Allure of the Seas – Day 7, part 1, at sea
March 24th, 2012Hooray for another “at sea” day! The “at sea” days on Allure are especially great with kids with DreamWorks characters, parades, shows, kid-friendly pools, and the carousel.
We had our 3rd and final character breakfast, this time with just my parents. We were still lucky enough to get the best seats in the dining room! I don’t know if we were so lucky because of the size of our party, or if we reserved the breakfasts earlier than most (we did reserve these quite early). Either way, we were pleased.
This was another Madagascar breakfast with Alex the Lion, King Julian, and Gloria. At all of these breakfasts, each character came out to music and did a dance right in front of our table before visiting each table one by one for greetings and photos. We started with Alex the Lion.
King Julian was next. It took quite a bit of coaxing for Cullen to get a photo with King Julian! He wasn’t a fan of him the first time he met him, and he wasn’t a fan this time. He did warm up a little bit.
The kids seemed excited about Gloria. Cullen told several people at breakfast about the How to Train Your Dragon ice show. “Fwagons! Fwagons….FLYING!”
After breakfast, we walked around the ship a bit (and probably checked to see if we could ride the carousel, but I guess it was closed). We went to the photo gallery to try to weed out more photos. We knew we were going to have to decide what we wanted to buy today, and we had dozens of photos to choose from. I’m glad we had two portfolios so that we could put our possible photos in one and the rejects in the other. They didn’t have a place that you could dump photos you didn’t want, so this was a very convenient alternative!
The kids got a bit bored of photo sorting (who can blame them), so we headed back to the cabin to get the strollers. We had a date with progressive trivia at 11am! The final round of Progressive Trivia was general knowledge, and some of the questions seemed quite difficult and random! We ended up getting 13 of 20 correct. This didn’t win us the round, but it was enough to be declared the CHAMPIONS of the Progressive Trivia!!! We had so much fun with our teammates. All of us were playfully competitive and joked with each other about winning it all. I mean, we joked, but we seriously wanted to win it! It was a pleasure and honor to play with a Jeopardy champion (he’ll tell you that he was a loser, but I still think that 2nd out of a tournament makes you a Jeopardy champion in my book!). We were so glad they asked us to join their team.
And, as a bonus, we won quite a bit of swag! Each of us won a tote bag full of everything that they gave out at all of the trivia events and then some. Inside each Royal Caribbean tote bag was a hat, magnetic photo frame, keychain, camera case, wallet, pen, and umbrella. I’m sure I’m probably forgetting something. It was awesome to have come so close to winning so many trivia events on this one, but we won the one that really counted! We also were awarded gold medals (which we wore much of the day) and a bottle of champagne. We felt that our new friends deserved the bottle of champagne. We wouldn’t have even had a team if it wasn’t for them, and they paved the way with a stellar first two rounds. The progressive trivia was a highlight of our cruise for sure!
We had to rush off right after the event to try to make it to the 12pm DreamWorks water show. We hated to rush after our big victory, but we were looking forward to this water show! Unfortunately, we soon learned that both showings were cancelled. We were disappointed! The ship was rocking so much that too much of the water was sloshing out of the AquaTheater pools, so it was dangerous for the performers.
We regrouped and decided to head to the Solarium restaurant for lunch. We got there and realized that the restaurant was also restricted to over 16, so we begrudgingly headed to Windjammer for the first time on our cruise. With so many options on Allure, we never felt the need to go to the Windjammer. We’ve found the buffet in the past to be mediocre at times (on other ships). It was actually pretty good. Perhaps it was a plus that we were fairly hungry and had low expectations? If this had been a meal earlier in the week, I’m pretty sure we would have frequented the Windjammer a few more times.
After lunch, we took the kids to the carousel since we knew our opportunities were limited now that we were nearing the end of our vacation. We took the kids back to the room for Cullen’s nap, and I headed to the casino to meet Debbie, my mom, and Melissa for the slot tournament. We all had a plan to enter together and split the profits. We hadn’t quite figured out what we were going to do if we won the cruise, though! I think we could have worked out something, I’m sure.
We soon learned that the tournament would take more than an hour! We had thought that it was going to be a quick thing. oops. We had to wait a while before playing our first round. The slot tournaments are amusing. We discussed our “strategy” – was it better to use one hand on the button or alternate? Was it better to use finger tips or your fist? Should you wait for the reels to stop spinning and pause in between pushing the button or just pound on it relentlessly? I mean, really, there’s lots to consider in such an important event. We made some new “friends” and rooted each other on (one of our friends photobombed behind Melissa in this photo of us getting ready to start).
