Carnival Lover Tries Oasis - A Review and Comparison

[bucks724]

I am Crystal (41), and I traveled with my husband, Darren (also 41) and daughter, Chaya (17). This was our fourth cruise, first on RCCL (3 prior on Carnival). Prior cruises were on the Valor, Liberty and Breeze. We always sailed for the ports before, so making the change to RCCL and sailing “for the ship” was a new concept to us. After seeing Oasis and all its amenities, we decided to give it a try.

 

This review will be a bit of a comparison between our Breeze and Oasis experiences, but mostly a review of our Oasis trip. I am typing this all out with links to pictures and posting in both the RCCL and Carnival areas, so I may get ahead of myself and not be really fast to answer questions, but I’ll do my best!

 

At the end, I’ll give an assessment over which I think is better between the two ships (I don’t want to compare Carnival and Royal as a whole because I’ve only been on one Royal ship and only 3 Carnival ships).

 

A little background:

 

We live in Ohio – and we hate weather. Our prior Carnival cruises were all taken with 60-75 of our closest friends and family during the first week of January of the odd years (yes, they are all boarding their cruise ship NOW!). Our last cruise was in Chaya’s freshman year, and with the cruise coinciding with the end of the semester (finals, midterms, class changes, etc.), she begged us to not take her out of school for a week in her junior year with all of her honors and AP classes. We decided that getting away to warmth at least every other winter was something we needed, so in March (and on a whim), I decided that Thanksgiving week was going to be our winter vacation. After much thought and looking at all-inclusive resorts, we decided we would do a family cruise, and that we were mixing it up this time by going on the Oasis!

[bucks724]

Like I said, we are from Ohio, so this is what we left (taken from my office the day before we flew out):

 

 

And this is what we got a few days later:

 

 

 

[bucks724]

Arrival in FLL:

 

We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale at 2:20 from Columbus on Friday, November 21. We had read several reviews on CC about Ft. Lauderdale hotels, restaurants, etc. Before heading off on our cruise, I started a weight loss program in late June and had worked (semi)hard and lost 40 lbs. I decided from cruise time until January 5, I wasn’t counting, protein shaking, or worrying, but I wasn’t overdoing either.

 

Our hotel of choice for this trip was the Embassy Suites right near the cruise port. It was close to the port, near restaurants and a grocery store, had free parking, and best of all, FREE with Hilton HHonors points. This is an all-suite hotel, so every room has a living area, kitchenette area and a bedroom. Our room had a “balcony” that looked right at the cruise port, so my first view in the morning was Lady O waiting for her prior week’s guests to disembark.

 

On Friday, we planned to head to FLL Beach for a Primanti sandwich for lunch

 

 

Then we headed to Sawgrass Mills to do a little (window) shopping, er, walk off our lunch, and then we had reservations for Bimini Boatyard at 8:00 p.m. for some stone crab. Obviously, we weren’t really hungry after those sandwiches, so we ordered the stone crab appetizer and a couple of drinks and called it a night.

 

The next morning, we woke up and headed back down to the beach for breakfast. I know we could have grabbed a bowl of fruit and waited until we got on the ship, but we heard about H2O Café for a famous Tuscany Egg Sandwich

 

 

Chaya had the Wafflelicious Belgium and loved it. Darren was boring and had the Farm Fresh Natural Eggs (which wasn’t boring, it was basically my sandwich, deconstructed, but with sausage links).

 

The parking garage was dark and we noticed this cool feature on the car

 

[BettyPC]

Love this review so far!! You do my idea of food porn - up close and personal!

 

We have cruised on both Carnival & Royal - love each - but I am interested in reading about both the Breeze & The Oasis - as we have not sailed the very large ship.

[bucks724]

The back story on the car:

 

My dad’s first car was a Mustang. My sister’s first car as a Mustang. Chaya has always loved Mustangs and we tried SO SO hard to get her one at a reasonable price when she turned 16. We found THREE and the deals all fell through because they had some mechanical or body issues that the dealerships wanted to charge US to fix (before we bought the cars).

 

Needless to say, we decided against them, and got her a different car. On July 14, Chaya was on her way to pick up a friend – the first time since school let out that she did any leisurely activity since she had softball and volunteering and they consume her time. A lady pulled out about 20 feet in front of her and she t-boned the lady. It ended her softball “career” for the summer, and she is still battling the effects of the concussion from hitting her head twice in the accident.

 

She jokes that her head wouldn’t hurt as badly if she was in the tank sized Mustang, and I decided since we were paying to rent a car in Florida, what better place to rock a convertible Mustang than there?

