Allure lured us back... April 2-9, 2023

[jbrinkm]

Ahhh

I cannot get my photos to go in the order I want them to, sorry they are so random!

[jbrinkm]

Bye, Roatan!

[jbrinkm]

I will post about today's activities tomorrow. We did not do much for most of the day and then the evening was a bit busy. We just got back from Crazy Quest, it is late and we have an excursion in the morning, so need to get to bed. 

One quick story - my husband got "youngsplained" today at the Freestyle machine. He has been using it just fine to get his sodas all week, in addition to having used them at movie theaters, etc. But he also needs readers to see close-up details and forgot them in the room today when he went to get a soda. His usual flavor of Coke Zero wasn't available, as the cherry was empty, so he was trying to see to choose a different flavor and the machine was being a bit sluggish to respond, so he was pressing, pressing, pressing, only actually hitting the right spot about half the time because he couldn't see it, so the teen at the other machine explained to him really slowly that you have to press the SILVER button to make it come out. She even "sir'd" him. (We are in our late 40s.) She was sweet and trying to be helpful so he just politely thanked her, but we both cracked up as soon as she left. He was mortified that he seemed so clueless!

[RosaB]

23 hours ago, jbrinkm said:

We have a sea day. The water conditions were rough, probably due to this wind we've been traveling with. The other two ships scheduled to port didn't even try to come in, but we did - the Captain said he tried but it wasn't going to be safe (they keep stressing this over the announcements). The only upside to this is that we are traveling much more slowly to Cozumel which has reduced the feeling of ship movement onboard (there is still some, but not as much as last night). When we were snorkeling yesterday in the rough water, the boat guides were saying that the winds were going to be really bad in the evening. 

My husband and I have been in a subtle argument since day 2 about the placement of the little coffee table in the "living room" space of our cabin. He sits on the couch and pushes it next to the tv desk/table/drawers space. I try to go use the tv desk/table/drawers space for one of the gazillion things I use it for and push it back. He walks over to go on the balcony and pushes it to the desk. I get irritated and tell him to stop pushing it there and shove it back. I tell him to just push it to the other end of the couch when he wants to sit, but he forgets, and on, and on, and on.

We usually push it sideways between sofa and closet. 

[jbrinkm]

Day #5

This was a slow day. After hearing that our port stop was canceled, I went back to sleep for a bit and then had a late breakfast in the WJ. Nothing on the hastily pulled-together schedule appealed much to me so we wandered around trying to find a few more signatures. Ended up talking for a while to one of the young women at the shops who was from Belize - the only one on the ship, so a high point signature! 

My husband and I did a vacation in Belize 17 years ago (just before our oldest was born) and we absolutely loved the country so we told her a little about that. She shared a bit about her life on the ship, her contract, her upcoming vacation time and her ship boyfriend. She shared that the staff call the port we were supposed to be at “Costa Maybe” instead of Costa Maya because it is canceled so often. 

We ate lunch late (also in WJ) since we were full from breakfast and realized that we were only 2 hours until dinner, so we went to walk on the track a bit to try to feel less stuffed. Then we meandered to the Boardwalk and rode the carousel. Then dinner - I’ll post the pics. Appetizers (corn cakes, shrimp, tortilla soup), Mains (salmon, tofu) and Desserts (tres leche, warm choc chip cookie). Everything was pretty good, but the tofu needed salt. The warm cookie was delicious but very rich.

After dinner, we got the kids to go to 60 seconds or less with us. The venues have been fairly consistently packed for activities like this. We also tried to go to Battle of the Sexes and it was too full. The 60 seconds game was ok, but not great. We had convinced the kids to go with us but my son bowed out about halfway through and my daughter left about 10 minutes later. We had to drag chairs in from the promenade to be able to sit, and when our kids left, the couple standing near us were happy to have those seats! At one point I went to the bar to get mocktails for my son and I and there was a lady who had clearly been there a while enjoying some beverages who decided to “help” me but did not have enough comprehension to really help, so ended up just shuffling the two Seapass cards around on the bar top and being really confused that I wasn’t ordering an alcoholic drink.

