Trip Report - Oasis Eastern 4/30/16 sailing Bill Oh's first cruise as Diamond

[Hotel CA]

Bill--

 

what a great review! you have such a relaxed writing style that it is easy to imagine you are sitting next to us and telling us this story. Very interesting and easy to enjoy--Thank you very much.

 

My roommate at Pitt was from Erie by the way-- you gotta love snow if you live in Erie (I thought Pittsburgh was bad growing up-- Miami compared to Erie)

[BillOh]

Nope, only guests in JS and better staterooms get robes. Platinum level and above C&A members are also supposed to get robes upon request, but this might be changing.

 

That might be changing is what I thought to, but I haven't heard anything official or perhaps this is another varies by ship? On Freedom last year we had two robes and we were both emerald. This time we had one robe and the Cabin attendant thought I was Diamond and Gina was emerald.

[Clarea]

That might be changing is what I thought to, but I haven't heard anything official or perhaps this is another varies by ship? On Freedom last year we had two robes and we were both emerald. This time we had one robe and the Cabin attendant thought I was Diamond and Gina was emerald.

Before I posted, I double checked the C&A benefits page, and it still shows robes for Platinum and up. However, there is a footnote saying the robes are available upon request. I don't recall if that footnote was there before.

[Miryam1234]

Loving your blue collar verdict of the Cats!

 

Thanks for the whole review, I am looking forward to the rest!

[BillOh]

Sorry this is going slower than I hoped. (catching up at work and home) later today I'll have Monday the first sea day and our 35th anniversary up. Hint: I'll have to wait till tonight to get some pictures ready, I need to do screen captures from our personal DVD copy of Love and Marriage.

[BillOh]

We sailed out on Navigator behind you on Oasis. It is fun to read how your week went. We had a great cruise and could not have asked for better weather. I'm not crazy about the Diamond lounge on Oasis. I much prefer the setup on the Voyager/Freedom class ships with an outside seating area.

 

I'm waiting to read more and your opinion of CATS to see how it compares to mine!

 

Here is the only picture I could find of Navigator with you on it.

 

[Ocean Boy]

During the intermission one of the main characters, Metamucil, or was it Montezuma stayed on stage and you could have your picture taken with him. Here is Gina and (well, I just ended up calling him the Wookie)

 

 

 

The Wookie on the left is some kind of commune leader and he helps the tired old bag lady ascend into heaven. I'm glad I saw it and stayed for the whole thing. Rum and Coke helps!

 

I am pretty sure that his name is Deuteronomy.:p

[Ocean Boy]

Here is the only picture I could find of Navigator with you on it.

 

 

Thank you!:):)

[BillOh]

I am pretty sure that his name is Deuteronomy.:p

 

Apparently the Rum and Coke didn't help as much as I thought.

[LuCruise]

Loving your review. It's great to hear a (mostly) positive review of Cats. You naming the cat Metamucil made me laugh out loud, and I'm at work now (is that really the name?). Yikes...reading your description I can feel those long 4 minutes of waiting for her to just sing. Love your pictures. How did you manage to capture them? I so wanted to take pictures of Mamma Mia on Allure (and other shows too during the show) but was worried I'd get caught and my camera confiscated.

[sloanesq]

This is from the C & A page regarding robes:

 

ROBE BENEFIT UPDATE

To support World Wildlife Fund’s water conservation initiatives, robes for Platinum guests and above will now be available upon request. Visit Guest Services or your Loyalty Ambassador onboard for more information.

[CHolliwood]

Great review so far.

[newtampagirl]

Sorry this is going slower than I hoped. (catching up at work and home) later today I'll have Monday the first sea day and our 35th anniversary up. Hint: I'll have to wait till tonight to get some pictures ready, I need to do screen captures from our personal DVD copy of Love and Marriage.

I have some photos I took of you and Gina during the Love and Marriage show. I will post them when you do that day's review.

[cynt]

Enjoying your review Bill. Thanks for posting. I board Lady O in 8 days. WAA HOO!! Between your review and Bugsy Live thread I'm in hog heaven. :D Keep up the good work!!!

[BillOh]

Monday May 2nd started much more relaxed than Saturday May 2nd 1981 did. I had a big day planned for our 35th anniversary at sea. Among the ways we have spent our Anniversary – 25th in St Thomas on Voyager, 27th at Chops and Cozumel on Freedom, Stayed on Allure in Nassau for our 30th, a sea day on Allure for our 32nd, Traveling to San Juan for our first Southern Caribbean cruise on Jewel in 2014 (our 33rd), and the final sea day on Freedom in 2015 for our 34th. You should get the idea we like traditions.

