Newbie Coastal Kitchen and Suite Questions

[DisneyDad64]

We are taking our first Royal Caribbean cruise this fall and I have a lot of questions. We have taken many cruises on Disney (Platinum members), NCL, and 1 on Carnival (many years ago)
We are staying in the 1br Aquatheater Suite (Sky Access) on the Allure of the Sea.

This gives us access to the Coastal Kitchen Lounge. and We are supposed to get VOOM internet access.

Here are my questions:

How does the Coastal Kitchen food compare to the Main and/or specialty dining?
What drinks are included in the Coastal Kitchen?
Do we need to have a main dining seating if we only plan on using Coastal Kitchen?
Should we choose fixed main dining time or the flexible seating (since we may not use it much depending on the above answers)?

Are there any restriction on data for the VOOM service (like Disney)?
What type of interest speeds are expected? My wife is likely to work for short periods of time while on board.

Thanks in advance and sorry if they are topics that have been addressed before. The searches didn't help.

 

[OKW Lover]

We are Diamond + on Royal and have sailed on several of their Oasis class ships, including the Allure, in a suite.

How does the Coastal Kitchen food compare to the Main and/or specialty dining?
What drinks are included in the Coastal Kitchen?

Much better than the MDR. It's the difference between cooking for a couple of hundred people vs thousands in the MDR.

As far as the specialty restaurants go, most of them are slightly better at what they do than Coastal Kitchen. We like to split our evening meals between CK and the specialty restaurants.

Do we need to have a main dining seating if we only plan on using Coastal Kitchen?

No. No reason to do that. But be sure to make CK reservations for the nights you want to dine there. You can do that through the shoreside concierge about a week before you sail. If you don't do it then, you should book it when you first board the ship by going to the podium.

Should we choose fixed main dining time or the flexible seating (since we may not use it much depending on the above answers)?

Don't bother.

Are there any restriction on data for the VOOM service (like Disney)?

No data restriction.

What type of interest speeds are expected? My wife is likely to work for short periods of time while on board.

Speeds are highly variable. Sometimes it's OK. Sometimes it's abysmal. If it's just email that she needs it will be fine. If it includes video conferences, that could be an issue.

 

[DisneyDad64]

Thanks that helps a lot. We too are living 3 miles from the castle and retired. Lol

 

[ScooterScott44]

Answered your other question in the other thread and will chime in here also, happy to share other details or answer other questions. (BTW not retired but living a few miles further away to the west of the castle. LOL.!) We are Platinum with DCL and Diamond with Royal with a number of suite cruises to help get there faster. I now see on this thread you are on the Oasis class. That said, you can ignore my comments about the Quantum class for your other question in that thread. The thing to consider about Sky class in the 1 Bedroom Aqua-theater Suite is the location. Not being on Deck 17 isn't the worst thing but those suites are all the way aft in the hall. It can make Lounge access a little bit of a walk.

Your questions about dining are pretty well covered, so I'll only add a little about that here. We did Star class on Allure last year and the Coastal Kitchen we only did one dinner. It was good, if you stick with that as the primary dining venue you should be fine. Your concierge on the ship will email you about a week to ten days before the cruise. Just be ready with any request or dining reservations and you should be able to take care of most everything before boarding.

If you are considering any dining package, the Oasis class is one of the best for doing that. Chop's is pretty standard across the fleet but the one on the Allure, head to head with the others, was near the top in our experience. 150 Central Park is pretty good but the one on the Wonder is better. Giovanni's is decent and some like it, but Jamie's is better in our opinion, on ships that have that venue. The Allure is unique in that it has the Samba Grill. That is the Solarium Bistro area that turns into a Brazilian Steakhouse in the evening. It is pretty decent, some of it is buffet style, some family style and they bring the skewers with meats around. Its not bad and the meats can be hit or miss. In our opinion, O'hana is better but the style will be familiar. The Izumi restaurants are pretty good and if you like that style of food.

We have done well with the internet. it is pretty easy to switch from the phone to the laptop if you need to do that for work. Service is pretty good overall but it still can be spotty at times. The key will be what you are doing. I have done work and can even VPN in if necessary. A friend could not VPN or really do work with the type of stuff eh was doing. larger files and some things can be slow so it is best to keep things to a minimum if possible.

Happy planning and reach out if you have any questions.