Oasis of the Seas - April 9, 2017 - Western Caribbean : Observation and info

We sailed on the Oasis of the Seas, Western Caribbean itinerary, on April 9, 2017. This was the first cruise for my wife and I without the kids, 2nd time on the Oasis and our 28th overall.

Rather than a detailed day-by-day review, I thought I would convey some observations, and some rather unique VOOM data (mainly for Bob and Biker).

Cabin -- D7 on deck 12 -- glad we did not choose deck 14 because I would not like the prominent overhang from deck 15. We were about 8 cabins back from the aft elevators, so the walk was not too bad. Simone was our cabin attendant, she was excellent -- everything always in order and the ice bucket always full.

Let's get this over with :

MDR - We both thought the food was very good, especially the lamb shank. Lobster tail on 2nd formal night with the option to have more than one if you wanted it. However, our servers were ..... "inconsistent" ..... A couple of days, we never saw our assistant waiter -- meaning rolls and drinks were "inconsistent" . Some days it took a long time (two hours, and we were almost the last ones to leave the dining room), other nights a little better at 80-90 minutes. We had a table for two on deck 4, on the rail. Deck 3 is designated for "mytime", but on several nights, they were seating my time diners on deck 4. To me, this created part of the problem. When one party comes in 45 minutes after others that the same waiter is serving, the service gets disrupted and "inconsistent". I always thought that if all of the tables were fairly close in which course is being served, the service was better. This time the constant introduction of new people really disrupted the flow, hence "inconsistent". If I wanted "mytime" and the effects of "mytime", I would have picked it.

Regarding the dress, I won't say much, but shorts and a baseball cap and logo t-shirt on formal night is unacceptable -- sorry. Plenty of threads on this topic floating around, and I have said my piece there.

Best meal -- Without hesitation, 150 Central Park. We did this on "First Night Done Right", for $15 pp. My wife and I still talk about the flavored salts. Excellent food, great presentation, wonderful flavors.

Shows -- We did all but CATS and the comedy show. Best one ? Oasis of Dreams at the Aquatheatre. Great place for an evening show. Also enjoyed a couple of movies on the Aquatheatre screens. We had reserved all of the shows before we left.

Ports -- On Labadee, we rented a beach bed on Adrenaline Beach -- Awesome ---- cooler with 6 bottles of water, two floating mats, waiter for bar service, steps from the beach and the new floating bar, fun watching everyone scream on the zip line -- would do it again (except next trip I rented a cabana on Nellie's for 6 ).

Falmouth Jamaica -- stayed on the ship and did very little.....

Cozumel -- If its Cozumel, it must be Nachi Cocum! It was the most crowded that we have seen, but still manageable and very enjoyable. We got there about 9:30, left about 2:30. We love the pool and swim-up bar. Lunch was excellent, service slower than our previous trips. Just two ships in port, Carnival Breeze and Oasis.

Cruise Compass's -- They are available on that "blog site that I can't mention or link to but it sounds like the cruise line we are talking about". All seven days, plus daily planners.

Pictures - Available here:

Drinks -- Don't do the drink package because we would never breakeven. We are Diamond so the 3 freebies are fine. Only went to the lounge twice, although it has a good view of the Boardwalk. Usually we would have one before dinner in the Schooner Bar and another after dinner at the Casino bar. The drink menus for the Pub and the Schooner Bar are in my pictures.

VOOM - Overall, I thought it was not as fast as on the Freedom last August. However, it hardly ever dropped me. We had Surf & Stream on one device. We were able to stream mlb.tv, so my wife could see her "Sawks". How fast was it? Well, here is the link to a map that shows our route and several points where I did a speedtest. Clink on one of the markers, and you will see the PING, DOWNLOAD and UPLOAD information.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1jrAohxoSFbz5P_eLQgvUuGkQOKM&ll=23.630685426776868%2C-79.57122799999996&z=6

For comparison, here is the link to our Freedom cruise from August 2016. Freedom was faster, Oasis didn't drop me.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1_emBH29ux0O9p3FXsbyf0fXiHrs&ll=22.482429945913694%2C-83.67188299999998&z=5

Self-debarkation -- This was out first time doing it -- and it will be our last. We got in line at 6:45 -- a line that stretched from the gangway, back towards Silk dining room, out onto the jogging track, all the way around the aft of the ship, then circled back to the dining room and out. By the time we got through customs, it was about 8:20 or so. Ridiculous. By then, the porters were helping people with baggage tag #3. Next time, I will go to Guest Services the night before and request a tag less than 5 and let Royal lug my stuff off the ship.

