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Let’s take 20 people on Oasis! June 6 2015 Western


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It was the dead of winter, January 2014. It was brutally cold and depressing. That’s when I said why don’t we plan a big group cruise and invite anyone that wants to go. It can be a present for our 2 daughters who would be graduating high school and college in May of 2015. Thus began a 16 month planning process for our second ever cruise.

 

A bit about our first ever cruise. My wife refused to go on a cruise for 10 years. Just wouldn’t do it, didn’t want to do it. Finally she gave me an opening and I booked us on Allure in 2013. We took 8 people on that trip and had a blast. You can read all about it in my very lengthy review of Allure “10 Years in the Making…”

 

I’m not doing a day by day review for this Oasis cruise. Rather it will be a more topical review of things related to the trip and some of what I experienced in doing a group booking.

 

Who Wants to Go Cruising?

We decided to use my wife’s vocation as a jumping off point to invite people to go cruising. She is a Zumba Instructor and she has a lot of friends through Zumba that were interested in taking a trip. So we called it the Amy Zumba Cruise and started spreading the word to see who was interested. Of the 8 people that went on our first cruise 7 came back for round two (the eighth person was the adult son who went with his mom on trip 1). We also had DD1 and DD2 along with fiancé for DD1 and they were all in and all first timers.

 

Initially we had FamilyGoBoston in on the group! We became fast friends on our Allure cruise and they were booked with us until the 2015 school calendar came out and she realized that her daughter’s HS graduation would be the day after we sailed. We are all still so bummed that they couldn’t go with us. But she was part of our group in every other way, offering advice and tips to all the first timers. I know many of the CC community have read her reviews and let me just say that they are a terrific family and she is every bit as nice and funny in person as she is on CC.

 

Building a group like this takes some amount of work and communication. One thing I found was that many people were interested in cruising but intimidated by it or just didn’t know where to begin planning such a trip. Yes I know that’s what TAs are paid to do but somehow there is a big group of people who might be interested and just don’t want to go it alone. Two couples especially in our final group were that way. They were very happy that I planned everything for them so they could experience a cruise with people they knew and in a way that was less stressful for them.

 

If you are planning a group trip just know that there will be a thousand questions and no matter how much information you give people they won’t always read it or remember it. I tried to find creative ways to give information in an enjoyable format, so that made it somewhat easier. Initially I wrote up an email that contained the basic information of where, when, how and at what estimated price (because schedules were not open yet).It was part information and part marketing/advertising. You need to make it something people can get excited about doing. I sent this email to many people and talked to many people about the trip. It’s kind of like a network marketing thing, you never know who will be interested and want to jump on the opportunity to go. Your group will build and shrink in very dynamic ways you never expect. So if you don’t like to do a lot of communicating and if you can’t write or speak passionately about going on the trip in order to “sell” the trip then building a group might not work for you.

 

After the initial email stuff I then created a private Facebook group for our cruise. This turned out to be a very good way to get people excited and share information. We would invite people to the group that showed an interest in the trip. Then we posted pictures of our first cruise, pictures of the Oasis, information about the cruise and the excursions we were looking at, and just general fun stuff about the cruise. An email is great for specifics but it isn’t dynamic like Facebook, you can really get a lot of excitement built if you work just a little bit at it.

 

The other thing I did was newsletters. I have done writing and desktop publishing work so I was able to craft a monthly Cruise News publication that could be distributed in Acrobat pdf format to everyone on the mailing list and posted to the Facebook group. I used lots of pictures from our past cruise and from searches on Google for images of Oasis etc. I was able to give a lot of information out this way. I covered dining options, dress codes, pre-cruise accommodations, excursion options, what to wear, what to pack, tips and tricks, and general information about the cruise process of how the online check-in works. It was colorful; I used lots of photos and kept it funny while still getting the information out there. And people would go back and re-read them, especially as the cruise got closer.

 

The group grew to 28 people at one point! But life happens and some people had to drop out; job issues, deployment in the military, health issues, money issues, etc. In the end we had 20 people in 8 ocean view balcony rooms, 1 Boardwalk balcony and one interior room.