 

I originally booked a Ford Fusion-sized car for $80 through Budget. Upon further checking closer to our date, I found a Mustang Convertible for $40. Without telling them why, I told them to decrease the sizes of their suitcases (no trunk space in Mustangs) and surprised them with the convertible when we got to Florida. While it’s not the best means of travel for 3 people with baggage, it worked for us (Chaya wouldn’t care if she rode in the trunk of this car!).

[bucks724]

Love this review so far!! You do my idea of food porn - up close and personal!

 

We have cruised on both Carnival & Royal - love each - but I am interested in reading about both the Breeze & The Oasis - as we have not sailed the very large ship.

 

Thanks! I hope you get some good info. As for food porn, that may be the extent of it. I have a few other pictures but I kept eating before snapping after a while! :)

[bucks724]

Embarkation:

 

After breakfast, we headed over to the 17th St. Budget location, which was less than a mile from our hotel, then let Chaya take a little spin around the empty parking lot, and hopped on the shuttle to Port Everglades. It was a quick 7-10 minute ride to our terminal. We arrived around 10:30 and were through security and on the ship by 11.

 

When we dropped our bags with the porters, I jokingly said “I’ll tip you extra if we can get our bags before 4”. The porter told me “you don’t have to tip us at all and they’ll be there by 2.” I tipped them, as I usually do, and lo and behold the bags arrived before 2 (we were in our rooms by 1, where it was 1:30 on the Breeze).

 

POM and Port Everglades are both efficient ports, but on our Breeze cruise, we arrived at POM at 10:30, and were on board by noon – after being broken into zones and all that fun stuff.

 

Breeze is a beautiful ship, but when you think WOW factor, THIS is my idea of it when you step aboard lady Oasis.

 

 

Royal wins the embarkation contest all around – no lines, quick baggage delivery, and room availability!

[Doug910]

...Big Carnival fan here (absolutely LOVED the Breeze) but thinking about the Oasis/Allure in the near future. Great job with the photos and commentary so far. Looking forward to the rest of your story.

 

...Incidentally, we live in South Florida, and a convertible is the ONLY way to travel!

[bucks724]

...Big Carnival fan here (absolutely LOVED the Breeze) but thinking about the Oasis/Allure in the near future. Great job with the photos and commentary so far. Looking forward to the rest of your story.

 

...Incidentally, we live in South Florida, and a convertible is the ONLY way to travel!

 

Thanks! Maybe one day we'll make it to South Florida. Heck, at this point, I'd settle for the northern part. Anything but Ohio!

[bucks724]

Cabin:

 

We booked a Boardwalk Balcony, cabin 8295 for our Oasis sailing. With the exception of our very first cruise, we have sailed in oceanview balconies. Due to the uniqueness of a Boardwalk Balcony on Oasis and Allure and NO other ship, we decided to give it a try.

 

After seeing this every time we stepped onto our balcony:

 

 

We decided to give this view a try:

 

 

 

It is always cool to watch the sunset, rise or the maneuvering into port, but it was also refreshing to see more than just “water” while sailing. Besides, Oasis has TONS of places where you can catch a gorgeous ocean view if you so desire, so I didn’t actually miss the “openness” of an oceanview balcony.

 

I have heard that some find Boardwalk balconies to be noisy. I didn’t find that to be the case, even when the Aqua Theater shows were going on. We were closer to the carousel, second cabin from Dazzles, and I heard that if you seal the door, you hear close to nothing, which turned out to be true.

 

The cabin had a king bed, a sleeper sofa, the standard closet, shower, etc. Royal’s shower had the nice “balance bar” to help with shaving your legs, an actual shower DOOR (no attack curtain like on Carnival), and the obligatory desk, chair, coffee/end tables, etc.

 

The only thing of note to me was that the cabin felt smaller on Oasis than Breeze. It could be due to the set up of the closet/bed (the bed was near the closet instead of by the balcony), but I think it was awkwardly arranged, so for that, I vote Breeze as having the better cabins (although I enjoyed the Boardwalk view more than the water – at least at first!).

[celyvabeach]

Crystal... I'm loving your review so far. Although I can't say we are Carnival lovers yet, our 2nd Carnival cruise being in May we always sail for the ports. Done a few cruises in wonderful foreign ports. Like you we will be doing Oasis for the ship never mind the ports.

Incidentally our very first car was a Mustang convertible!

[The4Cruisers]

A thorough and FUN review so far! Keep it coming!!! :D

[JordanLovesCruisin]

LOVING this. We are considering Oasis this spring. I'm sure its worth the extra $1100, right?

[bucks724]

A thorough and FUN review so far! Keep it coming!!! :D

 

Thanks, will do!

 

LOVING this. We are considering Oasis this spring. I'm sure its worth the extra $1100, right?

