BrandyWyneOKC

On the Oasis of the Seas:

The pools say they are open 24 hours, yet every night they were roped off for maintenance and only certain hot tubs remained open as well. Therefore, the pool deck is virtually deserted on a nightly basis and, at least on this sailing, super windy.

Splurge on Izumi & the Sea Shack. Well worth it and really not unreasonable with a small "service fee" and ala' carte pricing. The food in both of these was fabulous, both open for lunch or dinner. Pick one of the "For Fee" restaurants.. Chops is $30 per person and seriously worth it.

The food in the MDR is hit or miss banquet type food, but the service is ALWAYS impeccable. I felt like I was friends with Ed, our server, by the end of the week. He treated my daughter like she was one of his children while serving her, even cutting her food one night, so I could enjoy my meal. Lucy collects wine corks (go figure, I drink wine.. she likes the corks LOL) and he saved all of his corks from his tables for her.

I didn't have the "All You Can Drink" package from Royal Caribbean, but from observing, I now know this: You can't buy a round of drinks, or even a single drink for someone else, at all, if you have that package. They will only serve you one drink at a time. If you leave the venue to circumvent this, and come back with another drink in hand to give to someone else, they will send an officer of some sort to speak with you, saying that it violates the spirit of the package, and ask you to refrain from doing so again. :rolleyes:

The Spa - I would have enjoyed myself and been more thoroughly relaxed had I not felt like I was having product foisted on me at avery opportunity, with almost a Used-Car Salesman type gusto and attitude. Otherwise, it was great. :p

Lastly - If you are a single parent taking your child on a cruise, be prepared for your child to want to spend possibly every waking moment in the kids club, and not with you. I had to force my daughter to eat with me. That was the one thing I refused, eating by myself in the MDR in our little corner lol. You can hang by the pool and read, swim, and drink, but there's only so much you can do by yourself before you realize that you are one of so very few by themselves... Left to my own devices, I shopped waaayyy too much lol!

Disney Cruises:

Just make sure that the child is able to adjust well to going to the kids club, if you are planning on using it. We had friends sail with us and our daughters are the same age, 7 at that time. Their little girl had separation issues that drove me bananas, and made it hard for my little girl to enjoy her time. We had to explain that they didn't have to be joined at the hip and do everything together. Her parents couldn't even watch a movie (first run, & 3D BTW) without the kids club calling to tell them she wanted to leave. By the 3rd day even her parents were fed up with it. I finally told her one night that she acted like she would never see them again, but that they couldn't go anywhere, she had a captive audience on the ship and they wouldn't be paying a helicopter to fly out to get them and leave her. I guess once I put it that way, she relaxed a little bit about it, lol! My point is, it can be miserable for you if the child is miserable in the kids club. Otherwise, I'd say 7-8 is ideal for them to be able to actually remember the cruise as they get older. I barely remember the cross country roadtrip we took when I was 6 years old.

I wonder how you get the guest celebration announcements in the paper. I would love to surprise my best friend and wish her a happy birthday on the cruise. We are both celebrating our 50th on the cruise. I think this would definitely make it special.

I bet you can go to guest services after boarding and set it up. I'll be doing that for my daughter as well!

I can't remember which cruise line it is, but one of them(maybe more)are starting to charge/fine people that have over the door hangers that cause damage to the doors/interiors. What I would suggest are the command strip hooks to hang this type of thing, and not going over the door to minimize possibility of damage. ;) Extra hooks my be useful to hang swimsuits, coverups, or hoodies for drying/easy access.

Midiana, would you possibly mind emailing the compasses? For some reason they don't show up for me. :confused: I'm sailing out May 18th, and would love to get a look at them!

Thanks so much if you can!

bcgturtle / at / yahoo / .com

LAatl -

I'm sailing on the Oasis in May, on the Eastern Caribbean Itinerary, but a guy I work with is going the following week on the Western. He isn't registered on the Forums and I was hoping to send him .pdfs of your Compasses, but they don't display for some reason. I was wondering if you would mind emailing them to me or sending a link to them if you possibly posted on another site? I would normally private message you, but apparently they have turned off that functionality at this time(?).

Thanks so much!

Brandi - bcgturtle / at / yahoo