Shore Man

Thank you for your funny review and great sense of humor. It has been a very emotional sad day for me as I lost my father last night. But in between all the tears you had me chuckle. You don't know how much I appreciate getting away from it all for a few minutes while reading your review.

Oh dear, please accept my heartfelt condolences for your loss. I'm glad that I was able to somehow provide a little relief to what I'm sure was a very stressful and otherwise awful day.

Can any recent cruiser comment on whether they added the beverage station in the solarium? We found it so nice to be able to grab a flavored water, cup of coffee or just a glass of water without having to leave the solarium. Of course, we LOVED having Park Cafe in the solarium on the Brilliance. We could always grab fruit or yogurt or a quick sandwich or soup. I was hoping they might add a similar option on Freedom.

If I remember correctly there is no such beverage station in the solarium. They did have a Solarium bar, however.

I'm on the FOS in April, what part of the ship was the Boston cover band playing??

Boston played in the big theater, "Arcadia". It's located in the front of the ship, deck 2/3/4.

wondering if you heard any noise from above being on deck 10?? Thinking of booking an inside on this deck and cannot find any info on noises for insides?

 

Loved your review!!

We heard no noise whatsoever. I wouldn't worry about noises. The only real complaint that I have with inside cabins is that since it's so dark, you really have no idea what time it is, especially in the morning when you're trying to gauge when to wake up (e.g., no sun in your eyes telling you to get up!).

 

You know' date=' they say you are supposed to soap down the walls of the shower and then just turn around in a circle.:rolleyes:

 

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Now that's funny!

 

Wondering if you ever got up to the flowrider while you were on Freedom?

 

ETA: What was the Sabor cover charge? I figured we might do a specialty dinner with the kids so they get the full cruise ship experience and I can't decide between Sabor or the new Giovanni's.

No to the flowrider. Regarding Sabor, we had originally booked Izumi. A couple of days before the cruise, we received the following from RCCL:

"We noticed you've made a dinner reservation at Izumi. Unfortunately we will not be able to accommodate this reservation. We understand this may cause quite the predicament so we'd like to make it up to you. As part of our commitment to offer the best vacation experience we would like to offer a complimentary reservation in Giovanni’s Table, our Italian Trattoria, or Chops Grille our signature steakhouse at no charge".

We applied this to Sabor, which wasn't a problem because Sabor was cheaper than the other specialty restaurants. I think the cost was $20.00 per person, but don't hold me to that.

I'll make sure and keep an eye on what TV programming my husband is watching ;). Was Sabor a flat cover charge or al a carte? Also do you recall if any of the limited English channel seemed to have children's programming or movies?

Flat fee for Sabor. Regarding the English Channels, I think they had the Cartoon network, but they play adult cartoons like Family Guy. I don't recall any other children programming.

Great review. What time did you arrive at Park N Cruise? We have always used them in the past but they now say that they have no shuttles after 11:30 until 1pm. Thanks

For our cruise, they indicated the first shuttle will begin at 11:00 AM. We arrived around 1:00 PM and the shuttles to all the ships were running.

Hello all. I thought I’d document my experiences on the February 8th sailing on the Freedom of the Seas. In a word, “fantastic”. The cruise was absolutely perfect. That’s it, you can stop reading now. I’m just going to ramble nauseatingly on how perfect this trip was, so you might as well stop reading. I mean it, stop! Oh my, you’re still reading. Ok, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Let’s start from the very beginning. I was conceived in the backseat of a 19….wait, that may be too far back. Let’s fast forward a bit. We booked this trip to celebrate my wife’s birthday and found an inside cabin on deck 10 mid-ship. We picked mid-ship because I suffer from seasickness and cabins mid-ship rock less than those on either end of the ship. We picked an inside cabin because we be poor. It was the night before the cruise when it dawned on me, “where do I park the car”? The ship will be leaving from the new Terminal 1 in Cape Canaveral, so I could always pay full price and park at the pier. Yeah, that sounded ridiculous even as I typed it. Since Google is your friend, I did some research and found “Park N Cruise”. It was half the price as the Port Canaveral pier. “Half Price” is also a friend of mine. I saw some good reviews and I also saw some bad reviews. I’m thinking, how bad can it be? I’m parking my car on dirt. How can they mess that up? So I reserved my parking spot online and paid the discounted price. Now all I have to do it pack. Fast forward 15 minutes. I’m all packed. Now let’s pack the wife’s clothes….Wholly smokes, is she moving on the ship? Look at all those clothes!! And Shoes!!! Where am I going to put all those shoes? Fast forward 90 minutes – I finally finished packing my wife’s things.