 

Uh... Sureeee! :) Actually, yes. Although you can definitely get it to be around the same price as Carnival if you're patient and flexible!

[bucks724]

Crystal... I'm loving your review so far. Although I can't say we are Carnival lovers yet, our 2nd Carnival cruise being in May we always sail for the ports. Done a few cruises in wonderful foreign ports. Like you we will be doing Oasis for the ship never mind the ports.

Incidentally our very first car was a Mustang convertible!

 

Thanks! It took me a while to "love" Carnival too - the Breeze trip was the one that did it. It was the ship AND the ports that did it for me (the CD was a great help in that too). Anyone will love Oasis if they're not sailing for the ports, but I ended up liking those as well!

[Mrs. Squirrel]

Subscribing. Great start, OP!

 

We are looking to book Oasis for winter 2016 under their current sale. Looking forward to more of your review.

[bucks724]

Muster Drill:

 

Muster drill was rather uneventful. We were assigned to the Silk dining room for muster, our cards were scanned and once everyone was in and seated, a video presentation, resembling Schoolhouse Rock, played. It was quick and painless. The worst part about the muster drill was waiting for them to open the doors with all the people crowding around in the stuffy hallway.

 

On the Breeze, our muster drill was held in the theatre, so it was more of the same – stand in line, sit, listen, leave. Both equally as painless as the other. Thank goodness there is no standing on the outer deck with the life jackets anymore!  

[bucks724]

After muster drill, we were on our way out to sea.

 

There was a meet & greet by the one of the bars on the top of the ship with our roll call, but I didn’t see any familiar faces, so we had drinks and stood in the wind for a little bit, and then headed back to our cabin.

 

One thing I loved about Oasis is that there seemed to be bars everywhere. I am not a lush by any means, but we did buy the soda package. Oasis has Freestyle machines, which are great, but they’re not always convenient. That’s where having a bar comes in handy. If you have the mug, you get a drink, no questions asked.

 

I don’t normally drink a lot of sodas, but I like flavored water. I made a bad assumption that the flavored Dasani in the machines was available unflavored (aka plain water) and not with real sugar (again, not the case). No biggie, though. I drank my fair share of Diet Cherry Vanilla Coke and Peach Dasani.

 

Anyway, I digress.

 

After muster, we went back to the cabin to get ready for our buy one get one free dinner at Chops. I was SUPER excited because we had such a great meal at Fahrenheit 555. I heard great things about Royal’s food, especially the steakhouse, and by this time, I was hungry (that egg sandwich was filling, but not until 6:30!).

[bucks724]

Main Dining Room:

 

I am a planner – I like to write things down and plan out my days, but on vacation, I like to leave room for change! In fact, my Erin Condren planner had all of our MTD and show reservations in it – written on removable stickers – and it came along on the cruise.

 

When I booked the cruise, we had a choice of My Time Dining (MTD) or the late (8:30 I think) seating. In the past, we always had the early seating because we travel with the family and a lot of them are typically in bed before the late seating (not on vacation, but at home), and I was afraid that the late seating would interfere with our show choices. For that reason, I chose MTD – which also means you are required to prepay your gratuities (although I was “asked” if I would “like to” prepay when I booked by phone – but I chalk that up to an undertrained service rep).

 

A few weeks before the cruise, I called to book our MTD times around the shows we selected. We were assigned to the Grande restaurant for our dinners. The menus are the same (for now) for each restaurant, and they are available on your cabin TV. Each day, we would check out the menu (which is listed in your Cruise Compass by a name, like mojo, saffron, etc.) and see if we wanted to eat in the MDR that night. The answer was usually unanimously “no.”

 

The MDR was recently broken up into 3 different restaurants in preparation for Dynamic Dining, which has been postponed to late 2015.

 

A picture of the Grande entrance:

 

 

The other dining rooms are American Icon

 

 

And Silk

 

[bucks724]

I also like variety and some spice (okay a lot of spice!), but variety is the spice of life, right? I had every intention of trying Izumi, Sabor and Giovanni’s. The only problem is that booking online means you pay online. With this being a sold-out holiday cruise, you feel like you have to book in advance, BUT I felt as though it would be a guest services nightmare if our plans changed. I decided to wing it and not book anything in advance (except MTD).

 

On the first day, we were walking through this Central Park and a rep for Chops Grille stopped us and who offered us buy one, get one free dinner if we reserved for that night. It was a no-brainer, since we had already decided we wanted to eat there, and we booked for 6:30.

 

On our Breeze trip, we ate at Fahrenheit 555. Dinner was the same price - $35 per person.

