TeamTrom

Vacation Schedule: Basic breakdown of our vacation

Seeing how I’m still days ahead of setting foot on the ship and I am hooked on writing something about this trip I have decided to do a bit of a breakdown of our vacation. The four of us live in Northeast Ohio but my Grandparents, and babysitters for the cruise, live down near Orlando. With them being so far they only get to see and spend time with Caleb once or twice a year so it will take some time to get everyone comfortable with each other. So my wife and I will be flying down a few days early and spending some time in Florida. My dad and his girlfriend will be flying in the day before hand and will be picking up our rental for our trip down south to Fort Lauderdale. Now some of you may be asking why our son won’t be joining us and there are a couple reasons why, both have to do with his very young age. Firstly, my wife and I don’t think that babies/toddlers and cruises mix. Now I know all the reasons why someone would bring along their child and I don’t blame them for it, nor do I judge as long as parenting is involved, but I just don’t want to be the person who has a screaming two-year-old ruining anyone else’s vacation. People spend a lot of $$$ on these vacations and while my son is pretty well behaved it doesn’t take much to bring down someone else’s time. Secondly and maybe the most important reason is I am on vacation. My son is my world, I love that little guy and he seems to brighten my day no matter what is going on but he needs a ton of attention and almost always needs to be taken care of. And let’s be honest, I want to be taken care of this week. And he needs quality time with his Great Grandparents, right?!?! That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. So after a few days in Florida we drive down the morning of our cruise, spend six nights aboard that beauty, make our way back to Grandma’s for the night once we disembark and then fly back home the following morning. So that’s it, that’s my review of the Oasis of the Seas… I hope you enjoyed it ;) Haha I sure hope it doesn’t go by that fast but we all know it probably will.

WooHoo!!!!!:D:D

We just did our first Royal Caribbean cruise in June, same deck, same balcony on the hump. Actually, the picture looks just like our room.

 

Cannot wait for the next installment!!!

 

You are going to have a great time!!!!

Just a sample photo so we know what to expect but our room has the same layout so it should be identical. I hope your vacation was amazing like I expect ours to be. I just cannot wait!!! :) Thanks

I'm looking forward to reading your perspective of our cruise, Sean. This is going to be fabulous!:D

I hope you enjoy this!!! You have a great trip!

We will be following your trip (yes literally following as we are on the cruise after yours) and like you I am addicted to cruising.

 

This trip is to celebrate my daughter's 30th birthday so we have the whole family along.

 

We are excited to read your comments all week. Thank you for taking the time to post during your vacation.

 

Carol.

It must be exciting to be so close and Happy Birthday to your daughter, the best birthday present ever!!! Thanks for tagging along!

Great news!

The best kind of news just days beforehand! ;)

Lights, Camera, Action: Photograph taking devices

After reading one or two hundred reviews on CC I have come to realize there are some Camera fanatics out there, and whilst I am not looking forward to this moment I figure its best if I get it out of the way because I know someone will ask what cameras I used for my substandard photos. Now I am not a camera lover, we rarely use ours because every phone nowadays has a pretty good camera on them and with my phone always on my person it is my go to. But for this vacation I may have both of my cameras on hand at various times along with my phone and Wifey will have hers. I am going to start with my Bridge Camera, which is a Canon PowerShot SX20is. This has been our all-around camera for the last 5 years or so and is still under debate as to how much we will use this or if it will even make it into our already stuffed luggage. It has a 12.1 Megapixel camera with a fixed 20x Optical Zoom. We also have a waterproof camera which is an Olympus Tough TG-1. This 12.7 Megapixel camera has a 4x optical zoom and has the capabilities to go up to 40ft underwater. We bought this camera specifically for our second cruise, knowing we’d be snorkeling and an underwater camera would be awesome. The best part about this camera is its cool picture modes that make it really fun to play with. Both Wifey and I have different variations of the Samsung Galaxy 7. While she has the standard GS7 I have the slightly upgraded GS7 Edge. They both have a 12mp Rear Facing Cameras which is equipped with new Dual-Pixel technology which helps create better photos in low-light environments and has a very quick focus. Whew, you have no idea how happy I am for that to be over with. I really don’t know much about cameras so it’s a long process of pulling them out, having a scavenger hunt for their model numbers, googling them to get some information and then putting it all together on here without boring you to death. The worst part of it all is after I wrote this part the first time my Wifey’s laptops hard drive crashed, so I had to do it all over again =( boo hoo. It never fails that someone late in the review asks again about the cameras used for the posts and please do not take it personal but I will just refer those questions to this post.

