fletch1027

On 3/13/2024 at 5:34 PM, Another_Critic said:

Do you know if they have "adult" JR shakes on Oasis?

Not sure

On 3/7/2024 at 11:35 AM, Another_Critic said:

I've used D vouchers for "adult" JR shakes on several sailings on Anthem.  Used a D voucher for a regular JR shake on Liberty.  No JR on Enchantment or Voyager.

 

Did not try Oasis in Oct. 2021.  Will be on Oasis next month, so I'll see how it goes.

We were on Oasis last month and were able to use D vouchers for JR shakes 👍

On 2/16/2024 at 1:39 PM, Mum2Mercury said:

We all need to remember that Royal did that.  I'm not advocating hurting the individual cabin stewards, but we all need to let Royal know we don't like those two moves coupled together.  

 

 

Does this mean in theory that the cabin stewards are making around double per steward than they were pre-covid? Meaning if they are now covering double the amount of cabins but only servicing once per day, are they making more based on the increased number of cabins?

We usually bring around $200 in cash for things like:

• several 5's for tipping outside people like uber drivers, porters at the port, etc. 
• several 20's for tipping MDR waiters & room steward - also use cash for most small purchases in port
• several 1's for tipping waiters that bring us drinks - I typically don't tip bartenders if I walk up to the bar myself 

14 hours ago, Arzeena said:

Thank you for your thoughts. Much appreciated.

Is the food included in the pass, if not,

What is the price of the food options available?

Yes, everything on the 2 menu board pictures I posted are included. There's also soft serve ice cream next to the Pizza window that's not on the menu board

These will likely always be beyond our budget, but I also took some photos of both of the Hideaway Beach cabana types.

The Hideaway cabanas are near the pool and while they are nice, I don't really care for them. They are right by the pool so lack privacy as well as serenity 🙂  They are also the "less expensive" of the two.

On the other hand the Hideout cabanas are definitely the cream of the crop in terms of both features (private heated infinity pool, quiet location, etc.). Even though they have the option to be quiet, there is the option to pipe in either the pool music, pre-recorded music, or bluetooth connect your device to play your own music. These are definitely what I would choose if money was no object (MAYBE an option if split 4 ways with 3 other couples lol

46 minutes ago, runner2013 said:

I received it on my cruise in January. From what I've read on here, it's Royal trying to speed things along for folks who've done all their pre check stuff ahead of time. Several others on my trip also got it. It was random. 

We always do everything ahead of time and I assumed that most everyone else did as well, but maybe not as many as I thought? 

Maybe all of the 10:30 arrival time folks should get Express so they don't have to queue up behind everyone that shows up hours before their time... 🤣

1 hour ago, BecciBoo said:

That's where I met my pink Octopus (upper area clutching a shell) and I was hoping I could get to the inlets in Hideaway, but guess not.  I want to be in between area 48 and 45 on your map and thx for the map too.

Better you than me! Octopus freak me out. Too many tentacles and they are almost as smart as humans... 🙂

27 minutes ago, OCSC Mike said:

 

What fun is that? The seagulls bring back fond memories of the Jersey shore for me. 🤣

I hear you - I was born in Long Branch but I don't want them sniping my food 🤣

We were on Oasis last week sailing from Miami, we had a 10:30 boarding time, and when we pulled up our sea passes to add them to our apple wallets, noticed that they were purple and said Express Boarding on them. We didn't request this nor did we get any other notification for it. 

When we finally got to the port through all of the traffic, the Express entrance was right there same as with the Suite/Pin/Key entrance. It was nice because it was a walk in compared to the main line. There was also a shorter xray/scan line for Express. 

We thought it was awesome, but no idea how we were "chosen" for it (random, reward for doing everything ahead of time, etc.). Anyone have any details about what it's all about?

2 minutes ago, Engineroom Snipe said:

I want you for my tour guide.

 

Thanks so much for all of this information.

 

🫡

No worries - we've only been to CC 4-5 times, which is tons less than most people on these boards, but it seems like each time we've gone we have ended up somewhere different (Chill Island, Oasis pool, Breezy Bay, South Beach, and this last time Hideaway) and each time I try to remember what I liked/didn't like about each place 🙂

17 hours ago, HappyCouple72 said:

For those that have been there , any decent snorkeling at hideaway ? Maybe out near rocks / inlets ? 

