Chaos of the Seas--Wesbound TA

[Wolfhm]

We enjoyed the crossing on Oct 15, only problem was the boarder patrol and immigration on both sides of the pond..

 

The CL was only temporary as they were rebuilding the old CL.

 

No complaints about the food or crew.

[nelblu]

This happened the first time that we sailed on Oasis. We were at the Windjammer one day when people couldn't find tables and they had a section roped off. I can understand maybe not being able to use all of the serving stations for whatever reasons but to keep tables roped off when people are searching made no sense to me. This was several years ago now and I wrote a letter to RCI at the time detailing some of my issues with what I felt was poor management on the ship. We never encountered anything like this on other cruises that we have done on Oasis/Allure.

 

I've sailed on Oasis twice and Allure once and never ate in the Windjammer, as I find better venues to dine. The Windjammer on these ships seem to have lesser varieties than the WJ on other ships. Did they have the tutti salad in the MDR for lunch?

[paton]

I was on the Eastbound TA and the weather was best of any TA I have done, and I live in FL. I know the amount of Diamond and above was crazy, over 60 Pinnacle. Besides breakfast and lunch in Chops for the Diamond and above being crowded everything else seemed same as when on regular 7 day in Caribbean.

 

Staff was great as always even had mishap in MDR came to our 8:30 assigned table around night 8 and found they had seated someone else! A head waiter not ours helped get us a a table with an amazing group, we ended up going there the remainder of cruise. So it worked out but was little shocked and so was our waitress when we came to table and someone there!

 

Again I enjoyed our TA and was really impressed how the staff handled the amount of C&A on board and tried best to accommodate all, example lunch served in Chops 12-2 daily for Diamond and above, remember 6 days we moved ahead an hour at noon so lunch only really for an hour, many days they were still taking in new guests well close to 3 pm.

 

Sorry for those on the Westbound sounds not the same experience.

[jackyfromwyk]

RCI had the opportunity to WOW a new customer, and they dropped the ball badly. What incentive do people with no history with Royal Caribbean have to give them another chance? I hope they learned something from this trip and can correct the problems before the Allure TA and dry dock.

 

The Westbound TA was our first and most likely last RCCL cruise.

I understand that this was not a "normal" cruise for the Oasis OTS and that could partially explain the IT problems with booking shows before boarding and the utter chaos during embarkation. I might also partially explain the non-working interactive stateroom televisions, the intermittent water shutdowns, and the construction while underway. And yes, the cooler weather drove many passengers inside making it feel a bit crowded.

However, just because this was not a "normal" cruise for the Oasis of the Seas, is NOT an excuse for extremely poor customer service. It seemed the officers/supervisors were hiding throughout the cruise. Even after specifically asking for a supervisor to contact us regarding an issue, we did not get any results. It is also not an excuse for extremely poor communication between the ships staff and the passengers.

 

While we did enjoy the ship and experienced some excellent customer service from our waiters and cabin stewart, we did not get WOWed.

[CU64]

I would have expected many of the above experiences. Post drydock, changing of some crew, repo cruise.......possible bad weather.......

people who elected to cruise with these variables (and lower prices) might want to realize possible problems, et al.

 

My first experience with RCCL was on Mariner of Seas, RT LAX into Mexico many yrs ago. I thought the crowd on the ship in the public areas were often

rude, uncivilized, and just did not know cruise etiquette. However, I always cruise in a balcony and can stay away from crowds when common sense tells me there will be lines, et al. I still enjoyed my cruise. However, I knew then that RCCL Bells and Whistles ships were NOT my first choice.

[Ocean Boy]

I've sailed on Oasis twice and Allure once and never ate in the Windjammer, as I find better venues to dine. The Windjammer on these ships seem to have lesser varieties than the WJ on other ships. Did they have the tutti salad in the MDR for lunch?

 

I have no idea. It has been many cruises now since we have stepped foot in the MDR. This past February on Allure the food in the Windjammer was actually much better than our past several cruises. I was nice to find it that way.

