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Oasis - Dec 13-20, 2014 - Mini Review

poncho1973

By poncho1973,
in Royal Caribbean International

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poncho1973

poncho1973

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Just back from our first trip on the mega-ship Oasis and thought I'd post a few things. My reviews don't include pictures or a lot of jibber-jabber, but I try to cover the highlights.

 

This trip was the Eastern route (Nassau, St. Thomas/St. John, St. Maarten) and left from Port Everglades.

 

The Port:

We still think that PC blows the doors off of PE. The construction is getting wrapped up down at PE, but it's just not nearly as nice as PC.

 

We had no trouble parking (parked at the port because we were later than we intended to be) and getting on board. We parked about 1pm and were on the ship about 1:45. This is pretty good. The scan line was long, but we hit a mild lull (luckily) and got REALLY long immediately after we got in line. We were in line behind what appeared to be a Russian bodybuilder & his gf. They appeared to have arrived in a time machine from 1983 or so. Lots of PDA... to a creepy level (hands disappearing down waistbands, etc.) but seriously... as big as I am, this dude made me look like Steve Urkel. So, I'm not imagining anyone said a word to him. In a weird note, we NEVER saw them again. We would've noticed him. That's how big this ship is. Anyone else see them?

 

The Emerald check-in line was awesome. We walked right up and were done in seconds. Duh. Our paperwork was in order. We had everything out and the credit card ready.

 

We went up the ramp and up the ramp and up the last ramp to the ship. We boarded in the middle of the Promenade on Deck #5 and we were on the ship. Our room was ready.

 

TBC...

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poncho1973

poncho1973

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The Ship:

Love it. We had an outside balcony room Forward/Starboard on Deck 6. It was an excellent location.

 

Our stateroom attendant, Ian, was excellent and attentive. Note, I didn't wave a magic $20 at him when we boarded and he was still great. We did tip him extra after the cruise, but the magic $20 "get anything in the world you want on the ship the entire time you cruise" card wasn't played.

 

This ship is a dream. We had a blast. We tried to do everything we could. We ate in the MDR, the Windjammer, Wipe Out Café, Solarium Café, Boardwalk Dog House, Sabor, Johnny Rockets, Park Café, Giovanni's, and Izumi.

 

For the pay places:

Johnny Rockets was a dump, dirty and messy. The ones on land are mediocre, this was just crappy.

Giovanni's was mediocre.

Izumi was great.

Sabor was our favorite restaurant on the entire ship.

 

We hit all of the venues, except Blaze, which we never saw open. We were out late many nights and never saw it open. There were events on the Cruise Compass there, but we must have just missed it. The big white sliding door was always closed.

 

We saw:

A couple shows in the comedy club.

The L&M show in the Opal.

The ice show in Studio B.

A few jazz shows in the Jazz club.

A great big band in Dazzles.

The big water show.

 

Let me add this... my wife... the lover of musicals. The one who drags me to the theatre whenever she can. The one who INSISTED we see CATS. The one telling me to suck it up and enjoy it. HATED CATS and we snuck out, not even waiting on the intermission! What a stink bomb that was.

 

We didn't sign up for the M&M, so we didn't hit that.

 

We did go to the returning C&A party in the Aquatheater. The saddest part of that event was the nasty old lady who told me that she didn't understand why these events weren't more exclusive. She was under the belief that us peasants were ruining the C&A. She was a nasty person. The second sad point was the woman who actually booed the captain during his presentation when he talked about the improvements made during the dry dock. She was putting out her hands in aggressive thumbs down mode and booing him. I guess what they say about how you get so old the adult diapers you're wearing make you think you're an infant again. What a brat.

 

We loved the zip line and were out on the outdoor deck a lot. The rock wall was much higher than the other ships, but great. We didn't do the Flow Rider, but we watched it a lot! We wanted to, but ran out of time.

 

The Solarium was AWESOME! Our favorite solarium, so far! The attendants were great with the towel chair hogs, as well. We never had to spend a lot of time looking for chairs. The Asian female attendant was on the ball. She knew exactly which chairs were chair hogs and cleaned house on a regular basis. We thanked her and mentioned her in our survey by name. We had been in the chairs for about 90 minutes once and a lady came and told me to get out of her chair. I told her to talk to the girl at the towel desk about saving deck chairs. She never came back.

 

Vintages and the Atlas & Globe were nice.

 

We don't shop on board, so I can't claim to know much about the shops, but we went in all of them to say we had been in them.

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RHilla619

RHilla619

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Thanks for the report I will be on the Oasis this Saturday!

