Just back from Oasis--unofficial review

[chil-laxin]

We are recently back from our sailing last week on Oasis. As part of our “vacation is over therapy” I thought I’d write a review of our trip and the ship. To give a bit of background, my wife and I have sailed many cruises in the past of various size and we have wanted to try one of these new mega ships for a while now but have patiently waited for prices to become a bit more competitive with other lines. We found a great deal back in April and booked for Dec 8th on Oasis to the Western Caribbean. When writing this review, I’ll do my best to remain impartial and offer some different points of view that are always polarizing topics on these forums: food, service, additional “pay-for” amenities, and yes, the hotly debated alcohol package.

 

The Ship:

It’s hard to describe this class of vessel in a word other than “amazing”. To say the ship is huge is an understatement. The pure width and vast open areas are different than anything else sailing. I had read previously on another review that there weren’t a lot of places to see the ocean in comparison to other ships and I would agree with this statement. Unlike most ships with many public venues on the sides, most the common places—neighborhoods, bars, eateries—are all centralized and rooms occupy the outer corridors of the ship. If you wanted to have a good bit of time invested in viewing the ocean on this ship, you would need to spend your time on an upper pool deck or in an ocean balcony cabin.

 

It’s hard to know the capacity of our sailing. The signs said they were full, but then again, it’s been our experience most of the ships have that sign at guest services and my guess would be to help minimize the upgrade requests at guest services. The ship never felt crowded. In wandering all over the ship each day, there wasn’t a time I can recall where I could not have gotten a chair or seat in any venue or at any pool. They do a nice job of having a wide variety of activities and venues to spread everyone out. That being said, we didn’t have a desire to eat at the buffet so heavy traffic times in that area would have gone unnoticed to us.

 

The ship is laid out in thirds. The front third has the theater and Solarium, the middle third has Central Park and the Royal Promenade (one over the other), and the aft third has the Boardwalk and Aqua Theater below with the flow riders and sports deck above. Two main vertical corridors separate the “thirds” of the ship. Each corridor has about 12 elevators and two flights of stairs. I mention this because most of the time, we had no troubles getting an elevator and moving freely between each floor. This has been a challenge for us on previous ships but was not the case here. Our general rule of thumb is over four floors we go the elevator route and anything less we walk to save the elevators for those that really need them. With-in each neighborhood, there were plenty of options for food and beverages as well as entertainment.

 

Our trip provided good weather and calm seas. I don’t think we would have felt much movement on any major ship but we felt next to none on this ship. There were many days leaving port where we were in a central area and completely oblivious to the fact that we had left port. You just simply couldn’t feel it moving. On the last day, we had a bit of rocking but it was sporadic and minimal. The rocking doesn’t bother us at all as it reminds us we’re on the ocean but for someone who is sensitive to this, I would think the sheer size of this vessel will play in your favor. It did rain in the morning at port one day which caused the observation that this ship is meant to be enjoyed in good weather. The only public space under cover is the Royal Promenade so when you take people off the Boardwalk and out of Central Park, it can make that space more crowded. This isn’t much of a problem in the winter months in FL and the Caribbean but may cause some discomfort in the summer months where it rains more frequently.

 

Entertainment:

When describing the entertainment, I think it’s important to note that everyone’s preferences are different. My point of view comes from comparing this ship’s entertainment with that I have seen on other ships and not necessarily what I might have seen somewhere on land. We saw all of the main shows and were mostly impressed with the variety, creativity and quality of the shows. We thought Hairspray was very well done with good talent. This is a big production show for a ship with a cast about double of what you would normally see on most vessels. Most production shows we have experienced on other ships usually has a female vocal talent and a male vocal talent with some supporting dance cast. Therefore, to see a major production show with 3-5 singers of each male and female along with countless dancers was impressive, and the show was well executed. Keep in mind, it’s the only long show (90 min) on the cruise so our 10:30 show time was not full and we assumed it might be due to the length.

