Allure of the Seas - 8-Night Southern Caribbean & Perfect Day

The 2018 traveler thread that best frames this sailing had a couple choosing between Allure on a Western loop and an 8-night Aruba-and-Curaçao run on Carnival Vista; replies split the vote as best ship versus best ports, and the poster who had done the Vista version called Curaçao and Aruba their two favorite cruise ports anywhere. This itinerary is the pairing that thread wanted and could not book: an Oasis-class ship on the ABC route. Geography sets the shape. Curaçao and Aruba lie two sea days south of Port Everglades, so the ship runs out for two days, takes Curaçao, the farther of the pair, first and backtracks the short hop to Aruba the next morning, then spends two more sea days climbing north to Perfect Day at CocoCay, which is close enough to Fort Lauderdale to work as the final call before disembarkation. Half the nights are at sea, in two matched blocks, and none of the three calls needs a tender, going by the port notes for Aruba and Curaçao and a 2022 reply pointing out that Royal's ships dock at CocoCay, which makes a missed call less likely than at private islands that tender. Only the ABC days are below the hurricane belt; the Bahamas finale and the Florida transit are not, and a 2025 reply advised anyone booking a September or October date to expect the possibility of a rerouted port.

Few of the 201 archive threads that mention Allure in the Caribbean are about this loop; most concern its 3-, 4- and 7-night sailings, so the route sentiment here comes mainly from threads about the ABC islands on other ships. That sentiment is consistent across 2019, 2020 and 2022: put an ABC itinerary next to an Eastern or port-a-day Southern alternative and the ABC option wins the vote, with posters citing how rarely these islands turn up on Florida departures, the snorkeling, and a landscape that is arid and cactus-strewn rather than the lush green most first-timers picture. The same threads sort the islands: Aruba is the resort-and-beach stop with hiking and off-road jeep trails inland, Curaçao is the one to walk, and Bonaire, the diving island, is the one this sailing skips. On the ship side, two threads (2022 and 2024) agree that Allure's short sailings draw the younger, louder crowd and that seven nights or more skews calmer and older, though a 2024 reply still expected more children aboard Allure than on the Celebrity or Princess ships doing similar routes.

Within Allure's own catalog this is the longest itinerary and the only one that goes to the Southern Caribbean; per person it is priced below the ship's 6-night Western and 7-night Eastern sailings from Florida, and only the Galveston Western run works out cheaper per night. The closest rival on the same route from Fort Lauderdale is Odyssey of the Seas, slightly cheaper, with Labadee as its third stop instead of CocoCay; an August 2025 thread reported Labadee calls being cancelled indefinitely and swapped for a sea day or a substitute port, and the top reply in a 2018 Allure-versus-Symphony thread chose the itinerary with CocoCay over the one with Nassau, so the finale here is the more dependable third stop. Celebrity Beyond adds Bonaire for a few hundred dollars more; divers should read the 2022 thread on that exact choice. Regal Princess costs several hundred more, Celebrity Reflection roughly double, Carnival Horizon runs the same eight nights from Miami at a similar fare, and Brilliant Lady, adults-only, does the two islands in seven nights from elsewhere. This sailing suits people who want the ABC islands on an Oasis-class ship without flying to San Juan, the departure point a 2020 thread pointed to for the southern islands on smaller ships, and families with children, for whom a 2024 reply summed the choice up as Royal plus CocoCay. It does not suit anyone who wants a port most days, wants Bonaire, or is booking for the lush-green Caribbean rather than a desert one.