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Booking a Group

 

I used a TA on my first cruise but it was just a random person I got of a website offering some OBC for booking. She was OK but would call me at all hours of the night with random information. I decided to book directly with RCCL and see how it went.

 

A word about TAs. I have a great one that we have used and I recommend to all my friends that want to do a Disney World trip. She has worked with our extended family in setting up at least four big WDW trips. If I could find a TA like that for RCCL then I would be happy. Maybe I need to keep looking.

 

In any case I was ready to go the day that bookings opened for our dates. I called at 9 am sharp and started the process. It wasn’t difficult to get the group set up and I had a list of the room requirements we were looking for, most notably a handicapped room with an interior room close by. (As it turned out my uncle passed away before we could go on this trip so we wound up not needing the handicapped room). My aunt did go with us and had a wonderful trip with her son.

 

Then the hunt for rooms was on. I really wanted to try for rooms right next to the public Aqua Decks on 11 or 12. When I inquired about them she said they were already gone. But then she said no, they were just not available to book without a supervisor’s approval. So she got permission and we booked my room right next to the Aqua Deck on 12 Port! Our DDs room was a BW balcony right across from us. Then everyone else was right there in that area. I was so excited to get those rooms! And you had to call to get them; I would not have been able to book them online. Flash forward to the post dry dock reconfiguration of Oasis when RCCL took all those public aqua decks away and turned them into suites. I was not so excited about that, in fact I was pretty upset that our premium rooms were now just rooms that I had paid a bit of a premium rate to get. It didn’t ruin the trip or anything like that but it was quite a bummer to realize that steps from my door would have been a great deck for us all to congregate on. Never even saw the people that wound up occupying that suite – not once. Did see their luggage on the last day, maybe they never left the suite?

 

Another thing about booking a group is that I was able to reserve all the rooms we were booking with one call. I was able to get a bunch of rooms in the locations I wanted and put names on them without making a deposit on them myself. Then once I had the bookings each couple could call in and pay their $500. That made things much easier to coordinate. Anyone who decided to book later just called group bookings and gave our group number then reserved a room. But you had to call the group booking number not the regular number.

 

This part of the process was pretty easy to accomplish. We got our rooms, everyone paid their deposits, and we kept recruiting people to join us. But we had a long 16 months to wait until we actually got to cruise. People were in and out of the cruise, booked and canceled etc. Sometimes they told me they were out other times I found out when I got our group bookings sheet. As long as we had at least 8 cabins we were still a group so that was fine.

 

I was able to use 2 accounts to reserve all our shows and link them together. You can only book so many linked show reservations per person. That’s when you need access to someone’s account so you can log in and make reservations. It was simple to do if you understand what you need to accomplish it. That way everyone had show reservations for the same times and I could do all of it without their involvement.

 

Reserving Specialty Dinning was not such an easy task. In fact I found it to be impossible. I’m sure someone out there in CC land has done it but I couldn’t get it accomplished. What I wanted to do was reserve 3 restaurants for 14 people in the group. I knew we couldn’t all sit at the same table but I wanted the same reservation times. It seemed doable at the start. I worked with my RCCL rep that I originally booked the cruise through. She sent me a form that had Giovanni’s, Chops, and 150 Central Park listed with spaces for times and number of guests that I was requesting. You had to make a request in this way for a group at these venues.

 

I filled out the form and then the waiting began. It was hard to get the restaurant side of RCCL to respond. They couldn’t respond to me directly so I had to get in touch with the specific RCCL rep that started the process, not just any RCCL rep in the group booking dept. That was an issue. Most of the time if you need anything regarding a group booking any group rep can assist you, but not for the reservations on specialty dinning. You must use one rep and only that rep has access to the email between you and the dining reservation people. Well, good luck getting in touch with your specific rep. Those people are jammed up on the phone non-stop every day. I called and called and could never get my rep. Then she would call me back when it was impossible for me to answer. It went on like this for weeks. When we finally connected the times the restaurants were offering were ridiculous, after 9 pm every night! And I would have to pay for everyone’s reservations up front on my credit card. And we would not be offered the discount for booking 3 specialty venues! At that point we were over 2 months into trying to book the dining and I just said forget it. Cancel my request and I will deal with it when we board the ship, it simply should not be this difficult for me to give RCCL $1,400 of revenue! But it was just impossible to accomplish.

