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A Very Very Long, Very Very Late Oasis of the Seas review

HLFam2022

By HLFam2022,
in Royal Caribbean International

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HLFam2022

HLFam2022

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So this was originally supposed to be a "live" journal while we cruised on Oasis of the Seas 12/4-12/11, but I took too many naps and had too much fun to type up my notes, and then work/the holidays happened. This is my review of Oasis and Royal Caribbean in general, with all the bloody guts and details included.

 

We sailed on Oasis for my father's birthday: a group of 6 of us, all adults. For background, my family took a cruise on Carnival in 1995, during which my mother got extremely seasick and vowed never to set foot on a boat again. Since then, about once a year my father would gently suggest going on another family cruise and get immediately veto'd by my mother; this has become a hallowed family tradition, alongside setting up the Christmas tree and trying to explain to Grandpa what Facetime is.

 

But this year, it actually happened! My mother loaded up on prescription-grade, likely non-street-legal anti-seasickness meds, and decided to grin and bear it for the sake of true love. My wife was anxious, having never been on a cruise, but also curious. I was excited; I took another cruise by myself on Carnival pre-pandemic for my friends' wedding and generally enjoy the enormous quantities of food, random conversations with strangers, and gambling (not necessarily in that order).

 

Below is the agenda for this review sections (and I apologize if I get the order of some of these events wrong). Actual useful travel tips I will put in bold.

 

1) Day 0- Planning, Packing Tips, Miami Dinner

2) Day 1- Embarkation, Windjammer, The Room, General Ship Thoughts, MDR

3) Day 2- Coco Cay, the Arcade, Poker

4) Day 3- Sea Day, Sociological Mysteries

5) Day 4- Solairum Bistro, Cozumel, Submarine Rides, Ice Show

6) Day 5- Roatan, A Lack of Sloths, Chops, Aqua 80

7) Day 6- Puerto Costa Maya, Casino, Johnny Rocket's, Cats

8 ) Day 7- Disembarkation, Flying Home

 

Day 0- Planning, Packing Tips, Miami Dinner

People say the planning can be as fun as the actual cruise, and while that's not actually true, there is a sort of perverse joy in waking up to the buzz of your phone with a notification from the Royal Caribbean app announcing a special, limited-time sale on excursions and drink packages, and combing through them to discover whether they are different than yesterday's special, limited-time sale on excursions and drink packages (spoilers: they're not). My wife and I spend roughly a third of our waking hours in the months leading up to the cruise watching videos from Matt from Royal Caribbean Blog, obsessively over-thinking every last detail in an attempt to not be anxious and/or spend the entire night before the cruise packing and re-packing.

 

The night before departure, we are anxious, and spend the entire night before the cruise packing and re-packing. Beyond the excellent lists and suggestions hosted on Cruise Critic and elsewhere, my recommendation is to get some little magnetic hooks to help hang things on the walls, a USB charging plate that will let you plug in 2-3 devices into one outlet, and extra plastic bags for wet clothes. Also, think very hard about how many pairs of socks/underwear/t-shirts you will need, as it's easy to think you're not packing much and then end up with 7-8 suitcases of stuff you won't even use. Despite our best efforts, my wife and I each end up with a full-to-bursting backpack, a roll-on bag, and three layers of clothes to wear so we don't have to pack them (as it turns out, wearing your Formal Night outfit on the plane does not get you better service, it just makes you uncomfortable)

 

We fly into Miami a day early and set up shop at an AirBnB. Our pre-cruise dinner is at Los Gauchitos (https://www.losgauchitosmenu.com/), which my brother and SIL recommend because of their excellent pizzas. When we arrive, we find that there are no pizzas served for dinner, just meat and seafood. What a disappointment! This is clearly all Joe Biden's fault. 