 

I started the day with another slow couple of miles on the running track. When I was done, I woke my bride up and had her get ready for the Meet and Mingle which was 10am at Jazz on 4. I turned on the TV to watch the morning show of CD Drew and his Activities director Margo. I had put a Happy anniversary message in the box and my timing was perfect as they read the announcement just as Gina was sitting down to dry her hair.

 

 

They dwelled on it a bit and we would get a personal congratulations from them later than night. (another hint). This would be a bad time to mention I had a minor infatuation with Margo. She is really cute and fun to listen to. Their morning show is pretty amusing. Ok, I didn’t get to 35 years married this way. Different subject!

 

We first enjoyed another relaxing breakfast in the sun outside of the Wipeout Café.

 

The Meet and Mingle went well. I’ve had more active roll calls and M&Ms, but this one was nice. I got to meet a few more people that helped me pass the time getting to the cruise and those people made the cruise even more enjoyable. Even my wife who doesn’t participate here will agree to that.

 

There was the usual prize raffle and in a rare event, I was shut out! On Freedom they had a bottle of champagne for the person who started the roll call (me), but I wasn’t there, they forgot to invite me after they changed the time. (Yes, I am getting a lot of mileage out of that one)

 

At the end of the M&M, Emmy invited us up to see her cabin/balcony. Sort of a mini cabin crawl. She had snagged one of the new balconies that use to be the public balconies above the aqua theater before the last dry-dock for both Allure and Oasis. She related how when the change was first made these suites were listed as Grand Suites, but were now a new designation of Aqua suites at a greater price. Her and Rick were definitely enjoying their week there and it was nice to see.

 

 

After that, we went to another round of trivia. This one was held in the On Air club and it was right after an early Karaoke. Back in 2013 I made a new CC friend Lisa from Arizona (AZKaraokegirl) She really enjoys onboard Karaoke and it quite good at is with a Western style. I couldn’t sing to save my life and would NEVER try it, no matter how much alcohol is involved. While respecting the activity it is something I can poke fun at with no fear of political correctness. Anyway, anytime Karaoke is mentioned I think back to that 2012/2013 roll call. I think it was then that Carnival Triumph had its problems and was drifting for a few days. It had sewage problems. Jay Leno made a joke that I will never forget, he said about the Triumph, “There was sewage and karaoke everywhere!” So Lisa, at that time I was thinking of you!.

 

A couple of girls stayed from Karaoke for the trivia. I happen to notice them going for their phones on every question. The Zoom internet has created a new type of cheater! Well, most of the questions about things as old as me, so they still didn’t do well. Later in one trivia, the crew member running the event said to put away your devices! I did a couple times where people were “phone walking” as I call it, but it didn’t seem too big of a problem.

 

After trivia we went back to the room and the Chocolate covered strawberries I ordered for my wife were delivered. I ORDERED THEM pre cruise. The card that came with them annoyed me just a little.

 

 

I don't know who B Ferguson is, but I paid for those berries!

 

Next on our celebration day was lunch at Sabor. We tried Sabor on Freedom last year and enjoyed it. While the menu is the same, on Oasis Sabor is just a little different. At least it was based on my only visit. The Boardwalk location on Oasis gets a lot more foot traffic than it does on Freedom. I went ahead and made a lunch reservation, but may or may not have needed it. When we got there it was busy, but I think they were taking walk ups. My advice if you want to go to there for lunch, make a reservation when you go on board. As of today, you can only make dinner reservations online. The Boardwalk location keeps the look and feel of the old Rita’s Cantina on Allure, but the food is much better.

 

People rave about the Guacamole . I think it is excellent, but I have nothing to compare it to. I should be ashamed that at 56 years old I never tried guac until May 2nd, 2015 on Freedom. When we had the lunch on Freedom I think we were one of only 5 or 6 people there. We had one person make our guac while another was our waiter.

 

 

 

On Oasis this lady did both. She had at least 8 tables to work and IMO, that was too many, but she was busting it trying to keep up. We told her, we weren’t going anywhere, we had nowhere else to be and to take her time. I could see the sincere appreciation in her face and we ended up having a relaxing lunch.

 

She must have had 8 tables besides us to wait on and make the guac. She was definitely busy. I think she fell in love with us when we told her, we were enjoying a relaxing day and we were in no hurry with no place to be. She took good care of us and we had a great time. I love the Chicken stuffed Jalapeno appetizer as they called it. I would call it a jalapeno stuffed chicken myself. Either way, its wrapped in bacon and is wonderful.

Edited May 12, 2016 by BillOh

[BillOh]

I have some photos I took of you and Gina during the Love and Marriage show. I will post them when you do that day's review.

 

Great, It may be tomorrow, tonight is the start of summer bowling!