 

Fast forward to embarkation day, June 6th. I walked on board with my group, we all gawked for a second or two and then I took out a piece of paper with 14 names and room numbers printed on it with the preferred times we wanted to dine in the restaurants. I walked over to the desk that was making dining reservations, handed the young man my paper and asked if this was possible. He took my paper and returned in less than 10 minutes with the entire thing completed. No muss, no fuss, all done promptly and easily. And we all got the discounted pricing for the restaurants.

 

One more thing about dining with a group; we could not do MTD only traditional dining. I understand that a group of 20 could cause real havoc with MTD but the early traditional dining times on Oasis don’t work well with some of the port days and the late dining clashes with shows. Just wondering if anyone had successfully had a large group booked on MTD? Another note for planners, we had 2 tables. One table had 12 and the other had 8. We were able to mix and change who sat at what table every night in the MDR. No problems with switching around, so that made it nice that we could rearrange each night.

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Pre Cruise – Making my Mother-In-Law Happy

 

On our first cruise I failed at one thing in a pretty big way, the pre-cruise hotel. In my defense I was just looking for a place to crash for one night and I knew that DW and I would arrive in FLL late on Saturday and not have any time for anything other than eating and sleeping before we boarded Allure. The rest of the crew however took an early Saturday flight and were stuck at a crappy hotel with nothing to do all day. Had I been there, we would have grabbed a cab and headed out to explore the city. But I wasn’t there to spearhead that so they just hung out at the hotel, with a broken pool.

 

This time I promised we would have better digs…and boy did we! After looking around I settled on Lago Mar Resort which is right on the beach and very close to the port. We decided to fly in early on Thursday and spend the afternoon and all of Friday in FLL. The resort is a beautiful place and the rooms are HUGE. I can’t properly describe them except to say, they are HUGE.

 

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Our room had a massive deck, spacious living area, king bed and full bath with shower and tub. It was almost like being in a condo. I got off season rates from Lago Mar which made this a somewhat affordable stay at $175/night. High season rates will likely be $400 or so.

 

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The staff were very helpful and friendly the resort, though older, is well maintained and has may beautiful areas and elements. Food was not the strongest point of the hotel. Our lunch poolside for 5 people with drinks and a couple of appetizers was pushing $200. The food was ok, nothing outstanding really and the pool bar drinks were not very good. The frozen drinks were just not very good at all. You will have better luck if you go to the hotel bar and order drinks. Service at the poolside was also pretty slow. We tried to eat off site for the rest of our main meals. Beach areas and pools were very nice and relaxing and we enjoyed our time at the resort.

 

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Edited by rsharp83
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Thanks for posting this! We've talked about organizing a group cruise and this is great information! Can you tell me what kind of discount Royal offers when a group booking is made?

If you book at least 8 staterooms with double occupancy, Royal gives back the equivalent of one fare of whatever is the majority category booked. If you intend to book with a travel agent, you need to discuss this before you book.

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Fun in Ft. Lauderdale

 

We split up for dinner; some went to Tap 42 which has tons of craft beer and really good food. Even though I didn’t eat here the reports were that it was a great place. One of our local friends also highly recommended it.

 

The rest of us went to a “local” place in search of oysters and seafood. We walked (not a particularly great idea but doable) to the Southport Raw Bar; just a small place on the waterfront, live music playing and great seafood. The oysters were great according to the raw seafood lovers. I had a basket of fried clams, shrimp and some of the best scallops I’ve ever eaten. All for less than $11 which after the $200 lunch was a welcome relief! The hotel gave us a coupon that allowed us some free soup and a free piece of terrific key lime pie.

 

It was a LONG walk!

 

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Great food

 

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PIE!!!