After that we went to the Hush dance party for a little bit. I had never been to one and missed the one earlier in the week so we danced for a while. There were a ton of teens there. We tried to just keep gravitating towards the other mature people/couples on the dance floor, but the teens were all over the place so we left after a bit. It was good exercise though! That is when we tried to go to Dazzles for Battle of the Sexes and couldn’t get in. 

We did some picture stuff, looked at what was taken so far in the kiosks and stopped by a photography station and had a few more done. THEN we went early to the Crazy Quest. I was really surprised that it didn’t fill up! I don’t even know if half the seats were taken. It was competitive and hilarious and didn’t have anything too racy happen. Happy to share more about Crazy Quest if anyone is interested. At the end, we got a senior officer high-point signature from someone who was helping out in the venue for the game. 

Then to bed since we were going to be up and out the next morning for our Cozumel excursion. 

We've been having conversations the past two night with wine mom and family at the table next to us. They're really nice. 

My kids have been making memes of me. There was a series of pictures that my husband put in a shared vacation album where I am in the background - he had given one of the kids his phone when he was with the macaw on Wednesday. I have no idea what I was doing or saying, but I am making the most extreme facial expressions that are absolutely ridiculous (I had no idea I was in the pics…). My husband said that in the 29 years he has known me, he has never seen me make these faces. I was scrolling through them at dinner and made a comment like, what was HAPPENING here, why was I doing this with my face??? Of course the family immediately pulled up the album and laughed WAY too loud for the dining room. They cropped my faces and every time we send a family group WhatsApp message, they reply with my face memes to indicate their reactions.

[jbrinkm]

[jbrinkm]

11 hours ago, RosaB said:

We usually push it sideways between sofa and closet. 

We gave the teens that room this time and took the one with the bed by the closet (since we're in rooms next to each other). It seemed harder for them spacewise last year when they had the beds next to the closet, particularly because they have split beds and had very little space on either side. We do have a little extra between my husband's nightstand and the couch, but we put our laundry hamper there. 

[jbrinkm]

It was white night last night.

[asquared17]

my favorite part about this is how your family has turned you into a meme  

mostly because this would happen to me but also because it’s just that funny

hoping tomorrow will be a good day for you guys!! 

[jbrinkm]

Day #6 Cozumel

I’m going to return home SO beat up. My toe cut was reopened today with swim fins, I am still recovering from the fire ant and macaw bites, I have a huge bruise on my rear from the zip line, and now I have another huge bruise on my arm and a lump on my head from paintball and a small heat burn on my leg from the ATV. Nothing is too extreme or painful or bothersome, but I definitely look like I’ve been through something!

We got out late this morning for our excursion but it wasn’t a big deal because there were only two other groups at Ecoparque Cuzam, one before us and one after us, and we cut paintball short and finished ATVs right on time. In the morning, while the kids and I were getting dressed and packed up for the day, my husband took our lovely, 4-cup carrier (recommended on one of the boards) down to get us all specialty coffees and brought them to breakfast. We tried to eat fast but just like last time, it was really busy and crowded. 

When we got our taxi, the person at the port that directs you to a car said that we’d have to pay for a round trip because of where we were going, so we weren’t surprised that our driver said $30. We planned on tipping him during the return ride back to the ship. However, after our excursion, he made us pay another $30. I hadn’t specifically looked at the board, but it seemed high, so I took a picture of his cab number. When we got out, I went to the board to check, and it was supposed to be $16 each way. He didn’t wait for us at the park to charge extra for wait time - he left and came back in an hour and a half to take us back. We told the port officers, and also that we were going back out in the afternoon, and they said to stop back by. When we stopped back, they had gotten the extra back from him and gave it to us, yay! 

They had us do paintball first because there was another group out with the ATVs who were on their way back. None of us had done it before and my daughter got hit in the leg, got a painful bruise and quit. Then I got hit in my arm and in the back of my head and I quit. It really, really hurt, even though we were far from each other while aiming. So the two of us hate paintball (HA, I just accidentally typed “painball” instead of paintball and that is an accurate moniker!!!). The boys kept playing until the paintballs ran out. They have tougher skin than we do, I swear. She and I bruise and get sunburn and rashes so easily. But the paintball went quickly and the other people were back, so we did ATVs. However, as soon as we did our little practice round, my daughter decided that she didn’t want to do that either, so she ended up just sitting at the place with the dog while the rest of us did the tour (we tried her on the back of my husband’s but she didn’t like that either).

