Just home from 1/2/10 cruise

[mamagina]

I will post a more detailed review as soon as I get my act together. But I just want to get some quick tips down for those of you sailing soon:

 

1. If you use the luggage tags that they send you in the mail make sure you cover them with packing tape to strengthen them. I put two on each bag and they ripped off and one of our bags had to be found

2. Make reservations for the shows--while everyone does eventually get in to the show (I did not hear that anyone was turned away) the people without reservations have to wait on a very long "standby" line. Those with reservations get to walk in to the empty venue (aqua theater, opal theater, comedy club or ice rink) and pick a seat up to ten minutes before the production. When they let the standby people in there is mad, unneccessary rush for seats which is quite stressful. When it is all over there are plenty of seats (maybe not in the comedy club because it is small) even in the ice rink--the frenzy is unnecessary but I think the staff doesn't know what is going to happen so they have to stick with the proceedure.

3. Make a reservation for the zip line as soon as you get on--even if you only think you may want to go--I actually did not want to go and my husband and daughter talked me into the reservation and I did it and loved it! There are only 2100 spots for ziplining and there were 5800 people on our cruise. By about 12:00 noon on the second day of the cruise all spots were taken. Our friends reserved on Sunday morning and got some of the last spots. Many people were dissappointed!

4. If you want an i-phone to use on the trip get it right away also. We happened to pass the table on the way to signing up for ziplining because they held the sign ups in the ice rink on the first day. (usually the sign-up is on deck 15 at the flowrider desk but they were doing some repairs so they were at a table in the ice rink). We asked about the phone and said we would think about it and the woman told us they would sell out soon. We signed up at about 2pm on the day of embarkation met our friends for lunch and told them to go down and by the time they did an hour later they were sold out. There are only 150 phones available right now they will be getting 150 more for the Jan 16th sailing and then more every two sailings until they have 800. We took two phones at $17.50 each for the week. They were very cool to have. You can call and chat, the daily compass is right on the screen and they have a sort of GPS where you can find the other passenger with the other phone. Beware-- it is $1000 if you lose or damage the phone in any way.

 

5. Reserve your specialty restaurants--we didn't want to go but we heard that people were dissapointed and that there were only early or late reservations available.

 

 

All in all the cruise was amazing and the ship was incredible! Due to its size and the number of passengers you need to do a little more planing.

[Chari910]

Did you mean Dect phones and not iPhone? If they were iPhones, can you make calls back to the US?

[mamagina]

They werereal MAC iphones. They have no sim card and only work on the ship's wireless system when on the ship. They do not work off the ship in port. You can only call the other people in your cabin but you can chat with anyone else on the ship who has a phone. You had to make sure you were always connected to the "royal connect" wireless system in order to make and receive calls. You cannot call any other cell phone or home. They really operate like walkie-talkies.

[CanuckMO4]

I will post a more detailed review as soon as I get my act together. But I just want to get some quick tips down for those of you sailing soon:

 

1. If you use the luggage tags that they send you in the mail make sure you cover them with packing tape to strengthen them. I put two on each bag and they ripped off and one of our bags had to be found

2. Make reservations for the shows--while everyone does eventually get in to the show (I did not hear that anyone was turned away) the people without reservations have to wait on a very long "standby" line. Those with reservations get to walk in to the empty venue (aqua theater, opal theater, comedy club or ice rink) and pick a seat up to ten minutes before the production. When they let the standby people in there is mad, unneccessary rush for seats which is quite stressful. When it is all over there are plenty of seats (maybe not in the comedy club because it is small) even in the ice rink--the frenzy is unnecessary but I think the staff doesn't know what is going to happen so they have to stick with the proceedure.

3. Make a reservation for the zip line as soon as you get on--even if you only think you may want to go--I actually did not want to go and my husband and daughter talked me into the reservation and I did it and loved it! There are only 2100 spots for ziplining and there were 5800 people on our cruise. By about 12:00 noon on the second day of the cruise all spots were taken. Our friends reserved on Sunday morning and got some of the last spots. Many people were dissappointed!

4. If you want an i-phone to use on the trip get it right away also. We happened to pass the table on the way to signing up for ziplining because they held the sign ups in the ice rink on the first day. (usually the sign-up is on deck 15 at the flowrider desk but they were doing some repairs so they were at a table in the ice rink). We asked about the phone and said we would think about it and the woman told us they would sell out soon. We signed up at about 2pm on the day of embarkation met our friends for lunch and told them to go down and by the time they did an hour later they were sold out. There are only 150 phones available right now they will be getting 150 more for the Jan 16th sailing and then more every two sailings until they have 800. We took two phones at $17.50 each for the week. They were very cool to have. You can call and chat, the daily compass is right on the screen and they have a sort of GPS where you can find the other passenger with the other phone. Beware-- it is $1000 if you lose or damage the phone in any way.