[Debinnova]

This was our 2nd time aboard Oasis and we love RCI. The weather was only "bad" a small part of the time. Just because it wasn't 75 degrees and pool weather, doesn't mean passengers were not outside. It was cool and windy but nice to sit outside, play golf, zip line, etc. The pools were just not used as it was cool.

 

The bottoms line is, regardless of why so many things went wrong (weather, dry dock, construction, closed venues, etc. )It is NO excuse for the horrible service. We were in a suite but ate often in the dining room, especially breakfast and lunch. Ordered a simple onion and tomato omelette - came first time with cheese, they made another and added ham.... I just gave up at that point. Everyone else had finished eating! Wrong room service orders 2 out of 4 orders. Ambivalent servers (but I could see other servers smiling and engaging passengers - I just never had one wait on me, sadly.) We had one server go missing for 25 minutes after food was delivered. We finally just left without offer of desert or coffee. Seemed everywhere we turned, others were shocked at the service and lack of Caring in particular.

 

We were in a suite and our steward did the bare minimum, failed to offer us the laundry deal, never asked once if we needed anything, had to ask him for shampoo and toilet tissue. This was not the norm in our experience.

 

Maritesse, a server in Silk was wonderful, so after some bad experiences with others, we made sure to sit in her section nightly. She was what we were used to seeing at RCI, smiling, engaging and CARING about the service she was providing.

 

Finally after walking around for 15 min. In the Windjammer and no seats, I had to go up and ask a supervisor (who had to have seen dozens like me struggling to find a table) to open a new section, it filled within a minute.

 

Yes, things were crowded but there was no communication at all! The concierge nor the room steward explained any of the perks or venues we could receive as suite guests and there was no list in cabin. We were finding out things from other passengers on the last day, which did us no good.

 

Poor experience overall and definitely not worth extra $$ for suite in our case. Didn't feel wowed at all. We did make sure to have a good time regardless and enjoyed our cabin. RCI dropped the ball for sure.

 

Sent from my KFSOWI using Tapatalk

[nelblu]

I have no idea. It has been many cruises now since we have stepped foot in the MDR. This past February on Allure the food in the Windjammer was actually much better than our past several cruises. I was nice to find it that way.

 

You make it sound as though you do not dine in the MDR. Have you seen/heard of the "Tutti" salad bar in the MDR on sea days only--it's actually very good, and we look forward to it.

[Debinnova]

I certainly did NOT book this cruise expecting the sub par experience as above poster mentioned and I paid full price for a suite for two people. You can't always blame the passenger. At a cost of over $6500 for a GS, I felt disappointed as this was the end of a wonderful retirement vacation.

 

We took QM2 over EB in regular balcony and had great customer service, etc., 100% improvement over our Oasis experience.

 

I don't expect perfection at all, but a pleasant staff and good customer service should go without saying. Yes, some passengers grumble no matter what. I'm not one of them. I've never complained during or after a cruise but RCI will get my feedback, who knows if it will be read.

[Wilda]

We have gone back and forth on whether to do a TA because of this very reason...what do you do with yourself and 5,000+ of your best friends if the weather is not great.

 

I do think this is about what your expectations are. Oasis and Allure are fabulous ships with an abundance of variety but embarking on a 11 or 12 night cruise with one port of call demands a reality check on people considering this type of sailing.

 

We talked about it and decided we were not ready for the possibility that we would be stuck indoors day in and day out. This, in my opinion has nothing to do with whether the ship is inward or outward focused...I can see the ocean from my balcony just fine, thank you very much. And if I don't book a balcony then I can still access it from other areas on the ship. It sounds like cabin fever got the best of folks.

 

As to how complaints were settled well that is very subjective so I am not going to dip my toe into that water....

Edited October 28, 2014 by Wilda

[Ocean Boy]

We have gone back and forth on whether to do a TA because of this very reason...what do you do with yourself and 5,000+ of your best friends if the weather is not great.

 

I do think this is about what your expectations are. Oasis and Allure are fabulous ships with an abundance of variety but embarking on a 11 or 12 night cruise with one port of call demands a reality check on people considering this type of sailing.