The rest of us had a great time driving around the jungle. I do mounted archery at home and have really learned to keep my weight in my feet/legs when moving around so that helped me to not get very jostled from the rocks and branches on the ground. It was very, very dusty at times and I was glad we brought our cloth masks - we were going to bring bandanas but we had these lying around and thought they’d be easier. I wish we had brought goggles. My husband said the dust got under his sunglasses and my son and I didn’t even have those. I also wish I had worn long pants because the heat from the engine ended up giving me a burn/rash on one calf (it happened over a bit of time, my leg never touched a hot pipe or the engine, etc.). But even with all of that, it was an adrenaline rush! My son kept intentionally drifting when we were going fast on a flat part and loved it. I think that is part of how I got so dusty since I was behind him. Then we took the cab back to the ship, went in and changed into our swim stuff, grabbed a quick lunch at WJ and left again to do our Discover Scuba. We walked about 10 minutes north of the pier to Cozumel Dive Academy. They were great. None of us had ever done anything with Scuba before so it was all new, except for the videos we watched ahead of time. We got on all of the gear, we practiced the skills in the shallow part, and were able to dive about 6 meters for a little over 20 minutes. I think he would have let us go longer - none of us were having any major issues, but all aboard was 4:30pm and we had to get back. 

My daughter, who did not have a great day, really wanted to pick up some little trinkets for her friends at home, but when we got into the port, we could see LONG security lines and my husband freaked out that we were going to miss the boat and dragged us to the line. Once we were through security, my daughter walked ahead of us really fast and went on the ship way before us, and wouldn’t talk to us until we were sitting at the dinner table. However, it was 4:23pm when we were getting on, so we really didn’t have a lot of extra time. 

It was Dress Your Best night and Lobster night. Everyone was late to dinner (I mean everyone on the ship with early seating). My son tried lobster for the first time and was not impressed. My husband finished his, and my second entree of lobster, and my daughter’s second entree of lobster. He said they were good - cold water and cooked well. Wine husband next to us was impressed that my husband was able to wrangle 4 free lobsters out of the evening AND a shrimp curry (his own 2nd entree). We WERE hungry after the ATV and Scuba. 

I had cod which I shouldn’t have since I forgot I don’t like the texture. It may have been perfectly fine. My son (second entree) and daughter both got the tortellini. Appetizers were avocado-citrus salad and caesar. Desserts were baked Alaska, red velvet cake, molten chocolate cake and banana cocoa custard. The only dessert that was really good was the molten chocolate cake.

After dinner, we thought about sitting outside for a while but it was too windy. I went to WJ to get some fruit and use the Freestyle (yes, I could see the buttons). My husband went to some wristwatch event and then just as he wanted to meet me in WJ, I was tired of sitting in the chair so the kids went up to join him. After the long day, I didn’t want to wear my fancier dress any more so I swapped for a more casual one. We went to Friendly Feud - guess what - packed. We pulled chairs from the promenade again. It was pretty good and more audience-interactive than the 60 second one. Sometimes the staff member can make a difference too, I’ve found. We had Popo for this one and she is fantastic (I’m getting to know all of the staff with this signature game!). 

After the game, we grabbed a slice from Sorrentos and our waters for the night and are going to bed!

P.S. I really like the Sorrentos pizza now, more than I used to. I feel like I read that they changed their recipe and some didn’t like it. I find myself liking it more. Oh, and when we went to Majority Rules the other night, one question was what would you save if the ship was sinking, and somebody answered Sorrentos.

[jbrinkm]

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When we walked by this on the way to do our Discover Scuba, the kids said it was my husband.

 

[jbrinkm]

[asquared17]

i love the pictures of your family!! great photos!!

also just READING about your day in cozumel has me exhausted   multiple excursions and a race against the clock to get back to the ship for boarding!! 

i am glad you got the extra money back though. 

[jbrinkm]

I did not have time on Saturday evening or Sunday to post due to packing and traveling, so I'll try to remember and catch up now. 

