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

[Russ Lomas]

Yes, they really do dive from those top platforms! It made my stomach do flip-flops just watching them standing up there, much less diving.

 

I will have to be sure to see that next time I travel on this class of ship. It would be incredible to see. It has to be over 60' high from up there. I am not sure if it is true, but a fellow passenger told me that they cancel the shows due to diver safety. He went on to tell me of an incident where a diver jumping from the platform hit the side of the pool upon entry and broke his leg when the ship was rocking. Not sure if that is truth or rumour, but safety first.

[Russ Lomas]

It's interesting to read your view on the Oasis after reading last night a review comparing the Oasis to the Disney Fleet - what a negative report (re: Oasis) that was! How refreshing to read and to see what a beautiful ship Oasis is, and how very family-friendly it is, too. !

 

I cannot speak for the quality of a Disney cruise because I have never been on one. I would like to go on one, but cannot justify double the cost for the same amount of time at sea. I read the review you refer to in your comment and was mystified by the negative comments about the Oasis as well. It was not 100% perfect, but it was still the best vacation I have ever enjoyed.

 

I know there are many Disneyoholics out there who eat, live, and sleep Disney. I have relatives who are part of the Disney vacation club and go there a couple of times each year and have season's passes for their resorts, even though they live in Canada. I like Disney, but once every 6 or 7 years is enough of it for me. I have FINALLY convinced these related Disneyoholics to cruise with me next year. It will be their family's first ever cruise. We are doing a 6 day on the Independence of the Seas. I hope they enjoy it as much as my family does. When I offer my DDs the chance to go to Disney or on a cruise, the cruise is the overwhelming choice. To each his (or her) own...

[Winnigirl]

I cannot speak for the quality of a Disney cruise because I have never been on one. I would like to go on one, but cannot justify double the cost for the same amount of time at sea. I read the review you refer to in your comment and was mystified by the negative comments about the Oasis as well. It was not 100% perfect, but it was still the best vacation I have ever enjoyed.

 

I know there are many Disneyoholics out there who eat, live, and sleep Disney. I have relatives who are part of the Disney vacation club and go there a couple of times each year and have season's passes for their resorts, even though they live in Canada. I like Disney, but once every 6 or 7 years is enough of it for me. I have FINALLY convinced these related Disneyoholics to cruise with me next year. It will be their family's first ever cruise. We are doing a 6 day on the Independence of the Seas. I hope they enjoy it as much as my family does. When I offer my DDs the chance to go to Disney or on a cruise, the cruise is the overwhelming choice. To each his (or her) own...

 

Well, we've drunk the Disney Kool-Aid too.:D We're Disney Vacation Club members since 2000, and we often head to Disney twice a year! Yes - sometimes even driving from Winnipeg! (36 hours driving). That was why I was so interested in that report. As much as I love Disney - we've done two Disney cruises - I was shocked at the negativity. I've never understood the mentality of "if you love Disney you have to hate everything else". I'm glad to read a balanced report.

[Skip2MySue]

Russ, great job and thank you for all your hard work. It will be our 1st time on Oasis and we're thrilled with any and all info from fellow cruiser's. Just wondering, as I'm a big donut fan too if you might happen to have a picture of the inside of the donut shop and the racks of goodies:D

Skip

[Russ Lomas]

Russ, great job and thank you for all your hard work. It will be our 1st time on Oasis and we're thrilled with any and all info from fellow cruiser's. Just wondering, as I'm a big donut fan too if you might happen to have a picture of the inside of the donut shop and the racks of goodies:D

Skip

Sorry, I don't have any shots of inside the donut shop. Like I mentioned before, I had given up donuts for Lent. The donut shop was temptation enough. To get that close to them and zoom in and take photos of them without being able to touch them....that would be unbearable torture.

 

In the words of the immortal Homer Simpson...

[jpolm]

He nice of the woman to let u use her patio for viewing, amazing view, happy face.

[Jon in the ATL]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but...

We were told that they do not do this on the Oasis class of ships. I know that they did this on the Freedom class of ships for us. The program offered by Oasis was that you could sign your child up for the dinner program. The program is open from 2 til 5 pm daily. Those children signed up for the dinner program stay in Adventure Ocean when it closes at 5pm and they take them out to dinner. You cannot pick up your child until after 7pm, when it reopens.

 

My advice to you is to think how you can make this program work for you with your early reservations for dinner. You can always talk to the maitre d' and see if you would be able to switch to MTD on the first day. I am not sure if you can switch to MTD via the telephone with your sailing date so close. Whatever you do, don't let this wreck your cruise. Figure out a way to make it work best for you. The Oasis class ship is incredible and this was only a minor inconvenience in the end. (That said, I wish the Oasis class ships would switch to the Freedom class ship way of doing things for this.)

