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

[pasodancer]

Thank you SO MUCH for this fabulous review - I laughed, I cringed and I smiled reading it. :)

[Russ Lomas]

Thank you SO MUCH for this fabulous review - I laughed, I cringed and I smiled reading it. :)

You are welcome. Cringed? At the graphic description on the memorable airline flight I assume?

Lots more to come, so keep checking back to this thread.

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Great review. love the pictures!

 

Oasis looks like a great ship.

[Brandonclan]

Keep it coming man!!

 

Great job so far, great looking family!

[Michthebeech]

Oh no its over? We went on the Oasis last August and our time at Nassau was limited because we did it the last day and not the first because of Hurricane Issac and the night before some teenagers threw a life preserver over board and delayed our arrival. :( So we only went to the straw market right outside the ship and came back. I wanted to go to Junkanoo and Fish Fry but didn't make it. So ultimately, do you recommend Junkanoo??? It is certainly better than spending 400-800 to go to Altlantis for two hours no??? Looking forward to the rest of your review. My kids loved the cruise so much that we are going again this August. I gave them a vote, Disney, Atlantis, an All Inclusive, or cruise again. They chose the cruise.

[Russ Lomas]

Oh no its over?

No where near over. I have covered maybe about 1/2 of my photos. Lots more to come:)

 

I wanted to go to Junkanoo and Fish Fry but didn't make it. So ultimately, do you recommend Junkanoo???

Some people are on holiday and put lots of money aside for excursions. I just find it too expensive to do so with 4 kids. They always just want to do a beach day, so I usually look for the best reviewed beaches that offer safe swimming, nice scenery, and if possible, great snorkeling. With the limited time in Nassau, I could not find anything I felt worth doing that did not cost a fortune with 4 kids in tow. Junkanoo was my least favourite of the 3 beaches we visited. The main reason is the amount of garbage that I saw. Like I said, I do not know if this is typical or not since there was huge swells that could have brought in lots more than normal. I would like to see it another time to compare to see if that was normal or not. I do have concerns about the broken glass we saw. Not lots, but sure enough if somebody stepped on it to wreck your entire vacation. I would strongly recommend water shoes if you go to Junkanoo Beach as a safety precaution. I would like to hear back here from somebody who has gone more recently than when I did a month ago to see if they cleaned up the garbage on the beach.

 

 

My kids loved the cruise so much that we are going again this August. I gave them a vote, Disney, Atlantis, an All Inclusive, or cruise again. They chose the cruise.

Very intelligent children you have:D

[Russ Lomas]

For anybody who has not traveled on RCCL ships where they offer the large touchscreens to help you navigate the ships, you are in for a treat. Simply walk up to one and enter where you want to go and it will plot a plan of attack for you to get there mapping it out for you. Very handy for those directionally challenged. They also list activities going on or coming up around the ship. This is a great feature and every ship should have these.

 

 

For those who want the "old school" map method, you no longer get the paper maps that some cruise lines used to hand out (not only were they a waste of paper, but for a ship the size of the Oasis, you would either need an entire magazine sized map or the printing would be so small, you would not be able to read it). There were nice 3D maps located around the ship to help you navigate the deck you were currently on as well.

 

 

As I mentioned previously, the seas were quite rough for this sailing. I had never seen this before, but RCCL mounted puke bags on every level of every staircase all over the entire ship. How nice of them. For those that have read my review from the start, you will know how much I would have appreciated Delta doing that on their flights since my 4 year-old DD needed several of them quite badly on our flight to Florida and they were nowhere to be found.

