Oasis, the good, the OK, and the Ugly

[shibby sails]

What is luggage valet or luggage express. Is it only available to suites and higher?

[Ocean Dancer]

What is luggage valet or luggage express. Is it only available to suites and higher?

Certain ports or airlines offer to take your luggage for a fee and you pick it up at your home airport.

[Domino D]

We were on the 9/24 Sailing. We arrived at port around 10:45 an were on at 12:00 or 12:15 it seemed pretty much normal to me. We are gold so we don't have any priority. They mad a lot of announcements about people getting in line before their number was called, and that did kind of clog things up a bit, but nothing terrible.

 

Disembarking was a different matter. We were in group 33 getting off at 9:30. We went down to the lounge at 9am and they said we could go ahead and get off. I was telling my wife how easy this was. Then we got to the luggage room. The line wrapped around the entire room and was not moving. After standing for a a while, I found a porter and gave him all the luggage and got in the porter lane. When we got to customs there were 2, count them 2 agents working. With the help of the porter we were out in about 15 minutes total. People on our shuttle, were saying without a porter, it took them over an hour.

[Grandma Dazzles]

What is luggage valet or luggage express. Is it only available to suites and higher?

Luggage valet is a program where the ship takes your luggage the night before, just like everyone else, but it is shipped straight to your home airport.

 

Available to all passengers. Certain ports, ships and airlines participate. There is a $25 fee in addition any airline fees. Ship prints tags and boarding passes. Might be no charge to suite guests - not sure if it is a suite benefit.

[jamesr3939]

Might be no charge to suite guests - not sure if it is a suite benefit.

 

Yes, free to suite guests. It's still the best buy on the ship. Greatly speeds up debarkation.

[Blauelini]

We did self assist on disembarkation. Off the ship about 7:15, through customs and back to the parking lot off site about 8 and home by 9 am. Went smooth as silk.

 

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[tmn1016]

Yes, free to suite guests. It's still the best buy on the ship. Greatly speeds up debarkation.

 

Make sure you book this on time tho! I didn't read the cut off and we missed it =(

[jamesr3939]

Make sure you book this on time tho! I didn't read the cut off and we missed it =(

 

Totally agree, two cruises ago our DS missed it by 20 minutes and there was no "grace" period.

 

However, on the Oasis it can now be booked via the TV so clearly no reason to miss the deadline. It worked like a champ last week.

[Mikew0805]

We just got off Oasis. We had a nice trip. This one was just my 2 sons (age 8 and 10) and I. We booked it about 10 days before the trip so it was also pretty last minute. Here are my thoughts.

 

The good: The boat was amazing. The physical plant is just fantastic. My kids were busy for 6 days on the ship and that is saying something. It is very much a floating resort. The shows and entertainment were also really good. My kids enjoyed the trip very much.

 

The OK: We sailed on NCL escape last month and I have to say that other than the food in the MDR, I found eating on Oasis to be a real challenge. The quick eating options are just too spread out. It is far worse than the situation at a large mall food court because the eateries are so spread out. One wants pizza, one a hotdog and I want a sandwich. That means we need to get food from 3 different eateries on 3 different decks. I did not find the layout or options in the the windjammer to be plentiful or appetizing and on Escape we ate in the buffet several times a day. I keep thinking I must have missed a huge section. It was also the only ship I have ever been on that didn't have complementary available most of the day and night. We manage to eat, but it took more work than I expected. Our MDR, experience was great. We had "my time dining" but I had reservations at the same time each night and managed to have the same table and server every night. By the second day they knew the kids and took good care of us.

 

The ugly. Both embarkation and disembarkation took way to long. We arrived at the port at 11am and did not board until 1:15 and then one of the kids cards did not work so I got to stand in the guest service line for another hour for another key for one of them. The fact that parents can not decline charging privileges at check in is also a hassle that other lines have managed to avoid. We were also told that they can not limit the arcade spending (which honestly should not be that hard if they wanted to.) On other lines we were able to simply disable any spending on the kids cards at check in and it was not something I had to worry about.

 

Disembarkation this am took almost 2 hours. I don't know if it is a Port Canaveral thing or an RCI thing but of all our cruises the only 2 times we have had delays getting off the ship it has been on RCI and at Canaveral. We were in line for walk-off at 615am (my guess is that there were at least 600 people in front of us) and finally walked out of the terminal at 8am. We also walked-off Escape and we were in the car in less than 30 minutes. The line and waiting were hot and miserable this AM and of course we were all tired and cranky. Had I known, I would have had snacks and drinks for the kids.

 

We did have a good trip and I have booked Harmony for next fall for the whole family.

 

Wow that is a long time for debarkation. I wonder what happened to cause that? We went down to the royal promenade about 6:25am, and right as we got in the line, we started to exit. We were through customs, in a cab and back at Park Port Canaveral in our own car at 6:55am. I assumed that was the norm, but I guess not.

 

Every cruise I try to get up a little earlier, to try not to be at the back of the line for self debark. I thought for sure we were up early to be one of the first few in line... nope.. there was probably 150 ahead of us. :o