Oasis of the Seas Photo Review - March 9th-16th, 2013 Sailing

Finally, after 4 weeks of returning from my first trip on the Oasis of the Seas, I am able to sit down and begin a detailed photo review of the trip to share with fellow CC members. I managed to do a detailed photo review of the main dining room food a couple of weeks back, and now it is time to begin sharing my thoughts about the rest of our wonderful vacation. Please feel free to comment and ask any questions you may have. There are lots of photos to come, but the first couple of posts will be a bit heavy on the text. I will try to add a bit of humour in as well.

I have decided to write this review differently from others I have seen before. Instead of keeping a running journal type of review, I will post different sections based on different areas of the ship, ports visited, and other items I found of interesting.

A bit of a background...I never thought I would actually be interested in cruising until I took a chance and went to work for Princess Cruises about 15 years ago. I had never traveled on a cruise ship. In fact, the only cruise ship I had ever had seen in person was a couple of ships I saw while vacationing in Bermuda about 30 years ago. I thought they were big back then (around 30,000 tonnes). Boy, how times have changed. When I went to work for Princess Cruises in 1996. I worked aboard the Sun Princess when it was the 2nd largest cruise ship in the world at 77,000 tonnes. My jaw hit the floor as I saw it for the first time and again when I entered the atrium for the first time. I only did one 6 month contract with Princess as a Junior Assistant Purser before settling down and getting married. I loved everything about those 6 months working for Princess. Even though I was not going to be working on a cruise ship any longer, I HAD to get back on one as soon and as often as I could. I am addicted to the cruising lifestyle.

This cruise on the Oasis was my second RCCL cruise, the first being on the Liberty of the Seas last year. I had previously tried two NCL cruises and one Carnival cruise. They have all had some outstanding features and all have some items that could have been improved upon, but I can honestly say that I have NEVER had a BAD cruise vacation.

I booked the Oasis cruise almost one year in advance immediately after cruising on the Liberty of the Seas in March of 2012. I already had the Brilliance of the Seas booked for March 2013, but switched to the Oasis after reading so many amazing things on CruiseCritic about the Oasis class ships. Also, I became addicted to the FlowRider on the Liberty, and the Brilliance simply does not have one. Decision made..Oasis for me.

I took my DW and 4 DDs (aged 4, 4, 9, and 11) with me on this trip. All have cruised before and all of them love cruising. Two very good friends, who used to babysit out two older DDs, came along with us on this vacation. We consider them as part of our family. They are experienced cruisers who cruise multiple times per year and who have been bit by the cruise bug as well.

The best part was that I did not tell my family about the trip until around 350 days after booking it. I love surprising people and I don't know how I managed to keep it a secret for so long, but I did. I had told them that we were to be traveling on the Freedom of the Seas and they bought it hook, line, and sinker. I do not know how my DW did not clue in for 11 months. There had to be hundreds of people who knew, including over 100 members on our CruiseCritic "Meet and Mingle" board, but she never found out. I dropped hints for months on end, but still nobody clued in. Our two friends traveling with us were afraid to be around us for almost and entire year just because they were afraid of slipping up and ruining the surprise.

Finally, fearing serious injury to myself from my DW if she did not find out until arriving at the pier, I told her 2 days before we departed for Florida. I was also concerned that she may figure it out and wreck the surprise for the kids when we boarded a plane in Detroit headed to Fort Lauderdale instead of Orlando. The kids never had a clue until we arrived at the ship (more on that later).

The flight from Detroit was "interesting". There was an infant in the seat in front of us who was wailing at the top of their lungs before the plane even left the terminal. This was going to be one LONG flight. How dare people wreck my vacation. Don't they know that I paid good money for this flight? Why should my vacation start off aggravating me so much? I scowled in the direction of the child and her parents (well actually at the back of their seats...I am Canadian...I would not scowl to someone's face;)).