 

Oasis of Dreams aqua show was entertaining. The fact that they even have a venue to do that type of show was impressive in itself. It shadows what you might see in a cirque type show but I would be the first admit it never gets to that level. They cram a lot into a 45 min show. I might have preferred that they cut the content in half and really wowed you on half vs. throwing so much at you without quite amazing you. That being said, we found the show to be a solid production and completely original to anything else we had seen at sea. We thought it was a nice show. I would recommend you make reservations and arrive 30 min early as this venue is half chairs, half bleacher-style seating and our chairs appeared much more comfortable than those sitting in the bleacher seating. We did this show at 7:30 and it was probably 95% full.

 

We missed our reserved time for the ice skating show due to a long dinner but were able to catch the show without any problems the next day. This was our least favorite show—not due to the quality of the performers but more so because we had a hard time following any sort of theme. We have seen ice shows on other RCL ships and were very impressed. On this particular sailing, I could have done without it but that’s not to say we didn’t enjoy ourselves and enjoy the talent of the show.

 

Come Fly With Me was a fun show as well. Many of the performers from Hairspray are also in this show as well as some of the acrobats from the water show. It was well put together, well performed, and well executed. We found this show to be quite entertaining and of solid quality when compared to other vessels.

 

Comedy Show: We like good stand-up and opted for the adult show at Midnight. Both performers were funny and both were edgy in their comedy (probably the product of the late night offering) This showing wasn’t your show for kids so keep in mind what you are getting into when going to the late adult show. We loved it but it might not be your thing if you prefer a cleaner form of comedy.

 

Food/Dining:

There are a lot of options regarding dining on Oasis. I think we tried most! We had breakfast at Park Café, Johnny Rockets, the MDR, Solarium Bistro and Windjammer--all complimentary. We found all to be solid choices and enjoyed the Solarium and Johnny Rockets the best. Solarium for breakfast was a nice change of pace to the over-consuming we typically do on cruises. The food was lighter and a nice alternative to everywhere else. Johnny Rockets was enjoyable because it was a classic breakfast where you could get standard all-American fair and eggs cooked to order. The Park Café was more a breakfast sandwich type place and we enjoyed that too. This was our one meal at Windjammers and it was fine but very comparable to any other ship’s buffet. It was nice that they had a team to greet you at the door and find you a table—a nice touch. Also, the buffet stations were islands compared to along the side which made it a bit easier to navigate in the crowd.

 

For lunch, we ate at most of the same venues. We enjoyed the sandwiches at Park Café and the well-mentioned roast beef sandwich. We ate for a cover at Johnny Rockets and it was good as well. In fact, we did this on day one to avoid the common gathering areas and that worked very well as it was very quiet on the boardwalk the first day. I’ve read that others do this with Giovanni’s and for a $10 lunch, you’d be getting a good deal. We also ate lunch in the MDR and enjoyed the buffet they set up in there as well as the cheeseburger. In fact, we would argue it’s one of the better burgers on the ship since it’s not served buffet style and is much thicker. Salads were available in both the MDR and Park Café and are made for you per your directions on the spot which was nice and probably more sanitary than the traditional fare.

 

For Dinner, we ate at every specialty restaurant on the ship except the seafood shack. Giovanni’s, 150 Central Park, Chops, Solarium and Izumi were all great meals. Izumi was nice but our least favorite as it was pretty “safe” sushi with the common ingredients that would appeal to the masses. I can’t blame them at all and it was good sushi but didn’t really wow me. That being said, it was a nice meal to finish the week as it was a bit lighter and we were getting off the ship very early the next day. 150 was excellent. We chose after arriving to do the wine pairing—not something for the budget conscious as it adds another 75 pp in addition to the cover. The meal takes a while but the quality, originality and service were all excellent. The cucumber martini might have been the best thing we drank all week! We love food of all types and enjoy some culinary exploration so this meal was a great fit. However, if that’s not your style, you might not enjoy this venue as much. Giovanni’s was excellent as well and we all left full and impressed! It was also nice to be able to dine outdoors as it was much more quiet and easy to converse. Chops was great too and in-line with other RCL steakhouses or steakhouses of other cruise lines. The Solarium was our second favorite and eating there felt like we had access to one of the ships best secrets. My guess is it gets ignored as a specialty because it’s a buffet during lunch and breakfast. However, it goes through a complete transformation for dinner and becomes menu service as a specialty restaurant. The food was excellent and proof that lighter food doesn’t mean bad food. It has some great original dishes not found elsewhere on the ship.

