Oasis Pre-Christmas 5 day Cruise Review...Kids & Food :)

Well I have never written a cruise review before, but I have learned so much from others and I wanted to give back what I could. We recently completed a 5 day cruise on Oasis of the Seas (Dec 18-23). For any of you with young children, you will get a good idea what it's like to cruise with children. My daughters (6 and 7.5 yrs) had a blast! I am also one of those wierdos whom is always taking pictures of the food. You know you are bad when your 6 yr old says "Hurry up and take the picture so I can eat!" :cool: So any foodies out there should enjoy this thread! We live in Orlando, so there wasn't much as far as transportation to speak of. We dropped our pooch at the vet at 8 am and started the 3, or so, hour drive south...making it to the port around 11:15am. We dropped our bags at the curb, parked in the lot, went right up to the counter, and we were on board by 11:45. It would have been quicker, but of course one of my angels needed a potty break right before they were about to take her security picture. If you are a parent, again, you will sympathize. :rolleyes: OK...here goes nothing...

Once we made up the zigzag gangway, we walked in right in front of the Rising Tide bar. So cool!! We immediately walked over to Cupcake Cupboard to sign up our girls for the cupcake decorating class. (More on that later) Then we did the usual saunter up to Windjammer for some lunch. I wanted the roastbeef sandwich, but couldn't for the life of me remember the name of the restaurant that had them (Park Cafe). It wasn't very busy yet, so we had a nice time there. The waitress was very sweet and chatty, especially with our girls.

DD7 approving of lunch

My lunch

DH's lunch (could we be more different?? :D)

Once lunch was over, we did the obligatory tour around the ship. The girls dragged us to the pool deck first. They LOVED that tide pool thing that pushes you around in a circle. Seen here behind DD7.

From there we were dragged up to Adventure Ocean. I reccommend signing up for this right away. When we went the first night to drop them off, it was packed with parents registering. That's not the time you want to do it! Around 1pm we were able to get into our cabin...Deck 3, Room 232.

After setting up the room (we had our luggage too!), and another potty break, we were off to do some more sightseeing before muster drill.

Saw this in the casino

The touchscreen tv's were so cool! (This is another couple we were cruising with)

Pulling out of Ft. Lauderdale

My dinner

DH's dinner

Loving the review so far! Have about 19 days until our first Oasis cruise. It cannot come fast enough... Any tips/must dos/great spots? Thanks for sharing :)

Day 2 was spent entertaining the girls and getting terribly lost most of the time. I have an awful sense of direction. I would walk out of the elevator, heading in the wrong direction, while my whole family is going the correct direction, and they would just let me go! Once it took me a second to realize I was walking along with the wrong family. I turned around to find my dh laughing his @ss off. Nice. Anywho...I find pictures way more interesting, so here is how we spent our Sea Day.

Hanging in the jacuzzi- it was still a bit too chilly that day for the pool

There was "Family Fest" down on the Boardwalk and the girls were able to make some crafts, play games, and meet other kids.

Making their "Pets at Sea" animals- just like Build-a-Bear. They loved these animals and brought them along everywhere. Tip- The pony is the only one that actually says Oasis of the Seas on it. I thought that was neat!

They LOVED the carousel...probably went on it 20 times during the cruise. It wasn't ever busy, so sometimes they would go 3 times in a row. :)

Thank you so much for taking the time to share. We have 222 days til we get to board the ship and this reminds me why we are paying the high dollar cost to cruise a B2B. I need to focus on being a full time student, father, and work my 45 hours a week to pay for it. Lol

That afternoon we missed the Ice show, so went over to Guest Services are rescheduled it for the last night. No problem! That was formal night, so we headed back to the room to get dressed up. They were taking pictures right outside the diningroom, so we hit that first. It was a good thing because getting your picture taken after the 6pm dinner was madness! We were able to do a couple other pictures in the Royal Promenade but it was a wait.

My appetizer

My dinner

My DD7 loved ordering off the adult menu- here is her steak (and she ate it, don't worry about wasting food with this girl!)

My friend's salmon

Dessert

Right after dinner we took the girls to the kids club and went to the Comedy Show. It was hilarious and we had to drag the girls out of the club at 10pm!

Wht pasta dishes are those? I haven't seen them before. Or maybe it's something I've never ordered.

Thanks for doing a review- we loved Oasis and seeing pictures puts a smile on my face again!