 

5. Reserve your specialty restaurants--we didn't want to go but we heard that people were dissapointed and that there were only early or late reservations available.

 

 

All in all the cruise was amazing and the ship was incredible! Due to its size and the number of passengers you need to do a little more planing.

How did youfind the food.

[LBumb]

the phones are an awesome idea. I would have to buy insurance of some type since my kids lose everything!!!!!!

[kk99]

Thanks mamgina for the details. Did you have any problems with overcrowding at the pools or solarium? glad you enjoyed the zipline, we will all be doing it on our cruise:D If you get a chance would you please add your cabin information to the thread I started about the cabins. It would be a big help to all of the rest of us future Oasis sailors. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1093515 Have a great week,

KK

[dianfarmer]

How was the Aqua Show ? Are they still having problems ?

[starcat]

The Aqua show was great. I did not notice any problems. The high divers were incredible. I wish it was a little longer but it was very enjoyable, it shouldn't be missed.

[mamagina]

We were two families with two 20 year old girls and a 16 year old boy. We all thought the food was great. We never even thought about the speciality restaurants. We had late seating in the main dining room and everything was served very hot and just to our order. My husband likes his steaks and prime rib very rare and they came out just perfect! We have eaten in the steakhouse on other cruises and we just didn't find the need on this cruise. The wait staff was telling us that they implemented new proceedures for serving which create a more efficient proceedure and it will be going fleet wide. It seemed to work--it looked like they had a "staging area" where everything was brought behind a wall and it was served very quickly. We loved the Central Park cafe for both breakfast and lunch as well as the Solarium Bistro for both also--new innovative choices like the bagel bar, the egg sandwiches, the "create your own salad" and the amazing vegatarian wraps and salads in the solarium bistro really were a hit with everyone in our group. We did not venture into the Windjammer at all because there were so many other choices. We also heard that the windjammer felt crowded which we did not feel at all at the other venues. A big hit with the kids was the the create your own pizzza at sorentos, donut shop and the corndogs at the boardwalk bar. We did not pay any extra for food--speciality or cupcakes!!!!

 

NO INSURANCE AVAILABLE FOR THE PHONES! believe me we asked!

 

The Aqua show was just incredible as was Hailrspray and Come Fly with me and the Ice show---I did not notice any problems at all.

 

We only felt crowded one night on the promenade when they had the 70's Party. That was pretty much the onlything going on on the ship at that time and it was shoulder to shoulder.

[MarkCruises]

Which nights were FORMAL NIGHTS?

[mamagina]

Which nights were FORMAL NIGHTS?

 

Nights two and six--Sunday and Thursday are formal with a very large lobster tail on Thursday.

 

A couple of tips I forgot to list the other day:

 

1. There are cupcake decorating classes at 4 and at 7 some nights in the Cupcake store. They are not advertised in any way (not in the Compass) and you only know if you see the sign up sheet in the store. It is $17.25 to participate--I think a lot of money for a cupcake--but you can watch through the window for free.

 

2.We did the jewelry making class on the second sea day because it was raining (1:30 and 3:30) it was a lot of fun. We made necklaces (free) we missed the matching bracelet and earings which were made in the classes on the first day. After the first two days it is $9.99 per class and they will let you make up what you missed as well as make more. We never got there because the weather cleared up.

 

3. We also did scrapbooking on the rainy day. That is free all week and you get really nice materials and packages to make beautiful pages and frame inserts for your photos. There is not much time to work on the project but you can take all the stuff home. We were sorry we never got back there to do more.

 

4. We did not get up there for Breakfast but we heard that you could not get omelettes in the Windjammer anymore. We did go to the dining room one day for breakfast and had a very nice omelette but no more eggs benedict. They make you choose if you want table sevice or the Buffet when you enter the Dining Room for breakfast. We had a great lunch in the dining room also. Besides the create your own salad at the Park Cafe there is also a similar set up in the Dining room at lunch (like other royal ships) but they have a more extensive selection. You can also order off the menu in the Dining room at lunch--same menu every day, however.