 

We talked about it and decided we were not ready for the possibility that we would be stuck indoors day in and day out. This, in my opinion has nothing to do with whether the ship is inward or outward focused...I can see the ocean from my balcony just fine, thank you very much. And if I don't book a balcony then I can still access it from other areas on the ship. It sounds like cabin fever got the best of folks.

 

As to how complaints were settled well that is very subjective so I am not going to dip my toe into that water....

 

We are not ready for a TA either for many reasons. One being that I love getting up early and watching the approach to a port of call and I would really miss that on a TA. I also find that 2 sea days in a row is about my limit. Even if all we do is walk around town near the port I like getting off of the ship for awhile. The great pricing that is often found on the TAs is not enough to get me to risk it yet.

Edited October 28, 2014 by Ocean Boy

[Debinnova]

Why does it have to boil down to passenger expectations? Can't we expect to have decent service, hot water, tv's that work, and reasonable waiting lines. I want to reiterate that we are not really sun and pool people. We like to spend time both indoors and outdoors, but more indoors. Regardless, the service was just not there. It had nothing to do with us being bored indoors. There were things to do, just poor communication, lots of lines and lack of service.

 

Sent from my KFSOWI using Tapatalk

[swooldri]

I have sailed Oasis and Allure several times each. I would definitely consider each ship to be an "outdoors" ship because of the Boardwalk area, the Central Park area and the Sports Deck area which are all very large. The Aqua Theater, an outdoor venue for aqua shows, consumes a large area too. If the weather is cold, rainey or blustery, none of these areas with their restuaurants and lounges can be comfortably used.

 

All the passengers who might have been in these areas or the swimming pools will be displaced to other interior public areas. I can imagine it would get quite crowded when the weather is bad. Several days in a row of bad weather and no port calls could get very frustrating.

 

Point being you can not see the Ocean from interior lounges. Schooner Bar has port hole with fake pictures. All inside lounges and elevators focus inward. Unlike the Vision or Radiance Class ships.

[LMaxwell]

I think the disconnect here is between "outdoors" and "inward focused." Its true that the Boardwalk and Central Park are technically "outdoors" which would limit their use during inclement weather. But at the same time they're also "inward focused." The focus on these large public areas is definitely the ship, not the ocean or anything external to the ship - you can see nothing but ship, unless you look straight up to the sky. Definitely no connection with the ocean at all.

Sometimes the stars align and you and I think in unison.

[PathfinderEss]

This review is of the post-drydock Oasis of the Seas westbound TA (October 15-27,2015). Since we were on the Eastbound pre-drydock TA in September, we can accurately compare the two ships and voyages pre and post dry dock. The overriding factor in the Westbound TA of the Oasis of the Seas has been congestion, overcrowding, and SRO. We have never been on a cruise where the masses tend to dominate. Lounges and Bars were alway occupied and overcrowded; Trivia and lectures were SRO with some participants coming 1-1/2 hours early to secure seats. Breakfast venues had 15-20 minute waits or 100 person lines for seating or no seats available(buffet). This has lead to rude passenger behavior and even fisticuffs (never have been on a cruise with so many rude, inconsiderate and irate passengers—could this be cause and effect?). Naturally, many in our party have vowed never to return to this ship due to the masses that abound everywhere (even the theatre is SRO with several lines of people; in Dazzles the progressive trivia left many teams in the aisles and staircases).

 

The reason for this is quite obvious: during dry dock the Oasis added 40 cabins (up to 100 more people) while eliminating much public space: when you have more people and less public space, these problems tend to occur. They did so without adding any additional staff so more people with less staff means less quality and poorer customer service, which we also noted as major differences from the previous TA on the same ship (The spark and excitement is missing in a lot of the staff eyes. You can see they are just running through the motions to make a living). It appears very obvious that RCI intends to milk the ship for all the revenue it can get without any regards for the convenience or quality of the passengers. The promenade, once a beautiful football long area to sit, talk and relax, people watch or just stroll aimlessly has been reduced to offering hourly K-mart blue light specials on cheap merchandise with ear splitting announcements about the newest bargains from the name brand retail shops. More emphasis is on selling then allowing the passenger to relax. The ship may be able to accommodate 5500 passengers but the public venues do not have the carrying capacity to do likewise.