 

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On Friday a large group of use headed to ride the Water Taxi. For $26 you get an all day pass to ride the waterways of FLL. What a bargain. We had a guided tour of the uber expensive homes and properties in FLL and we saw many crazy expensive yachts. The New River section of the tour was fun and we saw a big yacht being towed out of the narrow channel and guided up river. It was quite a process getting that large yacht positioned and out of the narrows. We got off at Stop 3 – The Shops at Las Olas, for a relaxing stroll around and some lunch. Lots of cool stores and restaurants here; mostly pretty upscale but there are reasonably priced items to be found too. The $24,000 Foosball table we saw was not one of the more reasonably priced items.

 

You will see boats like this on the Water Taxi route. Lots of fun.

 

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A group of us took the Water Taxi down to Hollywood Beach. This route takes you right through the port itself. You will see container ships and other commercial traffic but it is not nearly as scenic as the other routes. If you get off at Hollywood Beach you can walk a few blocks to the Broadwalk (not board, Broadwalk) where there is a beach, shopping, hotels and just general fun stuff to do.

 

That night we ordered in some pizza from Doughboys and the Deep Fried Shrimp Parmigiana Pie was outstanding! However the driver has no credit card reader so he uses his thumb to make an imprint of your credit card on the receipt. Very high tech!

 

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In the morning we loaded up the massive amount of luggage that 18 people have for a cruise (the other two people met us at the port). We used Howards Transportation for all our transfers. He was very reasonably priced when compared to other quotes I got and he could not have been better to work with. Our group had a different number every time: 12, 18 and 20. He was on time and ready to haul us around each time we needed it. I will use him again in FLL.

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On To The Cruise!

We had a blast despite some rain, wind and choppy seas. Most of us traveled from the Midwest where it had been raining non-stop for weeks. Unfortunately rain followed us for a while on Oasis but we refused to let it ruin our fun.

 

Rain on our first day at sea. Lots of clouds, kind of a bummer.

 

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Overall I had a terrific experience and will still recommend Royal to people who ask me about cruising.

I was interested to see what the first timers had to say about service, amenities, and the cruise experience. These people were late 40s to late 50s and have done many kinds of other vacations. They all thought the cruise and the service was great. They were WOWed by the ship itself and the sheer size and scope of Oasis. These are people Royal wants to attract, new cruisers who could become stable customers. They didn’t care about the “way things used to be” on cruise ships because they had no frame of reference to the past. Throughout the trip I would occasional ask them their thoughts about what they were doing and seeing on the ship and mostly it was all good comments.

 

We snagged one of these chairs! So comfortable. So hard to ever get one, but we managed to get one twice! Of course the second time it was because I had been up wandering around the ship at 5:30 am.

 

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Showtime!

Most of the shows were well received and enjoyed. We had reservations for all the shows in advance. Oasis of Dreams was very good but I did notice that only 2 high dives were done in the performance, I seemed to remember more in the Allure show. It also could have been the fact that we had some rougher weather and conditions warranted changes in the diving.

 

Night one Comedy Club show was wildly funny and our group would up in the center of the fun since they all sat on the front row. Once the first comedian figured out we were all either family or close friends they just roasted us through all three sets. It was hysterically funny and our group just played right along. Luckily the Comedy Club doesn’t seat many people and they never show it on ship TV!

 

Come Fly With Me was very good as well. Lots of things that reminded me of Cirque Du Soleil show elements (always a good thing). The fliers in this show were interesting in that they were more physical and less graceful that other cloth fliers I have seen. They were very fast, very strong in their movements, almost combative in a way. It was just a different style. There were technical problems a couple of times in the show which was disappointing but it happens sometimes. The projector started acting up and putting menus on the screen during the airplane number, felt bad for the cast and crew because at that point there isn’t really much you can do besides turn off the projections. Everyone was really impressed with the show itself and the technical level of dancing/acrobatics that they do considering the size of the theater and the fact it is on a moving ship.

 

Not everyone made it to the ice show. It was just a bad time-slot and towards the end of the cruise. Those who went really liked it.

 

Here are the Cats fans.

