HLFam2022

Thank you for reading! I hope for sooner than 2049 too... Thank you for reading!

Totally understand your thoughts (and nice job on the win!). The tournaments were all $200+ if I remember correctly, or you had to pre-qualify at a land tournament for the big ones. Cash games were $1/$3 NL Hold Em with a min buy in of $100 and max $300, and $2/$5 NL Hold Em (don't remember the buy ins). Several of the other players were interested in starting an Omaha table and the staff said they would open one up if they got five players, but I don't know if they ever did. No draw, stud, etc. games that I saw.

You are truly wise 😄 I'm excited to see it!

Yep, you're correct (my wife informed me I was wrong about this earlier today :))

Thank you, and happy New Year! If we go on a cruise before '49 I'll be sure to post about it here 🙂

Thank YOU for reading through 🙂 Thank you for the compliment (and for the info about the Solarium Bistro! My wife pointed out I got this wrong after she read my review :))

Last Day- Disembarkation, Flying Home, Royal v. Carnival The last day comes too soon. We grab a quick bite to eat on the WJ and leave rolling our own luggage sadly across to the terminal. Customs and Immigration is stupidly short coming off a ship, and an SAS Transportation van driver shows up to pack away our bags. We end up waiting for around 30 minutes for other passengers from Royal and Carnival before heading to the Fort Lauderdale airport. The flight home, thankfully, is uneventful, and I spend most of it alternately napping and dreading the cold, gray reality that awaits, with no expert professionals preparing meals and entertainment for me and only some nostalgia-tinged memories to tide me over until our next vacation. Is post-cruise funk real? Maybe, maybe not, but it definitely feels real. Debriefing later with my wife, I am asked how our time on Oasis compares to my last cruise on Carnival. My immediate instinct is to say, "It's like the difference between shopping at Walmart (Carnival) and shopping at Target (Royal)"- they both offer mostly the same stuff (though the things you really want will be out of stock at Walmart), but Target/Royal just feel a lot cleaner and nicer all around. But if I'm being really honest, there's a few important things to consider when comparing the cruise lines and Royal doesn't win on all of them: 1) Lifestage and vibe. This is the biggest one for me- the two times I was on Carnival, I was a tiny child traveling with parents, and a slovenly young man living wild and carefree, respectively. Royal felt like the passengers were all Midwest polite (minding their own business), while Carnival felt like the passengers were all Southern polite (all up in your business). Being younger, I appreciated the drinking and chatting with strangers more on Carnival; now, I can appreciate the gentle relaxation of being left alone with my family. Advantage: depends on what you're looking for. 2) Microtransactions! This became one of my brother's favorite expressions during the cruise, but the amount of upselling on Royal felt significantly lower than on Carnival. I recall being peeved that Carnival was charging for different types of tea in the afternoon, and while an extra buck to get real Earl Grey v. generic is probably not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, it made me mad, and if Joe Biden had been President at that time it would have completely been his fault. Advantage: Royal by a long shot. 3) Food. I'm really into food, and Royal's was generally better. That tuna steak haunts my dreams. Advantage: Royal. 4) Service. Service on Carnival wasn't bad at all, but the competency and focus on what I wanted v. what procedure dictated puts Royal firmly ahead. 'Thank you' to our room steward for showing how it's done in an incredibly kind and classy way. Advantage: Royal. 5) Casino. This one was hard for me, as Royal's craps tables were a complete ghost town all the times I tried to play, whereas Carnival's were rocking and I ended up teaching some other passengers how to play, earning myself the nickname "The Professor" from the staff (though no comps or onboard credit). I didn't play poker on Carnival so can't compare there. Advantage: Carnival. 6) Stuff to Do. There was significantly more stuff to do on Oasis than on either of the Carnival ships I was on; my wife and I probably only took advantage of about 30% of what was available aboard. We did not: go to the rock and roll shows, ride the water slides, go to Playmakers sports bar, check out any of the comedians, watch a movie in the theater, go ice skating, play laser tag (and I love laser tag), go rock climbing, ride the carousel, go shopping at any of the onboard stores, ride the FlowRider, or sing karaoke. Yet I still feel like I had a fun and activity-filled vacation. Advantage: Royal. 7) Live Music. This is one area where Carnival did better. Live music on Oasis felt like going to a bunch of mini-concerts and following a schedule. On the other hand, Carnival had many more artists that I liked just hanging out and playing all over the ship at all hours of the evening, which gave me much more of the "drifting in New Orleans/Nashville" casual vibe. Advantage: Carnival. 8 ) Price. The elephant in the room. Eyeballing some quick search results shows Royal to be 20% + more expensive than Carnival for similar length Caribbean cruises, and I suspect that the price difference rises depending on what class cabin you book. Even with more included/less nickle and diming, I think from a budget perspective Carnival will be very hard to beat. Advantage: Carnival But when all is said and done, I would pick Royal over Carnival in almost any circumstance for a future cruise with my family. Now, since it's been 27 years between this cruise and our last one as a big group, I will need to start looking at bookings in 2049...

I hope you have a delightful time on Oasis! I am almost certain the Solarium Bistro was adults only- you can't get there without walking through the "Age 16 and over only" type doors that lead to the Solarium, and I don't think I ever saw kids there. That said, we only did lunch and breakfast there, so it may be different for dinner.

