Oasis incident at Freeport Shipyard

[framboesa]

4 hours ago, willde said:

 

I've never seen the aqua show (or cruised RCL, for that matter), and hope the AquaTheater is fully functional for our sailing (June 9).  I wonder how long the cast would need to practice a new (modified) routine for safe performance; and if there is a training facility somewhere that is utilized for such practice, training new perfomers, show development etc.

 

For veterans of the Oasis class, are rehearsals for the aquatic show done routinely during cruises?  If so, are they "closed" events?

We had our cabin facing the aquatheatre/boardwalk last year in Allure of the seas and could see the rehearsals (without the costumes and music); not the entire show but the dive in and acrobatic training 

[zerallamvuut]

has anyone on the Oasis originally sailing Apr 7 (or the other two sailings) received any refunds yet?

I was told refunds would come Apr 8 but I have not seen anything.

[Hootss]

I'm on the May 26th sailing and have not received the same sort of email as the May 5th sailing pax.  I wonder if there is any significance to that?  

[cruisergrandma]

I am on the May 12th sailing and I did not get it either. Do you suppose that means they will be working on the ship while at sea and hope all is fixed by the time of our cruises? Our cabin is close to the aquatheatre. I hope we don't hear repair

noise all during our cruise!

[Ourusualbeach]

8 minutes ago, Hootss said:

I'm on the May 26th sailing and have not received the same sort of email as the May 5th sailing pax.  I wonder if there is any significance to that?  

 

1 minute ago, cruisergrandma said:

I am on the May 12th sailing and I did not get it either. Do you suppose that means they will be working on the ship while at sea and hope all is fixed by the time of our cruises? Our cabin is close to the aquatheatre. I hope we don't hear repair

noise all during our cruise!

I would say the significance is at this point in time they expect to only have potential delays in the Aquatheatre operating fully for the May 5th sailing .

[cruisergrandma]

2 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

 

I would say the significance is at this point in time they expect to only have potential delays in the Aquatheatre operating fully for the May 5th sailing .

 

Hopefully so.

 

[Pratique]

[sweetchariot]

We're also boarding on 26th May and have a balcony room at the end of the boardwalk overlooking the aqua theatre.  I have every confidence the cruise will go ahead.  If the aqua shows are unavailable then so be it, as long as I still have my cruise!  With 2 children school age we're very limited on when we can take holidays...

[orville99]

Latest ETA in Cadiz from Marine Traffic:

 

[ShillyShally]

15 hours ago, John&LaLa said:

 

Plan B is CATS on Ice. 

CATS diving would be so much more fun but since AT may be out -  synchronized swimming kitties in the main pool?

[ShillyShally]

14 hours ago, Pratique said:

“Plan B,” “just in case.” It’s like they’re planning a picnic.

And their Plan B needs to be Plan WOW because you already have passengers worried they're getting the short end of the stick so they need to do something special that the rest of is will be sorry we weren't on the cruise without the AT working!  Not sure that will happen but that's what I'd be trying to plan if I was in the RCL meeting on it.

[ShillyShally]

13 hours ago, livylotte said:

What a nice email.  How lovely for the crew to be given the opportunity to have a bit of down time onboard an empty ship.  I'm sure they still have work to do but all the same it can't be as much work as a ship full of passengers.

And I expect some training on how to AMP up the customer service for passengers on the first sail who may have parts of the ship not available.  I'd like to think every passenger would be thrilled to be on board and make the most of it but given what I've seen/heard from passengers on cruises that had no hitches, I expect they'll have some extra CS training.

[fsjosh]

3 hours ago, Ourusualbeach said:

 

I would say the significance is at this point in time they expect to only have potential delays in the Aquatheatre operating fully for the May 5th sailing .

 

3 hours ago, cruisergrandma said:

I am on the May 12th sailing and I did not get it either. Do you suppose that means they will be working on the ship while at sea and hope all is fixed by the time of our cruises? Our cabin is close to the aquatheatre. I hope we don't hear repair

noise all during our cruise!

 

3 hours ago, Hootss said:

I'm on the May 26th sailing and have not received the same sort of email as the May 5th sailing pax.  I wonder if there is any significance to that?  

 

Most likely they will do rolling notifications. Why notify people 2 months out of something that may be resolved in a couple weeks? Each week we will probably see a new round of notifications until its fixed. 

[bajathree]

I have been in an Aquatheater suite where during port days they were jackhammer'ing away all day working on resurfacing the dive platforms....so I know first hand that noisy repairs and such can occur during sailings. 

[ShillyShally]

1 minute ago, bajathree said:

I have been in an Aquatheater suite where during port days they were jackhammer'ing away all day working on resurfacing the dive platforms....so I know first hand that noisy repairs and such can occur during sailings. 

Ah yes, port days on board - we love them but they are rarely quiet as the crew has drills and they do as much maintenance as they can get away with.

[HBE4]

10 minutes ago, bajathree said:

I have been in an Aquatheater suite where during port days they were jackhammer'ing away all day working on resurfacing the dive platforms....so I know first hand that noisy repairs and such can occur during sailings. 

 

I was about to post something similar as some people are worried that if the Aqua Theater is not available by May 5th sailing, it'll be roped off until the fall drydock.

 

As long as the major, heavy work gets done in Cadiz, the more "minor" (using the term loosely) stuff and fine-tuning can continue while the ship is under way.

 

[Pratique]

14 minutes ago, ShillyShally said:

And their Plan B needs to be Plan WOW because you already have passengers worried they're getting the short end of the stick so they need to do something special that the rest of is will be sorry we weren't on the cruise without the AT working!  Not sure that will happen but that's what I'd be trying to plan if I was in the RCL meeting on it.

