Just back from Oasis - disappointed this time

[Clarea]

Can you even call 911 from a cruise ship?

Yes, the call goes straight to the bridge.

[ttnc4me]

I appreciate your post. We sail on her for the first time in a few weeks and I'll try not to get my hopes up that this ship will meet expectations that have been developed on dozens of sailings across many different cruise lines.

 

Maybe the staff will have been trained/addressed properly in the meantime and it'll be great. :)

[Ocean Boy]

I appreciate your post. We sail on her for the first time in a few weeks and I'll try not to get my hopes up that this ship will meet expectations that have been developed on dozens of sailings across many different cruise lines.

 

Maybe the staff will have been trained/addressed properly in the meantime and it'll be great. :)

The first time that we sailed on Oasis I thought the ship had some management issues. None of those issues were present on any of our subsequent sailings. Crews change, passengers change. Every cruise, even on the same ship, has its own flavor.

[John&LaLa]

I appreciate your post. We sail on her for the first time in a few weeks and I'll try not to get my hopes up that this ship will meet expectations that have been developed on dozens of sailings across many different cruise lines.

 

Maybe the staff will have been trained/addressed properly in the meantime and it'll be great. :)

I'd like to hope she exceeds your expectations. Smooth seas.

 

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[CRUISEFAN0001]

So no one should talk about those times when things don't go right even if they are not the "norm"?:confused: If all people talk about here is the stuff that goes well then what is the point? Just assume everything is great, no need to post about it and the boards will be pretty boring. It is good to hear all sides.

If people don't address things when they happen...whining later is a total waste of time. Well known to most seasoned cruisers...including you we're sure.

 

When those things are piddly/petty...they just annoy others.

 

That's how we end up with threads of hundreds of posts about the most minuscule of things. Then again...some people clearly live for those kinds of threads.

 

Bottom line...those kinds of selfie minute experiences likely help no one.

[nmstevens]

We were on Fantasy for 7 nights. We did not feel like it was Disney World (or Disneyland) or that characters were everywhere. In fact, we had a hard time FINDING characters. Yes, we are adults and I should probably point out that we do not have kids. But we do enjoy seeing characters. In fact, Mickey was at our wedding!

 

The shows and activities are not all geared towards kids or Disney. They still have headliner acts, non-Disney musical acts, adult shows, and even adult comedy. I'd also like to point out that their Love & Marriage show is STRICTLY adults ONLY (and we actually were the winners - we competed as the "honeymoon" couple since we literally got married on the ship - but there were some x-rated questions which we regretted answering because we earned nicknames for the rest of the cruise)!

 

The adults-only area of Disney's ship is WAY better and much larger than the Freedom or Oasis class ships. It is also better controlled to keep kids out. There was never an issue finding a chair or a spot in the pool or hot tubs. Bar service was always just around the corner and happy to bring you anything you wanted.

 

The adults-only section of Disney's private island is also VERY nice (and not something that's offered on either of Royal's islands). It is extremely secluded and soooo quiet and peaceful - NO KIDS. There are plenty of chairs and umbrellas. They also had an adults-only buffet on that section of the island which served steaks and seafood (not just burgers and hot dogs).

 

The quality of Disney's food far exceeded Royal. I mean, the food in the main dining room was amazing, but even the buffet food was great. We were NEVER hassled about going to speciality restaurants (they have 2, but they aren't pushed like Royal does). Cokes are free so you don't have to worry about carrying around a Coke cup or showing your card. The selection of ice cream is better - not just chocolate and vanilla. We were not charged for room service if we wanted to eat in the room.

 

The service far exceeded Royal. We were treated so much better than any Royal cruise I've ever been on....and it was our FIRST cruise with Disney. From the first moment to the last, we never had a single negative experience with the staff. Every single staff member throughout the ship was always smiling, greeting us, positive, and truly seemed to love their jobs.

 

The room was spotless - extremely clean - and I'm kinda OCD about that. I literally could not find one speck of dirt on the carpet or dust on anything. Even the standard room on Disney has a split bathroom, so you have a toilet and sink in one bathroom and a shower and sink in the second bathroom. This is VERY handy because two people can be getting ready at the same time (or one person showering while the other is getting ready without a fogged up bathroom).

 

I'd also like to point out that we encountered fewer kids around the ship when we were on Disney than any other Royal cruise I've been on. I guess they were all in kids programs or the kids-only areas.