 

(My father grumbles in a conspiratorial tone about how we must have gone to the wrong Los Gauchitos restauarnt)

 

My brother orders the Parillada for One, to split with my mother. Parillada for One includes short rib, flank steak, chicken, sweet breads (which are NOT what they sound like) and sides. The Parillada for One could easily feed three reasonably hungry people, so buyer beware. I have Pescado con Camarones, which is fried white fish with shrimp, both pretty good.

 

Miami in wintertime has the humidity and warmth of an early Midwestern summer but without the bugs. I can understand why people want to live here despite the ridiculous rent prices.

 

Day 1- Embarkation, Windjammer, The Room, General Ship Thoughts, MDR

 

To get from our AirBnB to the Port of Miami terminal, we call two Lyfts. This takes significantly longer than we thought because nobody can quite figure out which terminal in the Port of Miami we are supposed to be going to; Google and Royal Caribbean's website give contradictory answers and nobody wants to end up getting Lyfted to a container ship heading for Peru instead of Oasis of the Seas. We asked to be dropped off at Cruise Terminal A, which seemed to get us there OK and well before our 11:30 boarding time.

 

Arriving at the Cruise Terminal is THE most chaotic process I've ever experienced; the parking lot of the Indy 500 or a Taylor Swift concert is a polite little backwater compared to this. There are cars, vans, and buses everywhere treating lanes, signs, and traffic laws as suggestions, with angry-sounding police and Royal Caribbean staff literally banging on people's windshields and screaming at them to "get out of the way", pointing into lanes that are already full of vehicles. We manage to get out of our car and are met by a porter who is screaming because there's no other way to be heard. While my original idea was to carry our own bags, between the screaming and the honking and the Frogger-like danger of cars zipping by, I end up handing the kind gentleman our roll-ons and praying they end up on Oasis and not on Maersk Alabama heading to Peru.

 

My mother and father are waving at us from a separate line that clearly says "SUITE PASSENGERS ONLY" or some variant thereof, but because we're all on the same reservation, the rest of us get to skip the line for District 12 peasants and instead get ushered up into the Capitol-esque lounge for VIP passengers...which is just as crowded as the rest of the terminal.

 

We go through a 1990s-airport-security-like checkpoint (X-ray machine/metal detector only, no shoes and jackets nonsense) and into the lounge, which has luxurious bottled water and Panera-ish cookies, and not nearly enough couches and seats for everyone. Apparently 80% of Oasis' passengers are traveling in suites. We check in with a young lady who I'm 90% sure is actually in 8th grade, but who is nonetheless competent and wholly professional, including politely asking us to take off our masks so she can take pictures of us to help feed the NSA dystopian surveillance state/identify us to our MDR waiters that evening.

 

Then we're on the boat!

 

There's a brief argument between my SIL and mother, who have chosen to watch DIFFERENT cruise ship YouTube channels, one recommending your first meal be at the Windjammer (WJ) buffet and one recommending the Park Cafe instead. Much like pre-Nicean-Creed Christianity, this turns into a heated and only somewhat passive-aggressive row before my mom wins out and we head to the Windjammer.

 

Note: this is my first time going to a legitimate buffet restaurant since pre-COVID.

 

A nice young lady says "Washy-washy" at the entrance and directs us to hand-washing stations. Over the course of the cruise, I will wash my hands with soap and water approximately 8,000 times/day, because I'm deathly afraid of norovirus and alcohol-based sanitizers do NOT kill norovirus. I recommend you do the same. Norovirus is baaaad, people.

 

I recall on my first day on my last Carnival cruise, a young gentleman snidely mentioned "The food here's good, if you've never been on Royal before" and am eagerly looking forward to seeing how much better Royal Caribbean can do for a buffet.