It’s now the day of the cruise. I entered the address of Park N Cruise into the GPS and began my 2 hour and change drive from Tampa to Port Canaveral. Found the parking lot, unloaded the luggage, and then parked the car as directed. I went inside, checked in with the girl behind the counter, then waited about 10 minutes for the bus to take us to the ship. Easy peasy. The bus got us to the ship in about 5 minutes, the guy took our luggage off the bus and another guy immediately took the luggage to load onto the ship. All we have to do now is enter the terminal and check in. That was easy too. Here’s a little tip. I also wear a backpack, since we didn’t know when our luggage would make it to our room. In the backpack I carried some jewelry that the wife didn’t trust to leave in the luggage, some water, sunglasses and a couple of cond…uh…let’s just say some other miscellaneous things. We got to the ship about 1:15 and I think we were checked in by about 1:30. Boy, that was painless as well. And our room was ready too, wow. Let’s get on this bad boy. You know, we used to hate those picture takers but you know what? We now embrace them. I don’t know why the change. Maybe we’re more mature as we got older. Nah, that can’t be it. Anyway, not only do we take every picture, we even end up buying a few. Yeah, they’re expensive, but it’s a nice way to memorialize our trip. I mean, I don’t think twice about spending twelve bucks on an adult beverage that I basically rent for only a couple of hours, what’s another few dollars for a permanent memento? Oh, and I learned that they have some silly rule that the pictures that you purchase have to be of you. The “if the beautifully buxom blond wanted her pictures then she would have picked them up by now” excuse just didn’t work. Neither did “ah honey, I thought these pictures were of you”.

Ok, getting back to the cruise, let’s talk about the food.

Dinners: We did the “My Time Dining” thing and thought it worked out great. Each day we would look at the daily Compass then made our dinner reservations based on the activities we wanted to do. Then we would go to the My Time Dining dining room, went on the “with reservations” or “with or without reservations” line (whichever was shorter) and was usually sitting at our table within 5 minutes. I think there was one time we waited 10 minutes, but usually it was under five minutes. Worked out great. They usually put us with other “table for twos”, and while we’re not the chatty type, we usually found ourselves sharing stories with our tablemates. Once, however, the table on our right was in a fierce battle with the table to our left on what seemed to me a “who’s-family-member-had-the-more-debilitating-disease” contest. There appeared to be only one rule to this contest: Be as descriptive and graphic as possible. I don’t know who won, but I know who lost: My appetite. Fortunately, the waiter brought out the next course which brought the game to an end. Thankfully. We ate in the My Time dining room most nights and the food was great. We always found something we liked on the menu. The second formal night even had lobster and garlic shrimp. We asked for two, and the waiter gladly brought them out.

We also ate at Sabor. That was really good as well. They make the guacamole tableside, you have no choice, every table gets it. I recommend this place, the food was very good. So was Chops. The meat was done exactly how we liked it, tender like butter and well seasoned. Why do I eat the bread? The more bread I eat means the less meat I eat, yet I eat the bread as soon as they put it on the table. Will I ever learn? I guess the big question is, was it worth the extra money for Sabor and Chops? I think so. I would definitely eat there again.

Buffet: We love buffets. We buffeted breakfast and lunch. We always found a table and we always found something good to eat. No complaints here as well.

Promenade: Free pizza! How good can it be? Well, it wasn’t bad. Wasn’t great NY pizza, but wasn’t bad Tampa pizza either. Plus, it was available all hours of the night. I also tried the shrimp salad on a roll that was very good. The cookies were good, but they had a slice of pie, like a Willy Wonka pie, something like that which really wasn’t good. No problem, I’ll have another cookie.

Bars: Our goal was to have a drink at every bar and while we tried really hard, I don’t think we did it. We really liked the Olive and Twist, spent lots of time at the Schooner Bar doing those trivia things and realizing how stupid we really are, and spent lots of time at the Karaoke bar as well. I never been to a Karaoke bar before, but it was fun. Lots of country music (not my cup of tea), but enjoyable nevertheless.

