chawkjewel

Oasis for Dec 25 2015

I think generally the JS is roughly about twice what the regular balcony is. So this difference is quite a lot!! Scary!

We are booked on the Dec 26 cruise in a Standard balcony stateroom, since we just returned (April 25/May 2 cruise) we thought we'd like to upgrade to a Junior Suite.....ummm....I think we'll be taking 3 additional cruises at the cost difference.

My Travel Agent quoted us the cost of a JS NOW is about $20,000...vs the $3600 we paid for the original cabin....I guess it's a VERY popular time.

How much is a JS ordinarily ?

Which ship?

Entertainment: we went to the ice show, which was good, Quest, the 70's promenade celebration, and the late night comedy (horrible).

Who was your comedy entertainment? We were on the 4/25 sailing and I liked our comedian.

Hello all! We (family of 5, 3 kids, 17, 14, 12 and 2 grandparents) will be going on our first cruise next March (Easter). We have a Royal Family Suite booked on Royal Caribbean Liberty of the Seas, which will be recently renovated at that time (Jan.). We're now questioning if 2 balcony rooms or ocean view rooms on the Allure (also upcoming renovation) would be better. Allure better ship? Or better to have suite benefits/space? Liberty will have 3 stops: Honduras, Belize, and Cozumel. Allure is going to the Bahamas. Not sure what to do as I am trying to plan for best cruise possible for all in family, likely only cruise grandparents will ever be on. Also, most reviews for Allure are excellent, Liberty reviews very mixed. Thanks for the help!

I would stick with Liberty. We are just off her and, while not as large as Allure, there was still plenty to do. If it were me, I would appreciate the suite benefits. Plus, if the only stop for Allure is the Bahamas, the Liberty is going better places in my opinion. In addition, there is much more square feet in the Family Suite vs. two Balcony rooms. If space is of concern, that is another win for Liberty.

Good luck choosing!!

We also just got off this cruise. We had a great time. The only notable change was that we were never offered anything to drink at dinner other than to fill the water glass. We finally asked the maître d because we hadn't seen our server in a very long time. He was very apologetic and had our bar steward come immediately. The bar steward did return every night but it wasn't the same as in past cruises. We were also never offered coffee during dessert. Not that we would have gotten any but it just seems like a logical question when taking the dessert orders. I don't know if this was a cutback issue or a wait staff training issue.

But again, this in no way hindered us from having a great trip.

Thanks for the review! It was awesome to follow along for the last two weeks.

For those of you who fly in with your wine. How do you package it so the TSA doesnt break it? Im on the AOS in October, and have been saving two really nice bottles for the occasion. It would be a shame to have to wring the wine out of my clothes.

Buy it in PR. The last time we were on AOS they had a wine shop right at the port. But we had already purchased it at a local grocery store with reasonable prices.

We are enjoying glorious weather this week! I'll do a more complete review when we return, but so far the service has been spotty, food in the specialty restaurants has been good to very good. The only show we've made it to so far was the ice show, which was good. Chair hogs were out in full force the first sea day, with some folks hogging two sets of chairs, some in the shade, and some in the sun- shaking my head- hadn't seen that before.

 

 

 

I've sailed RCI many times, but I'm rethinking our cruise on RCI in April 2016. As I mentioned, I'll do a full review, but the best way to describe it is unlike their advertising of the ships of "why not", it has been for us the ship of "not quite" as things are just slightly off.

Keep her safe. We board on Saturday.

Aaaaah... 15 days until I too can awake to a beautiful ocean sunrise! Nothing compares to the beauty! Watching this is getting me so excited for my short little 4 days on the Liberty! I think the sunrises from your balcony with a cup of coffee might just be my favorite part of the day on board! Thanks again for taking us along. Watching this is definitely my favorite part of the day at home!;)

We are on Liberty in 10 days so probably the very trip before you. We'll take care of her for you.

Have to follow. So many of the Harmony TA folks are on this cruise that I feel have I have to follow so we don't lose touch while they are away. Have a great trip everyone!

Carolee

I already made reservations in my online account. Do I have to physically reserve too?

You shouldn't. We made reservations online and they were always ready for us. We were eating alone but where they sat us was in a group of 6 two person tables only separated by a few inches. Apparently there were several other couples that had reservations at the same time because they were usually there. It was great because you got to meet them and share some conversation if you wanted but you could just ignore them and eat alone if that was your preference. They typically moved us to different tables within those six based on when the couples arrived. We enjoyed it.

