BillOh

Thanks, we did an all access tour on Oasis, very fun. With 9 days on the ship, will definitely make sure we see it, thanks,

Thanks for that info, we do like Playmakers, but can live with out it.

Accessible parking? Great, I can use that! I think i have 260 days to research!

I hope that is the same today, i would go see it.

Good reminder, I would have found my way around there I did see one waterslide that I hadn't seen before that I might be able to do. I usually avoid water slides, but the one you use a raft on looks like fun.

Im off to look at deck plans,

It did see liberty when she came into Miami in 2007 I think it was, she hadn't made her maiden voyage yet and was here for the Miami press to see when she was new.

Recently completed our Wonder cruise, had a great time. Before that cruise I started a thread called STARTING MY WONDER RESEARCH and that was very helpful and I got lots of good info. I thought I'd start another thread and ask people what they know about Liberty. It will be a new to us ship, though we have been on Freedom twice. This will also be our first cruise out of Bayonne NJ and we will drive there. Parking/hotel info will be appreciated. - 9 days to Bermuda, St Martin, San Juan, and hopefully Labadee.

Ok, back to work on this review, as limited as it is. I've probably forgotten a lot so I'll throw out a few facts and what few pictures i took. I think i am going to take my camera with me on my next cruise. Thursday we arrived in St Martin right on time and we were the only ship in port. We walked to the taxi area and requested to go to Orient beach. I would have paid extra to go right then with just the two of us, but they made us wait till they had 7 people to go. We waited about 20 minutes, which wasn't too bad and i think it cost us just $20. The wait was probably worthwhile as our very nice driver asked what time we wanted to be picked back up again. A couple and their teen age daughter got off at the Bikini beach area and the rest of us in the van went to the nude section, which is a must for me when we are in St Martin. If you want to see all of Blue Collar Diamond and Mrs BCD, you just have to book an Eastern cruise with us 🙂 The driver asked us what time to pick us up and we all agreed on 3pm and that worked out perfect! The weather was perfect and we had 5 wonderful hours on my favorite beach. On the way back we asked to be taken directly to the ship instead of downtown. That worked just fine, i think the taxi drivers get a kick back to bring you to the downtown area where you can take that water taxi (waste IMO) or walk a half mile to the ship. We had two sea days left and they were relaxing and nothing of major interest happened, so i think I will wrap this up and then start researching my next cruise, (Liberty out of Bayonne next May, our first 9 day cruise! My wife now says Wonder is her favorite ship. I did the payments, so I enjoyed myself, but don't think its worth the new ship premium. I would go back again on her with no hesitation. I didn't enjoy the shows as much as our other Oasis class cruises. I'm not a big broadway fan and am glad I got to see CATS on Oasis. Even though I thought that was boring, at least I can say I saw it. I found all the shows, with the exception of the comedy shows, underwhelming on Wonder. We kept our baggage and did self carry off and it was very easy, we were on our way back home by 8am. Great cruise and I am now retired! A few more pics i don't think I have shared yet.

Correct, I will be back there again in Nov!

Nancy, enjoy your cruise! Now that I am officially retired I got busy and forgot to come back to this review! I'll get back on it soon!

I've been so busy celebrating retirement that I haven't been back here, 2 weeks in and all is well, planning my next cruise!

I bet I know whom you mean by the comic you missed. He was on the same shuttle bus as us when we left the ship. He was good both times we saw him., Yes it was Ronn Lucas, we enjoyed him a lot.

On this night we did go to the Headliner act in the theater and we stayed on the lower level. I'm struggling to remember his name, but he was good and it was a good show. Between the comedy acts and this show, they were our favorite shows on Wonder.

Speaking of the running track, obviously the ship designers used wind tunnels to design the ship and this part didn't have any problems with wind you might have on the pool deck when traveling 20 knots. However, on this day the wind was going around the front part of the track and it made a whistling noise that sounded like the beginning of the TV show TWLIGHT ZONE. Speaking of noise, on our Jewel cruises (2) we purchased the THERMAL Suite package and utilized it a lot. On Jewel, they told us they limited the sale of this package to about 90 people (from fading memory) When Oasis premiered in 2009 or 10, It was reported that they over sold this and it was too crowded. I read that multiple times over the past 14 years or so. This time we had $250 in onboard credit and the Thermal Suite was reasonably priced and available as soon as you go on the ship. The only time I ever found it too crowded was when we went there right after all aboard time at Coco Cay. Otherwise we really enjoyed the heated chairs, steam room, dry sauna and rainfall shower. It was a relaxing place, but there was a lot of banging and other loud noises around us at times, taking a way a little from the peace and quiet, but we still enjoyed it a lot.