The Cruise Director was Casey. I came home and read reviews about Casey and people seemed to be very harsh. I honestly don’t know what people expect from a Cruise Director, but I thought he was great. Every day was chock full of entertainment. He kicked off each venue and he was funny and entertaining. But boy, those reviews were bad. What else is he suppose to do? Well, maybe he could’ve done something about the hot tub. Because it was, if I could sum it up in one word, HOT! Ridiculously hot! I tried to get into it, dipping myself one inch at a time, and man that was not working. So I decided the only smart thing to do was to completely submerge myself. Down I go. Now, I’m trying to recall the exact time I concluded that this was a really, really bad idea. When my knees hit the water? No, that wasn’t it. My thighs? Nope, not then. AHAH, I know when! But it’s too late now, I’m totally committed. Keep going down, buddy. Now I’m down where my chin is touching the water and boy am I hating life right now. People enjoy this? I can’t feel my tongue. I think all the hair on my body has been burned off. Hey, how did my wife seamlessly sink into the tub like it was a bowl of whipped cream? Ok, try to look cool. That’s right, I’m cool. How is it possible that I’m sitting in a tub of water and I’m sweating? Ok, I’m done, I gotta get out of here. I almost yelled for my mommy out loud. I honestly think years have been removed from my life expectancy as a result of this experience. Ok, stand up slowly, look cool, nonchalantly step out of the hot tub and …..wholly cow it’s freezing out here. Boy I just can’t win.

Regarding the shows, there was a comedian that was funny, a magician that was great, so were the musical numbers, the Love and Marriage show as well as the Quest, which is a silly game that I wouldn’t participate in but loved watching those who did. Oh, they also had a Boston cover band. They were great!! I’m a big Boston fan and this was an unexpected surprise for me. . Ok, let’s digress a little here. This cruise seemed to have an older clientele. I’m guessing more than half of the cruisers had seen Babe Ruth play in person and may have actually voted for Woodrow Wilson. The remaining 40% or so probably ranged from their 20s to their 50s. Now, while my age group was in the minority, this didn’t bother me in the least. I really don’t care about anyone else on the cruise, as long as I’m having a good time. Ok, so there weren’t that many bikinis for me to gawk at. However, I have to admit, some of the old broads did have some rockin’ bodies. Hmmm, that hot tub may have caused more damage than originally thought. Anyhoo, the Boston cover band was LOUD and rockin’, which may not have been to the liking of most of the audience, but I kind of fault them for attending this event in the first place. The rest of the crowd loved it, as did I!

Complaints? I guess I did have a couple. The bathroom light switch. I know the bathroom is small. How small? Well, I’m certainly no large guy, but when I took a shower there always seemed to be one part of my body that was in contact with the shower wall. No matter how careful I was, something was touching the wall. I tried to make a contest out of it, but I always lost. Ok, so we established that the bathroom was small, however, there was plenty of room for a light switch. Who, in their right mind, thought it made sense to put the light switch OUTSIDE the bathroom? Also, who approved this idea?? Here’s my typical bathroom experience: Open door. Enter bathroom. Lift toilet lid. Turn around. Close bathroom door. Curse. Open bathroom door. Walk outside and turn on the light. Seven days people. I did this for seven days.

My second complaint? The TV. Yes, I know, the story goes that you hardly spend any time in your room. But in actuality, you do spend time in your room. I watch TV before I go to bed, no matter the time. I’m watching TV while the misses gets ready for dinner. I watch TV when I wake up. There must be 20 stations. 12 have my favorite shows (e.g., Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, etc.) in a language other than English. Five stations are cruise related. That leaves only a couple of channels that would entertain me, including one that always seemed to show men who tried to kill their wife and get away with it. I should mention that taking notes while watching said program does not provide the spouse with any level of amusement whatsoever.

Let’s see, I think I covered everything. On the last day, we decided to get up early and carry our own bags off the ship. We got on line at 6:15 AM, were about 20th in line and were off the ship sitting on the Park N Cruise bus by 7:15. We sat on the bus until it was full, about 15 minutes, and then was dropped off at our car. Perfect. Just like the cruise.

DW wants to know where they hide the third ice cream machine? :confused:

Wipe out cafe - same deck, near the back towards the basketball courts.

 

We need you to take a lot more cruises so we can read more from you! Next time .. pictures ! (well, of the cruise ... not , uh .. well, u know .. LOL)!

Thanks all for the kind words. If you're interested, here's my only other "review", that of the Carnival Dream:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1288878

Wow, thanks. I did have more, but thought this was getting too long. I'll put something together shortly.

Not sure if I'm doing this right, but here's my attempt at attaching the spreadsheet:

(If you don't see it, then it didn't work).

Great review. Is there more to come? I hope so! You didn't mention any excursions, how you planned for them, etc. What was your game plan for sea days and nabbing a coveted chair?

