Trip Report - Oasis Eastern 4/30/16 sailing Bill Oh's first cruise as Diamond

[BillOh]

Again, I apologize for the time this is taking and the disjointed flow of this report since I lost my notebook. Ever since my first visits to Sorrentos on Majesty and Freedom, I have participated in many discussions of how bad pizza is on Royal Caribbean. My belief if if you get there when they take a pie out of the oven and get a slice right away it is tolerable. I don't expect the kind of pizza you get in Chicago or NYC, or anywhere else I just want something good when I choose to eat pizza on a cruise. The crew members will consolidate pizzas on to one tray and you may end getting a dried up old slice of pizza.

 

When I first went on Allure in 2011 I noticed right away that Sorrento's there had a made to order personal pizza. It hadn't been talked about a lot, but it was good.

 

Here is that pizza from my 2011 review.

 

 

This was salami, ham, and cheese I believe, it was hot fresh and pretty good. Sometime after my 2011 cruise Freedom went into dry dock and got what many called "Oasis upgrades". I had hoped that one of those upgrades would be the addition of the made to order pizza to their Sorrento's, but it wasn't.

 

I had another good pizza on Allure in 2013. Having participated in more pizza threads here I made a mission to try it again on Oasis. I thought this was under advertised on Allure, so I was happy to see this sign in Sorrento's on Oasis.

 

 

I was very happy to see this! On this day they had more toppings available than I remembered. Many of them were things I would never put on a pizza, but I don't want the job of Pizza Dictator who tells people what they can eat. ;) I did manage to specify something acceptable to me. The first thing I noticed that was different from Allure in 2011 was they grabbed a pre-made pizza shell with the sauce and cheese already proportioned onto the crust. On Allure I was able to say, " A little more sauce please" In many places, I believe pizza makers are getting skimpy with the sauce. Do you remember as a kid eating day old pizza? With enough sauce its good and re-heats well. Today's pizzeria pizza is terrible reheated because it is dry! That said, at least there was enough sauce and cheese on it to make it good and I wasn't going to eat any the next day. Here is what I ended up with.

 

 

I forget what meat toppings I picked, but it was hot and tasted good. That is my Oasis Sorrento's pizza report.

Edited May 17, 2016 by BillOh

[soccerdad72]

Really enjoying your trip report, Bill (another former Erie-ite now living in Ohio). :)

 

We just booked Allure for Thanksgiving with the same itinerary, so I'm starting to bookmark some ideas for excursions. :)

[Poorplaya]

Awesome review so far, thank you for posting all the great pictures!

[volk904]

Enjoyed your review Bill and it was fun since we were on the cruise. Everybody always has their on take on events. Loved the love and marriage thing and your Cats review took the words right out of my mouth. We had seats in the lower level next steps and when those cats cone flying over the steps and land behind you the first time it will make you jump. Other than that I thought the show was just to long for a cruise ship. we really enjoyed the breakfast and lunch options. Never ate at the Windjammer once the whole cruise which was probably a good thing.

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

I watched CATS on my cruise . I had no prior knowledge or experience to know the story behind it which I think is key. I left at intermission and almost left prior to that. That was tough to sit through and I gave up. I am a huge cat lover so I always wanted to see it for the costumes and I like musicals in general but this was way too long & boring IMO. I hope they change the show soon.

[BillOh]

Ok, its day 7, Friday, the final sea day :(. The only major thing we had planned was the all access tour for both Gina and I.

 

I'm going to step back a minute and maybe get my self in trouble with the moderators. (wouldn't be the first time) While I was working on this trip report, someone started a thread asking why the all access tour was so expensive. I thought some of the replies were dim witted. (The posts, not the authors as that would be name calling, a definite rule breaker) But I think this forum has created a bunch of people quick to fire out post to up their post count. So many people fired back, "because they can" or "because people will pay it" This was cliche borderline thoughtless. If people paid for something and at the end got a brand new car they weren't expecting, told people about it, months later 1 person in the crowd won a new car in a drawing, and then finally months later people were told to "get the heck out, the tour is over" it might be considered misleading or even fraud.

 

Is this tour a fraud, no. But it certainly isn't what it once was and clearly Royal has seen this well received opportunity as a new cash cow and bean counters have cut a few things out. (IMO)

 

Fortunately, I have read a lot about this tour in the past year so I went in prepared. Thursday night at dinner I realized I hadn't recieved anything in our room regarding the tour. From previous cruisers I knew we should receive a letter with details on where to meet and what to wear along with some waiver forms. I stopped by Guest Services and the agent seemed surprised I didn't get this. We took them back to our room, filled them out and noted the meeting time.

