Princess loyal does a royal, oasis may 2-16, 2016

PRINCESS LOYAL DOES FIRST ROYAL, OASIS MAY 2-16, 2016

We have cruised on Princess, Carnival, Disney, Celebrity and now Royal Caribbean. This was our first RCCL and we wanted to do a quick comparison. This is OUR OPINION, so please no flaming.

EMBARKATION: Flawless, quick, started check in about 11:15 and aboard ship by 12:00. Security checkpoint – we were on a back to back and therefore brought 4 bottles of wine with us; security asked for our back to back paperwork which was given to them but they took 2 of our bottles anyway. No big deal but this is handled much better on Princess where you show your back to back paperwork and you take your 4 bottles with you. Last night of first cruise we were suppose to get the other 2 bottles however it became an issue as no one could find them. Eventually the bar manager was able to located them the next day and they were delivered to the room.

CABIN: D-1, 10198 (now considered a D-2): Cabin was a good size and we would compare it to a normal balcony on other cruise lines, plenty of room for 2 adults. Balcony was a great size and had 2 chairs and a large table. We asked our room steward to get us a lounger and within a couple of hours there it was and still had plenty of room to move around the balcony. Bathroom: typical bathroom with the exception of the sink; had to be the smallest sink we have ever seen. Our room steward, Ivan, was very good.

ENTERTAINMENT: We enjoyed all the shows. The aqua shows (first cruise there was an aqua show and a comedic aqua show) and both were very good. Don’t miss the ice show, Frozen in Time, or the show Come Fly With Me (many of the swimmers/divers/gymnast from the aqua shows are in this one). Comedians were ok on the second cruise (we missed the first cruise show) but keep in mind they change weekly as does the Headliner Show which was Voice Play the first week and Finis the second week. Voice Play was very good and we saw this one twice; Finis was ok but one and done. Ship’s crew puts on several parades, dance parties and other events on the Promenade during the cruise and all we attended were good especially the “Farewell” party where all the cast members and many of the crew are introduced.

PORTS: St. Thomas and St. Maarten were nice but have been there many times. It was our first time to Labadee Haiti and Jamaica. Labadee is RCCL’s private beach and was very nice with this exception: there is a “straw market building” and the vendors were very nice and polite however behind this building is a string of “other vendors” and they were extremely pushy, would actually step in front of you blocking your path and trying very hard to get you to buy something. As we continued to walk around them it got so bad that we gave up and left the area. The port area in Jamaica was very nice, had everything you could ask for right there in the port area.

THE SHIP: Huge, beautiful, tons of things to do for young and old. We enjoyed sitting on the Promenade at Café Promenade with a cup of coffee and watching people walk by. It was like sitting at the food court of a local mall. Older passengers walking by the shops window shopping, teenagers walking by on their phones or other electronics texting and taking selfies; boardwalk was like be a beach boardwalk and Central Park was very nice. Cabin television leaves a lot to desire as there are very few choices and most channels that were available showed the same shows over and over. There is an option to purchase movies with the key word being “purchase”. We got spoiled on the Royal Princess with a ton of in cabin movies to “watch” not purchase along with several news channels and updated programs. All in all we enjoyed the ship, activities and services.

