Tim,n,Sue

I also developed this allergy It has been noted on my profile and the MDR staff will sometimes mention it. When we eat in the Windjammer I usually just ask the staff if their are any shellfish in items I am not familiar with. I have not had any problems and it really has not been much of a bother. Pretty straight forward really. Enjoy your shellfish free cruise.

If they are not on the balcony I have found that a small green piece of paper with picture of a dead president can make the loungers magically appear.

Brilliance of the Sea, April T A. Observed women pushing stroller in the Windjammer, same woman pushing same stroller in the area of Park Ave. Also observed in various hallways. In this stroller were two dogs. One appeared older than the other, both dogs were small.

We were on the same cruise. She apparently was stopped by the authorities at the port in Harwich England and they required her to quarantine the two dogs for 30 days before they could leave the country.

They are the same length.

 

 

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Yes they are but remember that time flies when your having fun and lasts an eternity when you are watching Cats.

I am afraid that you will be lucky if you see the Cruise Director, Drew as on our T/A he hid himself away for most of the cruise and when he did come out he was nothing like a Cruise Director I have ever seen. Not a people person, I'm afraid.

I would have to agree with you on this CD. On the westbound TA he was invisible.

The 3rd and final showing was on the last evening of the cruise. Many people had to leave to pack their suitcases. As it was the only day with very good weather (most days were grey or rainy) I guess most people prefered to enjoy the weather and packed later in the evening.

 

 

 

 

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That my account for such a high rate for the last show on the TA but reports from other cruises still have a significant amount of the audience leaving at intermission. We will just have to wait and see how this plays out.

Somehow I can't sit thru a 2.5 hour show but I have no problem being on the Rising Tide Bar for 5 straight hours.

That's because the Rising Tide moves faster than Cats.

There is an old theatrical saying that goes; "will it play in Peoria?". In this case the Oasis replaces Peoria and so far, from the early reports, it does not play Peoria, at least not yet. I do feel very sorry for the cast when they see so many empty seats after intermission but not bad enough to go see it in its entirety.

We attended the first showing on the westbound TA and we left at intermission, not because of the piano player but because we did not find it entertaining. The show moves along at a very pedestrian pace and, as most people acknowledge, a plot or story line is almost totally absent. We can speculate why large segments of the audiences have not returned after intermission such as the different demographics between cruise ship passengers and Broadway patrons, the fact that on Broadway people paid for their tickets and Cats was the reason they went out that night. On the Oasis the show is included in the cruise and people may not have much personal "investment" in the show. Broadway patrons are prepared to spend 2 1/2 hours at a show. Not sure I can say the same about a cruise audience. There are also so many other options on the Oasis that are literally only steps away such as the Casino, Royal Promenade etc.

The question, to me, is can it be fixed. I do not know what the agreement with Andrew L-W is but if it is an all or nothing then I think the fix is much more difficult as you cannot cut it down to a highlight show between 60-90 minutes duration. I can do much more with 2 1/2 hours such as go purse shopping with my wife at the 3 high end purse stores on board.

Standing ovations have no relevance to me. The standing O has become "de rigeur" for most shows that they have lost all value, at least for me.

Only time will tell if this thing turns around but one thing I would bet on right now is that there are a lot of RCI executives trying to put distance between themselves and the decision to put Cats on the Oasis. It will be far more entertaining to see how this thing plays out as opposed to the entertainment we received from Cats.

I was on the Nevasa in either 1971 or 1972 and then was on the Uganda the year after.

We left Southampton on the Nevasa and went to Gibraltar, Malta, Istanbul, Varna (Bulgaria), Athens and finished in Venice. We went through some brutal weather near the Bay of Biscay that kept me in bed for almost 3 days. Great trip except for the sea sicknesses.

The next year on the Uganda we were supposed to start in Venice but due to a snow storm we were re-routed to Dubrovnik. We then did a few ports in Greece before hitting Naples, Rome and finishing in Florence. Absolutely had a great time.

I still have my Nevasa and Uganda badges that we were either given or I bought. Can't remember. Met a lovely girl named Dorothy from Barnet. Cute as they come.

