Oasis Review with pictures- July 20, 2013

[usckatieh]

Cruise Critic was so helpful when I was planning our cruise that I wanted to post a review of my own to help out other people that are big planners like me. We sailed on the Oasis of the Sea Western Caribbean on July 20-27, 2013.

Here's the Oasis!

 

 

We don’t have any previous cruise experience to compare with so a lot of my review is our personal experience mixed in with my opinion of some of the tips and hints I found searching CC. I hope my notes and ramblings help a little bit! The pictures are taken with a mixture of my Nikon d700 SLR camera, iphone (mostly for panoramic) and underwater camera (most of the at port photos). A special thanks to everyone else who had written an Oasis/Allure review (I think I read them all) and helped answer my questions on CC. This is a great community!

 

About Us

 

Some background on us- This was my husband and my first cruise! When our 10 year anniversary was coming up, I suggested we do something big- just the two of us- and a cruise was my suggestion. My husband was a little reserved about the idea at first because he wasn’t sure if there was enough “to do” on a ship, but I can say now that he’s a cruising convert- we can’t wait to go again, but I’m getting ahead of myself…

 

All the people I asked suggested Royal Caribbean as a good option and I like the idea of a BIG ship so we ended up on the Oasis. My husband’s interests for the vacation were adventure activities, swimming and good food. Mine were checking out the entertainment/shows, finding a nice spot to read and taking pictures. Neither of us were disappointed!

 

The next step was finding someone to watch our sweet kiddos, age 3 and 6, while we take the first ever grown-ups-only trip, so once Grandma and Grandpa in California volunteered to come over to South Carolina to get some quality time in, we were good to go!

[hscruiser]

Yay! Just what I need at the two week mark before Allure! :D

[Realtor at Sea]

Beautifully framed photo of Oasis! Cannot wait for rest of review!

[LA_CA_GAL]

The date July 20 caught my eye, as we just booked Allure for July 20, 2014.

 

That is a great shot of the Oasis.

[flyawayca]

Looking forward to reading your review. I love the perspective of first time cruisers! :) And the addiction begins...

[MMOMOM]

Beautiful picture of a beautiful ship! Can't wait for the rest of the review. We were on that cruise about a year and 1/2 ago .... sweet, sweet memories! Can't wait to go again ... or maybe her sister, The Allure! :)

[usckatieh]

Planning

I spent the month or so before the cruise collecting all the information I could about our ship. We booked our show times and excursions ahead of time. I channeled my nervous energy the week before the cruise making several lists including:

1- A list of all the points of interest (restaurants, pools, etc.) and what decks they were located on – I didn’t really use this on the ship because the navigational touch screens by the elevators tell you exactly where you need to go and they’re fun, but making the list did help me get familiar with the ship a little better- here's a snip it...

2- A spreadsheet of all the days of the week, listing when our shows were, where I might want to eat and what I might want to do by looking at old Compasses. I drive my husband crazy because he likes to just go with the flow and I like to plan, but my little spreadsheet did come in handy in helping us remember when and where we were supposed to be at shows/excursions and when we wanted to mix it up and try a dinner out instead of at MDR. We didn't get to do everything but it was fun to plan the options! (I got the idea from another review- I can't find them now to give them credit, but THANKS!)

3- A photo diagram of all my clothes for the week. Ladies- this was probably the best thing I did. I laid out all my outfits- mix and matching shoes and sweaters (the dining rooms were cool to me)- and I didn’t overpack (by much) and I didn’t have to stand in front of the closet every day on the ship and figure out what to wear each day, because it was all planned ahead of time. Yeah, I may be OCD but I felt a little better when my husband showed me his packing list spreadsheet, complete with color coding that showed which suitcase everything goes into. J

One of the best tools for planning- and channeling my neurosis- was a travel app called TripRider. The full version cost a little bit but it let me load all our daily plans, pdfs of our reservation confirmations, packing list, maps, a section to put in email addresses of people you meet while you’re traveling and it even had a password protected section to keep our passport and credit card data handy in case anything got lost. But the best part of all is that it had a diary feature which output to a pdf so I could make notes of the things we did at the end of the day before I forget and when we got home I had a diary complete with pictures to let them know what we were up to on vacation. Oh and did I mention it all runs independent of the internet so you can access all of it on the ship without those massive data fees? For a planner-person, that app made me very happy (and slightly less productive at work- shhh).[

Edited August 3, 2013 by usckatieh

[usckatieh]

Getting closer

Friday morning, we had the car already packed so we kissed the kiddos goodbye and started our 9.5 hr drive to Fort Lauderdale. I never realized what a LONG state Floride was...

