Here is my review of my recent Oasis Cruise. It’s purely for informational purposes and some peoples experiences may have been different than mine.
As a background this was my 6th cruise with RCCL and all have been on the Oasis class. This is my first cruise since 2017 so I’m sure some things have changed since my last cruise that you all may be aware of already.
April 14th - embarkation day
we cruised out of Miami. It’s my first time not sailing from Fort Lauderdale. This was the smoothest one I have done. Perhaps it’s the same at all ports now but the whole process to get on the boat was no more than 5 minutes from the time I got on the pier with my luggage to getting onto the royal promenade. I couldn’t believe it. In years past it took an hour.
PORTS:
we were supposed to do Labadee but it was cancelled and replaced with a sea day,
Nassau: we did blue lagoon and did the dolphin encounter. I have done the dolphins swim one time before there. The encounter is pretty much the exact same thing except you don’t get pushed by the dolphin. If you have small children I would suggest this excursion and it’s about half the price. The beach was great and loads of chairs for everyone
perfect day cococay: hands down my favorite overall port. We did the water park and did all the rides multiple times and still had several hours left to enjoy what else there was to offer. There is an endless amount of chairs there.
food options were good, and they had these delicious brownies and mozzarella sticks there. I wish they could be found in the ship on a regular basis. The MDR had the same brownies on one evening but it would be great if they had them available 24/7 somewhere
Falmouth, Jamaica: we did the river tubing and beach club. It was a bit of a let down. We only spent a little over an hour at the beach before they said we had to get the bus back. The excursion said it was 5 hours but the whole thing was a little less than 4 (including 1 hour of driving). I figured we would have had a lots more time at the beach. It felt like a sea day because we were back in time for lunch and then had 5 hours before the ship left the port.
MDR: overall I had a great experience there. I believe it was one of my better times in the MDR. Some things were slight misses on the menu but I wouldn’t be able to complain.
Other food options: the taco place is the best addition since last time I sailed. I loved it. Such a quick and easy spot to get food and it’s a good meal. Much better than eating fries and burgers all the time like what was in that area before.
windjammer was pretty much same as always. I like it. I can always find something to eat. We usually only eat breakfast there. I got a good kick out of how everyone on staff now uses the line “washy washy before yummy yummy”. It became a running joke in our group and for the comedians
snack food: I’m not sure what RCCL is thinking with the cookies but they still haven’t figured out how to make one. The cookies on board are literally the worst cookies I’ve ever tasted. Clearly the bakers have never spent a day with their grandmother baking cookies.
pizza: maybe it’s just me but I feel sorrentos has gotten better. I like the “Caribbean dream” slices
drink prices were absurd. We didn’t have the package because we don’t drink much but every time me and the wife wanted a drink it was $30. That’s a little
crazy if you ask me
SHOWS:
the aqua 80 show is the best show I have seen on a ship by far. It was insanely good.
comedy show: they did both a small show that you had to book and then a Saturday night show in the Royal theatre. It was awesome as per usual
CATS: we skipped it. Been there. Done that. Easily the worst musical known to man. I don’t know how they haven’t changed it yet. Everybody who has seen it skips it and everybody who goes says that they hated it (aside from a few exceptions).
headliner was some guy who did ventriloquism. Fully expected it to be lame but it was actually awesome. He had people on the knots laughing.
funny story: You know the 7 short beeps followed by a long beep that means to get to your muster station? Well somehow they hit that button at 5AM night 5. What a panic haha. It only got to 4 beeps before they shut it off. It caused a lot of confusion on my floor. People coming of of their rooms am wondering if they should take it seriously or not. I’m a first responder and have seen when alarms are not taken seriously so i told
my wife we were going down regardless as I wasn’t being the cause of her untimely death. We made it to floor 5 (from 12) before the captain came over the set and said it was a false alarm. People were literally in the halls crying. I really have no clue how that accidently goes off lol. I always figured it would be a big red button in a case or something.
Now for my biggest qualm on the ship:
THE POOL DECKS
1) it wasn’t maintained well. The jets didn’t work in most of the hot tubs. There might be one or two that would work at a time in the tub.
one of the water slides didn’t operate for the full cruise. The green and yellow bowl one
2) lack of enforcement of rules.
- people hogged chairs all day with just leaving one towel on it. There are signs everywhere saying that staff will remove unattended belongings but it wasn’t being done at all. Getting a spot to sit was impossible and 90% of chairs of not more were unattended
- kids in hot tubs unattended . The place was literally overran with kids treating hot tubs as bath tubs. Tub toys and all. I don’t think kids should be in hot tubs anyway for medical reasons but staff should be monitoring and kicking out any kids that aren’t with their parents. The kids were in the tubs diving under water, splashing, spitting out water, eating and spilling ice creams in them. I’ve never seen anything like it in the cruise before. They were even in ones that specially say 16+ only. I usually don’t complain about things but this was next level. At any given time there was usually 5+ people under 5 years old in the hot tubs.
there needs to be more pools and hot tubs on that ship. They were waaay over crowded
overall a great cruise. Little more crowded than usual it seemed but I still had fun. I’d love to see RCCL offer some adult only ships. That would be a great time for sure.
