Oasis of the Seas Memorial Day Cruise Review - 5/27 through 6/3 - Western Caribbean

[DonAntonio]

First, thanks all for the kind words! I'll try to address a few comments/questions:

 

We are thinking of taking Cortrans shuttle too and wondered what time they picked you up? We would prefer to be at the ship earlier than 12.15.

 

I believe they had two pickup times, 10:15am and 11:15am. We opted for the later time in case we ended up going out somewhere for breakfast, but with the earlier time, I'm guessing we would have gotten into the port around 11am.

 

As for the rock wall issue, the sport staff were down by 5 employees that week. Too many had contracts that ended and not enough new contracts came. So they were spread very thin. I’m pretty sure they didn’t have enough employees for both, just a guess.

 

I guess that makes sense. Since this is my first cruise on Royal, I don't know whether this was just a one-off bad situation or if it's a recurring issue for them, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

 

We were on this sailing as well and had a good time. However, this was our third Oasis sailing in about four years and the decline of the quality in the MDR since the "new" menus were introduced was really noticeable to us in the last two sailings. In fact, about half-way through the cruse we just stopped going completely.

 

I haven't cruised on Royal before, so I can't speak to how the quality has been previously, but I can say that for us, the issue was not that the dishes we ate weren't good, it was that they weren't consistently good. I'd say for maybe 70-80% of our orders, we were happy with what we got. 80% (ish) is reasonably high, I suppose, but typically when I go to a land-based restaurant, that number is 100% or near 100. So to me, that gap is where they need to focus on improving.

 

I was surprised you were told that even with anytime dining that there is normally a charge for Solarium Bistro at dinner. That was not the case last Fall. Can anyone confirm is that is now the case? We have a 5 night dining package booked but planned to do Solarium Bistro for the other two nights, and we have anytime dining.

 

According to the Dining Guide in the Daily Planner, it is a for fee restaurant; note the ($) symbol next to where it's listed in the image:

 

 

However, my wife and I never tried going there after the first night, and I know ricka47 said it was complimentary for him, so this may be a case where, to borrow a phrase from Whose Line Is It Anyway, "everything's made up and the prices don't matter!" :D

 

Signed---The not so interesting 2nd contestant on Who Wants to be a Millionaire

 

Hey man, I remember you! I think you did a good job! Sure, that first contestant was a tough act to follow, but he also one or two (or ten) more drinks in him, haha. That game show seems to be one of the best in terms of prizes as well. I mean, some of those things are actually useful!

[wendyam76]

Thank you so much for the info! Helps so much with planning.

Wendy

[JaniceB]

Wonderful review!

I am surprised that the employees standing around when you board let that many people jump in line. I don't think I would have been very nice to them.

We are doing this itinerary on the same ship in November. I sure hope we don't encounter the lines you did.

I have sailed Carnival many times and totally agree that the entertaiment on Royal is much better and the extra non fee venues for food are much better on Carnival.

[willdra]

Loved this review! Thanks for sharing so much valuable info with us! 😁

[altay]

Great review! Can't wait till my sailing in September!

[tourismtessy]

What an awesome and thorough review. Love your style of writing and thank you for the detailed information!

 

 

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[Luke Dawg]

Hi, what time did you get to the airport.

 

 

Background

My wife and I booked our trip on Oasis of the Seas in January. Our booking was for an oceanview balcony stateroom, and the cruise left on May 27th (the day before Memorial Day). The itinerary was a 7-night Western Caribbean cruise that included calls to Labadee, Jamaica, and Cozumel. I had done a lot of research and was confident in our selection of the ship and date, so we used the non-refundable deposit option.

 

A little bit about us, we're in our mid-20s and live the mid-Atlantic region, although we're originally from Georgia. We've cruised twice before, although this is our first time with Royal Caribbean (previous two times were with Carnival). We like a good variety of things to do on our cruises - doing active stuff like rock climbing, going to see shows and trivia, eating at a variety of restaurants, and relaxing in the sun. On the other hand, we don't really gamble, aren't huge drinkers (maybe one or two a day between us during the cruise), and don't really like the pool, so I won't be able to talk to those things too much.