 

"Batter dip the corndog"! Never heard that one before, but I'm going to use it on DW tonight!

Oasis by Deck.xls

I can’t believe it’s over. After months of planning and anticipation, our week long cruise aboard the Oasis of the Seas is now in the past. It was a little more expensive than I would have liked, it required a lot more research and homework than I would have preferred doing and there are definitely some things that could be improved. But, would I do it again? Is it worth all the effort and money? YES, YES and YES!! If you’re ready for a long read, let’s start from the beginning.

This was our fifth cruise. Oops, let’s back up a little more. I am a very late 40ish cruising enthusiast from Tampa, Florida, by way of New York. Okay, I exaggerated a little. I just bounced into the next decade, like minutes ago, so I still consider myself “late 40ish” (and I’ll probably do so for the next 5 years, so just let me be). My wife is a younger chick (two years) and we just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. More on that later. Our first cruise was on the Voyager of the Seas back in 1999 (on her third voyage, by the way). Then we went the way of Carnival for our next three. Hey, that doesn’t make us bad people. They are a little cheaper and they do put on a good show. I love cruising and I’m hard to disappoint (note that we’ve been married 25 years and she’s cooked maybe three meals in her life. She’s great at reheating leftovers, though. But I digress). If we can cruise for less money, why not do it, right? We were on the Carnival Dream when we first saw the Oasis. We were docked right next to each other (don’t remember which island) and we noticed how much larger the Oasis was. Now keep in mind, the Dream is Carnival’s biggest ship, yet it was dwarfed by the Oasis. After being awed by the size, I was underwhelmed by its appearance. You got to admit, the Oasis is one ugly ship. It looks like an apartment complex that floats. But then I thought, who cares what it looks like anyway? When we got home from that cruise, I looked up the Oasis, saw the rather steep pricing and decided to wait for a special occasion. Now, fast forward to this year. 25th wedding anniversary, 50th …uh…very late 40ish birthday, so hey, let’s do something special! I figured, what the heck? Let’s pull the trigger on this bad boy. And let the odyssey begin:

For those of you new to cruising, a word of caution. This ship requires you to do your homework. You can’t just book, hop on the ship and have a great week. Well, maybe you can, but being the organized nincompoop that I am, it required a quite a bit of planning. For example, let’s start with the room selection. The past couple of cruises we selected an interior room. The thought being, we’ve had a balcony before and spent very little time out there, so let’s save a little money. However, that stupid “Special Occasion” thing popped up in my head again, so, what the heck, let’s do a balcony. What? There are different balconies? Oh boy. There are interior balconies and exterior balconies. Hmmmm, interior sounds cool. Let’s choose that. What? There are different interior balconies? Yikes. There are those that look over Central Park. I’m glad we didn’t choose that one because Central Park didn’t have a lot of action going on. Then there are those overlooking the Boardwalk. That one looked kinda cool, as you can see the Aqua Theater, a little bit of the Ocean and watch the Zip Liners scoot by. However, I didn’t know that at the time of booking and as my head was starting to explode, I chickened out and skipped that room type as well. Finally, there are the interior balconies that overlook the Promenade, which seemed to have the most action for those looking to people watch, although it might get noisy with all the activity going on. Also, if you forget to close the drapes, you’ll be the ones putting on the show. So many choices- lot’s of pressure. So I decided to be safe and select the Ocean View. I’m not even going to into the various types of Ocean View Balconies there are. All I knew at this point is that I wanted something midlevel and midship (to help limit my susceptibility to seasickness) with a price that didn’t cause my atrial fibrillation to kick into high gear. I was able to find something meeting these criteria (deck 7 – Room 250) and opted for the insurance to, you know, be on the safe side. Hoping to never need it, of course. So that’s it, just pay and go, right?