Our Formal Picture

Thanks for the comments so far! I will try to come back later to do some more. To answer your question about "Must do's" I would have to say it depends on what kind of cruiser you are. My favorite thing to do is lay in one of those round sofa things in the Solarium at night or hang out in the cantilevered hot tub, while watching the flat screen tv. My husband's favorite things were the zipline, flowrider, and rock wall. My girls loved the Science Lab in Adventure Ocean, carousel, and Pets at Sea.

Wht pasta dishes are those? I haven't seen them before. Or maybe it's something I've never ordered.

 

Thanks for doing a review- we loved Oasis and seeing pictures puts a smile on my face again!

The first was a Mushroom Alfredo (don't remember the exact name) and the second was a Shrimp-stuffed Ravioli. It was more of a shrimp paste, than actual shrimp...not my favorite dish of the cruise.

love this. I have a 7 year old!!! Was it too cold to swim the first day because of the air temp or the water temp?

Thanks for taking the time to review.

Thanks! It was both water and air temp. It was an unusually chilly week in Florida and didn't totally warm up until we were near Cozumel.

Thanks for the review, you're doing a great job:)

Wait.. I want more!!!!

Beautiful family. :)

Who was the headliner entertainment?

I am loving your review , keep it coming. We are taking to of our grand daughters with us (8 +11) on the allure Jan 23/2011 this is a wonderful preview.

Thanks for the review, you're doing a great job:)

Thank you! :D

Who was the headliner entertainment?

I am not sure because we didn't go see that show. Maybe someone else from our sailing can tell you. We only had 5 days, so we weren't able to see everything!

I am loving your review , keep it coming. We are taking to of our grand daughters with us (8 +11) on the allure Jan 23/2011 this is a wonderful preview.

Beautiful family. :)

Thanks again! That is very kind of you to say. I will try to add some more before my daughter's karate class tonight. :p

We have been to Cozumel before and did the Mayan Ruins Express tour. While it was a fabulous excursion, I wasn't sure my kiddos would be up to the ferry ride. We decided instead to share a taxi with our friends and do some shopping. Now, the BEST thing about shopping in Cozumel with two little girls...FREE SOUVENIERS! We ended buying them a shirt at Del Sol, but that was it! I bought my traditional charm for my bracelet and other than that, we didn't spend much money. As we walked down the main strip, the girls collected their free bracelets from Diamonds International, the sombrero charm from the next DI, the RCCL charm from the third DI, the color-changing ring from Del Sol, the necklace from that bamboo clothing store, etc. You get the idea...they were so excited to collect all these goodies that they didn't ask for much else! :eek: Now if your children are like mine, you don't hear the end of "Can I have ___? or I want a ____ like so-and-so." It was fantastic! As a warning, we had walked so far that we figured we would save our money from the taxi and just walk the rest of the way back to port. Big mistake...it felt like a death march. Not to mention that this was the day it finally heated up. My dh and I both had a whiny mess of a daughter on our backs and I was ready to pay a taxi to me anywhere! Just FYI.

The view from the dock behind Margaritaville

Nice review and pictures. Thanks for taking the time to share.

After returning to the ship, we head over to check out Central Park some more. Most people were still in port so it was a great time to wander around. We had some lunch in my FAVORITE spot, Park Cafe. This was the best place for lunch (in my opinion) and we ate here often during our cruise. They had made to order salads, panini's, the famous roast beef sandwiches, fruit cups, soups, and low-fat/sugar free desserts.

BTW- I forgot to mention that we had breakfast at Johnny Rockets most days. I don't think many people knew it was open and complimentary in the mornings. They had excellent food and it was nice to have table service for breakfast. My girls loved their french toast! The other days we ate in the main dining room. They have a buffet set up and table service is available, too. Since our room was on Deck 3, that was really convenient. Here's some of wandering pics...

For the kids (and adults I suppose!) they have these little things all over the ship that they can look in. They are like 3D viewfinders. My girls loved watching out for the different ones.

Here is what you saw in one of them-

Dinner, as usual, was in the MDR. We had reservations for Come Fly with Me, so our waitress kindly sped up our dinner so we would be out by 7:15. That gave us time to rush the girlies to Adventure Ocean, because they were making volcanoes in the science lab. That left my DH and I to enjoy the show on our own. :D

My Shrimp dinner

My daughter's steak

Other daughter's Chicken Marsala

DH's leg of something...lamb perhaps

Goodnight Cozumel!