You are brilliant, and I support this approach! LOL! The best part is, I actually went to Manhattan last year for vacation and tried to enforce a no-work-email rule 😄

Day 7- Sea Day, Johnny Rocket's, Casino, Cats, Poker Sea day 2 is packed. My plan of trying the water slides, etc. goes down the drain due to the lines for everything, so I spend more time taking walks and trying to enjoy the sea breeze and warm weather before heading back to winter storms and gray skies. I overslept the ship's crew Q&A, but my parents went and reported that the highlight was a 6-year-old boy, clearly very nervous, asking the captain, "If you're down here answering our questions, then who's driving the ship?" The captain (who I'm assuming was trying to avoid chuckling at this) explained that there is a team of officers who take turns at the wheel, including one up there at that very minute, which seemed to assuage him. Apparently, ship captains don't spend a lot of time actually driving the ship, which makes no sense to me; isn't the whole point of becoming a captain that you get to steer the giant boat? My wife and I go to the "Friends" trivia, which is packed with people. The host starts trivia with a hearty "Hey everyone, how YOU doin'" which gets a hearty laugh from the crowd, before sheepishly admitting he's actually never seen the show before and is just reading things his boss wrote for him. Friends trivia is fiendishly hard, even for my wife and I who have watched the show end to end approximately two million times (each)- how much do you know about Rachel's ex-fiancee's new wife's profession, for example? At the end, the host calls up the winner: Host: What's your name? Winner: [Something I can't remember, let's call her Jan] Host: Everyone, give it up for Jan! [awkward, desultory applause] Jan has just WON A FREE CRUISE- Everyone else, including me: [Shocked gasps] Host: -BROCHURE! That's right, she gets a free cruise brochure, and a highlighter pen! People grumble about this, but the joke delivery is absolutely top-notch. (Also, I'm pretty sure she didn't get an actual paper brochure.) We go to lunch at Johnny Rocket's, which has some nice outdoor seating and basically the same menu as Johnny Rocket's on land. It is, however, a Continental-style prix-fixe deal, meaning you pay one price for everything (I believe it was $16/per person on our cruise). With this in mind, we decide to get our money's worth and order salad, regular French Fries, chili fries, and cheese + bacon fries as appetizers, before getting into burgers, and then ice cream for desert. Johnny Rocket's carries a great deal of nostalgia for me as we used to go there for a special treat as children. The fries are as good as I remember, but the burgers are extremely greasy and overly sweet- much more so than I'd like. Still, the service is good and we get to eat in the sun, so it's not a total waste. All week, I've been planning on taking my mother down to the ship's casino so I can teach her to play Craps, perhaps the most fun game involving dice and bad decisions ever created. Craps, unfortunately, isn't really fun unless you have at least 4-5 other people playing and cheering you on (and one grouch on the other side chain-smoking and betting the Don't Pass Line out of spite). Every single day I've been down to the casino, the Craps table has been empty (and $10 minimum bets). Do better, Oasis of the Seas passengers! (I find out later that there's a second Craps table on the other side of the casino that sometimes has players) So that afternoon, I take my mother down to the casino with a couple of $20s and we play the slots instead, which is...a choice, but we have a half-hour of fun looking for slot machines with real arms that you can pull (there are precious few, as most of the machines are digital/button press machines). It takes a moment to figure out how to get loyalty points for playing the machines- tap your SeaPass against the glowing rectangle to log in, and then prepare for a very long wait, as it takes forever to earn points. My mother wins $15 on her first slot machine bet and gets excited, which unfortunately gives her a thoroughly unrealistic idea of how casinos work. She ends up walking out "only" up $10, whereas I have lost $20. It's OK, I'll make it up playing poker. For dinner that evening, we take the waiters' suggestion of surf and turf (beef tenderloin with lobster tail). Given all the discussions about Royal Caribbean changing the MDR menus in Jan 2023, it's interesting that the menu we're given does not have surf and turf listed as an option (beef and lobster are separate entrees) but that the waiters recommend it. It's a good meal; the lobster tail is large and meaty and the beef tenderloin comes out cooked at the temperature I requested, as it did the other time I ordered it (I think one of the earlier days). Then we go to see Cats (or the Royal abridged version, which runs about 90 minutes with no intermission). I am what you would consider a casual musical theater fan; my wife is a much more hardcore one (she asked to go see Six on Broadway, which is a show that is entertaining and also short enough that you can see it and then go to dinner afterwards- a win on both counts!) I have never seen Cats before and only know snippets of "Memories" by pop-culture osmosis. I'm not sure I can summarize what the play's about, other than it involves cats, and it's based vaguely on a T.S. Elliot poem (no wonder I didn't enjoy the show; I hated that guy when I had to read him in college). The acting, singing, dancing, stage decoration, lighting etc. are all top notch, but the show itself was confusing and weird. Multiple people walked out of the show midway through; I feel terrible for the performers (that's awful etiquette) but at the same time, I recommend you skip "Cats" unless you REALLY like Broadway and/or Andrew Lloyd Webber. Finally, that evening I take a much larger sized bankroll to the poker tables to try to redeem myself and keep the "quit my job to be a pro" dream alive. Surely I can't play so poorly that I lose a bunch of money again, right? On my first hand, I play so poorly I lose $150. Now I have to spend the rest of the evening just trying to win my money back (note: this is an exceptionally stupid mentality to have when playing poker). This is clearly all Joe Biden's fault. I am seated at a $1/$3 NL cash table next to a guy I'll refer to as Groucho Marx, who apparently knows the ships' officers pretty well ("The Captain should have listened to me and pulled the ship in closer to shore, that way the ship wouldn't be rolling so much"). Groucho and I have similar lucky/unlucky streaks, and both of us enjoy complaining about things that we have no control over whatsoever, so I feel a certain sense of kinship with him. For those of you who speak poker: as the evening gets late, I get dealt A5o and call pre-flop. Everyone folds except two players: Groucho Marx, who calls, and another player I'll refer to as Spanish Dennis Quaid, who raises about $50. It's way past my bedtime, and I've made nothing but good choices this whole trip, so I trust my instincts and call to limp into the flop, as does Groucho. The dealer flips A34 with three suits; Mr. Quaid goes all in. Groucho calls, which means he probably has a straight draw. The smart thing to do here would be to do the math in my head to count my outs, figure out pot odds, and then make a reasoned judgment of whether to call or not, so instead I immediately shove all my chips into the center. Mr. Quaid flips AKs, which has me beat; Groucho flips Q5o. If I had a case of cigars, and was a smoker, and if Royal's poker room wasn't smoke-free, I would offer each of them a cigar and a hearty handshake (and probably a "gentlemen, it has been an honor" in the style of a Rebel Alliance Y-wing pilot making a bombing run on the Death Star). The dealer flips a J, which doesn't help anyone, and then the magical 2 which completes a straight for both me and Mr. Marx. Spanish Dennis Quaid is crushed (as he should be- he played brilliantly and lost because of dumb luck), but I'm ecstatic, as there's just enough chips split between me and Groucho that over the course of the cruise, I have officially made a total of $36 for six hours of hard work at the poker table. I may yet be able to quit my day job! Next up- Disembarkation, flying home, Royal v. Carnival

