Leaving the kids behind! Allure July 2nd-9th, 2023

[Jacklynn]

First kid free vacation in almost 13 years Well, free of our kids anyways  

Hi there, my husband and I are high school sweethearts that recently celebrated 22 years together and 16 years of those being married. We are 35 and 37 with 3 kiddos (12, 10 and 6 years). 

Our last cruise was back in December on Independence with the kids for their first cruise.

We haven't had a real vacation as just a couple since 2010 which was a 4 night sailing on Monarch of the Seas. The kids are staying with grandparents and we are using the trip to celebrate our belated 16th anniversary (May 12th) and my birthday which was this last Monday. 

We are in a basic interior room as budget won out and we aren't really ones to hang out in the cabin anyways. So this won't be a fancy suite report, sorry

We live in the Nashville area but are driving the kids up to Indiana as I write this as that's where family lives. We fly out of Indianapolis early tomorrow morning to Houston. From there we are headed to an AirBnb in Galveston and board Allure on Sunday at 11. 

It'll be an early wake up call as we have to leave for the airport around 2:30am.  

This will be my first trip report so no promises, but hopefully I can update it daily during downtime.

[WAAAYTOOO]

Congratulations !  Have a safe trip and a wonderful cruise !

[Jacklynn]

As far as pre-planning goes:

I have the refreshment package and my husband (Matt) has the soda + Internet package. We couldn't justify the deluxe drink package but I'm sure we will pick up a few extra beverages along the way.

We don't have any speciality dining planned but have the sushi class booked on day 2.

In Roatan we have a private guide/driver booked through Daniel Johnson that will take us to see the Monkeys and sloths, snorkle and a tour.

No real plans for Costa Maya.

In Cozumel we are doing a mixology class (RC excursion). 

[JustMeJoe]

56 minutes ago, Jacklynn said:

We haven't had a real vacation as just a couple since 2010 which was a 4 night sailing on Monarch of the Seas. The kids are staying with grandparents and we are using the trip to celebrate our belated 16th anniversary (May 12th) and my birthday which was this last Monday. 

God bless us grandparents!  Have a fantastic cruise and many more anniversaries. 

[Ampurp85]

Happy belated birthday and anniversary.

I am on the last Allure sailing out of Galveston on the exact same itinerary in Oct.

Nice to have a vacation for just the two you. 

[Jacklynn]

Our early morning went well. Left for the airport around 2:30, snagged a parking spot around 4am and was at our gate an hour before our boarding time. Thankfully we took off right on schedule at 6:10.

The flight was very bumpy as I don't think the pilot even tried to go around the storms

Oh my word, people were coughing and sneezing like crazy at our gate. I definitely made note of who to not sit next to on the plane lol

Spent the day driving around Galveston before finding a cute place for dinner near our Airbnb called Lil Buffalo. We split the fries and I had shrimp while Matt had a burger. We are still pretty full I guess we were trying to stretch our stomachs for the cruise. Now just relaxing at our place for the night.

We have an 11:00 boarding time. We first need to drop off our rental car then grab a lyft to the port. Can't wait to board!

[JohnK6404]

Have an amazing cruise! 

[Jacklynn]

I forgot to post last night so I'll post what i wrote up from yesterday Also I can't seem to figure out how to insert pictures in the middle of the post, only at the end. So pictures will be at the bottom of the post

It's boarding day! We have an 11:00 check in. We checked it right at midnight but 11 was the earliest instead of the 10:30 I was expecting. Others on our sailing said the same thing so I'm unsure if it's a Galveston thing or Allure thing. Or maybe just our sailing.

Our Airbnb was just okay. It was fine for a budget friendly place on the island. The host actually said we will be one of her last guests because of some new ordinances.

We stopped for a quick walk on the beach and then we are headed to breakfast including some much needed coffee from Whataburger and then we are headed to return the rental car and then lyft to the Allure

-----

Boarding was fast. We arrived at the terminal at 9:50 and were greated by porters and let inside right at 10am. From there security was fast and we sat only for a minute before boarding at 10:27.