 

At Chops, I had the “Petite” filet with Gruyere Cheese Tater Tots

 

 

On the Breeze, I had the surf and turf, which wasn’t an option at Chops. I love seafood, but don’t find most of it to be very filling, so I like a small steak with my seafood. The Petite Filet was 6 oz., which is more than enough beef for me, and the tater tots were cheesy, but rather flavorless to me. Speaking of flavorless, the sauce around the plate was the saving grace for the steak – that’s the only flavor the poor beef had! I was full and decided to get the cookies and ice cream for dessert. The cookies were dry and hard but the ice cream was delish. I had a few bites and threw in the towel because I was stuffed.

 

The steak had more flavor at Fahrenheit 555, as did the sides. We also enjoyed the chef’s selections, special side dishes the chef sent out (one was a cold soup with little pieces of melon that was to die for) and the bread!

 

As far as steak houses, Breeze wins, hands down. I’m glad we only paid $35 for two of us to eat at Chops. Any more than that and I would have been disappointed.

[kjunea]

Great review! I'm trying to convince hubby to try one of the large RCCL ships, but he loves Carnical and hates change

[bucks724]

Great review! I'm trying to convince hubby to try one of the large RCCL ships, but he loves Carnical and hates change

 

That's the reason why we never changed - we always went with family and they are all Gold and above and Royal is more expensive. I think they take comfort in the familiar. I am a little more (not much) adventurous, and had been itching to branch out for a while. I wanted to try Epic as well, which still may be in the cards. We'll see! We have an expensive 18 months ahead of us, but stressful times call for a nice vacation! Stay tuned!

[bucks724]

Day Two: Cabin Crawl and Meet & Greet

 

Since this wasn’t a family cruise, we were basically on our own as far as making friends and finding people to hang out with. It was cool. We signed up for a cabin crawl through the Roll Call and met some fabulous people, and even got to see the different types of rooms.

 

We met at Jazz on 4, where we had a little giveaway frenzy with some coffee and tea, and then those of us participating in the Cabin Crawl headed out to look at the other types of cabins.

 

On this crawl, we saw an Aqua Theatre suite, Boardwalk Balcony (ours), Grand Suite, Central Park Balcony, Owner’s Suite, Oceanview Balcony (3, with the balcony dividers opened), Junior Suite, Crown Loft Suite, and Sky Loft Suite. I snapped pictures but tried to not invade anyone’s privacy, so I am only posting one per room.

 

Here is the Crown Loft Suite:

 

 

The Owner’s Suite:

 

 

The Sky Loft Suite (my fave, maybe one day!):

 

 

And my favorite balcony belongs to the Aqua Theatre Suite (seriously, this balcony is awesome!):

 

 

Another thing our roll call did was a slot pull. $15 per person, max bet on a $5 per spin machine. We won NOTHING, but had a lot of fun doing it!

 

** added in **

 

As you saw above on the Royal board, Andrew mentioned Buckeyes. I thought it would be cute to bring a little bit of home to share with the cabin crawl peeps, so I brought Buckeyes since we live in Columbus and I went to Ohio State. I should have taken the rest of the bucket to Andrew’s suite before we left the ship!

[pirate4me2]

Love the review so far! Thanks for taking the time to put it together and share your vacation with us.

[bucks724]

More Food Talk. I promise, it’s almost over…

 

The Breeze has two other pay venues that we tried, Bonsai Sushi (EXCELLENT!) and Cucina del Capitano. Cucina is free for lunch, which is the only time we dined there, but Bonsai is a la carte all the time. We ate at Bonsai several times during our cruise. My pocketbook, scale and my arteries are thankful that we tried Fahrenheit 555 on the last night, because we would certainly have gone at least one more time, if not two or three!

 

Oasis has several free and pay venues to choose from, including Johnny Rockets ($5.95 cover charge for all you can eat), Boardwalk Dog House (free hot dogs and brats, etc.), Café Promenade (free), Park Café (free), Windjammer (free), etc., etc., etc. There is food EVERYWHERE on this ship!

 

Our favorite was Sabor, which we tried Sabor on the second day after the Cabin Crawl (while Chaya rocked the Johnny Rocket’s takeout that she brought into Sabor!).

 

 

Sabor is a la carte on Oasis, though I’ve heard that there is a flat fee on other ships. The best way to enjoy Sabor is to go with a friend or two and get this

 

 

For $20, you get fresh guacamole (ask for it extra spicy), a small plate, a taco/quesadilla, a main course, side and dessert. For our first visit, we chose the Pollito Quesadilla, Chicken Stuffed Jalapenos, Chicken and Roasted Corn Empanadas, Yucca Barrel Fries with Mango Habanero Dipping Sauce (not spicy!), and the dessert.