FOOD: Please keep in mind that this is VERY SUBJECTIVE and OUR OPINION ONLY. We very seldom do any MDR on any of the cruise lines and didn’t do any on this cruise. We found however; Best place for breakfast was the Wipeout Café – eggs to order, hot and fresh off the grill, breakfast meats, pancakes/waffles, fruit, oatmeal/grits, breads, juices and coffee. Wipeout Café was never crowded and great service. Best place for lunch was Central Park Café where you could build your own fresh salad, get a salad to go, order a sandwich, soups and the deserts (especially the Key Lime Pie) were great. It does get a little crowded but worth the effort. So many venues for dinner and we found the best places were: Sabors and Johnny Rockets; Windjammer: we found the food/setup at the Windjammer to be lacking, a lot; we’ll talk about the setup first: three circular serving areas that have no coordination; for example the first area would have pasta with a cream source and the second area has pasta with tomato source and the third area has baked pasta and the hotdog/burger area has macaroni – why aren’t all the pastas and sources put together in one area. The same holds true for trying to make a salad as you have to cover all the serving areas to get the items for a decent salad. Next, food quality was poor for most foods; the chicken, grilled or baked, was always very dry; beef dishes had little flavor; hamburger/hotdog area had pans of hotdogs/hamburgers that were cooked prior and just placed in a pan that allowed for the food to sit and cool. For the most part the Asian dishes were good and one night there were crab cakes that were very good. Service in the Windjammer, especially a manger named Slaney, was excellent. We thought it a shame that the food quality didn’t match the service. Sorento’s is without a doubt the worst pizza at sea; would compare this to a frozen pizza from a grocery store. Boardwalk Dogs was miserable all three times we tried this venue; they serve the same hotdogs you can find at Windjammer or Wipeout Café and the sausages were twice under cooked (very obvious) and the buns twice were so hard and stale that they actually crumbled and were hard to bite into; once had to insist that the counter person give me another bun and then found the sausage to be under cooked. Comparing Windjammer to the Horizon Court on the Royal Princess, we would give the thumbs up to Princess as the buffet is set up with a large area of fresh salad items followed by an area for quick snack or meal items, followed by an area of larger number of meal choices; a grill for cooked to order hotdogs/hamburgers/sausages/chicken; pizza area of freshly handmade pizza. Soft serve ice cream can be found at the Wipeout Café and near the pool however Wipeout Café closes at 5:30pm and the pool machine closes at 6:00pm.

THE NICKEL AND DIMING: We found that there are a number of things that most cruise ships provide at no additional charge, that Oasis does charge for: example is popcorn where you pay $2.00 a bag for popcorn and cotton candy; closing the soft serve ice cream early leaving the only place for ice cream being pay venues such as Johnny Rockets and Cups and Scoops. WiFi – prior to the cruise we had decided to purchase the 60 minute package (60 minutes to use throughout the cruise) that was advertised on the web site. Once onboard we quickly learned that this package was no longer available even though the IT guy acknowledged that it was still on the web site. We tried to get him to adhere to the web offering but to no avail. You could however purchase the “consecutive hours” for a much higher price. Because we don’t go on vacation to be on the web constantly, we didn’t purchase any plan.

Next Cruise – we have some friends who have booked an April 2016 cruise on the Oasis and we decided that the “Next Cruise Offer” of a smaller deposit and OBC was worth checking out; prior to this cruise we checked out the RCCL web site and the cruise was being sold with $50.00 OBC per person; at the Next Cruise Office we discovered that the “benefit” of booking onboard advertised as OBC is really getting the OBC already listed on the web site, which means no real benefit at all as they are giving you what you would already get anyway. When we asked about this the Next Cruise representative tried to talk around it but then admitted that it was giving us OBC that we would have gotten anyway. The Next Cruise Credit was jsut as misleading. With Princess you can purchase a “Future Cruise Credit” for $100.00 dollars each, book a cruise anytime within the next 2 years and use the Future Cruise Credit as your deposit and receive OBC for using the Future Cruise Credit IN ADDITION to any OBC offered by the cruise that you book.

Shopping – Now we will start off by saying that in all likelihood all cruise lines do this, but until now, no one has openly talked about it: when we first boarded we noticed all the 50% off sale signs for the Michael Kors shop; the night before the sale wife found a purse on display and with the 50% off sale would have made the purchase the following morning however she was informed that all the items “currently on display” would be removed overnight and replaced with stock from the back room that hadn’t sold prior and that those items would have their regular prices listed but sold at 50% off; we took this to mean that the items being used for the sale were items from the past that no one would buy and all the newer fashion items would be taken off the shelves. Sure enough the next morning the sale begins and the purse the wife wanted was no longer on display and all items on display the night before were gone. We are sure that this is a normal business procedure but just another example of a little bait and switch.

ENDING ON THE POSITIVE: As stated before we were doing a back to back and have done this on several cruise lines. The night before our return to Ft. Lauderdale after the first 7 days, were received notice that following the check by Customs, we were invited to have lunch at Givonni’s, provided by the Ship. It was a limited menu but very, very good. Also, the second to last night of the second 7 days we returned from an excursion on Cozumel to find a chilled bottle of Champaign in the cabin along with a note indicating that RCCL was thankful for our having done a back to back. These were two very nice gestures by RCCL and very much appreciated. Debarkation: we did the walk off, as we have done on many ships, and found the procedure with RCCL to be extremely well coordinated and in fact we were off the ship shortly after 6:30am and on the Interstate by 7:00am.