We walked around a bit on our way to our muster before stopping in the windjammer around 11:30. I was surprised at how uncrowded windjammer was. We had no issues finding a seat. The food was fine. I didn't see any kind of boarding day cake or cupcakes like we have had before. Plenty of desserts though so we didn't go without

We mostly wandered indoors while waiting for the rooms to open. It was HOT. Thankfully, rooms were ready promptly at 1:00. We dropped our bags and headed to the hot tub for a bit. Again, not crowded at all. I figured everyone was settling into their rooms. We eventually went back to our room to cool down and rest before sailaway but ended up back in the hot tub for sailaway. While back at the room we discovered our MEI agent had some chocolate covered strawberries delivered to us.

While in the hot tub for sailaway we enjoyed watching the Port of Galveston police ride along side us. It was fun seeing them seemingly act like a sheep dog when other boats got close to us. 

I'll break Day 1 evening into a separate post.

 

 

[Jacklynn]

The hot tub was getting a bit too hot so as soon as we hit open waters we headed down for showers and rest a bit before dinner (late seating which is 7:45). It seems there might be a theme here with us taking cat naps Apparently without the kids we are quite the party animals. Honestly I think it just feels good to lay down for a moment without someone needing something lol

For the most part though Matt napped while I was able to take my time getting ready for dinner. 

We had about an hour until dinner so we walked around the shops, grabbed a pre-dinner drink (delicious Blueberry Nojito) and sat on the chairs on deck 5 aft until dinner. I had high hopes of grabbing an ornament since they had just opened. She said they sold out last sailing. Seems odd that they had just sold out on our last sailing too. I don't understand why they can't seem to have them always available. They always have those big ship models. And while we are at it, why not an online store so that when they ARE in stock we can order them??

Dinner was fine. We had a table for 2 which we had hoped for/requested. The pro is no one is on either side of us which takes away from the whole table for 2 aspect. But we are right where everyone has to walk by to get to their table lol so it was a steady stream of people at first.

Our server is Maria. It's funny because we had just talked about how we haven't really seen many females being head servers. She's sweet. Her assistant introduced himself but then we didn't see him again, but it didn't bother us.

We both started with a crab cake and split the spinach and artichoke dip. The crab cakes were delicious. In fact we both agreed they were the best part of the meal. I had seen pictures of the spinach dip being very soupy, but ours was thick. It was fine, not much flavor. 

Matt got the fried chicken and enjoyed it, especially the honey sauce. I got the portobello dish and it was tasty

I finished with the key lime pie but only had a few bites, it had a bit of an artificial taste to me. Matt had chocolate ice cream

After dinner we walked around Central Park and the cadino until our 10:15 Blades show. 

We have almost no casino experience and so we are a bit clueless. Thankfully the host showed us how to use our accounts on the machine lol

We each had $4 free play. We laughed at Matt's 30 cent payout, and then at my 6 cent payout haha! 

The Blades show was fantastic in our opinion. It was much better that the show we saw on Independence. We felt the talent was better and enjoyed the story line. Blades has replaced the Ice Games show.

 

[Ampurp85]

I like how your outfits seem to match, don't know if it was intentional or not. 

I can't figure out how to put picture in between the text, but as long as they are there, it's good.

[Jacklynn]

1 hour ago, Ampurp85 said:

I like how your outfits seem to match, don't know if it was intentional or not. 

I can't figure out how to put picture in between the text, but as long as they are there, it's good.

Intentionally matching I told him he only had to match me on boarding day

[asquared17]

2 hours ago, Jacklynn said:

Honestly I think it just feels good to lay down for a moment without someone needing something lol

i hope there are many of these relaxing moments for you both while aboard allure

happy anniversary!!

[Cactus527]

Those 6¢ winnings are amazing!

We're doing this cruise/itinerary on 7/16. Can't wait to keep reading your posts!