I am excited to go with you! We board her for the first time Feb 19!

 

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Pretty excited you will be joining us as well :) Hope it helps you pass the time a little!

UPGADE ALERT!!! Change of plans, scratch some of what I said in my previous post. WE HAVE CHANGED STATEROOMS. This is a first for us on a couple of fronts. This is the first time we have been called and given an offer to upgrade our stateroom and now our first opportunity to stay in a balcony cabin. We previously had an interior stateroom, and the smallest one available at that, but for a minimal $100 fee we have been upgraded to a Superior Balcony Stateroom on deck 6. We are now just above the Royal Promenade, on the deck with the Boardwalk and just a couple below Central Park. Pretty cool in my book. Not to mention we got the larger balcony at 80 square feet instead of the standard 50 square. I am going to be honest, I am a pretty happy camper, and now I am even more amped up for this vacation, if that was even possible!!!

I never anticipated writing one of these, I always thought that it would take away from the actual vacation but I have realized it’s not just about me, I cannot be that selfish. What about YOU, what about YOUR thoughts YOUR feelings...so I have decided to make the sacrifice, it’s all for you. Yup, just for you! Haha don’t believe that. But here is my warning label, it is more than one part so bear with me. First and most important, I am a glass half full kind of guy, when I am on vacation it is near impossible to ruin it, so if I run into a little bit of bad service or the food isn't the best food I have ever had in my life I won't let that get me down and I may not be critical enough in this review [The wife says she’ll be critical if it calls for it, don’t you worry] but when I am reading I want to hear about the “Great” anyways so I hope you do too. Secondly, we have always had an interior stateroom to keep cost low so we can spend more freely on the other amenities the ship has to offer so no balcony for us, we have yet to have one and this cruise is no different so I won't have numerous stories about drinking wine or eating breakfast on my balcony and no balcony sunset photos for you, although I feel like I have had one due to all the lifelike stories from some of you and if you’d really like I can pretend……… nah I can’t do that haha. And lastly, I don't know just how in depth this will be, I have read some that are very lacking in detail, to the extremist reviews that seem like I got a video recording of the entire vacation and while that would be awesome I am still on vacation and would like it to feel that way at least a little lol. Don’t get me wrong, I already have a couple thousand words invested in this and haven’t even reached the beginning of my trip so it’s clear what my intentions are but who knows where this will go. So there it is, I hope I still have an audience and let’s hope we can all find a way to enjoy this. I know I will!

How about we start where this whole thing began on March 25th 2015, my son is now two months old, we are starting to settle in on this parenting thing (now you must be laughing) and on my way to work I get an email from Royal Caribbean… buy one get one half off… and I know how this works they always suck you in with the header but it won't be as good of a deal as it seems. I look anyway, why not, it doesn't hurt to look and who am I kidding, I just love to think about the idea of cruising again. So being in my financial situation, I search using the most inexpensive prices and WOW that looks like a great deal, it’s a year and a half away(ouch) but that’s actually good for us, enough time to put together the money and our son will be almost two by then and we think that will be old enough for a little family time with his great grandparents =) and RCI is going to throw in some onboard credit. So I call the wife, while speed walking into work because now I am behind from being distracted, out of breath like “do you think we can make this work?” Who am I kidding, I know she will be on board, just getting confirmation. She says yes, I call my dad and him and his girlfriend are in as well and BAM, just like that, we are booked. Only 584 more days to go… that is such a long time, but there is hope, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. That is when the CC madness began and why I am here now.

We will also be taking the Oasis on the 29th. I posted a 12 minute picture show of the Oasis if you have seen it. Just click on link and enlarge to full scene and enjoy. Bob

 

 

 

I have seen it previously but I am appreciative of you posting it because I enjoyed watching it again. Maybe we will cross each others paths while on vacation!!!

