A Royal Loft Suite Review onboard Oasis

So I have a promise to fulfill. I have written this review of the Royal Loft Suite on the Oasis of the Seas for a few fellow CC members that have requested it.

Some subscribers of this review will have met us before on other cruises and others might just know us from the boards. We have met many great people and made some virtual friends through the boards here on CC. I hope that those who sign up will enjoy my review. For one sailing we opened the RLS to a cabin crawl and we opened the doors to a few other cruisers that we met along the way for both sailings.

So I shall start with the reason to why we have sailed in the RLS. On March 29, 2010 our family that consisted of three became four. There was myself (Andrew), my great wife Lisa and our dear son Owen and the newest member Allison. What should have been an exciting time in our lives turned into what would become some of the hardest but most rewarding time of our lives. When she was 4 months of age Allie was diagnosed with an extremely rare genetic brain disorder called Lissencephaly and Microcephaly. If you wish to learn a bit about her diagnosis please go to the following link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lissencephaly

We were gifted to have Allie with us for 2 years and two days before she passed. Our family went on a long, scary, interesting and wonderful journey that did not tear us apart, but brought us closer together. I will quote from a part of her eulogy that I wrote and read. “With so many challenges in her life, Allie showed us how to be thankful as there is always another day with a fresh beginning. That is how we lived everyday with Allie. Each sunrise was the start of a new day. Just as now with Allie gone, each sunrise is the start of another new day. It’s hard to let go isn’t it? It is hard, but that is life. She taught us that you continue on, just like we did after she was diagnosed.

In life, once in a while you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, and you try desperately to hold on to them. They are the life boats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely illusive. So the question becomes, or should have been all a long... What would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What life boat would you grab on to? Allie taught us to hang onto the things that matter and stop and take that breath of fresh air. Allie taught us to remember the things that we have known our entire lives. Love, Family, Laughter, and Friends.”

With Allie gone we now had to discover our second “new normal” in two years. Our family of four was three again. We were starting to venture down another road in life, a road with just the three of us and a fourth that was with us in spirit.

Having had great help with both of our families we now thought it was time to thank them. Thank them for the help over the numerous times in watching Owen while we were at the local children’s hospital on multiple occasions while she had bouts of phenomena, blood infections, tests, Dr. appointments, surgery for Allie, as well as numerous other reasons. The best way we knew how to say thanks and to make new memories was to do something we enjoy. So we decided to take both of our in-laws on their own cruises as our way of saying thank-you.

Now I will provide a bit of preamble. Some of you might remember our review of our Oasis July 2011 cruise that we took. It was the one where the mirror fell off our wall and landed on our bed in the middle of the night. If not click here: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1474659

Lisa and I took this cruise as a much needed vacation. It replaced a cruise that we had to cancel the previous February. As it turned out Allie’s g-tube surgery was scheduled to be 2 days prior to embarkation. It had been delayed multiple times and had been originally scheduled to be done months prior to our cruise that we had to cancel. So the cancelled cruise date went by and we learned how a feeding pump and g tube work. A few months later we both said it was time for a holiday so we used the refund money to book a cruise on Oasis. I think it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The ship I swore I would never sail on became our oasis. This ship provided us a getaway that was well needed and long overdue. Nights of sleep and days of relaxation, the polar opposite of the life we were living at home.

So now I have answered part of Jrlje question to why we were in the RLS. To answer a few more of her questions on a quicker note. Yes it was for a super special occasion, we covered all costs of both trips, and as you already know it truly is a great story to why we did this. As for the cost, we will leave that to one’s imagination. Now for what I do for work, that is a conversation that is easier to have in person, maybe while having a drink on the Rising Tide Bar. My work is all encompassing and averages 50-60 hours a week. One of the reasons I love cruising is my phone goes into the safe and emails left on the mainland. Our first cruise in the RLS was July of 2012 and the second time was in March of 2013.

So for those of you that have read this far I will describe what this review will be about. It won’t be about the cruise as I am sure that you can imagine the great memories that we had made. It will be to fulfill the request for information about the room itself, and the experience that comes with the room. Many of us have had great experiences on the Oasis so I don’t need to go on about that, or the CL, or the MDR or ports of call. It will be broken out into the room areas and different aspects related to the room. This is a good old fashioned cabin review.

Embarkation

It went very smooth. When we checked in at the suite area Robert was sent over to greet us and he was our escort, no handler, no that sounds wrong… he was our “guy”. He walked with us through the security process, check in, group photos, muster wrist band for our son and then onto the ship. We arrived at port at noon so we were able to right on board. He was going to take us up to the CL, but we thanked him as we knew where we were going. Truth be told we were also embarrassed as he held his papers in the air, cut into lines and made an ordeal of the fact that we were VIP. Anyone who has met me and our family know that is not who we are. We have since met Robert on other occasions as we are suite cruises and we make a point of saying hello. For recent stay in the RLS we just let him escort us to the gangway door and we were on our way. Thankfully no papers were held in the air during the process this time as he has discovered that we are relaxed cruises and not the ones who need to be status inflated.

