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

[BillOh]

In the year waiting for this trip I started thread here asking if they still did the flashmob dance on Oasis. For my wife it was a highlight of her 2011 Allure cruise and just as enjoyable in 2013. While the idea of a true flash mob maybe 10 years too old for most people, my wife loved the dancing part.

 

While the practices are announced and some people see the practices in the promenade it still can come off in the spirit of surprise for such an event. This one didn't achieve that. On Allure the crew member running the event would tell people to hang around the area and just look like you are relaxing. Suddenly the music would start and a few crew members would start dancing and it appeared that other people were spontaneously joining in.

 

That effect was totally lost on Allure. The crew member running the event stood in the middle of the promenade and people gathered around before the music starts. It was ok to watch the number of participants was half of what it was on my last Allure cruise. Perhaps the whole flashmob idea is old news.

 

We did enjoy another happy hour even in the Diamond Club. As its been said, it can be overcrowded there, but after a day or two we learned to follow the advice and arrive around the time some people were leaving to go to early seating. (we were late seating) This was a nice part of our day each day. I think we bought 1 or 2 drinks each outside of the happy hour so we definitely didn't need the drink package other than the soda one we had.

 

Speaking of which, the Freestyle machines had a 95% working and stocked record this week, much better than 2013 on Allure. Dinner the final night was good and again we found our wait team excellent. There were more reminders of how important "10" was. After dinner we had time to get our bags put out in the hall as that terrible tradition forces us to. I did think of at least 2 members of our roll call whom were doing the B2B and was a little envious, but I was ready to go home. I had an enjoyable cruise that met my expectations for the most part.

 

Despite mentioning no sailaway on the bow, pixels not working on the aquatheater screen, and a few other things I was able to achieve an enjoyable relaxing week. I wait to long for each cruise not to enjoy myself. Having to change my excursions last minute was a huge disappointment of my own making, but I made the best of it and had a great week.

 

As for the future of myself and the Oasis class, I'll watch and see what it brings to decide when I return. While we have done this class of ship 3 times on the Eastern itinerary, I would gladly do it again. I would like to see Mama Mia on Allure. When does that end, 2019? As you can see below my 2017 and 2018 cruises are planned on "smaller ships". I'll watch what Oasis does from Port Canaveral in the future. Will she have to spend less time in Nassau because its further to get there? Perhaps not as it doesn't have to go full speed to get there. We now see St Kitts and San Juan being added into the mix once in awhile. I'll watch to see what happens with Harmony. I think the ship and its slides sound like a great idea, but I think I'm now passed the time I would consider using them because of my back surgery. But as I always say of this class, "the things that I don't like or do on this ship draw people away from the things I do like, so it rarely seems crowded.

 

I guess I am saying, we will be back. Embarkation was pretty smooth, the only problems were of our own making. We had a 2pm flight. This is late enough that we didn't want to rush off the ship, but it was too early for many post cruise excursions. I should have asked for one of the last embarkation times. We had a relatively early time, but we hung on the ship to nearly 10am. The minor problem this caused was the put most of the bags on two sides of the terminal. We were then herded to one side of the terminal while our bags were on the other. It took a couple of minutes to figure out how to get to where ours were. A dozen people had this same problem of their own creation. No problem, it killed more time. There was a long custom line, but it moved fast.

 

We did see our Quest Captain in this line, but one thought I had while going through this line, there were hundreds of people here that I never saw all week. I am a people watcher so I was surprised at the large number of people I never saw, or is it my fading memory. Speaking of fading memory, that is one reason I do this. When I get post cruise depression or it seems like my next cruise is far apart I read these review again :o

 

All done! thank for following along and participating. Thanks to another successful roll call group! Next up Adventure of the Seas and the ABC islands which will all be new to me. The Adventure 4/29/17 group has my full attention and I'm headed there to liven that one up and start new memories.

[OSULabRat]

Thank you for the great review! You will love Adventure and the ABC's. Southern Caribbean quickly became my favorite itinerary (I have done both versions on Adventure now, and they are both great!)

Edited May 21, 2016 by OSULabRat

[Az's Cruising Nana]

Thanks for letting me sail virtually with you. No cruise for us this year due to the big one in Oct 2017 so this will have to suffice. One of these years we will have to sail with you and Gina again. You definately know how to keep a roll call amusing.......

 

Sue

[CruisePrincess51]

Thanks again for the great review, it makes us even more anxious to board Oasis next year. For us, we just booked a 9 night southern route on Navigator out of Miami instead of flying to PR to do the southern itinerary. Enjoy your next cruise!

 

Kathy :)

[BillOh]

I believe it's Captain Rob Hempstead.

I believe you are correct.

