Allure Day 4 - Surfing and Spa!

Back at the ship, I snapped this photo.  Allure is so huge that it is hard to get her all into one frame.  You can tell the scale by how small Chris (in his new hat from Carribong <<hehe>>) looks.

Look at that weather!  Awesome!
We asked why the flags were flown at half-mast and the cab driver didn't know.  I get the feeling that it might have been for an American reason, but the island folk don't really pay much attention to all of that.

Back onboard, here are a couple of shots from our starboard balcony.  We were Room 8624, Deck 8.

I don't think it was quite 3pm yet, and time for the flowrider to open, so we probably checked email for a bit before heading up there.

I remember at about 4:30 I started getting hungry, so I grabbed a hot dog from the Wipe Out Cafe, which is the closest place to the sports deck to get food.  I wrote about this on my RC comment card at the end of the cruise; it was one of the very few issues I had, and it is more of a recommendation than a complaint.  The set-up of Wipe Out Cafe is like a buffet.  Guests enter the door, then turn to the right to get to the start of the buffet, which runs from right to left.  There are trays, silverware and plates at the end.  The first "station" is tacos and nachos.  Naturally, it takes self-servers a little time to carefully stack and stock their nachos and tacos.  After that station, there are pizza, fries, burgers and dogs.  Think about it.  It takes a self-server (I made up a new word!) just a short amount of time to pick up a slice of pizza (or 9, as some people tend to do on cruises), or a bun and hot dog or burger.  So the line gets backed up at the very beginning with a bunch of hot dog self-servers :D like myself waiting oh-so-patiently for people to pile junk on their tacos and nachos.  The venue is very small, so sometimes the line goes out of the door.  I think they could fix this issue by flipping the stations.

I ended up at Wipe Out Cafe 4-5 times during the cruise, and I eventually figured out that I could grab a plate and step out of line, around the taco station, and to my beloved hot dog.  I hope I didn't make people mad with that behavior, but I'm sure some would complain.

Incidentally, Wipe Out Cafe is one of three free soft-serve ice cream stations.  The other two are out by the sports pool and H20 zone.  I don't eat ice cream, but this might be helpful to some.

The flowrider was open until 6, but I had to leave early.  I had something far more important to do.  So I left Chris surfing and headed back to the room and took a quick shower, then down to the Vitality Spa!

I had booked a combination treatment with a seaweed wrap followed by a 60-minute Swedish massage.  I got 15% off with my Crown and Anchor coupon booklet, but it was the same 15% off anyone could get on a port day.  The treatment took 2 hours and was fabulous!  There was a soft sell for a seaweed body mask package at the end of the treatment, but she just recommended it and told me the price, never asked me to say "yes" or "no".  That was nice.   For me, the price was about the same as a moderate (not low-end and not high-end) spa on land, and the treatment was a real treat!  Worth it after hours and hours of surfing and walking.

When I walked out, Chris was in the Vitality Cafe, having just been to the gym.  We went back to the room to shower and get ready for dinner.  We had, or at least we thought we had, a reservation at Rita's Cantina for the Mexican Madness Fiesta from 8:30 to 10:30.