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

[riclop]

Thanks for the report.

[Denversail]

Tagging along

 

 

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[floatel_lvr]

Welcome to my Oasis April 30th 2016 (Eastern) trip report. I am Bill traveling with my wife Gina from Columbus, Ohio. This trip was specifically to celebrate our 35th anniversary. ...

 

Following along Bill. Thanks for the review and Happy Anniversary to you both!

[jimbri]

Great review. Looking forward to the rest.

[BillOh]

We enjoyed some time around the beach pool noting more kids than usual at this pool, but I figured, while allowed at this pool most migrate to the H20 zone once they discover it. I did hear later in a crew interaction that the number of kids this week was 50% higher than the previous week. I'm not sure why that was. I did identify one Quinciera (sp) group on board. No real problem with either demographic all week.

 

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!

 

In this picture she is reading the paper left behind explaining the C&A benefits loaded on our seapass cards. She wondered why there were two and mine had more benefits. I looked and saw she was listed as Emerald while I was listed as Diamond. Our cruise histories are identical. As big of a deal as I made about seeing Diamond on my card, I'm surprised she didn't notice hers said Emeral. As much as I hated to do it, we were off to Guest Services. I try to avoid Guest Services on the first and last days and sure enough, the line was long!

 

 

There were a couple of RC personnel circulating through the line to see if they could help the people in line, but we ended up waiting about 20 minutes till we got to this guy.

 

 

He looked at both of our cruise histories and reprinted her Seapass card with one that showed DIAMOND on it. So we were good to go, or so we thought.

Our next stop was to walk out on the boardwalk and make a lunch reservation for Monday, which was our anniversary. We already had a Chops reservation for our anniversary evening.

 

 

As you can see it was a beautiful day and the lady above helped us with our reservation quickly.

Edited May 10, 2016 by BillOh

[BillOh]

We continued to wander around the ship making note of things that were different from Allure, but also that I knew was different from Oasis in the past year or so. I had made a reservation for Gina at the Cupcake class for Thursday the sea day after St Martin. I knew the Cupcake Corner had combined with the ice cream shop and was on the boardwalk. A quick walk in there showed me it was less space for ice cream and cupcakes, but at least there was plenty of room for the class. The Cupcake Corner is now a Kate Spade Store. Including us, I saw 10 people in there all week.

 

 

Now might be a good confession time as I didn’t do much but wander until muster. The last 2 weeks of my work were very hectic and stressful. I forgot to print out my setsail pass (no big deal) but I also forgot to print out the schedule of shows I reserved. That was only a little problem as my reservations didn’t show up on the interactive TV until after dinner. More on that later. I also had an ear infection a week before cruising and antibiotics cleared it right up, but the Doctor said no to diving for a few weeks, so that killed 2/3rds of my excursions. We decided to do nothing at Nassau and found a private jet ski excursion at Coki Beach in St Thomas.

 

In 2 trips on Allure both times in D balconies on deck 12, my muster station had always been in the Aquatheater. I have a battle plan for that to allow me to get to my sailaway spot on time. This time my muster station was deep inside studio B. We arrived early hoping to get seats near the exit, but the crew members were determined to stymie me. Even though there were people who arrived even earlier and were sitting near the exit, they insisted we sit in the front row furthest from the exit. I was dropped deep in deck 4. After a cartoon about washing your hands and the real safety stuff we were released from the muster, but we were trapped behind a slow moving crowd and had to wind our way through the casino to exit. By the time I climbed 10 flights of stairs my sailaway spot was taken. I did get close to the port side in the front and did manage to wave to the port webcam. I’ll post that pic later.

 

Now it was time to go to the Golden Palace of Priveledge not accessible to the commoners known as the DIAMOND CLUB or previously the Diamond lounge. Gina put her Seapass card in the door and it flashed red! I tried mine and it caused the golden doors to open just has if St Peter was personally calling us in. The effect was enhanced by the sunlight coming in from the boardwalk and through the lounge 

We stopped to talk to the Diamond Concierge.