I may add more to this thread if anything hits me. I would be glad to answer any questions !

mac_tlc

Here's a link to your compasses.

https://issuu.com/hochmania/docs/merged.compressed_69ff52a2eed380/1?ff=true&e=2025714/47625569

Great to hear that 150CP was included in the FNDR as I just booked this a few days ago for our Oasis cruise next March. Love 150 CP.:)

Thanks for the detailed VOOM data. Pretty consistent pings. I'd attibute the difference in speed to load factors at the time.

Nice review

As for Nachi being crowded I noticed on their website that they have increased capacity to 130 people. If I remember correctly it had been 100.

As for Nachi being crowded I noticed on their website that they have increased capacity to 130 people. If I remember correctly it had been 100.

Sorry to hear that. The fact that it always felt uncrowded was one of the best features of Nachi for us.

To some extent, it depend on where you spend most of your time at Nachi. We did not spend a lot of time on the beach, more in the pool and near the bar. Maybe that contributed to the feeling if more people. It certainly won't stop me from going back--- next trip scheduled in January.

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

We were on the same cruise.

MDR - We had the early seating in the Silk MDR on deck 5 and had no problems with the wait staff. Maybe because it was the early seating who knows. Had a couple of large parties near our table & that made things fun. The food was pretty good too. The prime rib on the 1st night was the best.

Labadee- I was probably one of the people you heard screaming from the zip line! What a blast! Would definitely do it again.

Falmouth - bought some coffee.

Cozumel - we did the dune buggy/snorkel excursion and had a great time. You basically drive around the island. One stop on the other side to go in the water (it was too rough) so we just took some pictures. On the road again in the dune buggies and went snorkeling back near town.

Debarkation - we did the luggage valet for $25. We put the luggage out the night before & didn't see it (or worry about it) until I landed at the airport in Philly (didn't wait long for it to come off the belt). While we were at breakfast (around 7:30) they made a number of announcements saying that Customs was having problems and they stopped debarking. I don't remember what time we got off (using the luggage valet you could get off at any time) maybe around 8:30ish but the lines at customs were long!!!!

I noticed you took a picture of your bed which had a date 1/8/17 on it , which means it's one of the newer mattresses....how was it?

We will be onboard in two weeks and judging by where you said your room was we may be in the same exact cabin or very close to it.

[quote

Best meal -- Without hesitation, 150 Central Park. We did this on "First Night Done Right", for $15 pp. My wife and I still talk about the flavored salts. Excellent food, great presentation, wonderful flavors.

Did you get 150 Central Park originally for FNDR or did you have to change once you boarded?

I noticed you took a picture of your bed which had a date 1/8/17 on it , which means it's one of the newer mattresses....how was it?

 

We will be onboard in two weeks and judging by where you said your room was we may be in the same exact cabin or very close to it.

Pretty odd to have a picture of a bed! I actually took it because I saw a thread where someone was asking for a picture of the bed made up, and a picture of the mattress/frame. Anyway, your question.....

It was one of the most comfortable beds I have ever been on. It may be due to the eggcrate and a couple of mattress pads on top. We did not request any of them, they were already there. Don't know if every room has it, but it was excellent. Firm, but comfortable.

BTW - We were in Room 12292.

mac_tlc

[quote

 

Best meal -- Without hesitation, 150 Central Park. We did this on "First Night Done Right", for $15 pp. My wife and I still talk about the flavored salts. Excellent food, great presentation, wonderful flavors.

 

Did you get 150 Central Park originally for FNDR or did you have to change once you boarded?

We reserved FNDR on our cruiseplanner, and could only get 8:30, which is later than we wanted. The plan was to try to get Chops for 7.

When we boarded, but before the rooms were ready, we were sitting in the pub and one of the specialty dining guys asked us if we wanted to reserve something -- we said we had FNDR but wanted an earlier time, so we changed it to Giovanni's at 7 while in the pub. When we got to the room, I saw we were assigned 150 Central Park. Nice! We called and changed the time to as early as we could get, so we got 7:30. It was perfect.

mac_tlc

A few other observations:

Drink card -- They started offering the drink card on the morning of Day 4. Table set up outside the Windjammer. 10 drinks (up to $13) for $79.