 

The buffet items I recommend:

 

-Chicken nuggets. Despite my skepticism, I take a bite of one at my father's recommendation, and discover these chicken nuggets are unearthly delicious: perfect ratio of crunchy breading to white meat, not dried out under a sunlamp, and spiced with just the right amount of salt and herbs and something that I'm pretty sure we send drug dealers to prison for in the US. These are the chicken nuggets that appear in glossy Chick-Fil-A ads; these are the chicken nuggets that small children dream of and yet never manage to find; these are the Platonic ideal of chicken nuggets, that real nuggets will never live up to. I did not have "chicken nuggets as top buffet food item" on my 2022 Bingo card, but here we are.

 

-Any of the meat carving stations. I believe (don't quote me on this) that the first day's carving station was roast beef, but my experience over the course of the week was that all of the meats were pretty good when carved fresh.

 

-Salad bar. My wife believes in a bunch of Communist nonsense ideas like "eating vegetables regularly" and "wearing sunscreen", so I dutifully trudge over to the salad section and hope nobody's coughed on it recently. The freshness and crispness of the vegetables surprises me, and while I still don't like vegetables, these aren't bad. (Note: for our cruise the WJ veggies were SIGNIFICANTLY better than the Solarium Bistro veggies)

 

-Chocolate dessert parfait. This wasn't the actual name of the dessert but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was- whipped fluffy chocolate filling topped with whipped cream in a little shotglass-like plastic container. Delightful, and also gluten free.

 

The rest of the food is not a standout but at least average. (Note: As per my own personal policy, I skip foods that are either easy to make at home or easy to fill up on with empty calories: pasta, breads, sandwiches, soups, etc. If elected President, I will ban these from buffet restaurants).

 

We still have to wait for our rooms to be opened, so my wife and I wander the ship for a bit. Oasis of the Seas had a similar effect on me as Denis Villenueve's Dune Part 1: I spent most of the time goggling at how ENORMOUS everything is. The ship is divided into "neighborhoods" of shops, restaurants, bars, and attractions (pools, etc.) that feel reasonably distinctive and use the space extremely efficiently. While the usable public space is comparable to a decent size mall, because of the way it's divided and the usage of skylights and open areas, it feels like it's roughly the size of Maryland.

 

The size of the ship is also a help for my mother's motion sickness: my father keeps quoting the size of Oasis v. the piddly little sailboat we rode on with Carnival, and I don't know much about nautical displacement, but I do get "big v. little". And the advantage of big is that it's harder to feel both the motion when we're cruising and the waves, both of which contribute significantly to motion sickness. More on this in a bit.

 

The disadvantage of size is that Oasis is crowded. There are lines for everything and bottlenecks exactly where and when you'd expect them: when boarding/disembarking, in the buffet (at WJ we were constantly searching for tables), at My Time Dining (which we thankfully did not do), for all the shows, for all the good trivia (but not the "Flags of the World" trivia my father went to), for the Freestyle Soda Pop machines, and for the two soft-serve ice cream stations. On a scale of 1-10, where 10 is Disneyworld on spring break and 1 is the Museum of Modern Art on a Tuesday, Oasis with a full crew complement is about a 6 or a 7, pretty much all the time. This is clearly all Joe Biden's fault. 

 

As such, my wife and I spend some time pushing through crowds and end up in the ship's library, which has about six seats and a roughly 1:1 books : chair ratio. I have more books in my bookcase at home than the ship's library does; I might have more books with me in my carry-on than the ship's library does. But it is quiet and nicely maintained. If you're looking for Proust or Nabokov you're going to be disappointed, but there's a few recent James Pattersons and Lee Childs in stock.

 

Then the crew open the giant fire doors that allow access to staterooms and we pour into the corridors like rats through a maze. There's an envelope on our stateroom door with our SeaPass cards, about the size of a VISA and just as dangerous to your credit score.

 

Our room has a balcony that overlooks the ocean, with two chairs and a little table protected from neighboring balconies by partitions. Inside the sliding door from the balcony is a couch long enough for my wife to nap on without crunching up, a vanity/mirror/desk that has 3 (or possibly four) outlets that are the only usable outlets we can find, a mounted TV on the wall, and a surprisingly large number of cabinets. Then, the bed and closet, which included several levels of shelving, a safe, and probably a dozen clothes hangars, and finally the bathroom.