 

One final note - this review will be primarily text. There may be pictures here or there, but they will be few and far between. Many sections may have a lot of description with very few pictures, so forgive me if I end up rambling or go into a bit too much detail!

 

Alright, on to the review!

 

Pre-embarkation

Our cruise left on a Sunday, and we flew down a day before into the Orlando Airport on JetBlue. We hadn't flown on that airline before, but it was a pleasant flight, at least as much as one can be. We got in late afternoon and were staying at the Hilton Garden Inn near the airport, which provided a shuttle from the airport. The hotel itself was nice and seemed to have been fairly recently updated. My only wish was that breakfast was included - I think it was something like $12 for a hot buffet - but considering they were less expensive than other nearby hotels, I'm not going to complain.

 

Once we got checked in to the hotel, we took an Uber over to the local Publix supermarket, bought our bottles of wine to bring aboard the ship, and Uber'd back to the hotel. For dinner, we walked to a nearby restaurant, Rock N Brews. If anyone is staying in that area, I would definitely recommend it; we had some awesome BBQ wings, as well as a really good chicken quesadilla and a solid bread pudding. It had gotten pretty late by that point, so we didn't do anything else.

 

The next morning, we ate the aforementioned breakfast in the hotel (nothing to write home about), checked out, and met our shuttle in front of the hotel. We used Cortrans shuttle service to get to the port from Orlando and back again after the cruise was over. It was pretty nice for a shuttle, although it was close enough in cost ($40 pp round trip) to an Uber that I don't know if I would do it again. It was raining, which I was worried about, although for most of the trip after the first night, the weather was really nice.

 

The ride to the port took about an hour and was incident free. We got to the port at around 12:15 and were dropped off right next to where the porters could take our bags. Once the bags were with the porter, we got ourselves ready for the line into the terminal, the first of many on this trip...

 

Day 1 - Embarkation and Sailaway

The first line we had to wait on stretched out of the terminal into the parking lot area. It was pretty well managed, though - the line remained orderly, and it didn't ever feel like people didn't know where to go.

 

While we were waiting in line, the woman in front of us turned around and said something like, "Just to let you guys know, we're a group of around 40 or 50 people." I was thinking she just meant she was cruising with a group of other people who we might see here or there on the ship and was a little confused why she was telling us. Soon enough, though, my wife and I found out what she meant, as people from a charter bus started joining her in the line in front of us - first one, then a few more, and ultimately several dozen in total; it looked like it was maybe a family reunion or something like that. We realized the woman hadn't been just trying to make small talk but was wanting to warn us (I guess) that a bunch of people would be getting in front of us in line (or maybe she was trying to gauge if we were the kind of people who would make an issue out of it, haha). It did bug me a little bit, but given there were hundreds of people in line, I decided an extra 50 or so wouldn't really make that much of a difference.

 

Once we got in the terminal, we realized the line we were waiting in was the security line. It seemed like it was a really long time to wait, although in reality I think it only took about 30 minutes or so from the time we got in line to when we were able to pass through the metal detectors. We had our wine bottles in a separate bag that we were carrying with us - we'd previously made the rookie mistake of leaving wine bottles in our suitcases handled by the porters.

 

After getting through security, check in was a breeze. We had almost no wait time to see an agent (less than five minutes), and while it was crowded at the check-in desk, there weren't any problems (I did get a "tsk tsk" from the agent because I had torn the white space off my SetSail Pass to make it easier to fit in my pocket - apparently you aren't supposed to do that?). We got our SeaPass cards, and also the specialty coffee card we had ordered for my wife, which is essentially a punch card with 15 uses for things like espresso, lattes, etc. With our SeaPass cards in hand, we were ready to get on the ship!

 

Embarkation is on Deck 5; you come in on the walking track and the staff directs into the ship after scanning your card. It was right around 1pm when we got on, so we decided to wait a minute for them to open up the doors to access the staterooms. After a very short wait, we were on our way over to our stateroom. We had booked room 6720, which was on Deck 6 on the starboard side of the ship in the aft section, with only a few rooms farther aft than ours. We had wanted something a bit closer to the elevator banks, but this was the last room in the class and we didn't mind walking a bit more in exchange for not spending more money.