Deck 17

As we entered the secured area of the loft suites we were rather excited to be approaching our cabin. You know the same type of excitement that you have when you are about to step foot on the ship. We walked down the double wide hallway lined with dark wood paneling which was nicely decorated with photos. The thing that we noticed was the quietness. Not often did we pass the other occupants in the halls at any time of day, and we never had any late night door bell ringing. That is one great advantage of being in any room on deck 17. In the past we have experienced late night doorbell rings that suite cruisers get to experience on other floors of ship. Not to mention the tromping of feet and loud voices as the late night revelers return to their cabins. Hey, someone has to party, that was me a few years ago. Like university days.

First impressions of the RLS

For once pictures in cruise books were accurate. Our first cruise ever was on the Dawn Princess and we had a balcony room. Well we walked into that cabin and wondered where was the rest of the room? Our washroom the night before in the hotel was a third the size of that cabin. It is amazing what a wide angle lens can do. Back to the Oasis, the reason for this review. We slid the room key in the door and open it up. WOW. I would have said holy $^&*, except for the fact that we had little ears with us but we were in the privacy of our cabin. An extremely luxurious one I might say.

Floor Plan of RLS

Andrew and Lisa -

You know from our cruise together on Oasis that your story touched many of us deeply and Allie remains in our hearts as well. Your strength as a family is truly inspiring and we continue to wish you the best.

We have been on the rising tide together and will be there with you again someday - or perhaps it will be in the North Star! Either way hopefully our paths will cross again someday.

Great pictures and information on the RLS! Thanks for taking the time to write your review.

Calm waters always.

Mike & Tami

Entrance Area

This is the view entering the cabin.

View looking backwards.

View of the area. The art work was really nice, not my style, but nice. I liked the colored glass partition.

Common Areas

The next few pictures are of the cabin's general common areas.

The piano is actually a player piano, for those of us who don't have the skills. Both my mom and mother in-law tried reading books over the cruise, however at the end of everyday they fell asleep reading. We flipped through a few books and came to the conclusion that almost all of the books hadn't had their spines cracked. The door behind the piano is to adjoining room 1738. We never heard them and hopefully they didn't hear Owen hitting the ivory.;)

View from above.

No matter who sat on the green couch and numerous different ways it was never found to be comfortable. It is also a "nice" green color.

Guest Bathroom

The shower regular head as well as rain fall head. Looks like it is set for Owen right now.

Guest Bedroom

Owen's stuffy "Juno Dog" has already found its home for the week.

Lots of storage space , large TV, and a safe in this room.

View out of the balcony window.

Loft Bedroom

Loft area from below. There are black out drapes as well as sheers that can be closed to make the loft more private. They didn't drone out my FIL snoring from the downstairs bedroom.

Stairs to the loft. The glass desk way a great place to keep the Compasses, but a toe hazard at night.

View from the top of the stairs.

Talk about luxury! Keep it coming!

Bed area in the loft. The bed was very comfy, especially after a hard day at the kiddie pool.

The TV is a projector with a roll down screen. It was noisy when I rolled it up when Lisa was asleep before me.

View from the bed area facing out.

Walk through master suite closet with a ton of storage. We found a fridge in one of the cupboards three days into the cruise. There was a safe as well.

View towards the master bathroom.

Master Bathroom

WOW is a great descriptive. I think it was larger than our first cabin we ever had. Two showers with separate controls as Lisa like what I consider scalding and she considers mine to be freezing. The rain fall head was set to middle of the road. I must admit I like the shampoo and conditioner. No need to bring ours from home. Have any of you ever noticed how soft the water is on the Oasis. We live in the country with well water and notice the difference immediately. Those who live in the city might not get that comment.

Now for the tub. Should have seen me trying to bath Owen in it. We tried once, then just went to the shower from then on.

Bidet anyone? We passed.:p

This is the view from the shower. I watched a freighter sail by while shampooing my hair before dinner one afternoon.

Owen's bedroom

So if anyone asks how comfortable the sofa bed is I can answer pretty good. Lisa and I would lay or sit with Owen for a few minutes at the end of each day as he was getting ready for bed. This night he also had a snack before bed... I have no idea where he gets that from.;) Now if it was fisherman's plate that night we could've had butter for the popcorn. :D

Nothing like basketball to unwind to. The life of a 5 year old. We are so happy that he was old enough to remember Allie.

Thanks for the great picture tour. I wondered what those suites looked like. I enjoyed your tour.

These pictures are fantastic! I hope to someday have a suite. By the way, I have a son named Owen too. :D

The Balcony

This space is spectacular. Depending on the weather and the temperature it is a gem. Last July is provided us a sanctuary from the blistering sun and this March our cruise was exceptionally cool and windy so it provided us with great sun and no wind. Of course this all depended on the time of the day and direction of the ship relating to the sun.

