FlyStef

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so I am curious, what did you do with your passport and ID while you were at the blue hole and tubing down the river. I am debating on buying a waterproof bag.

Left passports and ID in the van (felt very safe leaving it there),but did bring a waterproof pouch for tip money for the guides.

We did the Dunns River Falls AND the Blue Hole in the same day with Liberty Tours November 2015. We were very impressed with Liberty Tours Jamaica, and I had the best experience booking and planning with Ricardo. BTW the blue hole was SO much better than Dunns River Falls.

My family did Thanksgiving on Oasis just this last year (2015). It was a super fun time! Yes, expect tons of large families and lots of kids. We had a wonderful time and it is possible to avoid huge crowds even on a sold out holiday sailing. No issues getting elevators, etc. The Christmas decorations started going up Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving. There was a Thanksgiving turkey dinner option, and while no pumpkin pie, there was a pumpkin dessert, I can't remember if it was pumpkin creme brulee or cheesecake. There was also an apple pie/cobbler like dessert if I remember.

Thanksgiving on a cruise is wonderful, nobody has to cook or clean up (at least for the cruisers, not so much for the hard working staff). But overall we had a wonderful time! Have fun, and make reservations early!

Interesting, in that I don't see anything in the VSP Construction Guidelines that would allow this to be an infant-only pool. However, it has passed USPH initial inspection at time of construction, and has obviously passed periodic inspection since. The granting of construction and operation of an infant-only splash area is through the application for and approval of a variance to the VSP, but I have never heard of a variance given for something that does not meet the guidelines as set forth in the VSP.

I wonder if since RCI doesn't allow children under 6 months of age, if this pool is not required to meet with an VSP "infant" category.

Ashland - my understanding is that they don't want children of any age going back and forth between the two areas as they don't want cross contamination from the swim diaper pool to the non swim diaper pool.

Okay, went back to my copy of the USPH VSP construction manual to double check the regulations. The infant only water facility must be "zero depth", including not being able to form puddles. It is a water spray area only. The water sprays up and when it comes down, it drains away immediately. So, the small round pool you mention will not be the infant splash area. It is also too close to the other pool, as the design of an infant only pool must restrict access from other water facilities.

 

A couple of other "markers" to identify the infant only area is the required sign, specifically allowing swim diapers, and outlining the rules for use, the provision of a changing table and a supply of swim diapers, and a crew member solely assigned to the splash area.

The baby splash zones currently on the Allure and Oasis, have standing water as shown in this pic, and are shielded from the remaining h2O zone with a similar railing and proximity as shown in the rendering as in the existing pic on Allure.

I too was wondering this as well, and knew it would as Oasis and Allure both have baby splash zones. I found the renderings for the new "Splash Away Bay" design replacing the old H2O zone, may hint at it.

If you notice in the rendering, the children in the smaller circular pool area are much younger, toddlers. And in the other renderings which show the larger pool area of Splash Away Bay, the children look potty trained age and older. I took this as a hint, as to which zones will be for swim diapers and which will not. But that's just an observation, I'm sure there will be official reviews once it comes out.

Wait. The beach they took you to is the beach right there at the ruins ? If so, I wouldn't book this tour. The tulum beaches are amazing but the beach at the ruins is just a small cove tucked in the rocks and if you're there with a bunch of tour groups it would be so crowded; it's not the same. The North Tulum beach is about 5-10 minute drive away and South beach is obviously farther....the North Tulum Beach area is divided by South Beach area by rocks.

The beach the Tulum Ruins and Beach Break by RCI takes you to, is NOT the beach at the ruins. You get on the bus and drive about 25 minutes down a narrow dirt road to a little restaurant resort where you have lunch and can relax on the beach. I forget which resort it was at exactly, but we were right next to a resort called Ahua Tulum, which I remembered because I had a girlfriend who honeymooned at that resort, and I was surprised our lunch brought us right next to that resort.

