After many years of Sharon asking we finally decided to do our first cruise, and we decided to start withe biggest ship out there the Allure of the Seas from Royal Caribbean and we were not disappointed! When we started looking first we thought we would go on a Mediterranean cruise, I fancied a few days starting in Venice and heading off to the Greek islands, but our two youngest girls who were coming with us didn't fancy stopping off everyday in a different country and wandering around European cities. So we selected a Western Caribbean cruise with only 3 stops which were largely just beach lounging days. The first stop was an island owned by Royal Caribbean off Haiti called Labadee and that is exactly what we did there lounge on the beach. The second stop the following day we stopped at Falmouth in Jamaica and spent the day sight seeing and walking up the Dunns Falls. The final stop was in Cozumel off Mexico, here we spent the morning swimming with dolphins and then shopping in the afternoon. As you can see nothing to taxing or culturally challenging but exactly what the girls wanted. The cruise is really all about the ship which is just amazing. I still don't think I covered all the main parts of it. There are numerous restaurants, cafés and eateries most complimentary but a few that you can pay a bit extra for a special night out, and the Chief Chef is an Irish man from Cork. There are bars, night clubs, lounges, an ice rink, and a huge theatre that holds over 1500. He we saw the musical Chicago as well as some other shows. The whole place is a hive of activity and for the very active there are swimming pools, walk and race tracks, surfing, yes surfing on a ship, gymnasium, basketball, soccer, table tennis and the list just goes on! The ship even has its own version of Central Park with flowers, trees, walk way littered with cafés and bars.
The ship takes 6,000 passengers and has a crew of 2,200. There are organised activities for everyone, way to many to numerate or you can just laze about on deck, at the pools, in the library, on your balcony, watch TV, or do shopping in the many shops. The big thing here is diamonds! Apparently great deals can be had in jewellery either on board or in Jamaica or Mexico!