 

The bathroom is only a little larger than a typical airplane lavatory, with a comically small sink and skinny countertop, some built-in shelving, and a mirror. The shower has a single dispenser for "body wash/shampoo", which I use and my wife avoids (she brought her own), and the showerhead is low enough that at 5'10" I am just barely able to make it under. The water pressure, however, is excellent, and the hot water is immediately and satisfyingly hot. 

 

Overall, while Oasis is an older ship, the fixtures and cleanliness are on par with any good hotel (think Hyatt, not Holiday Inn or Ritz Carlton).

 

We eat dinner in the Main Dining Room (MDR) at the early seating. Generally, MDR food is higher-quality than what I recall from Carnival. Before the cruise, I talked to a few coworkers who had been on Royal before, all of whom had faint praise for the MDR ("Oh, it's better than like a TGI Friday's..."), so my expectations were low, and they were well exceeded throughout the cruise. Service is much faster than I remember on Carnival (though this might be because we have a group of 6 rather than a group of 18 as we did on Carnival). Tonight I have a Caesar salad, prime rib, and some dessert I cannot recall. I order the prime rib rare, as I recall meats being overcooked in Carnival's MDR; I am pleasantly surprised to find that our waiter delivers a perfect-cooked rare piece in front of me.

 

Our waiters are two Ukranian gentlemen, M and V, who address each of us by name despite us not introducing ourselves (I'm 99% certain this is due to the pictures taken by the 8th grader/boarding agent/NSA operative at embarkation). Both are attentive and extremely proficient at their jobs; like all of Oasis' crew that I meet (with one exception), they go about their jobs with the kind of coldblooded competence that you would expect from a retired hitman going after the mobsters who killed the dog that was a gift from his dead wife.

 

There is a table next to us with small children that M and V also wait on; out of the corner of my eye I watch M ham it up for the couple's ~5 year old daughter, treating her like she's the Queen of England ("May I bring you more chocolate milk, madame?") which after four or five cartons leads to her mother covering her daughter's mouth and saying, "No more for her, M, I'm not carrying her back to the room because she's chocolate milk wasted".

 

We are supposed to go see the Aqua 80 show, having reserved seats the week before (make sure you reserve seats for any shows you want to watch in advance; they are very crowded and "sell out" quickly), but V informs us that the show is being moved to later in the week due to an equipment breakdown. Instead, I spend the evening walking around the ship some more with my wife, unpacking, and then checking out the casino (more thoughts to come there).

 

Next up: Coco Cay, the Arcade, and Poker!

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HLFam2022

HLFam2022

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Day 2- Coco Cay, El Loco Fresh, the Arcade, Vending Machines, Poker, Sorrento's

 

Royal Caribbean beds are hard as a rock. I found out much later that you can request extra blankets and/or mattress toppers from the cabin steward, and by "much later" I mean "as I was walking through Customs to get back into the US after the cruise". Womp womp.

 

Nevertheless, we oversleep our alarm, which leads to panic as I told E, our cabin steward, that we would be out of the room early so he can clean our room in the mornings rather than the afternoons. This was a major issue for me on Carnival, with my cabin steward and I constantly rescheduling the room cleaning through the door, hostage-negotiation style, as I would somehow always be napping and/or showering whenever he was scheduled to arrive.

 

Today, E is waiting literally outside our door with his cleaning cart when my wife and I emerge to go to Coco Cay. E is a polite young Indonesian gentleman who IMMEDIATELY cements Royal as a far superior cruise line to Carnival with the following dialogue:

 

Me: E, I'm so, so, sorry we've kept you out this morning, we'll make sure to be out earlier tomorrow.