 

Finally, we ate in the MDR two nights and had great meals as well. It seemed pretty standard for the MDR menu when compared to other RCL ships or other cruise lines of similar make. We felt the food was of good quality and the experience was very good. Service was great on “my time” dining and very efficient. I’ve never been more efficiently moved through a service before in a main dining room. It’s literally clock work as I could hear the servers digital watch timer going off as the next course arrived. You certainly could stay and enjoy yourself as long as you wanted but on both nights we ate there, we never felt like we were waiting on food as courses arrived promptly and consistently. The service in the MDR was a good as I can remember for the 3000 people-plus size ships. Both nights we ate around 830 and had no problems getting right in. However, I would imagine if you wanted to dine at 7:00-7:30 you’d likely wait as you would for a good eatery in a populated city at home. You can make reservations but they will only give you times of very early or very late. This is similar to our experience with anytime dining on Princess and makes sense because you have to keep in mind that a 7pm reservation doesn’t allow them turn that table twice like they can early or late. We just found it much easier to plan on being early or later based on the day’s activities and mood. Going to dinner at 830-845 in the MDR created no issues catching a 10:30 show.

 

Food overall was very good. The caveat to that would be that we did eat in a lot of specialty restaurants, and that may not be for everyone. I’ll speak more to the “add-ons” at the end for those interested. What I will mention is that when we go to specialty restaurants, we want a special experience and we felt RCL delivered on this. One final observation would be that Chops and Giovanni’s appeared to be the most popular and were full on the last couple of nights so be mindful of that when doing any planning. When we were planning, we had a voucher from the travel agent for a restaurant and then we purchased the Central Park Package ($65 at the time but I believe $70 now) so we planned on 4 specialties. Thanks to the folks on these forums, we viewed menus ahead of time and chose our 4 specialties based on our 4 least favorite dining room menus. We called an audible on the final night when the MDR menu didn’t appeal do us and ate at Izumi. It’s more a la carte but we finished around $20 per person. Finally, most people seemed dressed appropriately for the various nights. With this many passengers, I’m sure not all did but we didn’t notice a lot of people not in suits on formal nights or out of MDR dress code on other nights. Most people dining in the specialty restaurant followed suite with the MDR dress code but it wasn’t required.

 

Beverages:

So in reading the news around the new alcohol package a few days prior to leaving, we decided to give it a try as past bar bills have been around 800. We know from previous posts prior to our trip that this is a very polarizing topic so I’ll give my take and you can decide if it works for you. The best part is, regardless of what you choose, no one else will care! :) We signed up for the package the first day. Our impression was that it was 55/day and included beer (under $6 I think), house wine, and all liquor up to their premium grade, soda/juices/water (“on tap”). However, in looking at our bill, it appears the 55 might have included gratuity as our bill was about 385pp.

 

Details first….There were only a couple of beers that didn’t fall under $6 so that was a non-issue. House wine for our trip was St. Martin—a French table wine. We found a few of the St Martin selections to be perfectly adequate (we are regular wine drinkers of all levels) and a few others to not be our favorite. That being said, we had wine with dinner every night and were satisfied with the house selection as we all found a couple we liked and stuck to them the rest of the trip with the exception of 150 Central Park. From my understanding, the house wine can change on each sailing. We were eating such a nice meal at 150 that we splurged for their wine pairing package and none of us were disappointed as it was $75 for 6 different wines. (all expensive brands in restaurant pricing and excellent tasting). Back to the package…we never found a liquor drink that wasn’t covered and we tried most of the menu :). This included specialty martinis at all of the specialty restaurants. A couple of times we got a small bit of kickback being that a specialty martini came in a keep-sake glass but we just asked for it without the glass and it was no problem. The specialty liquors—aged whiskeys and scotches—that one would expect not be included were not included. However, most brands of liquor were included…Grey Goose, Crown, Makers Mark, etc to give some brand comparison. Soda, juice and water were available but not in the bottle. If I did it again, I’d bring a water bottle with a large screw-on lid that could easily go under the dispenser where you’d normally put a cup. The bar service had no problems filling these containers with soda either as a traveling mate bought a $6 bottle in the gift shop and used it. It does not include the soda cup and therefore excludes the coke machines. There weren’t a lot of these machines around so it wasn’t an issue for us anyway as it was always quicker to just walk up to the bar and have them serve you. However, you have less variety so choose for yourself how important this may be.