Day 6- Puerto Costa Maya, Watching FlowRider, Zipline, Internet/Drink Packages [Note: I forgot the other Sea Day! I have adjusted the story accordingly] We didn't book any excursions for Puerto Costa Maya. I suspected that we would be too exhausted to go on a Mayan tour or to the beach, after a difficult week of sleeping in, taking naps, eating outdoors, and midnight pizza. This turned out to be correct; we slept through most of it and didn't even leave the ship. I was too tuckered out from standing in all the buffet lines to be able to suit up for the FlowRider while we were in port (port days are by far the least crowded on the boat; my brother and SIL end up going down every single water slide about 200 times during one of the port days). But I did end up watching a number of people display their competence (and lack thereof) on boogieboards and surfboards, usually coached by the staff, who would enthusiastically try to communicate tips over the roar of the water through a mix of top-of-the-lungs shouting and charades. There is an activity to get a private FlowRider lesson, but it costs money, and even worse, starts at 8am. This is clearly all Joe Biden's fault. I do end up deciding to try the zipline, which runs on Deck 15 over the cavernous Boardwalk neighborhood. Watching people go over the zipline reminds me of the bank robbers ziplining between buildings in The Dark Knight, except with less murder. The zipline is free and you have to be dressed sensibly (no flip flops) to ride it, as well as meet some height and weight restrictions, and wear a helmet. In line with me are an older Asian grandmotherly-looking lady and a couple of teenageish kids. It takes a while because four or five different crew members have to check each cable, cord, and strap that connect you to the zipline. Riding the zipline runs your emotions through stages, similar to the cycle of grief: 1) Nervousness: "Oh wow, I didn't realize how high up we are. And they're just letting me zip over it? What if the cable falls? What if I slip?" 2) Terror: "You know, it actually doesn't seem so b-[crew member pushes you off the dock] AAAAAAAAAAAAA-" 3) Fun: "Oh, this isn't so bad. I can see people on the ground from here." 4) Surprise: "Wait, it's over already?" As I get off the zipline, I see the Asian grandmother booking it back to the entrance to go on the zipline again. What I would give to be that energetic when I reach that age. I return to the room to find my wife post-nap watching Netflix. We paid for a 1 device Internet package, and it apparently works well enough that she is able to stream video with no issues. Although I think there's a discount if you buy multi-device packages, I refused to so I could tell my boss with a straight face that nobody from work would be able to contact me while at sea (one of the best but often under-utilized perks of going on a cruise). This also works in my favor unexpectedly; because I don't have Internet access, I was unable to send my letter of resignation to go play professional poker earlier in the week, which means I still have employment options when I return to land. We also paid for a soda pop package, which grants unlimited access to the Freestyle Coca-Cola machines onboard. For those of you who have not spent hours in a Wendy's lobby giggling like a small child and making random, foul-smelling bubbly concoctions (i.e. "normal people"), the Freestyle machines use technology originally designed to mix prescription drugs to allow you to create your own combinations of fountain drinks: Seagram's Ginger Ale with cherry flavoring, for example. [Wikipedia tells me that Pepsi has their own version, called the Pepsi Spire, which sounds considerably less cool] The soda pop package comes with a commemorative cup with a microchip/QR code in the base that scans in one of the machines to activate it. While my wife doesn't drink enough pop in a day to really get our money's worth, it was helpful to feel like she could get sparkling water or ginger ale any time she felt seasick, since we had already paid for it, and the peace of mind was worth the price IMO. Also, apparently if you have the soda package you can get fountain soda from any bar onboard, something I only discover after spending 30 minutes wandering around the ship trying to find a working and line-less Freestyle machine (the one closest to our room was malfunctioning). Next up- Sea Day, Casino, Johnny Rocket's, Cats, Poker

