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Allure of the Seas April 8-15 in Star Class

WAAAYTOOO

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WAAAYTOOO Pinnacle

WAAAYTOOO

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Thanks for the info on Alex, Sabrina. I hope she’s doing well. She is a very classy lady.

So, it’s Wednesday. The cruise is now half over which is not good news but we still have 3 good days left.  Dinner last night was at Chops. Dan, Jim and I had a great meal.  Dan thought it would be fun to order the large seafood tower. All I can say is, it’s a damn good thing that we had Jim there to help eat it.  It was enormous!  There was enough food there for 4 people. We did our best but even with 3 of us, we still left a lot of food.  2 full lobsters, 12 ginormous shrimp, countless clams, mussels and crab claws. Jim has ordered the filet so he wasn’t as much help as he could have been but at least we had some help.  I recommend that you do NOT order the large one unless there are a lot more than 3 people to eat it !

The evening was our usual casino extravaganza but I was able to have a chat with the hostess who informed me that I accumulated 11,667 points over the past “evaluation period” (18 months, ending Dec 31 2017).   This puts me exactly where I presumed I would be, smack dab in the middle of tier 2 which is a-ok with me.  As long as I continue to get my 5% fee waived, I’m good.  The one point upon which I have been mistaken is the issue of whether or not you must accumulate a minimum number of points on every cruise to keep you free drinks and fee waiver privileges. The answer to that question is “no”.  Once you achieve a level that grants free drinks and fee waiver, you retain those privileges for the duration of the evaluation period regardless of whether you accumulate 1000 pointson any single cruise or not.  I was relieved to hear this as it will not penalize a player if they have a “slow”cruise or if you are on a shortie, where it is more difficult to accumulate points.  Beginning 1 April, a new evaluation period began so we are now accumulating points for our next rating period. 1 year from now I will either remain where I am, go up or go down depending upon my play over the next year.  My play patterns have been very consistent for a number of years, so I expect to remain right where I am, generally.

Interesting item(s) on our onboard account this morning.  There were 87, $0.00 entries from the Adaggio bar from yesterday.  It made it look as if we had gotten 87 drinks !  I don’t even know where the Adaggio bar is !  I think it’s one of the MDR bars  but we have not set foot anywhere near any MDR all week.  Obviously some kind of weird glitch, but a call to Charlie took care of it. Dan did not want all those entries, even if they were $0.00 on our account.  Charlie just dropped by with a very interesting explanation for these mysterious charges. Basically, every time they bring a bottle of water or soda to your suite, they record it. It’s their way of accounting for where their inventory is going but more importantly, they are determining how much their “complimentary”services are costing them. It’s totally bogus b/c it makes it look as if we are consuming waaay more products than we actually are. I think I’ve drunk 2 Coke Zeroes and maybe between us we’ve had 4-5 bottles of water.  They just keep bringing more and more bottles !  If that is, indeed, the reason for the entries, they need to find a way of tracking such things in the background, not on our visible onboard account.  IMO they are going to justify raising Star Class prices by citing inflated consumption values.  Maybe it’s just the skeptic in me.

Neither Dan nor I are getting off the ship today (Falmouth).  Jim has friends here so he’s going to do God knows what with them.  Dan was supposed to go with him but Dan got too much sun yesterday so decided to stay indoors today. I’m very glad Dan isn’t going out into the wilds of Jamaica with wild-ass Jim.  I can just imagine getting a ransom note for the 2 of them !  I’m just kidding of course.  ...but I am glad he’s not out today.  

They are washing the deck outside this morning.  We haven’t noticed any soot out there but I have read other accounts where soot in the loft area has been a problem in the past.

Tonite will be dinner in the Coastal Kitchen (Filet night), then the headliner show (some kind of cover band, I think) and the late night comedy show.  The Genie will save 3 seats for us as he promised. Apparently, on Allure, at least, they decided to move filet night from the first night (as it is on many ships) to night 4 b/c “the word has gotten out” that night 1 was “filet night”.  I guess they want keep the number of people who enjoy steak to a minimum.  Pretty sad, actually.

 

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twangster Pinnacle

twangster

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22 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

 Apparently, on Allure, at least, they decided to move filet night from the first night (as it is on many ships) to night 4 b/c “the word has gotten out” that night 1 was “filet night”.  I guess they want keep the number of people who enjoy steak to a minimum.  Pretty sad, actually.

I've noticed on two different sailings this year that Prime Rib is now offered on night one in the MDR and not on the 1st formal night in the MDR.  Lobster and Prime Rib remain on the 2nd formal night. 

It's like they moved prime rib off the 1st formal night and onto the very 1st night on the ship to minimize people ordering it.  Some cruisers likely will miss it, order something else or not even make dinner on day 1.    I'm trying to cut down on red meat but prime rib is hard to cook at home so I often go for it. 

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WAAAYTOOO Pinnacle

WAAAYTOOO

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16 minutes ago, twangster said:

I've noticed on two different sailings this year that Prime Rib is now offered on night one in the MDR and not on the 1st formal night in the MDR.  Lobster and Prime Rib remain on the 2nd formal night. 