Hi TeamTrom;

Royal never does Formal on the last night. It will be the second and the 5th after leaving cozumel.This is primarly because most packing is done earlier on last day . They had changed the menu earlier in the summer and revised to a new one a couple weeks ago. Also they will probably do their 7th night menu on day six . Bob

Great information, I am looking forward to their new menu. I have heard plenty of good and bad about it but looking forward to finding the good :) Looks like day 5 it is, that is when we were expecting it we just had many people who were not confident in that because there was a sea day on day 6 and port day on day 5. Thanks again.

Let's get a little bit of a background story going, I want to milk this for all its worth, you know what I mean?! My wife and I have been married 8 years and prior to ever meeting me she had been on a few cruises through her childhood with her mother, she's not sure exactly how many so we will just go with a few. Well to say the least I am a little bit of a scaredy cat when it comes to leaving the country so it took a few years for her to convince me to go on a cruise at all, “it's safe” she says and “it's kind of like you're not even leaving the country”. Well I think you can all figure out by now that I am very thankful for her convincing lol.

In May of 2012 we finally decided to give it a try, we booked the Enchantment of the Seas out of Baltimore (picture is of us on EOTS), it was a nice and easy trip because that's where she calls home, we drive down, her family drops us (and her mother and grandmother) off at the port. We basically have the time of our lives. To me the boat was incredible (little did I know), the service was the best I have ever had and it was the first time I came home from any type of vacation and I didn't feel like I needed a vacation just to unwind. Opps, I am getting off topic, wrong cruise lol. We decided basically immediately that the cruising life is the life for us and although we are not the most financially well off couple we needed to try and make it an annual affair to go each year… And we did, that was until two years ago when we find out we were pregnant, well not we, she, but we…. well you get the idea. We knew we couldn't afford a vacation that year so we decided to put off a year with intentions to start back up the following. It will have been 978 days between stepping off Carnival Pride and walking through the doors to the Royal Promenade on Oasis of the Seas. A little longer than expected and I’ve really noticed, that’s for sure. I'm itching to get back on board, I just cannot wait. And soon you will be going with us! You’re Welcome!

Looking forward to your review.

 

We are on the 6 day Allure cruise in January with the same itinerary. I'm thinking that the second formal night will be night 5 but if you could confirm that would be great.

 

Have a great cruise.:)

Thanks for tagging along. You will definitely know when our 2nd formal night is by the end of it. We have been talking about it amongst ourselves on our roll call because we could make a case for both night 5 or 6 and no one seems to have the answer so we just settled for finding out on board. Hope yours will be the same day!

Looking forward to cruising along with you. My family will be going on the Oasis for the first time next year, so I'm reading and learning everything I can. Thanks for taking us along, and have a margarita for me please!!!

A Margarita It is, I will make that happen. Lets all have a blast!:)

Looks like fun...

Oh it will definitely be fun!!! No doubt

Sailing on the Oasis in April and am subscribing, thank you!

 

 

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I Remember being 6 months out from going on Oasis, right now it feels like it may never be here but hopefully I can help pass the time just a bit :p

We're going on Oasis in March and I'm so into planning!! Will follow every word! Will you check to see if they are offering coffee cards on board, that are good at Starbucks. They were offering them a few weeks ago, and then said it was a trail. Boooooo.

 

 

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I am kind of jealous, I want to be going on her again in March :D I will go in with the best intentions to get your question answered!

Looking forward to your review. Enjoy your vacation.

Very much appreciated!

I also love to plan and prepare for any vacation. I am glad that I am not the only one. We will be traveling on the Oasis in April. I can't wait to follow your story. I hope you have a great trip. :D

I have yet to set foot on Lady O but I am sure you will love your trip this coming spring! I am excited to share my story with you all. Thanks a lot, I know it will be a great time!!!

I'm very much looking forward to your review. I like your writing style!

I'm looking forward to you following along! Thanks for the compliment! Hope I can keep you interested!

Thanks for taking the time to post, have a wonderful cruise!

