first time cruisers back from oasis

[philip_g]

So I started writing this as a daily log of what we did and where we ate- but I got into about day 3 and couldn't exactly remember :o So here are my thoughts on our cruise ending 11/17/2012. It's going to be a jumbled mess. I'll add some photos later I think.

 

We had the oasis choice dining package, so night one we ate at chops and both really liked it.

 

Night 2 was formal night in the MDR, we ate really early because I didn't make a reservation before the cruise, expecting to eat at a specialty restaurant due to the dining package, but plans changed. I liked the beef tenderloin (had 2!) but the wife hated her pasta, so she got the beef and liked that. Breakfast we had room service on the balcony, that was nice.

 

I ate at the windjammer twice, once for breakfast because the opus was closed and once for lunch because, well I don't know, just did. if you go the whole cruise and don't eat at the windjammer you have missed nothing.

 

Izumi, we both were going into that expecting to leave disappointed as we're not really sushi fans, but I think that was the wife's favorite specialty dinner. The hot rock is interesting (though they're not the pioneers of it as they think they are, I ate in a steak house in frankfurt that does the same thing 10 years ago) but everything was great, the wife had hot rock chicken and it pings my inner OCD a little to put raw chicken on one side of a plate, a hot stone in the middle, and cold steamed vegetables on the other, and one pair of tongs. The possibility of cross contamination is high. Everything here is a la carte pricing and with the dining package we just got a $20 credit each towards our order and had to pay the $5 each in dining fee something or other, whatever. It was an enjoyable meal.

 

seafood shack was just OK, not bad, didn't go back.

 

Giovanis table was OK too, I don't really have much to say about dinner there.

 

the famous roast beef sammiches are good as everyone else says, the wife tried some of their paninis and found them to be not to her liking so we went somewhere else to get her lunch after I had my roast beef.

 

the MDR was good, we were my time dining and it was hit or miss id you'd be seated right away for your reservation or wait in line 10-20 minutes, towards the end of the cruise it seemed like the mdr was running off the rails a little bit, the wait got longer, they weren't getting tables bussed and turned, parts of our order were forgotten at breakfast, little stuff but that kind of stuff didn't happen the first half of the cruise. The dinners I had there were good, but we only ate there the 2nd, 6th, and 7th day. in fact on the 5th day the head waiter called our room to ask if everything had been ok since we hadn't been back, strange. The beef tenderloin I had on day 2 was by far the best meal I had there, I had a fried fish and shrimp meal on day 7 that wasn't great and I don't remember the other meal.

 

johnny rockets is johnny rockets, same as everywhere :D

 

sorrentos was popular, I would go by for a midnight pizza snack and take back to the room, the make your own pizza bar was fun but the things never seemed to get cooked quite enough. I ate them anyway. :D

 

our cabin was great, our stateroom attendant was outstanding. being new to cruising I worried the cabin would feel cramped and it didn't at all. we had 3 rolling bags and plenty of storage for all our clothes in the closet and room under the bed for the bags, no problem. We brought a laptop with an external drive full of movies, unplugged the HDMI from the ship system into the back of the TV and plugged the laptop in to watch movies.

 

they showed 2 movies in the opal theater, wish they showed more, it's a nice place to see a movie. they showed movies in the aqua theater and it was hard to watch them there, too much noise.

 

I wanted to see the all access tour but not enough to pay A HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS?!?!?

 

All the shows we saw were great, oasis of dreams, frozen in time, the comedy show, come fly with me, we enjoyed them all. We skipped tony tillman and hairspray though

 

Shore stuff-

 

they reversed our schedule due to storm damage in haiti-

cozumel

we did the mini subs and sea trek helmet dive, they're similar activities but I wanted to compare the two. I thought the sub was a little better, we got deeper but the globe made things seem far, far away and there wasn't a ton of stuff to see. Also the propulsion didn't really work, mostly the divers just pushed us around.

the sea trek was fun, and the wife liked that better. We went off jeanies and there was a little more to see, both were fun but to do it again I'd just do sea trek.

 

jamaica-

we did jamaica for a day at the rose hall and it was AWESOME. Only regret was not enough time, I could spend days there in their water park. If you're considering doing this DO IT. Transportation was excellent and on time, no risk of missing the ship as they pick up 2 hours before all aboard and the driver was right on time. Awesome facilities and great staff, worth every penny.