 

Just off the Allure last week. They do pick your kids up right outside of the dining room at 6:45. They have an Ipad so you can check them in and out right there. Mine did it every night...however, it was not advertised anywhere. The only reason I knew about it was from the Freedom of the Seas too.

[jpolm]

Just off the Allure last week. They do pick your kids up right outside of the dining room at 6:45. They have an Ipad so you can check them in and out right there. Mine did it every night...however, it was not advertised anywhere. The only reason I knew about it was from the Freedom of the Seas too.

Thanks, did your kids go to shows with u too so u would just pick them up after dinner?

I'm definitely going to inquire about it. I was advised this was an option and I read it here as well. I was torn on mtd or early but that sold me as I know I want the kids to dine with us but I'm ok if the 12(almost 13) wants to leave early and the 10 and 5 yr old can go to the club to meet their friends until we are finished

[Russ Lomas]

Just off the Allure last week. They do pick your kids up right outside of the dining room at 6:45. They have an Ipad so you can check them in and out right there. Mine did it every night...however, it was not advertised anywhere. The only reason I knew about it was from the Freedom of the Seas too.

 

We did ask several people on the Oasis and they kept repeating that this service was not offered on the Oasis class ships. I guess there are several possibilities...

1 - The people (3 of them in the Adventure Ocean program) had no clue what I was talking about.

2 - They did offer it, knew about it, and did not want to tell me the truth.

3 - It was not offered on the Oasis, but may be on the Allure (even though we were told it is only offered on the Freedom class ships)

4 - Things have changed since our sailing on March 9th of this year

 

In any case, if I were sailing on the Oasis in the near future, I would either try talking to RCCL directly to confirm what the truth is currently prior to the trip so that you are not disappointed when you arrive on the ship if the program is not offered.

 

If they do offer the program now, maybe somebody read my comment card when I disembarked and they made the changes I recommended to add the 6:45 pick-up program to the Oasis class ships. If that is what did happen, you can all thank me later for suggesting it to them.

[Russ Lomas]

Today we visit Central Park, one of the most amazing areas at sea in my opinion. The only downfall of the area is that you cannot see the sea at all from any point in Central Park, but I guess that you can't see the sea in the real Central Park either, so that recreation is true to life.

 

The centre of Central Park has a nice plaque to commemorate the area.

 

The first time I entered this area, I thought it was nice (that is all). Just nice. As the week went by, I found myself actually going out of my way to visit Central Park. We had cabins on deck 7 forward and would actually go up the stairs to deck 8 to walk through Central Park and then go down the aft stairs to deck 4 for our dinner in the MDR. It was worth the extra stairs just to walk through this beautiful area instead of through the Promenade (which is nice in its own way, but just too busy most of the time), or through the hallways on any of the other decks. Central Park always seemed quiet with not many people in it. Embarkation day was by far the busiest there, but after that, it was simply like strolling through a real park and seeing only a few people.

 

A beautiful sign awaits you as you enter deck 8 from the front of the ship.

 

The plant life was incredible and so colourful. You could not find a dead leaf or dying leaf in there. There was always a crew member going around snipping off any leaves that were beginning to brown. If you are a bit of an obsessive compulsive person, like myself, this was heavenly. I can't tell you how hard I try to do this in my own garden at home, but I can't keep up. Central Park is impeccable (other than a few chips of red paint missing on one or two of the benches).

 

The Parkside Gallery is tucked away to the right side when you enter Central Park, next to the Coach store. I never made it in the Gallery all week even though I love looking at art (and thank God that my DW never made it into the Coach store...that I know about). They do set up artwork in front of the Gallery in Central Park and it was impressive.

 

There are some very nice seating areas like this half bench that was with another bench to make almost a complete circle. They looked really nice and peaceful, but I never saw a single person sit on them all week.

 

Central Park Cafe. This is one of my favourite areas on the ship. This was always my first stop on the way back to my cabin after boarding the ship when in port. I grabbed an icy drink from the Trellis Bar and a roast beef sandwich from the Central Park Cafe and went back to my cabin to clean up.

