Oasis July 9th review

[cstimmons]

Just woke up after driving 15 hours yesterday and figured I'd compel my thoughts and post a few pictures.

 

Background. We are a couple that just turned 40 and have two teenagers 15 and 17. This is my 5th cruise my GFs 3rd and the kids first.

 

We had boardwalk balcony rooms 11717 and 11719. I will start out by saying I will NEVER get these rooms again. I was encouraged by some of the reviews that said the noise wasn't so bad. I guess that's subjective because we like to nap in the afternoon or before dinner and it was near impossible. Between the ringing of the carousel bells and the aquatheater shows/practice it was too much outside noise.

 

Embarcation was easy and we enjoyed exploring the ship. Had the famous kummelwhich from the park cafe and bought my daughter a coffee card since she only had a soda package.

 

I got a little miffed with the service on day one. It seemed like all the bars were minimally manned. I know everyone is trying to get their drink on but it seemed like all the bars only had a single bartender each.

 

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[cstimmons]

Based on previous advice we unpacked as soon as we got our luggage. I think it arrived 30 minutes after our rooms were available. The room had plenty of storage.

 

Our room attendant failed to tell us that the rooms master switch turned off the A/C. So we woke up sweating two mornings in a row before we figured it out.

 

He did tell the kids that there was an outlet undrerneith the bed. I've never seen this before but it's there! The bed was comfy and clean.

 

First night dinner service was rough as well. Our assistant waiter shined more than the head guy. We were the first to sit down but didn't get to place our order till about 8:30. We ate in the MDR for dinner the entire week and the food was excellent.

 

I was happy on this ship I didn't have to deal with a separate bartender and the assistant brought us our drinks. In fact he had two grey goose martinis and two sprites for the kids waiting for us when we arrived.

 

I wish our assistant was our main waiter as he was Johnny on the spot with the drinks. He brought us two more martinis with our main course and espresso with desert every night. Side note: the kids tried espresso and said it tasted like an ash tray lol.

 

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[BillOh]

Good start, I'm enjoying seeing Oasis again, its already been 15 months! You said you finished a 15 hour drive. Was that back from Port Canaveral?

[cstimmons]

I want to apologize in advance as my writing skills are sub par and my thought unorganized. I spent many pre cruise hours cruising virtually on my couch and it helped tremendously so I figured I'd return the favor.

 

Day 2 was Nassau. I've been there before and was unimpressed. We decided to make it a pool day.

 

While I really like the beach pool umbrellas, i dislike the salt water. Meh win some lose some. Also note: when leaving port the ship likes to turn to change direction. When it does the water follows momentum and likes to wash away anything under your chair. I lost a flip flop am that was later recovered and another girl never found hers.

 

I found the drink service by the pool to be excellent. We both got the deluxe drink package with Wi-Fi pre cruise for $56 pp. (More in the Wi-Fi later) several times I asked to pay for a fruity drink for my kid and the waiter said no bother. I was very clear I didn't want to break the drink package rules.

 

The lava flows and strawberry mango pina coladas were flowing!!!

 

Like I said I really liked the beach umbrellas with tables. They were harder to get later in the week for obvious reasons.

 

The people next to us went in shore to Nassau and said the place smelled like burning garbage. Pretty mugged confirmed that a pool say was a good idea.

 

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[cstimmons]

Good start, I'm enjoying seeing Oasis again, its already been 15 months! You said you finished a 15 hour drive. Was that back from Port Canaveral?

Ha I wish. We drove 8 hours from port Canaveral to stay with my folks in Georgia and then 15 hours back to Texas.

 

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[cstimmons]

Day 3 was a sea day and we did the pool again for a bit. Was hard finding chairs actually by the pool but we were patient and eventually some opened up with an umbrella.

 

However someone vomited in the beach pool and it took them 3 hours to drain clean and refill the pool. Couldn't tell you any more than that. The other pools were super packed.

 

One thing I love about cruises is you meet interesting people. We met a lovely family from NC that I used to live by and another couple near the same small town my folks live in Georgia.

 

It was after drinking all day by the pool that I usually like to nap before getting ready for dinner. This is where the boardwalk noise really got to me. I guess I've been spoiled with some really quiet tranquil rooms up till now.