I already gave my opinion in your previous thread, that I felt it was not worth it. We had a rough rough sea day, and the ferry, and beach break were not worth it, and I was not pleased with the 45 minute "restroom" break, or the small amount of time in the ruins compound itself, or the lack of free time to explore the ruins. I also didn't like our tour guide, he was very nice, but not very knowledgeable. I also didn't like being part of such a large tour group, as they try to keep you further out of the way from the ruins, so people not a part of the tour get to see the ruins better.

If you do go, once inside, leave your tour guide once inside the r uins and spend the time exploring the compound by yourself with a book. You will get more out of it. And just listen in the headphones they give you the time to meet back at the bus.

I'm sure if the seas are not rough, and the weather is perfect and you get a great tour guide, and you don't spend 45 minutes at the tacky tourist shop, it might be a very nice excursion. Unfortunately we didn't have any of those things.

I mentioned this on the other forum, but in case you don't go back there, consider how rough the ferry ride is. We've known people who have taken this excursion, and it's not unusual for passengers to get sick. If you are prone to seasickness at all, I be wary.

YES! Our ferry ride was the vomit comet from hell. Everyone was throwing up everywhere,it was all over the walls, the floors. It was awful. I felt so bad for the ferry workers running all over the ferry with bags and paper towels trying to clean up a mess before the next mess happened.

My family of 10 did the Tulum Ruins and Beach Break with RCI in Nov. 2015. Of everything we did on our cruise, this excursion was the biggest disappointment. We barely got to see the Tulum Ruins. Barely. We spent more time at this awful tacky gift shop the bus stops at on the way for a "bathroom break", than in the Tulum Ruins. Our guide was not very knowledgeable regarding the ruins themselves. He knew about mayan life, but almost nothing regarding the architecture, structures, uses, etc. Also, as part of a large tour group, you are led away from the structures, so you don't get very close to any of the ruins, and when the guide was finally finished, we only had 15 minutes to explore the ruins ourselves. I didn't even see 1/3 of the site. I was so infuriated, and so was most of our family. The beach break was fine, but the day we were there, the beach was covered in several feet of sea weed and the seas were far too rough for swimming. We all would have preferred having that hour and a half in the ruins, and not on the smelly unswimable beach.

Overall, I would go back and do Tulum while staying in Mexico, but not as part of a cruise ship day excursion from Cozumel. It's not worth the travel for the short amount of time you are there. I also didn't think it was terribly well done either, I was not impressed with our guide or the mandatory 45 minute stop at the tacky overpriced souvenir shop.

ETA The ferry fee is included in your tour fare.

There is a sign once you get off the Ferry in Playa del carmen on what bus to load into. It's a bit of a long process.

There is a fair amount of walking, being able bodied is important for this tour.

We did it in November and loved it. Yes it's expensive for a short burst. If the cost will prohibit you from doing other things, I wouldn't spend that much. However my group all wanted to do it and we had a blast doing it. Yes there are cheaper and longer zip lines over the world, but we felt the dragon's breathe was unique since you are over ocean and race the waves. There are a million canopy zips, not so many over ocean zips.

Be very careful in where you spend your money as not all elephant encounters in SE Asia are equal, and many really mistreat and exploit the elephants for tourist dollars. I honestly would be very wary of an elephant encounter that is large enough to handle the RC volume of tourists. The elephant encounters that have elephant carriages on top, I really really dislike. As the straps around the body are very tight and known to cause miscarriages in pregnant elephants, whose gestation period is approximately 20 months (they don't stop working them for 20 months as they are cash cows for the locals in tourist season). Once you've visited elephants in a sanctuary where they are able to roam and eat when they like, and basically be elephants, you will notice how sad and depressing the body language is from those elephants who are giving rides to tourists.

ETA: Just looked up the Elephant Safari Ride - OE05 on RCCL website, and the photo shows it's a ride with those awful carriages on the backs of the elephants. I vote no.