I woke up early on day 4 our arrival into St Thomas.I did my usual 2 mile morning walk on the track. This was our 4th time on an Oasis class ship going to St Thomas and St Martin. On our first 3 cruises we went to Nassau instead of Coco Cay, I'm happy with that choice, but for all of the time I have watched Wonder on this route, she typically doesn't arrive into St Thomas until after noon while the other ships get there by 8am. I know Royal can get the ship to St Thomas earlier, have seen it done, but it must burn up more fuel and cost them money, but I think on these mega ships they want you on the ship more than off, using that old THE SHIP IS THE DESTINATION mentality. With only 3 ports in 7 days, we get enough ship time and I dislike getting into St Thomas afternoon and not be getting to an excursion until well after 1pm. At least we got to stay ashore till around 7pm. We primarily go on our own or private excursions, we have had good luck with that in many ports and while I love Royal, their excursions group, like their IT group it is not the best part of this company. Friends on Symphony recently tried "Secret beach and Skyline Drive" excursion through Royal, so given the short time in port, we went with that. It started with the cattle call and standing out in the hot sun while they organize the transportation to the various excursions. I'd rather not waste what little time stnading around waiting and get on with it, especially on this late arrival. Once transportation was sorted out, we were on our way in one of the famous open air vehicles and I did enjoy the ride to this particular beach, which does appear to be open to the public, but they limit the number of people each day. The beach was nice, the people at the check looked and were disorganized. The excursion description said beach chairs and rum punch. They didn't have enough chairs for everyone by a factor of having half of what they needed. The operators claimed there was more ships in port than normal and caught them off guard. I know for a fact this was a lie as the same ships were in port every other Tuesday for the past 6 months. There have been exceptions when ships didn't go to Labadee and ended up here, but for today that claim was pure BS. I wasn't fond of having to wait our already short time waiting for a place to sit. The rum punch was something they through together on a card table using ingredients they picked up at a local conveinence store. The beach was nice, the drive up and back was nice, but this excursion under performed in most ways and I wouldn't do it again.

As per my normal review mode, I get back from vacation and am far behind on work, and struggle to get the review done. Once again, I am way behind on work, but now I care less than previous years as I have 12 work days left and I'm not working that hard. However, I did mention the struggle of not having my camera and not taking notes this time. Its a pain getting all my pictures in one place and organizing them, I thought I would take a moment and post a few pics about things I have already talked about and skipped the photos. Our first stop on board at Sorrento's we were able to get our freestyle cups as soon as we got on board. Our Cabin 6286. And our balcony. It was too crowded at boarding time to get the picture below of this giant artwork on the promade, so we went back around 11:30 when the promenade was nearly deserted and yet we still had trouble getting this photo. More times than I could count people would walk up between me and my subject and take their selfies. Most times I remained calm and waited for them leave so I could my shot, but at least 3 times teenage girls got in the way and then stood around browing their new pics, or even doing a live chat while we were trying to get the pic. I soldiered through it and didn't kill any one. Once I had to ask someone to finally move on so we could get a shot too.