 

The room itself was very nice. It seemed like a lot of though was put into maximizing storage space; there's a lot of shelves here and there that help with making use of the vertical space. The lighting is good too - there's your normal overhead lights, but there's also two lower-brightness lights right above the two paintings in the room, which are great for providing some illumination in the evening without the full brightness of the regular lights. Both sets of lights have switches at the door as well as next to the bed, and the bed also has personal reading lights on each side. I was also able to find an outlet under the bed, thanks to seeing it mentioned somewhere on these forums.

 

 

The bathroom is also nice; small, obviously, but follows the same pattern of providing a lot of shelf space as well as five hooks - two above the sink and three on the bathroom door. The shower is cozy in size but I liked it - it's enclosed in glass (or clear plastic, maybe), not the dreaded clingy curtain Carnival ships seem to largely employ.

 

 

After we got our first look around and dropped off our bags, we did notice a bit of a problem in the room having to do with wind noise. There was a gap between the gasket of the balcony door and the frame, causing a very audible whistling noise that would have definitely kept us up at night. One of the first things we did was put in a call to maintenance. Someone came by several hours later, and it appeared to fix the problem, but once the wind picked up, we noticed it again and put in another call. I think they came back and fully fixed it later when we weren't in the room, although it's possible that it just didn't get windy enough again for us to notice it. Either way, we're glad it didn't end up bothering us throughout the trip.

 

After we put in the initial maintenance call, we went out to explore the ship. The first thing we did was head over to Park Cafe. It's located in Central Park, the area of the ship with real plants that forms an outdoor garden. This whole area is beautiful and quite impressive, especially considering all the challenges with keeping live plants on a ship (water usage, climate, wind damage, etc.).

 

 

 

When we got to Park Cafe, I already knew what I wanted. I had heard a lot through the forums about the roast beef sandwiches they have there. I was thinking to myself, "I'm sure the sandwiches are fine, but I doubt that they're all they're cut out to be." Let me tell you right now, the hype...is entirely justified! You wouldn't think that something with such simple ingredients (kummelweck bun, two slices of thickly cut roast beef, and a spoonful of gravy/au jus) could be so delicious, but it was definitely one of my favorite food items on the ship. Even if you're a vegetarian, it's worth breaking it just this once for this sandwich!

 

Alright, enough gushing, on with the review. Most of the rest of our afternoon was spent exploring the ship as well as in the muster drill; although everyone would rather be someone else, the safety video was actually reasonably entertaining. At some point, we did spend a little bit of time in the line to get waiver armbands (for rock climbing, zip line, FlowRider, and ice skating), but after waiting for maybe 15 minutes and the line only moving two or three people out of around 20, we decided to come back the next day. We also did the spa tour, where they take you to several different stations and give you the whole spiel for facial rejuvenation or acupuncture therapy or whatever; it also included a "massage sample" that actually felt really good and convinced us to book a massage - more on that later. As for the actual spa facilities, they seemed pretty nice, especially the thermal suite, although I'm not sure if it was worth the asking price. We walked through a few other areas of the ship which I'll hopefully talk about in more detail later.

 

For dinner, we were planning to go to the main dining room. We had My Time Dining, where you go in whenever you want, but I had read that it's a good idea to get a reservation ahead of time. We went by the reservation desk a few hours before dinner (you can call from your stateroom as well, but we happened to be in the area of the MDR). We asked what times were available, but they only had options between 8pm and 9pm. That's way later than we usually eat, and plus, we had show reservations at 9. We told the person at the desk that, and she offered for us to eat in the Solarium Bistro instead, which is normally a for-fee restaurant for dinner, but she gave us a card that allowed us to eat there for free and also marked it on our accounts in her computer.

 

Dinner at the Solarium Bistro was pretty good. It's Mediterranean-themed and is sort of a hybrid between the buffet and a full-service. You can get appetizers and desserts from the buffet but order off the menu for entrees. I had the chicken kebab and my wife had the grilled shrimp. Both were good, as were the buffet selections (including some tasty hummus and pita bread). For dessert, I just had a few of the cookies, which I discovered were not what I was expecting from buffet cookies - rather than being hard and unpalatable, they were just the right level of softness and had a good taste. I would end up eating more cookies over the course of the cruise than I would care to admit!