 

I fell in love with their roast beef sandwiches and had them almost daily. They are quite rare however, so if you do not like your meat very pink, that sandwich is not for you. It may be nice to offer people a choice of medium rare and well-done, like they do in the dining room for the prime rib. I also loved how you pick the ingredients for your salad and they make it for you. There are not 1000s of things to choose from, but I always mixed it up a bit and the salads were always fresh and tasted great. Warning...each salad they make could feed 3 people. They are huge. It is really overkill and my DDs often left most of their salads. They should ask if you want it as an entree sized portion or as an appetizer sized portion if you are getting the roast beef sandwiches or other sandwiches. They offer a selection of about 6-10 other sandwiches as well. I tried one and it was nice, but after having the roast beef sandwich, I did not want to fill up trying other sandwiches.

 

I like potato chips, but my DDs LOVE potato chips. They were in here constantly grabbing bags of chips and walking around the ship with them. No way I would let them do this at home, but we were on holiday, so for 1 week it would not kill them (may put up their cholesterol levels to an insane level and kill them, but it will be a few years before that happens). A selection of 5 or 6 desserts and a variety of cookies were displayed here and served as well. Most of them were quite tasty.

 

Trellis was the bar just down from the Central Park Cafe (you can see it in the background in the photo below on the left side). The Trellis Bar sign is visible in the photo below in the upper left corner (I framed the photo this way on purpose because I liked how the sign looked). The Trellis Bar had my 2nd favourite bartender on the ship. He was very friendly and made outstanding icy drinks that were not overpowering like on some other areas of the ship. I kept seeing the same people over and over again at this bar. Each of them commented on how he was their favourite bartender, made the best drinks, and they loved the location of the bar. I had the all-inclusive beverage package this trip and I do not think I ever walked by the Trellis Bar without getting a drink from it.

[Russ Lomas]

I forgot to mention that Central Park Cafe also offers a nice selection of healthy food for breakfasts. Unfortunately, the Cafe closes around 6pm. I would have loved to have it open late night and gone for a roast beef sandwich after a show.

 

There are several pay restaurants in Central Park, as well as Vintages. Although we never ate in any of these, they encouraged us to use their seating at Giovanni's Table when seating was scarce, around lunchtime, with so many people using the Central Park Cafe.

 

Here are 3 of the DDs enjoying their lunch from the Central Park Cafe with my DW.

 

 

I know this is not proper etiquette that we try to teach out kids, but I have to agree the food here was so good that I too felt like doing the same as one of my twins in this photo and licking the plates and bowls.

 

Even the bananas were great!!!

I also need to point out that funny cylindrical object in front of my daughter in this photo. They are all around the ship and have interesting objects inside that act like a microscope and zoom in on them. I will share more details of this in a later post in a few days.

[Russ Lomas]

Not only does Central Park look amazing from close up, but it also looks great from above.

 

 

I loved the Promenade on the Freedom class ships, but always found it to be dark inside with no natural light. These interesting glass structures in Central Park act as giant skylights providing a fair amount of light to enter the Promenade during daylight hours - a great idea.

 

Central Park looks even more amazing from above at night. The lighting RCCL uses to accent the Oasis is incredible. It was really tough taking the following two photos, so I am happy with how they turned out. I tried to use my tripod to take a longer timed exposure of Central Park from above, but the glass on the top on deck 15 looking down seven stories to Central Park below is really high (for safety reasons obviously). In order to use a tripod, I would have to place my camera at least 7 feet in the air and then aim it downwards to frame the shots properly. That would mean I would need a ladder or chair to stand on to be on top of the camera. Making it even harder was the gale force winds around the pool deck at night. I ended up taking the following two shots by hand using a 1/3 second exposure, ISO-800, f5 using an 18mm lens (for those who may want to try to recreate these shots on their own).

 

 

 

 

and taken from the other end of Central Park.

[lsmommy]

Thanks for sharing, looks like you had a great time. We are doing the Allure next March so this gives us a great idea of what to expect.

 

 

Not a great picture, but this is you leaving from St Thomas. This is from the top deck of the DCL Fantasy, was hoping to get closer but we went to St John. Sure is a big ship.

[Russ Lomas]

Our first port was Nassau. I had read a lot of negative reviews about Nassau online, but still, I was excited about visiting Nassau for the first time. While planning what to do in Nassau, the biggest negative about this visit was the limited shore time on the island. All aboard was set for 1:30 in the afternoon I believe. Many people write about how they visit Atlantis and the kids love it and its pools, beach, and waterpark areas. Reading that the slides do not open til 10 or 11 am, I did not think that Atlantis would be a good option for us since we would only have 1-2 hours to do them. Especially after learning the cost of the Atlantis visit was going to be $164 for each adult and $119 for each child. That would cost me $800 for a couple of hours in Atlantis...um..NOT.

