Live "Oasis Jan 2nd 2016"

[whitshel]

Hi all, yes I am going to give a live review a shot with our Jan 2nd Oasis cruise. I know it's early but we've already started our vacation and are half way to Florida!!

 

I don't think I'll do a blow by blow every second were on the ship but I will post pics, answer questions and give a fly by of what's going on. At least that's what I plan. It may come out way different, who knows.

 

So here goes, our group will consist of 13 of us, myself,dw, 2 dd's, mil, fil, bil,sil and niece, wife's aunt and uncle and our 2 good friends. Here is some of us from a couple years ago.

 

I will do most of this through tapatalk because I plan on taking pics with my "note 4" only, I don't have a online pic site except google and apparently that won't work with posting with cruise critic on my laptop.

 

We have all cruised before but my family's 1st cruise as Diamond members, woohoo!! Now I'm might jump around a bit, but not on purpose, sorry in advance. I booked this cruise over 2 years ago when the bogo 1st started and the price was reasonable, then as the time went by all of the others tagged on. For all of us it will be our 1st time on an Oasis class ship, we're all very excited.

 

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[whitshel]

Here is just me n my peeps

 

The basic Oasis western itinerary

 

Now we normally wouldn't be able to afford to do Oasis, "it's very expensive" (I like to quote movies, that's a line from pretty woman) and see I jump around a lil. Anyhow, This Actually Fit Our Budget But I Knew I Would Have to get creative with airfare (family of 4 means everything is multiplied by 4) so a $400 Plane ticket means $1600 and yes about 9 months ago that's what fares were from San Diego (and all other socal airports) to fll. So like I usually do I checked other spots including Vegas, Frisco, Phoenix etc but all were just as high. For some reason I checked Dallas, an can you believe it, $67 round freaking trip. That was on Spirit, please nothing from the peanut gallery, i get Spirit, bottom basement price with frills but i couldnt pass up $67. the wife's family had friends in Dallas that we visit now n then, so I mentioned it to dw, she said heck ya, a road trip and cruise so we booked it.

 

This is what or trip looks like

 

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[whitshel]

Fast forward to now, the road trip now consists of 6 of us, mil and fil as well. I planned out our route months ago, 1st day drive 9 hours and stay in New Mexico. Day 2 (today Tuesday the 29th) drive to Carlsbad Caverns, spend a couple hours there then drive to Midland Texas for the night. Day 3 finish the drive to Dallas (5 hours)

 

Here we are, ready to go. Don't YA Just Love selfies?

 

 

Now have any of you seen the weather for new Mexico and west texas for this past weekend? Omg snow, blizzard like conditions, are you flipping kidding me? The weekend before we leave, really? ?? Oh well I guess it didn't matter, we were going no matter what. Monday (yesterday) came and we were off. No issues yesterday but we were worried about going to the caverns today because of the road conditions and time it would have taken us to get there so we just made an easy day of it and drove to Midland which is where we are now.

 

 

And a few shots of the drive.

 

 

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[whitshel]

Once again sorry in advance for any misspelled words or "auto-corrected" words, damn auto correct [emoji4]. The spirit line should have read "no frills airline" like I said I'm doing this all on my phone so it's hard to reread to make sure it's correct.

 

Those shots were around Las Cruces New Mexico. Here's a couple more

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[lmares1968]

Subscribed and excited to read your review. We are leaving next Wednesday and cruising the 9th on Oasis. We're flying out of Denver, but I absolutely love roadtrips and driving through each state. Have fun and I look forward to reading more.:D

[Clarea]

Enjoying the photos already.:)

[Setting sail for fun]

What an adventure - we love road trips as well. The photos are beautiful. Looking forward to the rest of your report!

[LuCruise]

What a great review already and you're not even on the ship.

So wonderful that you are travelling with extended family and that you are driving and will spend some time beforehand on your road trip adventure.

Following along. Looking forward to hearing more. Enjoy!

Edited December 30, 2015 by LuCruise

[whitshel]

Woke up early this morning, can't sleep so I'll continue little bit more before we take off for day 3, which shouldn't be too bad. Just a 5 hour drive into Dallas then dinner with our friends.

 

Thanks to all of you for following, like I said this is the 1st time doing this so hang on I'll eventually get it right.:D

[Lionesss]

What a great start to a review.

 

Already in my favorites.

 

Thanks for doing this.

 

Safe travels.

[whitshel]

I am going to put a couple links here for a couple of our past cruises that I made video slideshows out of. The 1st is our 6 night Indy cruise from 2013 and the second will be just a couples cruise on the Navigator out of Galveston, yes us and our bff's did a road trip to Galveston to take this cruise, ya we like to drive I guess :eek:

 

If nothing else they do have good music synced up to them, so if you're bored and can spare an hour of your life give em a looksy.