Passengers -- 6,550

Crown & Anchor -- 2001 C&A members on board.

355 platinum

149 emerald

224 Diamond

66 Diamond +

4 Pinnacle (had reserved seats at the top tier event in the Aquatheatre)

Top cruisers had 1571 points and 165 cruises, 2nd place was 1024 points and 66 cruises.

Kids / Teens -- about 2000 under the age of 18.

The hard sell --- It wasn't too bad. The first day was the most, especially before the rooms are ready. Pushing beverage packages and specialty dining. A "no thank you" worked wonders.

mac_tlc

Is FTDR $15 regardless of restaurant or is it 50% off of whatever restaurant you choose and you are charged the difference? I've read conflicting information but will be on Oasis in July so in curious.

Is FTDR $15 regardless of restaurant or is it 50% off of whatever restaurant you choose and you are charged the difference? I've read conflicting information but will be on Oasis in July so in curious.

For us, it was $15 per person, which amounts to 2/3 off of the normal $45 per person for 150 Central Park.

mac_tlc

Because I know many (some ?) people care:

Captain - Per Kristoffersen (we remember him from the Mariner out of PC a decade ago)

Cruise Director - Jimmy Rhodes (hurt his knee early on, so "Magic" Marvin filled in for many events)

Cruise Sales Manager - Douglas Vitonis

Hotel Director - Kevin Thorogood

Chief Engineer - Risto Kurilic

Food & Beverage Director -- Derek Robert McKnight

Loyalty Ambassador - Justin Estrella

Diamond Concierge - Beatrice Chirmus

Specialty Dining Manager - Jose Luis Perez

mac_tlc

Deck 3 is designated for "mytime", but on several nights, they were seating my time diners on deck 4. To me, this created part of the problem. When one party comes in 45 minutes after others that the same waiter is serving, the service gets disrupted and "inconsistent". I always thought that if all of the tables were fairly close in which course is being served, the service was better. This time the constant introduction of new people really disrupted the flow, hence "inconsistent". If I wanted "mytime" and the effects of "mytime", I would have picked it.

The inconvenience of the overflow seating from the Deck 3 "My Time" is a problem and creates issues with the set time diners and causes very unhappy wait staff. Let me say as a "My Time" diner (an experience I will never again choose on Oasis class), the fact that the dining room staff does send people up to Deck 4 does speed things along a bit, but it was the worst night of dining I have ever had. We did not ask to be sent to Deck 4 and I can promise you that I would stay and wait on Deck 3 for 2 hours before I will ever go through that experience again. We sailed on Allure in April 2016 when we had this experience. We were told that we had to order everything right away so they could seat us, serve us and get us out. It was obvious we were not expected or welcomed. They kept asking when we were going to order, but we weren't even given menus. They said we should have looked at the menu outside before we came in. The waiter assigned to our table told us he didn't have time for us, but he was being "forced" to serve us. He obviously wasn't "begging" for high ratings from us. I realize it was a burden on him and the other diners who had set dining. However, we didn't ask to be put up there and we did not cause the problem.

We only went to Deck 4 once when we were sent up there. We had planned to do My Time for 4 out of our 7 nights. We went to My Time on Deck 3 for nights 1 and 2. It was great. We went back for night 4 which is when we were sent to the 4th Deck. We also planned MTD for Night 6 but we got there and they said they would send us to Deck 4 and we just cancelled, left and went to the WJ. As much as people are naysayers about WJ, I can promise you the staff up there was far more accommodating and kind than the staff on Deck 4 when they got "burdened" with Deck 3 MTD'ers.

It's no fun to be exiled to Deck 4 and made to feel that you are a burden on the crew. Just something to consider if you do think about MTD. If they try to send you to Deck 4- JUST SAY NO. Try a last minute reservation at specialty dining, have pizza, go to anywhere else on the ship but do NOT go to Deck 4.

I'm trying MTD for the first time on Oasis this July. I'm a little nervous now. We typically only eat in the MDR for dinner and don't want it to be a hassle.

I'd heard some people had the same waitstaff all week on MTD if they ate around same time each night, is this not typically the case? Wondering if I should switch back to traditional.

I'm trying MTD for the first time on Oasis this July. I'm a little nervous now. We typically only eat in the MDR for dinner and don't want it to be a hassle.

 

 

I'd heard some people had the same waitstaff all week on MTD if they ate around same time each night, is this not typically the case? Wondering if I should switch back to traditional.