Wrong. Homework doesn’t end there though. Regarding all the various shows onboard, Royal Caribbean, unlike Carnival, lets those with reservations enter first and if there are any seats left, they will let those waiting on the no-reservation line to enter. So, if you want a good seat (and I want a good seat), you need a reservation. So, starting 90 days out, I kept checking the website to see if the reservations opened up. Every day. That doesn’t make me, like, compulsive, does it? I kept thinking that there was some RCCL employee monitoring the website and thinking, “hey, that idiot from Tampa is checking the reservations again. Let’s keep it closed for a couple more days, hee hee”. Well, my patience finally paid off as around the 60 day mark they opened up the reservations. Finally! I heard that RCCL hadn’t contracted the comedians yet and wouldn’t open up the reservations until then. Don’t know if that’s true or not, but it sounded better to me than “let’s spitefully keep the reservations closed and see if this Tampa guy finally gives up”. I downloaded the show schedule from the website and scheduled one show a day. Happily, I was able to reserve all the shows at the exact times I was looking for. Now keep in mind, the doors open 45 minutes prior to ShowTime. During the last 10 minutes they open up the venue to those without reservations. Most of the shows were not full, so these “unreserved” people were able to get in, however they probably got most of the side and rear seats (although an occasional middle / front seat was available). Also, the Comedy Live room, where the comedians are, holds maybe 100 people – so reservations are mandatory for this. I can’t imagine any walk-ins were able to get in. Phew, all done with the pre-work, right?

Nope. Dinner reservations people, don’t forget the dinner reservations. We wanted to go to a couple of the specialty restaurants, so we made these reservations too. We did the Chop Grille. Man oh man. Just awesome. The Porterhouse was sick and the chocolate mud pie was insane. I’m telling you, if I wasn’t such a classy person, I would have gnawed that Porterhouse bone. Boy was it good. I can’t recommend this place enough. We also did Giovanni’s Table. Again, the food was ridiculously good. I can’t think of a reason not to go to either of these places. I mean, I can understand why people would not want to pay extra to eat when there are plenty of free options available, but other than that, these are no-brainers as far as I’m concerned.

Ok, let’s sum up the pre-work. Booked the room (after figuring out the type and location), made the show reservations and made the dinner reservations. Now I started to get lazy. Actually, I didn’t. Ok, not too proud of this, but I created a spreadsheet of all the various stores, bars, restaurants, landmarks, etc. and the floor on which these areas are located. First, it was sorted by the facility, in alphabetical order, then the same list was sorted by floor. My plan was to use this as a cheat seat so at a quick glance, I would be able to figure out exactly where my desired destination was located. Dining Room? Third floor baby. Ice Cream machines? 15. Promenade? 5! See? Works like a charm.

Sorry ladies, I’m taken.

Two days before the trip, I realized that I didn’t plan where to park the car in Fort Lauderdale. After doing some research, I found a place that had mostly good reviews, called Park N Go. I made a reservation online and it cost only $4.99 a night. I think pier parking was $15.00 a night. Over 7 nights, that adds up. Now, don’t do what I did kids. I went to the boat, unloaded the luggage, checked it in with the porter and then drove the car to Park N Go. However, everyone else in the planet drove directly to Park N Go and then boarded the bus with their luggage for the 5 minute drive to the pier. Probably the better way to go. After dropping off the car at Park N Go, we walked right onto the bus which took us to the boat. Getting off the boat, we walked to the designated spot and then had to wait maybe 3 minutes for the bus to arrive to take us back to the car. The lot seemed safe and organized. I’d highly recommend Park N Go.

One last task to do before our trip begins. Pack our clothes. You know, there’s an old adage here: Pack half of what you think you’ll need. Excellent advice. Unfortunately, my wife hadn’t heard that one. When I saw the three staging areas within our home of “stuff to be packed”, I told her about this very fine quote. She then looked at my cheatsheet that I was holding in my hand, sorted two different ways, and gave me a look that I’ve seen many times during our 25 years. I knew what had to be done. Just shut up and pack. At the end of the day, we actually had only three (rather large) pieces of luggage. I travel a lot and utilize those Travel Cubes and folding aids. Helps you squeeze a lot of stuff into your luggage. Do a google search if you don’t know what I’m talking about. Anyhoo I was shocked that we only had three pieces of luggage, and one was totally dedicated to shoes. You think I’m kidding, right. Nope. Shoes. To be fair, I have rather large clodhoppers and they take up a lot of room, so if you go by mass, she still occupied about 60 percent of the space. But if you go by quantity, she must have outnumbered mine 4 to 1.