 

Wow, after writing all that.........you're making me question why I'm not going on Disney for my birthday cruise........ :confused:

 

I agree with everything you said regarding the Disney Cruises! I think they are top notch and worth every$. This year I decided I wanted to try a different cruise line that was more afforadable so I chose the Oasis. I had to convert my Disney Cruise friends and it wasn't easy but I assured them it would be great!

After reading all the negativity I am really nervous about this upcoming cruise.

[CruisingNole]

I agree with everything you said regarding the Disney Cruises! I think they are top notch and worth every$. This year I decided I wanted to try a different cruise line that was more afforadable so I chose the Oasis. I had to convert my Disney Cruise friends and it wasn't easy but I assured them it would be great!

After reading all the negativity I am really nervous about this upcoming cruise.

 

I think you will have a blast. But, go with realistic expectations. The food and staterooms will not be as good as Disney. A lot of things won't be as good. Comparing RC to Disney is like comparing Marriott to Ritz Carlton. They just aren't on the same level. But they each serve their own purposes and are priced accordingly.

[nmstevens]

I think you will have a blast. But, go with realistic expectations. The food and staterooms will not be as good as Disney. A lot of things won't be as good. Comparing RC to Disney is like comparing Marriott to Ritz Carlton. They just aren't on the same level. But they each serve their own purposes and are priced accordingly.

 

I will go with a positive attitude! Any cruise is better than no cruise.

[CRUISEFAN0001]

I will go with a positive attitude! Any cruise is better than no cruise.

Bravo! :)

[Big Feet]

I've been on almost every cruise line. We have 370 days on RCI, 201 on Carnival, 134 on Cele and 181 on NCL. RCI had always been our preferred but honestly Carnival is not onlt catching up it's passing RCI. I'll place one caveat -- on Carnival-- cruises over 6 days are a must. Too many power everything on shorter cruises. Food is better showes better-- perks are getting better.

[CRUISEFAN0001]

I've been on almost every cruise line. We have 370 days on RCI, 201 on Carnival, 134 on Cele and 181 on NCL. RCI had always been our preferred but honestly Carnival is not onlt catching up it's passing RCI. I'll place one caveat -- on Carnival-- cruises over 6 days are a must. Too many power everything on shorter cruises. Food is better showes better-- perks are getting better.

Something else Carnival features that's very rare on all the other cruise lines you mentioned...

 

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/carnival-cruise-ship-brawl_us_5a8a487ae4b004fc319397f3

[CruisingNole]

I've been on almost every cruise line. We have 370 days on RCI, 201 on Carnival, 134 on Cele and 181 on NCL. RCI had always been our preferred but honestly Carnival is not onlt catching up it's passing RCI. I'll place one caveat -- on Carnival-- cruises over 6 days are a must. Too many power everything on shorter cruises. Food is better showes better-- perks are getting better.

 

During my last trip on Oasis, I had dinner with several passengers who felt strongly that Carnival was a great value and were questioning whether or not they would take another RCI cruise again. They said the food and entertainment on Carnival was very much comparable. They were retired folks, lifelong cruisers and pretty much reiterated everything you said. I was going to give the Carnival Breeze a shot later this year as it is coming to Port Canaveral and had an itinerary I liked. However, fare was more expensive than Oasis and drink packages are more expensive as well. So, I opted to stick with RCI.

[hgiles]

Something else Carnival features that's very rare on all the other cruise lines you mentioned...

 

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/carnival-cruise-ship-brawl_us_5a8a487ae4b004fc319397f3

And that was free to boot. You just can't beat the impromptu entertainment on Carnival.

[Hoopster95]

During my last trip on Oasis, I had dinner with several passengers who felt strongly that Carnival was a great value and were questioning whether or not they would take another RCI cruise again.

 

Interesting....

 

We have 370 days on RCI, 201 on Carnival, 134 on Cele and 181 on NCL. RCI had always been our preferred but honestly Carnival is not onlt catching up it's passing RCI.

 

Very interesting.

[whitsmom]

We were on the Oasis this past July (8 of us). We used the main dining room. On the first night, they had us at two separate tables and not together. We talked the them and they still asked like they couldn't doing anything about it. It so happened that the table closest to the rest of our family was a family of 3. They overheard our conversation and switched tables with us. After that, our waiter went to the "powers that be" and they combined our tables into a 8-top.

