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OnceAMarineAlwaysAMarine

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About Me

  • Location
    Long Island, New York
  • Interests
    Genealogy
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Royal Caribbean
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    Caribbean

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OnceAMarineAlwaysAMarine's Achievements

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  1. Sorry, we got limo service from central Long Island using a local limo company.
  2. You do not set up any accounts. I went online and scheduled my test and my wife's test separately. Mine was at 9:00 and hers was at 9:30. When I signed in at 9:00, the nurse said she sees my wife's appointment at 9:30 and said that she could handle both of our tests at the same time. If the nurse does not see that you have multiple tests scheduled then I would just ask when you go to do the first test. They were very accommodating.
  3. Just got off Oasis and they had a parade and dances in the Promenade. A crew member told me that they had just recently restarted this. Apparently they were cancelled for a while during Covid, but they are back now. Hopefully your Voyager class ship will also have the parades.
  4. We just got off Oasis and they had a table set up in the Promenade outside of Sorrentos with the cups. They check your seapass card then give you the mug. They were not the new plastic style cups, but the older insulated cups which I think are much better.
  5. We did the Blue Lagoon Beach Break in 2018 and thought it was really a good excursion. We just did the same excursions last week and the Blue Lagoon Island has gone downhill. We got drinks from the bar twice, and both times the bartenders were treating us like we were bothering them by ordering a drink and when we asked a question about a drink they were very rude with their answers, like we should know ahead of time what is in a drink we have never tried. Neither one smiled, even when we made jokes with them. The food included with the excursion was TERRIBLE. Hot dogs and hamburgers were both very cold, corn was cold, and the salads were very bland. The only redeeming quality is the lagoon itself, which is beautiful, however, there were quite a few jelly fish in the area close to the dock. One little girl got stung and ran out of the water crying. A woman close to use also got stung and they took her to the medical center. We were right there in the same area and none of us were stung.
  6. We did not park at Cape Liberty this time because we had 8 people in our group. We used a limo service to get us to the port. When we got back to Port Liberty at the end of the cruise, they started letting people off the ship at 6:45 and they scheduled our departure for 7:15. Since they get everyone off so early, they are able to start boarding the next cruise earlier. I believe our boarding started at around 10:30 for the priority boarding group and we were on board by 10:45. There is no longer a muster drill. You watch the safety briefing on your phone using the APP or you can view it on your cabin TV. After viewing it you must go to your muster station to check in and confirm to them that you have watched the safety briefing. The easiest way to get show and dinner reservations is by using the APP. In the APP, tap on ENTERTAINMENT and then (at the top) tap on SHOWS AND EVENTS to make your reservations. If you have linked reservations you can reserve for everyone in your group. To get dining reservations tap on DINING at the bottom of the APP to make your reservations. If you do not have access to the APP then (if you want to book as soon as you board) you will need to go to the reservation desk outside Boleros. It is a small black podium manned by two or three crew members. They make reservations for you using their tablets. Go early to avoid long lines at this desk.
  7. They have a desk set up in the Promenade in front of Boleros where you can make all your reservations. It is a small black podium with two or three RCCL employees standing next to it. It is not labelled so you may have to ask if you don't see it. Go there early before the lines get long. Make sure you book Aqua 80!!! We used the APP and it was very easy. Before 10:00 there is a line outside the terminal waiting for the doors to open. The waiting area after you check in is inside the terminal. The check in procedure is very quick if you have completed the online check-in on the RCCL web site or on the APP. They have rows of chairs and they will instruct you on where to sit. Those with priority boarding are put in a separate area.
  8. We were a group of 8 with a check in time of 10:00. We arrived at Port Liberty at 9:30 and got through the check in process easily. We had to sit in the waiting area for approximately ½ hour before they started the boarding process. We were on board by 10:45. At that time the Windjammer was not so crowded so we headed there for lunch. Our cabin (12308) was available to us at 1:00 and we met our wonderful cabin steward Sugi (Sugiyanto). The ship is very long and I think that next time we would book a cabin closer to the elevators. We had a cabin in the aft section and we are in our mid 70s so those frequent long walks to and from the elevators made us want to be closer to the elevators. For the most part, we ate in the main dining room and once again had great waiters (Satish and Sweetson). The food was average for a Royal Caribbean ship but the one meal that stood out was the beef tenderloin. It was delicious. The Windjammer food was again typical of other Royal Caribbean ships. A less crowded option for breakfast was the Solarium Cafe. Sorrento's served up pizza all day and well into the night ( I think they closed up around 2:00 or 3:00 a.m.). I was only able to get a made-to-order omelette when we had breakfast in the main dining room. Johnny Rockets also had a free breakfast and that was good. When you first get on-board be sure to make reservations for the Aqua 80 show. DO NOT miss this show. I was unsure that I wanted to go to it, but we went on the first night is was presented and WOW, was I ever impressed. This is the best show that I have seen on any cruise ship. I made reservations as soon as we boarded for all 8 of us, but somehow my reservation got lost. We went there 20 minutes before show time and got on the stand by line. We did not get seats and had standing room, but were really blown away by this production. We actually went again the following night to see it again. Once again we had to go to the stand by line, but this time we got seats. I would recommend booking this show on the first night it is available since it may be cancelled if the seas or wind are too rough. Once again I will repeat – DO NOT MISS THIS SHOW. Another extremely impressive activity is the Royal Escape Room. Once again it books up fast so reserve it as soon as you can. The escape room is a mock up of