Day 3 was our first sea day on the way to St Thomas and once again we had breakfast at Johnny Rockets. This time I did pay an extra for the breakfast burger. (Burger with egg on top) I was ok, probaby worth $5 and the service was very good and the weather perfect. Soon we were up at the pool for some sun and splashing around. At 9am we were able to find 2 decent chairs close to the Beach pool. That early the Splashaway bay water area hadn't opened yet so the beach pool was full of kids. That wouldn't be a problem as they would leave when the pool when the water park area opened up. (mostly) The main problem with the kids in these pools is that, like some adults, they seem to congregate and socialize on the ladders going into the pool. I can no longer just jump into the pool and when its crowded that isn't wise anyway, i need to use the ladders, so I had to say "excuse me" multiple times each time getting in and out of the pool. We did stay there till about 4pm and got dressed for the DL and turned our thoughts to dinner. This was the first formal night and we decided not to bring anything on the cruise beyond casual, so we skipped it and had snacks in the DL (really good jerk wings) and then thought about going to El Loco Fresh. Unforunately El Loco had a huge line at 4:30 and was closed when we went back about 40 minutes later, so we ended up at the Windjammer and it made for a nice dinner with plenty of seating. That night we saw "The effectors" show. We arrived early , even though we did have reservations, It can be hard to get good seats together. We walked in and the crew members scanned my wife's card and said, "You are D+, you can sit up in the VIP section in the balcony, best seat in the house. My wife being thrilled at this went up the nearby stairs and into the balcony. We sat in the front row and quickly realized the railing in front of us was too tall and you couldn't see the front of the stage unless you leaned forward. I knew leaning forward block the view of people behind us. We moved to row 2, not much better, same with row 3, so we ended up in row 4. As we sat waiting for the show to start, we saw no less than 20 people do exactly what we did, start in the front row and move up to row 4. I would say the first three rows in the balcony at this theater are WORTHLESS! I like most shows, but this one was what I consider lame. It has some nice technology and costumes, but the plot was horrible, so it was just singing and dancing that was probably semi enjoyable, but I will stick with LAME. I will not watch it again. Oh, I amost forgot! On this first sea day we elected to have lunch at Playmaker's We really enjoyed this on the promenade on Mariner. We enjoyed the wings, rings, and drinks. On Wonder, the Playmakers is on the boardwalk. We got there at 11 and couldn't find a seat and there was no crew member to help. Playmakers being outside and with multiple big screens it is a hang out where people will come and stay for hours. We were lucky to see someone leave and grabbed that seat before it could be bussed clean. After 15 minutes and after we ordered, we saw a couple from our roll call struggling to find a table, so we invited them to join us and it made for a nice conversation. While we were on the boarwalk, they started having a family event with games and prices that we watched from our table. They also had pop corn and cotton candy for sale, so my wife loving both (blue collar remember) had to get both.

@firefly333 I initially adopted the "Blue Collar" moniker in my reviews because of my simple meat and potatoes diet and lack of a sophisticated pallate. Later when we became Diamond I adopted of it as many people thought all Diamonds were stuffy boring people. I'm not stuff, but perhaps a bit boring, especially as I enter my GET OFF MY LAWN years.

Welcome back. As per usual, I have a ton of work to catch up on, but time I'm also training my replacement as I retire in 3 weeks. I'll get back on it!