 

haiti-

cabana on nellies cove, it was OK. Not much (any) service from our attendant and the usual RCCI nickel and dime for everything. the buffet was decent but when we showed up for our cabana they didn't bother to give us wrist bands for the better buffet which made a hassle. I wish labadee had better signage or maybe they delivered a map the night before with the cruise compass, it was a little hard to find the right cabanas.

 

AHHH now the really fun part.

 

the last night on the boat, at 0120 the all alarm went off, putting a microphone in some room somewhere hot all over the ship, including the cabins. All we could hear was a bunch of guys talking for about 5 minutes, then one of them say "what do you mean the mics hot?" and then some shuffling and nice loud feedback squealing until they got the mic covered and eventually shut off. Then the captain had to announce what had happened a few minutes later. all I can say is ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME GUYS?

 

getting off the ship was a mess, but maybe it always is. they announced some delays with customs around 0830 and stopped calling baggage numbers, we sent our bags with the valet service right to the airline so we didn't have to touch them after 11pm the night before and it turned out this was a HUGE time saver because a lot of the hold up was around the baggage pick up. People were lined up all the way to the gangway

 

so there you go, still processing a lot of things but had a great time even though much of the time it felt like I was on a vacation of standing in line and dodging crowds of people.

 

Our stateroom attendant asked us on the way out if we'd drop some comment cards from other cabins for him and of COURSE I read their comments, one person mentioned something to the effect of it seems like the staff is more worried about negative reviews than providing great service... it's a good way to put how I felt, but don't have any perspective from other cruise lines or ships.

[philip_g]

Oops. Got a little longer than I expected. Sorry.

[Cygneagile]

Glad you enjoyed your cruise. We are on the Allure in January.

I live in the Toronto area and we have excellent restaurants in the area so food is not my main concern on a cruise. However, I do expect to be able to enjoy each meal. The specialty restaurants are not our forte. Now and then we may venture into one of them but that is the exception.

We are booked in the early Main dining room. I enjoy sitting with people that we can get to know better and enjoy each other’s company. Now I have had some challenging experiences in the past but fortunately we were able to change our table.

Also we had to book our shows and I did that on line last week. The shows are around the 9:00 time so eating early would be a better approach for us. In any case I just love seating down and being waited on.

So sorry that to hear your wife did not favor the pasta. I enjoy pasta but is has to be good and not, and I mean not, just a can of pasta sauce thrown in. I know good sauce. Was this the dining room or in the specialty restaurants?

Thanks for the update.

[philip_g]

That was in the MDR, I didn't try it to see how it tasted but more than likely it was just the melted cheese on top that had cooled and put her off of it, the head waiter (I assume?) noticed right away she didn't enjoy it and talked her into the beef, which again was excellent (I had two and I think some of hers she didn't/couldn't finish :D)

 

 

I really prefer it the other way around, a show then the meal but it never worked out as planned, we always moved things around. In fact I found that most of my preplanning before the cruise was wasted energy, partially the itinerary change but mostly just hat we "felt like" that day

 

we were never seated with anyone else, but also never had the same server. The waiter we had on the first night in the MDR was EXCELLENT, the best we had on the ship, the other 2 were not. The last night we were one table away from his section, real bummer.

 

Also, why does dinner take so long in the MDR? I gather the food comes off an assembly line so the waiter just grabs what you order and delivers it. I mean, I didn't have anywhere else to be so I didn't care but I felt like they dragged it out to make it seem like more of an event than it really was.

[Cygneagile]

So true about the time delay in the Main dining room. I do not understand why it takes so long for us to get the desert menu and coffee. I did take a tour of the galleys on Carnival and all the food is ready to pick up. However, I was told once that waiters follow an order of pick up for food. So maybe our head waiter was last on the list to get the coffee and dessert. Who knows?

 

We are early riser and usualy are in bed by 11:00. The show at 9 o’clock is just perfect. We then have plenty of time to visit the Casino after of a bar for music and relaxation. Or take on a late movie under the stars.

 

Family dinners at home (in Brampton just north west of Toronto) have always been early around 6:00 or 6:30. So a 9 o’clock show is perfect the 10:30 would be too late for us.

 

Chacun son gout or to each his own.

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the review!

[philip_g]

BTW ricky matthews was the cruise director. I had read the lady before him wasn't super popular, he seemed fine though my interaction with him was zero.

[LAatl]

BTW ricky matthews was the cruise director. I had read the lady before him wasn't super popular, he seemed fine though my interaction with him was zero.

That's what bothers me...he's done in December and we go in February when Amy Flickert is back. The blogs say that she's very annoying saying the same phrase repeatedly...'I'm Amy...and you're awesome!' I don't want to hear that all week long.