Oasis of the Seas Trip Review w/ Lots of Pics and Commentary *May 28, 2016*

[oreomaximus]

“Any day aboard a cruise ship…”

 

Hey CC family! We are just off of the beautiful Oasis of the Seas where we spent a very relaxing and enjoyable 7 days experiencing (almost) all she had to offer while visiting the islands of Nassau, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten. We are a family of three – myself, Kim (39), my husband (we’ll call him “De” or “Dallas”, you’ll see why later) (33), and my princess Amy, (4).

 

Here are me and De:

(sorry the picture is blurry the lens was fogged up)

 

 

Here is my pumpkin:

 

 

 

By the way, for some reason my husband has some sort of camera handicap or something in which he literally cannot take a clear, steady picture to save his life. I kid you not. It doesn’t matter if it’s a cell phone, a disposable, a digital, doesn’t make a difference – I am thinking maybe he can’t keep his hands steady – you know he’s a Cowgirls fan and that sort of makes sense since they are always dropping passes. So anyway, just for fun, I may post some of the blurry pictures he attempted to take just to give him some representation during this review. Needless to say, you will not see a lot of pictures of me in this review since I am the designated picture taker.

 

Joining us on this cruise were our two aunts – Shell (21), Jo (18), and our cousin Jarvis (his mom is Shell who claims she is 21 so I guess that makes him 3…with a full goatee and gray hair?) I just report the information, I don’t verify the accuracy of the claim.

 

Here are Dallas, Jarvis, Aunt Shell, and Aunt Jo in Dazzles:

 

 

Two good friends of ours, (who we met, coincidentally, on a previous cruise – I think it was the Carnival Breeze back in 2013) also came along for the adventure and added to the fun. I didn’t get permission to use their real names so I will call them Mr. & Mrs. Cuba (you will see why later).

 

Here they are:

 

 

Last but not least, our Uncle Fe and his partner were supposed to join us but unfortunately had to cancel their cruise at the last minute due to a medical emergency. They were truly missed but I know they will join us next time. As a family, we all try to get together at least once a year to go on a “major” family vacation. Last year, about 25 of us got together and spend a week in Biloxi, Mississippi at the beautiful Beau Rivage and then the year before that about the same amount of folks spend a week in Vegas. So needless to say we like to spend time together and have fun. This cruise was no exception even though there were less people.

 

My family of three (as well as Mr. & Mrs. Cuba) are from Houston and would fly info Ft. Lauderdale late Thursday night while the other three (they are from Kentucky, Florida, and D.C., respectively) would meet up with us on Friday night. We were due to set sail on Saturday, May 28th, 2016.

Be forewarned that the purpose of this review is primarily to chronicle my family’s vacation for our friends and other family members that were too indecisive and/or cheap to come with us. Yes, I said it. I am truly hoping that they will log on, see all of the ridiculous fun we had, be overcome with insane jealously, and kick themselves for choosing to sit at home on their couches. Okay, okay, I’m just kidding (serious). Obviously, in addition to rubbing this cruise in the noses of my friends and family, we also want to share in detail, our experiences on board with our cruise critic family who in the past have given so much to us by posting all of their fantastic reviews. It’s the least we can do to try and give back.

 

For my family of three, this will be our 7th cruise if I am doing the math correctly, and all of our previous cruises with the exception of this one plus one other on Princess, all of our cruises have been with Carnival and as such, you will see that I will be making quite a bit of comparisons between those two lines. And let me just say right now that this cruise was EXPENSIVE!!!!!! Not only in comparison to Carnival, but I believe most of the other similarly “classed” lines. Maybe it was due to the fact that it was an Oasis class ship – or maybe it was due to the time of year, I don’t know. But more of that later in my “gripes” section.

 

Also, before I jump into the actual review, let me post another disclaimer – I tend to be very detailed in my recollection of information, and yet at other times I can’t even remember my child’s name so bear with me as some details I may not remember with as much clarity as I would like. Additionally, as you have already seen, I tend to have a somewhat blunt and dry sense of humor. Most people who know me tend to find it pretty funny – so just take what I say with a grain of salt, it’s not meant to offend anyone, unless of course I say specifically, “I am now going to attempt to offend such and such person”, lol.

 

Here we go, enjoy!