 

Independence 6 day 2013

 

Navigator 7 Day 2015

Edited December 30, 2015 by whitshel

[whitshel]

For the cruise since we booked so long ago we were able to snag room 11729 rear aft boardwalk cabin for my daughters and we got 3 Oceanview cabins across the hall. Not ideal for the walk to get anywhere but we thought the girls would enjoy their be cabin. I actually had a chance to get any rear bw cabin, they were all open when I booked, I decided on deck 11, deck 12 looks obstructed by the control room and 14 was just out of the question.

 

And so close to the Diamond lounge [emoji41]

 

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[hancogran]

Enjoying your review and can't wait to read the rest. We sail Oasis Jan. 30. Have a fantastic cruise! :)

[A&L_Ont]

I am loving this review. Having driven across Canada almost ten times and as far north as the Yukon I always love a good road trip. To live vicariously through you makes it even better. New Mexico looks amazing with the snow on the mountains.

 

The roof box must be full to the brim as the back end of the van doesn't look like it is overflowing. Needless to say the van looks to be full of happy people and I hope it remains that way.;)

 

Congrats on becoming Diamond members. I can't wait to read more.

 

Edit: where will you be for NYE and do you have plans for where you are located that night?

Edited December 30, 2015 by A&L_Ont

[bubba83]

Enjoying already...safe travels for the rest of your drive!

[whitshel]

For cruise related stuff, like I said this will be our 1st Diamond cruise (YES!). I booked some of our dinning and entertainment, on a side note I really wanted to book allure because of Samba and the eastern itinerary but we really didn't want to see Chicago and we love Hairspray and Labadee plus Oasis was a couple bux cheaper so I went with Oasis really because of Hairspray. Well guess what, they really messsed that up for us with these refurbs, we don't want to see cats and we love Mama Mia more than Hairspray so I guess I made the wrong choice! Oh well, what can you do??

 

I plan on buying the 3 dinner package once onboard, we have a $350 obc ($250 from our t/a and $100 from a next cruise) so I didn't want to prebook them, hopefully it will work out once onboard. We chose MTD but I'm a little worried since there are 13 of us, I tried to book MTD online but it wouldn't let me add the other reservations So i booked them all individually at the same time. We'll go straight to the dinning room once we board to get it worked out. Plus I think we'll only be in there for 2 dinners, we also received a a specialty restaurant voucher from our t/as so that will be 4 nights in specialty restaurants.

 

Now this is where I might need some help from you fine folks, which restaurants to choose? Chops for sure, maybe twice. I was wanting to do the hibachi grill but that the fine print online says it's not good for the dinning packages. Sabor is a good possibility, we liked it on the NOS. Probably the biggest question is 150 central park, I definitely want to try it and to get the most from our dinning package but I'm not sure of the rest of our group will enjoy it. Hmmmm, what to do, what to do......

 

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[A&L_Ont]

For cruise related stuff, like I said this will be our 1st Diamond cruise (YES!). I booked some of our dinning and entertainment, on a side note I really wanted to book allure because of Samba and the eastern itinerary but we really didn't want to see Chicago and we love Hairspray and Labadee plus Oasis was a couple bux cheaper so I went with Oasis really because of Hairspray. Well guess what, they really messsed that up for us with these refurbs, we don't want to see cats and we love Mama Mia more than Hairspray so I guess I made the wrong choice! Oh well, what can you do??

 

I plan on buying the 3 dinner package once onboard, we have a $350 obc ($250 from our t/a and $100 from a next cruise) so I didn't want to prebook them, hopefully it will work out once onboard. We chose MTD but I'm a little worried since there are 13 of us, I tried to book MTD online but it wouldn't let me add the other reservations So i booked them all individually at the same time. We'll go straight to the dinning room once we board to get it worked out. Plus I think we'll only be in there for 2 dinners, we also received a a specialty restaurant voucher from our t/as so that will be 4 nights in specialty restaurants.

 

Now this is where I might need some help from you fine folks, which restaurants to choose? Chops for sure, maybe twice. I was wanting to do the hibachi grill but that the fine print online says it's not good for the dinning packages. Sabor is a good possibility, we liked it on the NOS. Probably the biggest question is 150 central park, I definitely want to try it and to get the most from our dinning package but I'm not sure of the rest of our group will enjoy it. Hmmmm, what to do, what to do......

 

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We usually do Chops and Giovanni's at least once a cruise. We have done 150 and it was a wonderful event. As simple as it is we really like Sabor, the Mexican restaurant. We usually eat there twice a cruise.

 

You have some delicious discussions to mull over during your drive.

[whitshel]

Yes it's cold here in Texas, especially for us light weights from Socal.

