Oasis behind the scene tour... yea or nay?

[Iplayslots]

My wife thought this tour would be right up my alley.  Any have personal experience with this tour, and maybe let me know if it is a MUST DO or DOODOO.

THANKS

[vacationlover_mn]

We loved doing this tour on Symphony! I’m sure Oasis would be neat too.  There was a lot of walking, and a few interesting rules (no shorts, no sandals- but they didn’t turn away people on our tour who broke the rules).  

[inlinesick]

We LOVED it!!! I highly recommend it! Or there is the Brunch galley tour as well, which was also awesome.

[bobmacliberty]

Definitely worth doing at least once, especially if you're the kind of person who likes to understand how things work behind the scenes.  I love that stuff.  Not the same as Oasis (which is probably bigger/better/more expensive), but I posted several pictures from a tour on Serenade here:

Serenade - Living the Suite Life and Big vs. Small - Royal Caribbean International - Cruise Critic Community

I think we lost post numbers in a recent Cruise Critic update, but you should be able to scroll down 7 postings to the post that starts with All Access Tour and read from there.

[firefly333]

I did the free tour of city park and enjoyed it. It's a small line item on the planner and only about a dozen people showed up

[2chiefs]

We've done several behind the scenes tours on several ships. We've done the galley, the bridge, and the theater. We also did a behind the scenes at the skating rink. All were interesting but once or twice the group was so big that you sometimes couldn't hear the guide.

Highly recommended to do at least once.

T

[cruise_co]

We did it on Oasis and absolutely loved the tour. My family is a bunch of science geeks so loved seeing how everything works behind the scenes.  We spent the majority of our time in the engine room learning how the ship takes care of waste.  We were in the Mediterranean at the time so they went over in detail how it was different when there are countries on both sides vs being out in the open ocean.

 

We also got a detailed tour of the galley, 1-95, the crew hangout spots, a quick look at the costume storage for the theater, and the laundry.  Last but not least we toured the bridge. The view off the bridge now has me salivating to book the Ultimate Panoramic Suite. The only thing holding me back is the lack of a balcony since we are definitely the type of cruiser that spends more time in their cabin and enjoys the balcony.

 

We have only been on 2 ships, the Carnival Liberty and the Oasis.  With our limited experience, I would have to say that Carnival does a better job with their tour than Royal Caribbean. At the time, it included a picture with the Captain on the bridge. On the Oasis tour, the captain wasn't even there to answer questions.

 

Now that we have the cruising virus, unfortunately cut short by another type of virus, we have decided that this will be a family tradition on every new ship we try.  We love to see how each ship is run just a little differently.  We just booked our first Star Suite (with 3 years of unused cruise budget it was a no brainer) so as I understand there are some mini tours that come with the package. I would highly recommend the tour to anyone that loves the inner workings of things. Even with the tours that come with Star we will probably still book the full tour as it was so interesting and enjoyable. 

 

Make sure you wear closed toe shoes, long pants, and can walk a ton with lots of up and down on stairs. They may not enforce shorts in the dining room but our tour guide and several others on Oasis were very strict and sent people back to their cabin to change.

[twangster]

Did it on Harmony.  Unlike some other lines cameras are allowed although no video but still pictures are permitted.

 

Visited the galley, laundry, recycle center, cold stores, engine control room, HR and the bridge.  At each stop someone from that department provided an overview.  Unsure what they'll do while under pandemic protocols.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you are a cruise geek it's definitely something to experience at least once. 

[RFerrington]

There are 2 different tours (or were, back when we used to sail).

 

The "Behind the Scenes" tour is one that is available to Suite and Pinnacle guests at no cost.  This tour is limited in what it includes but is definitely worth it if you are primarily interested in the bridge, entertainment venues and galley.

 

The All Access Tour is a much larger tour and includes things like the laundry, the engine room (although there is usually no access into the engine room itself), cold storage, trash, bridge, galley, security, crew leisure area (including their dining room and a typical crew quarters), main theater and other areas I'm sure I'm forgetting.  When we did this on Radiance many years ago, we even got to go to the Captain's Quarters but this was not a normal part of the tour...we just got lucky.

 

Both of these tours are worth the time...but if you really are interested in the inner workings of the ship, I strongly recommend the All Access Tour.  I don't think they are as thorough as they once were, but they are also less expensive than they used to be !  We got some nice tote bags and Royal Caribbean aprons from ours; not sure they still give those gifts anymore.

[Hogbay]

3 hours ago, Iplayslots said:

My wife thought ....