 

Quick questions, Izumi and Sabor aren't free/included? I assumed their was no fee since I made a reservation with the $0.00 price, compared to Chops which was $35.00 per person. Are certain things free at izumi/sabor or is every single thing a la carte

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reedprincess

reedprincess

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Thanks for the report I will be on the Oasis this Saturday!

 

Quick questions, Izumi and Sabor aren't free/included? I assumed their was no fee since I made a reservation with the $0.00 price, compared to Chops which was $35.00 per person. Are certain things free at izumi/sabor or is every single thing a la carte

Izumi and Sabor are fee restaurants. The pricing is a la carte, hence no cover charge like Chops, etc.

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BillOh Holiday Sharing Rare

BillOh

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We still think that PC blows the doors off of PE. The construction is getting wrapped up down at PE, but it's just not nearly as nice as PC.

 

After 5 Miami Cruises and 3 Port Everglades, 1 Tampa, and 1 San Juan, I'm looking forward to trying PC. I will miss that short ride to the airport for those of us who fly. Off to read the rest.

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poncho1973

poncho1973

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Thank you for the review. I am so hoping to see Oasis or a sister ship in Port Canaveral in the next couple of years.

 

Me too!

 

Ah gotcha! Thanks for the quick reply guys, luckily I was able to switch it out for the same time seating in the MDR.

 

We spent like $20 in Sabor and were stuffed. Table-side guacamole was $4, $5 for a quesadilla, and $10 for some tacos. It was delicious and much more authentic Mexican than I anticipated. I've never actually been a Mexican person or lived in Mexico, so I'm not going to say TOO MUCH on it, but I've actually been to Mexico and have 2 Mexican friends who have cooked for me. Seemed legit to me as far as the flavors went. Much more so than most Mexican restaurants in the states.

 

After 5 Miami Cruises and 3 Port Everglades, 1 Tampa, and 1 San Juan, I'm looking forward to trying PC. I will miss that short ride to the airport for those of us who fly. Off to read the rest.

 

I missed the short ride to PC!!! It took us about 5-10 minutes shy of 3 hours to get to PE and it takes about 35 to get to PC. SPOILED!!!!

 

This is the kind of review I like to read. I don't really care what time someone got up to go to the airport or what they fed the kids for breakfast before leaving the house. Just give me the nuts and bolts. Thanks!

 

Thanks! BONUS, I'm here and actively looking to see if anyone has any questions or whatnot. I'm like you, but maybe it's a dude thing, I'm not really interested in the whole "this is my entire life story" thing. I either want facts or photos. Not Little Jimmy's fears in the car on the way to the airport! :)

 

To each their own. I'm glad my style works with your style.

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poncho1973

poncho1973

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The Ports:

 

Nassau. Didn't get off the boat. Frankly, I was over Nassau at least 5 visits ago. I'm not paying a king's ransom to go to Atlantis and do what I can basically do on the ship for free. I'm not going around the downtown again and looking at cheap crap I don't want to buy. I could go to the beach, but we've done that and it isn't as nice as the other ports. Mrs. Poncho got a discounted spa treatment and I sat by the pool watching the festivities.

 

St. Thomas/St. John. We took a catamaran to St. John and snorkeled at Honeymoon Beach. I like Trunk Bay much better, but that's because it's my personal prettiest place I've ever been. This was a lot of fun and we saw a TON of fish. No turtles, but fish.

 

NOTE - Oasis docks on the far dock in St. Thomas, so it takes a long time to get to the heart of stuff. We were at least 20 minutes by car from the main port with moderate traffic. Book something that leaves from the new port if you take this ship. Don't go to the other side of the island.

 

St. Maarten/Sint Martin. We used Bernard's Tours that we found here on CC. Don't hesitate, use them. It was a bargain. Great stuff. We hit Maho Beach for the planes, the French Market, Orient Beach, various site-seeing places.

 

Hilarious note... overprotective mom on Orient Beach was so worried that her kids might see naked people. I looked at the son (12-13???) when his mom was busy traumatizing her daughter and told him that if he saw a nekkid person heading towards him to just look at the ground and make his mom happy. I told him that this wasn't going to be hot girls, it was going to be ugly naked people and his mom would stay off his back if he did that the first couple of times he saw one. Then he could look if he wanted to after she was sure he'd look away. I told him he'd probably have to bleach his eyeballs, though. He laughed. Never saw them again, but maybe a realistic approach helped?