Still in denial! :(

 

 

 

Quite frankly I am amazed that RCI will give up all that revenue from the short cruises. One or two in the summer fit perfectly with our other travel schedule. We like to drive to port when we can and the 8 hour drive is about as long as we can take, so further south in Florida ( for a short cruise) is not a viable option for us.

 

 

 

Maybe RCI will pull something out of their hat!

 

 

 

M

I really don't think they will give it up. I think they will put a 3/4 night ship there for the summer given that they are now partnering with Universal for vacation packages.

We thought the Centrum was beautiful during the holidays.

I am curious about the A4 category Aqua Theater Suites. Has anyone checked pricing on these? What other suite category are they priced similar to.....Owners Suite, Crown Loft Suite, Grand Suite etc.??

 

 

 

Thanks for your help!!

Expensive right now. With discount, the Grand Suite goes for about 4,279.14 PP including taxes. That's quite a bit higher than the Allure TA. Hope the suite prices come down!!

how much was it to rent electric cars for St Croix and where did you do that?

I believe it was about $20 per hour and we rented them from the same kiosk as our ATV rental but it wasn't the same company (gecko's).

Hi RoyalMuskegon---I'm actually in Muskegon too and getting ready to fly to SJ (out of GR) for our Adventure cruise March 8th. We'll be doing the St Croix, St Maarten, Antigua, St Lucia, Barbados and will be first time there for us. But in 2013 we did the other and visited St Thomas, St Kitts, Aruba, Curacau. We loved these islands. Did rainforest hike on St Kitts using Gregs Safari which was great. Rode trikes around Aruba and had a blast and did a party bus tour on Curacau. You can't go wrong with these islands. Hoping the stops on our upcoming cruise are equally as nice. I can let you know when we return.

 

 

 

Gary

We did the exact opposite, we did the one you are going on now in 2013. This is the trip where we fell in Love with St. Croix and went back to visit on a land trip. In St. Croix we rented electric cars and just toured the area around the pier. We loved all of the islands but our second favorite was St. Lucia. On that island we did a bus and catamaran snorkeling trip. It was great.

My plan is to go do the other itinerary soon.

Oh no! Another week of following a live review. So much for work. [emoji33]. Thank you!

As you can see from my signature, I have been on several different lines. I had only done a couple of cruises on Royal and, frankly, couldn't tell you what made it any different than the other lines. Then last summer my DH and I decided to hop on Freedom for a last minute cruise. I LOVED this ship. It never felt crowded to me. There were so many places to go and different things to see and do. It sounds from your description that we have similar interests. One day on that trip we found ourselves at the Flowrider. We just went up in the stands to watch and really enjoyed it. Never had an interest in trying it ourselves but we really enjoyed watching everyone else.

I've not yet sailed on an Oasis class ship but it is on my wish list. I'm eagerly waiting for Harmony!

Enjoy your cruise, whichever you choose!

I recently booked a cruise for April, 2016. When I was booking it, I found it very strange that the ONLY junior suites available were the connecting cabins. I went ahead and booked. I was watching this regularly and low and behold, a few weeks later, a bunch of non-connecting cabins appeared. I went ahead and changed my reservation to a non-connecting cabin. My bet would be that this happens often and that people never go back and change their original cabin. Sorry to read of your troubles.

I'm hoping Harmony but Oasis or Allure would be fine. Hope I am not disappointed. Guess we will find out in a few weeks.

DEPLOYMENT INFORMATION:

 

Hey, Gang...Look What I Found:

 

 

 

Week Of March 9:

Summer/Fall Caribbean

Northeast and Canada

 

Week Of March 16:

Europe

Alaska

 

Week Of March 30:

Winter Caribbean and Northeast

 

Week Of April 13:

Exotics and Australia

 

Future Deployment:

China

 

This Was From An Official Royal Website

 

-Michael

Thanks for the information. I'm specifically waiting on Transatlantics :D

Paul says hi back:D...(he is working from home today).

 

Actually, now we can just go to Grill's or Fishlips and sit to watch Quantum go by because the only reason we were going to Jetty Park was because I thought it would be a terminal 1.

 

 

 

Have a drink in the CL for me!

Grills is the perfect spot to watch any ship coming into terminal 1. You would get an up close view of it making the turn around.

Being on Deck 2 would likely give you an empty elevator, at least on the way up, which is the more important direction. I would take it. We were on deck 2 once and we enjoyed sitting by the window and watching the sea roll by.

We had 7:30 MTD and were only able to see one entire show. Most shows (some nights only have one performance) are at 7:00 p.m. Plan accordingly.