One of my 4 year-old DDs tells me as we taxi down the runway that her tummy does not feel so good. It should be fine, we just had a great huge meal at Cracker Barrel before arriving at the airport. Well, as the nose of the plane leaves the ground, I hear her cough and she begins to throw up violently. I quickly check the three seats in front of us for one of the vomit bags...there are none to be found. It is all over the floor of the plane, her shoes, her pants. It lands on the vinyl seat she is sitting in and as the plane climbs steeply upwards, it collects in a nice pool between her legs. As a caring father I do the only possible thing...I try to catch it with my bare hands. My DW finds a bag on her side of the plane and I empty my hands of what was only hours ago a delicious Cracker Barrel grilled cheese sandwich, soup, and carrots into the bag. Frantically hammering the overhead button for the flight attendant eventually gets me some paper napkins to clean up the mess (no assistance is offered, but I have to be honest, if I was that flight attendant, I would have had a hard time offering my help to clean up someone else's child). 30 minutes of trying to wash her clothes out in a sink in the airplane washroom sink that holds as much water as a can of Coke came next. I wrapped her in a blanket that I received from the flight attendant and made my way back to our seats that had that "Oh so fresh" smell of fresh regurgitated dinner. This was going to be a long 3 hour flight! By now, that crying child in front of us had stopped crying. The shoe was now on the other foot. They were scowling at us for ruining their flight. Ah, the irony in the situation!

I promised you some photos, so I better get started posting a few of them (you will have to come back for the real nice ones of the ship and the ports as I plan to post them daily over the next few weeks). I bought a Nikon D5100 a few months before this trip and picked up a couple of nice lenses for this trip. The photos I have posted down are reduced in quality to 1/40 of the detail, and still I am very impressed with the images taken by the D5100. I have not edited these photos as of yet in any way with Photoshop (that will be a summer project).

We stayed at the Dania Beach Sleep Inn & Suites. We would not be arriving until very late in the evening (around midnight), so I saw no need to go for an expensive hotel for the evening. Reviews of the Sleep Inn were favourable and I managed to get a decent rate (decent for the March Break week anyways). It is one of the few hotels I could find in the area that has rooms that sleep 6, so for that reason, I would recommend it alone for any family that has that as a requirement. The free shuttle to the hotel took about 35 minutes to pick us up at the airport. We were frustrated with the long wait because we were tired and it was late in the evening. Dragging along luggage for six people and having 4 year-old twins falling asleep waiting for the shuttle made it even more difficult. By the time the 12 person shuttle arrived, there were about 18 of us waiting to board it. We are polite people (aren't all Canadians?), but there was no way we were missing this shuttle that we had been waiting for for so long. The DW and I quickly laid out the battle plans to get on this shuttle...she runs for the open door and her and the kids jump in and take the required number of seats while I load all the luggage. Sorry to that other large family who could not all fit together in this shuttle, but it was late and everyone needed to get to that hotel.

The shuttle stops in front of the hotel just after midnight and the driver gets out to unload passengers. We clutch each other closely. The hotel we see is nothing like what I saw on the internet. It looks like a complete dive and I think that it is in an area that makes the rough parts of New York city and L.A. seem appealing. Thankfully, the shuttle is shared with another hotel and we were just dropping off one couple at this hotel. Check-in at the hotel is fairly quick. The room is decent, clean, and comfortable. The Sleep Inn offers free shuttles (or at least it did when I booked it - I am told they now charge for that service). Unfortunately, you cannot book the shuttle until your check-in at the hotel. I love getting to the ship early and was told the first available shuttle would be at 1:30 pm. No way...too late. He offers me one at 9:30 am. That will get us there too early, but what the heck, I know that from what I have read that boarding usually starts around 11 am, so we only have an hour to kill, right? (You may know where I am going with this if you have read recent postings about the issues with clearing Customs of late for departing cruise passengers delaying boarding times. More on that later...)

The Sleep Inn Dania is in an excellent location. It is nice and appears to be a very safe neighbourhood. It shares a parking lot with a large drug store and there is a Publix right across the street if you are looking to pick up a couple bottles of wine to take on board the ship. In conclusion (about the Sleep Inn), I will look into staying there when we sail from Fort Lauderdale in the future.

Excited to follow your review. We're headed down in less than 2 weeks and I need some inspiration to get me through these grey days of countdown!

The Sleep Inn offers a decent breakfast buffet included in the room rate. Compared to the food on the ship, some may consider it prison quality food, but we had no complaints about it. Now, most of the guests in the hotel are cruising. Two nice older couples ask my DDs which ship they are going on. Of course, they reply the Freedom of the Seas (not knowing we are going on the Oasis). Puzzled looks on the two couples greeted our family. They ask if we are really sure that we are going on the Freedom of the Seas. My DDs insist we are. They tell my DW that we are a LONG way from Port Canaveral, where the Freedom departs from. Luckily, the conversation ends shortly after. My DW whisks the DDs along so that the couples do not ruin the surprise. They continue to talk amongst themselves about how we must be staying at the wrong hotel or something because we are in the wrong city. I quickly explain that the DDs did not know we were traveling on the Oasis yet. Crisis averted and surprise still intact.

