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First-Time RCI Cruisers on Oasis 3-Day Oct. 21-24

jpm1973

By jpm1973,
in Royal Caribbean International

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jpm1973

jpm1973

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Just returned from our first cruise on RCI on the Oasis three-day trip to Nassau. We’ve cruised with only Carnival before so this was our first experience on a different line. We left Ft. Lauderdale on Wednesday, October 21, and returned Saturday, October 24, with only one stop in Nassau.

 

We are:

Me. Scott, 42, an ICU nurse.

 

My partner. Will, 36, an HR and training manager for a bank.

 

This was my fifth cruise and Will’s third in the span of a little more than a year. Our first cruise ever was last June. I’ve become quite a fan of cruising as a great way to vacation, but Will isn’t quite as enamored. Though this cruise may have changed his mind a bit.

 

We booked this cruise last November, after having returned from our first three-day cruise on Carnival and having already booked a follow-up with them for January 2015. We’d been curious to try a larger ship, and a different line, so what better way then to go all out with the biggest ship of them all!

 

We booked online directly with RCI and had no issues until a few months later when we tried to apply a payment from an RCI gift card I had purchased. I had done this with Carnival easily; it’s just another payment option along with all your regular credit cards. I naïvely assumed it would be the same for RCI but unfortunately on the payment screen there’s no gift card option. I searched around a bit and found an email address you can use to send in your booking number and gift card info and they will apply it. Easy enough. Until after more than a week the payment had not been applied.

 

So this time I called and you would have thought I was asking to be comped a full year of sailings in the best suites available. Everyone I was transferred to was baffled by this odd thing called a “gift card.” I was beginning to think I was crazy. But thankfully Will tried and eventually got a different email address to send the information to. At the same time he was so aggravated with the process that he fired off emails to every possible email iteration that might include some of the senior management at RCI. He actually did get a response from someone after our issue had been taken care of. And they did offer us a bottle of wine on board for our trouble; totally unexpected and unnecessary but a very nice gesture. I hope they fix the convoluted way you have to go about redeeming these things.

 

Our first two cruises on Carnival were in suites, since we both rather enjoy having a bit more space to spread out in and don’t want to feel claustrophobic. I’ve since sailed in standard balcony rooms with my family and find them to be perfectly fine. But we stuck with the suite for this cruise, having snagged one of the aft Grand Suites on Oasis while it was still being priced as that – 11330.

 

On the aft parts of decks 11, 12 and 14 there used to be open public space but these areas were converted into cabins during the Oasis drydock in late 2014. Originally these rooms were classified as Grand Suites and priced as such, but now show as variations of Aqua Theater suites and carry a much higher price tag. We were fortunate to book this one before that change was made.

 

I have a ton of pictures from around the ship and will include a lot as part of my review. I will talk about food, but I’m not one to take pictures of what I eat so my apologies if you’re big into food porn. I’ll also talk a bit about our post-cruise stay in Ft. Lauderdale and have a few (rain-soaked) pictures of the Oasis sailing away on it’s subsequent voyage…sadly without us.

 

If you have any questions along the way please ask! I’ll do my best to answer what I can.

 

I still have a bunch of pictures to sort through but hope to get started as soon as I can. Work will get in the way for the next couple of evenings, but I promise I won’t be gone long. Thanks for reading.

 

day1-0.jpg

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jpm1973

jpm1973

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We live in Long Island, New York, not far outside of Queens so we are in theory about a 25-minute drive from either LaGuardia or JFK airports. The key phrase there being “in theory.” New York traffic dictates that theories are just that and 25-minute drives to the airport are rarely that. In any case we always fly out of either of these airports but for this trip we decided to use some Southwest points and found the best options were out of Islip airport, about a 35-40 minute drive further east from where we live.

 

We’ve never flown out of Islip before, but know it to be a relatively smaller airport with much less congestion than the other NYC-area airports. We decided to fly into Ft. Lauderdale the day of our departure so we booked the earliest flight we could, leaving New York around 7 a.m. That meant a 4 a.m. wake-up call. Normally no problem, but I’ve recently switched to working night shift and had worked Monday night into Tuesday morning. Usually after working 12 hours I’d sleep for 6 hours or so and then be good to go. But since I had a bunch of last-minute stuff to do on Tuesday and our dogs were not cooperating, I ended up only getting maybe 3 hours of sleep Tuesday after work. Not good.

 

Luckily the adrenaline and excitement of vacation kept me going, and going, and going, so much that I could not fall asleep Tuesday night at all! I was exhausted, but I guess my mind didn’t want to slow down. I think I got maybe three hours of very restless sleep Tuesday night. Oh well, at least we were heading on vacation!

 

We left our house around 4:30 a.m. Wednesday just to allow ample time – since we’ve never flown out of Islip we didn’t know what to expect with parking, check in, security, etc. Turns out we could have left much later as it couldn’t have been any easier. I think we were parked, checked in, and through security by 5:15 a.m. Oh well, at least we weren’t running to make our flight.