 

 

I told him of the problem with Gina’s card and that mine worked. He said we had to go next door to talk to the Loyalty Ambassador to get that fixed. We went through the Library to his desk and saw 15 people waiting. Back to the Diamond club for us. After 3 rum and cokes for me and 3 Vodka Cranberries for Gina, we went back to the Loyalty Ambassador where this time, no waiting. He looked at our accounts, hit a few keys and said all was well. Gina’s card still didn’t open the door to the promised land. He said to check with the Diamond Concierge, who printed a 3rd card that hour for Gina, but it worked and no problems the rest of the week.

 

This is Gina and I the first evening relaxing in the Diamond Club. The photo was taken by one of the several friends we made in there that week. The lazy eye is why I don't like my photos taken.

[BillOh]

A little before the first seating we walked through the 4th floor dining room (Grande) We had the late seating traditional dining. Our table number 469 was no where to be found, but we found 3 tables in the area with no numbers, so when dinner came, we let them seat us. On the way out I did spot what has to be the worst table in the Royal Caribbean fleet. This table is right inside the entrance to the dining room on deck 4. I think I would refuse to sit here. You would have traffic going in an out all night with people stopping to see what you were eating.

 

 

Turned out we were at a table for 2, despite having asked for a large table. We were seated next to an older couple from Virginia that were nice enough, but very softspoken which with my hearing loss wasn't ideal. I had the Pork Chop and Gina had the prime rib. Both were very good as the MDR food would be all week.

 

I was certain I had made reservations for the aqua show at 10:30 right after dinner, but Gina saw in the compass that the show was at 9:30. I kept insisting that I wouldn't have made that rookie mistake. Our Waiter and Assistant Waiter got us done and out so we could get to the Aquatheater by 9:30. Well we made it, but the seats were gone, so I watched the show from the back. I had to watch the show on the big screens and that was distracting because many of the screens pixels were out of calibration and some were just out. (black) This is the first sign of wear I have seen on an Oasis class.

 

That is almost the end of day 1!

[BillOh]

Ok, this just got more difficult. I can't find my notebook from the cruise and I may have to do this from memory. The end of day one for us was our ritual hot tub soak. This is one area Royal can be a little deficient. Sometimes it can be hard to find an open hot tub that is about 101F. And when you find it, they throw you out of it. This tradition continued as we settled into the port side cantilevered tub just outside the solarium. As it always seems to, we just got comfortable, planning on spending about 20 minutes there when a Royal crew member tells us we have to get out that he is closing it. I've been kicked out of as many as 3 hot tubs in the same night. Royal really needs to do this later in the morning!

 

Day 2 we arrived in Nassau right around sunrise. But for us this became a sea day. I started all of my sea days, including this impromptu one by running several miles on Oasis' running track. Being a semi retired marathoner, I took a video of one lap around the track to show my running friends what the world's largest running track at sea looks like.

 

I bought a new Gopro to use while diving, but that was canceled so I have to find another use for it ;) Most times I've been in Nassau there were at least 5 ships. That morning a Carnival ship left, Majesty arrived, an we parked next to this.

 

http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:376343/mmsi:311971000/imo:9079315/vessel:DISCOVERER_2

 

After my workout I woke up the lovely wife and we had our breakfast at the Wipeout Café. Nice omlets, bacon, and sausage and a waffle. This and Johnny Rocket's was the best breakfasts! We played a little trivia, got some more time at the Beach Pool and the decided to do one lunch at Johnny Rocket's I don't normally do food porn, but with this review being light on excursions I figured why not, plus I had my camera with me on the board walk.

 

The Smokehouse Burger.

 

 

Gina had a crispy chicken salad. Both were good.

 

 

Because we had the one scheduled evening performance of CATS we did our dinner in the Windjammer. It was one of only 3 visits there. The one thing that was interesting was Jim Beam BBQ Ribs. They were good.