[Sweety]

I love cruising with my hubby. We have develop a cruise rhythm for us. 

[PPPJJ-GCVAB]

13 hours ago, Jacklynn said:

Intentionally matching I told him he only had to match me on boarding day

Lol my husband goes crazy if he matches with me!  However, we have been married for almost 44 years now and apparently the longer you are married the more you think alike!  I typically will be dressed before him and I cannot count the times he has come downstairs wearing the same color as me!  Then he wants to blame me….lol and ends up going back upstairs to change…poor guy!    

[Jacklynn]

1 hour ago, Cactus527 said:

Those 6¢ winnings are amazing!

We're doing this cruise/itinerary on 7/16. Can't wait to keep reading your posts!

I can't decide what to do with my new found wealth! 

[Jacklynn]

1 hour ago, Sweety said:

I love cruising with my hubby. We have develop a cruise rhythm for us. 

It's great

34 minutes ago, PPPJJ-GCVAB said:

Lol my husband goes crazy if he matches with me!  However, we have been married for almost 44 years now and apparently the longer you are married the more you think alike!  I typically will be dressed before him and I cannot count the times he has come downstairs wearing the same color as me!  Then he wants to blame me….lol and ends up going back upstairs to change…poor guy!    

Haha Matt generally ends up wearing solid colored t-shirts so he's pretty predictable.

13 hours ago, asquared17 said:

i hope there are many of these relaxing moments for you both while aboard allure

happy anniversary!!

Thank you!

[Jacklynn]

I figured out how to put my pictures throughout the text, I'm rather impressed with myself  

Day one: Sea Day

I set my alarm for 5:30 and ran down to the promenade for coffee before getting a sweaty 3 miles in on the track. It's funny how no matter which side of the ship I was on, the wind was never at my back

Matt had a few final things to do for work before he could fully sign off so he finished that while I showered.

We headed to the solarium for breakfast which was almost empty it seemed. We kept it pretty light knowing we had our sushi class at 10.

We walked a bit and hid a few ducks before going to the sushi class.

We really enjoyed the class. Those leading the class were both informative and entertaining. The pacing felt perfect. I was shocked by the amount of people who barely touched the sushi they made. Some people clearly didn't eat any at all. Not us, we polished off most of our plates but we felt like pigs because tons of people seriously barely touched theirs. I'm glad we were able to snag a spot because it had been sold out and I just happened to grab a reservation a few weeks ago when someone canceled.

We found this fun post it picture in one of the cabin halls. I think a guest put it up but I'm not 100 certain if it was that or staff. There were no names. 

We walked a few laps on deck 5 and Matt went for a nap while I grabbed a coffee frappuccino and coconut Ranger cookie (I saw someone say they only found them on embarkation day but they had them in cafe promenade) and went to the "secret" 9th floor central park balcony and that's where I wrote my boarding day post.

We had 5:30 ice skating reservations and then it was time to get ready for formal night. We had the aqua show at 9 so we were glad they had the dinner doors open at 7:30 so we'd have plenty of time to eat before the show.

We had calamari and French onion soup, beef tenderloin and Matt had the apple dessert and I had the cappuccino cake.

When they brought out my cake they had a candle and sang happy anniversary to us. It was both nice and embarrassing

We went straight from dinner to get seats at the aqua theater. The show was impressive! I can definitely understand why they have to cancel in rough seas. You could tell how important it is for them to hit their marks. The amount of coordination in the production including the behind the scenes stuff is crazy.

Followed the show by a walk through central park before calling it a night around 10:30. Party animals I know! But we are definitely morning people. We are both children and old people trapped in mid to late 30 year old bodies lol

[WAAAYTOOO]

You both look so lovely (and handsome) in your dress-up's.  Glad you are having FUN !!!!

[MLH]

I have seen the Aquatheater show so many times on various ships.  this past one we were watching from the Aquatheater suite and noticed all of the divers would ring out a towel before jumping.  I thought they were drying themselves off, but my husband pointed out that they were looking at wind direction of the falling water.  Makes complete sense.

