Trips, Pics, and Tales

So here we are, finally at the end of this marathon trip report! I wanted to just sort of wrap it up with some final thoughts on our experience overall.... If you've followed along in my past blog reviews, you can probably tell that we don't really have any particular loyalty to one particular cruise line. We tend to sail based on itinerary or go when there's a promotion that works best for our family. We ended up on the Allure because way back when....it was "the" ship to want to be on! After we sailed on the Epic, we really wanted to try another big ship and see what we thought. And then suddenly this great deal came up and we were booked! I kept saying that we weren't sailing for the itinerary, it was all about the ship. I honestly had no interest in the ports - Jamaica, I felt we could take it or leave it. Labadee - in the past we haven't really been beach type of cruisers, so sure, maybe it would be fine, maybe...but Cozumel - I do love Cozumel! So th

Here we are....docked and ready to leave the Allure. Not my favorite picture, but we're on our balcony, and saying hello Ft. Lauderdale, bye bye Allure!   Now, when we booked the cruise, you may get the impression from me that I l ove to vacation right? So for whatever reason, I decided to book a flight home at 9:20 PM! Sure, extend that vacation as long as possible! We get an extra day in Ft. Lauderdale without having to pay for a hotel for another night! Fantastic! But what in the world were we going to do in Ft. Lauderdale??? No beach, we didn't want sandy clothes, wet bathing suits and all that mess if we had to get on a plane later that night!  We could do a Segway Tour! That sounds fun! But Megan had her doubts...would she run off the sidewalk, crashing into traffic and cause a major accident in Ft. Lauderdale? Seriously...this is her issue.  We couldn't use the luggage express because our flight was too late....no hotels in the area worked for a day pass....it

After our day out on deck doing everything we didn't do all week, it was time to head back in to get ready for dinner. But on the way, we wanted to stop for a quick picture Dinner tonight was at Giovanni's Table, the Italian restaurant. Before dinner, we took a bit of a walk around the ship, just taking some pictures.  As the sun was setting tonight the sky was a really unique color, and everything around had this pretty cool hue.... The picture is blurry...but just look at the sky and the horizon! It's all so flat! And now it's dinner time! 5:30 reservations at Giovanni's Table. So, we made it through the entire week with our pre-set dinner reservations. It was such a challenge to decide  before  the cruise what time we'd want to eat every night! I know people who do the traditional dining do this all the time, but we never do this! As you see, we like the speciality dining, and we knew we'd have to make reservations in adv