 

We headed back to our stateroom before our show, and on the way, we checked the entryway to the MDR just to see what it was like. It was definitely pretty chaotic, so if you're sailing on Oasis, I'd recommend trying to find an alternative venue for the first night. Also, on the way back, I bumped into our stateroom attendant and asked for a corkscrew, which was waiting for us when we returned later than evening.

 

Our reservation for that night was at Comedy Live, the relatively small comedy venue on board. We got there pretty early - roughly 45 minutes before the start of the show - and they hadn't even opened the doors yet. It turned out our earliness probably wasn't necessary. We had reservations, and up until they let the standbys in about ten minutes before the show, it was not particularly crowded.

 

The comedians themselves were really funny. On our sailing, the comedians were Paul Ogata and Nery Saenz. I think I liked Paul a little better, at least partly because Nery spent a few minutes talking about his CDs/digital download cards he was selling after the show. There was a lot of picking on individual audience members, so if you're at one of these shows and sit in the front, or even in another seat that has a direct line of sight to the stage, prepare to be embarrassed. One poor guy in his late 30s, when asked what he did, told the comedian he worked "seasonally" for UPS, which the comedian had a hell of a time with!

 

After the show, we headed back to the stateroom and cracked open our bottles of wine. We tried sitting outside on our balcony for a bit, but it had been on and off raining all day which had continued into the evening, so even though the balcony is mostly covered, we didn't stay out for long. We realized were pretty tired after the show and decided to call it a night.

[Cinders411]

Thank you for the review! We have a B2B booked in Oct. Glad to hear things were good overall.

[SilkySal]

Thanks for posting your review of the Oasis! It was a very enjoyable read!;) I will be on the Oasis in February, beginning on the 3rd with my bff, and returning to the ship on the 24th with my DH! The Oasis is one of our favorite ships!:hearteyes: Did you know about the tutti salad lunch in the MDR just on sea days? We always choose that lunch option on sea days!;p

 

So glad that you enjoyed your Oasis cruise! Does this mean you will be back on another RCCL ship?

 

To many future cruises - CHEERS!!:cool:

[otterden]

Thanks for a great and thorough review! We sail for New Year's but different stops, so I appreciate your details on the ship and sea days.

As far as transportation from MCO with Cortrans...did they pick you up at your hotel or did you hotel shuttle back to the airport that morning?

I think I read you booked their later departure, was it crowded?

As for pictures, can you share some of the locations for where they were? Trying to get some good family photos on this trip. Wife has convinced me to wear my uniform, so would prefer to pre-plan where we need to go to get a good pic and then be able to change for the New Year's Party.

thanks again!

[PirateGal]

Awesome review and gets me more excited for our Allure cruise coming up!

 

Just a note about this:

 

Day 1 - Embarkation and Sailaway

The first line we had to wait on stretched out of the terminal into the parking lot area. It was pretty well managed, though - the line remained orderly, and it didn't ever feel like people didn't know where to go.

 

While we were waiting in line, the woman in front of us turned around and said something like, "Just to let you guys know, we're a group of around 40 or 50 people." I was thinking she just meant she was cruising with a group of other people who we might see here or there on the ship and was a little confused why she was telling us. Soon enough, though, my wife and I found out what she meant, as people from a charter bus started joining her in the line in front of us - first one, then a few more, and ultimately several dozen in total; it looked like it was maybe a family reunion or something like that. We realized the woman hadn't been just trying to make small talk but was wanting to warn us (I guess) that a bunch of people would be getting in front of us in line (or maybe she was trying to gauge if we were the kind of people who would make an issue out of it, haha). It did bug me a little bit, but given there were hundreds of people in line, I decided an extra 50 or so wouldn't really make that much of a difference.

 

 

I think she should have said "Just to let you guys know, we're a group of around 40 to 50 people so why don't you guys go ahead since there's only two of you".