It turns out that Maya Chan would have been closed on Thursday even if we were able to dock. We met a lady on Saturday night that was supposed to be there also and said she had gotten an email on Wednesday, so then I went and found my email in the junk folder. The high winds of Wednesday (while we were doing rough snorkel in Roatan) brought in too much sargassum to clear before guests would have arrived. 

I slept in a little on Saturday and went to a late breakfast at Park Café. Instead of going to morning gym, my husband and daughter decided to have breakfast at Johnny Rockets. My husband was trying to do everything on the ship that he hadn't done yet, so then he also met me for elevensies in the park (actually tensies since we had a 10:45am activity). Then we went to the Search for Nations awards ceremony - where we got second place, by only 20 points. They did not accept any of the signatures we had around the edges of staff whose rare countries were not listed on the paper, which would have put us ahead (apparently legal language in the small, fine print prevented them). We had gotten a few tips the night before about finding some staff from rare nations on the track doing maintenance but it was too late to find them, and one in the Wipeout Bar but it was closed. But the first place got a small trophy that probably wouldn't have fit in our luggage anyway (we got a neck medal and two Royal drink cozies). Competition-mom and her family won it. 

Then my husband and I did the zip line. I took a tshirt just in case and changed into my sneakers from sandals, although my sandals might have been fine? I think it was just shoes that might fall off, like crocs or flip flops that wouldn't work. My husband's didn't have laces and they made him take them off. The rule turned out to be 3 finger widths for shoulder coverings, so my sleeveless tunic/dress turned out to be fine, but the couple in front of us was about to get turned away for her sleeves so I offered her my tshirt which she gratefully used. They did make sure I was wearing leggings under my tunic before going . I found the zipline line to move much faster this year than last. It was honestly a bit scarier than our zipline in Roatan because of the height! 

Then we grabbed lunch at Windjammer and just spent the afternoon chilling. We watched the belly flop contest as we were leaving WJ from the upper windows and got some pictures of the crowds around the pool - whoa. This is what a packed ship looks like! There was one contestant that was wearing a Mexican wrestling mask and a towel as a cape. Several of the men enjoyed shaking their rears in front of the crowd. I was actually surprised that some of the men in the "lightweight" competition category could make such a big splash! We did some shopping and all got new Royal t-shirts, plus a few things for our dog-sitter, and told my daughter to use some of our Premier Pass credit to buy the little gifts from the gift shop that they wanted for friends. 

Dinner had another whole round of napkin dancing. Not sure why we needed a second one. I really enjoyed not being accosted about the dining survey during our meals this time - last year, that was broached almost every dinner. This year, we heard the spiel once and were NOT asked to give 10s, just to complete the survey. We had for appetizers: Mediterranean tapas, seafood cake and asparagus; main courses: vegan moussaka, salmon and the vegetarian Indian meal; and dessert: raspberry trifle, dark chocolate brownie (kids were fascinated about the idea of popcorn on top), the custard (which was essentially crème brûlée), and the chocolate cherry tart. The asparagus is served cold, even though it says pan seared (our waiter warned us). The salmon this night was delicious (pecan-crusted, a little spice). My son wasn't a huge fan of the moussaka but he was also full from Wipeout/El Loco Fresh food too close to dinner). The raspberry trifle wasn't great (no sugar added), but the choc. cherry tart was VERY good. There was also an apple crumble on the menu but NO way was I ordering that again!

After dinner we packed which took a while to figure out how to arrange everything. We usually travel with four 28" suitcases, but because we flew United, we had 4 free 20" suitcases, and then we paid for only two larger suitcases, but it messed up our usual system for packing. We had fairly full suitcases on the way there, then we added stuff, and had to figure out how to best pack in order to keep what we needed for the night yet still be kind of close to how we needed to rearrange for flying, so it was complicated and time consuming. Then popped by Windjammer for our last evening snack, and I went down to get us spots in the Royal Mystery activity at Blaze. It was fairly packed when I arrived but I was able to scrape together three bar seats for us (my daughter joined). The bar seats at Blaze are junk. They were all very tippy and difficult for vertically-challenged people to sit on. Hard to move because they are ridiculously heavy and have weird bases that hit your feet. One broke while we were there - the top literally just came right off of the bottom where the metal had deteriorated. 

