Oasis SEP 4 review with Small kids

[grod19]

My family (Me 40M, DW 38F, DS 4, DD 18 months) and I just completed our Oasis trip (sept 4-11).  I wanted to throw together some notes to highlight some of the unexpected and address some of the issues/questions that are constantly brought up on here.

 

First off Oasis is an amazing ship.  Lots to love about it and a million things to do.  Having 2 small kids we didn’t get to do much nightlife but still loved being onboard.  The kids loved the splash area where they could play but it is a pain for the parents having one in diapers and one not.  They aren’t allowed in the same space to play and they have the “kiddie pool cops” watching like hawks to make sure they don’t enter the wrong space.  This is rough on the parents as we were both always “on duty”.  I had one kid, and the wife had the other.  I can’t wait for them both to be old enough to play in the same space.  We didn’t find the areas around the pools to be overly crowded and could always find a spot for our stuff.  I did lots of walking in circles to get my daughter to nap each day and always found many free chairs.  I loved all the bars being spread out on the pool decks as opposed to other ships that have a main bar or two.  Overall the pool deck was my favorite of all the ships we have been on.

 

There were 2 things I absolutely hated onboard.  The shower temperatures and Adventure Ocean Babies.  The shower temp was always warm to hot.  There was no cold or luke warm water.  After spending a day in 95+ degree heat I wanted a shower to cool off and that wasn’t the case.  I basically spent 7 days sweating nonstop including in and after a shower.  As for AO babies, what a train wreck.  I don’t get how a cruise line that can get 6k people off and 6k people on a ship in a day can’t figure out a better process for day care.  First you have to sign the kids up during certain hours, I went 7pm day one.  Took 2 minutes to fill out the info on their tablet (Dear Royal, make this available in the Royal App so I don’t have to go to AO to do it).  Second for the AO Babies you need to sign them up for specific hours you want to drop them off.  Of course that couldn’t be done at 7pm when I signed them up.  Had to come back at 8pm when they opened.  When I came back I was told I had to wait so they could let all the parents dropping off their kids go first.  On the first day you get 8 hours to sign your kid up and the hours available were VERY limited.  The earliest I could get was 730-10 on night 3, 4, 5.  On day 3 you get a few more hours to use.  All in all we got a total of 10 hours use out of AO babies.  They also called us one night to come check on our daughter because she would sleep for 2 minutes and then wake up screaming.  When I got there the lady was rocking her in the stroller and told me “she just fell asleep”.  My daughter had both feet pointed straight in the air.  Who sleeps like that???  I told her to rock her a few more minutes till the feet came down and she would be fine.  Sure enough 3 minutes later (yes I timed it), my daughter was out cold.  I was not impressed by AO baby at all.  Our son loved the 3-5 year old group and even asked to go a few times.  They did some sort of craft or project every night and all I saw was smiles from the kids leaving that group.

 

My only other complaint, god that ship is LOUD.  The shows in aqua theatre blast all through the boardwalk.  Anything happening on the promenade echoes all through the main section of the ship.  And during the day, pool and band noise fill central park.  The one night our kids fought hard going to bed so daddy just wanted a calm quiet drink.  Between the aquashow and 70s dance party the ship was insanely loud.  Central park was quiet but the bar there is very tiny.  Usually I am all for the noise and the party but that night I wanted something calmer and didn’t have much luck.

 

I found the food to be very good.  Our dining room team was top notch.  The one even rocked our daughter in her stroller back to sleep so I could cut my meat into pieces before I took over the rocking duties.  We never went hungry at windjammer.  Thought there was some good options each day.  I didn’t eat a ton because of the heat.  Wife had el loco fresh and liked it.  Not amazing but not bad.  Breakfast/brunch in the dining room was good.  Chicken and waffles had a good kick.  Overall pleased with the food.  Not amazing but never hated any dish.  Loved the French onion soup. 

 

For the first time in ages we didn’t get the drink package.  The 4 free diamond drinks made it cost prohibitive for us.  For each free diamond drink I threw a buck or two to the bartenders.  Sometimes when I was out of diamond drinks for the day I wasn’t charged for the next drink so sometimes 4 free was really 5 or 6 or…….

 

Overall loved the Oasis and had a great cruise.  Definitely would book again, just can’t wait for both kids to be 3 and potty trained. 

 

Feel free to fire away with any questions and I will do my best to answer them.   I attempted to keep this short and failed miserably

 

 

 

 

[Biker19]

14 hours ago, grod19 said:

 I attempted to keep this short and failed miserably

Compared to some of the novels written by some, you did fine.

[robmtx]

16 hours ago, grod19 said:

There were 2 things I absolutely hated onboard.  The shower temperatures and Adventure Ocean Babies.  The shower temp was always warm to hot.

 

Yea we were on this sailing and none of our showers could get lower than "luke warm" either. I don't know what's worse, a shortage of hot water or a shortage of cold water.  I didn't try any of the showers at the gym but based on others from another site's roll call, this was very consistent no matter what deck you were on.

 

16 hours ago, grod19 said:

My only other complaint, god that ship is LOUD.

 

My GF has the same complaint. In June we were in a CP Balc, and she likes a little midday nap. But, the pool band music echoed down into the park and permeated into the stateroom. Were in a CP Balc on Harmony in 2016 and didn't remember that happening.

 

Overall, nice constructive review. thanks for sharing!

 

[grod19]

3 hours ago, Biker19 said:

Compared to some of the novels written by some, you did fine.

I believe my last review a few years ago was about 6 pages long so I tried to cut back.  Left out a ton of things but hit the high points