I was on oasis in November and it was very soft and comfortable mattresses! My mother thought it was the most comfortable cruise mattress she ever slept on.

I was also worried about this as my passport expires in March 2016 for my November 2015 cruise, but I researched it and none of the 6 month rule countries were on our cruise and I was fine.

It's a beautiful production on Oasis! I love musicals, and while CATS may not be my favorite (or even top 15), I enjoyed it. Just enjoy the singing and dancing and production, and don't try to understand too much of it. It's really just a bunch of poems mashed together with a tiny thread of a plot.

I booked a 9:50am flight for returning home off Oasis. We did self assist carry off departure at 6:15am and we were at the airport by 6:35 and decided to hop on the 7:45am flight than sit around and wait for the 9:50am.

Removed

Thanks Stef. :) But I gotta say, if you look at my picture compared to that Princess rendering, I'd say Princess exaggerated a little. ;)

Quite possible, Princess may be including the thickness of the walls, where as Royal maybe only be including clear open space. There are a lot of ways to calculate square footage. Sometimes something as imperceptible as 6-8" of additional width can add quite a bit of square footage to a room but not really feel much more generous, especially if it's not taken advantage of with clunky boxy furniture.

It's one of the area's where RCCL IMO, does more with less. RCCL's cabins are much more efficiently laid out IMO. Princess wastes a lot of square footage in the closet and the hall to the closet, and the bathroom is also not as efficient. Where as RCCL has a much tighter and more efficient closet and bathroom, which allows more room in the stateroom.

I'm wondering if anyone can tell me the basic differences between Royal Caribbean and Princess? We have only cruised Princess before, but, we're looking at booking an 8 night out of FLL on the Navigator. TIA

Princess balcony cabins are typically larger than RCCL equivalent. A standard balcony room on Princess is around 233-298 sq ft (not a mini suite), where as standard ocean view balcony rooms on RCCL tend to be 182-200 sq ft. That extra room is basically where Princess has a more generous closet and bathroom. Regal and Royal Princess ships you finally got a seating couch, where as most RCCL equivalent rooms already included a seating area. Coral, Caribbean, Ruby Princess ships etc you would get 1 chair in a balcony stateroom with no couch.

Princess soda package is MUCH more affordable at $5.18

per person/per day before taxes and gratuity. RCCL's is $22 per day. When you get to adding beer, wine and cocktails, the prices get much closer, princess at $56.35 per day per person, and RCCL's premium package at $57 per person per day.

Princess target audience seems a bit older IMO than RCCL's IMO. There are more active things to do on RCCL's ships, such as rock walls, flowriders, zip lines, ice skating etc. Princess doesn't really offer anything along those lines, which is fine, lots of people don't want or need them. RCCL's H20 zone for kids is great for young families. IMO, this is one of the reason's RCCL attracts more young families than Princess. You will see young families on both lines, especially depending on sailing and ship, but RCCL tends to cater to young families more so than Princess IMO. This can be a positive or negative depending on what you are looking for.

Princess does Movies Under the Stars better than RCCL, and has better pizza. Both have good food and service.

My parents are avid Princess cruisers, and we just took a big family vacation on RCCL's Oasis of the seas for Thanksgiving, and it was a bit of an eye opener for my parents. Princess ships tend to be very classy and very tame, where as RCCL's goes for the wow factor and packs a whole lot of punch in every corner. I think when we cruise together as a multi generational family, we will cruise RCCL as it offers more activities across a broader range of interests. However when my parents cruise by themselves, they will likely go back to Princess for a quieter more serene experience (less kids).

Just wanted to update this, to say Jesse Hamilton was a GREAT Headliner! So fun and full of energy! Really enjoyed his show. Also, what a professional, during his last number there was an "Alpha, Alpha Alpha" call over the sound system, and it didn't phase him a bit, cuz he finished up like nothing ever happened. Great voice, very funny and interactive.

