Family review of the Oasis

[suebedo]

Oh my gosh! That is awful for your mom & entire family. Wishing her a speedy pain free recovery!

[Jen731]

Woke up on Day 4 feeling dread. Knew we'd have to say goodbye to my parents and it left me with a huge pit in my stomach.

 

Since we were arriving to St. Thomas late, the ship put together some additional activities for the morning/early afternoon. I can't remember exactly what we did that morning. I think that's the morning my husband took my older daughters on the zipline. They thought it was fun, but not really worth the wait since it was such a short run. I helped pack my parents and spent time with my mom so my dad could finish up their stuff. Around 12:30, medical came to get my mom and I waited with their luggage. Since my parents were leaving the room, my brother and his family decided to do a mid-cruise upgrade. Lucky dogs!!

 

The porter took forever to get the luggage, and then I got to wait in medical with my mom for the ship to clear customs and the air ambulance team to get there. Finally I got back to the room to change and meet my family to debark. Debarking was pretty easy that day, and we were slightly extended in St. Thomas. Our original plan had been to do a big taxi tour over the island and then go to Magen's Bay for a few hours. With only being in port from 2-7, we decided to just go straight to Magen's bay. We hopped in a taxi and set forth on the scary drive over the mountain.

 

(More tomorrow!! Laundry exhaustion finally just hit)

[LissyTx]

Wishing your Mom a speedy recovery.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[hollon]

I hate to hear such bad news, hope your mom gets well quick, at least it wasn't anything too serious. I totally agree w/ the pool, I even had to take off my flip flops while walking around the pool, it is that slippery.

[MANDMTRAVEL]

I was really enjoying your review... so, sorry about your mom :( I wish her a fast recovery.

[Host Jacquelyn]

The family staterooms are my favourite staterooms at sea. I much prefer them over two connecting staterooms, especially with toddlers. There's a lot more floor space than two cabins. It's too bad people talked you out of one. :(

 

Looking for details on the Family Inside stateroom if you have any! OP's comment has me worried. We will be 5 in an FI. We did the Family Promenade on Freedom, and figure the FI on Oasis is similar... right??

[NolaFireLI]

Enjoying your review, (subscribed) as we will be on in a few months and can't help but think of your poor mom... I wish her a very speedy recovery!!

A remember when we were on the Allure a few years back that the pool deck was very slippery... :( Wish they could do something about it...

[Host Jacquelyn]

So sorry to hear about your mom - that's just awful! Other than that, I am loving the review, as we will be traveling with similar aged children.

 

One question - in general, how did your eldest like Adventure Ocean? Was she usually grouped with kids up to 17, or was there a 12-14 year old group? Did she feel anything too mature for her? My daughter will also be 12 when we sail.

[cantwaittogoagain]

I think that's the morning my husband took my older daughters on the zipline. They thought it was fun, but not really worth the wait since it was such a short run.

 

Curious how long they had to wait for the zipline?

 

And so sorry to hear about your mom. Hoping for a speedy recovery

[retiredgram]

Enjoying your review, except for the part about your mom.:( Hope your mom heals fast and has no problems with rehab.

 

Looking forward to the rest of your review.

[clochette]

Thanks for the review, and I am so sorry about your mom, how awful for all of you.

[Susie51]

So sorry about your Mom. Looking forward to more of your review. I like your writing style.

[liberiben]

So sorry about your Mom, I have almost busted myself on the deck countless times, it is the main reason I cruise with my Vibram tennis shoes. And yes, the boogie board side of the Flowdider is to blame for a ton of accidents, stand up is much safer IMO.

[arkking]

Am wondering if there is a free standing soda machine on Liberty

[arkking]

Am wondering if there is a free standing soda machine on Oasis

[Jen731]

So sorry to hear about your mom - that's just awful! Other than that, I am loving the review, as we will be traveling with similar aged children.

 

One question - in general, how did your eldest like Adventure Ocean? Was she usually grouped with kids up to 17, or was there a 12-14 year old group? Did she feel anything too mature for her? My daughter will also be 12 when we sail.

 

I will double check with her, but I think she was always with the 12-14 year olds. She went in really excited, but she found that by the 4th or 5th night everyone was sort of acting silly and immature. They were probably being normal teens, but she is more on the quiet side and doesn't get into the crazy, juvenile behavior. Definitely not too mature for her, she probably would have enjoyed it more if they had been, but hey, the kids were on vacation and I don't blame them for cutting loose, it's just not her style. She did find one girl she really clicked with, but by the last couple of nights she chose to stay in the room with us rather than go down to the teen club.

 

Edited to add: Dd says the older kids were there for karaoke (and according to her they "hogged the book and didn't let anyone else have a turn") and they might have been invited to a couple of the other big events but she didn't attend.

Edited June 23, 2014 by Jen731

[Jen731]

Curious how long they had to wait for the zipline?