 

Observations on the package….No one that I saw was running around stupid and drunk as a result of the package. They might have been there but we didn’t see them. The bartenders said in the casino that many people had the package but that could be a byproduct of the observations in the casino bar vs. other bars. When ordering a drink, we just gave them the card and there was no receipt—very easy and saved a lot of paper when printing our bill. We never over-consumed and when you think about drinking 6 drinks (our guestimated break even) over the course of a full day, it wasn’t very hard for us to do. We did have to buy the package for both parties so keep that in mind when determining value. My take is that we probably broke even or came out slightly ahead when compared to going drink for drink. The point to keep in mind though is that we both said we likely would not have had as many drinks without the package but there is a piece of mind to not collecting all those receipts throughout the week or worrying about your spend on alcohol. If you like your alcoholic beverages, you’ll probably be pleased with the package. If not, buy drink to drink and you’ll probably be equally happy. One thing I liked is that I tried a lot of drinks I haven’t in the past purely due to price point. I would also add that nearly every drink on the menu is priced b/w $6.50 and $9.00. I can recall other cruises where drink prices were much higher so consider this as well. One final note I would make is that we were sailing the Western Caribbean and didn’t have significant interest in the ports of call as we had been to all of them previously (except Falmouth but Ochos Rios had not been a favorite on other cruises). I say this because before buying the package, we took into consideration that we’d have much more time on the ship vs. other cruises where we spent a lot more time in port. Therefore, having 2-3 drinks throughout the day was much more realistic here than other times and added value to the package. We estimated to breakeven on day, it would be about 2-3 drinks during the day, a drink before dinner, a couple of glasses of wine with dinner, and a post-dinner drink. That was realistic for us but if I didn’t have the package, I likely would not have had 2-3 drinks during the day each day. To each his own so decide for yourself but again, the best part is no one will care about your choice either way—the beauty of everything you do when cruising—only you have to be happy with your choices as everyone else will be happy regardless. :)

 

Room:

We booked an outside balcony on deck 11 just forward of the elevators. We selectively chose this spot to avoid the noise that might come from the boardwalk or central park. Forward the front elevators is the least active part of the ship and probably the most quiet. It was a nice contrast to the time we spent in public spaces. I could see where those around the boardwalk area would battle some noise from the shows and activities during the day so choose according to your preference. We enjoyed being ocean-facing as I mentioned earlier that there aren’t a lot of spots to actually see the ocean. The room was one of the smaller ones we’ve experience which wasn’t really a problem but the closet is challenging. The rooms alternate in their layout between bed by the balcony or sitting area by the balcony. Ours had the sitting area by the balcony which meant navigating around the bed to try and get to the bathroom or closet. Not a deal breaker by any means but the other layout for that size room would have made in-room navigation a bit easier. You can do a lot with the interactive TV such as room service, show and dinner reservations, view MDR menus and even surf the internet if you choose. We used the internet for about 20 minutes to compare some prices on jewelry and the speed was adequate for ship satellite service. For those familiar with streaming internet from the ocean, it’s not of the speed we’ve come to expect at home so keep that in mind. Basic internet—fine. Streaming internet—you’ll be disappointed if that’s important to you. The bed was quite comfortable compared to some other ships we’ve sailed and all in all, we found the balcony room to be completely acceptable.

 

Ports:

