Just back from Oasis - disappointed this time

We just returned from a B2B on Oasis January 28 - Feburary 11, 2018. On this trip it was my husband, myself, and another couple. We've been on multiple cruises with RCI on Voyager and Oasis class ships. We initially chose RCI for our first cruise many years ago and were so satisfied that we have never sailed on another cruise line and had never intended to. Sadly, that may now change, as we were disappointed and frustrated this time around. The last time we were on Oasis was in 2011. What a difference between now and then! We spent a lot of our time in lines. Even though we had made reservations for dining each night and all the shows, there still was a significant wait for everything. We had My Time Dining at the MDR each night with reservations and routinely waited anywhere from 20-30 minutes to be seated. The waiters appeared to be understaffed and rushed and service was slow. The food has definitely deteriorated since our last trip in selection and quality. One evening for dinner we went to our dining room on Deck 3 and waited 10-15 minutes only to be told that it was full and they had no more tables available. They said they would take us to the Deck 4 dining room, as there were tables available there. We were escorted there but when we got there, apparently there was no room there either. Right in front of us staff members were arguing back and forth saying things such as, "Why did you bring them here? We don't have any room. Who told you to bring them?" One of them was on a radio arguing with someone at the Deck 3 dining room as to why they would send us to Deck 4. They then told us we would be escorted to the Deck 5 dining room. So we were at 3 different dining rooms before they finally found a table for us. Two days in a row when we ate breakfast at the Windjammer, there were large chunks of egg shells in the scrambled eggs. I had some in my eggs one day and two other people we were with also had them. One of the servings of scrambled eggs had what was probably equal to an entire half shell of an egg mixed in. This just took away my appetite to be crunching egg shells and I didn't finish breakfast that day. Our friend's steak at Giovanni's had to be sent back twice because it was so overcooked. The second time they brought it out, even the waiter said, "Something's wrong." To have to send it back two times doesn't speak very well for a specialty restaurant that people are paying extra for. We had reservations for every show and we had to show up 45-60 mins. ahead to be able to find 4 seats together. Customer service at Guest Services was a nightmare. We had an onboard credit we were given as a gift weeks before the cruise and they claimed to have no record of it. I had a transaction number proving that it was paid for and they told us they were unable to look it up with the transaction number. We probably spent half a day in total at Guest Services trying to straighten it out. Every time we went there, we were given a different answer. To make a long story short, they never did give it to us and on the last day they agreed that we should have had it but said there was nothing they could do on the ship, that it would have to go through corporate, and we'd have to call when we got home. I did call when we returned from our trip and the agent I spoke to reviewed the notes and said he doesn't understand why they didn't resolve it while we were onboard and he did credit my credit card immediately, which was great except it was after the fact and we would have liked to have used it onboard. They also had charged my Seapass account $151.04 for a tour that we never purchased. When we finally got that straightened out, the agent said it was their mistake and a crew member had probably hit the wrong button and charged it by mistake. The upselling is out of hand. We were constantly approached about buying photos, drink packages, dining packages, spa packages from the moment we stepped onboard until we disembarked. It doesn't make for a very enjoyable atmosphere. Someone even approached us while we were eating in the dining room to try to get us to buy a galley tour of the kitchen. I have never had a problem with any cabin steward before and always leave an extra tip for them, as I think they work hard. The gentleman we had this time was pleasant enough but maybe forgetful more than anything and not very energetic. We had to ask numerous times for a few things we requested, such as hangers and drinking glasses. He left 3 towel animals over 2 weeks, which I realize is petty and not a big deal, but combined with everything else, it just contributed to the feeling that there is a lack of service and attention to detail compared to our past cruises. We also found out at Guest Services that he failed to leave a letter in our cabin about the Meet-n-Mingle and by the time I inquired about it, it had been held earlier that day and we missed it completely. I could go on about many other issues, but the problems we encountered on these two cruises are unfortunate and have changed my opinion about RCI. A few employees we spoke with told us that when a new ship sails, the best and most experienced employees are sent there to work and that since Oasis is the oldest ship in this class, the staff tends to be more inexperienced and inefficient. I don't know if this is true, but it is a sad state of affairs if it is. We came away with the feeling that RCI truly does not care much about its guests and are more interested in financial gain than anything else.

