Pratique

That seems to make for a very long day. I used to live in Westminster. It would take me a while to drive out to DIA even and that was before 9/11 and the need to arrive at the terminal well before the flight. So getting up at 2:00 am to make a 5:00 am flight would burn me out by the time I got to the ship. But I'm not as young as I used to be.

How does that work with the two hour time change? What time do you need to be at the Denver airport? Isn't that like a 5:00 am flight out of Denver?

I notice you didn't mention two days at Nassau. I presume you stay on the ship? Which is fine but I'd rather be at sea than docked. I'd rather see a seven night itinerary with two stops at Coco. Didn't they try that at one time? My memory is fuzzy.

I get that but when you spend the better part of two days flying to and from the port for just three full days on the cruise then the math (cost in terms of time and money and travel hassle) starts to look less appealing than blocking out extra time for a full seven night cruise.

It will be even worse if they are sharing Coco with another ship on the same day. Whatever novelty there is with a B2B will wear off by Day 5. I see these cruises as appetizers for the uninitiated or for folks who can only spare a weekend to cruise or who are combining it with a land vacation in Florida. Then it makes a little more sense. But B2B, not for me.

Or they could just hand out virtual reality headsets and never leave port to save even more fuel.

I don't see the appeal of B2B with only one sea day and two days at each of Nassau and CocoCay plus a turnaround day at PC.

PDFs of the Compass for Days 2-7 for Oasis of the Seas 7 Night Perfect Day Bahamas Cruise June 16-23. For Day 5 scroll down, it is below Day 4. This link may eventually expire but no date is set. I will post photos of Day 1 below. https://gofile.io/d/E0vrOT

Sure give me a day or two to get them uploaded somewhere.

Thanks for your review. We also had a great time. Our loft attendants were awesome so at least your housekeeping experience was not part of a larger issue. The concierges escorted us to the gangway and we were off the ship five minutes after vacating our cabin. We ate a lot of specialty Giovanni's, Chops, 150 Central Park, but also had brunch in the MDR and BBQ twice and it was all good. As previously discussed the WJ is lacking these days as is the food setup in the suite lounge. It does feel like they are cutting corners on food in some areas. Cats and Aqua shows were great. The ship is clean and looks in excellent shape. The crew were all great too save for an indifferent bartender or two. On the drive out my phone decided to take us on a "shortcut" to the NJT via Port Lincoln Rd and Port Jersey Blvd. Although it dumps onto the turnpike there is more truck traffic this way so probably not a good idea to listen to my phone sometimes. But I thought I'd give it a try anyway. YMMV. I have PDFs of the compass for days 2-7 and I can take photos of the compass from day 1 if anyone is interested let me know.

Well let's put it this way: they will tell you to empty your pockets (obviously keys and phone) but if you don't and the detector goes off then they will wand you and probably want to see what's in your pockets anyway. So if it's not metal then it probably won't be noticed. Not as strict as TSA but they were being thorough. They saw something on the x-ray that wasn't obvious to them and started asking questions. We told them it was D cell batteries in a portable fan and they let us proceed without any further inspection. But they are paying attention, as they should be. Emptying your pockets just speeds things.

Empty your pockets, shoes stay on. They will wand you if any metal is detected such as jewelry.

It could be that the parent company RCG is leasing the island to the cruise line subsidiary RCI. I don't know but it doesn't make a practical difference, just a legal one.

Wikipedia still says the island is leased but there is no source for this. This is a quick read Kindle book about the history of the island, worth $3.49 if you're interested and free if you have KindleUnlimited. https://www.amazon.com/Little-Stirrup-became-Caribbeans-private-ebook/dp/B0BXDJJHWX Neil Ruzic was a scientist who purchased the island with the intent of building a research station, but encountered too much difficulty obtaining permits from the government, so the island went undeveloped. Ruzic saw how the adjacent island was being used by NCL for tourism and established a deal with Eastern Cruise Lines. In 1983 he agreed to let cruise passengers onto the island for $10 a person. Eastern was absorbed by Admiral which was absorbed by Royal Caribbean. Ruzic sold most of the island (except five acres) to Admiral in 1985 giving Ruzic the right to "'roam' the whole island." In 2016 the Ruzic family sold the remaining part of the island to Royal.