Needless to say, these weren’t our favorite ports from the time we booked. The eastern is our preferred route, and based on pricing, most other folks as well. That is exactly why we went the western route because we could secure much better pricing. We also have the flexibility to book out of season so that helped too. Therefore, our plan coming in was not to spend much time in the ports. However, we found them better than we expected. We haven’t cared for Jamaica in the past but decided to roam around the port shopping area in Falmouth. It’s a very new port and probably has the best in-port shopping of any port in the Caribbean. We didn’t wonder into town so I can’t comment on that. We’ve been to Cozumel on a few cruises in the past so we didn’t have major plans there either. We did wonder into town and the cab voucher provided by the ship to get to town made it more appealing. Granted they drop you off at a specific shopping area (as expected J) but nothing says you have to stay there as it’s right in the middle of town. It was raining in Cozumel the first half of the day so it made for some scrambling to add activities on the ship, but once the rain cleared out, so did the ship. Labadee was very nice for a private beach. We’ve done the “private beach” thing on other lines and decided we wouldn’t anymore as it crams a bunch of people into a small space and you have to deal with tenders, etc. However, RCL has built a pier for easy access on and off and has really developed a very expansive space quite nicely. They have dedicated spaces for the beach, for activities, for food and even for solicitation. We don’t like getting asked to have hair braided every 10 steps—not an issue here as they have a section for that where all of those people are and where you can go if that’s your thing. If you walk into the market area, you will get heavily solicited as expected but you kind of give permission for that by entering that space. Lots of wooden/metal goods and basic souvenirs. Most of them sell similar merchandise and they will negotiate heavily. It can be fun but be prepared to pack your patience and manners. If that’s not for you, don’t enter that section and enjoy the rest solicitation-free.

 

Final Thoughts:

All in all, it was an excellent cruise! A few observations stood out that I’ll point out as I wrap this up. The first would be that we found the service in all areas to be above average. I can’t count the number of times I was asked by the crew of all levels if I was enjoying my cruise, if they could get me anything, or just random servers, bar servers, etc stopping by to chat and check in with me. We never had to flag anyone down, out of a couple of hundred interactions, we might have been displeased with 2 or 3 so it really stood out on this ship. I don’t know if RCL has modified anything to incentivize service from their crew but it stood out as a very positive thing. We’ve had our fair share of solid service with other lines and we’ve had experiences of poor service and overall this ship impressed us on this front. We are easy-going and wouldn’t consider ourselves demanding---I would think we represent the majority of cruisers-- and we were pleased with the service provided.

 

This is a very active ship and with lots to do. You certainly can do as much or as little as you want but the sheer scope of variety tended to push us to experience as much as we could. If you prefer a little slower pace, this might not be as appealing to you. When we do it again, we’ll likely move at a slower pace ourselves now that we’ve seen it. So the beauty and the curse to this ship was that can you experience it in a lot of different ways. It was so different in this regard, that we wouldn’t have any problems going back on a smaller RCL ship or another line because the experience is so diverse. If you are the type that constantly wants to be engaged and entertained, this ship will certainly give you the most options.

 

This brings me to the other topic of add-ons which again, is another polarizing subject. This ship certainly has a lot of them compared to other ships but it’s also because it’s much bigger and has room to fit more. In reality, my observation was that one could still enjoy a similar experience to other ships without needing to partake in additional things. After reading so many viewpoints on this prior to sailing, it made me think that it might be more of a point of contention on this class ship simply because it exists. Here would be a comparison: we might sail on Princess and do both specialty restaurants plus and add-on coffee/ice cream here or there. Well we could do that on this ship too but there is the option to do much more. Point being, the fact that it’s a carrot dangling out there might make some feel like there is too much of it compared to a ship where it just didn’t exist to begin with. The design is to give the most options but I could see how some just don’t want the options. The experience can be identical from a budget perspective but the size of this ship allows the room to offer more of it…i.e. a candy store, more specialty restaurants, ice cream store, more shopping, etc. We booked this ship budgeting to spend on some of these things to gain the full experience so it was a positive for us. We could have done the trip without any of it too, but again, it’s all there tempting you. With the alcohol package, wine pairing at 150, some photos/souvenirs, and an additional specialty restaurant(on top of the package we prepaid for), a cruise bill around $1000-1500 (for two) can be expected. That being said, we could have cut all of that out and had a bill in the low hundreds and still had a great experience so it’s what your comfortable with….

 

Finally, the cruise entertainment staff seemed good on this trip. They never wowed us but certainly never disappointed either. We had read some commentary on the cruise director Amy but found her to be fine. We mostly only saw her setting up a show or closing one out so I’m not sure how she could make or break someone’s trip. To us, she was perfectly fine in her role. She could have been terrible or great and I’m not sure it would have made that much of a difference to us as the size of the ship creates a situation where you interact with that staff less. In regards to the staff of all types, there seemed to be plenty to service everyone at all times. We’ve been on boats that felt understaffed and that wasn’t the case here. However, we were sailing at my estimated 4200-4500 people so it might be different if every berth was full and it was 6000+ on board.