 

 

Below is a picture of the Coke Freestyle machine. There were two of them located on the Promenade at one end of the area. I believe I saw two on deck 15 as well, but do not remember exactly where. I really wish I could have tried the Freestyle offerings, but nobody in my group purchased the package. I try to encourage my DDs to not drink pop, and they are more than happy with unlimited iced tea and lemonade on the ship. I would have liked if I could have used the machines since I was paying $55 per day for the unlimited beverage package (which is not really unlimited since there are so many restrictions as to what you can actually get...more on that another time). I would have liked to try a couple of the Freestyle offerings instead of drinking alcohol using the package, but you can only order regular fountain pops with the package. I would very likely have drunk less alcohol on the trip if RCCL included the Freestyle pop in the package. You figure that would actually save RCCL some money and my liver likely would have appreciated that as well.

 

 

I always enjoy the artwork (except on some Carnival cruises - the art on the Valor was just not to my personal taste), both 2D photos and the 3D artwork. I really enjoyed the model of the Freedom of the Seas. The amount of detail on it is amazing.

 

 

The art that I refer to as the Salvador Dali version of a melted 70's disco ball located on deck 3 by the staircase outside of the comedy club was really eye catching. I would have liked to have seen it out in the sun. It would have blinded people for miles around.

[Russ Lomas]

I just loved this guy outside of the Comedy Club on deck 3.

 

 

Even the tile floors by the elevators were more interesting that your standard square tiles.

 

There was some interesting sculpture pieces outside of the dining room. One of them looked like a big red piece of sugar coated candy. I liked the one below as well.

 

 

A neatly lit sculpture located in the Promenade outside one of the store. I am not sure what store it was. In fact, I only went in the stores for the first time on my final night of the cruise. There was just so much to do, that my DW and I just never made it into them. I was thankful for that since she LOVES to shop. She cannot manage to go for a drive more than 5 minutes without pulling over at a store and doing some shopping. A 10 minute trip to pick up one of our DDs, often turns into a 3 hour shopping extravaganza. The ship must have been amazing for her to not even enter the shops the entire week.

 

 

Even the pathway lights in Central Park were decorated nicely. Every light had a different little creature on it.

[Russ Lomas]

There were many of these statues around the ship - in Central Park, by the pools, on the mini-putt course. Here is one found hiding in the beautiful gardens in Central Park.

 

 

Not really artwork, but still really neat, were some of the flowers I had never seen before in Central Park. Here is one of the more interesting ones.

 

 

My DDs loved finding these items below all over the ship. They looked like little droids from Star Wars. There were different 3D images in each of them. When one DD found one, she would challenge the others to locate the one she had just found by telling them what the image inside was. They loved this little game they made up. I don't know how many of them there were on the ship, but there were lots.

 

 

Also located all around the ship were these neat contraptions that were like telescopes with a microscope inside. There were all different items inside - rocks, jewels, insects, skeletons.

 

Some like the one above, were inside the ship, while others, like the one below were outside in areas like Central Park.

 

Here is an example of what you could find inside one.

[Russ Lomas]

There were two parades on the Promenade over the course of the week. A character parade and a parade of nations. The parade of nations takes place earlier in the week. It is a parade consisting of many of the crew members in colourful costumes representing many areas around the world and representing the departments they work in around the ship.

 

Probably the best spots to see the parades are right across from the Globe and Atlas Pub. This photo is taken from on the main level of the Promenade. You can see how the Globe above the pub opens up.

 

 

Later in the week, there is a Dreamworks character parade. There was some sort of fog in the Promenade for this parade, so some of the photos appear hazy. Once again, right across from the Pub is a great location. What I did was position my family right in front of the pub and I went up one level to the viewing area across from the pub next to the photo viewing area.

 

Man...that is one scary looking Pinocchio. I can't see how kids don't have nightmares about him. The only scarier character I have ever seen was the Big Bad Wolf on the Liberty of the Seas last year. He looked more like roadkill.

 

 

What could be more scary than that version of Pinocchio? How about Pinocchio dancing with Annoying Amy. AGGHHHH!!!! That is the things that nightmares are made of!

 

 

Many characters make an appearance on the main level of the Promenade. The Penguins of Madagascar march by my family right in front of the Globe and Atlas Pub in the photo below.