[Ocean Boy]

Loving your review. It's great to hear a (mostly) positive review of Cats. You naming the cat Metamucil made me laugh out loud, and I'm at work now (is that really the name?). Yikes...reading your description I can feel those long 4 minutes of waiting for her to just sing. Love your pictures. How did you manage to capture them? I so wanted to take pictures of Mamma Mia on Allure (and other shows too during the show) but was worried I'd get caught and my camera confiscated.

 

Pictures are fine. It is video that is not allowed.

[JessyCruises]

Great review!

 

Sorry if this has been discussed before, but when did they change the cups? I was just on the Oasis in early April and they still had the old ones. I love the look of the new lids - no more screwing them on!! Anyone know if this is fleet wide?

 

At 1:30 we headed to our room where our Freestyle cups were waiting for us along with our welcome back gift. Below is my wife (she is wearing a pool cover up) making a shocking discovery!

[Ocean Boy]

Great review!

 

Sorry if this has been discussed before, but when did they change the cups? I was just on the Oasis in early April and they still had the old ones. I love the look of the new lids - no more screwing them on!! Anyone know if this is fleet wide?

 

Old style cups on Navigator last week.

[BillOh]

Great review!

 

Sorry if this has been discussed before, but when did they change the cups? I was just on the Oasis in early April and they still had the old ones. I love the look of the new lids - no more screwing them on!! Anyone know if this is fleet wide?

 

Good observation. The new cup literally changed right before our eyes. Oceanboy was on Navigator the same day I was on Oasis. Half the people got the last cup, half the people got this one.

 

 

My opinion is this new cup has a better seal and is less likely to spill if knocked over. However, the surface of this cup when it has condensation on it is a bit slipperier .

[AZ Karaoke Girl]

Thanks for the compliment Bill on karaoke. I'm still waiting to see if you mention Lisa's bridge. LOL :eek:

[BillOh]

Ok people, my apologies, I'm dragging this one too long. I didn't want to do that. Work has been hard catching up, our daughter has come to visit and the yard work was neglected for 2 weeks because it rained the week before we left.

 

Anyway, after lunch we spent time walking, shopping, and drinking. My wife spotted a new watch she wanted. Was it a good deal? I don't know, but she liked it and it was affordable. Happy Anniversary. I did see in the Compass a GOPRO demo at the photo store. I had bought a new Gopro for diving on this trip, almost left it at home when I canceled my diving, but ended up bringing it with me. I decided to go to this demo, knowing it was a sales pitch. However, I was fairly impressed. The Gentleman doing the demo did know enough about GoPros to be helpful and answer people's questions. They did offer a package on the GoPro 4 Silver that was competitive with land prices. I mainly went for the accessories. I was hoping and was fortunate enough to find a new chest mount. I decided to use that for our Jetski in St Thomas. They had it! Again it was a competitive price. I also bought a battery charger since I only had the USB one available.

 

With all the anniversary shopping out of the way, we had a few drinks in the Diamond Club until Dinner at Chops. We have had several good anniversary dinners at Chops and a couple of great ones. Overall, I prefer the Sea-view dining of the Freedom and Voyager class. On the Oasis class its more like a land restaurant. But having 2 good dinners on Allure, I knew what to expect.

 

We arrived at our designated time and found the place to be about 2/3rds full. They seated us in a back corner near the coolers. (Walk in the door turn left and head as far as you can go.) All during dinner other waiters kept putting their backsides in my face reaching for bottles of wine or Coke. (Strike 1). On Freedom I tried a new appetizer (Smoked, black pepper bacon) and it was wonderful, I dared use the expression orgasmic :o. Gina ordered the Onion Soup. My bacon was pure fat and had almost no taste this time. I think it soured my stomach just a bit. (Strike 2) Gina ordered her Petit Filet MEDIUM. I debated between the Veal Chop I had last time and the NY strip. I decided I wasn't hungry enough for the Veal, so I went with the NY Strip MEDIUM WELL. Before you steak snobs jump on me for that, I will eat many steaks Medium, but Medium well is a legit term and I have had many very good NY strips at Chops ordered this way. Well, not this year. It was as dry as a desert and barely edible. The bake potato was great and I sampled some of Gina's soup and filet as well. Along with dessert, I left full, but not satisfied. This was my worst Chops dinner ever. (Still not horrible)

 

We went back to our room for a bit. I had also booked the Comedy Show for us for this evening making it like a nice date night back home. When we got back to our room we found this waiting for us.

 

 

At last we could show our off our now recognized status to the commoners! I would wear them on my robe on the way to the pool deck!

 

We arrived at the Comedy Club 15 minutes early as recommended and the standby line was already long as it was for every showing this week. I've forgotten the 2 comedian's names, but the first one was amusing and enjoyable. The 2nd one was downright hilarious and we had a great time.

