mr.jdm

The nights show was Oasis of dreams. We went up to deck 11 to that 'hidden' spot to watch. Here are some pictures of our view. It was quite fun to see where the swimmers went and how after diving they don't come back up the water.

We walked around the ship after the show. Surprisingly, even with tons of passengers and crew, the ship didn't feel packed.

Promenade

Dazzles

Boardwalk entrance

Sailaway

After sail away, we went back to our cabin and there waiting for us was our luggages. We unpacked and got orginized and got ready for dinner. We went to the main dining room for dinner to meet our waiters. We picked my time dining as we wanted to try out a few of the specialty restaurants. Dinner in the MDR on the first day was a mistake. I think there wasn't an empty seat in the dining room that night. Servers were running around scrambling to serve everyone. It was so busy! Our main waiter was drenched in sweat..poor guy. Kudos to him for still trying to make conversation with us inspite of how busy he was. Our appetizer and main course took over 2 hours. We skipped dessert as we had a show to catch.

I read here on the board that this onion tart is a must eat =]

perfect..so perfect

the sauce was very rich and creamy

Day 1 - Embarkation

We checked out of the hotel around 10am and headed to the port. We thought we'd be the first ones in there but we weren't. A lot of cruisers from the sailing the week prior were just leaving the terminal. We went inside and checked in. As we were early, we probably waited in line for no more than 10 minutes. We took our embarkation pictures and went up the escalator to the waiting area. We were seated in the section right after getting off the escalator. The room got really full as time went by. Boarding got delayed as the crew had to go through a coast guard drill.

Before boarding, staff announced not to take pictures on the gangway as that would further delay our boarding. People still stopped and took pictures and boarding got delayed again and again as the gangway kept getting congested. Alas! it was our turn to board. We walked in getting anxious with every step. The first word we uttered once we set foot on the ship was 'WOW'

We hurridly went to Park Cafe to try the famous roast beef sandwich and everyone here on the board was right. Those were sooo good! There was a long lineup for both the roast beef sandwich and salad bar and people were not aware of which line was which. Some who wanted salad ended up lining up for the sandwich and others who wanted a sandwich ended in the salad bar lineup. Lineups were long and there were no free seats inside and outside of the cafe. We had to wait for a couple to finish eating before we were able to eat. Here are pictures of those mouth-watering sandwiches.

After lunch, we booked our specialty restaurants and explored the ship for a good hour. We were like kids in a candy store. We wanted to see everything and go everywhere. We walked the entire ship that afternoon..oh my poor feet..but we got great pictures.

MDR

Chops

We went to our cabin to see if our luggages were there. No luck. We booked an inside cabin on deck 10 (10139) because we figured we wouldn't be in the room much as there's tons of things to do. One complaint I have with this room was the loud rolling and then banging noises we heard throughout the night. It sounded like a trolly rolling and then banging onto a wall then rolling back and bang onto a wall again. This kept happening throughout the night and well into the morning. We complained and maintenance couldn't figure out what it was. At first they thought it was an unlocked trolly from the deck above but they couldn't find anything. They even heard it one night when they came to our room to check it out.

We then went up to the pool deck and just hung out and waited until the muster drill. Our muster station was in the theatre so yay for seats. After the drill, we headed to the pool deck to watch the the ship sail away.

Intro

I know this is quite late but we had 32GB of pictures to go through but enough excuses...

Almost two years ago, November 2009, we boarded the Emerald Princess for an eastern caribbean cruise. The Oasis was docked in Port Everglades that day and I was in awe at how large the ship is so I told myself I'd cruise on her the following year or whenenver price come down. Luckily, the prices did go down and we were able to book.

Prior to Oasis, we did a shorter cruise on the Majesty (http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1421661) and really enjoyed ourselves. We're in our late 20's from the westcoast and since we were flying from so far away, we decided to do two cruises in one go. We enjoy taking pictures so I will be posting tons of them.

Precruise

Our Majesty cruise ended on a Friday so we rentad a car from Miami and drove to Fort Lauderdale. In Fort Lauderdale, we stayed at the Westin Beach Resort. We got there early and our room wasn't ready so we decided to do laundry. We asked the bellman where the closest laundromat was and he said he didn't know and that he'd ask a colleague. We stuffed out beach bags with dirty clothes and locked our luggages for the hotel to hold until our room was ready. When the belman returned, in his hand was a printed google map of a laundromat a few blocks away. I thought this was nice as he went out of his way. He could have just told us what his colleague told him. This reminded me why we love staying at spg hotels.

We washed our clothes and as they were drying, we decided to have lunch. A few doors down from the laundraumat is Cafe Bluefish. We didn't want to go anywhere too far, so we went inside. There were about 4-5 patrons at the time so service was really fast and we were seated right away. I ordered the Fish Fry sandwich and boy, was that ever good! Huge portion and very very tasty!

After lunch and laundry, we went back to the hotel and the checked in. I asked if there was any complimentary upgrade and the lady that checked us in said that the next room category above ours were all booked but she'll upgrade us anyway. She placed us in a coastal view room.

For dinner, we drove to Texas holdem bbq and shared a brisket combo. The brisket was dry and the pulled pork was okay. It's a neat little restaurant where you can watch how they smoke their meats but I'll probably go elsewhere next time.

We walked on the beach after dinner and just people watched. Back to the hotel we went and called it a night.