I whisper to the shuttle van driver that we are going on the Oasis of the Seas, but the kids do not know this so please don't say anything to them about it. The shuttle van driver was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Every 5 minutes, he keeps asking me which ship are we going on. How dense is this guy? I point to the Oasis tag on my bag since I do not want to say it aloud. He replies that he cannot see the tag well. I silently grit my teeth.

Anyways, we pull up at the pier to the Oasis and my eldest DD whispers to us that the driver is dropping us off at the wrong ship. We smile at each other and begin to unload our luggage. The older DDs are puzzled, but slowly begin to clue into the fact we are actually going on the Oasis. Their excitement actually brought a few tears to my eyes. I was so glad that I was able to pull off the surprise.

We were at the pier around 10 am. I realized that we would not be able to board til around 11 am. We met up with our 2 family friends here and checked in. The check-in process was quick and efficient taking only about 15 minutes in total. Photos were taken by ship photographers and our cards scanned. Little did I realize that this would be the last time the ship photographers would ask for our cards the entire cruise. I was so used to being mauled by ship photographers and then having to search thousands of photos to see the photos of myself. Oasis uses facial recognition software. Simply go to the photo kiosks on the ship and insert your card and all of your photos taken by the ship photographers will be there for you to review. Amazing technology and it worked flawlessly. Did I purchase any of the photos? No, not at those prices, but still the system is impressive. I think I can actually take better photos than most of the ship photographers anyways;).

So we head upstairs and join the masses waiting to board early. There is an indoor climbing structure for the kids to play on (thank God), because it was not until almost 1 pm when we were called to board Oasis. THREE HOURS waiting in the terminal due to the reduction in the number of Customs officials who were working to clear passengers off the previous voyage. We had to wait for all of them to clear, so the crowds just kept on gathering.

The terminal is really nice. There are a few neat pieces of art to look at as well. Not nearly enough to pass 3 hours waiting in the terminal, but still pretty neat.

More neat artwork in the terminal building.

I had struck up a friendship with another CruiseCritic member on the "Meet and Mingle" boards. I had never met him or his family before, nor seen what they looked like. To my surprise, my DW walked over to me and told me that she had just me his family while waiting with 3000 other people in the waiting area. It is just bizarre how that works. I found myself saying the same thing on the ship all week long. There are approximately 9000 passengers and crew members on board, but I kept running into the same people over and over all week long.

Wow is that a big ship! I am a teacher at a school with around 300 students. Each lifeboat on the Oasis holds more than my school's entire population. Four times as big as the Titanic!

I have to start out with a shot of the name on the side of the ship. I noticed some unusual hook-shaped things sticking out above the circular windows in my photo. Does anybody have any clue what these are for?

The next photo was actually taken when we returned to Fort Lauderdale on the 16th. I just thought it was neat because it shows an entire fleet of small sailboats with that big container ship to contrast the size of them (not to mention a rather nice yacht somebody owns).

Below is a photo of my dream house. Not only is it on the water and you can watch the ships sail in and out. Not only does it have a beautiful pool and hot tub. You can see his FlowRider just to the right side of his house. I don't know how much the home would cost, but if the FlowRider goes for a million, I assume the house may be a tad on the expensive side. Oh well, it's always nice to dream...

The weather at sailaway was quite cool and windy with some cloud cover. Definitely not the best weather for a sailaway party. You can tell by how few people are on the beach what the weather was like that day. Little did we know that the weather for this trip was going to be somewhat memorable. Not that we saw any rain all week, but the temperatures were cool for the first couple of days and we would be experience 20 foot seas for the first couple of days as well. More on that in the later posts. I will try to add some nice photos of the interior of the ship tomorrow. I have about 1000 to sort through.

Looking forward to seeing the complete review.

Wow... !

I am so excited to have more of your reviews. Very good photos.

Can't wait to hear the rest.

Looking forward to the rest of your review --- Loved your other one of the food!!! Jan

Loving the review so far!