 

We rented an iphone for each party while onboard. It was $30 per phone for the week which we felt was a nice value. The ship is so big, it’s nearly impossible to just run into your travel mates so having that connection was nice. It came programmed with your other parties as well as numbers for other things you might need like guest services, reservations, etc. Once you selected your traveling party, you could call them, chat with them (like text but didn’t always notify them) or view their location. The “view their location” was a very nice feature for meeting up at various times. We all agreed it was a nice thing to have and also thought about how much $$$ they could make with a well designed smartphone app vs. renting their iphone 3. They later told us one was in development.

 

Again, it was a great trip and we’ll definitely do it again down the road. It was a bit harder on the wallet than some of our other cruises but that was fine as we were expecting that and prepared for it. We felt like we got our money’s worth out of all of it and we’re sad to be back home in FL without a looming cruise to look forward to! I guess we’ll be making our own bed tonight. :)

[MomtoCCC]

Great review! Thanks for all the insights. We are sailing on Oasis next May and really looking forward to it.

[Just The 3 Of Us]

Fantastic! Nice job!!! Thanks for sharing your experience!!!

 

Barb

[printingchick]

Excellent review!

[dreamer976]

Thanks so much for your insight and thoughtful review of this ship. We are looking forward to sailing on her in the near future.

 

Question - do you know if the Cucumber Martini, which I've heard many raves of, is available elsewhere on the ship? I'd LOVE to try one, but am not interested in dining at 150 Central Park.

[TNcruiser829]

A great, well-written review. Thanks for sharing your vacation with us.

[DonnaK]

A nice and balanced review!

[tribefan]

We were also on the cruise with you and will say that we agree with you 100% on everything!! Everyone was so helpful and nice. Out of 14 cruises, our MDR waiter and asst were the best!! We made sure to let RCCL know on our survey also.

 

Would do this ship again in a heartbeat, but we would do the eastern as that is our favorite too!

[mj]

Great Review. The Oasis is a great ship.

[Wilda]

Nice job!

[chil-laxin]

Thanks so much for your insight and thoughtful review of this ship. We are looking forward to sailing on her in the near future.

 

Question - do you know if the Cucumber Martini, which I've heard many raves of, is available elsewhere on the ship? I'd LOVE to try one, but am not interested in dining at 150 Central Park.

 

 

I dont believe they serve it elsewhere on the ship but I will include this handy-dandy recipe they gave me so you can at least make it.

 

3 (1/4") cucumber wheels

2 Large basil leaves

4 Count of 75oz Monin Lemon Syrup (not sure what 4 count means)

 

Muddle the above ingredients

 

2 oz Sweet and Sour Mix

 

1.5 oz Grey Goose Vodka

 

Shake and Strain

 

Anyone that wants to elaborate on what they believe "4 count of 75oz" means would be of great help.

[Kenlorz]

Excellent review!! Very detailed and impartial! Bravo!

 

Quick question... Do you recall if they offered a house Riesling? It's my wine of choice and would have to be an option for me to consider the package. Also, I know specialty coffee isn't on the plan, but do you know if they allowed you to get around this at all... ie, brought you a shot of Khalua with your coffee?

[Shawnkat]

Great review.

We're sailing on the Oasis (also western) next July. Your insight will certainly help with the planning. Thanks.

[Gracie115]

Nice review, we were on same sailing and I agree with some not all of your analysis but just curious since you did so many spec. rest. for dinner why you did NOT choose the Chef's Table option? We did that one night and it was a wonderful evening of food, wine and good company and would stand up to any of the finest dining options on the sea. Just thought I'd mention it in case you sail again and are looking for other options.

 

One thing about stateroom choices, the people that were with us were on Deck 6, just off the elevators and the Boardwalk area and had no issue with noise at all. Just thought I'd pass that on. We were on Deck 7 and again no noise.

 

While we enjoyed the ship not at all sure we will go on this class again, we enjoy feeling like we are on a ship and so much of the time on this class you just don't. As you said there is so little motion on the seas.

