Wow. This ship is a party. Everything they do here is on a huge scale, and tonight's entertainment was no different.
We were in the Diamond Lounge at 5pm to have drinks with our friends, but left at 6:30pm to go up to the a Sun Deck over the bridge to watch sail away after dark from St. Thomas. Amazingly, there was no wind up there for quite a while, and we watched as the Allure gently started to push away from and back away from the dock at Crown Bay. The lights on the hillsides made St. Thomas look spectacular, and we stayed up there while we sailed out past Water Island until we hit open water and the winds picked up.
We were left with not enough time to eat a full meal, so we returned to the Diamond Lounge for one more drink and a few hors doerves to tide us over, and then left to go into the Amber Theater right next door. Tonight's entertainment was singer Kenny James, backed by the full Allure OTS orchestra, and you know how we live that kind of thing. Also backing him was his son Trevor on bass, and the entire show was really wonderful. Kenny put on a high energy act, and sang a lot of songs from Motown and Lionel Ritchie as well as others. At one point, just his son accompanied him for a song and that was really special. All in all, an incredible show, on a different level than most cruise ship entertainment, like most of what RC does on the Allure.
Right afterwards, at 9:45pm was the 70s Disco parade on the Royal Promenade. Now, I was expecting a theme party along the lines of Princess' disco night party, but, oh my, I could not have been more wrong. This was a huge production. It started with two of the lead singers from Chicago singing about 15-20 minutes of disco songs from various points overlooking the Royal Promenade. Then, right in front of where we were, over the Bow and Stern pub, this huge globe ball that is ways there split open and out came what looked like a ferris wheel. Slowly (we couldn't believe we were seeing this), the "ferris wheel" started to unroll, and out came a long stage that was over the people below in the Royal Promenade. Who thinks up this stuff??
Out came cruise director Ken Rush dressed in a John Travolta white suit and LED sunglasses, and then all the dancers from Chicago appeared behind him or on other bump outs above the Royal Promenade and the party kicked off in full force. Eventually, dancers dressed like the Village People appeared on Rising Tide, the levitating bar, and performed several of their hits. Unfortunately, this is where my phone battery died, because I could have videoed this whole thing, it was so fun. And meanwhile, light up rings and bracelets and T-shirts were being thrown into the dancing crowd below, and G turned to me and said, "This ship is Vegas and DisneyWorld and Mardi Gras all in one package," and it really is. Everything is done in a huge way, and we're loving it for one week, but we are going to get off this ship exhausted!
Afterwards, we walked back to the Boardwalk (quiet tonight) and then forward through Central Park (I do love it), and since there was no music right then, we could hear the sound of crickets they have playing over the speakers. During the day they play bird songs, although the assistant cruise director has told us that occasionally they get a real bird in Central Park, and when they do they try to catch it and care for it until the ship returns to the port where the bird got on board so as to not mess with the normal fauna of the islands.
At just after 11pm, we've fallen into bed. We have to do this all over again tomorrow, and have to get some rest!
Photo 1: sunset in St. Thomas through the glass roof of the Solarium
Photo 2: sail away from St. Thomas after dark
Photo 3: Kenny James and his son Trevor perform