 

Our meeting time was at 9:45am in the aquatheater. One guy showed up in shorts and several other guest warned him he needed long pants. He was back with long pants before our guide arrived. One lady in Capri pants debated on if she should go back for "longer" pants, but she just kind of stayed back and out of the guides site. Nobody gave her any issue over the pants. (Just reporting, don't sick the fashion police on me!)

 

After checking our forms, and finding 5 people had paperwork that weren't on the guides list, she went off to make sure everything was in order. These tours are supposed to be max 20 I believe, but we had 25. A few minutes late, we were given, and told we could keep these lovely lanyard's and passes.

 

 

We were then led down to and onto the Aquatheater stage, which of course was all the way up, so we didn't have to swim to the stage. Here a gentlman came out and talked about the performers and all of the equipment. We didn't actually go back stage or into a control room. I've swam in this pool and there is more to see. We did get a 10 minute explanation of how things worked and it was interesting. They did point out the various GO/NO Go lights the divers see.

 

 

 

 

Our under enthusiastic tour guide, a 20 something English girl led us back through the boardwalk and down into the deck 5 dining room. Through the dining room we went and exited into the food prep area where your waiter comes into the dining room. We were met my this gentleman.

 

 

He was a very gracious host, he introduced himself as one of many chefs on board and gave a very interesting talk about the various different titles people working in this area had and pointed out a lot of interesting things. Besides being well spoken and full of useful information, he was well prepared. Meanwhile , our guide looked bored.

 

We were then over to the bakery area and this gentlemen, a Bakery Chef.

 

 

He also was well prepared and a good spokesperson for the company. If anyone of you have ever had the privilege of knowing a neighbor or relative whom baked their own bread from scratch, you will know how good this area smelled.

 

I didn't take a lot of pictures, but I highly enjoyed the kitchen part of the tour and was impressed by the people working in there. Next we ended down a flight of stairs and onto the famed, "I-95"

 

 

Here we met the guy in charge of "provisions and stores" He walked us into the Beer and Wine cooler and proceeded to give us lots of very interesting information and answer a lot of good questions. Like everyone else, he was well prepared and full of interesting facts. I didn't take any pictures. If you have been in the back of a Grocery store or Costco, its the same. I liked it, but nothing especially photogenic about the area.

 

Here I must stop and possibly relate something that might be important to perhaps only a couple of thousand people world wide. Early I mentioned dress requirement regarding shoes and pants for this tour. We stood about 15 minutes in one cooler area where the temp was , I believe 35F as we were told. My wife suffers from Cold Uriticaria.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_urticaria.

 

It wasn't a matter of her feeling chilled. 30-40 minutes in here could be life threatening for her. By the way, the ships uses a 2 man rule to make sure nobody gets locked in here. Anyone who thinks they need a sweater for the theater or dining room, bring it on this tour. Royal could add this to the guidelines. We were in that room for about 12 minutes so my wife pulled her arms inside her blouse and I hugged her to keep her warm. This kept it tolerable to her. Fortunately, we didn't stay nearly as long in the freezer.

 

Next up the Engine control room!

Edited May 18, 2016 by BillOh

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

Any tours I've been on pictures were prohibited. I'm surprised they let you take pictures especially of the I-95 area. When I toured the laundry room I really wanted to take pictures of the big sheet iron and the towel folding machine but camera's were not allowed and they checked us before we left too just to make sure someone wasn't sneaking one in.

[BillOh]

I'll jump in here with an irrelevant fact. I've been on the bow of Voyager and Freedom class ships. Radiance too. But as many know. The bow of the Oasis class ship is not a routinely public area. I thought I remembered early on in the Oasis' career this was an area for suite guests only. I've also seen upper tier sailaway parties done here. In most but not all cases, Diamond and above were invited to these sailaway parties. I guess I'm like a kid that's been told, "Don't go there". So of course, I want to go there. In the last year it appears that the sailaway parties on the bow of Oasis were becoming fewer and fewer. It was a topic of our roll call (mostly by me). At the beginning of our all access tour, I asked our guide if we would be able to go out there. Ok, I'm a child, I just want it because I want it! :p. Our guide looked at me, her mouth opened up, I'm not sure if any sound came out and she looked away! :eek: I guess I assumed it was my hearing loss and not her rudeness.