Technically you can snorkel at Hideaway but just in the lagoon so probably nothing good to see. The access to the inlets are roped off. 

From what I've seen/read the best place to snorkel is the Chill Island beach. That's where the sunken plane and stuff like that is for better snorkelling... 

16 minutes ago, DragonOfTheSeas said:

OK--this may be too specific a question. 🤣 TIA

 

Where are the bathrooms located.  I noticed on the map there is a building near building 8 that looks like a bath house [not labeled on map].  Also, I would assume they are near the food venue by the pool. 

 

DH has some mobility issues and it makes life easier if we are within a reasonable distance of the facilities. [food, restrooms] He uses a walking stick and as you can imagine sand is not his friend.  However, we have always been beach people--and a little planning makes for a good experience.

I found another map that shows the bathroom locations. Looks like there are 4 sets of them scattered around (man/woman icons) - either side of the slice of paradise pizza, behind the main pool and over by the hideaway hut food place...

Something important that I forgot to post in my original review was that Hideaway Beach has ZERO seagulls!!

I noticed that there were 2-3 large bird kites on poles on either side of the big pool and after some internet sleuthing, I found that they are apparently some kind of bird deterrent. 

Not sure if they also utilize these at the beach club area but it's awesome to not have to be bothered by seagulls all day...

15 hours ago, Oceansaway17 said:

it looks like plenty of umbrellas and chairs.

thanks for telling us about the food which seems quite nice.  I am thinking about doing the Hideway in May for Icon.   thanks for photo.

I also assume no seaweed issues either?

No seaweed issues in the ocean lagoon 🙂  

On 1/28/2024 at 9:27 AM, thewynn said:

Is there a difference in lunch vs dinner? The sample menu looks the same but the price is about $23 pp cheaper for lunch. If it is the same experience, I’d gladly take lunch there to save $100 for our family of 4. Thanks.

We had Izumi hibachi lunch last week on Oasis - same as dinner but cheaper... 

12 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

Did you have the ceviche? I'm curious if that was any good.

I did not try the ceviche cause I don't like "raw" seafood. I know it's technically cooked via the acid in the citrus juice but I didn't want to waste it...  🙂

Also can be used for shakes if your ship has a Johnny Rockets

8 minutes ago, crewsweeper said:

So give us a sense of what type of music was playing--Oldies, Hip Hop, Metal, Reggae?

Pretty similar to what a DJ would play poolside on the ship. It was all "public friendly". No F words and stuff like that. From what I remember, the rap and hip-hop is top 40 rap and hip-hop, mixed with other top 40 stuff from the 90's and beyond.

I remember things like Low & Good Feeling from Flo Rida, Temperature from Sean Paul, stuff like that... 

22 minutes ago, BND said:

We'll be there in April on Vision along with Freedom.  We're both due in at 7 am.  Our experience from past visits where we go to the pool is that getting off by 930, we have our choice of seats so I'm assuming the same for Hideaway.  By 1130-12, the late sleepers always appear and seem surprised they can't find seats exactly where they want or in a group lol.  We paid less than $40 pp so worth trying it out for us.  

Reminds me of playing trivia as well. We go 20-30 mins early to hang out and get a seat in those way too small venues then people show up right as it's starting and are put out because there's no seats available... 🙂

40 minutes ago, BecciBoo said:

The original for our ICON was $89 but I got it on sale for 62.99 pp.  The newer and bigger the ship the more all things cost.  But I'm happy to pay that, can't wait.

It's funny how RCI seems to charge more for things just because it's an Icon sailing even though the thing that's being bought isn't even on the ship itself. It's almost like since the fare itself is higher they can get away with charging more for everything else as well... 🤬

12 minutes ago, loug1601 said:

Nice review start!

We will be going to Hideaway Beach next week on the Anthem of the Seas. 
My main question is the warmth of the pool. Was it warm enough to enjoy?

It’s cold up here in NJ and I’m looking forward to the heated pool 😊

 

Also hoping the music is not blaring. We are in our 70’s and fully able bodied. We just don’t like blaring music 🤪
 

Thanks!

 

Pat

The warmth of the heated pool was definitely noticeable! It was probably halfway between the very chilly ocean and a hot tub. You will enjoy it. 

