week before my trip to confirm that our perks-swap was logged with the ship, and I just used Facebook Messenger to do that! They contacted the ship, made sure the swapped was logged (and I specifically asked for the soda packages to be assigned to my kids), and they messaged me back to confirm all was set and ready to go! I used a Travel Agent to book, but Royal's Facebook team was like a second, often more helpful, vacation assistant! Can't say enough great things ?

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17 minutes ago, MorganMichelle2001 said:

On a whim, I Facebook Messaged Royal Caribbean back in October and asked if there was any chance they could switch our perks to what the Boardwalk Balcony gets: Lunch for 4 at Johnny Rockets, 2 Soda Packages , and a family Rock Climbing session. They needed to check with a manager, and after a few days wait, much to my surprise, they said YES! 

Wow, that's a nice surprise. Good on you for trying. 

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Let the vacation begin! Heading over to spend the night at my folks’ place. Grandpa is driving us to the airport, bright and early, and they are watching our doggie all week. 

 

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Oh, and daddy JUST said he forgot to pack the goggles...guess we will be making a pit stop at Target! (the guy in the blue shirt is my husband, doing the ‘daddy walk of shame’ into Target... how could he forget something so pivotal ?)

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We forgot to pack goggles for our kids a few years ago and in October the only store that had them instock enroute to our destination was a sporting goods store $$$. Of course heaven forbid the kids couldn’t swim at the hotel. We absolutely loved Allure last year. My boys still talk about Washy Washy Woman at the MDR. Have a great cruise!

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We’re in Miami! Our newly booked flight out at 8:45 am went without a hitch. Funny enough, they were overbooked by 4 and were offering $ to volunteers willing to take the 12:50 flight (what we were originally booked on before I moved it because of the winter storm advisory, we were supposed to get dumped on around noon.) They got all the way to $1200/ticket! Dang, we could have made some major moula had we been willing to go back to our original plan. Oh well, we are here now and ready for fun!

Some pics below from the airport and hotel. Of course, the kids HAD to go swimming first thing, though the pool is SUPER cold, so that didn’t last long. We are staying at Windgate by Windom Airport...I’d say it’s only meh ? Nice clean rooms, pool small and very cold, nothing around the hotel...I got it cheap on Priceline so I’m not upset, but since we arrived earlier than planned I wish we were closer to the action by the Pier or Miami Beach. Oh well, we’ll be off to bed early and onto the ship early! Daylight savings tomorrow only means an hour closer to the fun! 

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Our hotel is very nice and clean...just too far away from the action. Next time I’ll get closer to the pier! 

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And we are super close to the airport...it’s like a mini preview for our Maho Beach excursion ?

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Sorry for the delayed post, we had some issues getting our internet access. I figured we’d get instructions with our Key information, but nada. Had to go to customer service to get help.

What a beautiful day! Early access on the ship thanks to The Key (and lunch at Chops was superb.) Pool, unpacking, muster drill, dinner, and Mama Mia! Here are some pics from a Day 1! I’ll fill in the details later!

 

Beautiful Terminal A! 

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First thing we did after dropping our carry ons at the theatre: Carousel! My kids also found a fun little jungle gym/play thing in the Boardwalk. 

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Chops lunch w/ The Key. Apparently they were serving the exact same menu at Giovanni’s but also w the option of a pasta. Our waiter at Chops, Elvis, was outstanding! 

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Kiddos got got to eat off the exact same menu, even my 5 year old who we didn’t have to pay for The Key!

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Birthday boy boy and his sister got surprised with cute stuffed animal/blanket and cupcakes, thanks to Royal’s Social Media Team (told you they were great!)  

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Pools were not super busy at all!

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Sail away on Deck 14 Sun Deck

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One thing to do with the kids, for a sail away, go to deck 14 forward, port side, in the hallway by the rooms, walk as far forward as you can, there will be a door on your left, you can watch sail away from the bridge wing, there is also a small wrap around deck, but you can only get in and out from the port side.

 

Edit, missed the photo above, looks like you have already been on deck 14 forward.

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