E: Sir, it's your vacation. (smiles) Whenever you leave, I will take care of it. Early, late, it's no problem at all.

 

And the thing is, he genuinely meant it! I feel both shame and a powerful sense of injustice that E's customer service skills are vastly underappreciated by the megacorp that owns Royal Caribbean. We resolve to tip him well and write a strong review for him after the cruise (particularly after how he magically transforms my rat's nest pile of dirty laundry, toiletries, and rumpled sheets, pillows, etc. into an almost painfully neat IKEA-worthy tableau).

 

Breakfast is a quick plate at the WJ (nothing to write home about here), then we hustle down to Deck 3 to take the gangplank down to Coco Cay, Royal Caribbean's private island resort in the Bahamas. You do not need your passport to go to Coco Cay, only your SeaPass card. Indeed for all four port stops we were not required to bring a passport at all.  This is likely due to a combination of Royal Caribbean's tactful negotiation of immigration/customs/taxes issues with the local governments, and the local governments' recognition of the #1 rule of business, "Don't make it hard for people to give you money".

 

Coco Cay is a Disneyfied version of an island resort; everything is in bright, tourist-friendly colors, with landscapes and trails carefully designed by architects to show off the island's natural beauty while excluding anything like a real town- no apartments, markets, or townie bars in sight. The weather in December is in the high 70s but feels like it's 90 due to the humidity. I had been worried that it would be too cold to go snorkeling, but as it turns out, the temperature was just right.

 

One or two Royal ships can dock at the pier that leads to the beach; next to us is another ship that looks tiny (about half the size of Oasis). It's not until much later that I realize the "tiny" ship is probably 40% larger than the Carnival ship I rode on a few years ago. Again, the overwhelming SIZE of everything.

 

There is a little golf cart shuttle that can take you from the boat to various parts of the island, but nothing of any significance is more than about a 15 minute walk at the very most. On our walk to the island, I finally spot a Royal Caribbean crewmember who is NOT hyper-focused on customer service, a photographer who is quiet quitting because it's 90 and humid out and nobody wants to take a photo today anyways.

 

He is literally the only Oasis crew I see on the whole trip who is giving half-effort at his job.

 

The snorkel gear rental shack is right by the beach and includes a large-screen outdoor TV where a calm British-sounding woman explains safety tips. For ~$38 apiece my wife and I both get a snorkel mask, breathing tube, life vest, and flippers. There are free lockers right next to the rental shack where we stashed our stuff- make sure you hit the "clear" key on the lock before you try to enter your lock password as this caused ours to jam several times.

 

The snorkeling is shockingly good- a combination of clear weather + calm and pristine water + fish that just decided to hang out in the tourist part of town made for a delightful experience. The snorkeling area is marked off by a series of rope lines/buoys, and there is a lifeguard on duty who you can summon by raising your arms for help. At the very edge of the snorkeling area is what looks like the sunken ruins of a fort from the 1700s, which is full of fish. I'm guessing it's an artificial construction, but the fish don't care and neither do I.

 

One tip the British lady didn't go over: put a little bit of seawater into the bottom of your goggles before you put them on to keep them from fogging up.

 

Afterwards, we get towels from the towel station on the island, which allows you to sign out beach towels using your SeaPass, take them on to the ship, and return them there. All you have to do is return your towels before the last day of your cruise to avoid being charged.

 

One problem: I seem to have misplaced my SeaPass.

 

A, the very helpful Jamaican lady working at the snorkel shack, tells us that it's fine, we should just talk to one of the security people at the ship. So we begin walking back towards the ship, and run into my parents, who are concerned about the impending rain. "Silly parents," I think to myself, "This isn't the Midwest. It won't rain."

 

Then it starts raining. This is clearly all Joe Biden's fault.

 

There's a shriek very similar to what Obi-Wan describes in Star Wars: A New Hope, as hundreds of Royal passengers discover their Perfect Day at Coco Cay is no longer quite as perfect and start beelining for the ship. At the pier, my wife shows her SeaPass and explains the problem with mine; they radio the ship and then tell me I should be OK.