[Jacklynn]

Day 3: Sea Day

We woke up at 5 to run, only 2 miles today. Don't worry we won't wake up every morning to run We run 3 to 5 miles 4 or 5 times a week at home so it's enjoyable to us. I think we will run on our Costa Maya day and then our last Sea Day, but not tomorrow at Roatan or Cozumel.

Climbed the stairs to the 16th deck thinking we'd find coffee in the windjammer and watch the dark turn to day only to realize the windjammer opens at 7 not at 6. You'd think they would at least place a few carafes of coffee up there for those watching the sunrise. We survived without the coffee though.

Ran down to shower before getting breakfast (and coffee!) At the windjammer and now just enjoying watching the sea. No real plans for today, so we shall see where the day leads us.

[asquared17]

i love the pics of you guys at dinner last night!!! you look GREAT!!!

i would HIGHLY advise skipping the run on roatan day; you will be swimming in soup due to the humidity. i am not a runner but i do get up around 5:30-6 on vacation to do a power walk and find the track is usually a good fit for that UNLESS it is simply too hot and/or humid. then i will just up my walk endeavors throughout the indoor spaces on the ship

next time you want coffee for a morning sunrise, consider hitting cafe promenade on 5! they are open 24 hours so you should have no trouble there getting caffeinated.

also clearly you are both sushi masters now!! (can’t believe there were folks who just left their masterpiece behind and did not eat them… what is the world coming to )

[Cactus527]

@Jacklynn how are you finding internet speeds whenever you want to get online? 

Also love that you're running on board. I plan to do the same. Are there many people out when you do it that early?

[Jacklynn]

7 hours ago, asquared17 said:

i love the pics of you guys at dinner last night!!! you look GREAT!!!

i would HIGHLY advise skipping the run on roatan day; you will be swimming in soup due to the humidity. i am not a runner but i do get up around 5:30-6 on vacation to do a power walk and find the track is usually a good fit for that UNLESS it is simply too hot and/or humid. then i will just up my walk endeavors throughout the indoor spaces on the ship

next time you want coffee for a morning sunrise, consider hitting cafe promenade on 5! they are open 24 hours so you should have no trouble there getting caffeinated.

also clearly you are both sushi masters now!! (can’t believe there were folks who just left their masterpiece behind and did not eat them… what is the world coming to )

Thanks for the kind words

I grabbed coffee around 5:30 from deck 5 on the first morning but figured there would be some on the upper deck for sunrise chasers, but we figured wrong

We might try to grab some sushi later on if we can get it. It was yummy.

[Jacklynn]

27 minutes ago, Cactus527 said:

@Jacklynn how are you finding internet speeds whenever you want to get online? 

Also love that you're running on board. I plan to do the same. Are there many people out when you do it that early?

We are currently sitting at the aft on deck 5 and just ran a speed test for you. We are sailing along Mexico currently on our way to Roatan if that matters. 

Maybe only 1 or 2 other people running today when we started at 5:20 but by the end there were more. Not so many that it posed any issues though. 

[BobbieS]

Thank you for sharing your trip with us! You looked stunning on formal night. We are early risers too, so we also tend to hit the cabin early in the evenings. No worries though - it is your vacation, so you should enjoy it as you wish!

[Jacklynn]

On 7/5/2023 at 7:47 AM, BobbieS said:

Thank you for sharing your trip with us! You looked stunning on formal night. We are early risers too, so we also tend to hit the cabin early in the evenings. No worries though - it is your vacation, so you should enjoy it as you wish!

Thank you   

[Jacklynn]

Day 3 Sea Day afternoon/evening

I bought cheap star necklaces from the dollar store to wear on the 4th of July and apparently they don't mix well with sunscreen and sweat I had stars on my legs from them sitting on my lap,  oops.

We sat there for a few hours enjoying a drink and the view.