 

Interesting report, thanks.

[Gingerbint]

I've been having a read and felt the need to 'jump in'

 

Firstly if you were not on this cruise regardless of how many times you have sailed Oasis/Allure you cannot comment on what 'usually happens' as this was not a 'usual' cruise! Or a usual TA.

 

To the CC member calling BS on the OP, that is out of order.

 

Royal's IT from the start was poor and nothing was ever done about that.

 

Both Southampton and Rotterdam were a nightmare embarkation. No organisation, everyone in a bunch, no direction. We have cruised from Southampton several times and never experienced anything like it.

Fort Lauderdale was chaos too with US/Canada and Non US all bundled together until you got right to the front where they split you.

 

The OP has called it the Chaos OTS, we renamed it the Queue OTS as that is what you did from start to finish.

Queue's to board, queue to see shows, queue to speak to GS, even has to queue for a cup of tea/coffee in Café Promenade in the evening as seems it was the only place to get 'free' hot drinks! Basically you wanted something there was a queue for it.

To make a case point I was waiting at GS and my husband stood just to the side of me clearly not in the wait line and people started lining up behind him!

 

We took a different route to the usual WB TA due the weather which meant the majority of the days were overcast, windy and/or raining so everyone was inside. On the one day it was sunny it was noticeable there were less people inside and areas had more room.

 

Dazzles for the evening drinks and the CHOPS breakfast and lunch was for D+ and above only - not D.

D had the DL and also use of Blaze on Deck 4 between 5-830pm. Quite a lot of the other times in the day the DL was closed off which we have not had before.

Many queued too for that at opening time, you would think there was a drinks shortage. We just used our vouchers during these times and went later.

 

The new Suite area in the VCL is only now for PC and Suites. They allowed the D+ to use it between 5-830pm for this cruise but I believe that will not be the case from now on.

I also believe the original CL is being turned into Wonderland for DD so ceases to exist (but I may be wrong?!)

 

From a customer service point I felt Royal let themselves down and agree with other posters re some staff (not all) having a no care attitude and not being able to assist due to lack of knowledge.

Very rarely saw any senior staff out and about. The captain was unwell for most of the cruise and we renamed the CD as 'Who' Devine as he was quite absent from sight compared to others we have had :rolleyes:

 

Royal gave little, no or wrong information on many things to do with this trip both before and during but not once did we have any correspondence advising of the issues of things after the dry dock being either gone, moved or closed.

And we were unaware that work would being on going or staff changing over.

We did not expect as another post put it 'sub par' experience and service.

 

What 'saved' the cruise for us was some of the staff and people on board.

We had a great Room attendant and wait staff and most of the CD staff were very good too especially with the numbers who turned up daily for the quizzes.

We also met some lovely people both new and old from previous cruises and it was good fun and great to catch up.

 

I do think that Royal Customer service will be very busy over the next few days/weeks with the number of complaints I suspect are going in and we have yet to receive the link for our survey but we only got home this morning so we are reflecting and will complete it openly and honestly and hope that Royal take direction from so many new and loyal customers about where they dropped the ball on this trip and created the wrong sort of WOW.

 

I'm sure I'll be done down by some for my post but isn't that what CC is for - for everyone to give their thoughts on what they experienced.

[rubrrick]

I would challenge that. Can you show me some of those posts (links?).

Pull up the RCL website of all the public spaces and make a list of those venues that are outside and those inside, then bring up a overhead outside view of the Oasis in port for example to view those outside spaces.

 

Outside - central park, boardwalk, MASSIVE pool deck, MASSIVE sports court w/2 Floriders

Inside - Promenade

Solarium - only partially covered.

 

Do this same exercise with Radiance

Outside - SUPER small and only 1 pool, super small sports area, very small and tight deck area around the ship

Inside - Centrum, VCL, totally covered Solrium, large shops/boutiques

 

Radiance is the most "inside" ship in the fleet. I suspect Q has a good chance of taking over from Radiance in this regard.