We just returned from a B2B on Oasis January 28 - Feburary 11, 2018. On this trip it was my husband, myself, and another couple. We've been on multiple cruises with RCI on Voyager and Oasis class ships. We initially chose RCI for our first cruise many years ago and were so satisfied that we have never sailed on another cruise line and had never intended to. Sadly, that may now change, as we were disappointed and frustrated this time around. The last time we were on Oasis was in 2011. What a difference between now and then! We spent a lot of our time in lines. Even though we had made reservations for dining each night and all the shows, there still was a significant wait for everything. We had My Time Dining at the MDR each night with reservations and routinely waited anywhere from 20-30 minutes to be seated. The waiters appeared to be understaffed and rushed and service was slow. The food has definitely deteriorated since our last trip in selection and quality. One evening for dinner we went to our dining room on Deck 3 and waited 10-15 minutes only to be told that it was full and they had no more tables available. They said they would take us to the Deck 4 dining room, as there were tables available there. We were escorted there but when we got there, apparently there was no room there either. Right in front of us staff members were arguing back and forth saying things such as, "Why did you bring them here? We don't have any room. Who told you to bring them?" One of them was on a radio arguing with someone at the Deck 3 dining room as to why they would send us to Deck 4. They then told us we would be escorted to the Deck 5 dining room. So we were at 3 different dining rooms before they finally found a table for us. Two days in a row when we ate breakfast at the Windjammer, there were large chunks of egg shells in the scrambled eggs. I had some in my eggs one day and two other people we were with also had them. One of the servings of scrambled eggs had what was probably equal to an entire half shell of an egg mixed in. This just took away my appetite to be crunching egg shells and I didn't finish breakfast that day. Our friend's steak at Giovanni's had to be sent back twice because it was so overcooked. The second time they brought it out, even the waiter said, "Something's wrong." To have to send it back two times doesn't speak very well for a specialty restaurant that people are paying extra for. We had reservations for every show and we had to show up 45-60 mins. ahead to be able to find 4 seats together. Customer service at Guest Services was a nightmare. We had an onboard credit we were given as a gift weeks before the cruise and they claimed to have no record of it. I had a transaction number proving that it was paid for and they told us they were unable to look it up with the transaction number. We probably spent half a day in total at Guest Services trying to straighten it out. Every time we went there, we were given a different answer. To make a long story short, they never did give it to us and on the last day they agreed that we should have had it but said there was nothing they could do on the ship, that it would have to go through corporate, and we'd have to call when we got home. I did call when we returned from our trip and the agent I spoke to reviewed the notes and said he doesn't understand why they didn't resolve it while we were onboard and he did credit my credit card immediately, which was great except it was after the fact and we would have liked to have used it onboard. They also had charged my Seapass account $151.04 for a tour that we never purchased. When we finally got that straightened out, the agent said it was their mistake and a crew member had probably hit the wrong button and charged it by mistake. The upselling is out of hand. We were constantly approached about buying photos, drink packages, dining packages, spa packages from the moment we stepped onboard until we disembarked. It doesn't make for a very enjoyable atmosphere. Someone even approached us while we were eating in the dining room to try to get us to buy a galley tour of the kitchen. I have never had a problem with any cabin steward before and always leave an extra tip for them, as I think they work hard. The gentleman we had this time was pleasant enough but maybe forgetful more than anything and not very energetic. We had to ask numerous times for a few things we requested, such as hangers and drinking glasses. He left 3 towel animals over 2 weeks, which I realize is petty and not a big deal, but combined with everything else, it just contributed to the feeling that there is a lack of service and attention to detail compared to our past cruises. We also found out at Guest Services that he failed to leave a letter in our cabin about the Meet-n-Mingle and by the time I inquired about it, it had been held earlier that day and we missed it completely. I could go on about many other issues, but the problems we encountered on these two cruises are unfortunate and have changed my opinion about RCI. A few employees we spoke with told us that when a new ship sails, the best and most experienced employees are sent there to work and that since Oasis is the oldest ship in this class, the staff tends to be more inexperienced and inefficient. I don't know if this is true, but it is a sad state of affairs if it is. We came away with the feeling that RCI truly does not care much about its guests and are more interested in financial gain than anything else.

We were on the same back to back and experienced some of the same issues you describe. We too had a room steward that was less than attentive, did his normal cleaning but was very inconsistent with request. We too found the food in the Windjammer pretty boring. Most meals lacked any seasoning, were just barely warm and the choices were just not very good. We made a request of Customer Service and three days later had to go back and ask why it hadn't been done, first cruise, second cruise we requested to stand at the counter until the request had been completed.

We did have a great encounter with the loyalty representative: second day of the first cruise we went from Gold to Platinum; asked the representative about the few extra benefits, especially the robe, for Platinum and he advised that we needed to see him first day of the second cruise; went to him first day of second cruise and he not only remembered us but remembered us by name and that I was really looking forward to the robe. There was a lady sitting there who stated that she was Emerald and had never been able to get a robe. The representative changed our status to Platinum and we went directly to Customer Service and asked that our robes be delivered to the cabin. By the time we got back to the cabin, the robes were on the sofa. I put my robe on and went directly to the Loyalty office and showed the representative, Sergi, and he busted out laughing. We saw him several more times through out the cruise and each time he would stop and talk and of course ask about the robe.