 

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The exception was Cats. The “Broadway show people” loved Cats. The rest of them either slept through it or just walked out. Feedback was that many many people walked out of Cats. I didn't go, I just knew I would not enjoy it. But I did enjoy Chicago and I have been to many Vegas shows and to Broadway for some shows. So it's not that I dislike shows, in fact shows are one of the main draws for us on Oasis class ships. A group of us went to the Aqua Theater and watched the NBA Finals game! Which was very cool.

 

I think Royal really made a miscalculation with Cats. Anyone who loves Broadway has seen Cats, multiple times most likely. By now if you haven’t seen Cats it probably means you don’t want to see Cats. It’s just not a show for a cruise ship, it is way too long and has a convoluted at best story. Chicago and Hairspray were easy to grasp, had good understandable storylines and could appeal to lots of non-Broadway audiences. Even though Cats was well produced and performed it will be hard for it to really appeal to a large portion of the cruisers.

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Food!

Food was very good to great. 150 Central Park was a home run for the 14 that went to specialty dining. Everyone was WOWed by the food and presentation. However some of us had been to 150 on Allure in 2013 and we saw some changes. Gone was the army of wait staff doing mirror service of every course. It was just one waiter and an assistant. Now the mirror service was very cool on Allure but I don’t suppose it was a make or break issue (at least not for me). Another change at 150; less food. I went to see if I could find my personalized souvenir menu from the Allure meal to compare but I couldn’t. (And BTW, you won’t get that souvenir menu on Oasis now). This meal was 4 courses and the salts. I know we had a six course meal on Allure. Again, not a huge deal, but certainly a change.

 

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Chops was below my expectations. It took FOREVER to get through the meal. We were an hour into the dinner and had only had appetizers. Just getting water and wine took a long time. They seemed understaffed, people were flying around in every direction but nothing much seemed to be coming out of the kitchen. The wait staff seemed to always be lined up at the window trying to get food. The food was very good but there are several things that are no longer on the menu and several things that are a hefty up charge. Other changes included a slice of Red Velvet cake that while delicious, was half the size it used to be. Maybe the huge piece of cake they used to serve was over the top and too much for people to eat but it is another example of cutting costs. If you get the aged steak for an up charge, add the $40 cost of eating at Chops to the money you pay to eat on the ship with the cruise fare you are talking about a pretty steep price for a steak dinner. For that kind of money you could go to a really good land based steak restaurant and get a better meal. The food we had was good but it was a very expensive dinner and the service just wasn’t up to par either. This Chops meal was no comparison to the one I had on Allure, not even close.

 

Everyone loved our meal at Giovanni’s. We had very good food and service and it was a great evening. And it’s reasonably priced. The family style dining also works well for big groups. We got to try lots of different things.

 

Some had sushi at Izumi and liked it very much. None of our group tried the hibachi side but it was reported you could eat on that side and still order sushi.

 

A large group of us ate at Sabor one day for lunch. It was very good but different from what you might think of as a “normal” Mexican restaurant. My DD2 was very disappointed that there were no nachos on the menu. They make fresh guacamole at your table which was a big hit. The choices were limited but the food itself was great.

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Fun in Ft. Lauderdale

 

We split up for dinner; some went to Tap 42 which has tons of craft beer and really good food. Even though I didn’t eat here the reports were that it was a great place. One of our local friends also highly recommended it.

 

The rest of us went to a “local” place in search of oysters and seafood. We walked (not a particularly great idea but doable) to the Southport Raw Bar; just a small place on the waterfront, live music playing and great seafood. The oysters were great according to the raw seafood lovers. I had a basket of fried clams, shrimp and some of the best scallops I’ve ever eaten. All for less than $11 which after the $200 lunch was a welcome relief! The hotel gave us a coupon that allowed us some free soup and a free piece of terrific key lime pie.

 

It was a LONG walk!

 

IMG_1197_zpsoxlbtiyq.jpg

 

Great food

 

IMG_7661_zpsi2gys579.jpg

 

PIE!!!