Thank you! (and I agree, what a cute pic!) That's awesome- thanks for the anecdote! I wonder how many points you need to get your own "office" on Royal 😄

Congratulations on your first anniversary!!! I hope your first year was wonderful and full of joy. (also, how cool to get married by a ship captain!) Thanks! If I recall correctly the WJ usually had a meat Indian dish (e.g. chicken curry) and a veggie Indian dish (e.g. channa masala) each day + naan. I added some Indian to my buffet plate in lieu of soups or chili 🙂 That is adorable! Going to show the pic to my wife tonight (although she may be a little jealous of how you got to meet the little guy :))

Me too! And Royal keeps sending me emails with sales... Thank you! And we were definitely disappointed, but compared to some other passengers who actually missed their excursions because the ship was late, we counted our blessings 🙂

Day 5- Roatan, A Lack of Sloths, Chops, Aqua 80 The seas are rough going to Roatan, Honduras, with the boat's motion finally coming through the deck. My wife and I discover that unfortunately, keeping the curtains open so we can see the sea moving by outside actually exacerbates the feeling, so we keep them closed to avoid seasickness. A few things I noted while waiting in the room: 1) The TV includes ESPN, which I'm deliberately avoiding to try to deal with my horrific college-sports-related anxiety, but also a map channel that lets you see Oasis' course, speed, and position on a map. It's pretty neat, and gives grouchy passengers something to nitpick (this will come up later when playing poker). 2) My wife and I ordered a case of 24 bottles of water, because she believes in bizarre, Communist ideas like "drinking water on a regular basis" and "putting our valuables in the in-room safe". 24 bottles was enough that each of us could drink regularly, take a few with us on excursions, and still have a couple left at the end of seven days. You can also fill a water bottle at the Freestyle Coke machines, and I'm sure any of the bartenders would be happy to do so for you as well. 3) Room service is available for $7.95 + service charge + a tip (though continental breakfast is free). You can either use the in-room phone to order, or for breakfast, leave out a little doorknob hanger menu with your requested items and time for delivery out before 10pm the night before (several of these menus are provided for you on the first day). We only indulge in room service once, ordering late-night quesadillas if I remember correctly. I was assured that our order would be delivered in 20-25 minutes, so I planned on eating in an hour's time. To my surprise, 22 minutes later there was a knock at our door. Our order was reasonably hot, which is basically all you can ask for from room service. 4) It's a good idea to be checking your SeaPass spending account on the app or on the TV's included channel to see what charges you have racked up from ordering drinks at the bar, merchandise, etc. About 3-4 days in, my wife and I discovered that we were being billed the daily service charges for my parents' rooms. Guest Services went in and added a credit to cancel out the charges after we informed them. We arrive at Roatan late, so there was a surge in passengers waiting to get off the ship to hit their excursions. My wife and I have booked some kind of eco-tour; the main attraction was that we would be able to meet and hang out with some sloths, as well as experience local culture, see exotic birds and animals, etc. But the main attraction was the sloths, as evidenced by a boy who came on the minibus with us who had brought his stuffed sloth with him. Unfortunately, we are informed by our bilingual tour guide A that the due to the rain, the sloths have withdrawn to a higher area that is not accessible for tourists, but there will still be lots of animals around. Womp womp. The minibus is packed to the gills, and then drives out of the cruise port parking lot and into Roatan proper. Roatan is an island off the coast of Honduras proper, whose economy is largely based around tourism and construction. This is all related by A, who rattles off facts and figures so quickly and easily he must have a second job editing Wikipedia, or possibly writing trivia questions for Jeopardy. On our way there, I notice that there are not