 

But as I always say, there are no bad cruises, glad you had a good time!:)

[janetz]

Such a great review. I really enjoyed reading about the drink packge. Yes, the tip is included at 55 pp per day. :)

[Silvery Seas Cruiser]

A thorough and fair review. Many thanks. I am a huge fan of Oasis and Allure and have sailed on both multiple times. We would sail on A and O more often if the price were more competitive. I'm hoping that a potential and rumored "third Oasis" would help bring down prices on A and O.

 

I'll also say, that while we like both A and O, Allure is our preferred ship of the two. We like "Chicgo" better than "HairSPray" and we love "Blue Planet." WE also prefer Rita's Cantina to the SeaFood Shack and ALlure has the DogHouse for free hotdog choices.

 

I thought your discussion of the new drink package was very good and informative. I know the package would be good for Hubby, but I can't drink alcohol or soft drinks because of unrelenting heartburn. As I understand it, if Hubby buys the package, I must buy it too, so it wouldn't work out for us.

 

I don't know if you I missed it or not. Did you all use the Sports Deck, for example, the putt putt golf, zipline, rock wall or Flow Riders? I have always been so impressed with the patience and hard work of the Sports Deck personnel.

 

Your review is much appreciated.

[chil-laxin]

Nice review, we were on same sailing and I agree with some not all of your analysis but just curious since you did so many spec. rest. for dinner why you did NOT choose the Chef's Table option? We did that one night and it was a wonderful evening of food, wine and good company and would stand up to any of the finest dining options on the sea. Just thought I'd mention it in case you sail again and are looking for other options.

 

One thing about stateroom choices, the people that were with us were on Deck 6, just off the elevators and the Boardwalk area and had no issue with noise at all. Just thought I'd pass that on. We were on Deck 7 and again no noise.

 

While we enjoyed the ship not at all sure we will go on this class again, we enjoy feeling like we are on a ship and so much of the time on this class you just don't. As you said there is so little motion on the seas.

 

But as I always say, there are no bad cruises, glad you had a good time!:)

 

That is a good question, we should have...oh well something cool to be sure to do next time though!;)

 

Will likely do Eastern next time we cruise this clas ship, certainly the 2 different ship types are so different we already decided we would rotate to a more standard ship next time.

[PathfinderEss]

Thanks for your review, glad you had a good time.

[chil-laxin]

Excellent review!! Very detailed and impartial! Bravo!

 

Quick question... Do you recall if they offered a house Riesling? It's my wine of choice and would have to be an option for me to consider the package. Also, I know specialty coffee isn't on the plan, but do you know if they allowed you to get around this at all... ie, brought you a shot of Khalua with your coffee?

 

On our sailing, the house wines were Chardonnay, Merlot, and Cabernet. We tried the Chard with some appetizers that were suited better for whites and then would get the Cab with the entree. The Chard wasn't as good to us as the Cab was for the house wines but it's such a personal preference thing that it's hard to know for you....being that the house wines change, it's a bit of a craps shoot but you could always check with bar service regarding the house wines once on board before making a decision on the package.

 

To your second question, I did at Giovanni's have coffee with desert and ordered a shot of Bailey's and Khalua to go with it. No problems what-so-ever.

[LAatl]

Does the alcohol package include the drinks on labadee?

[Clarea]

Does the alcohol package include the drinks on labadee?

Yes

[mmsoko]

Thoroughly enjoyed reading all your remarks.

 

Assumed that since you live in Orlando, you drove to port. We will be arriving from that area also and are wondering about parking at port. We have parked in structure for Pier 2 (Princess) several times, but port map shows only uncovered parking near Oasis pier. Did you park at the pier? Did you drop off bags, then park? Any tips?

 

Did you ever order room service breakfast for your balcony?

 

Am forwarding your review to our travelmates that aren't on CC...know they'll enjoy it. Thx again.

[ZimmCouple]

 

Looks like drinks on Labadee are included, which is great! Just wondering if you might know - if we have already purchased the soda card online, will that be applied as a credit if we want to upgrade to the drink package once on board?

[daveky]

Very nice review. I sailed her last year and enjoyed reading your comments and thinking back on my experiences on the Oasis. Agree with your experiences and perceptions when I sailed her.

[KirkNC]

Welcome home, thanks for the review!