 

And so sorry to hear about your mom. Hoping for a speedy recovery

 

It was almost 45 minutes. My daughter says she wouldn't wait again for such a short ride, but it was an experience she'll remember. She also said it was a slow ride, she thought it would be fast and fun, but it was more of a Sunday drive in the park on the zipline. :)

[Jen731]

Am wondering if there is a free standing soda machine on Oasis

 

If you mean the Coke Freestyle machines, yes, we found 2 in the Windjammer and then eventually found the ones on the Promenade. The Promenade ones are sort of hidden in a nook on one side, I want to say around the pizza place but I can't remember exactly. We tried the freestyle machine in the Windjammer day 2 for lunch: both were out of ice and one was malfunctioning. From that point on we just sort of gave up and asked the bartenders for refills.

 

Fun fact, those cups are also great for icewater - we figured that out around Tuesday afternoon. When my mom left, she donated her cups to us and we used them happily the rest of the week instead of carrying bottles of water or glasses of water around.

[Jen731]

So, we get off the boat at 2 pm and hop in the taxi to Magen's Bay. It might have just been dumb luck, but there were plenty of taxis destined to Magen's Bay, but the people waiting for Emerald Bay and Coki Beach were still sitting there after 2 taxis left for Magen's. The driver pulls over just a few feet into the parking lot to collect the money.

 

The drive to Magen's Bay is.... CRAZY!!! The road over the mountain has some gorgeous views but it is single lane in some places with hairpin turns and very, very, very steep roads. I remember reading some people saying they rented cars in St. Thomas. Dang. I wouldn't drive there if you paid me a million dollars. But the great thing about the drive to Magen's is that you get to see the beautiful views from the top of the mountain and then see how gorgeous Magen's Bay is from up high.

 

We arrived at Magen's and I had fretted before the trip about the beach being too crowded to enjoy. The beach was definitely busy, but we walked 20 feet to the right, just past the boat rentals, and there was plenty of space to spread out our towels and set up camp for the afternoon. The weather was great, cloudy enough to give us a little respite from the sun, but still warm. The water was slightly cool and perfect. There was a slight wind that day so we had a little motion in the water, but nothing much.

 

After we played for a few minutes, I walked over to the boat rental to get on the list for the stand up paddleboards for my husband and two older kids. There was about an hour wait, which was perfect, it gave them time to play first. The SUP were $30 an hour and the girls and my husband LOVED them. They said it was the best decision, and it was really one of the big reasons we chose Magen's Bay. They couldn't wait to try one. They paddled all the way from one side of the bay to the other. My 10 year old was pronounced a "natural" by my husband, she didn't fall except for one time when she was bumped by another paddleboard.

 

By the time they got back, we had a few more minutes to play and swim before it started really emptying out at Magen's Bay. We decided to leave around 5:45, used the showers there at the Bay and then hopped in a taxi with 10 of the drunkest people on St. Thomas. ;) Our driver on the way back was really fun, he played music (to which the drunk people sang along loudly, and died laughing when they got my 3 year old daughter to start singing "every little thing... is gonna be all right")

 

I don't know if this was a line, but the driver said he wasn't supposed to stop at the vista at the top, but that he liked us, so he pulled in and allowed everyone to jump out and take pictures. Those are some of my favorite pictures from the cruise, it is really insanely beautiful from the top there, so we were very grateful.

When we jumped out, we realized the lady behind us was literally passed out. Her boyfriend/husband told my 12 year old: "Never drink rum". Ha!

 

Now it was time to get down the mountain. The happy folks in the back alternated between singing and screaming like they were on a roller coaster. I alternated between screaming and laughing. I cannot believe those taxis can make it down the mountain like they do. It really is like a roller coaster ride.

 

Got back to the boat and we had reservations for the Oasis of Dreams show in the aqua theater, so we decided to go straight there. We were in our swimsuits and coverups, which was actually sort of perfect for the show. We thought the show was okay. It seemed to have a lot of filler and not as much diving. The kids loved the gymnasts and the trampoline, though. And it was impressive to me how many people are involved with the show and all that they can do.

 

After that we were starving, so I think we ended up at the Windjammer for dinner. My eldest really wanted to do the Teen club for karaoke, so she sped through her food so she could go back to the room and change. We finished dinner and showered, got back to the room and found my eldest there, she was frustrated because there was a group of kids "hogging" the book of songs and they had filled the list so she couldn't get a turn. My husband told them they could rent a movie on our TV and that's how we ended the night.

[Jen731]

Here we are on Day 5. This was the big day everyone was looking forward to. We tried to start the day with room service. I thought I had read on the message board a lot that room service usually came early, so we asked for the 8:30-9:00 window hoping it would come around 8:15. By 9:00 we hadn't even had the phone call, so I ended up running through Central Park to get to the Park Cafe and grab bagels and cereal for everyone. If I had realized how easy it was, we wouldn't have bothered with room service. Park Cafe is a great resource, especially if you're on deck 8.

 

The rest of the family arrived at 9:15 and we disembarked with no problem. We even got an elevator pretty quickly! We had reserved the Captain Bob excursion and because we were (originally) a party of 13, we had the boat reserved for just our family. We got to the docks okay and met Sebastian, our captain for the day. We also met Captain Bob, who cares more about customer service then pretty much anyone I've ever met. I think it's really important to him that his passengers are happy and that really impressed me.