one, but TWO different Bojangles fried chicken places, complete with the familiar red logo. I don't understand how Bojangles hasn't gotten to New Jersey yet but they already have two locations in Roatan. At the eco-park, we see monkeys (some caged, some allowed to roam free), snakes, Fruit-Loop-type toucans, butterflies, free-roaming cats (apparently local pets), and other animals, but, to the disappointment of us and the little boy with the stuffed animal, no sloths whatsoever. Upon our return to the ship, we have lunch at El Loco Fresh, and then join the rest of my family for James Bond trivia. The host keeps referring to "Trivia with Mario" and I can't help but wonder whether the legendary lives-on-cruise-ships Super Mario is walking among us, like a superhero without his mask. This would be the closest I've been to a celebrity, other than the time I was told Randy Jackson was at the lobby bar I was staying at, rushed down to the bar, and found nobody there. We then head to Chops, the onboard steakhouse, to celebrate my SIL's birthday. Chops is modeled after any old-school steakhouse: dark wood interior, white tablecloths, servers dressed up in black and white (think a Morton's or Ruth Chris', rather than a more eclectic local place). Chops is a fixed-price menu including appetizer, soup or salad, main, and dessert, and for us was about $68/person + 18% service charge + tip, and reservations are strongly recommended. (our friends who had recommended we eat at Chops were shocked when we told them the price later; apparently on their half-full cruise Chops was down to $20/person) Our server, a young lady named A, is very good at her job. When we mention my wife's allergy info, A offers some excellent recommendations, including a number of things that are not actually on Chops' menu but arrive at the same time as the rest of our food. I'm pretty sure she physically carried plates back and forth from other specialty restaurants to make sure my wife had a decent meal, and for that I'm quite grateful. I myself have colossal shrimp cocktail as an appetizers (good, but hard to mess up), a Caesar salad (good, but the same quality as the one I would get at the WJ or MDR), and a 16 oz bone-in ribeye. Let's talk about the steak for a moment: when you go down to TGI Fridays and order a 16 oz bone-in ribeye, what they really mean is a 14 oz bone and 2 ounces of *sad trombone noise quality* ribeye. Not so here at Chops; the steak is enormous and marbled well enough to provide flavor but not enough that it becomes chewy and unmanageable, with a light seasoning that enhances rather than overpowers the steak. What a delight. A, rather than letting us order side dishes, simply brings out eight cups, one for each of the sides on the menu, and asks us to sample them and let her know which ones we'd like more of. I'm an enormous sucker for French fries, of course, but the cheesy tater tots are also excellent. There's enough food that we don't bother ordering a second round of sides. Dessert includes a slice of pretty good cheesecake brought out for my SIL's birthday, but I can't recall what else we ordered and shared at the table. Then it's time for the Aqua 80 show. This is a must-see, and reservations are recommended. Don't sit too close to the front or you will get splashed multiple times with water. The show takes place at night in the open-air amphitheater in the rear of the ship, and includes top-shelf acrobatics and high-wire work, dancing, gymnastics, high dives, trampolines, and synchronized swimming, all set to 1980s music (Royal must have spent a bundle just on rights to the music samples). It is easily the best show we see on the ship. Afterwards, we go to the jazz lounge and elbow our way into a standing-room only crowd to watch an informal concert where the stars of the Broadway show onboard sing covers of other musical theater songs. I particularly enjoy one gentleman's interpretation of "You'll be Back" from Hamilton, but all the theater people are very good and clearly having a ball. Then I go and lose another $100 at poker, my stupidity finally catching up to me. I resolve to delete the letter I had addressed to my boss telling her I was quitting work forever to go be a professional cardsharp on the World Poker Tour. Next up: Puerto Costa Maya, Casino, Johnny Rocket's, Cats