[BillOh]

Any tours I've been on pictures were prohibited. I'm surprised they let you take pictures especially of the I-95 area. When I toured the laundry room I really wanted to take pictures of the big sheet iron and the towel folding machine but camera's were not allowed and they checked us before we left too just to make sure someone wasn't sneaking one in.

 

The only restrictions we were given was no video on the bridge and they asked us to not photograph crew members off duty, especially in their dining room.

[BillOh]

From the provisions area along I-95 we went down to deck 0 and saw quite a bit of the laundry areas. Again we were greeted by crew members, team leaders and officers all whom were very good at explaining what they did, answering questions, and making it interesting to us. The only problem here was it was a bit warm and probably too crowded as our group had 25 instead of the normal 20.

 

From there we went to the Engine Control Room, this part alone was worth the price of the tour. Before we headed into that area, we had to be accounted for and pass through a security officer.

 

.

 

While enjoyable, this part of the tour was also a little crowded with 25 people. My degree 40 years ago was electronic engineering and I've done a lot of IT work. If you have watched any old WWII movies, this area looks more like the bridge of the NCC1701 Enterprise than what you might see in an old movie.

 

This guy above was the Engineer in Charge and was working his shift. We were able to pretty much go where we wanted and ask any questions. In doing so, there is a tremendous amount of data available to these guys that I would assume help them see problems coming. If an oil temp reads 75C for weeks on end, but fails at 100C, they can frequently see the early signs of problems and correct problems before they happen.

 

During the months up to my 2015 Freedom Crew, that ship developed problems with one Azipod. This monitor looked down into each of Oasis' azipods and thrusters.

 

 

Lots of time was spent here, good questions asked and answered.

 

Next up was a walk through the crews dining area. It was close to lunch time by then, or I will say the area was busy. From what I saw, the food looked good, everything was hot, lots of variety and it seemed to be running smoothly for a "company cafeteria". From there we went into one of the crew lounge areas.

 

 

Here we saw the bar, a 7ft pool table, a video game, and a foosball table along with plenty of tables and chairs. At the beginning of the tour we were told to hit the restrooms and there would be no where to stop for quite a while. We got that break, but that break turned into quite a bit of waiting. Our guide took a bunch of questions until she finally gave up and admitted the tour before us was still on the bridge and that is what we were waiting for. She did manage to answer one of my questions sincerely. She said she was from England and told us of the ships she was been on in her 5 years with the company. I asked if she would ever try to get stationed on a ship out of South Hampton sometime to be closer to home. She said she might, but for Southhampton they like to hire crew members who can speak multiple languages since cruises from there visit countries with several native languages and for now she only spoke English.

 

We killed about 30 minutes I believe.

 

 

Finally she got a call and it was our turn on the bridge. We all packed into one elevator and it set off an overload alarm so our tourguide and one other crew member stepped off. She told us she would meet us on deck 12. The door closed and we went to deck 12. Oddly enough, she got there first. That brings up a point and I am going to go off on a tangent.

 

We saw a few irregularities with Oasis' elevators this week Not just slow elevators, but other odd things. As previous mentioned, I gained only 3 pounds in 7 days and took a lot of stairs. Still on multiple occasions I would press an elevator button to let say go down. I would hear the sound of a nearby elevator arriving and the door opening. I would see the DOWN arrow lit. Within 1 second of the ding and the door opening the door would close and the arrow would reverse and the elevator would go back up. I would then have to press the down button again (it went out) and start my wait over. More times than I could count elevators would zoom by, clearly on "express runs".

 

One time the elevator arrived, we got on at deck 12, pressed the deck 5 button for the promenade. A voice came through a speaker that was muffled. Neither my wife or I heard it completely, and we weren't expecting anyone to talk to us so we weren't paying attention. My wife said, " It said something about a medical emergency. Sure enough I looked at the display for what floor we were on and it said EMERGENCY. The elevator started moving up instead of down. The door opened at deck 17 and two crew members (not medical personnel or officers) got on, put in a key, and the door closed. They got off on deck 5 with us and went into the Cafe Promenade. To me it was clear they were in a hurry and appropriated the elevator as their guests expense. TACKY IMO.

 

One one other case an elevator stopped about 5 feet short of its floor. It was one of the glass backed elevators so it was clear this happened. A couple of people jumped, humorously like they were trying to get it going. Oddly it did move a couple of inches. A couple repeats of that and we made it to the floor, the doors opened and everyone got out even if it wasn't their floor.