The Royal Mystery was fun but a bit unorganized. We had a group of 7 (needed between 5-10 in a group). It was a 90 minute activity. We got a packet of materials which they supplemented with items around the room and information on the tv screens. One station with clues in the room was missing 2 pieces so no one could solve that clue until finally someone asked and they were able to find the materials and add them, but that was in the last 10 minutes of the game. With two minutes left, we realized that our packet had been missing a page from the very beginning (this was the page that when they went over the results, they said you could have solved it in 20 minutes with this page, so it was really important). As one member of our team was getting in line to turn in the answer, the others were frantically using the missing page (we got it from the judges), but our answer got turned in at the buzzer, just before the rest of the team solved the last (missing) page which changed our answer. We asked for it back, since we had gotten that missing piece so late but still got it solved before the answer was revealed but the judges refused. She just said, "the packets were sealed" as though we were making it up or it was out of their hands?!? That put our team in a pretty bad mood. Also then the team next to us overheard us talking and turns out they also didn't have that paper in their packet either but didn't even realize it at all. 

My husband and I each had a 50% coupon left so we changed into swim suits, grabbed a beer (him) and a hard seltzer (me) and went to the pool deck for some hot tub time. We found a bunch of teens in some but then one empty one, and then wine dad/husband (our dinner-table neighbor) came by and hung out with us for about an hour in the hot tub chatting. 

Then to bed for an early morning disembarkation...

 

[jbrinkm]

Little tchotchkes for my daughter's friends, my bruise from paintball on my arm, the 2nd place for the Nations scavenger hunt, and the description of the Royal Mystery Puzzle:

 

[jbrinkm]

Last dinner:

 

[WAAAYTOOO]

Yikes !  That’s quite a bruise !

[jbrinkm]

Belly flop contest- SO MANY people!!

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Scuba pics

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Kids "joining" the napkin waving

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Johnny Rockets French Toast, shopping in the Promenade, towel animal from kids' room, nice sunset

[jbrinkm]

And finally, you get two pictures of me...

Funny story about about the one with my son. I mentioned the ridiculous poses we were asked to do for the official photographers earlier. I'm usually the one taking the pictures, but my husband wanted one with me and my son together. DH told DS to stand up behind me on the little wall, and my son groaned and asked if DH was going to make us do all of the poses, so I immediately started saying some ridiculous poses and doing them, and then DH and DS were calling out ridiculous poses and I was doing those too, and my husband snapped this one as part of all that ridiculousness. 

[WAAAYTOOO]

What a beautiful, happy family.  I know you are proud.  You should be.

[SweetPea]

I'm coming along right at the end (story of my life!), but thanks for taking us along! 

[melmar02]

Wow! That belly flopper really caught some air!

Thanks for taking the time to post - it was fun following along!

[asquared17]

loved this and all the cute family photos!!!!

that belly flop picture made me glad that i normally barricade myself away at a railing

[jbrinkm]

Disembarkation was a breeze. We were out of the rooms right around 8am, maybe just a few minutes after. Breakfast in WJ which wasn't too bad, crowd-wise. Then down to the 5th floor dining room which wasn't easy to reach. As we got out of the elevators, we were stuck in that landing area because they were looping people through the 5th floor dining room to depart. So they would stop the traffic coming out of the elevators and let the line coming from dining go (no one was allowed to go the other direction out of the elevator area unless visiting Guest Services). Then they would stop the line from dining and let the elevator people go, to get into the dining line on the other side, at the end of the line (going into the dining area, looping around, and coming back out.). The problem was that the elevator areas got super packed and people coming down couldn't even exit the elevators! But finally we got in, and just popped over to the side to wait to get off the ship. This was just before 9am, we were scheduled for 9:30-10am departure, and our private ride was coming at 10:15am, so we weren't ready to get off yet. We sat there for about 20 minutes, the line started to die down, and we went ahead and got in it. 

Scanned out, walked down the ramp, went through facial recognition and down the escalators. They stopped people at the top and made them leave 8-10 steps between so a tumble wouldn't take everyone else out. We got to our luggage which was there. Several staff members said things were going really quickly for this sailing. We did some rearranging of our luggage and waiting just a bit for the driver, then we were off to the airport. No traffic, no accidents - we got really lucky! Because we were to the airport more than 3 hours before our flight, we got a great spot with some chargers so got some food and had an uneventful flight home. It was a huge relief after all the stuff that happened when we were flying out. 

