My first impression as I board Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas, this season's winner of the world's biggest cruise ship contest, is that I have been teleported to the West Edmonton Mall. The deck is called the Royal Promenade, and over there is the Guess store, while across the way is the high-end jewellery shop. Toward the bow end is the Starbucks -- the first at sea, as the staff is eager to relate. And at the opposite end, the Rising Tide Bar, which, in the best WEM tradition, ascends and falls pneumatically between decks five and eight.

This engineering marvel glides through Deck 6, a.k.a. the Boardwalk (convincing old-style carousel, ice-cream parlour, Johnny Rockets diner), fetching up in Central Park (many plants, annoying faux bird-song, tonyish restos). The trip provides enough time to feel sorry for the passengers occupying the "inside balcony" rooms that overlook the "park" -- lodging for those who take a cruise but don't get to view the sea from their rooms, just other hapless inside balconyers and the habitat of the recorded birds.

Happily, as a member of the small press contingent on this two-day mini-cruise, I am assigned an outside balcony billet on Deck 14, two levels down from the top and high enough up that the only real indication of rough seas is an almost imperceptible shudder. The room itself seems designed to discourage hanging out -- it is attractive and has truly comfy beds, but two people moving around simultaneously requires some advanced logistics.

Clearly, the notion is that you get out and doing, and there are plenty of choices: evenings there are shows of the stage, stand-up comedy, ice and aqua varieties. During the day, choices included a rock climbing wall; four pools, each a little larger than a beach towel, although I can attest the so-called sports pool is big enough for a bitty aquafit class; a sports court for basketball and the like; and, of course, dance lessons, without which no southern vacation would be complete.

There's also a gym, which contains almost 160 of the latest heave-and-ho machines, plus perhaps the best view of any such establishment due to the all-glass, bow-facing exterior wall. If you need structure, there are daily classes; if you need maintenance, there's a spa.

Had my jaunt been much longer, I would have found the gym a necessity given the Allure's adherence to the cruise-ship tradition of almost non-stop eating opportunities. The ship resembles a particularly eclectic and often upscale food court. There are 26 restaurants, from the mallish pizza and hot dog joints to the main dining room, the multi-level Adagio, which seats more than 3,000, as well as the much-smaller specialty rooms (with special surcharge), including Izumi, Giovanni's Table and Samba Grill -- a "Brazilian" spot strictly for carnivores, since dinner largely consists of more than half a dozen barbecued meats, from chorizos to filet, presented rather menacingly on implements that look like rapiers.

The wielders of these meat swords are a fraction of the 2,000-plus staff, half of whom are on food/beverage detail. As a whole, the crew is almost aggressively cheerful -- I suspected that the employee manual decrees that no guest is to be passed without at least a "Hello," but this is still a nice big-mallish/small-townish touch. And the ship's total population of 8,000 qualifies it for small-town status, albeit one with a fairly narrow target demographic: 30 to 50, plus children, is the norm. (The trip I was on, being pre-official maiden voyage, skewed heavily to middle-aged travel agents.)

Unlike this trip, which simply looped out from and back to the winter berth in Fort Lauderdale, regular Allure sailings visit St. Thomas, St. Maarten and the Bahamas, or Mexico and Labadee, in Haiti-but-not-Haiti. But really where you'll be, as the Royal Caribbean slogan has it, is the Land of Why Not?