Music was louder at the big pool because that's where it originates but it disperses if you are out in the open air part of the pool (as opposed to the covered area by the swim up bar)

9 minutes ago, BecciBoo said:

The only thing I worry about is the noise from the DJ.  So our plan is to get loungers at the other end towards the Jazz Rock place or whatever it's called.  Hoping we can hear some of that rather than blaring heavy metal or rap music.  And there are some hammocks over there....hope you had a chance to see the whole area.  Also interested in whether one could snorkel over by where the openings in the coral are to let in the sea...always good critters in coral!  But I think I saw buoys with netting to prevent that.

I mentioned the music in the 2nd post I just posted - it was more like standard pop music that the DJ turns to a dance mix. I'm in my 50's and it wasn't offensive to me 🙂 - nor was it overly loud or blaring.

While there's a lifeguard on the rock side of the lagoon, I don't think they allow people to the ocean side of the lagoon. Pretty big rocks you wouldn't want to be slammed up against lol...

Around 1pm, the crowd started to actually thin out a bit and by the time we started heading back around 3:15, it was only around 25% occupied. 

We never got in the main pool, but walking past it several times it had a lot of people in there but was far from overcrowded. By comparison it was a lot less crowded then what the Oasis pool usually looks like. 

Here's what it looked like between the main pool and infinity pool cabanas around 1:30 - 2:00 time frame

For reference, the purple arrow is pointing to where our beach chairs were

Around 2:00 when I moved up to a chair closer to the beach 🙂

There were a lot of comments from initial Icon cruises posters that the music at Hideaway coming from the main pool area was too loud. I'm not sure if it was adjusted down since then but we did not have that experience. It is loud if you are right there at the main pool / swim up bar area, but from where we were sitting a little down from there, the music could still be heard, but it did not prevent normal conversation nor did it prevent me from taking a 45 minute nap 🙂

Demographics wise, it seemed like probably 70-75% of the people were over 35, so while there were a decent about of college age people there, it was no where near the "non-stop party" atmosphere some people were concerned about it being. 

Around 3:15 we started to head back to Oasis and after returning our 2 towels, we decided to take the tram back so we could see how that went. To our surprise, there was a walk on tram and 2-3 empty ones waiting in the queue!

All in all we felt like it was easily worth the $34 we paid. The "regular" price on the ship for our sailing was something like $95 and we would not pay that. Probably our threshold would be in the $45-50 range. Any questions let me know! 

We just got back from a week on Oasis which included a stop at CocoCay and there has been a lot of pro & con posts on here about it and we tried going in with open minds. That being said hopefully it will be helpful to others to share our experience.

To level set:

• we're in our early 50's so looking for more relaxation than partying  🙂
• we bought the day passes at a pretty good discount a couple weeks before our sailing for $33.99 each
• we were in port with Freedom so 2 relatively big ships
• in the RC app the day passes were showing sold out so I assume that Hideaway was "at max capacity"

Freedom had at least an hour head start on us for our day. They let us off starting at 10am. We let the initial surge go and we were off the ship around 10:15. We decided to walk to Hideaway and it was a pretty easy 12 minute walk for us from the end of the dock to the Hideaway entrance. 

Getting there around 10:15, we walked past the main pool and got a couple of beachside chairs between the pool and the group of cabanas with their own infinity pool (pretty much in front of the Pizza place). We had 2 chairs, umbrella, and table on the 2nd row from the beach. There are around 4-5 rows of chairs and it was pretty empty at 10:30. Here's a photo of our view...

By probably noon the peak population was there. There were still beach chairs available but they were down at the end of the beach area, so there was never a time where there were no chairs available.

Also, Hideaway has a blue towel stand so hauling towels from the ship is optional. We decided to bring 2 and we checked out 2 more at Hideaway.

Food:

This was one of the big standouts of the area. There are food options that are not available elsewhere on CC and I tried many of them and they were all great. Especially the coconut shrimp & beef empanadas. Here's some photos of the menus:

As far as food lines go, I made several trips to and past both of them between 11:30 & 1:30 and there was either no line or at most 1-2 people in any of the lines.

No line here at 1:00...

Drinks:

There are plenty of bars (at least 3-4) to walk up and get a drink and there are also a lot of roaming people taking drink orders from the beach chairs. We only had the coke package but had our 4 Diamond vouchers that we had no problem using. Actually it seemed like the 2 vouchers we used never "sync'ed" up with Oasis because when I got a drink later that night on the ship the bartender said that I had 3 vouchers left. 

to be continued...