 

IMG_7663_zpshjfbpztu.jpg

 

On Friday a large group of use headed to ride the Water Taxi. For $26 you get an all day pass to ride the waterways of FLL. What a bargain. We had a guided tour of the uber expensive homes and properties in FLL and we saw many crazy expensive yachts. The New River section of the tour was fun and we saw a big yacht being towed out of the narrow channel and guided up river. It was quite a process getting that large yacht positioned and out of the narrows. We got off at Stop 3 – The Shops at Las Olas, for a relaxing stroll around and some lunch. Lots of cool stores and restaurants here; mostly pretty upscale but there are reasonably priced items to be found too. The $24,000 Foosball table we saw was not one of the more reasonably priced items.

 

You will see boats like this on the Water Taxi route. Lots of fun.

 

IMG_1201_zpsvg0pajsr.jpg

 

A group of us took the Water Taxi down to Hollywood Beach. This route takes you right through the port itself. You will see container ships and other commercial traffic but it is not nearly as scenic as the other routes. If you get off at Hollywood Beach you can walk a few blocks to the Broadwalk (not board, Broadwalk) where there is a beach, shopping, hotels and just general fun stuff to do.

 

That night we ordered in some pizza from Doughboys and the Deep Fried Shrimp Parmigiana Pie was outstanding! However the driver has no credit card reader so he uses his thumb to make an imprint of your credit card on the receipt. Very high tech!

 

IMG_1217_zpszidicqfm.jpg

 

In the morning we loaded up the massive amount of luggage that 18 people have for a cruise (the other two people met us at the port). We used Howards Transportation for all our transfers. He was very reasonably priced when compared to other quotes I got and he could not have been better to work with. Our group had a different number every time: 12, 18 and 20. He was on time and ready to haul us around each time we needed it. I will use him again in FLL.

 

 

 

Is this how you take your water cases into the ship? No bags for them?

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I know your not doing a traditional review this go round, but of the nights you ate in the MDR do you remember the order of the menus? I believe they have done away with some of the menus and replaced with some others. Just wondering...

 

Thanks again,

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If you book at least 8 staterooms with double occupancy, Royal gives back the equivalent of one fare of whatever is the majority category booked. If you intend to book with a travel agent, you need to discuss this before you book.

 

The credit does not include non commission cruise fare or taxes/port charges, but is obviously still a great perk.

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:D Yay! Another RSharp review. Loved your first one from Allure and your funny take on cruising. You make it fun to read. I still have a copy of your excel menu/nightly menus list on my desktop you created long ago. Carry on...

 

Thanks! I will be carrying on! I will have some links to other stuff in this review coming up later. Including our spreadsheet of the entire schedule we did. And some of the newsletters I put together for the group.

 

These will give people some ideas for newsletters of their own!

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I know your not doing a traditional review this go round, but of the nights you ate in the MDR do you remember the order of the menus? I believe they have done away with some of the menus and replaced with some others. Just wondering...

 

Thanks again,

 

I had my menu spreadsheet from a couple of years ago and the names of the dinners are the same and "most" of the food is the same. However, there were differences in what I had as a menu and what was actually served in the MDR on the 4 nights we ate there.

 

I did not track all the changes however. Sorry, just too much work to try and figure the menus out and compare them. And by the time I got it all figured out...they will change again!

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The Crew

One big hit for the week was the cabin stewards on Deck 12 Aft Port. What a great group of guys. We had the very last balconies on the aft before you get to what used to be the secret aqua deck that is now just another suite. So we had to walk past a lot of rooms to get to ours. All the stewards knew us, called us by name all week, sang to us, danced with the ladies, and were generally fantastic in every way. Our steward (Gede) was terrific and helped my kids out several times with small things they needed. He called maintenance about an issue that I didn’t even know we had and gave a gift to my daughter’s fiancée for his birthday. The kicker is that the fiancée was at the other end of the ship; his room wasn’t even near where Gede works! Outstanding service all week from the moment we arrived till we reluctantly left.

 

My DW Amy with our Cabin Steward Gede. He was awesome!

 

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Yes she was dancing with the guys!