Time to board people, time to board. Got there about 10:30 AM and went on line (according to deck). Waited, oh, two minutes before being waived on to an open window. Just a few short minutes later our picture was taken, keys are in hand, and we walked to the waiting area to take a seat. Sat for 10 minutes, tops, and we were walking on the boat. My first thoughts as we entered the boat? Holy @*&^, can you believe this @*&^#@% thing? I can’t believe this is a *@&*^$# boat”. You did read I’m from NY, right? Ok, a little more background about me. I hate to look ahead. I don’t like reading a menu before we get to the restaurant. I don’t like watching previews for upcoming shows and I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at pictures of the ship. I like to be surprised. Boy, was I surprised. It’s so impressive. But again, I think you need to do some pre-work and familiarize yourself with the ship. The ship is just too big to try to learn its configuration on your own, onboard, without being exposed to it before. For example, I knew there was a boardwalk, a promenade, a central park, a rising bar, a “hidden balcony”, a little known spot where they hide the third ice cream machine, where to stand on sail away, where to get breakfast if the Windjammer is too full, where to get a great roast beef sandwich, where to sign up for the free $50 dollar good-as-cash casino coupon, etc.. I think it would take someone too long to find out these things. I don’t know, maybe it wouldn’t, all I know is that I was overwhelmed and I did a bit of homework. I’d hate to think how overwhelmed someone who didn’t prepare might feel. Oh, that $50 coupon I mentioned above, I made that up to see if you were paying attention. Got you blood flowing a little bit, didn’t I?

Royal Caribbean Hiccup alert. I read that the Windjammer (lunch buffet) may get a little busy on the first day, so here’s where my little bit of homework pays off. “Hey honey bunny, let’s go to Central Park, where we can have a quiet lunch, don’t worry, nobody knows about this place”. Funny thing. It seems EVERYONE seems to know about this place. Yikes. Let’s go to the Windjammer then. Yikes squared. Where’d all these people come from? There was no place to sit. Hmmm, very annoying actually. Is this the way it’s going to be the whole cruise? I didn’t plan on this. Atrial Fibrillation starting to kick in. Cheatsheet is not helping. Eye starting to twitch. Wife looking for bartender. Wait, a table is opening up. RUN! “Watch it old lady, that baby’s mine!” Phew, got it. I hope this isn’t an omen of things to come (Hint: It wasn’t). Food however was very good.

Rooms are now open up. Hey sweetie, being our anniversary, ready for some Oom pah Pah Mow Mow? Oh wait, the ice cream machines are closing soon, let’s get some before they close. Now, don’t get me started on the ice cream machines. Too late, I’m getting started. Why do they close those things at 6:30? It’s 24 hours over there at Carnival. Doesn’t make sense. Oh, and here’s another annoying thing. The Donut Shop. Only open a few hours a day. And not the same hours each day. It was open certain hours on sea day, then it was open a different set of hours when docked. I could tell you when it wasn’t open though: When I wanted a freaken donut!! Whenever I went there it was closed. Now let’s think out loud a bit. Isn’t a donut the perfect between meal snack? Unfortunately, it seems you could only get a donut at meal time. To sum up, if you have a sweet tooth like me and are looking for a sweet snack after a show, before bed or any time after dinner for that matter, you’re out of luck.

One last nitpicky thing. You know that you can order as much as you want in the dining room, right? However, I got a vibe from the waitress that she was annoyed by this. Like after I placed my order, she would start to walk away, and I’d have to continue my order with a (kinda-loud) “AND, I’d also like…”. Typically, my wife and I would each order a main dish, then I’d order a third item that we would split. You know, something that I typically wouldn’t order but took advantage of the free food by experimenting. If it ended up that we didn’t like it, no big loss. This didn’t apply to Lobster Night, however, as I wasn’t splitting that bad boy with anybody. Regarding the lobster, I don’t believe they were from Maine / North Atlantic as those are a little sweeter than the ones served on the ship. Still good though. Oh, getting back to the waitress. It wasn’t until the last day, tip day, that after we placed our order, she added, “anything else”? Two little words that would have made me feel more comfortable if she would have said them all week. She even encouraged us to get an additional dessert: “You sure you don’t want to try the Key Lime Pie”? Man, where was that attitude all week?

Jim J. Bullock was in hairspray. Did anyone else know this? Did they even advertise it? I don’t remember ever reading anything about it. I remember him from “Too Close for Comfort”, a show staring Ted Knight in the 80’s. I mean, I remember my grandma telling me about that show from the 80’s. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Any hoo, he signed an 8 month contract, so he’ll be doing the show onboard the Oasis until the end of September. I still don’t understand why a man plays the role of the mother. Really doesn’t make sense to me, but what do I know?

That’s basically it. Except for the couple of annoying things noted above, everything else was more than perfect. The staff bent over backwards for us. The entertainment was great, food was spectacular and the ship itself is a work of art. Oh and don’t worry, contrary to my title, I was able to batter dip the corndog during our cruise. Like with anything else, you just have to do the proper planning. “Hey honey, we have two minutes until the Beatles Trivia….”.