 

We had a wonderful waiter and this assistant when made us all look forward to dinner every night.

[rwright261]

We were on the Christmas sailing on Oasis.

 

This was our first time on Oasis class ship. We’re Emerald cruisers.

 

Unfortunately we came away really disappointed with the service mainly and in particular the warmth of the food during our cruise.

 

On other cruises it seemed to be the case where nothing was too much trouble and yet on this cruise everything seemed too much trouble.

 

The peak of the terrible service was Christmas night when I was served cold spiced Christmas cake with custard. When I asked the waiter if this was meant to be hot he said he would have to go away and check. Fine. A few minutes later he came back and said yes it was meant to be hot. Then stood there and smiled. I asked if he minded then taking this one away and bring me a hot one (it wasn’t warm, it was stone cold)... he said there wasn’t any point as the others served up in the kitchen would have been standing there just as long as this one and would also be cold. He then walked away. I was flabbergasted.. so much so that I asked the maitre d not to sit us in his table again. Shocking service.

 

In general we found the food to be luke warm at best. The menu used to change in the MDR at lunch times, it did not on this cruise.

 

This was the main issue for us. We hope that we won’t experience the same issues on Allure on our back to back cruise later this year.

[Junkhouse]

We have tried MTD but have given up on it since there was always at least a 10 minute wait to be seated. We now just do the late seating.

[Sun Lover]

This sounds similar to what we just experienced on Oasis. Their service is just not what it used to be.

[L1211]

OP, in the future, please consider using paragraphs for such a long post. The words are well-written, but it would have been a lot easier to read if it had been split into paragraphs.

 

 

 

Really?

 

 

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[Keke27]

We just returned from a B2B on Oasis January 28 - Feburary 11, 2018. On this trip it was my husband, myself, and another couple. We've been on multiple cruises with RCI on Voyager and Oasis class ships. We initially chose RCI for our first cruise many years ago and were so satisfied that we have never sailed on another cruise line and had never intended to. Sadly, that may now change, as we were disappointed and frustrated this time around. The last time we were on Oasis was in 2011. What a difference between now and then! We spent a lot of our time in lines. Even though we had made reservations for dining each night and all the shows, there still was a significant wait for everything. We had My Time Dining at the MDR each night with reservations and routinely waited anywhere from 20-30 minutes to be seated. The waiters appeared to be understaffed and rushed and service was slow. The food has definitely deteriorated since our last trip in selection and quality. One evening for dinner we went to our dining room on Deck 3 and waited 10-15 minutes only to be told that it was full and they had no more tables available. They said they would take us to the Deck 4 dining room, as there were tables available there. We were escorted there but when we got there, apparently there was no room there either. Right in front of us staff members were arguing back and forth saying things such as, "Why did you bring them here? We don't have any room. Who told you to bring them?" One of them was on a radio arguing with someone at the Deck 3 dining room as to why they would send us to Deck 4. They then told us we would be escorted to the Deck 5 dining room. So we were at 3 different dining rooms before they finally found a table for us. Two days in a row when we ate breakfast at the Windjammer, there were large chunks of egg shells in the scrambled eggs. I had some in my eggs one day and two other people we were with also had them. One of the servings of scrambled eggs had what was probably equal to an entire half shell of an egg mixed in. This just took away my appetite to be crunching egg shells and I didn't finish breakfast that day. Our friend's steak at Giovanni's had to be sent back twice because it was so overcooked. The second time they brought it out, even the waiter said, "Something's wrong." To have to send it back two times doesn't speak very well for a specialty restaurant that people are paying extra for. We had reservations for every show and we had to show up 45-60 mins. ahead to be able to find 4 seats together. Customer service at Guest Services was a nightmare. We had an onboard credit we were given as a gift weeks before the cruise and they claimed to have no record of it. I had a transaction number proving that it was paid for and they told us they were unable to look it up with the transaction number. We probably spent half a day in total at Guest Services trying to straighten it out. Every time we went there, we were given a different answer. To make a long story short, they never did give it to us and on the last day they agreed that we should have had it but said there was nothing they could do on the ship, that it would have to go through corporate, and we'd have to call when we got home. I did call when we returned from our trip and the agent I spoke to reviewed the notes and said he doesn't understand why they didn't resolve it while we were onboard and he did credit my credit card immediately, which was great except it was after the fact and we would have liked to have used it onboard. They also had charged my Seapass account $151.04 for a tour that we never purchased. When we finally got that straightened out, the agent said it was their mistake and a crew member had probably hit the wrong button and charged it by mistake. The upselling is out of hand. We were constantly approached about buying photos, drink packages, dining packages, spa packages from the moment we stepped onboard until we disembarked. It doesn't make for a very enjoyable atmosphere. Someone even approached us while we were eating in the dining room to try to get us to buy a galley tour of the kitchen. I have never had a problem with any cabin steward before and always leave an extra tip for them, as I think they work hard. The gentleman we had this time was pleasant enough but maybe forgetful more than anything and not very energetic. We had to ask numerous times for a few things we requested, such as hangers and drinking glasses. He left 3 towel animals over 2 weeks, which I realize is petty and not a big deal, but combined with everything else, it just contributed to the feeling that there is a lack of service and attention to detail compared to our past cruises. We also found out at Guest Services that he failed to leave a letter in our cabin about the Meet-n-Mingle and by the time I inquired about it, it had been held earlier that day and we missed it completely. I could go on about many other issues, but the problems we encountered on these two cruises are unfortunate and have changed my opinion about RCI. A few employees we spoke with told us that when a new ship sails, the best and most experienced employees are sent there to work and that since Oasis is the oldest ship in this class, the staff tends to be more inexperienced and inefficient. I don't know if this is true, but it is a sad state of affairs if it is. We came away with the feeling that RCI truly does not care much about its guests and are more interested in financial gain than anything else.