MY TA just emailed me and said he spoke to RCI and they confirmed that this voucher can be used on previously booked cruises.

 

He called because I didn't get the email. They said they sent me one but I didn't get it as usual. Never get important emails from them and I have confirmed our email address several times.

 

They obviously have the right one because they were able to call, text AND email me about boarding times for this cruise.

 

I was going to start a new thread but didn't want to get this conversation started all over again.

 

Lou

Good to hear that we are not the only ones who did not receive the email.

Translation: I was lucky enough to be on the maiden transatlantic voyage of one of the most anticipated ships in years. It's innovative, it's beautiful, and I was there! Now that I'm home, all I can think to do is run to the computer and complain about not getting free eggs in my room!

I think you are way off base here. I appreciate the information passed on by the OP.

And you will be right next door to 9062 where George Smith disappeared from in 2005.

It is 2 1/2 hours long (but it seems so much longer) with an intermission about 1/2 way through. Plenty of people left at intermission. Someone, not me, posted on another thread that they thought about 75% of the people left at intermission for the 3rd and final showing. We went to the 1st showing and about 25-30% of the people did not return to the balcony section after the intermission.

The set is amazing as were the costumes but it is a difficult story to follow if you did not already know the story. People either loved it or hated it. We were the latter.

I a not sure how well Cats will be perceived by many as it really does not have a story to follow and it is a slower pace than most of the entertainment offered on cruises. Time will tell how well it will be received. The Cats fans certainly loved it but just as many saw it as boring.

Slot Pulls are a lot of fun. Just make sure you have clearly stated rules in place before hand. Here are the one I use. I don't want anyone getting upset over a keychain. Enjoy the cruise and slot pull.

SLOT PULL RULES

We are going to have the slot pull IMMEDIATELY after the M&M.

Cost is $15.00 per person. I do not handle the money during the pull. Each person will feed their own money into the machine.

We usually use a $1.00 machine (Wheel of Fortune is the preferred machine) that has a max bet of $3.00 so everyone gets 5 pulls for their $15.00.

I have created a form to track and record the outcome of every pull. I will also total up each persons turn. I will write your name down when you arrive.

After each person has had their 5 pulls we will cash out the machine. Only paper money or casino coins bills will be paid out, no change. Any extra money will be taken as extra pulls starting with the people who did not win anything on their 5 pulls. We will start at the top of the list and work down until list until we get to the amount that can be equally shared by the group. Only 1 pull per person. These pulls do not count towards the prizes.

I am going to try and get prizes from the ship. The prizes will be handed out in the following manner.

Prizes are based on the initial 5 pulls only. Highest total amounts won. If there is a tie then the person who got the most on any 1 spin will win. If there is still a tie then whoever won the highest amount on the earliest spin will win. If there is still a tie then we flip a coin. We will continue to hand out the prizes until there are none left to distribute. Good luck to all.

The equipment is apparently on board but not installed. On the recent TA the internet was very slow and unreliable. The only thing that worked flawlessly was the internet billing process.

Maybe I am incorrectly interpreting who you mean when you say "great crew, poor staff (stripes on their shoulders)"

 

The crew which you have described as 'great' takes their instructions from the 'poor staff that have the stripes on their shoulders' -- if that is correct, how could the crew have been GREAT.

 

Please elaborate.

The crew are the workers such as the stateroom attendants and the MDR wait staff. They are the every day faces you see and interact with and they were excellent. The poor staff (stripes) became invisible when a problem arose and did not take ownership to correct issues. The people who depend on you for their wages (tips) busted their butts to make people happy but their superiors (insert sarcasm here) were useless. There is a difference between crew and staff.

We finally booked Oasis for April a while back. I'm having serious second thoughts between reading the reviews on this thread and the new Dynamic Dining that will start shortly before our cruise. Then there is Cats. Didn't like it on Broadway or as a movie. It was a real disappointment to learn it would be the show for our cruise. As much as I would love to see Oasis, I'm wondering if one of the other RCCL ships would be a better choice.

 

For the people who were on the TA, would you pick a different ship if you could have a do over?

