Allure - Day 1

Sunday morning, October 1, something woke me up at 5:15am. At which time I knew exactly what to do. I hopped up, opened the balcony, and took this shot of MY SHIP!

Butterflies. In just a few hours we would be on board! I was able to sleep for a couple more hours before we got up, showered and packed. Here's a tip: We had two large suitcases. When we initially packed, we packed everything we needed for Saturday night and Sunday morning in just one of them. We also packed all of our formal wear together in the other one (away from toiletries that might leak, and together, in case it had been lost). This made it super easy to just open one suitcase.

Here's a daylight shot of the ship from our balcony. It was cool inside and hot outside, so the camera fogged, but this gives you an idea of just how far from port the hotel actually is.

We headed downstairs for the "free hot breakfast" included in our hotel rate. In a word (well, 3 words): It. Was. Horrible. It was about 9:45 when we got there, and almost everything had been devoured. Between the cruisers getting a head start practicing loading their plates at the buffet and the conference/convention folks, the pickings were slim. The oatmeal was cold. No biscuits and/or gravy. Very little toast or bagels. Two bananas and not replenished. In addition, I felt that the service was slow. What do you expect for "free" breakfast?

All in all, however, Embassy Suites was just fine. We had a nice, clean, large room with a good view of the port. It's no 4- or 5-star, but we didn't expect that. The rate was good. If you want Embassy Suites, book it as soon as possible. It fills very quickly on Friday and Saturday night with cruisers.

At 11am, we headed out with our luggage. The hotel provides a shuttle for $7 per person. I had read that reservations are required and there is often a wait. There were indeed a lot of people waiting (two ships in port - Allure and a Carnival ship - the Valor maybe?). We walked out and inquired about the Excursion car service the hotel offers. We were told that if we wait 5 minutes for other passengers, we could also get the $7 rate. It was the fastest way there and we were excited, so we took the Excursion.

Once at the port, the porters loaded our bags on carts and directed us inside. It wasn't too crowded at this time, and the port is well laid-out and very easy to navigate. In the main door, to the right (for Deck 8), and through airport-style security. There were 6 or 7 lanes and about 5 people in front of us. Easy peasy and super fast.

We found the Deck 8 line, then found the Platinum/Emerald line for Deck 8. This was a little confusing since there was NOBODY there in line. We basically could have chosen any line.

In front of check-in, after security:

Check-in was uneventful. We provided our Set Sail pass, passports and a credit card. The agent took our photo for the "ding" and gave us our Seapass cards (which, for the first time, read "Platinum"). As with almost every RCCL employee we met on this cruise, she was super friendly.

We headed through the entryway to the photo lobby and had our bon voyage photo made (I didn't buy it). Here's a view of the photo area from above:

And another view of the non-existent 11:15am lines:

Up the escalators and we were directed to the Platinum waiting area. As we walked by the suite waiting area, I heard my name called. It was Harold (Eng23) from our roll call, who somehow recognized us. (Maybe from photos I had posted on the roll call page?) We stopped to chat with him for a moment - all three of us beyond excited. Then another guy piped up and asked if we were from Cruise Critic. It was AFSouth from our roll call group. So nice to meet friendly people who we felt like we already knew, even before boarding.

The announcements said that they were just turning around the back-to-backers and would soon begin boarding with suite passengers. We found a couple of seats in our area. I noticed the children's play area:

By this time, I noticed that a good part of the Gold and general passenger area was full. On that side, they were directing people to seats, filling every one.

We happened to catch a glimpse of the lady from RCCL who we had seen on one of the Mighty Ships (or something) shows. In case you've seen those shows, it's the show about turnaround day on Oasis and she is the blonde lady who has to solve problems all day.

Suite guests were called very quickly. Then Diamond and D+. Seriously, within less than 5 minutes after calling the Suite passengers, they called Emerald and Platinum. And we were off.

A little hand sanitizer. A swipe of the Seapass card. A beautiful "ding" sound (music to my ears!), and we were on the gangway.

We were on the aft gangway. I'm still amazed at the size of the lifeboats. Also, look at all of those balconies! So much beautiful glass.

A little warning: I took several photos as we approached the gangway. None worth posting here, but the security officer asked me if they were photos of the ship. I don't think you're allowed to take photos in security areas or of security agents. So be careful with your cameras!

There was a bit of a line on the gangway, but it was moving steadily. We were walking through the doors on Deck 5 by 11:45am. Right next to the Champagne Bar in front of the grand staircase.

What's our first order of business, you ask?