I’ve stuck my head in both casinos on Oasis several times this week and I see lots of empty tables with bored dealers in the main casino but it’s been busier in the non smoking one. FWIW.

Consistently getting 9.5 down and 3.7 up on Oasis around the ship. Just had an hour long Teams call with several short dropouts. It’s useable if the other participants are patient with it.

One of the CocoCay tram attendants said today was the first good day in a long time. I guess we got lucky the weather held out. Yesterday they had the same thunderstorms that passed over Nassau and they had to shut everything down early. As an aside I scraped my foot on a rock out in the water and paid a visit to first aid at Chill Beach to get patched up. She took good care of me.

Both of those parks are about 15-20 minutes closer to PC and there is less distance to cover once you arrive. With Disney they drop you at the TTC and then you need to make your way to your destination using something other than your feet. All of these factors increase transit time meaning less play time. It’s doable but expectations need to be calibrated.

Maybe if you hustle. It took us more like 10 minutes leisurely walk. It was too hot to hustle.

Breakfast in Windjammer has been decent at least for the basic run of the mill offerings. Nothing exciting it’s just breakfast.

Yes they are still on the ship.

Royal seemed to abandon the exterior aesthetic when they gave in and added water slides to their ships. I suppose relatively few people care much about how the ship looks from afar. But I say the same about automotive design. Cars have gotten pretty ugly but they seem to sell just fine Pontiac Aztec being a notable exception. I’m having a difficult time getting excited about Icon. I’m sure it will be a hit though.

My earlier recommendation to avoid the Disney excursion stands unless you really understand what you’re getting into. We are on Oasis out of Cape Liberty and today took the bus to WDW from Port Canaveral knowing full well what to expect. And it went pretty much as expected. The ship arrived at 1:00 and the gangway opened at 1:30. The tour bus left at 2:15 and arrived at the TTC at 3:20 with some usual I-4 traffic that is as bad as it was when I first lived there 33 years ago. Walked to the Poly and waited 15 minutes for the Disney bus. The bus then stops at the Grand Floridian and it took almost half an hour to get to Disney Springs including a short delay unloading a wheelchair guest from the bus. It’s a long ride with long traffic signals on the dedicated bus lanes. So we got there at about 4:25 and had to be back to the bus by 7:00 because for some reason all aboard was at 8:30 (the original itinerary had us departing at 10:00 instead of 9:00 which cut an hour off the excursion). We ate dinner at STK Orlando which was wicked expensive but very good although there was a DJ blasting music so table conversation was out of the question. Recommended for the food but not for the price or the noise level at 4:30 pm on a Sunday afternoon setting off the environmental noise alert on my Apple Watch. We got to the bus stop at Disney Springs at 6:15 and the bus to the Poly left at 6:35. We got back to the tour bus at 7:02 so technically we were two minutes late but we waited for stragglers who arrived at 7:15. With traffic and torrential rain we got back to the ship at 8:35 five minutes after all aboard. They held us in the terminal for 10 minutes waiting for the rain to ease up but still got soaked running to the gangway. Not surprisingly a few folks were anxious about getting back late and worried that the ship would leave without us. I just put my AirPods on and enjoyed the ride. So all in all we had an hour and 45 minutes at Disney Springs but we were gone for six hours and 15 minutes. Do the math and make the call but you have been warned. Even under the best conditions you’ll only have a few hours at Disney. It’s 120 miles round trip and that’s not going to change.

FWIW we went to Portside BBQ last night (formal night) and basically had the entire place to ourselves. With live entertainment. It was great.