No I would not pick a different ship. Loved the variety of the Oasis for a TA as it had a lot of choices when the weather was cool. My problem was the number of technical issues an the inability to fix them or even take ownership.

Great ship, great crew, poor staff (stripes on their shoulders).

Just my 2 cents worth on our Oasis westbound TA.

Many people have already posted on the main boards about the issues concerning the Oasis westbound TA and from my experience and hearing it directly from the people affected I can confirm that most, if not all, are accurate. BUT and I want stress the BUT, Sue and I had a fantastic cruise in spite of the issues that occurred.

This is just my opinion but it looks to me like the perfect storm occurred here. The Oasis probably lost a lot of their best staff to the Quantum who were replaced by less experienced staff. The re-fit caused a lot more technical issues than expected and they had a difficult time dealing with the vast number of passenger issues. The passenger mix had a significantly higher European mix which caused the delay at immigration that brought the process to a standstill. Could most of this be anticipated? IMO it is yes but either way RCI still needs to stand up and acknowledge responsibility for their lack of ownership and leadership.

Southampton embarkation was a disaster. Almost no attempts were made by the port to control or organize the crowds. The port staff, for the most part, stayed inside the port and the 2000 passengers milled about outside jammed waiting at one door. Occasionally someone would come outside to say that the problem was with immigration. Little did we know that the embarkation would be far superior to the dis-embarkation. We were outside just over 2 ¼ hours and we were lucky as when they did start letting people it was prioritized by Suite then Pinnacle then Diamond + etc. We are D+ so we only heard about how bad it got outside after that and the reports were terrible. Lots of VERY ANGRY people. The crowd was pretty much left to self-regulate so tempers did flare.

Dis-embarkation was another disaster. The makeup of the passengers had a much higher European percentage than usual and a RCI employee at the port told me directly that there “they are fingerprinting everyone”. That is a word for word quote that was told to me by an RCI port employee. It was also rumoured that many of the immigration people were assigned to process the crew before moving over to the passenger side. I cannot verify that. Whatever the reason was the immigration process came to a standstill. We joined the queue at 8:50 and we did not exit the port until 11:40. It was almost an hour later until the first Miami transfer bus left for the airport. We arrived at the airport about 45 minutes later at about 1:25. We stopped at the American terminal first then to another terminal where the driver literally dumped the rest of us out of the bus. He was new and clearly overwhelmed. It was another 15 minute walk through the terminal at a quick pace until we got to our carrier. By the time we checked our luggage and went through security they were already pre-boarding our 2:55 flight. And to think I was wondering what to do at the airport with such a late flight. It was a very stressful morning.

For 3 days our shower had no hot water. We could get it slightly warm but with almost no pressure. If you held the hand wand upside down the water would not come out. The cold worked fine. It took 7 phone calls and 3 days to get it working. We came back early from Vigo and I phoned maintenance. I told the person that I was not going to leave my cabin as the first 6 calls either were not actioned or were not understood. I made it very clear that someone was going to be in the cabin 24/7 until we could show the person what was wrong. Within 10 minutes someone was up and with another 10 minutes it was fixed. I do know that many people had similar issues with the hot water. Were 7 phone calls or 3 days acceptable to get it fixed? To some people maybe it is but to me it was not.

We could not pre-book any shows as only people who boarded in Rotterdam could pre-book anything. On our day 2 the compass showed that we could book shows through a RCI staff member at 9:30 by the Champagne bar. We showed up at 9:00 and were at the front of the line. At 9:30 no-one from RCI showed up. We asked some RCI staff that were passing by to see if they could find out what was going on and to a person they all said that they would try to find out. None ever came back to tell us anything. At 9:44 the staff member showed up and said nothing about being late. I asked him if he owned a watch and he said yes. I asked him if he knew what time it was and he said 9:44. I then asked what time he was supposed to be here and he said 9:30 but he had technical issues. I asked him if these technical issues prevented him from having someone come over to tell us he would be late. He got that vacant look on his face that many RCI staff members had throughout the cruise. We finally did get some shows we wanted.

Our TV worked but we could not access our online account for days and our show schedule never did show up. Apparently it was a technical issue.