 

 

As I was taking photos from my vantage point just above the Promenade, an aerialist took off and did some tricks right at eye-level right in front of me. Like I said, this is the perfect spot to watch the parade unless your kids want to be high-fiving the characters.

[sunnygirl1975]

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I love checking each day. We leave for our cruise June 1 on the Oasis. This will be my first cruise. I am super excited. :D

 

I have two questions are the pools open 24 hours or do they open for certain hours?

 

Should my husband sign up for the flow rider lessons? He wants to do this, but hasn't ever tried it before. I wasn't sure if it was worth the $60. Thank you for any input.

[MrFunInTheSun]

Great review and pictures. Thank you for sharing your cruise adventures with us!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. Please excuse any typographical errors.

[kiefer1130]

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I love checking each day. We leave for our cruise June 1 on the Oasis. This will be my first cruise. I am super excited. :D

 

I have two questions are the pools open 24 hours or do they open for certain hours?

 

Should my husband sign up for the flow rider lessons? He wants to do this, but hasn't ever tried it before. I wasn't sure if it was worth the $60. Thank you for any input.

 

Sunny girl.....we will also be on the June 1st sailing :)

From what I have read, you do not need to sign up for wave rider before hand and there is no cost either :)

Not sure about the pool hours but on our previous cruises, the pools generally close just before dinner time

[Russ Lomas]

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I love checking each day. We leave for our cruise June 1 on the Oasis. This will be my first cruise. I am super excited. :D

You are welcome. I cannot believe that you are going on only your first cruise and you are going on the Oasis. You will be spoiled rotten. It will be difficult to do another ship after experiencing this one with all of its features. You will not believe you are actually on a ship.

 

I have two questions are the pools open 24 hours or do they open for certain hours?

All pools are not open 24 hours. I just looked at the Cruise Compass I kept and it reads "Select pools and hot tubs" are open 24 hours. I do remember seeing people in the Solarium hot tubs around 11pm, but I was usually in bed around that time at night.

 

Should my husband sign up for the flow rider lessons? He wants to do this, but hasn't ever tried it before. I wasn't sure if it was worth the $60. Thank you for any input.

I am not sold on the concept of flow rider lessons for a cost on the ship for $60. It really depends how many people sign up. If there are 6 or more of you, then you really only get about 10 minutes on the flow rider each for your money. I did a lesson in Ohio, where three of us each paid $30 for an hour. Now THAT was a good deal.

 

If you are referring to doing the boogie boarding and not the stand-up surfing, I definitely would not do the paid lesson. Most kids can do it the first time they try it with ease. I did a boogie board lesson elsewhere and they taught me tons of tricks. Unfortunately, RCCL had banned most tricks on boogie boarding since some idiot sued them and won even though the person signed a waiver (don't even get me started on this issue).

 

If you are talking about the stand up surfing, a lesson would be more beneficial there, but still not necessary. The people working the flow rider are generally great and they offer lots of assistance and support for newer riders. Typically, there were about 10-15 people in line on the stand up riding. This meant about a 15-20 minute wait each turn. There were times where it was just myself and one other person there and we had the whole thing to ourselves for 1/2 an hour (wasn't that awesome Andrew? I suspect you are reading this). I consider 1/2 an hour with only two people for free better than 60 minutes with 6 people for $60 each.

 

Either way, he should have a blast.

 

Tips for stand up that worked for me. When you get out on the wave and are standing, take a few seconds to bounce your body up and down and adjust your footing til it "feels" right (this was the biggest thing I figured out on my last trip and it helped a LOT). Stand tall with your shoulders back. Keep weight balanced equally on both feet, don't lean way forwards or back. IMPORTANT: when you fall (notice I say WHEN and not IF), try to land in a sitting position and just let the wave take you over the top. The falls I found the worst, but now I know how to avoid them, are the ones where you land on your butt, then your back as your shoulders hit the bottom surface. It does not hurt at the time, but 1 - 2 days later, you are in agony and all your neck muscles will be screaming. You basically give yourself whiplash. This type of fall is totally avoidable if you purposely land on your butt in a seated position.