The email outreach is a good start. They need to continue to set expectations if things are going to be less than 100%. Right now "Plan B" is a mystery, and "just in case" doesn't sound very encouraging to me. "Just in case" sounds like, hey kids, come inside for juice and crackers if it rains and we'll have a movie for you. Maybe I'm being hard on them, and it doesn't affect me anyway, but it's a multi-billion dollar company. The communications should exude confidence IMHO.

[Bobal]

4 hours ago, zerallamvuut said:

has anyone on the Oasis originally sailing Apr 7 (or the other two sailings) received any refunds yet?

I was told refunds would come Apr 8 but I have not seen anything.

 

We were due to be on the 21st sailing and have had most of our refunds, although in strange amounts and in 4 different refunds over the last few days (these were for taxes and fees, gratuities, dining package). Still not received the actual cruise fare as that will go to our TA so can't actually say whether the full amount tallies until we receive that

 

We received an email on Friday (early hours of Sat morning in the UK) with the FCC credits with the wrong amounts and in the wrong currency - as did many others. We received another email on Sunday morning with the correct amounts in the right currency. 

 

Hope that helps

[ShillyShally]

Just now, Pratique said:

The email outreach is a good start. They need to continue to set expectations if things are going to be less than 100%. Right now "Plan B" is a mystery, and "just in case" doesn't sound very encouraging to me. "Just in case" sounds like, hey kids, come inside for juice and crackers if it rains and we'll have a movie for you. Maybe I'm being hard on them, and it doesn't affect me anyway, but it's a multi-billion dollar company. The communications should exude confidence IMHO.

Agreed, and they should be communicating it will be special regardless - like "We've secured a special musical guest for your cruise" or something similar - they'll never find something that appeals to everyone but most get excited for extras even if they won't partake in them.  But they also need to not oversell if it will be bare bones ready to sail without much else - then they'll likely need to throw OBC or major discounts on venues on board to keep the good will up.  Anything is better than fully cancelling and losing all that revenue along with continued down time.

[HBE4]

3 minutes ago, ShillyShally said:

Agreed, and they should be communicating it will be special regardless - like "We've secured a special musical guest for your cruise" or something similar - they'll never find something that appeals to everyone but most get excited for extras even if they won't partake in them.  But they also need to not oversell if it will be bare bones ready to sail without much else - then they'll likely need to throw OBC or major discounts on venues on board to keep the good will up.  Anything is better than fully cancelling and losing all that revenue along with continued down time.

 

Maybe an extra tray of cookies and fruit loop cakes in everyone's cabin? 

 

And come'on, isn't the thrill of being on the first sailing with the newly repaired....I mean, maintained...azipods enough compensation?  I can hear the CD now "Folks what do you think the new bearings in those azipods.....you can barely hear them or feel any vibration". 😃

[doubledown13]

29 minutes ago, bajathree said:

I have been in an Aquatheater suite where during port days they were jackhammer'ing away all day working on resurfacing the dive platforms....so I know first hand that noisy repairs and such can occur during sailings. 

We are on the May 12 cruise in an Aqua Theater Suite on Deck 8.  We are very concerned that our balcony was damaged and there could be issues.  Like others, we have not heard anything from RC either.  It would be a major disappointment to have limited use of the balcony because of work in the Aqua Theater.

[Pratique]

3 minutes ago, ShillyShally said:

Anything is better than fully cancelling and losing all that revenue along with continued down time.

I wonder about this. Sometimes if the product is not ready it's better to cancel/delay than give customers something not so great to remember it by. They hype the Oasis class ships in most of their marketing. How many glamorous photos have we seen of the aft of the ship? That's what first caught my attention years ago, a TV spot with a helicopter shot pulling away from the Aquatheater. It's pretty unique. If the reality is some Plan B then they're diluting the brand. It's too early to pass judgment, they might pull off the repairs and never need Plan B. Like I wrote before, when there's a will there's a way. Let's hope so!

[ShillyShally]

1 minute ago, Pratique said:

I wonder about this. Sometimes if the product is not ready it's better to cancel/delay than give customers something not so great to remember it by. They hype the Oasis class ships in most of their marketing. How many glamorous photos have we seen of the aft of the ship? That's what first caught my attention years ago, a TV spot with a helicopter shot pulling away from the Aquatheater. It's pretty unique. If the reality is some Plan B then they're diluting the brand. It's too early to pass judgment, they might pull off the repairs and never need Plan B. Like I wrote before, when there's a will there's a way. Let's hope so!

Since they're also planning on AMPing Oasis I wonder if they worry as much about this since they already have flashier models of her in Harmony and Symphony.  She's the original though so you may be right but I expect they figure they'll get all the crowds again after AMPing so they may not be as worried about lack luster now.

[ptf2009]

30 minutes ago, ShillyShally said:

Ah yes, port days on board - we love them but they are rarely quiet as the crew has drills and they do as much maintenance as they can get away with.

One thing to remember about the Med. cruise is that it is port intensive and most of us will be on long excursions with early morning starts. Who know how many shows we will be seeing and we are the type to see most of the shows on our Caribbean cruises. It will be okay as long as we GET to cruise:)

[DerekB]

I think we are getting a bit carried away expecting Royal to present Billy Joel or something to replace a single show that plays a total of six times on a 7 day cruise and oftens cancels due to weather anyway. Yes, it stinks that it may be cancelled - but there is a heck of a lot more to Oasis than the Aqua Theater that you will spend 30 minutes at...geesh...