Day 3- Sea Day, Sociological Mysteries, Formal Night Our first Sea Day definitely feels significantly more crowded anywhere and everywhere you can find a line. My plans to try the Abyss Slide, listen to music, etc. are derailed by my hatred of crowds. My father is excited, however, because of the presence of one of the key selling points for a cruise: TRIVIA. By the time we meet up with him in the afternoon, he has already competed in several different trivia competitions, and also attempted to compete in the Flags of the World trivia, which was cancelled because he was the only one who showed up. (Official Royal policy is you have to have at least 2 contestants for trivia to be run). We meet my father at the Karaoke area for Star Wars trivia, and I am pleasantly surprised to find: 1) Unlike Carnival, someone took serious time to create a trivia PowerPoint with appropriate Star Wars clips and some tough EU-related questions (if you don't know what that means, or are thinking "What does the European Union have to do with this?" congratulations, you're not a Star Wars nerd like me) 2) There are TONS of other Star Wars fans on the boat- the area is standing room only. 3) There is already parliamentary procedure in place for potential ties, so there is no whining and moaning when two teams both get eighteen of twenty questions correct. Each team selects a representative to come to the stage to answer a quick-draw/lightning-round question, and whoever answers first gets the prize. This leads to two representatives coming up, a young gentleman from team A and a young lady from team B. When Team B's lady steps on stage, a heckler yells, "Hey, she's a ringer, she has a Star Wars shirt!" to which she smoothly replies, "Oh honey, I have a Star Wars TATTOO" and pulls up a sleeve to reveal a lightsaber tattooed on her forearm. I would say she has become my favorite rando passenger on the ship, except she loses the tiebreaker, and you can't be Cruise Ship Famous if you don't win trivia. Rules of the game 😞 I decide to get some complimentary soft-serve ice cream, which is served from one of two tiny little closets on deck 15, roughly in line with the towel station. The line for starboard ice cream is easily 40-50 people deep, and I feel a deep strain of pity for the relentlessly cheerful young gentleman who is apologizing profusely for the delay as he runs out of cones and has to dash off for more. I end up not getting soft-serve until day 5 or 6, and suspect it's actually fro-yo in disguise. During an afternoon walk, my wife asks why there are such stark differences in gender and nationality for the different teams on the crew; specifically, why are 99% of the MDR waitstaff male? I've also noticed that individual teams seem to cluster around a particular nationality (e.g. the security staff for disembarkation is all Indian, the poker room staff are all Romanian or Ukranian, etc.) Many theories are bandied about, but a satisfactory answer eludes us. Many months of Cruise Critic browsing and Internet jokes like this one have made me leery of being either underdressed or overdressed for the first Formal Night. The good news is, it doesn't look like too many people took the dress code seriously; the bad news is, it doesn't look like too many people took the dress code seriously. I wear a blazer, dark jeans, white button-down, and a tie (which my wife correctly deduces I haven't worn since high school), and feel like I might as well be wearing a white tuxedo with tails and top hat. If I recall correctly, on this evening I had a Moroccan spiced grilled tuna steak with spinach, which was one of the best tuna steaks I've ever had, and probably the best entree I had in the MDR. I was shocked how good it was. My wife had coq au vin chicken, which she declared to be excellent. The two of us go up to the Arcade, where a curious psychological bias called the Anchoring Effect overtakes me. In essence, the Anchoring Effect says that if you see something really expensive (like a row of yachts for sale, or $1000 a hand preflop poker), things that previously seem expensive don't seem so bad (like a bottle of wine, or $2 a token arcade games). Although skee-ball is shamefully out of service, we play a few games of air hockey on a curved table. My wife wins. Later in the evening, I go back down to play Texas Hold 'Em and win another $100. I return to the room and declare myself officially a poker genius. I am ready to quit my job and join the World Poker Tour. I have a Neo-at-the-end-of-the-Matrix vision where instead of cards I see green code flying around. I will NEVER lose a dollar playing poker again. Day 4- Solarium Bistro, Cozumel, Submarine Rides, Ice Show I lose $100 playing poker today, but that's not important. We arrive in Cozumel and eat breakfast at the Solarium Bistro, which is smaller than the WJ, but does have outdoor seating. The Solarium Bistro, like the rest of the Solarium, is adults-only, and includes some different breakfast items than WJ (e.g. British-style grilled tomatoes/beans/sausage). I will eat at the Solarium a couple more times, and while the service, cleanliness, and general vibe are delightful, the selection is limited enough that I would much prefer WJ (not to mention the WJ's Olympic-caliber chicken nuggets). Then we head down to Cozumel via gangplank. The pier area is full of stuff that is the exact same from here all the way back to Florida: gold shops, souvenir shops, beach shops, Senor Frog's and Margaritaville-type tourist traps, etc. We scheduled an Atlantis submarine tour through Royal Caribbean's app, which is more expensive than doing so independently, but DOES guarantee that we will be returned to our ship in time for departure (the ship will actually delay departure if a Royal excursion is late, while you are SOL if your independent tour gets stuck in traffic or whatever) Our scheduled Atlantis submarine tour has a meeting point in front of Margaritaville, and my wife and I wait dutifully there while listening to a very enthusiastic host try to get customers to line dance instead of eating their burgers and beer (another guy who is earning his paycheck the hard way). The Atlantis submarine tour starts with a boat ride (about 20-30 minutes) to a point in the middle of the ocean where we meet with the submarine. The boat ride is choppy, and I realize what a difference motion stabilizers and 250,000 tons of displacement makes in avoiding seasickness. One of the crew gives us a very ominous-sounding safety lecture in both English and Spanish, punctuated with jokes to put as at ease with our apparently impending deaths: "Pull this cord to inflate the life vest. Or if the cord doesn't work, try blowing into this tube. And if that doesn't work, sir, it is just not your lucky day [pause for uncomfortable laughter] I'm just kidding, of course. We've been operating submarine tours in Mexico for twenty-eight years and we've never had to use any of this equipment. I'm not even sure any of it even works anymore [nervous chuckles]" Boarding the submarine requires a few steps backwards down a ladder, but once inside the cool and dark interior, we have a wide variety of portholes to see wild coral, fish, and other aquatic life on our tour. It's pretty cool, except because of the lack of light 100 feet down, all our photos and videos are washed out in blue. After returning to the ship, we have a late lunch at El Loco Fresh, dinner in the MDR, and head down to the skating rink to see the Ice Show. Oh yeah, the Oasis has an ice rink. It's a testament to the sheer amount of stuff there is to do onboard that I didn't even bother to try ice skating. The Ice Show is a figure-skating extravaganza set to classical and then classical rock music. I was introduced to Ice Dancing as a sport/art by my buddy putting on the Winter Olympics after a particularly disappointing Super Bowl, and was entranced by the grace, the speed, the athleticism, and the fact that the Italian team kept getting jobbed by the judges. All of these aspects are on full display at the Ice Show (other than the judging problem); I highly recommend you reserve seats and try to get there early enough to sit in the front row. Your appreciation of the sheer difficulty of stunts performed and skill needed to successfully pull off these moves will go up in proportion to how close you sit to the ice. Then I go and lose $100 playing poker, but that's not important. Next up: Roatan, A Lack of Sloths, Chops, Aqua 80!

