Key Largo, Montego, Baby Why Don’t We Go (Or, a Week on The World’s Largest Cruise Ship): Part Sixfeatured

Update: I left my heart in San Francisco. Again. Lovely trip. Seriously my favorite city in the US. More on that at some point. Back to the Allure 🙂

((These posts are going to be incredibly long, so I’ll have to have each day span multiple posts. Don’t hate me))

Mom and Stephanie were up super early. I think we’re sensing a pattern here. Why they were up early? Probably anticipation. I choose sleep over anticipation and refused to get out of bed before 8. We had some muffins for breakfast in the room and did a last glance over the old cruise planner I had printed off in my cruise binder. Today we’d finally get the new one.

We packed up the car, took the obligatory daily we’re-in-Florida-here’s-a-palm-tree-YAY picture and headed towards the airport to return the rental car.

And on our way, we caught our first glimpse of our new home for the next week!

So here’s the thing: Hertz rental car service in Fort Lauderdale has a shuttle service … if you rent from their Crown Plaza hotel location. We did not (we always use Hotwire for rental cars because they guarantee unlimited miles and a major rental agency, but with that, they also only have airport locations). So the three of us, with four large pieces of luggage, three small pieces of luggage AND handbags, were going to cross to the arrivals terminal to grab a taxi. And then we met our knights in shining armor — Micah and Fred from the Hertz rental car agency. Micah, when he checked our car in, took a look at us, took a look at our luggage and grabbed Fred, told him to get the largest SUV he could find, and drive us to the airport. This was top-notch service that really went above and beyond (and as such, we wrote letters to corporate HQ with our appreciation). So Fred drove us to the port and we finally met our new friend, the Allure of the Seas.

We left the hotel at 9:00 am. We were sitting upstairs waiting to board by 10:20 am. And in between…we went through a different kind of check-in process. As we were waiting to board, we realized that in, what, fourteen cruises? This was the first time we didn’t have priority boarding. We had priority check-in (which we didn’t use because we were at the port so early), but we’ve never done general boarding before. Our first cruises with both Carnival and Princess were in suites, so we had priority check-in and boarding. When we stopped cruising in suites was when grandma started using a wheelchair, so we had special assistance check-in and boarding (which happens usually right before or with priority boarding) and after grandma had died, we were already platinum on Carnival and had priority check-in and boarding with that. In fourteen cruises over the course of nine years, this was the first time we ever had to do general boarding and check-in.

So after Fred dropped us at the pier, we quickly grabbed a porter to unload our luggage, we tipped him handsomely and we headed inside. We were in line behind around 20 people (plus a family with a baby that literally screamed from check-in until we boarded an hour or two later) and we waited 15 minutes or so for them to open the security lines. We passed through the metal detectors and x-ray machines and made our way to check-in, which was segregated by either past guest status OR what floor your cabin was on.

While we waited, there were signs like this one that listed the open dining venues for lunch once we boarded.

We thought Royal Caribbean’s check-in arrangement was smart in theory but poorly executed. For one, there’s no point in having so many open desks if only one is open per deck and you have one person working numerous decks early in the process. I assume things pick up later and they have more people working check-in, but it kind of starts at the top, you know? Get the people there in early through quickly and you can delay the inevitable late morning bottleneck. The woman checking us in was nice and helpful enough, but gasped when we told her it was our 14th cruise and first with Royal, and that most of our other cruises were with Carnival. “Oh, this will be better than that. You’ll see why.” Can we not, agent lady? This Carnival versus Royal Caribbean pissing contest is stupid (and led to an interesting conversation we had with the head waiter later in the week…more on that later). They’re both on the same rung of a very tall ladder. Carnival does some things infinitely better than Royal. Royal does some things infinitely better than Carnival. At the end of the day, neither are Cunard or Regent. Anyways. Check-in lady told us this would be our best cruise ever and told us we’d never want to go back to Carnival after a cruise on Royal, handed us our cards and a brand new not-one-year-old-like-the-one-in-my-binder cruise planner and we headed up to wait for boarding.

Did you know this is the largest cruise terminal in the world? If you didn’t and you’re going on the Allure, they will tell you this. Over a loud speaker. Multiple times.

While we waited, we took the time to go over the new cruise planner and the ship-at-a-glance sheet we got with the list of dining venues and decks. While the cruise planner was super helpful because it tells you the big events for the week at a glance, as well as the ports and which menus are on which nights, the ship-at-a-glance sheet wasn’t so helpful. I mean, it was nice to see what was open for lunch and such, but on Carnival, when you board a ship, they hand you a pocket-sized cardboard fold-out ship map, which is easy to carry and reference. A thin piece of regular-sized printer paper with a map on the bottom of the page isn’t all that convenient when you’re learning a new ship on a new line that you have zero familiarity with.