Edited May 18, 2016 by BillOh

[CruisePrincess51]

Bill, This is an excellent review and I love your writing style. It sounds like you had a wonderful cruise and makes me want my time on Oasis to come much quicker. I'm hoping by the time we sail on her that they have changed the show from CAT'S to something else, though. Thanks for writing this and I look forward to reading about the rest of your last sea day.

 

Kathy :)

[BillOh]

Bill, This is an excellent review and I love your writing style. It sounds like you had a wonderful cruise and makes me want my time on Oasis to come much quicker. I'm hoping by the time we sail on her that they have changed the show from CAT'S to something else, though. Thanks for writing this and I look forward to reading about the rest of your last sea day.

 

Kathy :)

 

Thank you! I think (and their are people who know more and will quickly jump in) RC contracts shows for these ships for 5 years. Only Oasis and Allure are older than 6 years. Oasis started with Hair Spray, which I didn't see, and Allure had Chicago. After 5 years Oasis switched to cats, I believe in 2014. Sometime around 2015 Allure switched to Mama Mia. The standard assumption is we are stuck with Cats until 2019. My cruise schedule for 17 and 18 is picked. Will I go to Allure before it changes? Don't know what the show on Harmony is.

[CruzieSue]

Enjoyed your review and especially your description of the CATS show !! I have seen it twice (on land) and it does take some studying up to fully understand, but I loved it anyway and would love to see it again!! :)

 

QUESTION: We are looking at this same itinerary on Oasis next year. Having only sailed in the Gulf and Western Caribbean as far as the Bahamas, are the waters on the Eastern/Atlantic side rougher at all (not including the addition of stormy weather, of course)? Or do you even notice rough seas in a ship the size of Oasis? Thanks for your reply.

[Ocean Boy]

Enjoyed your review and especially your description of the CATS show !! I have seen it twice (on land) and it does take some studying up to fully understand, but I loved it anyway and would love to see it again!! :)

 

QUESTION: We are looking at this same itinerary on Oasis next year. Having only sailed in the Gulf and Western Caribbean as far as the Bahamas, are the waters on the Eastern/Atlantic side rougher at all (not including the addition of stormy weather, of course)? Or do you even notice rough seas in a ship the size of Oasis? Thanks for your reply.

 

We mostly do eastern sailing now as I like it more than the western. We have really not had any issues with ship movement on any eastern cruises. This past January it was really windy when we did an Oasis eastern sailing and still felt no movement even with the winds blowing.

[BillOh]

This time frame, late April early May usually gives us nice weather and calm seas.

 

Sent from my SM-G935P using Tapatalk

[WyKnott]

I'm not sure if other are having this problem but I can't see any of the pictures in your recent posts.

 

Count me as one who can't see any photos. :(

I'm still enjoying your review, though. We were on the Oasis in February, and loved the ship so much that we just booked Harmony for February 2018. A long time to wait, but it will be worth it.

[BillOh]

Count me as one who can't see any photos. :(

I'm still enjoying your review, though. We were on the Oasis in February, and loved the ship so much that we just booked Harmony for February 2018. A long time to wait, but it will be worth it.

 

Type this into your webrowser- http://mccallw.tripod.com/allure/anniversary.jpg

 

If you don't see this:

 

Then something is blocking the tripod site on your internet connection.

[joand452]

Type this into your webrowser- http://mccallw.tripod.com/allure/anniversary.jpg

 

If you don't see this:

 

Then something is blocking the tripod site on your internet connection.

 

What did you choose as your option?

[CruzieSue]

Ocean Boy and BillOh, thanks for the replies. That's what I wanted to hear !! :)

[BillOh]

What did you choose as your option?

 

:) That was from Allure 2011, our 30th. We just took the picture of the screen.

[BillOh]

Ok, time for me to finally wrap this up. After some wait, we finally made it to the bridge. My first impression it seemed more like a nice office in a skyscraper than a ship's bridge. We were walked over into the port side bridge wing and shown the control section there. We were introduced to one of the First Officers, a guy who looked about 30 from Canada. He showed up this display.

 

 

As you can see all three azipods were working and at around 40% capacity. On the right you see the Heading at the top and the the COG (Course over ground) It was explained that ideally those two should be the same, but currents and wind can affect the COG. He also said the GPS told him they were about 12 feet off their desired position.