 

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[BillOh]

Well, I found my notebook, I'll go through it and see if there was anything I wanted to add. I do remember one odd little thing. On the first sea day and St Thomas, I noticed a r.eally stale cigarette smell on the boardwalk. I've never seen anyone smoking there, but it was a real obvious smell. If you ever had gone into a bar at 7am when it was closed up all night. I wondered if a crew area was venting to the boardwalk area. Wednesday in St Maarten a short rain storm came through and I was gone for the rest of the week

[BillOh]

Thanks for letting me sail virtually with you. No cruise for us this year due to the big one in Oct 2017 so this will have to suffice. One of these years we will have to sail with you and Gina again. You definately know how to keep a roll call amusing.......

 

Sue

 

Hi Sue. I don't know if you saw, but I have now had 2 roll call members named Lisa injur themselves pre-cruise. At least the 2nd one didn't involve me in it! ;)

[Az's Cruising Nana]

Hi Sue. I don't know if you saw, but I have now had 2 roll call members named Lisa injur themselves pre-cruise. At least the 2nd one didn't involve me in it! ;)

 

If my name was Lisa I would definately think twice about cruising with you......... :)

 

Sue

[rdsxgrl28]

Nana - I am the 2nd non-involving Bill injury, yeah we are gonna adhere to that - jk. LOL we had a great time on this cruise & meeting everyone.

 

 

 

I wasn't very clear on that. I thought by underlining the ENTIRE beach that would indicate he was also on the suit required side, but I guess he might not follow the rules. Him and his little buddy (actual 2nd person) did have speedo type suits.

 

OMG we saw them!! All I thought was YUCK, I cannot stand muscleheads.

 

Here I must stop and possibly relate something that might be important to perhaps only a couple of thousand people world wide. Early I mentioned dress requirement regarding shoes and pants for this tour. We stood about 15 minutes in one cooler area where the temp was , I believe 35F as we were told. My wife suffers from Cold Uriticaria.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_urticaria.

 

It wasn't a matter of her feeling chilled. 30-40 minutes in here could be life threatening for her. By the way, the ships uses a 2 man rule to make sure nobody gets locked in here. Anyone who thinks they need a sweater for the theater or dining room, bring it on this tour. Royal could add this to the guidelines. We were in that room for about 12 minutes so my wife pulled her arms inside her blouse and I hugged her to keep her warm. This kept it tolerable to her. Fortunately, we didn't stay nearly as long in the freezer.

 

Next up the Engine control room!

 

I'll have to tell Ed that, he wanted to do this tour. He isn 37 degrees all day, not sure he'd want to do it on vacaction:D

[BillOh]

It was nice meeting you at the M&M. We found a soft serve by accident, it was next to the kid's pool against a wall near a pool bar on the same deck as the Wipeout. I took a couple of pictures of you at the Marriage show. You should have won. LOL

 

Ah, now I see why I didn't find it. Normally we walk through the kids area just to observe as we don't cruise with kids. I forgot to do that this time.

[BillOh]

Nana - I am the 2nd non-involving Bill injury, yeah we are gonna adhere to that - jk. LOL we had a great time on this cruise & meeting everyone.

 

 

 

Ha, guess who signed up for another roll call and cruise with me. I'll remind you in 2018 to walk carefully in stairwells.:D

[tbmrt]

Loved your review.

 

Can you tell me how much time there is between muster and sailaway? From what I remember we usually unpacked inbetween, but from what I've read the port side, Deck 16, is very crowded. Wondering if we should just head there after muster.

 

We're were a bit disappointed to read that here is no sailaway music w/band & dancing. We usually go to the deck above the band area and enjoyed watching the dancers as well as the sea when leaving the port.

 

Thanks

[BillOh]

Loved your review.

 

Can you tell me how much time there is between muster and sailaway? From what I remember we usually unpacked inbetween, but from what I've read the port side, Deck 16, is very crowded. Wondering if we should just head there after muster.

 

We're were a bit disappointed to read that here is no sailaway music w/band & dancing. We usually go to the deck above the band area and enjoyed watching the dancers as well as the sea when leaving the port.

 

Thanks

 

There was almost no time between Muster and Sailaway. We barely had time to get from the Studio B location up to our sailaway spot.

[Summergirl*14]

Thank you so much for your "Cats" review. My husband and I are going on Oasis next Saturday, 9/24. We live about 50 miles north of NYC. I saw Cats on Broadway years ago and loved it. My 'blue collar' husband has already decided he'll hate it. I hope he decides to be a trooper and last the entire show. Thanks again for this great review

 

 

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[BillOh]

Thank you so much for your "Cats" review. My husband and I are going on Oasis next Saturday, 9/24. We live about 50 miles north of NYC. I saw Cats on Broadway years ago and loved it. My 'blue collar' husband has already decided he'll hate it. I hope he decides to be a trooper and last the entire show. Thanks again for this great review

 

 

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Thanks for the note. Tell your husband that in spite what I wrote here, I'm glad I went so now I know what everyone is talking about. At best, its another 2 or 3 hours I spent with my wife on vacation. Plus now I can talk about it with some experience.