 

Ok, are you ready? Blue collar BillOh is ready for CATS!

Edited May 10, 2016 by BillOh

[rdsxgrl28]

Love the report, feels like we were there with you. OH wait we were 😄

It was great meeting you & Gina.

[GTO-Girl]

We are boarding the Freedom this Sunday and want to go ahead and book the Oasis for the end of the year while onboard. We have never done this before so glad to see your comment that the staff on the Freedom will be able to help us.

 

Can't wait for the the rest of your review!!

Edited May 11, 2016 by GTO-Girl

[PhoenixCruiser]

Awesome report so far! Thanks Bill :D

 

###

[suizas]

Bill, thank you so much for the go pro of the running track! I will be showing it off to my running friends, who are non- cruisers, in hopes of getting them on board one day. And, it will enable me to show them what I'll be doing most mornings while on Harmony's Transatlantic [emoji7] awesome!! Thanks!

[joand452]

Great report, Bill! We were on Oasis for the 3rd time in August/ September, so its memory is still fresh.

 

Looking forward to more--especially what you thought of Cats!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[perfect match]

Bill, I am so excited to read your report! We will FINALLY be sailing on Oasis in November, something I have been wanting to do since she was first launched. After reading your trip plan, it seems like you made the same plan DH and I would likely be making, right down to your traditional late dining at a big table. My only disappointment is that due to your ear infection, you will not be diving,, and as a diver, I was hoping to see how your experience at Stewart Cove's compared with mine there. Still, I am excited to hear about the rest of your trip, especially the jet ski rental at Coki Beach. :D

[BillOh]

Love the report, feels like we were there with you. OH wait we were 😄

It was great meeting you & Gina.

 

I am a big proponent of the roll calls despite their downturn in activity. This one was no exception. A group of nice people helped pass the time before the cruise, good information was exchangeed, and were very enjoyable to interact with once on the ship.

[BillOh]

Bill, thank you so much for the go pro of the running track! I will be showing it off to my running friends, who are non- cruisers, in hopes of getting them on board one day. And, it will enable me to show them what I'll be doing most mornings while on Harmony's Transatlantic [emoji7] awesome!! Thanks!

 

I feel compelled to note that the video is almost 6 minutes long which equates to a 12 minute mile which a year or two I would be embarased by, but with advancing arthritis and back issues, I'm happy just to be running again!

[BillOh]

We are boarding the Freedom this Sunday and want to go ahead and book the Oasis for the end of the year while onboard. We have never done this before so glad to see your comment that the staff on the Freedom will be able to help us.

 

Can't wait for the the rest of your review!!

 

One Freedom, find the Next Cruise desk (deck 4?) on the first day and sign up for an appointment. You can show up and wait, but if you have an appointment they take you right away. So much better run that Allure or Jewel was.

[BillOh]

Bill, I am so excited to read your report! We will FINALLY be sailing on Oasis in November, something I have been wanting to do since she was first launched. After reading your trip plan, it seems like you made the same plan DH and I would likely be making, right down to your traditional late dining at a big table. My only disappointment is that due to your ear infection, you will not be diving,, and as a diver, I was hoping to see how your experience at Stewart Cove's compared with mine there. Still, I am excited to hear about the rest of your trip, especially the jet ski rental at Coki Beach. :D

 

Speaking of the jetski rental, we had a great time, more on that later. I too was dissapointed not to be able to use Stuarts for diving, but the doctor's advice turned out to be wise. Our Coki excursion was a jetski/snorkel one. When I jumped off my jetski to snorkel I got a nose full of water, which was careless, but no big deal. But later that night we were walking through the casino and some of that salt water worked its way down into my ear canal and I let out a pretty good yelp enough to give my wife some concern. About 15 minutes later it was fine, but it was as close as I've ever come to needing medical attention on a cruise.

[BillOh]

As I mentioned last night, the report may get a bit disjointed from now on as I misplaced my notebook. Yes, I spend perhaps 10 minutes per cruise writing things down for later so I can relate them here. Its how I enjoy my vacation!.