22 degrees last night, brrrrr

 

But look, snow! We don't get to see a lot of snow.

 

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[BillOh]

For cruise related stuff, like I said this will be our 1st Diamond cruise (YES!).

 

I guess its like when you get a new car, suddenly you notice people driving that same type of car that you didn't notice before. We are 120 days from our first diamond cruise and I've read recently about many others taking their first as Diamond

 

I did one road trip cruise, Columbus to Tampa. My wife and I were talking about doing that again someday.

[whitshel]

I am loving this review. Having driven across Canada almost ten times and as far north as the Yukon I always love a good road trip. To live vicariously through you makes it even better. New Mexico looks amazing with the snow on the mountains.

 

The roof box must be full to the brim as the back end of the van doesn't look like it is overflowing. Needless to say the van looks to be full of happy people and I hope it remains that way.;)

 

Congrats on becoming Diamond members. I can't wait to read more.

 

Edit: where will you be for NYE and do you have plans for where you are located that night?

Actually the box on top of the van has 3 suit cases in it, all for the cruise. We all have 1 cruise suitcase that we don't need to get into until Saturday and a couple "texas" bags. So we basically have 2 sets of travel gear. And flying spirit, you have to pack light, only 40lbs per bag. The nice thing is our hotel is Dallas is a park n go rate so the van stays along with all texas gear and anything else we don't need. [emoji41]

 

As for NYE, nothing planned that we know of, some of our peeps here are pretty big partiers, so I would imagine they will have something planned. We're not big partiers but do like a good time. My daughters and I were going to try n do an Att Stadium tour (my fil and I did it a few years ago and it was awesome but my daughters wanted to sleep in) but it's only open on Friday and there is no field access So I think we'll pass. So we really have nothing planned for Dallas.

 

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Edited December 30, 2015 by whitshel

[Ocean Boy]

For cruise related stuff, like I said this will be our 1st Diamond cruise (YES!). I booked some of our dinning and entertainment, on a side note I really wanted to book allure because of Samba and the eastern itinerary but we really didn't want to see Chicago and we love Hairspray and Labadee plus Oasis was a couple bux cheaper so I went with Oasis really because of Hairspray. Well guess what, they really messsed that up for us with these refurbs, we don't want to see cats and we love Mama Mia more than Hairspray so I guess I made the wrong choice! Oh well, what can you do??

 

I plan on buying the 3 dinner package once onboard, we have a $350 obc ($250 from our t/a and $100 from a next cruise) so I didn't want to prebook them, hopefully it will work out once onboard. We chose MTD but I'm a little worried since there are 13 of us, I tried to book MTD online but it wouldn't let me add the other reservations So i booked them all individually at the same time. We'll go straight to the dinning room once we board to get it worked out. Plus I think we'll only be in there for 2 dinners, we also received a a specialty restaurant voucher from our t/as so that will be 4 nights in specialty restaurants.

 

Now this is where I might need some help from you fine folks, which restaurants to choose? Chops for sure, maybe twice. I was wanting to do the hibachi grill but that the fine print online says it's not good for the dinning packages. Sabor is a good possibility, we liked it on the NOS. Probably the biggest question is 150 central park, I definitely want to try it and to get the most from our dinning package but I'm not sure of the rest of our group will enjoy it. Hmmmm, what to do, what to do......

 

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I didn't like Chicago when we were on Allure and I did like Hairspray on Oasis. And I would much rather see Mama Mia than Cats. So what is our upcoming cruise... Oasis with Cats.:rolleyes:

Edited December 30, 2015 by Ocean Boy

[whitshel]

I guess its like when you get a new car, suddenly you notice people driving that same type of car that you didn't notice before. We are 120 days from our first diamond cruise and I've read recently about many others taking their first as Diamond

 

I did one road trip cruise, Columbus to Tampa. My wife and I were talking about doing that again someday.

Isn't that the truth!!

 

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[whitshel]

I didn't like Chicago when we were on Allure and I did like Hairspray on Oasis. And I would much rather see Mama Mia than Cats. So what is our upcoming cruise... Oasis with Cats.:rolleyes:

See, how does that happen? Ughh! We saw Mama Mia in Vegas and love the movie. We've never seen the live performance of Hairspray but again love the movie. We really have no desire what's so ever to see Cats. Ya roll the dice, ya lose! [emoji21]

 

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[A&L_Ont]

After all the snow you have seen you might not think about the skating show but don't miss it. The skating is great but the sand artist is spectacular.

 

The pics of your girls in the snow is a good one. It might be the snow their uggs have ever seen.:p

 

Safe travels today.

Andrew

[jzad]

Following along, great review already and you're not even in florida yet! have a great time!