We've not tried Princess yet ... every time we look, seems we end up with Royal Caribbean! One of these days maybe! Thank you for taking the time to share all you did ... I enjoyed it. :)

Glad you enjoyed it! Princess puts out a good product, its just less broad in activities than the Oasis. But for cruisers who want less children and young families on their ship, cheaper drinks and drink packages, and a classy cruise experience without all the extras like rockwalls, flowriders, ice skating and zips, Princess does a very good job.

Great review. Sounds like you all had such a wonderful time. How special you could all travel together.

We did really have a great time, and it is so special when our family can get together for a vacation. It happens much less than we would like, it seems there is always something getting in the way.

Thanks for the review. Any chance you can post the cruise compass?

I did saved the cruise compasses, have not scanned them in yet. Hope to do so later today and will post them.

Service:

I’ve read countless threads on CC about how the service has gone down. This was a holiday sailing at capacity, and I had no trouble getting a drink from a bartender. Several times we were in the cantilevered hot tubs and bartenders came by and asked if we wanted drinks, and we ordered then. It was easy, service was friendly, and the frozen mojitos were divine (thanks Bob for the rec)! Our main dining room servers Greggory and Poppi were outstanding, best I’ve had on a cruise ship. Our stateroom attendant Celvin was great. Check in staff were so friendly. Honestly we didn’t run into one rude person all week. I don’t have a previous RCCL to compare it to, but we all had such a good experience with service all week. The only time I saw long lines, were for MTD for those who had not made reservations. Night 1 on deck 3 at American Icon, the line for MTD without reservations was out the door, through the elevator lobby and wrapping around. It was insane. We had reservations, so we didn't encounter that line, but I would not want to be stuck in that line.

Disembarkation:

I had booked a 9:50am flight home to Atlanta, which I know on CC was a huge no-no. But to be honest, I wasn’t worried. My husband is diamond with Delta, and there are flights every single hour to Atlanta, so if we missed it, I wasn’t worried. We got in line to do express self departure on the promenade at 6am. At 6:13am, the gangway opened and we were cleared to disembark. By 6:24am (11 minutes later), we were through border control and in a Taxi on our way to Ft Lauderdale airport. Arrived at Ft. Lauderdale airport at 6:38am, and checked in with Delta to see if we could get on an earlier flight, maybe the 8:30am flight? Delta said we could still make the 7:45am flight as we had 65 minutes to take off so we could still check our bags! YES! So at 7:45am, we took off from Ft Lauderdale airport, by 9:15am, we landed in Atlanta, thanks to priority checked tags on our luggage, we had our luggage, got our UBER and by 10am were unlocking the door to our house and welcomed home by a herd of happy doggies. Since we got home earlier than we expected, and it was college rival Saturday, and we have season tickets, we made the noon kick off to our college football game downtown. We lost, but still, I made kick off for a noon football game in Atlanta the day I stepped off a cruise ship in Ft. Lauderdale, this still blows my mind!!!

Final Thoughts:

My entire family had a great time. My Mom and Dad realize now that Royal maybe a better fit for when the whole family cruises, although when they cruise by themselves, I think they will go back to Princess for the “serenity”. We were all impressed with how well Royal handled the celiac issues in my family. That’s a huge plus in their favor. Oasis is a beautiful ship and we’re already looking at booking another thanksgiving cruise, possibly on the Harmony. Thanks to Cruise Critic for all the wonderful bits of information. I felt like a pro with my magnet hooks, shoe organizer for the bathroom door, door magnets, knowing how to access the secret viewing deck on deck 14, even though I had not cruised in 8 years and never on Royal Caribbean before. This cruise changed my husband’s mind about cruising, he was never terribly fond of cruising prior (only on Princess before this cruise), he felt it was a retired person’s vacation, and not for younger active folks. Now, he likes the idea of cruising, and he told me he sees no reason to cruise any other line but Royal.