We used this space a lot. We love the beach pool but this was the next best spot IMHO. I am a flow rider as well, so I have immediate reviewing of the line ups. If the line was short and all was good off I would go for an hour or so prior to dinner. I wave from the balcony and back to the room I would go.

Owen enjoyed watching the basketball court for many of the numerous games that were played there. He would also shoot hoops with the big kids. Overall it was the 20-40 year olds that would pass him a ball to shoot before the younger ones. Quite often he got the basket too, with a cheer or two.

There was a dry bar on the aft facing part of the balcony. We never used it but they had 3 or 4 bar stools set up. No fridge there if I remember correct. If there was we didn't discover it over 14 days of sailing in this room.

We did "get in the hot tub". Best Eddie Murphy James Brown interpretive voice.

We always bring our Canadian car flag with us and mark our balcony. So if you see it you know we might just be on your cruise.

Dinner as we sail out of St Thomas. This was my mom's first and so far only cruise. She loved it and didn't get sea sick. That was her biggest concern.

Dinner entertainment of private flow rider lessons.

The view from above

This picture was taken from our balcony overlooking a Carnival ship in July 2012 in Saint Martin. This March the same ship was docked beside us again. We departed first, just like last summer, and the cruisers waved any shouted back and forth as always.

Little did they know they weren't departing as this was the Carnival ship that had generator problems and remained in port for a few days. We didn't clearly hear what they were shouting but if we had listened a bit more carefully it might have been for "help".

OK, I am sorry... That was just a bit too easy of a joke. I did feel sorry for them though as we were enjoying our final sea days and they were waiting to get flights home.

Cabin Steward’s

We have been fortunate to stay on Deck 17 four times now and have come know and love many of the stewards. We have seen the same stewards on Oasis and Allure as they do rotate from ship to ship. They are the cream of the crop and RC puts them in the prime location. They have half the amount of cabins and each has an assistant as well. They are thorough, friendly and quick. Oh, and yes they work just as hard as the stewards on the lower decks. We always make a point to stop and chat but just for a couple of minutes as their time is valuable.

They helped us with different things such as helping to organize our pressing for the first formal night or removing our dishes after dinner in our cabin. The biggest help was finding my MIL Nintendo Wii, and turning it into the lost and found. A huge thanks to our attendants, Cherry and Sand for finding it behind the bed on day 1 of the next cruise after ours this past March. One can only hope that the guests appreciate their hard work as we do. From what Cherry and Sand said though, we were the tidy ones. I guess there are guests who have stayed in this room who don’t know how to clean up after themselves which is a shame. The pictures that I posted were taken through-out the cruise while we were using the room, not just in the first 10 minutes on embarkation day.

Overall Impressions

We have noticed a few items in the room that will need to be fixed when the ship is in dry dock. There are some broken tiles in the loft bathroom, one of the artistic glass dividers at the room entrance has a crack in it and the electronic curtain controllers are well worn. I will admit that they are hard to use so you could assume that with new tenants each week they see a lot of honest abuse. Another room design issue which is small, but occurs in most every cabin on Oasis, is poor placement of electrical outlets. Hopefully by Oasis 3 they will have them placed better, but they have been placed better on Allure. The wicker chairs on the balcony are wearing on the corners and they are broke. They have sharp edges that can surprise you if you aren’t aware of it. That all being said these are just small items for a room that has hosted hundreds of guests if not more. I guess the new term is first world problems. I guess I notice them because I am in the service industry as well as a background in construction and architecture.

We enjoyed many of our meals at the dining room table or out on the balcony. This was one of the suite perks that we fully enjoyed. We had 2 bottles of Champaign from the concierges and we finished one. We left the other one for our stewards (who said they would gladly enjoy it) along with two WOW cards and two envelopes expressing our gratitude.

As this review is about to wrap up I wanted to close with a few thoughts. To write this review is bittersweet. We never would have cruised in this room if Allie had been born without her life’s challenges. One could never think that someone so tiny could teach so much, but she had an impact on our lives that is immeasurable.

I will close it out with the following three pictures. The first one is of Lisa, my wife and IMHO the mother of the year with our Allie.

The last two pictures are from something that brings a tear to my eye every time I see Frozen in Time in “Studio B”. Perhaps if you see it again or have yet to see it you will think of our Allie. I see Allie as our Thumbelina. I only wish the ending was different.

I hope that all of you that have followed this review have enjoyed it and can one day enjoy this wonderful room as well. Thank-you for following along.

Thank you so much for sharing your cabin with us but mostly for sharing your precious daughter with us.

That stateroom is beautiful!

Uh, excuse me, but I'll be right back. Running out the door to buy some lottery tickets!

Wow!

Thank you for showing us your Suite and my best to your family.

With tears...I thank you for such a great review.

Awesome review and pictures! Thank you! And bless you and your family. I am so sorry for your loss.

Thank you for the wonderful photos and for sharing so much about your personal life.

God bless you and your family.

Amazing pictures, my best to you and your family.

With tears...I thank you for such a great review.

Me too. I hope some cruise I will find you on Rising Tide. I would love to by you a drink.