We did also check out the “Diamond” Lounge the first night. Like on Symphony, it was down on deck 4 near the comedy club and studio B. It was the usual type seating, some lite appetizers and pretty much slow bar service all week. This was our first cruise as D+ so we did use the 5 drink vouchers each day all week, so I guess people feel less of a need to use the DL. It rarely had more than 5 people at any time. We did visit daily. The bar service never got better. Day 2 started early, I saw we were nearing Coco Cay and that the Celebrity Beyond was already there. Unfortunately we were on the port side of the ship and we docked on the starboard side, so I didn't get to take a very good look at Beyond. We went down to Johnny Rocket's and had breakfast. Gina had 1 egg, bacon and toast. It was good. I had scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon with a side of sausage. It was all good. They cleared both ships at the same time and we headed ashore. When we were last in Coco Cay, the new Adult hideaway was just being started. While we have been happy with the Coco Cay Beach Club, those prices have gotten ridiculous. We also enjoyed the Chill Island Beach area. Since there was so many kids on this cruise, we thought this was a good time to try the new Adult hideaway. We had heard some good things about it. A week later I am sitting in my basement at my computer and I realize I didn't even take my phone off the ship, which is my norm, but I had no camera, so I apologize for the lack of photos of this new area. We walked the length of the pier and turned right and walked about another 30 yards to the tram to the adult hideaway, it was quick and easy. We walked past a couple of bars and onto the beach at its east end of what looked like a big horseshoe beach with a closed off lagoon. We also walked by several nice lounging areas with shade and down to the middle of the beach, right near the pool. It was a good spot with bar service nearby. Getting off the ship early we could have gotten several hammocks, swings, in pool seats, and other "desirable" seats, but we chose two front row beach recliners and had a great day. It wasn't till noon when we finally saw people from Beyond showing up in any show of force. It was noon before the area even remotely looked like it was getting full. Initially we used 3 chairs between the two of us. As soon as the place looked like it was beyond 50% full (noon) we gave up that chair. Our seat on the beach was near the infinity pool and from our advantage point you could see people leaning out the pool edge looking at the ocean. From our view, everything from the waist down was amplified, so it gave people a funny appearance. Again, I never thought to take my phone out. We had a bar close by and was able to stay hydrated and enjoy the warm water on this beach. We were closer to the Pizza place and had a couple of slices of pizza, After that I did walk down to the other lunch location and saw a nice menu, but we already ate, so we didn't check out the sandwiches and salad offered there. We did go down for ice-cream though which did hit the spot on a hot day. In the 6 or so hours we did spend there, we did get a nice warm rain shower that was light and only lasted a couple of minutes. We enjoyed ourselves and I think in the future we will go back to Chill Island or watch for sales at the Coco Cay beach club if there are not a lot of kids on our cruise. If we go on a more kid busy cruise we will go back here. (Now off the look at pricing for Coco Cay for my 2025 cruise) So that concludes probably the worst done review of Hideaway beach. It was fine, affordable and a good time. DAy 2 ended with another trip to the DL, Lasagna in the MDR and the Comedy show in the attic on deck 4. Both comedians were very good, had a good time.

This review might be a little light by my standards, didn't take a camera, or notepad with me. We did see all the shows, but I didn't right down when they were other than the aquatheater the first night. The Comedian on night 2 and ice show on night 3, and the Effectors on night 5. We were able to find a show around our 7:45 dining time.

For sailaway we did get a spot at the Beach pool and hung out in the pool The first thing I noticed there was the big screen above the pool. I think I read it was a 4K screen, which I don’t know for a fact, but it was one of the nicer at sea big screens I’ve seen. Team that with the fact they had crew members with wireless 4K camera all over the pool deck filming the sail away party. Nice use of Tech! Next up was dinner, we have been, I think the last cruisers hanging on to late seating traditional dining. The reason I say that is I selected large table for 8-10 when I reserved, but we ended up with a table for 2 on deck 5. In most of my previous cruises MTD had its own deck and the remaining decks were traditional early and late dining. As per usual when we walked by the dining rooms before first seating there were people waiting to get in. That was the case this time. Usually the doors would close for a bit between seatings with the exception of the MTD deck. One day 1 we walked in and found are table, our late seating time was 7:45, but we intentionally arrived at 7:50 so we didn’t have to stand in line outside the door. When we arrived at our table, other tables nearby were already eating their appetizers. Later in the week I would arrive right at 7:45 and saw the same thing. Each day it was different people at the tables around us, so I suspect we were the only late diners on our server team’s list and the rest of their tables were MTD. First night was well done, quick service, good food, good bar service. We were happy. I did learn our waiter Ruth, this was her first contract with Royal and this was her first week on the job. I thought she did a nice job, just a little soft spoken, my wife would repeat things for me as she is use to. Speaking of new crew members, I don’t know how often any ship replaces people and how many at a time, there were a lot of brand new crew members starting that day. I saw dozens of people getting tours around their new responsibilities the first day. We had the same usual Royal service so no problems, I just found it interesting to note . We have found with our 4 cruises so far on the Oasis class that its best to book the aquatheater show for the first night. We did that this cruise as well. We showed up about 20 minutes early and they were seating people with reservations. We chose to sit in the very back row with high top chairs and a table in front of us. Made for nice viewing. The show was interesting, mostly dancing and some acrobatics, Far less diving that other shows. Someone pointed out the all-female cast, which I didn’t notice, but its true. The show was worthwhile, just not my favorite from what I have seen so far. Finally at the end of the first night was the casino. I am not a big casino person, but my wife had picked up a slight slot habit at the local Eagles club since retirement. I would play slowly while keeping an eye on her. (That was needed when one guy tried to hassle my wife while playing one machine. A couple was playing 2 machines near me, she got up and left while the husband played the next one. She was gone a good 10 minutes and my wife sat down at the machine his wife was using. She put in a cashed out bet slip from another machine and started playing. The husband got up and started yelling at my wife that he had money in that machine. She said it had been empty so she started playing it. He again stated he had money in it. My wife asked how much he had it in it and he said $20. I saw my wife's bet slip and she had put 17 dollars in the machine which now showed barely over $20. He insisted my wife give him $20 and she stood up for herself and told him to get lost, she shouldn't have walked away. To the right of my wife above is Gina's new friend from our roll call who imparted some slot advice that turned out to be pretty good. She ended up probably about $150 for the week and I donated about $80. Not prime members by any means.