 

The Royal Crew member who acted as MC for the event, his name was Simeon and he did a good job. People in the front row had apparently cruised Oasis several times and begged Simeon to to "his snowman" He relented and then showed us his impression of Burl Ive's Snowman character. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. It's Stupid funny. Have you ever laughed uncontrollably over something silly? If you see Simeon. Ask him to do it!

 

The only thing left for us on this great anniversary day was The Love and Marriage game. During the comedy act, Gina and I discussed whether or not we would audition for the middle couple. We decided it would be a fun way to end a great anniversary.

Edited May 13, 2016 by BillOh

[njmomof2]

Happy Anniversary to both of you!

 

Your review of Cats was about what I expected to hear. In fact, it would be a reason for me NOT to book Oasis again. We were lucky enough to see Hairspray and it was terrific. I have always wanted to see Mama Mia. The one time I *saw* Cats, we walked out less than half way through; partly because the show was awful and partly because my younger niece got sick during the performance (wonder why!?). To me, it would be hours of my life I could not get back.

 

We did Sabor for lunch on Freedom last August, and while I liked it, I'm not sure I would run back to it. Certainly not for dinner. Just didn't think the dinner price was worth it. We did lunch which was fine, but again, not really noteworthy.

 

Sorry about your Chops experience. I would have definitely sent the bacon back (we've had it a few times and it is delicious), and if the steak was that dry, again I'd have asked for another. While medium well is sometimes tough to pull off, they should be able to do it successfully.

 

Looking forward to the rest of your report.

[BillOh]

I'm going to try and move this along! We still have St Thomas, St Martin, and the 2 sea days with the All Access tour to go!

 

 

 

When I last left off we had just finished a great time in the Comedy club and our Anniversary still had about 3 hours left. As we walked out of the Comedy Club, people were already streaming into the theater. People can get there an hour or more early if they want to be one of the contestants. We went in and sat down in the center section about 8 rows back, and had a drink.

 

Margot, the Activities Director came out 15 minutes before the show was supposed to start and did "The auditions/Contestant Selections". I just said Margot again. I can't help but say how cute she is! If she becomes a cruise director I think I would pick the cruises she is on. OK I'M A HAPPILY MARRIED MAN. This is Margot MC'ing the Splish Splash. More about Splish Splash soon! (That was something Oasis had that Allure didn't) Here is Margot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the typical Love and Marriage contestant search they start by asking for couples married 40 years or longer and try to find the ones married the longest. One lady said she had been married 60 years. When Margot asked here her husband was she said he was in the bathroom. Margot said, "Perfect, come one down, when we comes in we will have him escorted to the stage." Everyone laughed and laughed again when the guy came back.

 

Next they asked for Newleyweds and I don't remember much about the process but they picked a nice young couple from DC, I'd guess they were around 24-28 and married just under a year.

 

Then came the part of finding the middle couple. As expected, they said this couple would have to audition. They asked everyone who wanted to play to stand up. I think there was around 15-19 couples. They said they wanted anyone from 10-50 years of marriage. Gina and I talked about a possible audition and was hoping our favorite one would work. Sure enough they used one we had hear before and we were prepared for it.

 

I'm not going to go into too much detail. Around 1000 people saw our audition and some may use it on their own, though most probably wouldn't dare. The first few auditions were pretty lame in my expertise. You really have to impress the audience as their clapping/yelling determines to a major extent whom gets selected. About 5 auditions in, I told Gina, "Go ahead and be loud, these women are wimping out." I think we were around the the 12th couple to audition. After the roar of the approving crowd, I think most of the first 12 couples sat down! There was one couple that I thought was almost as good, but our audition had just a little more. Margot then started telling people to clap for their favorite. When she got to us, the crowd roared like they would of for a walk off home run in the 7th game of the World Series. (I am not exaggerating, ask NEWTAMPAGIRL). Margot said, I think we know who won, come on up!

 

Later when the show started, the CD Drew Devine came out and the first thing he said was, "I normally am back stage and don't see the auditions, but from the roar of the crowd, I think we are going to have to keep an eye on couple number 2" Now,, I am normally somewhat of an introvert, but on a cruise I do take a semi reasonable -" I won't ever see these people again" attitude. We were famous the rest of the week as I will mention again.

 

NEW TAMPAGIRL LET THE PICTURES FLY! and thank you! If you could, please email any pics to bmccall at insight dot rr dot com

Edited May 13, 2016 by BillOh

[LConstable]

Hi we were on the sailing right before you - we too commented on what an awful table that was (we were placed very near but tucked away nicely on a balcony) - not to mention the smoke smell that was coming in regularly from the casino (even where we were)!