This was our second back to back on the Oasis and we have another planned for this October. Hope things get better between now and then.

Hey, at least you know that you were served real eggs. That puts to rest the rumor that RC uses powdered eggs! ;) :D

Hey, at least you know that you were served real eggs. That puts to rest the rumor that RC uses powdered eggs! ;) :D

Hilarious!!

To the OP, it sure sounds like it was not the most pleasant experience. I hope you don't give up quite yet on RCCL. We've only done 6 cruises in our "cruising careers" but our 3rd RCCL cruise had some of the issues you describe, particularly related to MTD. It was chaotic and we had different servers and different tables pretty much every night while they tried to make things work for us. And we weren't even being difficult...it just felt chaotic. (This was on EXPLORER.)

Fortunately, we decided it was a "one off" and the following year, sailed on the ALLURE and had a fabulous time, even though there were twice as many passengers. It was all really well organized and almost everything went flawlessly.

When it comes to MTD, I'm really starting to believe that it really comes down to the "front of house" folks more than the wait staff. Not sure of their job titles, but the folks who work the computers at the ends of the lines. We've seen some who run their "shops" with the efficiency of long-tenured but friendly drill sargeants. And then others who seem flustered and even a little frightened. Guess which dining room ran better? Yeah, it could be a chicken & egg thing (easy to seem organized when things are running well?)...but I've spent enough of my career leading leaders to recognize folks who are in over their heads. And if a MTD "chief" is in over his/her head...things are just NOT going to go well.

Hey, at least you know that you were served real eggs. That puts to rest the rumor that RC uses powdered eggs! ;) :D

I am surprised the teacher in you didn’t request some paragraphs.... I never eat the pans of pre-cooked eqqs, as I always go stand in the egg made to order line, or on Oasis, I go to JRs for breakfast.

JC

All the complaints you have mentioned are things I have experienced and have noticed happening more and more on RCCL.

I also had no reason to try other cruise lines but if I continue to see these types of problems over and over I may feel like I have no choice but to try another cruise line (vacations are suppose to be relaxing and fun, not irritating and annoying).

Sad to hear this type of stuff is happening more and more on RCCL.

I'd be interested in knowing the issues. But not going to even try to read that "paragraph".

OP, in the future, please consider using paragraphs for such a long post. The words are well-written, but it would have been a lot easier to read if it had been split into paragraphs.

My sister and I were on the Feb 4th sailing and I have to agree. I think there was a lot of new crew onboard who had no clue what they were doing. I have been on the Oasis 11 times and I have never encountered such off things ie Solarium for lunch no lettuce on the salad bar I spoke to someone that the bowl was empty off he goes and comes back with no lettuce started refilling the bread baskets. The Windjammer food was just bad. We did room service for breakfast and if you are going to charge me bring food that is decent. The bacon wasn't cooked and the hard cooked eggs were just bad. JR breakfast was wonderful. Went to Giovanni's twice first night steak was perfect the second night the waiter insisted on butterflying the steak and it was awful. My thought is if you have a drink package knock off the upcharges or do away with the packages.

Just my thoughts.

I was on Oasis in December and did not experience any dining issues. However, I did not do MTD and did not eat in WJ, and those two issues seem to be top of your list. I was pretty impressed with the entire staff. But two people's trips can be SO different, especially on a ship of that size. I'll be back in November and I certainly hope what you said about the best employees leaving for new ships (this year would be Symphony) is not the case. Fingers crossed.

I forgot to mention we were on the Oasis the first week of October and it was like night and day from this last one.

That's why I tend to believe the statement that the best crew are moved to the new ships.

Just a thought

OP, in the future, please consider using paragraphs for such a long post. The words are well-written, but it would have been a lot easier to read if it had been split into paragraphs.

Sorry, I'll do that next time. Didn't expect it to be that long.

I am surprised the teacher in you didn’t request some paragraphs.... I never eat the pans of pre-cooked eqqs, as I always go stand in the egg made to order line, or on Oasis, I go to JRs for breakfast.

 

JC

I long since gave up on that. Besides, as you know, there are people here who don't like to have their grammar, spelling or word usage corrected, and fling the CC "rules" in my face. :D :D :D

Sorry, I'll do that next time. Didn't expect it to be that long.

