Emerald Princess vs. Oasis....Just off Oasis

[cherylakers]

We just returned with our daughter and her family from a nice cruise aboard Oasis of the Seas.

 

Since most reviews here on the Princess Board are of their ships, I decided to do a comparison between Princess and Royal Caribbean.

 

Our last cruise on Princess was on the Emerald for 28 days this past April in the South Pacific.

 

Just so you know we are elite on Princess and are very much fans of this line. On RC we are Emerald members which would be like a platinum on Princess.

 

We are in our late 60's, daughter and SIL in early 40's and granddaughters 9 and 11.

 

It was our granddaughters' first cruise.

 

CABIN

 

We usually sail in an inside cabin on Princess and we found those mid ship cabins on Riviera deck that are large inside. We love that location. On Oasis we decided on Boardwalk balconies. I will say those cabins seemed much larger than the inside cabins on the Emerald. The inside on Oasis are the same size, but with a slightly smaller couch. The storage was not as good as Princess inside cabins. I like that Princess puts the closets facing the bathroom so they are not in the way of the bed. Royal didn't have as much drawer space and the closet was smaller. We still had enough room, but not as much to spread out.

 

I did like the couch arrangement on Royal. On Princess there is no couch for the inside cabins.

 

Also love the shower door on Royal. No curtain to get stuck in your "you know what"

 

The emerald had the new beds and they were so comfy. Royal's beds were hard as a rock and hubby had a backache every morning.

 

We did get towel animals every night which the granddaughters loved.

 

We had a connecting door to their cabin on Royal, but could not open the balcony door between us to make 1 big balcony. The was a disappointment.

 

We had a terrific room steward, but you find those on every ship.

 

ENTERTAINMENT

 

Now here is where I like Princess better than the Oasis class ships. We have been on both Oasis and Allure.

 

You have to make reservations to see every show. Then coordinate your dinner reservations so you can make the shows. Then hope the line isn't too long to get in the theater.

 

I like Princess where if you are doing late dining you go to early show and early dining you go to late show. You don't need reservations either. There is a show every night in the theater plus a show in the smaller lounge.

 

There were nights on Royal where it was a repeat in the theater so we had no show to go to. We had made reservations for all 4 of their big shows. Since we had small children with us, we couldn't go to the comedy club.

 

I will say the shows on Royal were fantastic. They do have the ice skating show, water show, Cats in the main theater and another night and music and dance theater show.

 

For us when we travel alone or with another couple only, we prefer late dining with an early show. It just works for us.

 

The pools and hot tubs were very crowded, but they are on Princess in the Caribbean too.

 

You do have to check your pool towels out and in and they scan your room card to do this on Royal. I think more people turn their towels in this way and not leave them on chairs all day.

 

DINING

 

Ok, I know this is subjective. We are definitely not picky eaters. We like Taco Bell once a week so that tells you something.

 

The food was just ok on Royal Caribbean. There were nights my husband could not find anything that sounded good to him so he ordered a burger or spaghetti off of the kids menu. He is not a fish eater.

 

There was only 1 steak on the cruise and that was a strip type steak as an always available. One of the girls had it and it was tough as could be ordered medium.

 

Lots of fish on the menu and I had it most nights and it was ok. Lobster wasn't much to write home about, but either is Princess lobster. They had a few shrimp dishes that were good.

 

The weird thing was they did not have a green tossed salad every night. I asked and the waiter said he could ask to have something made up for me. It was a huge wedge of lettuce with 3 tomato slices and dressing. Not much of salad.

 

I am on weight watchers so I didn't have dessert, but I noticed no cherries jubilee, no bananas foster, no soufflés, they had the same 4 desserts every night. Strawberry cheesecake, apple pie, chocolate cake and creme brûlée. They added a cake of some kind to this assortment.

 

Ice cream was only chocolate, vanilla or strawberry, no other variety and no sherbet or sorbet.

 

Appetizers were just so so also.