 

Another option was taking the trip just to use the beach at Atlantis called Paradise Beach. RCCL offers it for a cost of $83 for each adult and $56 for each child for a total of just under $400 for a couple of hours sitting on the beach. We decided against this as well due to the excessive cost. Seas were very rough this week on the sailing. The waves were very noticeable all week. Friends of ours staying on Nassau for the week we were sailing reported that they had 3 drownings in the 5 days they were in Nassau, 2 of them being on Paradise Beach (I found info on 2 of these incidents confirming the deaths online). Lifeguards at Paradise Beach had flags up telling people not to go into the water. $400 to sit on sand for a few hours would not be money well spent.

 

We (I) decided we would do the cheapskate tour in Nassau. The kids wanted a beach, so we walked to Junkanoo Beach. I had read that it was a 10-15 minute walk from the ship. My kids were troopers, but it definitely was not a 10-15 minute walk. Maybe around a 20 minute walk, from the pier. That does not take into account that it is another 10 minute walk with kids from the ship (it is the largest, so it docks the furthest away from land) to the terminal where the actual 20 minute walk begins. 30 minute walk for those who decide to go to Junkanoo Beach. I read mixed reviews about Junkanoo Beach prior to visiting it. Many say that it is gorgeous and had a great time, others say that it is a dump of a public beach. My photos should help shed light on Junkanoo Beach for those who may be thinking about visiting it.

 

When disembarking from the ship I saw a really neat looking rusted mooring that the NCL ship docked beside us was tied to. Time to take a photo with my favourite lens, my Nikkor macro 60mm.

 

After walking along the pier, through the buildings at the end of the pier, you take a right turn and follow the road along the water until you arrive at Senor Frogs, about 15 minute into our walk.

 

There are some fun photo ops here with their decorations, so we took a 5 minute break before continuing our walking trip.

 

Following the turn in the road at Senor Frogs away from the ocean and into town, you will see the sign below. Nice to see we were on the right path, but not so nice to see there was another 1.2 kilometres (about 3/4 mile) still to walk.

 

We felt very safe walking along the sidewalk through Nassau. There was absolutely no traffic on the road at this time, around 9:30am. When we returned to the ship around noon, this road was more like a parking lot. It was BUSY at that time.

 

You can see the other 7 in my group walking on the right of this photo, while I waited behind to take this photo.

 

More proof that the town was like a ghost town. This photo was taken at 9:34 am in the morning.

[Russ Lomas]

Walking a bit further, you pass a nice hotel (Hyatt I think) on the right side.

 

 

I noticed some graffiti on the right side of the pathway on our walk to the beach. I thought it was well done and deserved a photo of it to be taken.

 

 

Finally arriving at Junkanoo Beach, you are greeted with a sign at a bar right on the beach. Boy the drink prices here are a lot cheaper than on the cruise ship...less than $10 for 3 shots AND 3 beers. As you could guess, this is the area of the beach where the college aged crowd hung out. They had a BBQ available selling food and volleyball courts set up as well with fairly loud music playing.

 

 

The further you walked down the path on the beach away from this area, the quieter and less crowded it got. We eventually got to a spot about 2-3 minutes further down from this bar area where it was more or less deserted and I thought it would be nice for our family to settle for a few hours. It is not a picture perfect beach with nature surrounding you, it offers nice views straight out to the ocean, the main part of downtown right behind you across the street from the beach, a not-so-nice looking cargo ship loading area in the distance to the left, but a neat vantage point to view the ships to the right. Note the large piece of coral on the beach as well in the photo below.

 

The bottom beneath the water had very little rock/coral on it. Most of this coral had obviously been washed ashore by the large waves of the past few days. There is a photo coming up showing piles of coral that people had obviously piled up to help make the beach more sandy and less strew with rocks/coral.

[Russ Lomas]

There are lots of opportunities to take some nice macro photos of coral on this beach.

 

If your kids want to find a piece of coral for a cheap souvenir, this is the best beach I have ever seen to do so.

 

 

Piles and piles of coral everywhere.

 

 

Beautiful shapes of coral in every possible shape and size.

 

 

This next shot shows just how much coral had washed up on the shore. I do not know if they is typical or not (I assume not since there were huge piles of coral on the beach about 10 feet high as well). I assume that it is usually gathered and piled to help clear up the beach, but on this day, it obviously was laying everywhere. My 9 year-old DD was in the water when waves were crashing in (they were about 3 or 4 feet high on this beach on this day, even though it is in a protected harbour). One of them hit her in the back of her leg. It was about the size of a softball. It gave her a good sized bruise and cut her. It was just like someone throwing rocks at you on shore. Not the best day, or the safest day, to be in the water.

