my short, late review of Oasis

[kathyemma]

Okay, so I promised this a few days ago - sorry, life got in the way! Just so you know our group include me, dh (41), dd (12), dss (18) - both dd and dss had birthdays the week before the cruise - life would have been MUCH better is they had still been 11 and 17. Oh well - more about that later.

 

We flew down the night before and stayed at my best friend's house in Homestead - a little more than an hour from the port. At the suggestion of a cc member from our roll call he suggested an Irish Restaurant neat the airport for dinner while traffic died down - I forget the name but the place was great! If someone needs me to I can find it. We finally got to my friends house and she offered me a drink. Big mistake. I do not drink hard alcohol - but apparently I will finish a bottle of 70 proof firefly when I drink with my girlfriend. ouch. At some point during the night I decided I didn't want her to have to get up and drive me and the family back to the pier so I called a car company and hired a 16 person stretch limo to take us. It was a good thing because I needed to lay down for most of the ride.

 

Day 1

 

We got to the pier at 11 and were on board moments later. I was REALLY surprised they let me board. I was green. I looked awful. I just kept telling myself if they question me about being sick I will tell them to take my blood or give be a breathalizer b/c I am pretty sure I was still legally drunk. I will never get drunk again the night before boarding. I was miserable ALL DAY. I met up with some of the roll call for sail away with my bottle of Champagne. That was a waste but at least others got to enjoy it!

 

That night we had reservations for Chops - this is the only time I have ever eaten in a pay restaurant on any ship. I couldn't eat. At 6pm I will still ill. The waiter thought something was wrong with the food. He didn't believe that I could still be that hungover at 6pm. So, I really have no opinion of Chops. The place was empty. The waiter was very nice. The food looked good.

 

The one good thing that came of this is my dd will never drink hard alcohol. But she is Irish - so we shall see.

 

We had reservations for the aqua show - which was rescheduled for later in the cruise.

 

Our room, all four of us stayed in a boardwalk balcony room. It was tight but doable. I LOVED THE ROOM LOCATION! We were in room 12709. We only heard noise once or twice during the day - never at night. The balcony was nice - we could see the boardwalk, the aqua theatre, the zip line and part of the ocean. I will say I prefer the full water view balcony rooms.

 

Day 2

 

I am alive! Today we were in the Bahamas. My dd and I have been there many times so we stayed on the ship. We booked a mother/daughter massage for am. I loved it, she hated it. I kept asking her if she was okay and she kept saying she was - but when it was over she said she did not like it. I told her she could have told the lady to stop. She said the lady did it too hard - she might have enjoyed it if she had a lighter touch. After that she took the flowrider lessons - I took video! (I did do it later in the day and had fun!) DH and dss got off the ship and hit the beach. The rest of the day we just walked around and had fun. We tried the roast beef sandwiches - they were very good but the roll was too salty for me. We were invited to sail away on the helipad and that was amazing!

 

Pretty sure this was the 1st formal night. I am not a big foodie - i like my food plain. I know, no fun. But dd and I did not have reservations - we just showed up and got seated right away. I think the boys ate at WJ.

 

Day 3

 

We were at sea. We never had any problem finding any chairs by any of the pools. There were PLENTY of seats. The major pain was towels. I hate, hate, hate having to check them in and out. They must come up with a better system. At the end of the week, we returned 3 towels that were in our room, according to their system we didn't have any towels checked out. Nice. Guess someone was down at guest services fighting a $75 towel charge on their account.

 

Tonight for dinner there was a bit of a wait - maybe 15 minutes. My dss does not wait well. Yes, he is 18. He couldn't believe they didn't have a better system. I didn't see issue with it.

 

Day 4

 

St Thomas - been there, done that so we took the ferry to St John - AMAZING! Oh so beautiful!!!!!!!!!! It was so easy and cheap to do on our own and we got so much more beach time than those on excursions. If you are thinking of doing this check the st johns board - tons of info about doing it on your own.