Thank you for your observations and insights. We hope to do a B2B one day, but for now we cruise one week at a time. We will be on Oasis (again) this November. Can't wait. Last time was before her recent dry dock, so I'm looking forward to seeing some of the changes.

Thanks for the review Jon, we were on with you the first week and I'm glad to hear you had an overall positive experience.

Thank you for your observations and insights. We hope to do a B2B one day, but for now we cruise one week at a time. We will be on Oasis (again) this November. Can't wait. Last time was before her recent dry dock, so I'm looking forward to seeing some of the changes.

Thanks for the review Jon, we were on with you the first week and I'm glad to hear you had an overall positive experience.

You are welcome Sherri914 and hope you enjoy your next cruise.

Dave85, it was indeed an overall positive cruise and a good experience to learn how RCCL does things. We are still considering the April 2016 cruise.

Good info. You seemed to have confirmed a few of my suspicions as well, sailing on Oasis in November, first RCCL. Seems you had a good time, and the cons didn't seem to be deal breakers.

Good info. You seemed to have confirmed a few of my suspicions as well, sailing on Oasis in November, first RCCL. Seems you had a good time, and the cons didn't seem to be deal breakers.

Absolutely not a deal breaker. As I told Dave85, just got to do a lot of research and reading on CC so that you know what to expect.

You're spot on with your observation on the future cruise "non-advantage." We used to book while on a cruise but we can no longer find a reason to spend even 5 minutes of our cruise booking a future cruise. Smaller deposit? Just means it's due at final payment. OBC? You get the same as you can get booking online or with a TA. You can no longer combine your discounts either. We like having breakfast (and lunch when possible) in the MDR and we love having dinner in the MDR so I can't compare or agree on that. I always forget about the ice cream until it's closed for the night. On our last cruise, I missed it every day and never got one the entire cruise. I think the WiFi is a rip-off. I have international calls on my cell phone and we call from the ports home to check on our furbabies. We're Diamond on Royal, but I think after our cruise this June, we will be trying out some of the other cruise lines for our next cruise. Time to branch out a bit.

You're spot on with your observation on the future cruise "non-advantage." We used to book while on a cruise but we can no longer find a reason to spend even 5 minutes of our cruise booking a future cruise. Smaller deposit? Just means it's due at final payment. OBC? You get the same as you can get booking online or with a TA. You can no longer combine your discounts either. We like having breakfast (and lunch when possible) in the MDR and we love having dinner in the MDR so I can't compare or agree on that. I always forget about the ice cream until it's closed for the night. On our last cruise, I missed it every day and never got one the entire cruise. I think the WiFi is a rip-off. I have international calls on my cell phone and we call from the ports home to check on our furbabies. We're Diamond on Royal, but I think after our cruise this June, we will be trying out some of the other cruise lines for our next cruise. Time to branch out a bit.

Thanks for the response, ice cream is my "hang up too" :D

Thank you for the review. Always nice to get an honest appraisal.

One question: would you cruise again with the Oasis, or do you think Princess is a better deal?

Thank you for the review. Always nice to get an honest appraisal.

 

One question: would you cruise again with the Oasis, or do you think Princess is a better deal?

alocsin, the answers are Yes and Yes. Confused? The Oasis is a really great ship and the crew was excellent. I believe the "value", "length of cruise" and "itinerary" goes to Princess but the entertainment and activities, especially for the active person goes to Oasis.

alocsin, the answers are Yes and Yes. Confused? The Oasis is a really great ship and the crew was excellent. I believe the "value", "length of cruise" and "itinerary" goes to Princess but the entertainment and activities, especially for the active person goes to Oasis.

Thank you, whitecap. I'm glad that we booked this cruise for November.

Thank you, whitecap. I'm glad that we booked this cruise for November.

You will have a blast!

Appreciate the review. Our last cruise was Regal this last March and our next cruise is Oasis in November. We did our very first cruise on Freedom and all our cruises since have been Princess. Looking forward to returning to RCI.

As you pointed out, the buffet area on Regal has wonderful selections and is extremely well laid out. It was so tempting and so well laid out, we just never made it to the MDR. However, Regal and Royal are exceptions and the Grand class ships of Princess do not have the same layout.

