Royal Caribbean

one of the shows on the ship

 

the main "street" on the first day

Royal Caribbean has many different ships and we went with the Allure. It is one of the biggest cruise ships there is. This of course meant that we got lost in the beginning, and that we walked a lot on the ship.

What to pack? Well, obviously that depends on where you are going. Good walking shoes of course. The clothes you would normally take for going on holidays. 

Something we took with us was a lanyard so that you can have your ship card with you. I only took for the kids, as I felt a bit stupid walking around with my card around the neck - but on the ship most people did, and most people had really special lanyards with lots of bling on them. We only had free lanyards that Markus got from his conferences :-) You can ask guest services to punch a hole in your card.

We also brought clothes pins with us, so that we could dry swimming suits etc on the balcony without them flying off the ship. 

If you are prone to sea sickness, take pills for motion sickness, and perhaps sea bands to wear around the wrists. I do suffer from motion sickness, but in the end it was not too bad. I did feel the waves ones or twice and then took some of the pills just in case.



Just before Mama Mia starts

 

Our ship had lots of activities. We couldn't do the zip line nor the surf simulators with the kids as they were too short. We also forgot to do them even though we could have when the kids were in the kids club.

The kids club was great. The children really liked going there, and even didn't want to get off the ship when we got to the Bahamas. We convinced them to come with us, but they went there every evening and also on sea days. Miriam and Benjamin were in different groups due to their age difference, but that was not a problem. For Miriam it was very easy as she speaks quite well English, but even for Benjamin it wasn't a problem. Many games were ball games or other games that he recognised from home. But in fact he even got second when they played Bingo, so I suppose his English numbers and letters must be ok. :-)

 

We also played Mini golf, went to one of the four pools, went climbing and saw Moana/Vaiana in the cinema.

Don't forget to take the swimming suits with you in the hand luggage on day one - the pools are empty!

 

 

When the kids were in the kid's club, Markus went to the gym and I to the trivia or the choir. We also went to some shows with and without the kids.
 

 

I really like playing Trivial Pursuit, so I enjoyed the Trivia competitions. I usually went for the Morning trivia and also a trivia which was during three different days and where you could accumulate the points. It was particularly fun as you play in teams. Since I was alone I simply went to  some people and asked to join their group. They turned out to be a mother-daughter team from Canada and they were super nice. (and we won all the morning trivia - thank you for the pen, key chain and highlighter - great prices, right?  And came second in the accumulative trivia)  Like that I got to know some new people. On another trivia I teamed up with an American young couple. Getting to know them was one of the best things with the cruise.

parade

The food was good. Especially the dinners and the breakfast. Lunch was ok. We only went to the Windjammer, which is the big buffet restaurant. once, because it was not great, and also we were in general not that hungry after our big breakfast. Instead we went to the Parc cafe where they had salads and paninis. We also didn't buy the drink package, since it was very expensive and we didn't plan on drinking that many sodas or cocktails. Instead we bough some wine for dinner and a cocktail once or twice. We also did have some cocktails during our stops in the Bahamas and Mexico.

One thing that is good to know is that during dinner you can have what ever you like. So if you see two starters that you would like to try you can! If the kids rather have food from the adult meny that is ok. You can also have three desserts, if you still feel like having dessert after all the other food.