 

Have fun on the flow rider, it is my favourite thing to do on the RCCL ships. I will post more about it in my review of the Sports Zone sometimes in the next few days.

[Russ Lomas]

Great review and pictures. Thank you for sharing your cruise adventures with us!

You are welcome. I know how much a couple of great photo reviews of the Oasis got me pumped up for my trip on her, so I am just returning the favour.

[Russ Lomas]

From what I have read, you do not need to sign up for wave rider before hand and there is no cost either :)

 

Clarification...you can either line up with everyone else while it is open and ride for free, sign up for a group lesson at a cost of $60 per person for one hour (these are done early in the morning or in the evening when it is closed to the general public - prior to 8am and after 6pm generally), or book the entire thing for yourself for an hour during times I mentioned above (you don't even want to know the cost of doing that).

 

I would recommend taking a long sleeved shirt, or even a shorty wet suit since the wind got pretty bad up there sometimes (that is when the line-ups were typically the shortest). When it was sunny and hot, the lines were 20+ people. I am told that they will rent you a shorty on the ship as well if you want, but cannot confirm this.

[A&L_Ont]

Lisa and I are very much enjoying your review. The pictures are amazing and I laughed as you described your shirt that blew away. The picture with you and your wife is wonderful and the pictures of the girls are the best.

 

I have been wanting to email you but I have been busy. We got hit by the ice storm last week and helped Hydro One slide their trucks like toboggans through 6 inches of mud to fix downed hydro wires. Now we are dealing with the insurance relating to our farm mangers flooded basement. It is going well, but just more problems than needed. Today has been the nicest day in a while.

 

It really makes me dream of warmer weather and the flow rider.

[Russ Lomas]

Lisa and I are very much enjoying your review. The pictures are amazing and I laughed as you described your shirt that blew away. The picture with you and your wife is wonderful and the pictures of the girls are the best.

Glad you are enjoying the review. I should post a photo of me from the front so people can see the design on the shirt in case somebody picked it up and wanted to return it to me;)

 

I will have to share with you sometime our "honeymoon from hell" story. You will not believe that one. The only positive thing about it was that when I lost my wedding band while scuba diving in the Atlantic off of Turks and Caicos, we managed to go back out to the dive site an hour later and the divemaster found the ring sitting in 60 feet of water in the sand, just 1 to 2 feet away from a 7000' drop into the Turks Island Passage trench.

[mad-dog74]

Another nice shot of the dining room on the top level.

 

The food was great overall in my opinion. At the end of this posting, I will post a link to a detailed review of the food that I did a few weeks back, for those of you who may not have read the thread before.

 

How did I find the service in the main dining room? Overall, it was very good. Miller was our waiter. He was very friendly and did learn very quickly that I am quite indecisive when it comes to ordering off the menu (there is just so much that sounds good). I usually ordered 2 or 3 appetizers, 2 entrees, and 2 desserts. I managed to gain 8.5 lbs during my cruise week, in spite of walking miles upon miles on that ship. I did it all for my fellow CruiseCritic members, just so you could enjoy the photos of the food I took. Miller did notice on some evenings that it took me a little longer to order my food. On those occasions he usually brought me a few extra plates of food that I did not order because he came to realize that I debating over other items I did not order.

 

There were two evenings where our service was "off" and painfully slow. We had the 6pm dinner sitting, which was best for us since we usually did a show after dinner with the kids before putting them down for the evening. Any later than a 6pm sitting would have put them up too late and they would have been grumpy the next day. The two nights that we arrived about 30 minutes late, around 6:30 were the two nights that service was not so great. I do not know if our late arrival threw off the timing, but it was definitely noticeable. He tried to bring the kids their meals first so that they could go off to the AdventureOcean kids programs, which we really appreciated, while the adults stayed to relax over dessert and coffee. One night took about 50 minutes before the adults even received a menu. Most of the time this was not the case however, and I would like to thank Miller and his assistant for helping make our cruise memorable.