With a stop at Arby’s somewhere in Georgia and The Cheesecake Factory for dinner in West Palm beach (yum!), we make it to Fort Lauderdale in 11 hours. Our travel agent booked us at the Hampton Inn Fort Laurderdale Airport which included breakfast, parking for 10 days and a shuttle to the ship.

 

Our hotel-

Be aware that you do have to pick a shuttle time when you arrive. I don’t know if calling ahead would have helped but by the time we got there at 8:00pm all the shuttle times from 10:30am-1:00pm were already taken.

 

DAY 1: Almost There!

We woke up and had breakfast at the hotel. Originally we got the email that customs had cut back staffing and not to show up until 12:30pm so we grabbed the available 1:00pm shuttle time, but being the excited travelers that we were, we took a chance and instead of waiting around, we grabbed the early shuttle to the terminal at 10:30am.

 

Waiting on the shuttle

 

Our original plan was to board late and drag our bags straight to the room but since we took the early shuttle we decided to check our big bags at the curb. Fortunately, I was prepared with preprinted tags and clear tape to stick them on with! Although I read conflicting opinions, we decided to try slapping a luggage tag on a $3 case of 24 water bottles just to see what happens and low-and-behold it was delivered safely to our room later that evening! We walked right through security metal scanners and only waited about 5 minutes at the main desk to get our sea passes.

 

Here's a quick picture of the terminal from my iphone (talk about huge!)

 

FYI- I tried to be super prepared and pre-print and fill out the health form which says we haven’t been sick in the last few days and the checkout lady indignantly asked “where we did you get those” and let us know we had to fill them out in front of her, so my suggestion if you have a germaphobia and don’t want to use the “shared pens” to fill out the health form, just bring your own pen and you can avoid getting the evil eye. J

 

Once we got our sea passes, we stopped for a cheesy photo- I was told to make sure to take those photos at the check-in because it helps with the facial recognition. We then headed up to the terminal to wait for boarding. We sat in the airport style seating for about 45 minutes and then we were allowed to board the boat!

Edited August 3, 2013 by usckatieh

[Dawniepoo]

I appreciate and embrace your OCD tendencies.:D Love the review so far.

[usckatieh]

DAY 1 - Boarding the big ship

The walkway to the boat was shorter than I thought it would be and it dropped us off in the impressive Promenade area.

 

As I called it- Walking the plank...

The Promenade

 

One thing on my "must do list" was to try the Roast Beef sandwiches at the Park Café so we went straight there and totally beat the crowds. The sandwich was pretty delicious and they had some tasty flavored waters available.

 

Roast beef- it was all that and a bag of chips!

 

It felt weird at first just grabbing food and not paying for it, but I got used to it. :)

 

We did some exploring we got word that our rooms were ready about 1:00. Our suitcases (and water bottles!) arrived about an hour later, but beware some neighbors that boarded after us didn’t get their luggage until after dinner, so be sure to pack a dinner outfit in your carry on just in case.

 

Our stateroom

I had NO IDEA that it mattered which room you picked until I started reading CC about a month before we cruised (next time my head will explode trying to find a bed by the balcony on the hump not too far but not too close the elevators- hehe), so we ended up with the room our agent picked on 7th floor balcony aft portside – room 7318. And aside from being quite a walk down the hallway from the elevator, she chose pretty well! We had the bed by the balcony and that gave us what felt like a lot of space and I loved waking up with the tropical sun beaming in the window. I could see where the room might feel a tight for 4 people even though we had a pull out bed, especially 4 grown people, but it felt pretty roomy for two. The bathroom however was a single person bathroom unless one of you was in the shower. The shower was small and kind of reminded me of one of those vacuum tubes that take your checks from your car to the cashier at the bank, but it served it’s purpose.

 

Here's a view of our stateroom

 

The room surprisingly had quite a bit of storage cubbies. I took a picture of our closet and hanging shoe organizers for all you cc’ers!

 

There was also a high clothing bar for suits and dresses and low bar behind the closet door for shirts and the built in storage cubes were very handy too. The shoe organizer (get the one with the clear pockets) was perfect for, well, shoes but also cameras, sunscreen, small scissors, and other random item that we needed throughout the trip. There were more tall storage cabinets by the mirror and three shelves for medicines, etc in the bathroom. Within an hour we had the entire contents of all our suitcases organized and put away so we shoved those under the bed. We used the empty suitcase to hold all the moderately dirty clothes and a plastic trash bag for the really dirty stuff (that’s coming later).