 

[scottwe4]

I'm going onto the oasis June 25th, so I eagerly await your review :). Especially the "expensive" gripe

 

 

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[lovablekendra]

Excited to see the rest of your review! Me and hubby went on allure for our honeymoon and in August we are going on our second cruise for our 2 yr anniversary along with my parents my dad celebrating his 60th on oasis I'm curious to see how things have changed since 2014 and if there are some differences between both ships! [emoji5]

 

 

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[oreomaximus]

As I mentioned before, we are from Houston so we had to fly into Ft. Lauderdale. We chose to play it safe and decided to spend an extra full day in FL by flying in late Thursday night. We stayed at the Hyatt House on Dania Beach. The price was pretty reasonable at around $150 per night. The room was VERY clean and spacious although the front desk staff could use some training in communication and customer service but I digress. Once you make it out of the long driveway/round-about there is a McDonald's located directly across the street and there are some shops (Marshall's Old Navy, K-Mart, etc.) a few hundred yards behind Mickey D's although I wouldn't recommend trying to walk that far you have to cross a busy thoroughfare and there are no sidewalks. We caught an Uber and I think it cost us $5. There is also a T.G.I. Friday's and a Dave and Busters (we frequented both) that were pretty good. If we had to do it again, we would probably stay either on the beach or somewhere closer to more food options (we REALLY like to eat) but overall I think we made a good choice.

 

Here are some pics of the room, (excuse the mess), and our evening at D&B:

 

The living room of the 1 bedroom suite (Dallas has made himself at home):

 

 

There was a small kitchenette attached to the living area with a nice seating area, a bar, a dishwasher, microwave full size refrigerator and dishes/utensils.

 

 

 

Yes, that is our luggage spread out all over the floor. And speaking of luggage, I have a question to ask you all because I swear we have got to be the worst over-packers EVER. We had three large suitcases, 3 backpacks, two duffle bags, and a booster seat for Amy. Trying to lug and that crap around really made me rethink my decision making skills several times throughout this vacation. At one point I actually considered just leaving one of the heavier bags in the hotel room. I was just that OVER all the luggage we had. We saw groups of twenty people with less stuff than we had. If it weren't for the fact that we are frequent flyers with our airline carrier and get free checked luggage, we would have been in trouble. Okay I digress.

 

Back to the review.

 

Amy laying in the bed on her tablet:

 

 

I think we got in at around 2am on Thursday night/Friday morning so once we finally woke on Friday we caught an Uber and headed over to the shopping area. Dallas needed some shades so we stopped at the Marshall's. Apparently Amy needed some as well and decided to try on a few pairs:

 

[oreomaximus]

Okay guys, I have no idea why some of my pictures are like supersized -- I apologize for that. I am going to keep going though because I have a ton of stuff to write/post. If you have any suggestions on how to reduce the size let me know.

 

Onward and upward!

[oreomaximus]

After we did a little last minute shopping we made out way over to T.G.I. Friday's to get some GRUB.

 

Dallas feeding his face:

 

 

The waitress making sure we knew what she expected from us for a tip. :p

 

 

After a few hours we came back to the hotel and laid down for a while. We had plans to meet up with the rest of the group at Dave and Buster's later that night.

 

Amy and Daddy at the hotel: (Give me love)

 

 

Okay after a brief nap we headed over to D&B's. Daddy and Amy playing Pacman/Galaga.

 

 

I won't bore you with the 100 pictures of us playing at games but here is one of Amy cheating on skeeball:

 

 

Next up: Day 1: Embarkation.

[Lady_831]

Subscribe! We are on the Oasis in September after being Carnival cruisers. Can't wait to see your comparisons!

[oreomaximus]

Saturday morning started off with severe thunderstorms and an overall just gloomy morning. Initially, we were still experiencing that euphoric pre-cruise high and were anxious to get on the ship. That was until, Mommy was tasked with getting all the luggage repacked and organized. After a heated debate on whether or not to just leave all the doggone suitcases in the room, we decided against it, hustled up a luggage cart, and made our way downstairs. I think it was around 9:45am. We had plans to meet our other group at the pier around 10am.