 

5. It was crowded in the solarium on the rainy days--some pretty active fighting for chairs. People just picked up other people's stuff and threw it on the floor even with someone sitting in the next chair watching their partner's stuff. I saw "words" at least on two occasions. Also there were children in the solarium all week. The staff tried to ask the parents to take them out but no one seemed to listen and the staff gave up for a while and then started to enforce the rule again. The kids were jumping into the solarium pool and hot tub for a good portion of each day. Also kids can of course eat in the solarium bistro so they are there too and just logically come out into the solarium area. Royal may want to rethink that and make the solarium "adults only" bistro included.

[CRUISE4_2]

Hi I too just back from the Jan 02, 2010 sailing. Unfortunately we did not enjoy the food in the MDR. The steaks were either under cooked or too cooked. Our party returned the lobster 3 times (it was way over cooked), the salmon was over cooked as well. We also had had the surf and turf(meat from the shoulder and some shrimp). The shrimp were good , but the meat was tough.

We went to Windjammer a few times for breakfast, and yes it gets crowded. I noticed that they do not clean the tables quickly enough(maybe the cause of the over crowding).We did try Chops...it was fantastic. As for the rest, well I agree with pretty much the other postings; great shows, no over crowdidng at the pools(main and solarium) and the food at the other venues were good. One thing I did notice at Promenade Cafe; on the first day they had those little prosciuto sandwiches(yummy) I returned every day to have one and I was always told maybe tomorrow. Unlike Freedom where they had them every day. Seems that that they are penny pinching.

All in all we enjoyed the ship but will not return on this ship or on RCCL. She is too big for us and for the money we spent, the food is much better on the other cruise lines. Also because of her size she can not dock at many ports. Therefore the itenarary will not be very differnt than what we did.

[CRUISE4_2]

Oh I forgot , you can ask for eggs benedict in the MDR even if they are not on the menu. We did and they were good.

[lovesthebeach2]

When were you able to book reservations on-line for the shows?

[lauderdalebob]

That's too bad that staff didn't enforce the "no kids" in the Solarium area. I hate to hear that. It sounds like there are so many other places on this ship for kids to go to, why bring them into the Solarium? I don't get it. Some people just won't follow the rules and just don't care. Sad.

[Older Party]

That's too bad that staff didn't enforce the "no kids" in the Solarium area. I hate to hear that. It sounds like there are so many other places on this ship for kids to go to, why bring them into the Solarium? I don't get it. Some people just won't follow the rules and just don't care. Sad.

I too experienced children in the Solarium and I must admit, it did bother me a bit. This was my preferred restaurant for breakfast because of the granolas and fresh fruits, as well as the smooth jazz they played. I had a screaming child next to me one morning and waited for the staff to say something to the parents, but they never did. I love kids so grinned and beared it but I was surprised the child was allowed in in the first place.

[ahornb]

It was my understanding that kids are allowed in the Solarium Bistro for Breakfast and Lunch, but the Solarium itself and Solarium Bistro Dinner are for adults only. Is this inaccurate information?

[OPSoccermom]

On our Christmas cruise, enforcement of the adults only policy in the Solarium was hit or miss. We had plenty of kids using the pool and hot tubs. I also was disappointed that the cantilever hot tubs were not adults only as they were on Independence. The cantilever hot tubs are designed with a divider down the middle of them. That divider seemed to become a diving board of sorts for unaccompanied kids.

[starcat]

They do adhere to the 30 minute rule in the solarium. If you leave your chair unattended for over 30 minutes they will take all your belongings and put them in a large plastic bag. This didn't happen to me but i saw it happen several times.

[mamagina]

I saw the staff put stuff in bags in the solarium too and that was ok. What bothered me was passengers just throwing stuff on the floor and picking chairs up and moving them. They really should have called the staff over. On one occasion there was a family with two girls sitting across from us. The dad was asleep and the girl next to him got up and was gone maybe 5 minutes (rest room maybe?) a guy just came over and picked up her chair letting her stuff slide to the floor and walkedoff with the chair. I said something but he didn't listen and by the time the dad woke up he was gone. One other guy went to pick up my daughter's bag off the chair next to mine. I said some thin but he didn't understand english so I called the pool attendant over to report it. I saw him say some thing to the guy who became beligerent. We had a screaming kid at lunch in the bistro also. I think the weather caused people's nerves to be on edge and the fact that the kids were all over the place in the solarium it made the whole experience there quite unplesant.

They are definaely not enforcing the no kids rule even on the nice days--

Very inconsistant.

[mamagina]

It was my understanding that kids are allowed in the Solarium Bistro for Breakfast and Lunch, but the Solarium itself and Solarium Bistro Dinner are for adults only. Is this inaccurate information?

 

That is probably the rule but not the practice.