 

The AC worked pretty well. It didn’t get as cool as my husband liked at night but it was cool enough that I wore a sweater most of the time in our room. I’d guess it stayed about 68-70. Not sure if anyone can back this up but we have a theory that keeping the bathroom door open may help keep it cooler- we kept closing that at night until DH realized there was a vent in there.

 

We asked the stocking gentlemen to remove the mini-bar items from our fridge, but he said something about that messing up his daily checks, so our awesome stateroom attendant, Lambert, hid them in a cubby for us and then stuck them back in the fridge the last day.

[RevSmith]

going on Oasis soon, looking forward to the review. Thanks.

[usckatieh]

Time to Set Sail!

After getting comfy in our room it was time for muster drill. All you have to do for muster drill is look at your cabin door for where to go and arrive on time. Ours was in the Main Dining Room. You watch a short safety video and you’re on your way.

 

Pushing off from port what really signaled that we were on vacation for me! DH had expected to hear the engines rev up when we started leaving port, but this ship is so quiet and steady; I didn’t even know we were leaving until we started seeing the water swirl against the pier between us and the dock.

 

I read about the smokestacks coming down the week before our trip and I think this is where they used to be...

 

It was pretty exciting having our own armed escort out of port and seeing all the people on the shore and other boats waving us off.

 

 

[usckatieh]

Our experience with Traditional Dining

Shortly after boarding the ship around noon, we tried to change our 6:00 traditional dining time to My Time Dining at the main dining room as advised by our travel agent, but we were told that all the MTD slots were filled. He did mention that he’d certainly try to accommodate us if we have a conflict on a few occasions and truthfully 6:00 dining ended up working fine for us 6 out of 7 days. I kind of liked the idea of sitting with other couples because my husband and I aren’t very outgoing so that would force us to make some friends, and I’m not sure if it was luck or very skillful planning but we ended up a four person table with another couple our age and turns out the wife and I are both photographers! For us, this ended up being a great way to find people to chat with on the trip.

Here's a photo of the Dining room- so impressive

Some of our favorite MDR dinner items were the shrimp cocktail, salmon and crabmeat gratin (Amazing!), lobster and prime rib.

And if you want more of an entree or starter or if you want to order 2 different starters and 2 deserts, don’t hesitate to ask! I would order one appetizer that I’ve never tried before like ceviche or escargot and something I knew I liked. It was a great time to expand my culinary horizons! The portions are a little on the small side (just right for me, not quite enough for DH) so I think they expect people to just tell them when they need more. One other thing I liked about our traditional dining experience was the same waiter each night. The service was so quick and by the end of the week, our waiter, Ricky, knew to bring 2 shrimp cocktails at a time and which desert each of us would want.

Note about dress code- before the cruise we probably worried way to much about meeting the letter of the law with the dress code. In general, if you were looking respectable meaning polo or button down shirt for guys/ dress for ladies, you fit right in at the MDR. On formal night our table neighbor wore dark jeans and a velvet blazer and I didn’t see anyone giving him a hard time. So, my suggestion on dress code is dress up if you want (we did just because that’s something we never get a chance to do) or just relax and try to look presentable but don’t sweat bullets if your DH doesn’t want to wear a tie under his jacket or if your formal dress doesn’t have sequins. Life will go on. J

Edited August 3, 2013 by usckatieh

[MMOMOM]

This is awesome ... you are making me 'smile' remembering our embarkation .... good stuff! Now I REALLY want to go back! We have to wait tho ... can't go at least till sometime next year (finances willing of course ... but wait, we do have that Next Cruise Certificate we bought on board! :) LOL!) ... we have a couple of land trips planned from now until the Fall, so we do have to wait, but you sure are making me smile, remember and look forward to the next time! :D Keep the review and pictures coming, they are great!;)

[usckatieh]

The first evening, we did some exploring. Here's the pool desk with a view of Central Park-

 

Huge climbing wall-

 

Our wake-

 

Miami (I think) from a distance-

 

Side view-

 

We had scheduled the comedy show for the first night so we went to check it out. Our week featured Cary Long & Sonia White. I really enjoyed the show. I heard that the comedy shows fill up fast, so that’s something you’ll want to book before the cruise. I’d also suggest getting there about 20-30 minutes early. There are quite a few seats that have the view blocked by columns and by getting there early, we snagged a chair on the end of the row so we’d have a table handy to set our drinks on. Also note, bartenders on the ship are VERY generous with the alcohol. Most fruity/frozen drinks are between $6-8 and the prices are listed on the menu. You just pay for everything on your seapass. We didn’t read the receipt to realize that drink prices already included a 15% tip so we tipped double for a while which I’m sure our server didn’t mind.

 

We decided to stay up late and hit the Solarium hot tub for an evening soak.

