Royal Caribbean International Allure of the Seas

Page 23

Dining

The Allure of the Seas feels like a small town at sea and offers the same variety of restaurants, some free and some with cover charges. The number of choices here is really staggering. Below is a brief run-down, but you can jump to a more in-depth description of each restaurant using the navigation at the bottom of the page.

The Adagio is the main dining room, offering the general fare you’d expect to please a large, diverse group.

Two restaurants are on the Boardwalk (deck six): Johnny Rockets and Rita’s Cantina. Johnny Rockets offers burgers, hot sandwiches, and breakfast. Johnny Rockets charges a fee of $4.95 for food, and smoothies and milk shakes are charged extra.

Rita’s is a Mexican/So-Cal restaurant with tacos, quesadillas, chili, fajitas, and excellent margaritas. Rita’s also organizes a couple of fiestas during the voyage ($20, including three drinks). For regular lunches and dinners, Rita’s charges $3 plus a la carte prices.

Central Park (deck eight) is where most specialty restaurants are located. Giovanni’s Table, the Allure’s Italian restaurant, is a more casual place to eat. The menu includes pasta, risotto, and meat dishes, as well as great desserts. Giovanni’s is one of the few places you can have lunch on embarkation day and on sea days. Of course, it’s also open for dinner every day. Cover charges apply: $10 for lunch and $20 for dinner.

Then there’s Chops Grille, the steakhouse. Chops is more formal and a good place for a romantic night out. The food is excellent but the menu is more limited. $30 service charge.

Also located in Central Park is the (no extra charge) Park Café, offering sandwiches, salads, and cereal for breakfast and lunch. The Park Café closes at 6pm.

By far the best restaurant on the Allure is 150 Central Park. It is Allure’s flagship restaurant and features not only its own kitchen (most restaurants share kitchens), but also its own certified executive chef. 150 Central Park has just two small menus that are rotated during the voyage. You can choose to have the sample menu with or without wine pairing, $75 or $40, respectively.

Another highlight is the Chef’s Table, only offered on Oasis class ships. It costs $95. As with other chef’s tables, the chefs prepare a special dinner with five courses and wine pairing. Both chef and sommelier talk you through the wine and food preparation before serving the courses.

As you might expect, the Allure also has a buffet, the Windjammer (deck 16). It’s a huge place with aisles of international food, from American to Indian. The place gets very crowded, though, so it can be hard to find a seat.

Next to Windjammer is Izumi, a Japanese restaurant offering sushi, salads, soups, and other Asian specialties. Izumi is open for dinner every day and for lunch on sea days. Everything is charged a la carte.

On the other side of the ship, forward, is the Solarium Bistro. This is a healthy buffet that offers many kinds of fruits and cereals. It’s open for breakfast and lunch.

At night, the Solarium Bistro transforms into the Samba Grill, a Brazilian-style steakhouse. For a fee of $25 you can eat as much meat as you want. Of course, there’s also some healthier choices at the salad buffet.

If you don’t feel like going to a restaurant, the Allure of the Seas also offers room service, which we talk about in a different section of this review (for more click here).

Also, a word of warning on Allure’s specialty restaurants: We found that they booked up extremely quickly once the cruise began, making it difficult for passengers who hadn’t made reservations made in advance of their voyage. Within 24 hours of the start of our cruise, many of the best dining times for all seven days of the voyage at the specialty restaurants had been taken. In some cases, entire restaurants were booked solid for the entire week within 24 hours of the start of the cruise. We recommend that you make reservations for specialty restaurants as far in advance of your cruise as possible (you can do it online once you have booked and paid for the voyage).