 

The Freedom class ships offer a program where you can sign up your children to be picked up by AdventureOcean staff members at 6:45pm, so you can enjoy a bit more relaxed meal after the children go to the program. Unfortunately, the Oasis class ships offer no such program. Fortunately for us, our 11 year-old DD took up the little ones to program so we did not have to leave during dinner. I know some people may question letting our 11 year-old take up her younger siblings without us, but I felt very comfortable doing this on the ship. Would I do the same thing at a resort on land? No. It is just part of what I love about cruising. I feel so safe and comfortable at sea (insert comments here about the Costa Concordia and the never-ending list of malfunctioning Carnival cruise ships).

 

The Oasis class ships does offer a different program for child dining through AdventureOcean. You can leave your child in the program when it "closes" its doors at 6pm (or was it 5pm) and they will take your child for dinner in the Windjammer Cafe before taking them back to Adventure Ocean afterwards. We did this once, but both the kids and ourselves missed each others company at dinner, so we did not do this again. We prefer the program offered on the Freedom class of ships, but that is just our opinion.

 

One final photo for the night since it is almost midnight. This is one of my favourite candid shots of the entire cruise. My 9 year-old DD with our waiter, Miller.

 

Finally, the link below to the food review I wrote previously for those who may have missed it...

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1813591

 

Have a good night and I look forward to your comments and questions. Til tomorrow....

 

We had Miller as a Waiter on our Freedom cruise in 2008. We loved him!

[Russ Lomas]

We had Miller as a Waiter on our Freedom cruise in 2008. We loved him!

Overall, he was excellent. He had a couple of "off" nights, but the other 5 nights, he was fantastic. I know he talked to me a lot about only having a week left on his contract, so I think he was pretty excited about seeing his family soon. He may have been at home mentally with them on those nights. I would be happy to have him as my waiter again.

[sunnygirl1975]

Thank you Keifer and Russ for the advice on the flow rider. We are really excited about this feature. I will definitely need to record my husband on this. BTW did you see that the new Quantum ship has sky diving?

[kiefer1130]

Thank you Keifer and Russ for the advice on the flow rider. We are really excited about this feature. I will definitely need to record my husband on this. BTW did you see that the new Quantum ship has sky diving?

 

I did see the sky diving on Quantum....my hubby said, no way, a wind would blow me right off the ship...he cracks me up but I would love to try it!

[Russ Lomas]

There are many types of cabins on the Oasis. Being on a budget and paying for a family of six (I hate having to pay full price for a 9 year old since the first 2 in each cabin pay full fare - we should have stopped after having 2 kids and we could have afforded to go on twice as many cruises each year;)), I was looking for an inside cabin. We booked our cabins almost a full year in advance and there were very few inside cabins for this week (Ontario's March Break week) that were interconnecting with another cabin). I am glad I booked when I did because the interior rooms for 4 people were snapped up shortly thereafter and there were only balcony rooms and higher left available for 4 at that time. Occasionally, I did see a 4 person interior room pop up (guess somebody cancelled) but the price was about $100 per person more than I had originally paid. Not only that, but the price for the 3rd and 4th passengers increased about $250 per person. My advice...if you are booking for a busy time of year and you have a certain cabin in mind, book it as early as possible to avoid disappointment.