It was so much fun to be lined up along one bank of machines! We were able to glance over at everyone’s machines to see how we were doing. We were doing awesome for a while with Melissa, Debbie and I in 1st, 2nd and 3rd! Twelve people were playing each round, and then the top 12 from the first rounds of play would play in the finale. Sometimes nobody qualified from an initial round, and sometimes several would qualify. In our round, Melissa qualified! Unfortunately, the rest of us were out.
By the time all of the first rounds were complete, we learned that they had enough entries to give away TWO cruises. We had a 1 out of 6 chance of winning a cruise! We had a 50% chance of winning at least our money back, so it was exciting! Unfortunately, we didn’t win anything except Melissa’s consolation prize of a bruised and swollen fist. Who knew that slot tournaments were so dangerous??
I had checked on Gabe a few times to let him know our slot progress and to check on the kiddos. I didn’t expect the tournament to take so long! I went back to the room, and we got everyone ready for dinner and headed to a pirate party/festival at the boardwalk. I think it was mostly for families whose kids were in the kids’ club. So, we ended up meeting the penguins again instead (Maddie opted to just ride the carousel).
And then we rode the carousel again and again. Again.
The kids posed for a cute photo.
We then headed to the Blue Planet show with Melissa, Jason, and Melissa’s parents. The show started at 5pm. It took a while for it to start, and when it did it just wasn’t interesting enough for little kids. Cullen couldn’t be quiet, so I took him out of the theater. I was disappointed because I thought that I was going to enjoy the show!
I tried to stand near the back of the theater, but the show just didn’t keep his attention. So, Cullen and I went exploring. I let Cullen completely lead me around the ship. It was entertaining to see where he wanted to go. We met Po the Panda.
We went to look at the Christmas tree and car in the promenade. We went up and down and up and down and up and down the marble staircase in the promenade. We went into the Boardwalk, and I was shocked that he walked right past the carousel! He paused a little bit to play on the play structure next to Rita’s Cantina. He then headed for a set of stairs that I had not previously explored next to the AquaTheater. We saw a beautiful sunset. He went up and down those stairs as well. He then said, “I’m done. Let’s go.” and lead me to a door that ended up taking us directly to the hallway with our cabin. We were on the ship for almost a week, and I had no idea we could get to the AquaTheater this way!
He walked down the hall and went to the elevators where he pressed the down button and we rode down to the promenade again. He climbed the marble staircase again and we ended up at the Boardwalk and rode the carousel over and over for the last time. We met Mort near the carousel when we were leaving.
I then took him to the photo gallery where I glanced at our photos again, and we were in the right place at the right time for the final flash mob.
We headed towards dinner and ran into Patsy and Jim who were joining us since Mick and Debbie made reservations at one of the specialty restaurants. Somehow after being on the ship for almost a week, I managed to try to find our table on the wrong deck of the dining room! Oops!
During dinner, the waitstaff sang the customary Royal Caribbean farewell song. Almost everyone at our table couldn’t decide between the key lime pie or the brownie sandwich, so we all ordered both desserts! The brownie sandwich was fabulous. YUM!
Melissa, Jason, my mom, and Gabe’s mom all went back with our family to watch the Move It Parade from our Promenade window. That was a neat place to see the parade (and great for people watching throughout the cruise), but it didn’t engage the kids as well. It was still fun! We could see Patsy and Jim in the promenade near one of the kiosks. They had a great place to view the parade, and the characters stopped several times right in front of them to dance.
We had done some packing earlier in the morning, and we did a bit more packing after the parade. My mom came by to watch the kids while we went to the photo gallery with Jason, Melissa, and Gabe’s mom to make our final decisions and purchase our photos. I headed back to the cabin while Gabe had one last hurrah in the casino with his mom. I did some more packing as we had to have our checked bags out in the hallway by 11pm.
Gabe came back with just enough time for me to make it to “A Selection of Fountain Shows” at the AquaTheater where I ran into Melissa, Jason, and Melissa’s parents. I was glad that we went to that as it was like a mini Bellagio fountain show. I wondered if the same people programmed and built the fountains, but I don’t think that’s the case. I put some of that in the highlights video.
I checked with Gabe, but he was ready to crawl into bed with a book. Melissa, Jason, and I initiated “Operation Set Foot.” Our mission was to set foot in as many places as we could that at least one of us had previously not explored. I’ll post all of those places and photos in my next cruise post.
Favorites from Day 7:
Gabe: Winning the Progressive Trivia
Kerry: fountains, Winning the Progressive Trivia, and Operation Set Foot
Maddie (her words): Meeting the Alex and the characters
Cullen (my best guess): Exploring the ship with Mommy
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