 

As I drifted off to sleep a couple of things came to mind that I had forgotten from day 1. Because of our anniversary and CATS, I knew ahead of time we would be eating in the MDR the first night, then skipping 2 nights. Our wait team of Emmanuele and Herman were excellent. They did everything just the way I wanted. We did hear 3 times from our waiter on the first night that if he gets 10 on surveys he will get a promotion. They did a great job and will earn the 10 I will give whenever I get this survey, but as the week progressed it would become a minor irritation. We would see hints for 10s all over the ship. It didn't effect our cruise, but became a bit tacky. Here is the dessert we were given the first night.

 

 

It's 8am eastern Wednesday morning here in Ohio. I'll work on my Cat's review at lunch today!

 

Oh, while I was falling asleep last night in my sleep number bed, I remember reading a lot about hard beds on several ships. I'm glad to say my streak of great sleeping nights is now at 70, but I will note our bed had one of the "egg crate" mattress toppers from day one, we never had to ask for it. Speaking of things in our cabin, I'm use to the Cabin attendant stopping by one day 1 and introducing themselves. That didn't happen on day 1 or 2. In fact, while she did a great job, we never met her in 7 days. (She left her card so we knew it was a she, if I can be politicially incorrect enough to assume by the name, it was a she. ) On that first day her paperwork showed me as Diamond and my wife as Emerald, so she left only one robe. Much to the dismay of many of you, we wear them to and from the hot tubs around midnight. On day 1 we wrote a note asking for a 2nd robe and ice. We got it and our room was perfect all week. I just have no idea whom this person was.

Edited May 11, 2016 by BillOh

[Ocean Boy]

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!

[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!

 

We also had great weather with just an hour of rain in St Martin and one Sea day. I thought I had a pic of Navigator behind the HAL ship, I'll look for it.

[CruisePrincess51]

I'm really enjoying your review so far and all the pictures, I can't wait for more to come. I also noticed that you are sailing on Adventure next, it's funny because when we were on Freedom several weeks ago the cruise you are taking next is the same exact one that I had originally booked on board but then had second thoughts and ended up booking Oasis. We had the same dates chosen as well. :) Eventually we will go back and do the S Caribbean again but air fare to SJU is a lot more expensive than air to Fl. Possibly in 2018, we'll see. Adventure was our very first cruise, the one that got us "hooked" on cruising!

 

Kathy

[BillOh]

Ok! I left off in the afternoon/evening of day 2, which on this itinerary is Sunday at Nassau. As previously mentioned we treated this like a Sea day. Because CATS fell into our late dining we ate at the Windjammer that night. The 2 things that stood out where the Jim Beam BBQ ribs and the Minute Steaks. They were actually good and hot!

 

Let me mention another thing about the shows I noticed on this cruise. The standby lines for every show was long. They didn't always wait till the designated time to let standby people in. I saw them start letting standbys in when the flow of people with reservations dwindled down.

 

Ok, now lets talk about Cats!

 

 

My own personal experience with this production is buying a ticket for my wife to go to it with her mother and 2 other sisters. They raved about it and talked about it for weeks. (I picked up a little through Osmosis, but had never seen the show. Years later I paid for 2 more tickets so my wife could see it with our daughter. so my wife has seen it twice. When we were picking this cruise back in 2014 the fact that Oasis had Cats was the selling point for my wife. I would have preferred to see Mama Mia on Allure, but I didn't want to go Western, so Oasis and Cats win.

 

I've read much of what has been written here about the show to Gina. Much of that can be summarized as:

 

It's too long

It's the full production

Many people don't come back after intermission

The 2nd half is the best part.

It helps if you read the synopsis of the story.

 

My wife gave me her version of the story back in 2015 and refreshed my memory on the airplane flying in. Our show time was 8:30, so we planned on arriving just after 8. Gina said she wanted to sit up front and center. She had 5th row center seats in Columbus the last time. She said she enjoyed looking at the costumes and character expressions, especially of the cast along the edges.