Thank you!

Thanks! Hope you had a lovely time on Oasis :)

Thanks for the compliment!

Thank you, next post coming soon!

We did on Oasis a month ago, no issue whatsoever. Most of the appetizers are small enough that you can easily have 2 or even 3 if you're really hungry along with your entree.

Day 2- Coco Cay, El Loco Fresh, the Arcade, Vending Machines, Poker, Sorrento's Royal Caribbean beds are hard as a rock. I found out much later that you can request extra blankets and/or mattress toppers from the cabin steward, and by "much later" I mean "as I was walking through Customs to get back into the US after the cruise". Womp womp. Nevertheless, we oversleep our alarm, which leads to panic as I told E, our cabin steward, that we would be out of the room early so he can clean our room in the mornings rather than the afternoons. This was a major issue for me on Carnival, with my cabin steward and I constantly rescheduling the room cleaning through the door, hostage-negotiation style, as I would somehow always be napping and/or showering whenever he was scheduled to arrive. Today, E is waiting literally outside our door with his cleaning cart when my wife and I emerge to go to Coco Cay. E is a polite young Indonesian gentleman who IMMEDIATELY cements Royal as a far superior cruise line to Carnival with the following dialogue: Me: E, I'm so, so, sorry we've kept you out this morning, we'll make sure to be out earlier tomorrow. E: Sir, it's your vacation. (smiles) Whenever you leave, I will take care of it. Early, late, it's no problem at all. And the thing is, he genuinely meant it! I feel both shame and a powerful sense of injustice that E's customer service skills are vastly underappreciated by the megacorp that owns Royal Caribbean. We resolve to tip him well and write a strong review for him after the cruise (particularly after how he magically transforms my rat's nest pile of dirty laundry, toiletries, and rumpled sheets, pillows, etc. into an almost painfully neat IKEA-worthy tableau). Breakfast is a quick plate at the WJ (nothing to write home about here), then we hustle down to Deck 3 to take the gangplank down to Coco Cay, Royal Caribbean's private island resort in the Bahamas. You do not need your passport to go to Coco Cay, only your SeaPass card. Indeed for all four port stops we were not required to bring a passport at all. This is likely due to a combination of Royal Caribbean's tactful negotiation of immigration/customs/taxes issues with the local governments, and the local governments' recognition of the #1 rule of business, "Don't make it hard for people to give you money". Coco Cay is a Disneyfied version of an island resort; everything is in bright, tourist-friendly colors, with landscapes and trails carefully designed by architects to show off the island's natural beauty while excluding anything like a real town- no apartments, markets, or townie bars in sight. The weather in December is in the high 70s but feels like it's 90 due to the humidity. I had been worried that it would be too cold to go snorkeling, but as it turns out, the temperature was just right. One or two Royal ships can dock at the pier that leads to the beach; next to us is another ship that looks tiny (about half the size of Oasis). It's not until much later that I realize the "tiny" ship is probably 40% larger than the Carnival ship I rode on a few years ago. Again, the overwhelming SIZE of everything. There is a little golf cart shuttle that can take you from the boat to various parts of the island, but nothing of any significance is more than about a 15 minute walk at the very most. On our walk to the island, I finally spot a Royal Caribbean crewmember who is NOT hyper-focused on customer service, a photographer who is quiet quitting because it's 90 and humid out and nobody wants to take a photo today anyways. He is literally the only Oasis crew I see on the whole trip who is giving half-effort at his job. The snorkel gear rental shack is right by the beach and includes a large-screen outdoor TV where a calm British-sounding woman explains safety tips. For ~$38 apiece my wife and I both get a snorkel mask, breathing tube, life vest, and flippers. There are free lockers right next to the rental shack where we stashed our stuff- make sure you hit the "clear" key on the lock before you try to enter your lock password as this caused ours to jam several times. The snorkeling is shockingly good- a combination of clear weather + calm and pristine water + fish that just decided to hang out in the tourist part of town made for a delightful experience. The snorkeling area is marked off by a series of rope lines/buoys, and there is a lifeguard on duty who you can summon by raising your arms for help. At the very edge of the snorkeling area is what looks like the sunken ruins of a fort from the 1700s, which is full of fish. I'm guessing it's an artificial construction, but the fish don't care and neither do I. One tip the British lady didn't go over: put a little bit of seawater into the bottom of your goggles before you put them on to keep them from fogging up. Afterwards, we get towels from the towel station on the island, which allows you to sign out beach towels using your SeaPass, take them on to the ship, and return them there. All you have to do is return your towels before the last day of your cruise to avoid being charged. One problem: I seem to have misplaced my SeaPass. A, the very helpful Jamaican lady working at the snorkel shack, tells us that it's fine, we should just talk to one of the security people at the ship. So we begin walking back towards the ship, and run into my parents, who are concerned about the impending rain. "Silly parents," I think to myself, "This isn't the Midwest. It won't rain." Then it starts raining. This is clearly all Joe Biden's fault. There's a shriek very similar to what Obi-Wan describes in Star Wars: A New Hope, as hundreds of Royal passengers discover their Perfect Day at Coco Cay is no longer quite as perfect and start beelining for the ship. At the pier, my wife shows her SeaPass and explains the problem with mine; they radio the ship and then tell me I should be OK. We wait in line to get back on Oasis for about fifteen minutes. The rain only lets up the moment I step back inside the ship, where a security officer asks me my name and room number. I'm assuming he also checks whether I look like the pictures taken by the 8th grader/boarding agent/NSA operative at embarkation. I have never been so regretful about not combing my hair in the morning! Everything checks out, so he tells me I'm good to go and that I can go to Guest Services to get a new SeaPass. This whole process seems a bit of security theater to me, but my father explains later that if I was some kind of Alan Rickman-in-Die-Hard-esque bad guy, there's WAY easier ways to commit acts of terror than trying to sneak onto a cruise ship via Perfect Day at Coco Cay. At Guest Services, I am waiting patiently in line behind two older women who have the following dialogue: Woman A: ...and the guy next door KEEPS SMOKING WEED! It smells awful! Woman B: I know, right? I have two small kids and I have to keep them inside the whole time. We can't use our balcony at all! Woman A: That's DISGUSTING! You might as well not have a balcony to begin with! I'm getting old. How can I tell? Because instead of giving them a long speech