Appreciate the review. Our last cruise was Regal this last March and our next cruise is Oasis in November. We did our very first cruise on Freedom and all our cruises since have been Princess. Looking forward to returning to RCI.

 

As you pointed out, the buffet area on Regal has wonderful selections and is extremely well laid out. It was so tempting and so well laid out, we just never made it to the MDR. However, Regal and Royal are exceptions and the Grand class ships of Princess do not have the same layout.

Agree about the Royal/Regal.

Appreciate the review. Our last cruise was Regal this last March and our next cruise is Oasis in November. We did our very first cruise on Freedom and all our cruises since have been Princess. Looking forward to returning to RCI.

 

As you pointed out, the buffet area on Regal has wonderful selections and is extremely well laid out. It was so tempting and so well laid out, we just never made it to the MDR. However, Regal and Royal are exceptions and the Grand class ships of Princess do not have the same layout.

We have read a lot of reviews about the Freedom and are considering a couple of cruises on that ship.

Thanks for the response, ice cream is my "hang up too" :D

At night (supper) in the windjammer there is ice cream and cookies at the far end station. Just in case you return in April next year.;)

Glad to hear you had a overall positive experience.

At night (supper) in the windjammer there is ice cream and cookies at the far end station. Just in case you return in April next year.;)

 

Glad to hear you had a overall positive experience.

We did see a couple of times, people at tables with a small bowl of ice cream but when we went looking for it, couldn't find it anywhere so we thought that it was something special for a birthday or anniversary. But good to know! :D

If you cruise RC again try MDR at least once for lunch. Excellent salad bar - made to order - you pick from the bar and chef makes for you. Also solarium cafe is another self-serve buffet option.

Glad you enjoyed your cruise.

If you cruise RC again try MDR at least once for lunch. Excellent salad bar - made to order - you pick from the bar and chef makes for you. Also solarium cafe is another self-serve buffet option.

 

Glad you enjoyed your cruise.

Thanks for the advice and we will certainly give both a try.

We did see a couple of times, people at tables with a small bowl of ice cream but when we went looking for it, couldn't find it anywhere so we thought that it was something special for a birthday or anniversary. But good to know! :D

Thought you might want to know.;) As for the pizza, I would kill (OK mabe not kill... streak through central park?) for Princess pizza while on RC. RC pizza could double as a spare tire for an old minivan. Princess pizza on the other hand is amazing. I also miss the Trident Grill for snacks by the pool. On a side note some of your favs are ours too such as JR and Park Cafe.

In-laws are sailing on the Royal Princess in August so I can't wait to hear their feedback.

I also miss the Trident Grill for snacks by the pool.

I've always felt that the one big thing RCI is missing is the outdoor grill by the pool that every other cruise line I've sailed on has, and I've never understood why RCI never thought to include one!

Note: I do not count Johnny Rockets on the Q class because it is a pay venue.

I've always felt that the one big thing RCI is missing is the outdoor grill by the pool that every other cruise line I've sailed on has, and I've never understood why RCI never thought to include one!

 

Note: I do not count Johnny Rockets on the Q class because it is a pay venue.

I'll second that. I also think it would reduce the Windjammer crowd at lunch.

I've always felt that the one big thing RCI is missing is the outdoor grill by the pool that every other cruise line I've sailed on has, and I've never understood why RCI never thought to include one!

 

Note: I do not count Johnny Rockets on the Q class because it is a pay venue.

Agree about the Trident Grill; a grill on Oasis where you could get a hot of the grill cheeseburger/hot dog or piece of chicken along with fries would certainly be nice. One of the things we found odd about the Boardwalk Dog House was there was no fries to go with the hot dogs/sausage.

I'll second that. I also think it would reduce the Windjammer crowd at lunch.

Gregg I think it would also reduce the number of people going to the Wipeout Cafe and we saw a lot of people, kids and adults, come to the Wipeout, get a burger or hotdog and fries and head straight back to the pool area.

Gregg I think it would also reduce the number of people going to the Wipeout Cafe and we saw a lot of people, kids and adults, come to the Wipeout, get a burger or hotdog and fries and head straight back to the pool area.

That's exactly what I wound up doing. Unfortunately, it was a fairly long walk back to the beach pool area and on one of my treks, about half of the way back, a gust of wind kicked up and swept away the top half of my cheeseburger bun LOL. I really missed the poolside grill in that moment. :p