 

 

I have not read everything to the end, but I would take exception to your thinking that the Radiance....or Radiance Class is the most inside ship. At almost any time, anywhere on the ship, you look out on the water. The Radiance class ships are, for old time travelers, the most sought after ships in the fleet........as they feel like ships, look like ships, and most of all, the passengers can view the sea......from most anywhere on the ship.

 

Some of us love the Radiance Class more, than any other class of ship in the fleet. Then again, we are well travelled, have cruised on many other cruise lines, and have many things to compare.

 

We are certainly happy that Royal Caribbean has made the Oasis Class, and the fact that it's a hit with so many, both new comers and seasoned cruisers, attests to the fact of its success.

 

However, when you mention Central Park, and the Boardwalk, both don't look at the ocean, but just a large city. And yes, the Boardwalk does have an ocean view.....from the stern........just like the boardwalk! The Oasis class is a floating city, with not so many ocean views, for public spaces.:)

 

Rick

[The Big Booper]

As every new poster chimes in with additional horror stories, the magnitude of the disaster just keeps increasing. Miami has a lot of damage control to do, that's for sure.

 

Obviously we were not on this cruise but, based on our 4 previous cruises on this class of ship, the loss of the acres of space on the pool decks really impacted the cruise experience. Betcha they could have used the large Viking Crown space that was under construction.

 

Who planned this operation?

[Big_G]

I don't think it matters in this case whether the outdoor spaces are inward facing or outward facing. The fact is there's plenty of real estate outside and if everyone gets stuck inside it's a recipe for disaster.

[erniebert]

Chaos of the Seas is a great name for it. This was our first time on Oasis and our first TA - pretty sure it'll be our last of both as well.

 

What annoyed me more than any of the problems we encountered was the fact that none of them were ever remedied, there was a shrug of the shoulders and nobody took ownership of the problems - "it's out of our control" was a well heard phrase.

 

It's true some of the complaints people were making were ridiculous but for the most part there were genuine grievances.

 

We missed our flight home from Miami at 3.40pm!! Mostly due to customs admittedly but also due to the ridiculous system of transfers - whoever shouted loudest got on the bus basically!

 

The one part of our trip that worked seamlessly was Choice Air - rang them from the airport and they got us on a 6pm flight to Switzerland and connecting flight to Dublin all within 10 minutes and no additional charges

[boaterette]

NCL also made this "mistake" when they converted the Spinnaker Lounge into suites on the Dawn. The former Spinnaker Lounge had large windows, where one could sit and watch the sea. This to me, is the purpose of a cruise.

 

The new smaller Spinnaker Lounge has been moved aft, with few windows.

 

I know they did this on the Star but did not realize that they also did this on the Dawn. Very disappointing.

[Clarea]

...The one part of our trip that worked seamlessly was Choice Air - rang them from the airport and they got us on a 6pm flight to Switzerland and connecting flight to Dublin all within 10 minutes and no additional charges

Glad to hear that you got help from the Choice Air people.

[insidecabin]

Blaze turned into a great diamond happy hour lounge.

 

also the expresso based coffe drinks were available at more than just the diamond lounge(which was closed a lot) we used the prom and park caffe quite often.

[Spurschick]

Someone kindly help me out here. I admit I am waiting to sail on oasis class ships but I am confused:confused:

 

Every ship has decks that are cabin decks where there are no public spaces with ocean views other than cabins. So in that regard the exterior ocean view/ ocean balcony/ suites have sea views like all the other ships.

 

Oasis has a windjammer - so does this not offer sea view like the other windjammers?

 

It has a pool deck, which again I assume has sea views, and a solarium which if I understand correctly has sea views.

 

The new Diamond lounge has sea views (I thought the previous one looked inwards), the new suite lounge has sea views.

 

So my point is what am I missing about the ship not having sea views? What sea views are not on this class ship that are on other class ships. :confused: I get you may need to walk further to get to a sea view as its a bigger ship, but I'm confused by all the " its an inside ship " and "you can't see the sea" comments:confused:

 

The only thing I see that is different is the loss of VCL which on most ships is barely used during the daytime.