We wanted to try lunch in the dining room so we went to check that out. It was oddly very slow and they mixed up the orders of almost everyone around us including Matt's. He isn't fussy though and just ate what they brought him he got the chicken sandwhich (he had ordered the chicken and waffles) and I got the seafood sandwhich. I only ate a small bit, it was just okay. No big deal as we clearly aren't going hungry aboard.

On a whim we went to the love and marriage show thinking we could sneak out if it was lame, but it was hilarious the host did a great job and the couples of course made it fun. With being married 16 years we were eligible to try to participate (the "mid-ly wed" option was for 20-30 years) but I dk if we would be fun enough anyways ha! But it was great to watch. The couple married the longest had been married 65 years

After that we grabbed some grub from Wipeout Cafe and enjoyed the view from up there. Not that we needed any more food...

Took a few laps on deck 5 and ended up on the aft before getting ready for dinner.

They had a special menu for the 4th of July. We split the Buffalo chicken dip and I got the baked potato soup and Matt got shrimp cocktail for apps the dip was good but my soup was delicious! Usually potato soup can be good or really bland but thankfully it had lots of flavor. In fact I told Matt I could have had a dinner bowl of it and been happy.

I got the salmon dish and Matt got the honey fried chicken. My salmon was fantastic. So far between the soup and salmon, it was my favorite meal. I forgot a picture but Matt said his chicken was fine.

For dessert I got the strawberry shortcake and Matt got the brownie. He really liked his brownie. Mine was fine, I'm just not a fan of super sweet light cake/whipped topping. So I could only handle a few bites. Just personal tastes, my mom loves those kinds of desserts though so she would have loved it.

We finished the night walking around a bit and saw a few minutes of the aqua show again.

[Cakemeister]

Thank you for creating this thread. 

Is your bed oriented along the rear of the cabin or along one side? Do you know what kind of interior cabin you have?

 

[Ampurp85]

That baked potato soup is my favorite thing Royal does. When it is actually available, I have been fooled by the smoked version which is disgusting imho, I get two bowls and bread as my main meal.

It is also weird how some desserts that shouldn't be too sweet are and the ones that should, are not. 

[Jacklynn]

32 minutes ago, Cakemeister said:

Thank you for creating this thread. 

Is your bed oriented along the rear of the cabin or along one side? Do you know what kind of interior cabin you have?

 

I don't know the technical category name, but it's just a normal interior room. Maybe 4V? For some reason that's what comes to mind. 

This is ours, it is along the side vs in the back.

[Cakemeister]

Thanks for the info. The reason I ask is that I am confused on which categories of interior rooms have the head of the bed along the wall and which categories have the head of the bed along the back of the room. On all the classes of ships I've been on, interior rooms have had the head of the bed along the back wall. I haven't sailed on an Oasis-class ship yet, and I think Mrs. Cake will like the side orientation better.

[OCSC Mike]

19 minutes ago, Cakemeister said:

Thanks for the info. The reason I ask is that I am confused on which categories of interior rooms have the head of the bed along the wall and which categories have the head of the bed along the back of the room. On all the classes of ships I've been on, interior rooms have had the head of the bed along the back wall. I haven't sailed on an Oasis-class ship yet, and I think Mrs. Cake will like the side orientation better.

Some Oasis-class interiors have both layouts (Wonder for sure because we have several 4V's booked/on hold and I watched some YouTube videos to get an idea of which layouts are where). It could be unique to Wonder, but some aft interiors seem to have the bed on the back wall and don't even have the small couch/love seat, just a chair. We've booked forward mostly b/c we're not picky but I do like to at least have the love seat.

You didn't mention which ship you're sailing but have you tried www.cruisedeckplans.com? Good site to use to find cabin videos.

[Jacklynn]

2 hours ago, Ampurp85 said:

That baked potato soup is my favorite thing Royal does. When it is actually available, I have been fooled by the smoked version which is disgusting imho, I get two bowls and bread as my main meal.