Hope you enjoy it near as much as I do, Thanks a lot!!!

Looking forward to this!

 

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I will try not to let you down :D

[emoji108] Let's do this...

I completely agree, lets get this party started! Woo Hoo!

Woohoo! Looking forward to meeting y'all. We will have a blast!!

 

 

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Absolutely looking forward to meeting you as well! A great time, that is for sure!

So now that you know the What, Where and When, how about we get to know the Who…My name is Sean (Top Center/27), but we already went over that one, my wife is Stacey (Bottom Center/28), my father is Tony (Top Right/51) and his girlfriend is Kristie (Bottom Right/46). My Grandparents are to the left of us and they will be involved a little as well but we will get to that later.

This will be Wifey’s and my 4th cruise, as you can see in my signature, and my dad and Kristie’s second as they joined us on our most previous trip on Carnival Pride. There will be some mentioning/comparisons between my previous trips (RCI to Carnival, Freedom/Enchantment to Oasis) but to be honest it has been so long and I didn’t take any notes so there won’t be much.

But there you have it, you have the rundown and this is your invitation to join me and my family on our Oasis vacation. RSVP soon and don’t forget to comment with your beverage of choice, maybe just for you I will try to have one of each kind ;)

So for a little information, that I trust by now you already know, but just in case it has slipped your mind, the Oasis of the Seas is the LARGEST CRUISE SHIP out (Third technically to both of her sister ships, the Allure and Harmony of the seas are apparently a few inches longer but I haven’t measured them myself so who really knows). This Cruise sets sail from Ft Lauderdale, Florida and has a somewhat unique Itinerary, first by being a 6 nights voyage as opposed to the normal 7 nights which is kind of disappointing but we will make the best of it, and secondly being that it visits Nassau, Bahamas and both Costa Maya and Cozumel, Mexico.

Cozumel is a staple of Western Itineraries but where you normally have Haiti and Jamaica in some capacity we are going to visit Nassau and Costa Maya instead most likely due to the time constraints of it being slightly shorter. To top it all off this is the final cruise that Lady Oasis will be calling Port Everglades home since she will be traveling north to stay at Port Canaveral to make room for the Harmony of the Seas and that is pretty cool in itself.

Cruise Details: Itinerary and some backstory

Soooooo let's get this thing started by saying my name is Sean and I have the privilege of taking a vacation with Royal Caribbean aboard the Oasis of the Seas for a Western Caribbean Cruise on October 29th, 2016. Now like most of you reading this, I AM OBSESSED with cruising! The infatuation is in itself mind boggling. My wife and dad both think I am crazy because I eat, sleep and dream about my trip before and after, making it span out over several months which is in large part why I like it so much. It almost feels like I have been on a vacation this whole time through all the reviews I have read and videos I have watched. Which brings me to my motivation behind this whole thing in the first place. I want to help, you and anyone else who is craving just ONE MORE REVIEW about a cruise or a ship or a port or whatever it is at this very moment that you need. So go ahead, for the time being call me your Vacation Anticipation Counselor. I’m going to be here for you and while I hope it fulfills your desires for the moment. I know that it will help me with reliving what I anticipate will be one of the best weeks of my life… hahahaha… no really… ;) Now as you have probably read in the title this will be my Vacation Review and not just my review of Lady O! I am a fan of reading other reviewers Pre and Post Cruise details/fun and that works perfectly in this case because my vacation will span over 2 entire weeks so I hope that’s the kind of thing you like! Before I get my review started I have backstory and some additional stuff, if that’s not your cup of tea then wait about a week and just skip on to the “Good Stuff”.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2375673

 

Post 55 for dinner, 108 dessert.

I really appreciate your time to do that for me. Thank you!

I have searched this forum a little and have not come across the NEW MENU for day 1 on Oasis. I was able to find days 2-7 but not one. Can anyone help me?

You can use as many different devices as you like but only one at a time.

Thank you very much

Does anyone know if the 1 device lets you use only 1 device for the whole trip or one device at a time. So can i use both my laptop and my phone as long as it's at seperate times?

How about periscoping?

I dont have intentions to scope. :(