If you like a team, I've had luck getting a standing reservation in their area.

A few other observations:

 

Drink card -- They started offering the drink card on the morning of Day 4. Table set up outside the Windjammer. 10 drinks (up to $13) for $79.

 

Passengers -- 6,550

 

Crown & Anchor -- 2001 C&A members on board.

355 platinum

149 emerald

224 Diamond

66 Diamond +

4 Pinnacle (had reserved seats at the top tier event in the Aquatheatre)

 

Top cruisers had 1571 points and 165 cruises, 2nd place was 1024 points and 66 cruises.

 

Kids / Teens -- about 2000 under the age of 18.

 

The hard sell --- It wasn't too bad. The first day was the most, especially before the rooms are ready. Pushing beverage packages and specialty dining. A "no thank you" worked wonders.

 

mac_tlc

There is a 10 drink limit on the drinks package ?

There is a 10 drink limit on the drinks package ?

Drink cards are a pre-paid option for a specific number of drinks.

The inconvenience of the overflow seating from the Deck 3 "My Time" is a problem and creates issues with the set time diners and causes very unhappy wait staff. Let me say as a "My Time" diner (an experience I will never again choose on Oasis class), the fact that the dining room staff does send people up to Deck 4 does speed things along a bit, but it was the worst night of dining I have ever had. We did not ask to be sent to Deck 4 and I can promise you that I would stay and wait on Deck 3 for 2 hours before I will ever go through that experience again. We sailed on Allure in April 2016 when we had this experience. We were told that we had to order everything right away so they could seat us, serve us and get us out. It was obvious we were not expected or welcomed. They kept asking when we were going to order, but we weren't even given menus. They said we should have looked at the menu outside before we came in. The waiter assigned to our table told us he didn't have time for us, but he was being "forced" to serve us. He obviously wasn't "begging" for high ratings from us. I realize it was a burden on him and the other diners who had set dining. However, we didn't ask to be put up there and we did not cause the problem.

 

We only went to Deck 4 once when we were sent up there. We had planned to do My Time for 4 out of our 7 nights. We went to My Time on Deck 3 for nights 1 and 2. It was great. We went back for night 4 which is when we were sent to the 4th Deck. We also planned MTD for Night 6 but we got there and they said they would send us to Deck 4 and we just cancelled, left and went to the WJ. As much as people are naysayers about WJ, I can promise you the staff up there was far more accommodating and kind than the staff on Deck 4 when they got "burdened" with Deck 3 MTD'ers.

 

It's no fun to be exiled to Deck 4 and made to feel that you are a burden on the crew. Just something to consider if you do think about MTD. If they try to send you to Deck 4- JUST SAY NO. Try a last minute reservation at specialty dining, have pizza, go to anywhere else on the ship but do NOT go to Deck 4.

The way you were treated by this waiter was totally unacceptable. I'm certain RCI would deem this treatment as rude and definitely not condone this behavior.

Did you report this to that section's assistant maitre'd? It's hard to believe any overflow MTD sent to the fourth floor would be subject to this.

Did you ever get menus? It's been my MDR experiences that initially everyone orders everything except dessert, but from a menu.

Again, did you report this waiter to anyone? If you were treated this way, others were too. He clearly doesn't belong in any dining room, waiting on anyone.

What was the final result? Did you get up and leave or did you order without a menu? You have peaked my curiosity. I'm interested in the end result of this encounter.

Harvey

Quick question about the balcony, we sail on the Oasis in April 2018 will be just a few rooms down from where you were (closer towards the elevators and a couple of decks lower), and I was wondering if the view looking down was blocked by the lifeboats? I hope not, as I love looking down at the water from my balcony. This will be our first time on this class of ship, and I was not really sure of how the lifeboats are situated until I saw the Oasis when we were sailing by on the Sunshine leaving Port Canaveral. Now I'm a little worried that they may block my view :(

Drink cards are a pre-paid option for a specific number of drinks.

Maybe I am reading this wrong, but I understood the ultimate package to offer unlimited drinks.

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/findacruise/experiencetypes/category.do?pagename=onboard_cat_dining_options

Maybe I am reading this wrong, but I understood the ultimate package to offer unlimited drinks.

 

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/findacruise/experiencetypes/category.do?pagename=onboard_cat_dining_options

Some passengers do not buy the beverage plan since they do not think they will get their money's worth. They would rather buy drink cards.