 

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Love & Marriage

My wife and I were chosen as the middle couple on the Love and Marriage show. It was the evening of our 150 Central Park meal and she did the wine pairing so that may have had something to do with the fact she was willing to audition for the show. We had fun and the show was good but, again, different from the previous L&M show we had seen in the past.

 

Fewer questions, both spouses stayed on stage together the whole time instead of just the ladies being on stage and then just the men. So that shortened the show. Then at the end the whole thing took a strange twist. There was no winner, at least not at the show itself. They gave each couple some gifts which included some RCCL swag, a bottle of bubbly, and a bracelet for the women. Then they paraded all of us to the casino and encouraged the audience to follow us and cheer us on and vote for us. Voting not based on the answers of the L&M game itself; in fact the answers to the questions seem not to matter at all as to who “wins” the game now. The 6 of us were seated at a row of slot machines and we played a 3 minute slot tournament to determine the winner. The crowd could vote on which couple they thought would win the slot competition. The winning couple, the longest married couple in our case, got some T-shirts and a casino bucket and (with much hype and bravado) 1,000 points of casino credit each!! The other couples got 500 casino points each!! Anyone know what 1,000 casino points equals in actual cash money? $20. In the end the L&M show seemed really strange with all the casino hype etc. I can’t really describe it other than to say it just felt like I was in a bad TV commercial for a casino. But, they show L&M all the time on ship TV reruns so we were celebrities for the rest of the cruise; which was kinda fun.

 

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The newlywed couple were from Mexico and he kept having trouble with some of the language/English and understanding some of the references in the questions. So he kept asking my wife for help! They were a really nice couple and very sweet. While we were waiting to start our "Slot Tournament" she asked us what our secret was to staying married for 26 years. We told them to always keep communicating. They said that many of their friends back home told them not to get married, that marriage wasn't a good thing. How sad. I wish the best for them. They were chosen because in the tryouts she actually picked him up off the floor and kissed him!

 

Quest and Battle of the Sexes were fun and the newbie cruisers had a good time at each one. I will say I was surprised by the amount of thong underwear and barely there underware I saw at Quest. Apparently that’s what all the young kids are wearing these days. :eek:

 

Look! We are on RCTV again!

 

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The All Access Tour – Worth it or not?

One couple did the all access tour partially at my urging when I told them how great my tour on Allure had been. When they got done we talked about what they saw and compared it to my tour. They didn’t see many of the things they should have seen. Didn’t go to the Opal Theater or backstage, didn’t go to the helipad or the crew bar beneath it, didn’t go to see the anchor and all the mooring areas with the ropes etc., didn’t get any swag, didn’t get any food samples, didn’t get drinks at the crew bar, and didn’t get to meet the Captain. And they finished quite a bit sooner than the scheduled three hours.

 

Not sure if this is a cutback or if it was due to some big inspection on the ship this week that everyone on the crew was nervous about, or if it was because the big boss was on-board vacationing. Whatever the reason, the All Access Tour this week was well short of all access! They were not really happy when they found out about all the things they didn’t get to do and see and I don’t blame them. They shelled out $300 for a very sub-par tour.

 

By the way, “the big boss” is Michael W. Bayley, CEO of Royal Caribbean International and he was on board all week. I did get to shake his hand outside Dazzles. Mostly nobody knew who he was or why there was a photographer following he and his family around all week. It was apparently his vacation, just like the rest of us.

 

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In summary, the tour I took on Allure in 2013 was very well worth it for me and the two others that did it with me. We had a great tour that lasted just over three hours. The tour on the Oasis that my friends went on was certainly lacking a great deal in comparison. I am interested to hear from others who have recently done the Oasis All Access tour. What were your experiences on the tour?

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Hi RSharp83:

 

I noticed you had 2 cases of water in your pictures, did your water make it on the ship without a problem, I've read no water or soda could be brought on board? Would love to know:

 

1. if anything was said upon check in?

 

2. Did you just carry it thru in your hand?

 

I'm sailing on Oasis soon, there will be 22 of us and we all were wondering about brining water and soda. Thank you.

 

Nae

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