It's like they moved prime rib off the 1st formal night and onto the very 1st night on the ship to minimize people ordering it.  Some cruisers likely will miss it, order something else or not even make dinner on day 1.    I'm trying to cut down on red meat but prime rib is hard to cook at home so I often go for it. 

Yeah, I guess it’s going to require a bit of sleuthing to figure out which mal is offer which night. 

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Lovetocruise2002

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@WAAAYTOOO your accounts of your friend Jim cracks me up!  I am loving your blog so far!  Sounds like you are having the most relaxing time this cruise.  Was skipping the cabin crawl a good call for Dan?

I thought of another question...I can't really tell from the pictures you took but would you say that there is enough room on the lower level for an additional rollaway if the couch was pulled out?

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WAAAYTOOO Pinnacle

WAAAYTOOO

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1 hour ago, Boston Babe said:

Got it!! They sound like a blast to hang with!!

They’re really good friends and they ARE a lot of fun.  Update on Jim. He made it back to the ship well before we had to send out a search party.  

Heading out to the CK for dinner soon. Will be consuming our final bottle of champagne with dinner tonite.  I was beginning to worry that we were going to have to carry some of that home or leave it.  

One of the nice bennies of Star Class is that you can have your laundry done every day if you want. It’s an unlimited benefit. I sent some out this morning and it came back all clean and pressed a short while ago.  I will probably do one more batch for the week.  

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WAAAYTOOO Pinnacle

WAAAYTOOO

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Well, I certainly dropped the ball on this one, didn't I ?  I guess cruise issues overwhelmed me and I never got around to finishing up this blog.  Oh well....I said in the beginning, "no promises".

I believe that the only meal options that we skipped were the Chef's Table and Izumi Hibachi.  Even if it was just for a snack, I think we hit everything else this trip.  Our best steak on board was, without a doubt, the filet on night 4 at Coastal Kitchen.  I had steak at Chops, Giovanni's, Samba and CK and the one in CK beat them all by a mile.  I went to Izumi (sushi side) twice but I'm sure Dan was there at least 4 times.  That's his favorite place to eat on the ship without a doubt.  Overall, I think the best overall meal we had was at Giovanni's.  Dan had ossobuco and I had the filet.  While the CK filet was better, the overall meal and service was probably best at Giovanni's.  The Chops and 150 CP were also wonderful meals.  The only truly disappointing meal we had was at Samba Grill.  I think we were just expecting too much.  All of the flair that made that restaurant somewhat special has long vanished. They no longer decorate the place and they do not have the carnivale show anymore.  The food was just - meh. 

For those of you who may not know, when you are in a specialty restaurant you can order individual menu items from any of the other specialty restaurants, if you want to do that.  For instance, when we were at 150 CP we both asked for the mushroom soup from Chops and for dessert we asked if we could please have a slide of Red Velvet Cake (just for you, Sweety !!!!) to share (there was no way we could both eat a dessert....we were STUFFED !). We also ordered the mushroom soup when we ate in the CK.  Obviously, you don't want to inconvenience your wait staff to an extreme but for an appetizer or dessert, it is easy to do.

We had breakfast delivered to our suite nearly every morning.  I think twice, during the week, we went on over to the CK so that we could change up our menu a bit but I will say, having breakfast in the suite is THE way to go for us.  Like Sabrina, we are lazy cruisers and we like to sleep in...so having food brought to you is ideal.  You don't have to worry about being up, dressed, ready to go out.  You just have to be able to answer the door !  We got WAAAY more use out of our balcony on this cruise than we had with any of our previous Star Class cruises.  By evening it is often so hot outside that you don't even WANT to eat out there but breakfast was really perfect.  The only evening meal we had delivered to our suite was on the last night, when they served lamb shank, which is Dan's very favorite MDR meal.  The sun was so bright out on the balcony that we ate inside for that one but it was perfect, because Charlie, our Genie, did such an incredible job of setting everything up for us.  He was such a gem.  I adored him.

Neither Dan nor I got off the ship the entire cruise.  We were on a western to LAB/FAL/COZ and we have been on that itinerary so many times we just don't even bother anymore.  If the ship had gone to Costa Maya we WOULD have gotten off.  We love that port, but alas, it did not.

