In When it came time to planning our winter family vacation, we had a couple of key priorities: it needed to be someplace warm, and we needed to go somewhere where I wouldn’t be tempted to check email. A cruise seemed like the most logical choice.

Our last cruise was on board the Celebrity. It was a beautiful ship, but lacked enough activities to keep the kids happy. Mine are in that fuzzy zone, where they still like to do activities, but are too old for the kids club and haven’t yet reached that point where just chilling with a good book is a viable option. As a dutiful mom, I pointed the kids towards the Internet with the challenge to find us a ship. And that is how we arrived at the Allure of the Seas.

It is one big mother of a ship, holding around 6,700 passengers, and as we were traveling Christmas time, we would be sailing full ship. While the husband was not keen on a big ship and lots of people, the Allure promised an abundance of things to do and food options, so there was something for the entire family. On this point, the ship did not disappoint. Read more