 

My DW and I stayed in 7434 and the 4 kids stayed in 7436. Our friends were in cabin 7438. We had a family outside on the Liberty of the Seas last year and loved the room and the space. We took 2 interconnecting rooms this year since it gave us 2 washrooms, which is a godsend when you are sharing with 5 women! It also was cheaper to do this than share a single family room, which I do not understand the logic behind in RCCL's pricing. When making our reservations, my DW and I each listed one of us in each room. I know that when boarding, you can ask to get the names on the rooms changes and get new keys, but we never bothered. She simply entered the cabin door to the kids' room and then went through the open adjoining door. One benefit of this was that I was able to purchase the All-Inclusive Alcohol Package and she was not forced to purchase the package since she was technically registered in another cabin and my 4 year-old DD was below the age forcing her to take the package under RCCL's rules.

 

Was the cabin small? Yes. We spend very little time in our cabin. The ship is the destination, so I really have no intention to spend a lot of time in the cabin other than sleeping, changing, and using the washroom. For our purposes, and interior cabin suits our needs. Now...I felt comfortable with 2 in the cabin, but when the pullout was out in our kids' room, it was very hard to maneuver around without bumping into furniture. I would not want to be in this room with 4 people in it personally.

 

Small, but comfortable interior cabin.

 

Once again, the washroom was small, but functionable.

 

 

We had some issues with our original reservation made directly through RCCL with a representative making some statements regarding combining credit that turned out to be incorrect. Several calls to supervisors at RCCL just left me feeling more frustrated. I e-mailed Adam Goldstein directly and received a response within 48 hours apologizing for the miscommunication and resolving the issue fully. When we arrived in our cabin, we had a little extra amenity with a note once again apologizing. Well done RCCL.

 

We did not see our cabin steward often, but our room was always kept neat. We had no issues with him at all. Henry (the vacuum) always kept a watchful eye for any litter.

[Russ Lomas]

Unfortunately, towel animals now appear only every second night and not every evening. The kids absolutely adore them and look forward to them daily. I had heard that they were only done every second evening, so I asked our cabin steward if he could make one for our girls every night and not bother making one for us on any of the nights. He said he would do this. This never happened however. I think it may partially be due to the language barrier. Both of our rooms got towel animals every second evening.

 

 

 

Our favourite one of the week...

[Russ Lomas]

Now just because I had an interior cabin and I said that it suits our purposes, it does not mean that I have no interest in seeing other cabin types. Luckily for me, I met a fellow CruiseCritic poster with whom I shared some bonding time via the Roll Call forum. We were similar in age, lived within about a 1/2 hour of each other in Ontario, had been through some similar personal situations regarding our children, and most important of all....BOTH LIVE TO FLOWRIDE!!!

 

His cabin was a little on the roomier side and I do believe he may have paid a few dollars more for his cabin than I did. He was nice enough to permit my family the chance to check out his suite. When I saw it, I felt as though I had been staying in one of those cabins in the movie Titanic below the waterline and we were squeezed 12 to a room on bunk beds. I pictured my family in that scene with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslett drinking, singing, and dancing in the bowels of the ship while playing the accordion, while the other families had closets larger than my entire cabin, had people to walk their dogs around the deck, sipping the finest champagne and smoking cigars after dinner in the men's smoking room.

 

All I can say is, "Thanks Andrew for sharing your room with us." I shared a few of the pictures of the room, especially the ones with our family posing on the staircase, around work and told people that was our room and that all of the rooms on the Oasis were actually like that. If I had not come clean and told them the truth later, I am sure I could have booked another 100 people myself on the Oasis for the next March Break.

 

All I can say is This Suite is SWEET.

 

I think my DD likes this room. I believe she is thinking to herself..."How can I get adopted by these people???"

 

 

Even the towel animals have more space than I did in my cabin.

 

A view from the master loft bedroom. No need to go to the Main Dining Room when they will serve you dinner in your own cabin. The balcony you see outside the window is only 1/2 of the balcony. It wraps all the way around to the other side as well (where the private hot tub is located).

 

 

Not a bad view from your bed in the loft...your deck, your bar on your deck, the zipline, the sports court, the flowrider, the ocean...nice.