 

Solarium-

A note if you have teenagers- we saw TONS of teenagers running around the ship at night. They plan lots of teen activities and it looks like all of them were having a blast.

[usckatieh]

This is awesome ... you are making me 'smile' remembering our embarkation .... good stuff! Now I REALLY want to go back! We have to wait tho ... can't go at least till sometime next year (finances willing of course ... but wait, we do have that Next Cruise Certificate we bought on board! :) LOL!) ... we have a couple of land trips planned from now until the Fall, so we do have to wait, but you sure are making me smile, remember and look forward to the next time! :D Keep the review and pictures coming, they are great!;)

 

Glad to help bring back the memories! I found myself looking back at old reviews yesterday just to remember all the fun stuff. We're totally addicted now too! Signed up for our C&A membership and new cruise on the boat. Can't wait for the next trip!

[cruzegurl104]

and one more Thank you!:D We're doing this same itinerary in 55 days! I've read countless oasis reviews, many of them twice! This will be DH and I's first "BIG" vacation in a long while, and it's much needed.... It's been a rough year. :o

 

Can't wait to read more, your pictures are wonderful!!

 

 

Happy Sails:)

[usckatieh]

DAY 2- At sea

We woke up the first morning to a beautiful sunrise over the crystal blue ocean! The whole trip, DH and I couldn’t get over how blue the water was!

 

We had a relaxed breakfast at Johnny Rockets followed by a donut to go at the Donut shop. Throughout the week we also went to MDR and Windjammer for breakfast, we realized that most places served more or less the same thing for breakfast (triangle hash browns, sausage, bacon, etc) so we ended up eating at Windjammer most of the time because it had everything for breakfast including donuts.

 

After that, we hit the main Pool which wasn’t terribly busy until about 9:00. This day was the only day I really noticed much movement on the ship. The Oasis is incredibly stable. Most of the time when we did notice movement it was just a gentle rocking. I was a little worried about seasickness having never been on a cruise before so I took a Bonine every morning, starting the morning that we boarded the ship and I had no problems at all.

 

 

Chilling in the Solarium- one of my favorite places-

 

You can see in that picture my new fancy camera bag. I do wedding photography and decided to trade in my old beat up bag for something that I could carry on formal night- plus it'll look cool at weddings too! Here's a picture of it, if you like purses/bags like me!

 

 

We spent the rest of the morning exploring the ship. For lunch we ate at the Windjammer which had a really nice variety of foods. We came back to Windjammer a lot for lunch because of the variety but it can get super busy around noon.

 

 

Here's us exploring Central Park-

 

 

The Hairspray show was amazingly well put together with great songs, costumes and lighting. It was a top notch production.

 

The first sea day was also formal dining night. DH dressed up in his black tux and me in my fancy one shoulder dress. I ate a chicken consomme (broth) which was delicious and beef tenderloin.

 

Huuby's new suit and my fancy one sleeve dress- we never get to dress up!

 

After dinner, we walked around checking out the night life. There was live music everywhere! Unfortunately, I had mistake some of the “dance music” nights at Dazzles thinking it would be club music and instead it was more like a band playing waltz music. Having no idea how to do formal dance and being pretty well out of our age bracket. DH and I ended up at Boleros where a band was playing Latin dance music.

[MMOMOM]

Loving every minute of this! Keep it coming! You guys look like you had a fabulous time! :)

[cruzegurl104]

More please!! :)

[Sandy1975]

My first cruise was on Oasis of the Seas last year in March. My husband made sure I would be hooked! LOL

 

I loved it! Hairspray was also on the schedule when we were on Oasis. Nice pictures and review! More please

[Wine Luvuh]

Thank you!!! I leave on Oasis 4 weeks from tomorrow!! DH looks pretty comfy for someone who was not sure he wanted to cruise!! ;)

 

Keep it coming!!

[The Big Booper]

My first cruise was on Oasis of the Seas last year in March. My husband made sure I would be hooked! LOL

 

I loved it! Hairspray was also on the schedule when we were on Oasis. Nice pictures and review! More please

 

Thing to remember, these licensed full bore Broadway/West End productions cost millions to stage and so will hang around for years, with new casts every six months.

 

Many people who go on the big girls yearly choose the ship based on what show what they want to see that year.

 

As you can see we are doing both ships this year, to see Chicago and Hairspray.

 

Enjoying the pictures of course.

[Pat in NC]

Our time on the Oasis is not until May '14(50th wedding anniversary trip), thank you so much for the review and wonderful pictures.

[Rcarper4001]

Enjoying your review! We board in 14 days can not want.