[alaska_planner]

i've just started your review...loving it!!!! :)

[Russ Lomas]

I had read reports online about how there is a lot of garbage on the beach, including broken glass. Some people report that this is not true and others insist that it is true. Many people insist you should wear water shoes in the water here just to be safe. If you do go, I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND WEARING WATER SHOES AT JUNKANOO BEACH as a precaution.

 

I realized that, by the amount of coral laying on the beach, there is likely to be some garbage washed up ashore as well. The following photos will show you what I found on the beach that day. The photos were not isolated to one or two locations, but were fairly common on this day.

 

The glass pictured above was very sharp. I had thought that people may have been talking about finding sea glass that had been made dull by the time spent in the ocean. This was definitely not dull sea glass.

 

Washed up in the seaweed was a wide assortment of garbage. Not nice. Metal, plastic, glass...you name it, it is in this photo.

 

Junkanoo Beach, from most peoples' reports, is supposed to have very calm water and be a good place for kids to swim. Beware, there are NO LIFEGUARDS at this beach, so if this concern you, it will not be a beach you wish to visit. The photo below shows what the wave action was like on this particular day. The waves crashed so hard that those people 10 feet above were getting soaked (kind of fun to watch since they had no idea they were about to get splashed).

[Peeker28]

Russ, I'm totally loving your review. Do you know if you need to make reservations for the Throw Me a Line show? I didn't see it on the entertainment reservations page

[Russ Lomas]

I am assuming that this was a tour group going by the beach on a Segway tour. There were about a dozen or so people who kept passing right beside us.

 

 

Despite the rough seas and garbage laying about Junkanoo Beach on this day, it was beautiful. The colour of the water is incredible and there are some terrific photo opportunities. Below are some of my favourite photos I took this week.

 

Look at the colour of that water.

 

 

Palm tree shot from below always look so dramatic with some clouds in the sky. Love this shot.

 

 

The rust on the side of the pier made for a great contrast to the blue sky and sea. I waited patiently for the gull to take flight to make the photo a bit more dramatic.

 

 

I had 2 of my DDs go out to the end of the pier for a nice photo of them with the contrast of the sea/sky/pier for the next photo. The gull must have liked being in the photo I took previously because he flew into this one as well. I had not been waiting for him to fly into the frame, but when he did, I was quick to snap the shot.

[Russ Lomas]

Duplicate post...sorry...keep reading on the next post.

[Russ Lomas]

I had to get at least one photo of myself on this trip, so I framed this one up and gave my camera to our family friend, Tony, who was traveling with us. Thanks Tony for taking such a great shot. I love the colour of the water in the back with our blue shirts. As for the shirt I was wearing...my DW bought it for me about 5 months prior to this trip and I had never worn it. She loved the shirt, so I wore it for the first time on the day we were in Nassau. Once back aboard the Oasis, I went to the Flowrider, as I often did, and took off the shirt and put it in our beach bag by the Flowrider. The wind up there was so bad that the beach bag blew away. I managed to retrieve most of the items, but the beloved shirt must have been sacrificed to the sea and gone overboard. Beware: make sure any clothing items you take to the Flowrider area are tied down or they may blow away.

As we were sailing away from Nassau, I snapped a shot of the Atlantis complex from the stern of the ship by the Flowrider (probably as my shirt flew overboard:mad:). You can the size of the massive waves to the left side of the left tower.

[MisterMom]

More! More!

 

[Russ Lomas]

Thanks for sharing, looks like you had a great time. We are doing the Allure next March so this gives us a great idea of what to expect.

 

 

Not a great picture, but this is you leaving from St Thomas. This is from the top deck of the DCL Fantasy, was hoping to get closer but we went to St John. Sure is a big ship.

We saw your ship ported with the two Carnival ships as we went over the mountains in St. Thomas. I will return the favour and post my photo your ship that I took when I get to posting my comments on our day in St. Thomas. Thanks for sharing.

[Russ Lomas]

More! More!

 

I absolutely love this shot!!!! (meaning the shot (photo) not the "shot" to the groin area). I love taking photos like this and have some great funny ones that I have taken in the past. I think we should start a thread of funny cruise photos people have taken over the years. I think we could get 100,000 views easily.

 

My DW did not like some of the "funny" shots I had taken in the past thinking that the school kids I teach may see them and mention them. Oh well, here is an appropriate shot of my DD in a pose where you "took your shot".