 

We wait in line to get back on Oasis for about fifteen minutes. The rain only lets up the moment I step back inside the ship, where a security officer asks me my name and room number. I'm assuming he also checks whether I look like the pictures taken by the 8th grader/boarding agent/NSA operative at embarkation. I have never been so regretful about not combing my hair in the morning! 

 

Everything checks out, so he tells me I'm good to go and that I can go to Guest Services to get a new SeaPass. This whole process seems a bit of security theater to me, but my father explains later that if I was some kind of Alan Rickman-in-Die-Hard-esque bad guy, there's WAY easier ways to commit acts of terror than trying to sneak onto a cruise ship via Perfect Day at Coco Cay.

 

At Guest Services, I am waiting patiently in line behind two older women who have the following dialogue:

 

Woman A: ...and the guy next door KEEPS SMOKING WEED! It smells awful!

Woman B: I know, right? I have two small kids and I have to keep them inside the whole time. We can't use our balcony at all!

Woman A: That's DISGUSTING! You might as well not have a balcony to begin with!

 

I'm getting old. How can I tell? Because instead of giving them a long speech about how God tells us not to judge others and to be forgiving because we have been forgiven, I find instead that I hope the weed smoker steps on a Lego. Mary Jane smells worse than skunk and is impossible to get out of your clothes. Don't do drugs, kids, especially not near where I live.

 

A uniformed crew member comes to me with a tablet and asks what my problem is (but in, like, a respectful and customer-service-oriented way), and upon finding out I have lost my SeaPass, goes over and prints one for me, and deactivates the other one. The whole process from me explaining the problem to having a brand-new SeaPass takes about 90 seconds.

 

My wife and I have a late lunch at El Loco Fresh, the complimentary Tex-Mex buffet onboard. The chicken quesadillas are dry and under-spiced. The chicken + rice and beans my wife puts together are enjoyable, but the real stars of the show are the tortilla chips (hot, crispy, and fresh out of the fryer) and the pico de gallo (shockingly good, and a league above all the other salsa/guac options).

 

Then, nap time. I have no notes here other than to say that I don't usually take naps but I'm in such a good mood that the waste of time that naps represent is an acceptable price to pay for being relaxed.

 

Dinner is in the MDR and is good.

 

In the evening, our show has been rescheduled again, so we wander around. The Arcade is small and has maybe a dozen different games, with a reasonable cross-section between physical fun (air hockey, Skee Ball), shoot-'em-ups (something that I'm pretty sure is supposed to be the Jurassic Park game but isn't), and games designed to impart gambling addictions to kids (e.g. the stupid claw grabber game). The games are all around $2-3 per play, accessed via SeaPass, which is a ripoff compared to Dave & Busters and highway robbery compared to the arcades of my youth. 

 

Across the hall from the Arcade is the vending machine area, which accepts SeaPass credit for a variety of toiletries comparable to a very, very small CVS/Walgreen's (toothbrushes/paste, feminine products, sunscreen, etc.), and mysteriously only works when the ship is in international waters and taxes cannot be collected by the revenue services of local governments. I didn't have "bootlegging" and "making the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs" on my bingo card for the cruise, but we do buy some things we've forgotten.

 

Finally, I take a jaunt down to the Casino on 4. I take a walk through to scope it out as I plan to take my mother here in case of any seasickness-related issues (nothing heals seasickness like the ringing bells of a one-armed bandit). I also discover that there IS a poker room, but it's not in the Casino, it's in the conference center on deck 3.

 

The poker center/conference room is buried deep within a maze of staterooms on deck 3. There are no decorations and very basic furniture; it's less "James Bond battling evil geniuses at Casino Royale" and more "Michael Scott at an awkward Holiday Inn sales conference". About half the room is set aside for various tournaments, most of which require you to pre-qualify at a casino tournament on land, and the other half is set aside for cash games, including the one that I want to play, $1/$3 No Limit Hold 'Em, the game of kings.