Due to another technical issue it took 50 minutes to NOT sign up for the internet. So many issues and the single staff member was just not capable of addressing the vast number of problems that people experienced. He was also only there a few hours day although a posted sign said that support was available from 8:30 AM to 10:00 PM. (Might be off 30 minutes on either end.) However he would only answer the phone when he was on deck 14 and he was always busy with people so he never actually answered the phone. Did not get our ID working until day 3 but WIFI was up and down all the time and was painfully slow for much of the cruise. HOWEVER, the RCI internet billing process worked perfectly. On the last day it took many people well over an hour to print off their boarding passes from the time they pressed the print button on their airline website. We were told it was a technical issue.

You had to line up for so many things and most of the lines were unregulated by RCI staff. It was left to the people in line to regulate the line and try to maintain order. This best example was the line for dis-embarkation. Almost no RCI staff to be seen and when the lines came to a stop even fewer showed their faces. By staff I mean the people with stripes on their shoulders; the ones who are supposedly the leaders on the ship. The passengers were left to maintain order in the lines when people were becoming worried, angry and extremely agitated about potentially missing their flights. That is the time RCI staff needed to be there to take control and maintain order and handle the queue jumpers but they seemed to become so overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem that they simply chose to disappear and let someone else solve the problem, which, unfortunately did not happen.

Again I want to re-iterate that we had a great time and loved the ship, the crew and the entertainment, except Cats. Lost a ton of respect for the people with stripes on their shoulders for pulling a Claude Raines when they were needed most. (he played the invisible man)

Here is what I noticed concerning the weather and sea conditions.

From Southampton to Vigo it was cool (50-55) an the seas were very choppy with some big swells. Vigo was warm and sunny but the next two days of out Vigo were still cool (50-60), cloudy and the seas were moderate. The captain chose to go north of the Azores to avoid a big storm and he made the right decision. It was cooler than we had hoped but the upside was that the seas from day 5 on were very calm and the last 3-4 days (60-70+) were quite nice. I recall that the final Saturday had some rain and was a little overcast but still shorts weather. Being from Canada anything over 50 is shorts weather.

Overall we took a more northerly route than expected to miss some storms and this affected how warm it was BUT the seas were much calmer. I would choose calmer seas over a bit warmer temps anytime.

Does anyone know if it's open for lunch on day 1? TIA!

I knew that someday keeping all my Compasses would come in handy. Just got off the Oasis yesterday. We boarded in Southampton and according to the Compass Sabor was open on our day 1 from noon-3:45. Due to the oddity of the TA they didn't use the Day 1, Day 2 format on the Compasses but only used the date. I do think on one day they used the Day X format but it was only once. Great cruise with lots of "technical" issues and embarkation and disembarkation were absolutely brutal but loved the TA on the big ship.

Interesting. Ken and Paulette did self-disembark at 6:30 AM (one of the first) and were thru in 10 minutes, per his thread.

 

Not a good way to end the trip.

 

But then, TA's where the ship has been away for some months are always the worst, no matter what the port. FLL was better then Miami for us on our TA's. Customs people always take longer since the ship must be carefully checked over. One reason why we stopped with the TA's.

We got into the line around 8:50 and we walked out of the terminal at 11:40.

We also bought transfers to MIA but the bus did not leave until 12:45-ish. We had a 2:55 flight and got to the airport around 1:25. The driver dropped us as the far end of the terminal which took about 20 minutes to cross to our carrier. By the time we checked in and went through security they were starting pre-boarding. A very stressful experience and we had a mid-afternoon flight.

Posted this clip recently...ENJOY!

 

Thanks for the video. We have this cabin for the 15 day trans-Atlantic in April 2015. Gotta love those huge aft balconies.

Or you could disembark early go to FLL and use the luggage storage facility at the airport then go somewhere for a few hours. Do not know the cost but I would expect somewhere between $8-$10 per bag. Try this link. Have a great cruise.

http://www.broward.org/Airport/FAQs/Pages/BaggageServicesStorage.aspx

It is just about 1.1 miles from the Central train station to the port. Cost, including tip should be approx. $10 U.S. max.

Look at an i-Pad mini. Simple to use.