We had only 2 minor issues - and trust me - these are truly first world problems.  The first one is a repeat of EVERY OTHER Star Class cruise we have been on.  I don't know WHY they cannot get this one together for the SC program.  AGAIN, our luggage was delayed in getting to our suite.  Dan tipped our porter $20 thinking that this would ENSURE that we got our luggage quickly.  Nope.  He was right with us as we left the SC staging area and went to check in and where he went from there....only God knows.  He only had our luggage on his cart so I can see no reason why he would have been diverted from going DIRECTLY to our suite, but...it was at least 2 hours before our luggage showed up and THEN, the luggage was just left outside the door !  I was somewhat furious about this.  You see the pictures of the Genie carrying your luggage up the stairs.  Not for us !  I think the stateroom attendants (we had 2 on this trip...first time to have 2) were a little embarrassed.  They helped us bring it inside but Dan had to schlep those heavy mother scratchers up the stairs and he was none to happy about that, either !  The second issue is a bit more esoteric.  For reasons that we never fully understood, these $0.00 charges kept appearing on our seapass account from Adaggio dining room.  I think this is one of the MDRs but was never sure.  ...and when I say chargeS, I mean, like 87 in 1 day ! Charlie explained that these were the probably for the drinks that were coming to our suite for the "mini bar".  I suspect that this is partially the explanation.  As I said, we had 87 of them on day 3 and another 40+ on day 5.  I think I consumed 3 Coke Zeros and Dan had maybe 5 Coronas from that area the entire week.  We probably used a couple of bottles of water.  They just kept bringing drinks and bringing drinks even though we never ordered them and were NOT consuming them.  Either they were putting all of the drinks for all of the suites on our bill or they were WAAAY padding the account.  My personal opinion is that there is some kind of scam going on and the "free" Star Class suites are the patsies. I think they are trying to justify the costs for SC guests by showing that they are consuming soooo much in the minibars.  I don't know the reason.  Dan didn't really care what the explanation was.  He insisted that every one of them be removed from our account.  They were all removed on day 3 and then more appeared on day 5.  I'm sure that Charlie went to speak to SOMEone, somewhere b/c Dan said that if another such entry appeared on our account he was going to have someone come and remove every drink from our suite.  Whatever Charlie did, it worked.  No more charges appeared. By the end of the cruise, I'll bet there were over 100 bottles of varying descriptions laid out in that area of the suite.  Juices, sodas, beers, water, flavored water.  You name it.  It became a joke after a few days.  They just kept bringing them and bringing them. Oh well.  Like I said, first world problem.  Let's just say we did not lack for anything to drink on this cruise !

All of the regular "genie services" were pretty much the same as we have experienced before.  We had seats reserved for Blue Planet, Aqua Theater Show, the Ice Skating Show and the Comedy Club.  We skipped Mama Mia ! because we have seen it multiple times before and I think it's the stupidest plot of all time. The music is ok but the storyline is so lame that I cannot get past that. Jim went with us to all of the shows and Charlie faithfully saved his seat right along with ours.  Charlie came to our suite on disembarkation and walked us all the way to the Suites Customs Line where we said goodbye.  I think Charlie was the best genie we have had to date.  I loved Reyno and Sebastian but Charlie was by far the most personable and thoughtful.

I have all of the Daily Compasses from the cruise and will scan them and post them.  I just haven't gotten around to doing that yet.  I did not take any more photographs.  I hate carrying anything around with me - even my phone.  So once I leave the suite, that's it.

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Boston Babe Pinnacle

Boston Babe

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48 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

I think Charlie was the best genie we have had to date.  I loved Reyno and Sebastian but Charlie was by far the most personable and thoughtful.

Well it sounded like a fabulous Cruise for you and Dan! To me that sounds like the perfect cruise, stay on the ship, have a Genie, get breakfast served in Suite!  I won't have a Genie on our upcoming but will for sure eat breakfast in our GS every morning.  I'm so happy for you both! And thank you for blogging and sending pics!☺️  

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Boston Babe

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7 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

You and @Boston Babe should formulate a plan together lo

@Sweety and I are on the same cruise next July so we need to meet in secret and device a plan!! (unless of course she convinces Hubby before then! LOL) My hubby just said don't order Voom for me, it's $80.00! Seriously???

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WAAAYTOOO Pinnacle

WAAAYTOOO

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1 hour ago, Boston Babe said:

@Sweety and I are on the same cruise next July so we need to meet in secret and device a plan!! (unless of course she convinces Hubby before then! LOL) My hubby just said don't order Voom for me, it's $80.00! Seriously???

Well, now's your chance to pounce !  For Star Class, Voom is included at NO EXTRA CHARGE !  Convince him of how much money he'll be saving !

Oh wait...

 

?

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CGTLH

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34 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Well, now's your chance to pounce !  For Star Class, Voom is included at NO EXTRA CHARGE !  Convince him of how much money he'll be saving !

Oh wait...

 

?

Add to the mix the drink and dining packages are included also!

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Sweety

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1 hour ago, Boston Babe said:

@Sweety and I are on the same cruise next July so we need to meet in secret and device a plan!! (unless of course she convinces Hubby before then! LOL) My hubby just said don't order Voom for me, it's $80.00! Seriously???

Lets meet in secret so we can go Star class. I  can get red velvet everyday.

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Lovetocruise2002 Pinnacle

Lovetocruise2002

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2 hours ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Well, now's your chance to pounce !  For Star Class, Voom is included at NO EXTRA CHARGE !  Convince him of how much money he'll be saving !

Oh wait...

 

?

We think alike...that is what I used to get to Sky class lol.

For Star it was YOLO, life is short, you can have all the Arancini from Jamie's that you want, and I promise to curb my spending ?

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