 

My eyes were next drawn to the radar screen where I noted some traffic around us including the Carnival Glory whom we had seen in St Thomas and she was headed back to Miami.

 

 

The first officer looked at the screen and said she was 20 miles off the port side and then pointed her out to us out the window.

 

Visibility is good up here!

 

Soon the Captain came on to the bridge and came over to talk to us.

 

 

After a nice conversation he excused himself and noted that he was headed to "The Captain's Corner" Below is the active bridge crew while we were up there. The guy in the front is on lookout duty. I did ask him if he had ever spotted life rafts or other boats in the straits between Cuba and Florida, and he indeed had.

 

 

The final thing we saw on the bridge tour was a room, and now without my notes, I forget what it was called, but it was like a Situation Room or a control room for the ship for everything except the engines.

 

 

After what seemed like a nice 20 or 30 minutes we were escorted out and made our way to the landing at the stairwell, deck 12, port side where our guide told us that we were done and we were on our own, Goodbye and she disappeared. Later I was miffed to find out the tour preceding us was out on the bow of the ship. Previous reviews I have read mentioned a lunch in the MDR and a gift bag. While I didn't need either, the end of the tour felt more like a "Don't let the door hit you in the @ass on the way out. " Ok, that is being a bit dramatic and we know how us Midwesterners are dramatic.

Edited May 20, 2016 by BillOh

[CruisePrincess51]

Bill, it sounds like the tour you were on was great, well worth looking into. Your review has been great reading, thanks again for doing this. Looking forward to our cruise on Oasis next year! :) By the way, when did you book this tour, is it offered along with the other tours the ship offers?

 

Kathy

[BillOh]

Bill, it sounds like the tour you were on was great, well worth looking into. Your review has been great reading, thanks again for doing this. Looking forward to our cruise on Oasis next year! :) By the way, when did you book this tour, is it offered along with the other tours the ship offers?

 

Kathy

 

We did book it ahead of time in the online cruise planner. I think there is 3 or 4 times offered on this cruise.

 

Tonight, I'll finish up, the main thing left is the Captain's corner, which I've enjoyed on Allure.

Edited May 20, 2016 by BillOh

[BillOh]

Ok, time to wrap this up. The cardinal rule of a good review is don't drag it out for weeks. Well, I guess I'm a rule breaker. The next thing on the agenda was the Captain's corner.

 

 

I missed it on Freedom last year. Twice on Allure it was held on a Sea Day and in the Aquatheater. While it was called the Captain's Corner, both times on Allure they had someone from the hotel side, Engineering as well as the CD taking questions. I was a little disappointed in that I had several questions for the Guest Services Side. (Why no more bow sailaways) I had just come from an extensive chat with the captain on the bridge. ;)

 

This time it was held in the Comedy venue and it was only the captain. This room was definitely too small! If you weren't there 10 minutes early you either sat or left.

 

 

This is Drew Devine the CD and the Captain. Again, I lost my notes and forgot his name! He was born somewhere on the East Coast and now calls Seattle home. He comes across as everything you would a Captain to be. But his answers in this event did come a bit rehearsed. He did his best to give sincere helpful answers, but clearly he has been coached as to always present Royal in the best light. He didn't want to talk about anything negative and quickly changed the subject or made a joke. This was most evident when asked, "What was his scariest moment as Captain of the Oasis?" A team of comedy writers could have written, " When we ran low on coffee." I asked how often is getting the passenger count down to zero a problem and how often do you have to leave someone behind?" his reply was, "We never like to do that" and he avoided any kind of quantitative answer, but did go on to add useful information on the subject. He did say always take the compass with you that has the RC port contact phone number. If you are having a problem and you know you are late, call us, we can consider delaying departure if we have some info on when you are returning.

 

It was an interesting talk despite the contrived part of it. Also in the picture about it Drew Devine. Overall I thought he was a good CD, very personable and he did his job well. His Quests and Love and Marriage were done well, but pretty much by the book. He did occasionally throw in his own wrinkle. On the subject of Quest, I will mention one of his own wrinkles as I put it. I don't think this will break the spirit of "What happens at Quest stays at Quest" but it will help someone. In Quest, you are given a Quest and when you complete it, you must show the CD what you have and your team number. The key is finding him. While people are scrambling to complete the quest, he moves around, sometimes all the way to the bar.

[Clarea]

 

This is Drew Devine the CD and the Captain. Again, I lost my notes and forgot his name! ....

I believe it's Captain Rob Hempstead.