 

Breakfast was at the solarium bistro....not crowded and typical cruise food. Lunch was a kummelwhich sandwich...yum. afternoon snack was a veal dog from the hot dog place. YUM!

 

Dinner service that night was much better. Our drinks were waiting for is when we arrived. I think we went to the love and marriage show that night and I happen to run into a former coworker from 10 years ago.

 

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[cstimmons]

Day 4 was st Thomas. We did Johnny rockets for breakfast (complimentary and delicious) and left the ship to visit paradise point for site seeing and lunch.

 

Here's a rookie mistake. We did notvrealixe or ship was in the opposite side of the bay from where we stopped at on feedom. So we took a terrifying $5 pp can ride across the island to the tram. This didn't leave us any time to eat lunch as we had an excursion booked. $6 pp back to the ship and we really didn't have any time to find food. We were famished by the time we got to wait in line for our excursion

 

Paradise point

 

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[cstimmons]

Day 4 cont'd

 

My son wanted to snorkel and the rest wanted beach time so I thought I found a compromise in the fast cat II.

 

Now I want you to understand I'm not a crowds type person. Don't like them, don't deal well in them. In the very end it was a blast but the following is going to be extremely negative.

 

First, I guess I wasn't expecting sooooo many people. I was expecting an intimate catamaran and a fun experience. What I got was 150+ people waiting in line and then getting stacked into a ship like sardines. It was a 30 min wait to get on the boat. Another 15 before departure and then a 15 min ride out to turtle cove. (Keep in mind that I was also hungry and don't like crowds)

 

From there I snorkeled for about 10 minutes, saw a sea turtle, a sting ray, got kicked in the face by some kid, and called it quits. This is where I parked my butt on the ship and drank rum punch to my hearts content. (There's a rule here: just because you CAN drink unlimited rum punch doesn't mean you SHOULD) however I paced myself due to my almost empty stomach.

 

We stayed on this spot for about 30 more minutes. My GF and kids had a great time in the water and got a bunch of good pictures with water proof phone cases from Amazon.

 

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[cstimmons]

Fast cat II cont'd

 

When the rum punch started flowing I started to have a better time. The crew on this ship were fabulous. I did my best to stay out of their way.

 

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[OCSC Mike]

Was on the same cruise but my reviews are so long-winded they take me like a week to write. Props for getting yours up so quickly, especially after the long drive.

[cstimmons]

From here we went to honeymoon beach on water island. It was a rocky beach with not a lot of chairs. We were starving and in thought our excursion included lunch but I was wrong. I'm glad too because I enjoyed some of the best fish tacos from heidi' s grill that I've ever had. Sorry no pics. Everyone thought their food was amazing but be forewarned they only take cash. Was about $11-12 a plate. Here's some pics from the beach.

 

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[cstimmons]

Like I said the crew were great and we tipped them well. The capt said that usually his boat is only this packed when it's from oasis class ships.

 

We got back on the ship and tried to nap with no luck. It was here that I discovered the avocado margarita at Sabor. Sooooo good. My GF got the sweet and spicy and loved it as well.

 

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[cstimmons]

Day 5 St Marteen

 

This was the biggest disappointment of the trip. Unknown to us because we've never done a summer cruise, st marteen gets littered with seaweed in July. They had a pretty bad patch come through recently. They warned us pretrip that it was there and they were working on cleaning it up....on island time.

 

We LOVED orient beach last time were were there and this time it was bad. This RCI excursion literally put us at the WORST part of the beach. It made me realize that, for the most part, I'm done with RCI excursions. We could have taken a taxi to the beach and rented chairs on a nicer portion for cheaper.

 

As we walked down the beach it for progressively cleaner and nicer with no sea weed in sight. The nudist resort on the end was the pristine beach we remember from a few years ago.

 

The buffet that they fed us was decent enough, nothing to brag about.

 

Also thinking back, there was about 200 people in line for this excursion. Yet another theme..crowds

 

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[cstimmons]

Overall the ship was beautiful and well maintained. It took me a couple days to find my way around as this was my first time being on an oasis class.

 

The park was beautiful, the promenade was spacious everything was great, except the view. Oasis really us an inside facing ship. I missed the deck were you could sit on a chair near the water and just gaze out.