the NASA mission control room and you have 50 minutes to try and solve all the puzzles to get a rocket launched. There are 12 people on the “team” all working towards the same goal. One entire wall is a video screen and there are six consoles for various functions just like the actual NASA control room. You need to find clues and use them to activate each of the six consoles. Once all six consoles are activated then the launch sequence begins and it gets going fast and is a lot of fun. We got the rocket launched with 3 minutes and 2 seconds left on our 50 minute countdown clock. The reviews of CATS have been discussed over and over on Cruise Critic. I found that you will enjoy it if you like Broadway musicals and will not if you are not a fan of musicals. If you saw CATS on Broadway there was a lot of energy and movement on the stage that made it a lot of fun. The stage on Oasis is much smaller and that limited the amount of energy that could be generated by the performers. All of the performers in the production were excellent singers and dancers and we enjoyed the performance. We had 6,200 passengers on our cruise and 2,200 crew members. It did not feel overly crowded most of the time, but the pools were very crowded, including the adults only pool in the solarium. It was also difficult to find a table in the Windjammer and the waiters were asking seated folks if they would be okay sharing their table in order to get seats for others. Many of the trivia games took place in the Music Hall which was not a very big venue. Formal nights were on day 2 and day 6. As it typically is on Royal Caribbean, some people were elegantly dressed, most wore dressy clothes and some just ignored the fact that is was a night to be a little more dressed up. The Rising Tides bar, which goes up and down between the Promenade deck and the Central Park deck was broken for a few days of our cruise, but they got it working again later in the week. The casino was always busy but we always were able to find open slot machines to play. For the first time on any cruise I actually came out ahead on this cruise. On day 7 they had the Anchors Aweigh Parade in the Promenade. This was fun as all the entertainment staff put on a fun time. Also on day 7 they had a “Salute to the Heroes” in the Promenade, which was a tribute to all the veterans who were on the cruise. As a Marine Corps veteran, I thought this was very well done and I appreciated it. They had a Hush! Silent Party in the Promenade which was a little strange if you were not participating. You are provided with headphones to hear the music and dance to it. If you are walking by you see lots of people dancing but do not hear any music. The tribute band on this cruise played the music of the Eagles. We did not attend so I cannot comment on that performance. There is a carousel on the Boardwalk, a zip line, and a miniature golf course available. On our first stop at Port Canaveral we stayed on board and expected a reduced volume of people on the ship, but that was not the case. The pools were still extremely crowded as was the Windjammer. Our second stop was at Cococay which was great. The Oasis Lagoon pool is immense with a swim up bar. Our grand-kids loved the water park and the beaches were very nice. There were plenty of lounge chairs all over the island and lots of umbrellas to give you some shade. We were the only ship at Cococay, so that may not be the case if there are two ships in port. Our last stop was at Nassau where we had two other ships in port with us (Freedom of the Seas and Carnival Escape). We generally do not care for Nassau so we opted to take an excursion to Blue Lagoon Island. We were there on our last cruise and enjoyed it. Unfortunately it has gone down hill since then. They do not have enough lounge chairs and the food they had for lunch was absolutely terrible. Everything was cold. We got in line on the pier for the excursion to Blue Lagoon Island and the ferry they had filled up and they added a second ferry, which also filled up. The excursion guide told us to wait here and another ferry will be here soon but then a different excursion guide told us to move further down the pier where there would be yet another boat. We finally got on that boat and were underway to the island. This was a very disorganized excursion, which is unusual for Royal Caribbean. You could tell at times that the ship was short-staffed, but the crew on the ship was incredible. They all worked so hard and were very pleasant at all times. This is usually the case on Royal Caribbean ships. All in all it was a great cruise, good weather, beautiful ship with a great crew. The cruise director was Mitch. He was funny and did a good job at the shows. Personally I think I prefer the somewhat smaller ships but if you are going on Oasis there is just so much going on and so much to do that you will not be bored.
  9. There is no account set up. We called and scheduled our test date and time. I selected 9:00 a.m and my wife selected 9:30 a.m., but when I connected the nurse told me she saw my wife's appointment time and said she would do both of us at the same time. My wife was scheduled to have the test with a different proctor so the nurse informed that proctor that she was handling my wife's testing.
  10. We used rapidtestandtrace.com and they did both of us at the same time sitting side by side.
  11. I just tested with rapidtestandtrace.com this morning. I had a 9:00 appointment and my wife had 9:30. When I connected the nurse immediately asked if my wife would like to test at the same time with me. She had us both do the testing at the same time and when done she immediately sent our results in an email and asked me to make sure that I received the emails before she disconnected. I used my Samsung tablet and did not have to install anything and I did not have to set up any accounts. Clicking on the email link (which they also resent to me 30 minutes before my test) connected me right into the testing site. She did ask us to blow our noses and sanitize our hands before opening the test kit. You also need a pen or marker since she had to observe us writing our initials and dates on the outside of the test strip. We used our drivers licenses as ID and we held them up to the camera where she copied the information and then read back the license number to insure that she copied it correctly. All in all, it was a very comfortable and easy experience and I highly recommend rapidtestandtrace.com.
  12. Going on Oasis in a couple of weeks and would like to know if Oasis now uses the RFID seapass cards that you tap to open your cabin door, or do they use the type that you swipe in the door handle to open the door. My understanding is that the RFID cards can not have a hole punched in them by guest services, in which case any lanyards that I get will need to have the clear plastic card holders instead of hooking directly into a hole in the seapass card.
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