It's a GREAT idea 😇

 

Welcome to CC

[yogimax]

1 hour ago, firefly333 said:

I did the free tour of city park and enjoyed it. It's a small line item on the planner and only about a dozen people showed up

We enjoyed this tour as well.  As you say, it will be buried in the daily planner activity list.  It was good to learn about all the flora and fauna, government inspections and even smoke venting.

[Pratique]

1 hour ago, twangster said:

Unsure what they'll do while under pandemic protocols.

Galleys will probably be off limits. As much as I enjoyed seeing them I always wondered why they ever allowed guests in there without asking so much as "are you feeling well today?"

[twangster]

9 minutes ago, Pratique said:

Galleys will probably be off limits. As much as I enjoyed seeing them I always wondered why they ever allowed guests in there without asking so much as "are you feeling well today?"

 

Along with the bridge and engine control room.  

[vacationlover_mn]

4 hours ago, firefly333 said:

I did the free tour of city park and enjoyed it. It's a small line item on the planner and only about a dozen people showed up

I love that one!  We’ve done it on all 4 ships 🙂

[Subman738]

I am one who likes the behind the scenes stuff. I've always been amazed that they can pull into port, offload people, luggage, trash then clean the ship, restock food, load baggage and people al in a VERY short period of time.  I did a behind the scenes tour during a Panama canal cruise and thought is was VERY interesting. Like others have said  be prepared for a lot of walking but it is worth doing at least once if you haven't every done one. 

[lv2cruisgrl]

Do it you will enjoy it! We have toured many ships and always enjoy it.

[NanciRDH]

We did the all access on Freedom, and enjoyed all of it.  My husband is a grocery store manager, and seeing the food storage areas was the highlight for him lol.  We too got the bags, they're my favorite grocery shopping bags, and I always get compliments on them for some weird reason.  One funny thing did happen, when we were in cold storage, with all the boxes of fruit, the tour guide shut the door and said it doesn't lock, so there won't be anyone accidently stuck.  But then the door wouldn't open and he had to call security to let us out. 🤣🤣🤣

[Bailey & Sophie]

 

It's not just the walking. There may be narrow stairs to go up and/or down, and tall door thresholds to navigate over. One woman on our tour had mobility issues. She had to be carried over these thresholds. They're probably about 6-8 inches tall and pretty wide.

We did ours on Celebrity Equinox and we did get in to the engine room. Very noisy!

Loved it.

[Lionesss]

@twangster

Your pictures are awesome!!!

It brought back great memories of our first All Access Tour.

 

Side note:

 

We did this tour twice on the Allure.

A few years back it was more detailed and more descriptive.  

In July of 2019 we did it for the second time and took our DD and boyfriend at that time (now fiance) on the tour. We told them it was one of the best tours we ever did.

 

 

Boy did it change since we did it the first time.

We were very disappointed on the lack of descriptions and explanations on part of the tour.

Detail was lacking in certain areas.

 

The parts we really enjoyed were the galley and I 95.

 

The bridge, and engine room were rather just look and see.  No detailed explanations and we were hurried through.  The Laundry was another story, it seemed like we were a bother and had to wait for 15  min until a representative was found to talk to us.

 

When it was done, we were given our final farewells in the area outside a bank of elevators, the only thing we heard was  DING, DING, DING.  We were given a nautical knot, no more aprons, and we were able to keep the nifty lanyard with our names in it.

 

We let our review known to our concierge in the suite lounge.

We were reimbursed for this tour x 4 adults and RCI headquarters contacted us post cruise and made amends with a significant future cruise credit to be used in one year.

 

So in essence we were paid to do this tour.

 

I hope it goes back to the way it was.

In the long run I think the reason our experience was a dud was because our guide was lacking in knowledge.

 

Stay healthy  

[RFerrington]

I think they basically "scaled-back" the All Access Tour from what it was originally...and there has been a reduction in price to go along with the reduced experience.

 

Back when we did it (many years ago) it was quite extensive and was pretty long.  It was really enjoyable and we saw many parts of the ship that we would never have, otherwise, seen.  It was well worth the money, to us.  We will probably not do it again but I am very glad that we did the tour when it was still very extensive.  I recall, in particular, seeing the crew mess, the crew galley and our guide even took us to see her quarters.  I don't know if all of that is still included or not.

[Subman738]

Being retired Navy I was interested in the general operation. I did this tour on another ship and found it quite interesting. Like something posted earlier, there was a lot of walking and up and down stairs but definitely something to do at least once. I am fascinated that something as big as the Oasis can literally move sideways to dock/undock and be underway in such a short period of time. I usually took 2-3 hours to just move my submarine away from the pier. LOL!