 

Day 5

 

BEST TRIP EVER!!!!!!!!!! www.randomwind.com I can not tell you how wonderful this day was. We had three families from our roll call and one from Carnival. It was the best. Diane, the owner of Random Wind - meet us at the pier. We walked down to her boat and hit the water. We sailed for about 40 mins till we found a nice place to swim and snorkle. While we were having fun she was cooking an amazing lunch. After lunch she set up a "tarzan swing" off the edge of the ship. It was a blast (to watch!). This trip was 85 for adults, 50 for kids and included food and drinks, including alcohol. I can not say enough wonderful things about this day!

 

Okay, i need to finish this up tomorrow. I will include more info about the ship then.

 

If you have any questions - just ask.

 

Kathy

[Merion_Mom]

Okay, so I promised this a few days ago - sorry, life got in the way! Just so you know our group include me, dh (41), dd (12), dss (18) - both dd and dss had birthdays the week before the cruise - life would have been MUCH better is they had still been 11 and 17. Oh well - more about that later.

 

We flew down the night before and stayed at my best friend's house in Homestead - a little more than an hour from the port. At the suggestion of a cc member from our roll call he suggested an Irish Restaurant neat the airport for dinner while traffic died down - I forget the name but the place was great! If someone needs me to I can find it. We finally got to my friends house and she offered me a drink. Big mistake. I do not drink hard alcohol - but apparently I will finish a bottle of 70 proof firefly when I drink with my girlfriend. ouch. At some point during the night I decided I didn't want her to have to get up and drive me and the family back to the pier so I called a car company and hired a 16 person stretch limo to take us. It was a good thing because I needed to lay down for most of the ride.

 

Kathy, I do not intend to poke fun at your pain, but this is one of the funniest things I have ever read!

[proudpatriot07]

Sounds like you guys had a great time, aside from being sick for some of it and not being able to eat the food at Chops (and having to lay down in the limo).

 

The Random Wind boat looks like a lot of fun too. I have to show it to my fiance- we're going to St. Martin on the Freedom next year.

[cruzkitty]

Thanks for your review and the humor! We also booked the Random Wind in Sept and enjoyed it very much. Diane and her BF were great. They actually swung off the Tarzan Swing together. It was a very fun day. We will be sailing on Oasis in September-can't wait!

[kathyemma]

Day 6 and 7 we were at sea - and once again no problem at all finding deck chairs!

 

Here are some on the things I noticed while on the ship.

 

Shows - They were AMAZING! We made reservations for everything except "In the Air" prior to boarding. Since we are D+ we just showed up. I was under the impression that we would not have to wait we could just go in and grab the reserved seats on the upper level. Well that was true - sort of. We still had to wait. Once we got in we went to the top level and took our seats. At the same time they were removed the ropes that said reserved - so it seems they were opening those seats up to anyone. If you are D+ and do not have a reservation - just be sure you get in line early b/c those seats are not held for long.

 

The Aqua Show was just insane. At times my stomach was doing flips and I was ill - I was so scared for the people in the show! It is just crazy some of the things they did! If you don't get a seat for this - no worries - go hit one of the not so secret balconys on deck 12 and 14 - you will have a great view!

 

Hair Spray - we had a late reservation and we were just too tired to make it! Really wish we had seen it.

 

Ice show as always was pretty cool. They had this lady drawing pictures in the sand - VERY cool. But as I watching her I kept thinking - how does one end up doing this for a living???

 

Food - as I said earlier I am not a big foodie. The one thing I always look for and enjoy is the warm chocolate cake. My dd and I were at dinner one night and I saw a waiter walk by with what I THOUGHT was warm chocolate cake. I was so excited! I didn't finish my salad, I ate 1/4 of my main meal (which was really good, but needed to save room!), turns out it wasn't warm chocolate cake - it was the souffle. AAAHHH - the waiter had already taken away my mostly uneaten meal by the time I figured it out. We both ordered the souffle - had two bites and then decided to hit the pool deck for ice cream. it was gross. When the night of the warm chocolate cake finally arrived I was really excited. Once again, I was let down. It was over cooked. Guess I am just going to a have to make it home.