 

day1-1.jpg

 

Here we are, bright eyed and ready to go:

 

day1-2.jpg

 

Will is not a fan of the Southwest way – no seat assignments, board in a large group, etc. I don’t really mind it, but he’s pickier when it comes to his seats on board and has gotten used to rows that offer more room (like exits and bulkheads) and likes to know where he's sitting before we get on board. We opted for the Early Bird Check-in in hopes of getting on board early enough to get good seats. We ended up with A37 and A38 – not terrible in the whole scheme of things. Unfortunately the two people right in front of us beelined for the last exit row seats so we weren’t so lucky. At least our plane had wi-fi so Will could watch TV on the way.

 

Islip airport is smaller, but super easy to navigate. Only two airlines operate there – Southwest and American – so there’s no issues with congestion like at LaGuardia or JFK. We boarded our flight around 6:30 and left right on schedule. Not five minutes later we were in the air and on our way to Ft. Lauderdale.

 

Our flight was uneventful and we arrived about 20 minutes early into Ft. Lauderdale. We collected my checked bag and then made our way to the next terminal where there was a Starbucks. We had some time to kill since we weren’t sure how early boarding would start so we changed into shorts, grabbed some coffee and food, and people watched for a bit.

 

We ended up in a cab to the port by 10:30 a.m. and were there in 15 to 20 minutes.

Edited by jpm1973
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karena1

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Our friends were on that ship/sailing and said everything was great except the charter on the 4 night before pretty much cleaned house!!

 

No limes, ran out of bloody mary mix, had FF for breakfast b/c the hashbrowns were gone. So were not thrilled about that, but as usual they loved Oasis.

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jpm1973

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The Oasis is in sight:

 

day1-3.jpg

 

We arrived at the port around 10:50 a.m. and it didn’t really seem all that crowded. We dropped our bags with a porter and made our way around to where they signs indicated suite guests should go for check in. There weren’t a ton of people around from the previous cruise, which was a charter for AFLAC employees. I’m guessing the ship wasn’t at capacity for that cruise since it seemed like most everyone was already gone.

 

We walked right up to a waiting agent and had our Sea Pass cards within a matter of minutes. We made our way upstairs to the suite waiting area, which was completely empty. We weren’t totally sure where we should go and were looking quite lost when an employee looked at our cards and said we could get right on board. From check in to boarding in less than 20 minute – fastest embarkation ever.

 

First impressions once we were on board – this doesn’t look like a ship at all. Are we in a mall? Simply incredible and not like any ship we’d ever been on. But I guess that’s the point, right? First view of the Promenade:

 

day1-4.jpg

 

Since rooms wouldn’t be ready for a couple hours we figured we’d wander a bit and try to figure out the . We had purchased the Royal Refreshment package so we could have access to the Coke Freestyle machines and weren’t sure how we go about getting our cups. They had a table set up on the Promenade and they told us if we had prepurchased our cups should be waiting in our rooms. Easy enough. So let’s go exploring!

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jpm1973

jpm1973

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Thanks everyone for following along! I was hoping to get to more this morning but having worked last night sleep is calling me. Will try to sort through some pictures and post more this afternoon before work tonight.

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jpm1973

jpm1973

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Our friends were on that ship/sailing and said everything was great except the charter on the 4 night before pretty much cleaned house!!

 

No limes, ran out of bloody mary mix, had FF for breakfast b/c the hashbrowns were gone. So were not thrilled about that, but as usual they loved Oasis.

 

Really? I know I got a lime in at least one drink on board and I swear I saw hash browns at the Windjammer on our morning in Nassau. Maybe they ran out after that.

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jpm1973

jpm1973

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Following. Enjoy reading your review. Do you have one (or more) for Carnival?

 

Sent from my SM-G7102 using Tapatalk

 

I do! My review of the Carnival Glory:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2135863

 

And my review from the Carnival Victory:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2154484

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jpm1973

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Ok now where were we? Oh yes, exploring the beautiful Oasis of the Seas. Since we were already on the Promenade we started from there. Having only sailed much smaller ships we were both pretty amazed by all the different areas Oasis had. At this point it was still very early in boarding so it wasn’t crowded at all but even after we sailed it was incredible how not crowded the ship felt in most places, even with more than 5,000 people on board. Windjammer was another story altogether but we’ll get to that.

 

On the Promenade you have most of the shopping areas including Kate Spade, Regalia, Michael Kors, Solera and Prince & Green. There are also several bars including the Rising Tide that moves between decks 5 and 8, the Champagne Bar, Boleros and the Globe & Atlas Pub. Several casual eateries are here, too, including the Cafe Promenade which serves snacks and drinks all day, Sorrentos for pizza and Starbucks.

 

Rising Tide Bar

 

promenade-risingtide1.jpg

 

 

promenade-risingtide2.jpg

 

And here it is filled up, awaiting to rise up to Deck 8

 

promenade-risingtide3.jpg

 

Champagne Bar

 

promenade-champagne.jpg

 

Globe & Atlas Pub

 

promenade-globe.jpg

 

Boleros

 

promenade-boleros.jpg

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jpm1973

jpm1973

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Cafe Promenade

 

promenade-cafe.jpg

Starbucks - the only restaurant or bar we actually went to on the Promenade. Three days is too short to try everything!

 

promenade-starbucks.jpg

 

Sorrento's

 

promenade-sorrentos.jpg

 

On Air - never actually went, but this seemed to be the spot for trivia at times and karaoke.



 





 

These guys were always painting but didn't seem to make any progress.

 







promenade-onair.jpg

deck5-painters.jpg

Edited by jpm1973
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