 

(Or, you know, Aces, or any other good combination of cards you might have.)

 

To get seated for a cash game, talk to the attendant at the front, who will put you on a waiting list using their very sophisticated system of "writing your name with more or less correct spelling on the back of a piece of scrap paper and calling when you're up". The minimum buy-in for the $1/$3 tables was $100, with $300 as maximum. Chips are specific for the poker games and will need to be exchanged to be used at the casino upstairs (and vice-versa). There is also a significant shortage of $1 chips; I have never before had so many plaintive requests to make change from dealers and players (nor made so many $3 raises into $5 raises because I couldn't be bothered to try to make change).

 

The dealers are almost entirely Eastern European and communicate with each other with a weird and somewhat obscene system of sucking/squeaking noises that sound kind of like a dolphin unblocking a toilet with a plunger. It is here that I learn that Royal has a policy that crew have to wear masks for their first five days aboard a new ship, as numerous dealers have apparently just come aboard.

 

I haven't played poker live since before the pandemic, so I'm a bit nervous as I sit down. The other players are cordial and relaxed; many of them have been playing in and/or knocked out of the tournaments earlier and are more interested in having fun than playing seriously. One of them, who I will call Nice Guy Eddie, is willing to dish on the players at the next table, who keep whooping, laughing, and ordering drinks at the top of their lungs:

 

Nice Guy Eddie: Those guys have way too much money.

Me: Is that the high rollers' table?

Nice Guy Eddie: Nah, man, that's $2/$5 No Limit. They're just pouring money into it.

Me: Oh, man, like $100 raises and stuff?

Nice Guy Eddie: Nah, man, they're raising $1000 to $3000 a hand...preflop...without looking at their cards. One of those guys is down $15,000.

Me: He's down FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS this year???

Nice Guy Eddie: No, he's down fifteen thousand TODAY. That's "F-U" money right there [Note: I assume he meant "F-U-N" money, as in money you have fun with, but got cut off]

 

Apparently, I'm doing something wrong with my life.

 

This next paragraph is for people who speak poker. For those of you who are bored to death by recaps of poker games (i.e. "normal people"), please feel free to skip to the next section on Sorrentos.

 

For those of you who speak poker: I buy in for $100 (stupid), fold my first hand of KQs in strong position because I literally can't keep my hands from shaking (stupid), fold playable hands repeatedly because I'm terrified of losing my bankroll/ego (stupid), refuse to bluff (stupid), overbet because I'm terrified of losing my bankroll/ego (stupid), limp into flops (stupid), fold KQo and JJo type hands repeatedly against big raises because I'm terrified of losing my bankroll/ego (stupid), and end the night by calling another gentleman's all-in on 7h8h with a flop of 5c6d7h (stupid). Yet I win anyways when I get the 9 I need on the river and the other guy flips 43s.

 

I walk out with $200 and sprint up the stairs to inform my wife of my good fortune. This turns out to be a lot more stairs than I imagined, so by the time I get back to the room, I am huffing and puffing like the weed smoker the women at Guest Services were complaining about.

 

I drag her out of bed to go celebrate by having some late night pizza (the best kind of pizza) at Sorrento's. My wife would prefer not to wait in line, but I assure her there won't be a line, because what kind of degenerate would choose to have pizza at 1:30am?

 

There are literally 40 people in line at Sorrento's for pizza by the slice. The pizza is so-so, but my wife is pleased to discover that they will make you a fresh gluten-free pizza if you ask and deliver it to your table (this is a service we take advantage of several times throughout the trip; the fresh gluten-free pizza is significantly higher quality).

 

Next up: Sea Day and Sociological Mysteries!