about how God tells us not to judge others and to be forgiving because we have been forgiven, I find instead that I hope the weed smoker steps on a Lego. Mary Jane smells worse than skunk and is impossible to get out of your clothes. Don't do drugs, kids, especially not near where I live. A uniformed crew member comes to me with a tablet and asks what my problem is (but in, like, a respectful and customer-service-oriented way), and upon finding out I have lost my SeaPass, goes over and prints one for me, and deactivates the other one. The whole process from me explaining the problem to having a brand-new SeaPass takes about 90 seconds. My wife and I have a late lunch at El Loco Fresh, the complimentary Tex-Mex buffet onboard. The chicken quesadillas are dry and under-spiced. The chicken + rice and beans my wife puts together are enjoyable, but the real stars of the show are the tortilla chips (hot, crispy, and fresh out of the fryer) and the pico de gallo (shockingly good, and a league above all the other salsa/guac options). Then, nap time. I have no notes here other than to say that I don't usually take naps but I'm in such a good mood that the waste of time that naps represent is an acceptable price to pay for being relaxed. Dinner is in the MDR and is good. In the evening, our show has been rescheduled again, so we wander around. The Arcade is small and has maybe a dozen different games, with a reasonable cross-section between physical fun (air hockey, Skee Ball), shoot-'em-ups (something that I'm pretty sure is supposed to be the Jurassic Park game but isn't), and games designed to impart gambling addictions to kids (e.g. the stupid claw grabber game). The games are all around $2-3 per play, accessed via SeaPass, which is a ripoff compared to Dave & Busters and highway robbery compared to the arcades of my youth. Across the hall from the Arcade is the vending machine area, which accepts SeaPass credit for a variety of toiletries comparable to a very, very small CVS/Walgreen's (toothbrushes/paste, feminine products, sunscreen, etc.), and mysteriously only works when the ship is in international waters and taxes cannot be collected by the revenue services of local governments. I didn't have "bootlegging" and "making the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs" on my bingo card for the cruise, but we do buy some things we've forgotten. Finally, I take a jaunt down to the Casino on 4. I take a walk through to scope it out as I plan to take my mother here in case of any seasickness-related issues (nothing heals seasickness like the ringing bells of a one-armed bandit). I also discover that there IS a poker room, but it's not in the Casino, it's in the conference center on deck 3. The poker center/conference room is buried deep within a maze of staterooms on deck 3. There are no decorations and very basic furniture; it's less "James Bond battling evil geniuses at Casino Royale" and more "Michael Scott at an awkward Holiday Inn sales conference". About half the room is set aside for various tournaments, most of which require you to pre-qualify at a casino tournament on land, and the other half is set aside for cash games, including the one that I want to play, $1/$3 No Limit Hold 'Em, the game of kings. (Or, you know, Aces, or any other good combination of cards you might have.) To get seated for a cash game, talk to the attendant at the front, who will put you on a waiting list using their very sophisticated system of "writing your name with more or less correct spelling on the back of a piece of scrap paper and calling when you're up". The minimum buy-in for the $1/$3 tables was $100, with $300 as maximum. Chips are specific for the poker games and will need to be exchanged to be used at the casino upstairs (and vice-versa). There is also a significant shortage of $1 chips; I have never before had so many plaintive requests to make change from dealers and players (nor made so many $3 raises into $5 raises because I couldn't be bothered to try to make change). The dealers are almost entirely Eastern European and communicate with each other with a weird and somewhat obscene system of sucking/squeaking noises that sound kind of like a dolphin unblocking a toilet with a plunger. It is here that I learn that Royal has a policy that crew have to wear masks for their first five days aboard a new ship, as numerous dealers have apparently just come aboard. I haven't played poker live since before the pandemic, so I'm a bit nervous as I sit down. The other players are cordial and relaxed; many of them have been playing in and/or knocked out of the tournaments earlier and are more interested in having fun than playing seriously. One of them, who I will call Nice Guy Eddie, is willing to dish on the players at the next table, who keep whooping, laughing, and ordering drinks at the top of their lungs: Nice Guy Eddie: Those guys have way too much money. Me: Is that the high rollers' table? Nice Guy Eddie: Nah, man, that's $2/$5 No Limit. They're just pouring money into it. Me: Oh, man, like $100 raises and stuff? Nice Guy Eddie: Nah, man, they're raising $1000 to $3000 a hand...preflop...without looking at their cards. One of those guys is down $15,000. Me: He's down FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS this year??? Nice Guy Eddie: No, he's down fifteen thousand TODAY. That's "F-U" money right there [Note: I assume he meant "F-U-N" money, as in money you have fun with, but got cut off] Apparently, I'm doing something wrong with my life. This next paragraph is for people who speak poker. For those of you who are bored to death by recaps of poker games (i.e. "normal people"), please feel free to skip to the next section on Sorrentos. For those of you who speak poker: I buy in for $100 (stupid), fold my first hand of KQs in strong position because I literally can't keep my hands from shaking (stupid), fold playable hands repeatedly because I'm terrified of losing my bankroll/ego (stupid), refuse to bluff (stupid), overbet because I'm terrified of losing my bankroll/ego (stupid), limp into flops (stupid), fold KQo and JJo type hands repeatedly against big raises because I'm terrified of losing my bankroll/ego (stupid), and end the night by calling another gentleman's all-in on 7h8h with a flop of 5c6d7h (stupid). Yet I win anyways when I get the 9 I need on the river and the other guy flips 43s. I walk out with $200 and sprint up the stairs to inform my wife of my good fortune. This turns out to be a lot more stairs than I imagined, so by the time I get back to the room, I am huffing and puffing like the weed smoker the women at Guest Services were complaining about. I drag her out of bed to go celebrate by having some late night pizza (the best kind of pizza) at Sorrento's. My wife would prefer not to wait in line, but I assure her there won't be a line, because what kind of degenerate would choose to have pizza at 1:30am? There are literally 40 people in line at Sorrento's for pizza by the slice. The pizza is so-so, but my wife is pleased to discover that they will make you a fresh gluten-free pizza if you ask and deliver it to your table (this is a service we take advantage of several times throughout the trip; the fresh gluten-free pizza is significantly higher quality). Next up: Sea Day and Sociological Mysteries!

Thank you!

Thank you! Working on it 🙂

Thank you for the compliment 🙂