Sunset from ship

Ship on Cozumel:

Cozumel:

My mother really wanted to see Tulum, and although I wanted to do an independent tour, when I started really looking at the logistics of getting from Cozumel to Tulum and back, I realized that there was a gap in the afternoon where the ferries seemed to either not run or those runs were not available to the public as they are bought out by the cruise ships, and those were the critical time periods where we would need to ferry back. So we booked the Tulum Ruins and Beach Break tour directly through RCCL. Of everything we did, this tour was the biggest disappointment. First off, the seas were rough, so the ferry ride from Cozumel to Playa del Carmen ended up being the vomit ferry from hell. It was contagious, once one person started throwing up, it felt like everyone started throwing up, there was vomit on the walls, the floors, the seats, it was everywhere, and so gross. The smell started to make me ill, I ended up putting a tube of sunscreen in my beach towel and held it to my nose and just smelled sunscreen to keep from getting sick myself (I don’t get sea sick, but the smell will turn my stomach). I felt bad for the ferry workers who were running all over the boat trying to clean up all the vomit. We finally got to Playa del Carmen, but the seas were so rough the ferry captain had trouble docking, and then it took a solid 40 minutes just to get everyone off the boat, because the seas were so rough the gangway was rocking and rolling and sliding with the boat. We all finally got off, got in our respective lines, and were led to buses across the street behind some buildings. We were all happy to be on dry land, and headed to Tulum, or so we thought. I knew we were behind schedule (3 hours from getting off Oasis to getting on the bus in Playa del Carmen), but thought there was still plenty of time for Tulum. But then our Bus stopped at this horrible tacky tourist stop as a “bathroom break”. There was a bathroom on the bus, and there were bathrooms at Tulum, we didn’t need a 45 minute stop at a tacky tourist destination. I don’t need to buy Chinese made magnets in the shape of a sombrero. I wanted to see Tulum. We finally got to Tulum, and we had a 15 minute walk from the Bus to the actual ruins where our tickets were finally given to us. Once we got into the Tulum Park, our tour guide then led us up the hill away from all the Tulum structures, and talked for 40 minutes about Mayan life, not Tulum ruins, or the structures he had led us away from, but just general mayan life. At the end of the 40 minutes, he told us we had 20 minutes to explore Tulum and then we were all leaving on the bus. WHAT? I had 20 minutes to actually see Tulum? Seriously? You couldn’t even do a lap at a brisk walk in 20 minutes around Tulum, I tried. My whole family started getting really pissed. We wanted to see Tulum, it was the whole point of the trip, and I get that our tour may have been cut short due to the ferry ride, but we lost 45 minutes due to that awful “bathroom” break at the horrible tourist trap. And then we were racing off to this beach break where the water was too rough to swim. That 45 minutes could have been at the ruins and not at that awful tourist trap shop. We could have cut the beach break down since the surf conditions were so rough. Why cut down the time at the one thing we all went on the tour to see? And why was our 40 minute tour with a guide so far away from the structures in the Tulum compound? And why did our guide not discuss hardly at all any of the Mayan Ruins in front of us, no architecture or construction details. Just that it was a trading post, and most of the structures were limestone. That was it. That was the extent of the knowledge of the Mayan temples in front of us given by our guide. Anyway, we raced to lunch at this restaurant on the beach in Tulum, where the beach was covered in thick seaweed and the seas were very rough. We had a full 2 hours here. Why? I don’t know, I would have preferred more time in Tulum ruins. Our ferry ride back confirmed my initial suspicions, the afternoon ferries from playa del Carmen are fully booked by the cruise ships, the available ferry to the public was at 6pm and would have been too late to make the boat. Overall I’m glad I got a quick glimpse of Tulum, but overall, I wouldn’t do it again. I would wait till I’m staying in Mexico several nights to do Tulum, and then Chicheniza. It was too rushed, and frankly too poorly done for the price.

I got more relevent information off this sign in my 20 minutes in Tulum, than I did from our tour guide.