Now we're home and I'll be doing laundry non-stop for the next week!

Here are a few pictures from our last day and arriving home:

 

 

[jbrinkm]

Thanks for all of the encouragement from everyone following along! @FireFishII - I did enjoy blogging for the first time, although I think my husband got a little annoyed that I was choosing to type here and there instead of going out to do stuff. However, I'm glad to have a detailed record of our vacation to look back on, because I would have forgotten some of these little details with the kids, who will both be in high school next year and it won't be too long after that, that they'll both be out of the house and we'll miss them. It was NOT as easy to use the little keyboard and tablet vs. my laptop, especially with uploading pictures and having to switch my Voom connection from my phone to the tablet and back again, especially when my photos hadn't finished uploading to the cloud. That happened several times which is why my photos tend to be in separate posts because I would do them when I was back on my phone again. 

Some overall impressions - it was a different experience cruising with such a large Spanish-speaking proportion of guests (not bad, just different - probably similar to cruises that go out of Puerto Rico) AND such a full ship. Almost everything was conveyed in both languages at every event and there were events that took place in just Spanish. I am used to just chatting with people (elevators, dining places, etc) and a bunch of times, I was unable to due to speaking different languages. The fact that the cruise was completely full made going to events like trivia or game shows difficult because they would fill up and you couldn't get in to do them unless you were there 45 minutes early (even then, sometimes people were already at the venue from an earlier event and not moving). We didn't even bother with the pool deck, partly for skin protection and partly because there was no space. I was really disappointed that there were fewer dance classes than last year. With the ramping up of the daily planner, it seems that they added a ton of stuff but took away dance lessons. 

I didn't notice any really terrible behavior on the ship from adults, teens or kids. No fights, no bad manners, no cutting in line, no breaking things. Other than the crowds everywhere, it was a very smooth experience.

As far as the changes that have been made recently, the only one that really impacted me was our relationship with the room attendant. We just didn't see him as much. I did NOT mind the once a day cleaning. It actually felt like we had more access to our room and we knew it would be cleaned every night when we left for dinner, so very predictable. I just missed joking around with him - I didn't even remember his name for the first 4 days. We did ok with the dining room menus and enjoyed a great deal of the food. We did miss having more vegetarian that are not vegan options. There were a few items that were outstanding and a few that were terrible (i.e. rancid apple cobbler), but I think I also felt that way before they changed the menus. We did finish dinner much sooner than we ever have before and the wait staff seemed a bit more relaxed IMO. I really hope that the streamlining of the menu helped out the MTD people. 

Our transportation worked out well, although for disembarkation, we booked with a company that made us prepay gratuities. When our driver dropped us off at the airport, he parked and walked in with us, then kept kind of hanging around, like he was waiting for a tip. My husband finally told him that we would normally provide a gratuity, but we had already prepaid it (20%) with the original payment. He said something like, "Oh. I'll never see that - they just give me a flat amount for picking up the ride" but then he left. I thought I was reserving for a driver employed by the company, so that was really confusing, but I wasn't spending another $40 in tips when I had already paid them. I've been in contact since we've been home, so we'll see if he ends up receiving the gratuity. 

One big takeaway is that you need to add a chunk of budget when flying into and out of Galveston. Our flights were more expensive than Florida, but not by much because Florida had really high prices for that week as well, so that probably depends on where you are flying from. Then you end up spending hundreds extra for all the taxi/uber/private drivers/rental cars that you need to take once you're there. We thought we had gotten a good deal on Allure but once you add all of that in, it turned out to be about the same. We love Allure and the ports we visited, so we were still happy - it just wasn't as much of a good deal as we thought it was for a Spring Break cruise. 

Now I start planning for the next one!!

[FireFishII]

Thank you for bringing us along on your vacation.  Also, thank you for answering my earlier question.  To tell you the truth, I had forgotten I had asked about blogging.  I am so glad you remembered. Good advice about the phone vs tablet vs computer.