Want me to fix it for you, since you sort of asked? ;)

We just returned from a B2B on Oasis January 28 - Feburary 11, 2018. On this trip it was my husband, myself, and another couple. We've been on multiple cruises with RCI on Voyager and Oasis class ships. We initially chose RCI for our first cruise many years ago and were so satisfied that we have never sailed on another cruise line and had never intended to.

Sadly, that may now change, as we were disappointed and frustrated this time around. The last time we were on Oasis was in 2011. What a difference between now and then! We spent a lot of our time in lines. Even though we had made reservations for dining each night and all the shows, there still was a significant wait for everything.

We had My Time Dining at the MDR each night with reservations and routinely waited anywhere from 20-30 minutes to be seated. The waiters appeared to be understaffed and rushed and service was slow. The food has definitely deteriorated since our last trip in selection and quality.

One evening for dinner we went to our dining room on Deck 3 and waited 10-15 minutes only to be told that it was full and they had no more tables available. They said they would take us to the Deck 4 dining room, as there were tables available there. We were escorted there but when we got there, apparently there was no room there either. Right in front of us staff members were arguing back and forth saying things such as, "Why did you bring them here? We don't have any room. Who told you to bring them?" One of them was on a radio arguing with someone at the Deck 3 dining room as to why they would send us to Deck 4. They then told us we would be escorted to the Deck 5 dining room. So we were at 3 different dining rooms before they finally found a table for us.

Two days in a row when we ate breakfast at the Windjammer, there were large chunks of egg shells in the scrambled eggs. I had some in my eggs one day and two other people we were with also had them. One of the servings of scrambled eggs had what was probably equal to an entire half shell of an egg mixed in. This just took away my appetite to be crunching egg shells and I didn't finish breakfast that day.

Our friend's steak at Giovanni's had to be sent back twice because it was so overcooked. The second time they brought it out, even the waiter said, "Something's wrong." To have to send it back two times doesn't speak very well for a specialty restaurant that people are paying extra for.

We had reservations for every show and we had to show up 45-60 mins. ahead to be able to find 4 seats together.

Customer service at Guest Services was a nightmare. We had an onboard credit we were given as a gift weeks before the cruise and they claimed to have no record of it. I had a transaction number proving that it was paid for and they told us they were unable to look it up with the transaction number. We probably spent half a day in total at Guest Services trying to straighten it out. Every time we went there, we were given a different answer. To make a long story short, they never did give it to us and on the last day they agreed that we should have had it but said there was nothing they could do on the ship, that it would have to go through corporate, and we'd have to call when we got home. I did call when we returned from our trip and the agent I spoke to reviewed the notes and said he doesn't understand why they didn't resolve it while we were onboard and he did credit my credit card immediately, which was great except it was after the fact and we would have liked to have used it onboard.

They also had charged my Seapass account $151.04 for a tour that we never purchased. When we finally got that straightened out, the agent said it was their mistake and a crew member had probably hit the wrong button and charged it by mistake.

The upselling is out of hand. We were constantly approached about buying photos, drink packages, dining packages, spa packages from the moment we stepped onboard until we disembarked. It doesn't make for a very enjoyable atmosphere. Someone even approached us while we were eating in the dining room to try to get us to buy a galley tour of the kitchen.

I have never had a problem with any cabin steward before and always leave an extra tip for them, as I think they work hard. The gentleman we had this time was pleasant enough but maybe forgetful more than anything and not very energetic. We had to ask numerous times for a few things we requested, such as hangers and drinking glasses. He left 3 towel animals over 2 weeks, which I realize is petty and not a big deal, but combined with everything else, it just contributed to the feeling that there is a lack of service and attention to detail compared to our past cruises.

We also found out at Guest Services that he failed to leave a letter in our cabin about the Meet-n-Mingle and by the time I inquired about it, it had been held earlier that day and we missed it completely.

I could go on about many other issues, but the problems we encountered on these two cruises are unfortunate and have changed my opinion about RCI. A few employees we spoke with told us that when a new ship sails, the best and most experienced employees are sent there to work and that since Oasis is the oldest ship in this class, the staff tends to be more inexperienced and inefficient.

I don't know if this is true, but it is a sad state of affairs if it is.

We came away with the feeling that RCI truly does not care much about its guests and are more interested in financial gain than anything else.

:D

[emoji122][emoji122][emoji122] thank you!

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RCI is not what it once was. I’ve been on 8 cruises with RCI. Went on FOS in January ( third time) and I was very disappointed. Cold food and poor service in the MDR. Same offerings in the windjammer day after day. Other issues as well. Time to venture out

I long since gave up on that. Besides, as you know, there are people here who don't like to have their grammar, spelling or word usage corrected, and fling the CC "rules" in my face. :D :D :D

There is a big difference between correcting grammar and spelling and pointing out that a post is difficult to read without some breaks.