 

I pulled out my cell phone on our way down to the lobby, opened my UBER app, and requested an Uber XL. The approximate fare showed around $19-$21. The hotel was charging $10pp. As our Uber was pulling up, the 30 or so cruise passengers that elected to take the hotel shuttle were standing around getting soaked in the rain trying to load their luggage and check their names off the list the driver was holding out. Fun times.

 

Even in the rain it took us maybe 10 minutes to get to Port Everglades.

 

 

Once we made our way to the drop off point, we walked down to the very end of the building where the glass doors are and were ushered over to the line according to our deck (deck 9). Security took 30 seconds then we went over to the check-in desk, showed our Set Sail documentation, our passports, got our pictures for our Sea Pass cards, walked over to take our embarkation picture and then hopped on the escalator. I would say at most, from drop off to sitting down upstairs it took around 15 minutes total. There were absolutely no lines that time of morning. Let me say that out of 6 cruises, this is probably by far the smoothest and most organized process I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

 

Once you got upstairs, you were directed where to sit based on your C&A level and each section was filled up back to front then literally roped off, so you couldn't just pick a place to sit like at the airport. They filled every chair in order with no seats left empty. Hubby thought it was stupid because this kept you from being able to sit with other members or your party if you got separated but I kind of liked it. With 6300 passengers, I understand Royal's attempt to keep the herd organized rather than having complete chaos -- side note: I am not sure why they don't apply this same school of thought to their debarkation process which was by far THE WORST experience I've ever been a part of but I will speak more on that later.

 

They also had a nice sized jungle gym for the kiddos to play on that is located near the back corner of the waiting area. Very cool. My kiddo is hyperactive and trying to keep her contained for an hour + would have been a nightmare.

 

 

Hi Amy!!

 

 

 

The expectation was that the ship would start loading around 11:15-11:30. We sat down at around 10:30ish and were prepared to wait around an hour but it just so happens that there was a slight delay so if memory serves me correctly, we didn't board until closer to 12pm but no biggy.

 

 

 

Once we got on board we headed to the Park Cafe on deck 8 in Central Park to get some lunch. We didn't want to try and brave the Windjammer on Day 1 since we'd heard horror stories about how busy it was the first day.

 

 

 

The cabins were supposed to be ready around 1 o'clock so after we ate lunch, we headed one deck up to deck 9 to check out our home away from home for the next 7 days.

 

We booked cabin #9327, a Boardwalk balcony cabin, 3 decks above the actual boardwalk, and two cabins down from the aqua-theater. Our other family members were staying on Deck 6 in an ocean view balcony near the entrance to the boardwalk and our friends were directly across from us on deck 11 also in a boardwalk balcony cabin.

 

Coming up: pictures of our cabin.

[debshomespun]

We are sailing the Oasis in September for our 2nd time. Looking forward to your comments on the ship, entertainment and food. We are on the Western itinerary. Looking forward to your comments on the Boardwalk Balcony. We had one on Allure, and didn't care for it as much as the ocean facing balconies.

[oreomaximus]

Okay as promised here are some pictures of our cabin, #9327, a Boardwalk Balcony. We had the configuration of the bed next to the door with the sofa next to the balcony. I thought I would prefer it the other way around but actually liked this better I think as we had the area in front of the sofa free to go back and forth outside without having to walk around the bed. It did make accessing the closet somewhat awkward but it wasn't a deal breaker.

 

Please, as usual, excuse the mess. I swear I'm a neat freak but every time I got ready to take a picture there would already be toys and shoes and towels strung about everywhere and I simply was not going to spend 45 minutes cleaning up to take 1 picture. Sorry -- the maid is on vacation.

 

 

Here's a diagram showing exactly where the room is located. 9327 is ALL the way AFT with only one cabin before the end of the hallway. The walk to get to things like the Opal Theatre and, Adventure Ocean is quite LONG!

 

 

 

Bedroom area:

 

 

Bathroom area (you guys have seen a million pics of the bathroom, I won't bore you):

 

[oreomaximus]

Hey Amy!

 

As you can see Johnny Rockets was right below us. We didn't see any of the waiters dancing this cruise. Perhaps they stopped doing that or maybe we just missed it...

 

 

The boardwalk with the carousel in the background all lit up at night.

 

 

The "hat" for the Sabor Tequila bar located just in front of the Aquatheatre.