 

We didn't actually see much nudity at all this time. A few old people, one scary couple, and one topless, chubby mom with her family. Nothing sexual or that would incapacitate or stunt a child's development into a decent human being. Oh wait... there was an old dude with a grey ponytail wearing a g-string. That was rough. Still, he could technically do that at most any beach in the US, I believe.

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chanat

chanat

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Thx for your review. Sailing on Oasis in 11 days! Second time on her. Loved Cats when I saw it years ago and hoping we enjoy it this time, so we will see. We thought all the shows were awesome last sailing on Oasis. Can't wait to go!

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Sky616

Sky616

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We used Bernard's 3 weeks ago and didn't stay at Orient because of the seaweed which was knee high on the beach. Was it still bad? I'm guessing it wasn't since you stayed for a while. It was a huge disappointment not to have beach time there. We only were at Maho for 50 minutes also. Could have stayed there all day.

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poncho1973

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Thanks for posting your Review. I think we have seen the "thong" guy at Orient-LOL.

 

How was Chops??

 

We didn't do Chops, as we've done that on other ships.

 

How come there are no photos of you luggage in the back of the car?

 

HAHAHA! I really missed a great opportunity there.

 

We used Bernard's 3 weeks ago and didn't stay at Orient because of the seaweed which was knee high on the beach. Was it still bad? I'm guessing it wasn't since you stayed for a while. It was a huge disappointment not to have beach time there. We only were at Maho for 50 minutes also. Could have stayed there all day.

 

The seaweed was mostly gone, not completely, but mostly. They got slammed by seaweed from a hurricane on another island. They were piling it up all over the island.

 

We could've stayed at Maho for much longer, too.

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poncho1973

poncho1973

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I forgot something rather important.

 

The Balcony:

This was our first return to a balcony room in many years. We have tried them in the past and found them to be a waste.

 

One cruise, our neighbors on both sides chain-smoked the entire cruise, rendering our balcony a smoker's pit. The smoke didn't magically know not to come on our side of the wall and the sea breeze didn't magically suck it out to sea. Our deck looked like a fog machine.

 

The other cruise, one of our neighbors smoked so much that I'm pretty sure I came home with the lungs of a coal miner. I tried to fight it out and use my balcony, but it was like I had personally taken up smoking, that's how thick it was. My wife refused to go out there. That neighbor guy almost never left the room for the entire trip.

 

We are also usually not in the room a lot. We feel compelled to use a balcony if we pay extra for it.

 

We went for it again based on:

1. The BOGOHO sale put the entire price for the upgrade to a balcony very, very reasonable.

2. We were hedging our bets against the horror stories we'd read about chair hogs on this ship.

3. There were 3.5 sea days.

4. MOST IMPORTANTLY, it is no longer permissible to smoke on your balcony.

 

We had two instances of smoking on the balcony. I called down to the front desk both times. Both cases (back-to-back days) were resolved within a few minutes. Our stateroom attendant told us that both parties were Asian guests with limited English skills, but they had the rules explained more carefully to them in their native language.

 

The policy worked for me.

 

 

 

 

The only thing I didn't like was the lack of a true black-out situation. You could always see a little sunlight no matter what.

 

We used our deck several times each day, for small amounts of time.

 

One night, after being whacked by Mrs. Poncho because APPARENTLY I was snoring loud enough to wake the dead (I suppose that snorkeling all day + too many beers that night did me in) and she was getting no rest, I got up and slept out there for about an hour on the chairs. I popped on a Breathe Right strip and stayed out there until she had a chance to fall into a deeper sleep.

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Duke Mazer

Duke Mazer

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The Ports:

Hilarious note... overprotective mom on Orient Beach was so worried that her kids might see naked people. I looked at the son (12-13???) when his mom was busy traumatizing her daughter and told him that if he saw a nekkid person heading towards him to just look at the ground and make his mom happy. I told him that this wasn't going to be hot girls, it was going to be ugly naked people and his mom would stay off his back if he did that the first couple of times he saw one. Then he could look if he wanted to after she was sure he'd look away. I told him he'd probably have to bleach his eyeballs, though. He laughed. Never saw them again, but maybe a realistic approach helped?

.

 

LOL!! Great laugh. We will have to watch out for naked people:D

 

One of the best reviews I've read! Honest, to the point, down to earth, non snob review. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

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Sky616

Sky616

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Where do you book Bernard's your on st Martin? I've heard great things about it going to both orient and maho beaches.....

 

 

Freedom 2014

 

We booked thru the website. He got back to us the next day or no more than 2 days. Google Bernard's tours St. Maarten.

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