 

Ice cream - there are two frozen yogurt machines at the pool. Lines were never too bad. But the "ice cream" was so slow in coming out. I found that if you walk about 1 minute to the Wipe Out Cafe - the machines there are MUCH better. There was never a line and you could get a real size serving unlike the tablespoon size you would end up with from the ones by the pool.

 

Park Cafe - the roast beef was amazing - but the rolls were too salty for my taste. The salads there were wonderful as well.

 

WJ and My Time Dining - We really never hit the WJ - except on the 2nd Formal night which was Thanksgiving. All 4 of us got dressed up and we headed down at 6pm for my time dining. They were so busy they wouldn't even let us wait. They told us to come back at 8 and wait then - they would not give us a reservation for 8. There was NO way the 18 year old was going to stay in a suit that long - so we went back to room and everyone but my dd changed and we hit the WJ. I am do not like turkey. They really didn't seem to have a large selection of food there at all. For dinner I had corn bread, olives and feta cheese. (There were other options - but those are some of my most favorite things.) That was the only time we had problems with MTD.

 

CL - We hit the CL most mornings for breakfast. It was very nice. However, I love the apple pastries that royal has for breakfast and they were not available in the CL. I even asked for them and they said I need to go to WJ or the Promande for them. I never went there for lunch but heard it was amazing. Also, never had a chance to hit it for pre dinner drinks - but to be honest I didn't do much drinking on the ship. (that was the one plus of getting drunk the night before!)

 

We all loved the flowrider - lines were never really that long. It was a pain to get a wrist band every day. Don't know why they couldn't issue one for the week. Dh and dd did the zip line, it was fun but fast - they didn't do it a 2nd time. They did hit the rock wall twice and they both made it to the top! They got there about 5 minutes before open climb and never had to wait.

 

Kids club - not really sure what to say here. My dd never went. She LOVES the kids club - she look forward to this for so long! She was finally out of the little kids club and entering the teen club - woo hoo! It broke my heart that she wouldn't go. She wouldn't go the first night when you go with your parents to look around - this is my fault - I should have forced her to go or tricked her or something.

 

The next night when it was just kids I walked up with her (i wasn't going to go in with her) but as we were walking there she passed a group of much older teens - 16, maybe 17 - she freaked. She thought the two groups, 12 - 14 and 15 - 17 were together. She started walking back to the room. She said there was no way she would go in alone. I called the club and they promised me that they do NOT combine the groups at night - just during the day. I told this to my dd, she didn't care. So we started the search for someone her age to walk into the club with her. My dd is REALLY outgoing. I have never seen her so shy before in my life. She turned 12 a week before sailing but she looks 16.

 

We did find a girl her age one day and we got her room number. We called one night and she wanted to go to the club. She told Emma to meet her outside the club at 9 45 - it was 9 30 at this point. So she went on up. Since I finally had some free time I walked thru the promande, hit the casino and then was heading up to the pool deck (same deck as kids club) it was then I found my so sad little girl sitting there all alone where she was going to meet this other girl. The other girl never showed. I as so heartbroken and so mad. She sat there for an hour waiting. She said other kids came up to her and asked if she wanted to hang out in the club with them, but she wouldn't go. Next cruise, she is bringing a friend! Life is always better with a friend!

 

As for the 18 year old - he meet some kids who were under 18, they couldn't go to the older things, he couldn't go the younger events. So he spent a lot of time walking thru the promanade and hitting the casino. It would have been much nicer if he was still 17.

 

Getting off the ship was sort of easy. We hit a lot of lines and had some waiting. I normally get off the ship by 8, this year we waited til 9. I am not sure if the extra wait was due to the later time or b/c of the employee who passed away during our sailing. I know there was an ambulance and investigators waiting for us when we docked.

 

okay, I think that is it for my not so short review. I liked oasis - but I really missed seeing the ocean all the time. So, I would sail on her again but will wait for the prices to come down. If anyone has any questions - just let me know!

 

Kathy

[coffeebean]

Thanks for posting about your "adventures". Looking forward to hearing more about the ship. DH and I board her in 9 days. Woo Hoo!!!

