So tell me how the kids clubs work?
Someone above mentioned "towel monitoring"- what do you mean? Like if you leave your stuff on a lounger too long they remove it?
I know RCCL offers a fair amount of specialty dining. Would you feel like you are missing out by eating in the main dining room and buffet only?
Formal Night: Exactly how formal? I dont own nor do I want to purchase a formal gown. Is a black cocktail dress acceptable? The girls, Im sure can still wear a princess costume and be considered formal. (sneaking Disney in a little)
The pool area- The pictures I have seen look like there is a lot more to offer. What are your thoughts? Looking at the Allure of the Seas.
The soda or lack of isnt that much of a game changer. We would just buy the package or do without. We dont drink that much soda at home.
And any other positive/negatives you can recall.
The kids clubs on Royal Caribbean are called Adventure Ocean are separated into groups... Generally, 3-5, 6-8, 9-11, 12-18 I think. They are not open all day, Like Disney. The hours are 9AM-12PM, 2PM-5PM, 7PM-10PM. While we have never done this, I believe you may sign up ahead of time to keep your kids in the club during the lunch and dinner breaks. I've seen signs for this, but I never really looked into it and I don't know if there is a cost associated with it. There is a late-hours option... 10PM until whatever time they close (midnight or 1AM, maybe?). The late night option is $7/hour per child..... My son really loves the programming on Royal Caribbean. They do seem to keep the kids busy, and have planned activities around a certain theme for each time block. I remember on one cruise, when he was 4, it was a circus theme and his face was painted like a tiger when we picked him up!
http://www.royalcaribbean.com/conte...ids&pagenameMain=main_family&discriminators=2
Here is a link to Adventure Ocean Daily Planners
https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/cruise-compasses/adventure-of-the-seas/mon-2017-04-17-0000
As someone else said, the towel monitoring is simply scanning your card to get towels, and then they scan your card again once you've returned them. It's a slight annoyance over just grabbing towels whenever you want on DCL, but it's not a huge deal. It is annoying when they only have one towel station open for some reason, and you walk the whole pool deck trying to find it! for this reason, we always get new towels when we leave the pool, so that way if we do a late night swim we always have a clean towel without searching for one!
I wear a dress to formal night, something that'd I'd wear to a wedding. My husband has started just wearing a button up shirt and tie. Some people still dress up (tuxes, etc.), and many still wear suits and fancy dresses. A good portion, like me and my husband, are making an attempt to look nicer. For us, we really don't want to pack fancy clothes (and a suit takes up a lot of room in the suitcase!) You will find people that don't dress up at all, and may even wear jeans into the dining room. sometimes, if we are doing specialty dining, we will schedule the specialty dining on formal night (because the specialty restaurants don't follow the formal dining rotation.)
Allure does have lots of different pool options! The chairs still get full on sea days, of course, but it's not "human soup" in the pools like it is on DCL!
The soda is not an issue for us either. I typically drink water or lemonade. Both are available in the buffet, along with Crystal Light-type beverages. My husband likes the occasional Coca-Cola, and will just buy a can a few times during the cruise. (Actually, we're Diamond now, so he just gets it during Happy Hour in the Diamond Lounge!
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The specialty dining options are nice, but they are getting more and more expensive! We've done cruises where we don't do specialty dining at all, and on cruises where we had a lot of onboard credit we pretty much do only specialty dining! The dining room menu changes every night, so you'll still be able to experience lots of nice options!