Looking forward to the rest of your review. We are taking our 8 yr. old grand-daughter on the Oasis in Nov. and I am anxious to hear how your daughters enjoyed the ship and what they liked best.

Gail

We are leaving this Saturday on the Oasis, Love the review, so far!!!

Hi Russ Lomas

I enjoyed your review and pictures of the food in the main dining room. I posted that link to our roll call thread and will certainly add this one. Thanks for taking the time to write this review with all the pictures. I have to say I'm very impressed you kept the secret. What did your wife say when you told her that you all were actually going on the Oasis?

Thanks for the review, looking forward to all the photos over the next couple of weeks before we board the Oasis.:D

Loved your previous food review...can't wait to read this review as well. We leave this Saturday for our Oasis vacation!

You should be so proud that you were able to keep that a surprise. Very cool. You teared up and so did I as i read this and i dont even know you or your family. So sweet.

Wow is that a big ship! I am a teacher at a school with around 300 students. Each lifeboat on the Oasis holds more than my school's entire population. Four times as big as the Titanic!

 

I have to start out with a shot of the name on the side of the ship. I noticed some unusual hook-shaped things sticking out above the circular windows in my photo. Does anybody have any clue what these are for?

 

The next photo was actually taken when we returned to Fort Lauderdale on the 16th. I just thought it was neat because it shows an entire fleet of small sailboats with that big container ship to contrast the size of them (not to mention a rather nice yacht somebody owns).

 

Below is a photo of my dream house. Not only is it on the water and you can watch the ships sail in and out. Not only does it have a beautiful pool and hot tub. You can see his FlowRider just to the right side of his house. I don't know how much the home would cost, but if the FlowRider goes for a million, I assume the house may be a tad on the expensive side. Oh well, it's always nice to dream...

 

The weather at sailaway was quite cool and windy with some cloud cover. Definitely not the best weather for a sailaway party. You can tell by how few people are on the beach what the weather was like that day. Little did we know that the weather for this trip was going to be somewhat memorable. Not that we saw any rain all week, but the temperatures were cool for the first couple of days and we would be experience 20 foot seas for the first couple of days as well. More on that in the later posts. I will try to add some nice photos of the interior of the ship tomorrow. I have about 1000 to sort through.

I work/build/maintain ships and i would say they hooks are spray nozzles to wash down the windows with fresh water to keep the salt crystals down to a minimum.

I work/build/maintain ships and i would say they hooks are spray nozzles to wash down the windows with fresh water to keep the salt crystals down to a minimum.

Well there's an interesting fact :) Thanks!

Looking forward to the rest.

Oasis is my favourite of the ships I've cruised so far!

:)Great start! Excited to see all of your pictures!

Thanks for posting this review along with the great photos. I'm looking forward to seeing more

Hey Russ, its Leo! It was great sailing and hanging out with you on the FlowRider. I'm sure we will bump into each other on a future sailing. Thanks for starting with review. It's great to relive our trip. Can't wait to keep reading!

Looking forward to hearing more. We are sailing on Oasis with 9yo dd in just over a month!

Great review, and I agree those look like nozzles to clean the windows

Enjoyed the review and the photos.

Keith

Looking forward to the rest of your review. We are taking our 8 yr. old grand-daughter on the Oasis in Nov. and I am anxious to hear how your daughters enjoyed the ship and what they liked best.

Gail

I can almost guarantee that it will be her best cruise ever, regardless of how many she has done before. There is just so much to do, for anybody of any age. I will get into details later in my review, but 2 of my DDs (one of the 4 year old twins and the 9 year old) LOVED the program activities in Adventure Ocean. My eldest DD, who was 11, did not enjoy it as much on this ship as on the Liberty last year. That is likely because she did not strike up any strong friendships like she did with other girls in the program last year. The other 4 year-old twin likes to hang out with mommy a lot, so the program was not quite to her liking. She did like it better than the one last year on the Liberty however and MUCH more than Carnival the previous year, although this is likely more that she is getting a bit older and willing to take risks more now.

As for the ship itself...so much for your grand-daughter to do, she will be exhausted at the end of every night. My girls loved all the shows, mini golf, carousel, rock climbing, skating rink, splashpad, etc. that they did not have time to do everything they wanted to do. Oh well, guess that means we will just have to go back again;)