We too were on the January 28th cruise. We were with our son, daughter-in-law and two toddler grandbabies. (1.5 and 3.5)

Our cabin stewards were great. The older grandbaby ended up sleeping in our cabin every night and there were no issues at all. We had towel animals probably four times in seven days.

We had regular early dining, and the food was ok, and the staff tried their hardest. They kept bringing us extra dishes to 'try', but overall the service was really slow. You would think when they saw we had two 3 and unders, and we arrived as soon as the doors opened that they would have kept things moving. Even when we asked to have the meal served more quickly, if we wanted dessert we had to wait until ALL the other tables in our section were ready for dessert. We gave up by day six and ate elsewhere.

Sun Lover, I am sorry you had such a bad cruise. Something can be overlooked when it's just one thing, but it sounds like you had issue after issue. That's not fun at all. I have the Oasis booked this September and am hoping the ship does not sail full. I was hoping the reservation system would cut down on wait times for the shows. The lines for the shows on Carnival's Vista (which sailed full) were very lone and there was no reservation system. If we end up with long waits on the Oasis, even though we are sailing while kids are in school, I will probably give up on the larger ships.

My husband and I had a wonderful cruise on Liberty of the Seas. Everything was great. I hope the crew on Oasis get their acts together. It sounds like a mess. I'm excited about my upcoming cruise and will hope for the best.

If people really get fed up with downgrading of experience and stop sailing RCCL and suddenly not enough demand for their huge supply (which gets bigger every oasis class ship and every drydock), things will change. but until then............. shareholders enjoy the stock price. their focus is new pax.

Sun Lover, I am sorry you had such a bad cruise. Something can be overlooked when it's just one thing, but it sounds like you had issue after issue. That's not fun at all. I have the Oasis booked this September and am hoping the ship does not sail full. I was hoping the reservation system would cut down on wait times for the shows. The lines for the shows on Carnival's Vista (which sailed full) were very lone and there was no reservation system. If we end up with long waits on the Oasis, even though we are sailing while kids are in school, I will probably give up on the larger ships.

 

My husband and I had a wonderful cruise on Liberty of the Seas. Everything was great. I hope the crew on Oasis get their acts together. It sounds like a mess. I'm excited about my upcoming cruise and will hope for the best.

Hate to break it to you but Oasis class pretty much always sails at capacity. They don't leave cabins empty. That's bad for business.

We too were on the January 28th cruise. We were with our son, daughter-in-law and two toddler grandbabies. (1.5 and 3.5)

Our cabin stewards were great. The older grandbaby ended up sleeping in our cabin every night and there were no issues at all. We had towel animals probably four times in seven days.

 

We had regular early dining, and the food was ok, and the staff tried their hardest. They kept bringing us extra dishes to 'try', but overall the service was really slow. You would think when they saw we had two 3 and unders, and we arrived as soon as the doors opened that they would have kept things moving. Even when we asked to have the meal served more quickly, if we wanted dessert we had to wait until ALL the other tables in our section were ready for dessert. We gave up by day six and ate elsewhere.

Next time they are on a cruise with you, set them up for "adventure time" dining, it's expedited service for the kids in your group (the rest of the party is served at normal speeds) then 45 minutes into dinner, the crew from adventure ocean meets you at the door to the MDR, picks the kids up and takes them to have fun so mom and dad (and the rest of the table) can enjoy a nice relaxing dinner.

I'm sorry you had such an experience. We didn't have such issues to the extent that you did, but Oasis was the worst experience we've had with Royal in 12 cruises. Staff and customer service were rude, unconcerned and non-existent. We had so looked forward to Oasis as we waited years for the prices to come down and then had a very negative experience.

You would hope that Royal reads these posts and actually cares.

Hate to break it to you but Oasis class pretty much always sails at capacity. They don't leave cabins empty. That's bad for business.

That makes sense. From the OP, it sounds like the reservation system doesn't make it any easier to see the shows. Waiting in line for 40 minutes or more for a show when I have a reservation just doesn't sound fun. Too late now, my deposit is non refundable. LOL. Oh well. At least I know it going in and can be prepared. I should have done more research before booking.

Another Jan 28 veteran.

Walked thru WJ a few nights, didn't eat. Unappetizing as ever. Never ate in MDR, first time in forever. Ate most nights early in CK. Food fine, but service slow.

I will concur that Sergei the LA is very good at his job.

Dissapointed that many shows were cancelled, but hey, that's January weather

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