 

And this is a genuine question, I'm not trying to be sarcastic I just honestly don't get what I'm missing::confused:

Edited October 29, 2014 by Spurschick

[CVU]

I've been having a read and felt the need to 'jump in'

 

Firstly if you were not on this cruise regardless of how many times you have sailed Oasis/Allure you cannot comment on what 'usually happens' as this was not a 'usual' cruise! Or a usual TA.

 

To the CC member calling BS on the OP, that is out of order.

 

Royal's IT from the start was poor and nothing was ever done about that.

 

Both Southampton and Rotterdam were a nightmare embarkation. No organisation, everyone in a bunch, no direction. We have cruised from Southampton several times and never experienced anything like it.

Fort Lauderdale was chaos too with US/Canada and Non US all bundled together until you got right to the front where they split you.

 

The OP has called it the Chaos OTS, we renamed it the Queue OTS as that is what you did from start to finish.

Queue's to board, queue to see shows, queue to speak to GS, even has to queue for a cup of tea/coffee in Café Promenade in the evening as seems it was the only place to get 'free' hot drinks! Basically you wanted something there was a queue for it.

To make a case point I was waiting at GS and my husband stood just to the side of me clearly not in the wait line and people started lining up behind him!

 

We took a different route to the usual WB TA due the weather which meant the majority of the days were overcast, windy and/or raining so everyone was inside. On the one day it was sunny it was noticeable there were less people inside and areas had more room.

 

Dazzles for the evening drinks and the CHOPS breakfast and lunch was for D+ and above only - not D.

D had the DL and also use of Blaze on Deck 4 between 5-830pm. Quite a lot of the other times in the day the DL was closed off which we have not had before.

Many queued too for that at opening time, you would think there was a drinks shortage. We just used our vouchers during these times and went later.

 

The new Suite area in the VCL is only now for PC and Suites. They allowed the D+ to use it between 5-830pm for this cruise but I believe that will not be the case from now on.

I also believe the original CL is being turned into Wonderland for DD so ceases to exist (but I may be wrong?!)

 

From a customer service point I felt Royal let themselves down and agree with other posters re some staff (not all) having a no care attitude and not being able to assist due to lack of knowledge.

Very rarely saw any senior staff out and about. The captain was unwell for most of the cruise and we renamed the CD as 'Who' Devine as he was quite absent from sight compared to others we have had :rolleyes:

 

Royal gave little, no or wrong information on many things to do with this trip both before and during but not once did we have any correspondence advising of the issues of things after the dry dock being either gone, moved or closed.

And we were unaware that work would being on going or staff changing over.

We did not expect as another post put it 'sub par' experience and service.

 

What 'saved' the cruise for us was some of the staff and people on board.

We had a great Room attendant and wait staff and most of the CD staff were very good too especially with the numbers who turned up daily for the quizzes.

We also met some lovely people both new and old from previous cruises and it was good fun and great to catch up.

 

I do think that Royal Customer service will be very busy over the next few days/weeks with the number of complaints I suspect are going in and we have yet to receive the link for our survey but we only got home this morning so we are reflecting and will complete it openly and honestly and hope that Royal take direction from so many new and loyal customers about where they dropped the ball on this trip and created the wrong sort of WOW.

 

I'm sure I'll be done down by some for my post but isn't that what CC is for - for everyone to give their thoughts on what they experienced.

Thanks for the comments.

We were on both TAs and got on in Rotterdam and agree with ALL you have said!

 

Perhaps customer service were not ready for us right after dry dock, sort of felt that way....it was the not same feeling as the going over TA and our B2B on the Serenade in between the TAs. They went the way of the usual cruises we have come to expect.

 

Deck 17 is for Suite guests and so far PCs only. D+ were only allowed in for happy hour this cruise.

CL on deck 11 is a mystery. It is open now for the following cruise but to be Wonderland restaurant? Wait and see what happens I guess.

Edited October 29, 2014 by CVU