 

The St. Maarten tour was great and the whole family loved it. We started by boating around the island, then after awhile we made our first snorkeling stop. My kids had never been snorkeling and they were so excited to try. Our first stop was not great, but we did see a few sting rays, which was cool. Just being in the water was fun for me and the toddlers loved swimming around. The waters there are so nice and calm, I was surprised.

 

Around this time we discovered that one of the boat engines wasn't working too well, so our captain tried a few ways to fix it and called to get help, but we couldn't get it working. We didn't care that much. We were having fun on the ride. At one point we were humming the Gilligan's Island theme song, but it just made the trip more memorable. Eventually got to the lunch spot and WOW it was gorgeous. As we pulled in we saw starfish everywhere and my brother went diving and found conch to show the kids. The toddlers played on the sand and my toddler spent her time running up and down the shore. She was just so happy to have a wide open space to play, I think. The sand was so soft and pretty there and the water was so turquoise and beautiful. We all immediately wanted to stay there for a week!

 

Lunch was at the cafe and it was yummy and huge portions. Captain Bob checked on us and made sure we weren't upset about the boat troubles, and said since RCI had extended our port time we had a little extra time to play around before having to get back. Yay.

 

We loved the spot so much we stayed awhile longer, then drove out to another snorkeling spot that ended up being AMAZING. We saw tons of angel fish and had a great time. The kids just went nuts, screaming at us through their snorkels, "I see FISH!!!"

 

We had a great boat ride back. Sebastian had repaired whatever engine issues we were having over the lunch spot and he proved it by opening up the engines and racing us through the waters. Oh my gosh, the kids had a blast. They pretended they were on a roller coaster and just laughed and screamed the whole time. At one point we tried racing a big jet back to Maho Bay but it beat us. :) We did get to see a jet take off and it is such a sight to see.

 

Finally the excursion had to end (wah) and we went to enjoy our free ice cream coupon at the Dutch cheese shop. We walked back to the boat and were so happy we had some time to shop around at the litlte stalls outside the pier where we also found a crepe stall. My family had lived in Paris years ago when my older girls were very young so we were pulled like a magnet to get crepes with nutella. Expensive but good. Then we got back on the ship with not much wait and all went to shower before dinner in the MDR.

 

We had originally planned to go to the Frozen ice show Monday, but after my mom's accident, we didn't go. So we decided to try to get into the standby line early for the 8:30 show since the TV was showing no reservations available. Luckily for us, when we walked to the theater, they were waving everyone through and not checking who had reservations. Hooray. The kids wanted to sit first row and there was plenty available, so we sat down for the show. I am SO glad we went. I didn't have high expectations seeing how small the rink was and seeing how much filler the diving show had. But wow, it was a seriously good production with amazing costumes and tricks. And being front row, we were so close to the action.

 

I hadn't read about the special reserved seats for the show, but for anyone else who wants to go really early, there are 4 seats that say "reserved for children" and at one point in the show, the kids who are in those seats get to sit in a little sled and get pulled around the rink for a minute as part of the show. Each of the kids loved the show and so did all the grown ups!

 

It was getting late at that point, so we all turned in for the night.

[rlstamps]

I am so sorry to hear about your mother! I was on that cruise and didn't even know that happened. Also, we were on the Captain Bob's tour and saw the boat that wasn't working well and I was happy to read that it didn't ruin your trip. Captain Bob's tour was certainly a highlight of our cruise :-) Great review so far! Yes, that pool desk is very slippery and I almost feel several times while wearing one pair of flip flops that didn't seem to like the wet deck and I agree with it feeling like you are walking on fire (in bare feet) as well...they need to do something about that!

[hollon]

It was almost 45 minutes. My daughter says she wouldn't wait again for such a short ride, but it was an experience she'll remember. She also said it was a slow ride, she thought it would be fast and fun, but it was more of a Sunday drive in the park on the zipline. :)

 

I think it depends on the day you go, my daughter went next to the last day and she only waited about 10-15 minutes

[hollon]

If you mean the Coke Freestyle machines, yes, we found 2 in the Windjammer and then eventually found the ones on the Promenade. The Promenade ones are sort of hidden in a nook on one side, I want to say around the pizza place but I can't remember exactly. We tried the freestyle machine in the Windjammer day 2 for lunch: both were out of ice and one was malfunctioning. From that point on we just sort of gave up and asked the bartenders for refills.

 

Fun fact, those cups are also great for icewater - we figured that out around Tuesday afternoon. When my mom left, she donated her cups to us and we used them happily the rest of the week instead of carrying bottles of water or glasses of water around.

 

They really need to be on top of the "freestyle machines", I know they're busy, the machines are great, if they are not "OUT" of your drink or OUT of ice.

[Jen731]

I think it depends on the day you go, my daughter went next to the last day and she only waited about 10-15 minutes

 

Oh definitely. And I think they were glad they tried it, they just wouldn't spend a lot of time to do it again.

[Susie51]

Thank you for continuing your review. I'm looking forward to more.

 

Your description of Meagan's Bay trip to the beach brought back great memories of the thrilling ride.