 

 

 

So how did you go from Gold to Platinum so quickly?

 

 

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[Landsharks]

Sadly, we share some of the same disappointments. We made our 11th straight "Loyal to Royal" cruise last November on the Allure. Now, we're not feeling so loyal anymore. The up-sale is out of hand. We are balcony cruisers, I buy the drink package, photos, and excursions, but that apparently isn't enough for RCI.

 

First day, very first meal at the Windjammer, we were approached by a crew member as soon as we sat down. Instead of asking if we needed something to drink, we got hit up to buy a dining package. It seems the new Royal has a bigger mandate to up-sell and take even more money from your wallet than they are to provide great customer service for what you've already purchased.

[SherriZ366]

[emoji122][emoji122][emoji122] thank you!

 

 

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Ditto!

[Ocean Boy]

Sadly, we share some of the same disappointments. We made our 11th straight "Loyal to Royal" cruise last November on the Allure. Now, we're not feeling so loyal anymore. The up-sale is out of hand. We are balcony cruisers, I buy the drink package, photos, and excursions, but that apparently isn't enough for RCI.

 

First day, very first meal at the Windjammer, we were approached by a crew member as soon as we sat down. Instead of asking if we needed something to drink, we got hit up to buy a dining package. It seems the new Royal has a bigger mandate to up-sell and take even more money from your wallet than they are to provide great customer service for what you've already purchased.

I was on Allure two weeks ago. I actually was not approached even once to buy anything.

[cruzeluver]

Really disappointed to read of the OP's experience.

 

We were on Oasis this past Fall and had a wonderful time. That being said, one walk through the Windjammer was enough to prevent us from eating there at all. First time in 20 plus cruises we did not eat even on meal in the buffet. Why? Beyond crowded and frankly most items looked just awful. We walked in planning to eat breakfast there on a sea day and there was a line to get in. Never saw that before. A woman was directing people where to go. We did not get in the line but just walked through to get the "lay of the land" and there were tons of empty tables yet folks weer waiting to be seated. Very strange.

 

We had a dining package so all but one dinner was in a specialty dining restaurant. Since we knew we would not be in the mdr much we signed up for My Time Dining. Awful. Our one dinner in the mdr put me off of eve doing that again. The MTD section was so loud and bustling with folks constantly coming and going. Tables were so close together waiters had a hard time moving around. Service suffered since our waiter (who did try his best and was very kind) might be taking one table's order, delivering main courses to another and dessert to a third. Made for a very unpleasant meal.

 

Outside of those two issues we had a fabulous time.

[John&LaLa]

I was on Allure two weeks ago. I actually was not approached even once to buy anything.

I rarely get approached, but saved $20 on Izumi when they did. $$$

 

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