 

The ship on most days first feel crowded until you goto the ports or the pools or pictures. Several times people would just stop and talk in the middle of a walkway with several people trying to squeeze by. This is coming on

Every ship really.

 

In addition there were several parades and such on the promenade that were porely timed with dinner service.

 

We really didn't like the solarium. There wasn't that big of a pool there and it was always really hot. I can't imagine they built other ships without a solarium pool.

 

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[CLE2CRUISE]

This review is fun and informative! I hope there is more coming :)

 

Lisa N.

[cstimmons]

On getting Wi-Fi....this is the first cruise where I got Wi-Fi. It was the first cruise with my kids and I wanted to stay in touch. Like I said earlier it was included in our drink package who is we always get. I thought it was a steal at that price. In some ways I loved being able to vacation shame my friends on Facebook but I also missed being able to disconnect from the world. With that said it was really handy for being able to find my kids and then being able to find us. Since I have an android and they have apple Snapchat was very handy for messaging.

 

The kids also loved sharing the vacaction in real time with their friends back home. Goods and bads I guess.

 

Last thing on Wi-Fi. My phone did an auto update and took me out of airplane mode. I didnt realize this until I walked outside on the running track and my phone blew up with about 15 text messages. Not sure how much that's gonna cost me with att.

 

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[TOPNET]

Excellent Post! We are going on Oasis in August, and this is providing us with some really great info!

[cstimmons]

This is also the first cruise we did where we took the martini class. With a drink package it cost $10 + 18% gratuity. $15 without. It was good but I pro ably won't do it again unless I can see the menu.

 

The bartender was funny and even very accommodating to some of the guests who didn't like certain drinks. I didn't like all the apple ones but the others were delicious. Here's the menus and some if the drinks.

 

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[cstimmons]

This is also the first cruise we did where we took the martini class. With a drink package it cost $10 + 18% gratuity. $15 without. It was good but I pro ably won't do it again unless I can see the menu.

 

The bartender was funny and even very accommodating to some of the guests who didn't like certain drinks. I didn't like all the apple ones but the others were delicious. Here's the menus and some if the drinks.

 

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[cstimmons]

Another shocker on this cruise was that we got a refund on our photo package because of a special they were running and didn't have to ask for it. It was around $53 credit and I bought the unlimited digital for $249 pre-cruise. The math never added up to me and I never asked not complained. We took A LOT of photos together on this cruise. Some nights the lines were long but there were a good amount of places to get pictures taken. I essentially got about 30 family photos "professiinally" taken for just under $200. Made perfect fiscal sense to me!

 

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[cstimmons]

Sorry about the triple posts. I was having connection issues...at home! Lol

 

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[cstimmons]

Some more thoughts on how big this ship is. You can see all the ones I've been on previously. It really is huge and I agree with previous posters that it really takes two weeks to enjoy.

 

My son did the rock climbing and loved it. He's kind of an introvert and at 15 not very social. He said he wished he did more of the teen activities in the beginning. I tried to warn him lol. Also he got invited to a quincenera (spelling?) And didn't go. It was really nice seeing them all dressed up. I don't belong to that culture but it was neat seeing it.

 

With that being said we typically don't do shows. We do love and marriage and the quest and that's it. The kids tagged along for a bit but then did there own thing. I'm sure the shoes are fabulous but I don't want to spend 3 hours of my cruise seeing cats.

 

What we did like was the pub. The singer this go around was kat wells and she's awesome if you get to know her. She was on freedom and instantly recognized us.

 

Boleros is another favorite. We liked the band, Latin express, better on liberty. These guys were good though. I think they were called Dominican hear or some thing. They played our favorite Latin song and I danced in flip flops (funny story). We went there a couple times and had a good time.

[easyboy]

Great review and very nice photos.

[amyhphoto]

there were a good amount of places to get pictures taken. I essentially got about 30 family photos "professiinally" taken

 

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Were there photographers every night? Did you have to seek them out or was there a way to locate them ahead of time? Thanks, great info!

 

 

 

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[NSinMG]

Thank you for the review and photos. Do you remember how long your excursion stayed at Honeymoon Beach on Water Island?