I did hear good things about the Windjammer on this ship I was anxious to see it. On Allure the WJ seems pretty big as it sits on the entire deck 16 across the ship and is over the top of the Boardwalk. On Wonder, it is on deck 15 and is split into two sections with the boardwalk area splitting the WJ into 2 parts. When we walked through it was busy, but plenty of tables were available and I noted more counter type seating like I have seen on Freedom. We liked the layout and thought it worked well. Boarding a little later than normal our room was ready in what seemed like a quick time. About our cabin: We usually book Oceanview Balconies and usually try to get deck 12. This was one cruise I booked less than a year ahead of time, so I don’t know how it was initially, but the price difference between pick your own room and selecting a guaranteed balcony was about 75% more for picking your own. Previously it hasn’t been much more than about $100 or so for picking your own room. Being the Memorial Day Holiday was this cruise week, that might have played a part, but I “suffered” through the unknown cabin assignment for months! In the months between booking and boarding the ship our work/financial situation stabilized a bit and I put in my official retirement notice at my day job, so we decided to look at room upgrades. I know to watch pricing and how to use the ROYAL UP program. On my last Mariner cruise when I looked at this, the increase from OV Balcony to Junior Suite was more than the price of selecting SUITE GUARANTEE. So I watch pricing continuously. This cruise was near capacity early and stayed that way. When the Royal Up bids went out I checked the current pricing to upgrade to each class above me and even the Balcony to Junior Suite was $4000 or more for the week. As I mentioned our financial situation stabilized and we were celebrating quite a bit with this cruise, I put in several , what I considered to be aggressive royal up bids. My most aggressive was for a Crown Loft Suite. I fell in love with that class of cabin on Allure when our roll call had a cabin crawl. Friends we made on that cruise a Mother and Daughter traveling together were given a free upgrade from JS to this Crown loft! Well, it didn’t matter none of my bids were accepted. When we got down to the last 45 days lots of people who bid from inside to balcony won their bids. A handful went from interior or ocean view to JS even. About a month out I found out our cabin was 6286 an ocean view balcony on the port aft part of the ship. The ocean view was good, with only looking straight down blocked by the lifeboat below us. But it would do just fine. The location was fairly close to stairs and made for quick access to the Boardwalk, Promenade, Casino, and dining room. The only odd thing about deck 6 was there is quite a bit where there are no inside cabins because of the boardwalk and 2 story promenade. When walking to our room once, I was somewhat alarmed to hear a trumpet player warming up as I walked down the hall. I thought it was coming from a cabin! Turned out a band was warming up on the balcony above the promenade. I would say from about 6230 to 6208 you might as well have had the band in your cabin. Our Cabin would have been across from the level above Playmakers and was pretty quiet. My last 2 cruises were on a JS and a GS, so this seemed small, but normal for a regular ocean view cabin. There were a few minor upgrades to previous cabins I have been in, which included lamps with USB ports and a big screen TV at the bottom the bed (looked like about a 55” Samsung.) I would later notice that the bathroom had a night light and their was a tiny light on the light switch to allow you to find the switch and bathroom easily in the dark. This is a great feature for a 65 year old man. I’ve almost walked out of my cabin a few nights on the way to the bathroom and unless it was a nude cruise, that might not go over well. The cabin served us well for the week, but I hope they test those USB ports on occasion as they are making us carry our phones with us, so we will need reliable places to charge them and my experience with hotel USB ports is not good!