 

I don't like the buffet because you have to walk to different stations all over the windjammer to get your food. We did eat breakfast there almost every day. They also didn't seem to have enough help. No one to get you drinks and then you hunted for the coffee station in the morning.

 

The buffet food again was just ok.

 

We had the soda package so I did like the machines in the buffet area to get your cup filled with soda. Very nice touch.

 

The one thing I noticed was the attire. You can basically where anything in the dining room. Shorts - go ahead and wear them. Tank top - acceptable, Back Pack on your back - Good place to put leftovers. On formal night I saw a lady with her cheeks hanging out of her shorts, tank top, flip flops, ball cap and back pack. Ugh. Now we don't dress up for formal night anymore, but that was ridiculous. I wear nice dress slacks and a nice top. Hubby wears nice slacks and nice long sleeve button down shirts and his good loafers.

 

It was a different type of crowd, meaning the younger kids. To me anyone below 50 is a kid. More of a party type of group. Nothing wrong with that, but not for me.

 

We chose Royal because I wanted more things to keep the grandchildren occupied. They tried ice skating and the rock climbing wall. They were in the pool all day and loved it.

 

EMBARKATION/DEBARKATION

 

We went to St. Thomas and St. Maarten. We did our own things and went to beaches. The girls had a blast. They snorkeled and jumped on trampolines in the water, etc.

 

Getting off and on the ship in each port was very easy.

 

I did like that they had a towel station outside of the ship and the end of each dock. You checked out your towels there and again dropped them back when you returned. You didn't need to hunt them down the day before or see if they had them before exiting the ship.

 

Embarkation went very smooth. Oasis is in a new terminal at Port Canaveral. After getting your sea pass card, you could sit anywhere you wanted. They called you to board by your Crown and Anchor status. Since I was the only Emerald member, they let the entire family board with me. It didn't take but 30 minutes from getting our cruise card to getting on the ship. We went straight in for pizza and waited for the rooms to open up at 1 p.m.

 

All of our benefits were loaded on our cruise card so we just told our bar tender if we had a perk on our card to go ahead and use it, etc. We had free Johnny Rockets for 4 on our card, plus the soda package. The cups were in our room when we boarded.

 

Not sure how Princess handles this as we have never had a soda package with them.

 

We did walk off and were off the ship by 7 a.m. and thru customs by 7:15. We hired a taxi to take us back to where our cars were parked. It was very easy, but this was because customs was staffed very well at the port. They didn't even scan your passports, they just looked at them. No more customs declarations to fill out unless you really splurged and went over your limit on spending.

 

In the future we will probably stick with Princess exclusively. We are going to the BI next year on the Crown. I would only do Royal again if Princess didn't go where we wanted to sail or if Royal sent us an offer we couldn't refuse.

 

Looking at 2020 now to see where the next adventure on Princess will be. I want to sail on a Royal Class Ship again. Love them.

[UAL_FlyGal]

The one thing I noticed was the attire. You can basically where anything in the dining room. Shorts - go ahead and wear them. Tank top - acceptable, Back Pack on your back - Good place to put leftovers. On formal night I saw a lady with her cheeks hanging out of her shorts, tank top, flip flops, ball cap and back pack. Ugh. Now we don't dress up for formal night anymore, but that was ridiculous. I wear nice dress slacks and a nice top. Hubby wears nice slacks and nice long sleeve button down shirts and his good loafers.

 

 

That really tickled me, cherylakers!! Thanks SO much for taking the time to make the comparison!

[Bimmer09]

Great comparison piece. Thanks for all the detail! I didn't have any plans to sail RC and now I feel even more comfortable with that decision.

Norris

[DnA2010]

Interesting, thanks! We’ve been on Oasis but are going on our first Princess on Emerald next month :)

I can’t wait to be retired an go on a 28 day cruise :hail:

[Colo Cruiser]

Thanks for taking the time to post your comparison.

They can keep the Behemoth Of the Seas. :rolleyes:

[antsp]

Thanks for the review, last time we sailed on RCCL it was the Navigator of the seas and I said I would never sail RCCL again. I might make the exception for an Oasis class.