 

 

Aquatheatre

 

 

On this particular night they were playing Star Wars Episode VII

 

 

[oreomaximus]

The first night we had actually made reservations to see Oasis of Dreams in the Aqua Theater but someone under 4 feet was really tired and irritable and I knew she wouldn't sit still for an hour to watch the show. Luckily, since we had the BB we caught a bit of it from our room. I snapped one or two pics but can't find them. When I do I will post them later. Here are a couple more pics of the Aqua theater.

 

 

 

 

Now, I know I will probably get flamed for this but as you all know I have a young child and I could not help but get a little incensed when I happened to be snapping pictures of the boardwalk/aqua theater and came across this.

 

 

 

 

Let me say this before people get their panties in a wad. As a parent, I am somewhat overprotective of my child because I know she is daring and adventurous and as such, I personally wouldn't give Amy the opportunity to take advantage of a precarious situation. The first picture where she is holding the child seems to me to be...what's the right word...daring... the second one where she leaves him unattended is just ...careless....irresponsible....but to each his own. What if he would have climbed up on that table? I just thought that in light of the kid falling in the gorilla pit just a day or two after I snapped this picture it really made me wonder how some parents are willing to take such obvious risks when there is such a high likelihood that little ones are going to at some point in time be somewhere or so something we can't control. The woman in this photo could have controlled this situation differently in my opinion but again its just my opinion, I pass no judgement on her. Hopefully someone reading my posts can benefit and take heed as situations like this could turn out differently.

 

 

More to follow tomorrow.

 

Sweet dreams.

 

[oreomaximus]

I'm going onto the oasis June 25th, so I eagerly await your review :). Especially the "expensive" gripe

 

 

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Thank you! Oh honey, just wait til I get to talking about all the nickel and diming!!! LOL

[jagwebb]

We were on this same cruise and I am pretty sure that my husband talked with your husband for a while at the pool one day!! We are from Panama City and he asked him a little about living here. I am curious to hear your thoughts on the cruise vs Carnival as we typically always cruise RCCL and this is our 2nd time on Oasis. We had a boardwalk cabin as well - but on deck 12. First time for this type of cabin and we really liked it!

[REAMMI]

Awesome review so far - I'm loving the details!!!! I'm sailing on Oasis for the first time in September so I'm really looking forward to hearing what you have to say :)

[CruzieSue]

Great review so far !!! Looking forward to the rest as we are contemplating booking Oasis next year. Also considering Carnival Dream if you have any experience with that ship. :) Oh my goodness, the child standing on the table on the balcony - I'm with you :eek:

[venicia]

great review and you are a FANTASTIC mother! that is already showing in your care for your little pumpkin but especially thinking of the possible issue for the little one across from you.

 

looking forward to the rest of your impressions of this awesome ship

 

V

[Nayola]

Great review so far. I'm looking forward to reading more!

[jimbri]

Great review - looking forward to the rest!!

[SmileUSC]

Loving your review.. A "real" perspective IMO. Looking forward to reading more as I gear up for my Sept. 3rd Oasis trip!

[croozelyfe]

Looking forward to reading the rest of your recap.

[Rosy1013]

Thanks for the review! Doing this cruise in Jan.:)

[minnie00]

enjoying so far :D

[grandmarnnurse]

Omg! That pic of the child standing on the table on the balcony just gave me heart failure!! I know I may be more over protective than the average mom--lol--but that just gave me a panic attack!! I am now a grandma of 14, and am still just as over protective! (Example: at sons last week, and daughter in law had 3 little ones by the pond. I was up the hill having heart failure, and she told me when they came back up to house that the kids joked that grandma was probably all in a panic because they were near the pond!! Lol!) But I definetly think that mom with the child on the table was extremely neglectful! Ok. Enough said. I will calm my heart down now. [emoji51]

 

 

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[oreomaximus]

Good afternoon folks. I'm back and in full effect! Okay that was corny. Seriously though, how hard is it to go back to work after spending 7 + days on a cruise? Like OMG. My co-workers kept asking me every five minutes, how was the cruise? Did you have fun? Oooh girl I know you wish you were still on vacation and didn't have ti come back here. Most of them I just gave a blank stare. Duh.

 

Stay tuned. Coming up: Nassau, Conch fritters, my Adventure Ocean Review and attack of the penguins.