 

As we walked by the theater at 7:50 the audience was streaming in and the standby line was already huge. We still did manage to get 4th row center seats. There was a mom and 2 girls in front of us that looked to be about 7 or 8. I wondered it they would make it through the show but they did. So after months of anticipation, the show started.

 

Here is an early scene.

 

 

Gina's advice helped me through the first 30 minutes. Everytime a new character came out she told me whom it was. The rest of the time I spend admiring the makeup and costumes. I also admired some of the dancing and gymnastic skills of the performers.. When that faded, I entertained myself my trying to decide if some of the non-speaking characters were male or female inside the costumers. Some of the really tight spandex made it easy to tell, but some you still couldn't. At least I wasn't counting ceiling tiles yet as I speculated in other threads that I might be.

 

I got the story, only with my wife's help, but it was so slow to develop! Sitting where it was, I could see right into the eyes of many of the performers and I could imagine they were looking directly at me,but I'm hoping they couldn't see me with the stage lights. 30 minutes in I was supressing some major yawns and I didn't want to hurt the cast's feelings.

 

The epitome of why it was too long could be summarized by describing the song "Jelico Cats" All of the characters, I do believe are a Jelico breed of cat, and I think that is an imaginary breed for the show. The only problem is the only words I could understand were those two words JELICO CATS. It would have been a real challenge to count the number of times it was said in this song, but I think that would have drove a person mad. I would sincerely estimate in this single song they say "Jelico cats" 200 times. I was hearing those words for days afterwards. I enjoyed the song and dancing for about 4 minutes. However, the some went on for about 12 minutes. I was thinking, "I get it already, you're a Jelico cat" Here is where I was fighting major yawns and I think my face cramped up from the restraint.

 

I really think a good blue collar version of cats this song would be about 4 mintues, but Royal goes to great extent to point out this is a FULL PRODUCTION" I can binge watch 8 hours of many shows on Netflix, but this was starting to get to me when the intermission came.

 

During that intermission my wife found out they were serving popcorn ($2.95) in the back so she got us both a drink and some popcorn. 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)

 

 

There was one other point in the first act that I thought showed why the show is too long. One of the main characters, I think her name is Grisabella walks to the front of the stage. Believe me, she takes her time getting there and there is nothing else going on. She pauses and looks tormented. Even I get that. But there she is, looking dejected and lonely. I can tell she is about to sing about why she is so miserable, but she drags out the mood setting for 4 minutes. Its 4 minutes of us looking at her and vice versa. I'm thinking, " I know your going to sing, get started already" I'm glad to know and my wife later verified, I didn't say it.

 

Now, as you have probably read many times, "It gets better in the 2nd half". Well, I could argue against that in court! In the 2nd half there are a few songs that people like me who haven't seen the show will recognize. That was good. However, in the 2nd half there were a couple of "***" moments. I hope that doesn't draw any fire from the moderators, but that is exactly what I found myself thinkings (and fortunately not saying out loud) several times in the 2nd half.

 

At one point some characters came out and started running around. I thought they were Martian Rats, but my wife told me they were Siamese Cats. I guess their hats, which looked like something from a production of "The King and I" was a giveway to that. They still looked like Space Rats to me. Another time I found myself saying,( EDIT NOTE: Apparently the 3 letter acronym for WHAT THE FOG is not allowed) was when a bunch of the cats put on eye patches and started waving swords around and acting like pirates. I thought this was about cats in a junk yard. They lost me with the Pirate scene and even my wife couldn't explain it to me.

 

Anyway, for those of you who don't want to come back for the 2nd half, or perhaps much of the first, I can summarize the entire show with this:

 

 

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!

Edited May 11, 2016 by BillOh

[floridagrandma]

Doesn't everyone get a robe?

[Clarea]

Doesn't everyone get a robe?

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.