[kathyemma]

Kathy, I do not intend to poke fun at your pain, but this is one of the funniest things I have ever read!

 

My dd told me I need to get drunk with Melissa more often! She LOVED that limo ride. I made the driver stop at Walgreens - i NEEDED liquids. I walked into the store - looking like hell - and got water, gatorade, diet coke, and starbucks coffee drinks. I was soooooooooooooooo thirsty. The limo driver said everyone in the parking lot was trying to figure out who i was. HA!

 

Kathy

[kathyemma]

Thanks for your review and the humor! We also booked the Random Wind in Sept and enjoyed it very much. Diane and her BF were great. They actually swung off the Tarzan Swing together. It was a very fun day. We will be sailing on Oasis in September-can't wait!

 

Diane and Trevor were WONDERFUL! I have been to caribbean many, many times and this is in my top 5 for excurions. Just a great day all around. I forgot to mention on the way back to the ship we got robbed!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My dh had his camera in his backpack and someone stole it! He wasn't very smart - he has his camera in an outside pocket of the backpack that was mesh - so everyone could see it. Someone reached it and took it!

 

While in St Maarten we also fell in love with a homeless beach dog. My dh carried her to the animal welfare cart set up near the restaurants (this was when his camera was stolen) and we are in the process of adopting the puppy! Shhh, don't tell our other two dogs, it is going to be their Christmas gift.

 

Kathy

[LBumb]

awesome job. great reading.

[QTMichele]

I'm a "cheap date" and a "lightweight" when it comes to drinking, so I do feel your pain! I had an experience in Cozumel like that in 2007... vowed I would NEVER drink like that again before boarding a ship! :D

 

Thanks for the review!

[RichardE954]

The Irish Pub was called The Field, and I totally agree with you about the towels. The biggest PIA of the week.

[cruzkitty]

Kathy-so sorry to hear about the stolen camera! :mad: But you know what they say about Karma!! :rolleyes:

 

That is so awesome about the stray beach dog. Please let me know how this works out for you. That is one Lucky Dog-I would have to name her Lucky!! lol (I love dogs) cats, too...:D

[kathyemma]

The Irish Pub was called The Field, and I totally agree with you about the towels. The biggest PIA of the week.

 

We all had a wonderful time at The Field! In fact, from now on when my girlfriend picks up anyone at FLL - they are stopping there before heading home.

 

I couldn't remember if it was you or Ken who had recommended the place.

 

Kathy

[kathyemma]

Kathy-so sorry to hear about the stolen camera! :mad: But you know what they say about Karma!! :rolleyes:

 

That is so awesome about the stray beach dog. Please let me know how this works out for you. That is one Lucky Dog-I would have to name her Lucky!! lol (I love dogs) cats, too...:D

 

My daughter has named her Martini (since she from St Maarten - kind of the female version of the name) - Tini for short.

 

Yes, Karma - HUGE believer in it.

 

Kathy

[Crewzer33]

Thanks for the review! My family and I are going on her later this month and I have a couple questions. I have filled out all the waivers (although everyone is over 18), so how does it then work for the Flowrider? Just go to the shack and get the wristband? What about the Zipline? Do I have to rush over to it first thing to make a reservation?? Thanks for your help.

[kathyemma]

This is what I would do - get up in the morning, go get a cup of coffee, walk to the flowrider - get wristband and then go have breakfast. Age doesn't matter - they can be 8 or 88 - as long as the online wavier has been signed - that is recorded on the seapass card. They just show the seapass - they run thru the computer and you get your band. Some afternoons the lines for the wrist bands were INSANE. The flowrider doesn't even have to be open to get them - someone just needs to be there. Lessons start pretty early - so there was usually someone in the booth. My family only did the zipline once - so don't know if you have a wristband for that everytime or not.

 

You do not need reservations - just show up and have fun. If you are going to have a lot of people doing the flowrider - you might want to rent it out for an hour. Everyone I know that did it -LOVED IT.

 

Have fun!

 

Kathy

[alexkrn46]

Thanks for the review sounds like a great trip.