It is also weird how some desserts that shouldn't be too sweet are and the ones that should, are not. 

It wasn't smoky thankfully. I hate that liquid smoke taste this was tasty.

[Jacklynn]

Day 4 - Roatan

We started the day with coffee (shocker ) and watching us pull into the Roatan port.

We were able to walk right off the shop around 8:50 even though they had said 9:30. There was the expected chaos as we exited the secured port and found the Daniel Johnson people. It was very easy but I can see how it could cause a bit of anxiety in people as there were people hollering everywhere about taxis and excursions and it was packed. You can see here that the road was lined with venders as we drove away.

They got us checked in an introduced us to our driver for the day. I can't remember her name but it was something like Shantia she was awesome!

This was at the end when she dropped us off at the port, I was looking rather rough after snorkeling

I was so nervous it would be awkward. That there would be weird silences, and when that happens my husband talks a lot because he hates awkward silence thankfully it was very easy conversation. Any time we weren't asking questions she was talking all about her life on the island.

She drove us by the Roatan sign, showed us some local schools and talked about them, pointed out her house, we learned all about her family and the relationship and often disconnect with the mainland. It was so good! We definitely felt like we saw the Honduran island instead of just some gimmicky tourist version. Lots of rugged dirt roads but we even enjoyed that.

Half way through our tour we stopped at the Daniel Johnson Hangout for some time with the sloths and monkeys and then snorkeling.

We were placed with a group of about 12 with 8ish of them being one family. We didn't really think anything of us, they were fine, but as soon as we finished with the sloths a man asked if it was just the two of us and when we said yes he said to follow him to one of the monkey cages. He introduced himself as Daniel Johnson and said he noticed we were with a large group and since it was just the two of us wanted to give us a smaller experience. Here he is chatting with us.

It was great! He spent about 10 minutes with us with a mama and baby monkey. He told us all about how his sanctuary came to be. He grew up in the house where the sanctuary is. He was very nice and it felt like a treat getting to hang out with him.

I was surprised at how incredibly clean the whole place was. The animals themselves were also incredibly clean.

Afterwards he took us and a few others out snorkeling. The snorkeling was fine, but we definitely saw more fish in Hawaii. But the water was clear and nice. I was a bone head and forgot to sunscreen my back and the back of my legs so I'm white from the front and red from the back lol

We went to the beach area for a little bit and had a beer that Daniel suggested and afterwards our guide met us at Daniel Johnson.  She was able to drop us off right at the ship once we flashed security our sea passes.

[AshleyDillo]

5 hours ago, Cakemeister said:

On all the classes of ships I've been on, interior rooms have had the head of the bed along the back wall. I haven't sailed on an Oasis-class ship yet, and I think Mrs. Cake will like the side orientation better.

I was on Oasis in an interior and it had this same side configuration as pictured in this thread. All my other interior sailings on Voyager and Freedom class had the head of the bed along the back wall.  

[Xaa]

Loving the blog, thanks!

Was your snorkeling at West Bay do you recall?  Looks like a fun day!

[MLH]

Was Roaton a private excursionor ship excursion.  If it was private can you share the details?thanks!

[Ndfan89]

Great blog.  Looks like you are both having a wonderful trip!

[Coda_Sarah]

I am enjoying your live thread!  We are sailing Allure at end of August.  Question for you….you mentioned:

 

It's boarding day! We have an 12:00 check in. We checked it right at midnight but 11 was the earliest instead of the 10:30 I was expecting. Others on our sailing said the same thing so I'm unsure if it's a Galveston thing or Allure thing. Or maybe just our sailing.

Boarding was fast. We arrived at the terminal at 9:50 and were greated by porters and let inside right at 10am. From there security was fast and we sat only for a minute before boarding at 10:27.

 

Just double-checking.  Your check in time was noon?  I’m guessing they went allowed folks in before their check in time.  Also, it appears they were letting guests board before 11 too?  10:30 is awesome if that was the case!