{"id":4586,"date":"2010-11-12T01:00:11","date_gmt":"2010-11-12T09:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/?p=4586"},"modified":"2010-11-12T01:00:11","modified_gmt":"2010-11-12T09:00:11","slug":"allure-of-the-seas-fort-lauderdale-royal-caribbean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=4586","title":{"rendered":"One Big Ship, One Big Celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>FORT LAUDERDALE \u2014 Probably only somebody who’s into cruising would appreciate what we witnessed here on Thursday. There was a parade. A parade of one. It was a ship, a special ship, Allure of the Seas<\/a>. People came and they watched, like it was an historic event, and in a sense it was.<\/p>\n

The Allure was escorted into the Fort Lauderdale<\/a> harbor by four helicopters carrying news cameras, and a flotilla of boats, and a plane above it with one of those advertising messages tied to its tail, only this message simply said: “Fort Lauderdale (loves) Allure of the Seas.” There was\u00a0 a tourist boat among those in the harbor carrying people who paid to witness the arrival.<\/p>\n

Small boats showered her with sprays of water, like she was a bride and the water was confetti. People snapped pictures and shot video. This was 9 a.m., and some \"\"<\/a>passengers on moored cruise ships had been up since 6:30 waiting for her to appear on the horizon. As she entered the harbor, captains of the ships blasted their horns to herald the event.<\/p>\n

All that was missing were marching bands.<\/p>\n

On the top deck of the Navigator of the Seas<\/a>, a little sister of the Allure, one woman watching turned to her husband and said: “We couldn’t have PAID for this.” Another woman’s mouth dropped and she said: “There’s people on it!”<\/p>\n

All of this over a cruise ship’s arrival from Europe. Why?<\/p>\n

The Allure is the biggest cruise ship in the world, allegedly inches longer than the sibling she succeeds, Royal Caribbean’s<\/a> Oasis of the Seas<\/a>. They’re allegedly identical, or close to it, but it’s not that hard to tell them apart\u2026really. On either side of the bow, one says Oasis and the other says Allure.<\/p>\n

This was the end of the Allure’s voyage across the Atlantic and the people on board were laying carpets, painting, installing whatever needed installing and generally doing a dry run for its first departure with passengers.<\/p>\n

Yes, lady, there were people on the Allure. As great as this ship is, it can’t sail on its own.<\/p>\n

As the crew nosed her into the docking bay the Oasis had vacated last Saturday, one of the tugboats did a 180-degree wheelie off the Allure’s stern. If you like boats, you haven’t really lived until you’ve seen a tug do a wheelie!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FORT LAUDERDALE \u2014 Probably only somebody who’s into cruising would appreciate what we witnessed here on Thursday. There was a parade. A parade of one. It was a ship, a special ship, Allure of the Seas. People came and they watched, like it was an historic event, and in a sense it was. The Allure… Continue reading One Big Ship, One Big Celebration<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,31,19,15],"tags":[203,399,51,86,393,33],"class_list":["post-4586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruise-industry-news","category-ports","category-ships","category-stories","tag-allure-of-the-seas","tag-biggest-ships","tag-cruise-ports","tag-cruise-ships","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-royal-caribbean","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}