Before we knew it, they were boarding suites, all the gem levels that I have no familiarity with (yet) and then…we boarded with general boarding and were onboard around 11:45 am. They led us to boarding by row. I prefer the zoned boarding Carnival uses, but the end result is the same: we end up on a ship. We handed over our Sea Passes, they took our pictures and we heard that beautiful PING that the embarkation/debarkation machines make when you pass your card through, they squirted hand sanitizer on our hands (a theme throughout the week — anytime you came back on board, got in line at the Windjammer and basically went anywhere, someone was there to squirt hand sanitizer on your hands) and we made our way through the winding tunnels that led to our new home for the week.

And here, you can watch us board the cruise ship, as I’ve finally entered the world of YouTube!

When you board, you enter the ship through the Royal Promenade. Before we boarded, Stephanie used to jokingly call Royal Caribbean ships the Shopping Mall of the Seas because, well, photos of the Royal Promenade kind of give off a bit of that vibe. And walking through it…the joke was actually borderline appropriate. It DID feel a bit like walking through a crowded shopping mall. But over the course of the week, it became one of our favorite places on the ship. There was food, there were bars, there was shopping and there were plenty of places to sit and people watch. It was different than anything we’ve experienced on Carnival and Princess and different was already proving to be a very good thing. We were overstimulated by all the new sights and sounds, not knowing where to look or what to do because we wanted to see and do everything.

We tore ourselves away from the Royal Promenade because Stephanie had done her research and had been insisting for weeks that we begin our week onboard the Allure with lunch at Park Cafe. So we followed the signs to the elevators that led to Central Park. The floor of the elevator reminded us that today was Sunday and the map above the doors told us that we needed to go to deck 8.

Central Park was literally unlike anything we’ve ever experienced. Not much like the real Central Park, in all honesty, but a charming and serene area on the ship that was most enchanting at night. Much like the Royal Promenade, we were on sensory overload. “Look! There’s a Britto gallery!” “Look! There’s the Trellis Bar!” “Hey! There’s Vintages!” All these things we’ve spent months researching were right there, finally in front of us.

We made our way quickly over to Park Cafe. We knew that the ship wasn’t going to get any less crowded and we needed to grab a table quickly.

We quickly found an empty table outside and took turns getting lunch. Outside Park Cafe, they had a hand washing station. They take sanitation very seriously on this ship. No lie.

Once inside, there were two lines: one for made to order salads and one for sandwiches. In the middle was a case of grab-and-go fruits and some condiment bottles.

The salad line had a tempting menu (see below), but we chose the sandwich line because we’d spent too many weeks reading about those Kummelwreck sandwiches not to try one.

At the front of the sandwich line was a display case filled with grab-and-go sandwiches and salads. We found ourselves here many times during the week to grab a fruit cup.

Next in line, they have many options of name brand chips. This is also where you’d place your order for one of the hot sandwiches.

Just beyond that is the carving station where they make those Kummelwreck sandwiches (or, for those not familiar with Royal Caribbean, a sandwich of freshly carved roast beef, mustard, horseradish and au jus on a carraway seed bun with a sprinkle of kosher salt on top. These sandwiches are made to order. No jus? Extra horseradish? No problem.

After the Kummelwreck station, they have two soup offerings.

And then after the soup is a display case with all of the hot sandwiches they offer.

Desserts are at a separate counter and are plenty in offerings.

So lunch? Grab and go salads and Kummelwreck sandwiches all around. And dessert? Fruit cups, cream puffs and cheesecake. Mom *loved* the Kummelwreck sandwich (despite the fact that she found a bone fragment in hers) and Stephanie thought it far lived up to the hype. I thought it was tasty but I’m so picky with my beef and mine was incredibly fatty and took some time to deconstruct to remove some of the excess gristle. The desserts were lacking — the cream puffs were flavorless and the cheesecake was gelatinous. The fruit cups were fresh and the grab and go aspect of the salads was interesting. Beyond all of that — eating in a small “restaurant” with limited options was an interesting concept after being on ships that offered Lido-style buffet lunches. The meal felt more refined with the limited options.

Park Cafe quickly filled up and people were filling every available space of the small cafe. We were glad we checked ALL of our luggage and came onboard with only handbags since it allowed us a quick and easy getaway to any part of the ship we wanted. We decided to walk off our lunch by exploring more of Central Park.

We noticed the Rising Tide bar was up at Central Park level, so we hopped in to take a look around.

Ever wondered what kind of drinks and at what prices Royal Caribbean offers? Fear not — I had my camera ready.

After all of that, the bar still wasn’t moving and we were getting twitchy to explore so we hopped out and explored Central Park a bit more.

We walked past 150 Central Park and noticed they had a new menu out than we had seen online. We contemplated making reservations for later in the week.

On our way inside, we noticed they had umbrellas available for rainy evenings. Nice touch, RC.

They also had these viewfinders around the ship. I don’t think we hit all of them, but it was fun to try.

With Central Park exploration under our belts, we headed off to explore the next part of the ship.

(TBC)