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HLFam2022

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15 hours ago, Stratford1950 said:

You write extremely well…I’ve been on the Oasis several times before but you make it seem more interesting. I literally laughed out loud several times 😎

 

Thanks! Hope you had a lovely time on Oasis :)

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On 12/27/2022 at 8:52 PM, HLFam2022 said:

So this was originally supposed to be a "live" journal while we cruised on Oasis of the Seas 12/4-12/11, but I took too many naps and had too much fun to type up my notes, and then work/the holidays happened. This is my review of Oasis and Royal Caribbean in general, with all the bloody guts and details included.

 

 

 

Next up: Coco Cay, the Arcade, and Poker!

 

You are hilarious and I love it!!!

Teddie

 

23 hours ago, HLFam2022 said:

Day 2- Coco Cay, El Loco Fresh, the Arcade, Vending Machines, Poker, Sorrento's

 

 

 

Nice Guy Eddie: Those guys have way too much money.

Me: Is that the high rollers' table?

Nice Guy Eddie: Nah, man, that's $2/$5 No Limit. They're just pouring money into it.

Me: Oh, man, like $100 raises and stuff?

Nice Guy Eddie: Nah, man, they're raising $1000 to $3000 a hand...preflop...without looking at their cards. One of those guys is down $15,000.

Me: He's down FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS this year???

Nice Guy Eddie: No, he's down fifteen thousand TODAY. That's "F-U" money right there [Note: I assume he meant "F-U-N" money, as in money you have fun with, but got cut off]

 

Apparently, I'm doing something wrong with my life.

 

For those of you who speak poker: I buy in for $100 (stupid), fold my first hand of KQs in strong position because I literally can't keep my hands from shaking (stupid), fold playable hands repeatedly because I'm terrified of losing my bankroll/ego (stupid), refuse to bluff (stupid), overbet because I'm terrified of losing my bankroll/ego (stupid), limp into flops (stupid), fold KQo and JJo type hands repeatedly against big raises because I'm terrified of losing my bankroll/ego (stupid), and end the night by calling another gentleman's all-in on 7h8h with a flop of 5c6d7h (stupid). Yet I win anyways when I get the 9 I need on the river and the other guy flips 43s.

 

There are literally 40 people in line at Sorrento's for pizza by the slice. The pizza is so-so, but my wife is pleased to discover that they will make you a fresh gluten-free pizza if you ask and deliver it to your table (this is a service we take advantage of several times throughout the trip; the fresh gluten-free pizza is significantly higher quality).

 

Next up: Sea Day and Sociological Mysteries!

 

I don't even speak Poker, but you have me DYING over here!! Keep 'em coming!

 

Teddie

 

 

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HLFam2022

HLFam2022

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Day 3- Sea Day, Sociological Mysteries, Formal Night

 

Our first Sea Day definitely feels significantly more crowded anywhere and everywhere you can find a line. My plans to try the Abyss Slide, listen to music, etc. are derailed by my hatred of crowds.

 

My father is excited, however, because of the presence of one of the key selling points for a cruise: TRIVIA. By the time we meet up with him in the afternoon, he has already competed in several different trivia competitions, and also attempted to compete in the Flags of the World trivia, which was cancelled because he was the only one who showed up. (Official Royal policy is you have to have at least 2 contestants for trivia to be run).

 

We meet my father at the Karaoke area for Star Wars trivia, and I am pleasantly surprised to find:

 

1) Unlike Carnival, someone took serious time to create a trivia PowerPoint with appropriate Star Wars clips and some tough EU-related questions (if you don't know what that means, or are thinking "What does the European Union have to do with this?" congratulations, you're not a Star Wars nerd like me)

 

2) There are TONS of other Star Wars fans on the boat- the area is standing room only.

 

3) There is already parliamentary procedure in place for potential ties, so there is no whining and moaning when two teams both get eighteen of twenty questions correct. Each team selects a representative to come to the stage to answer a quick-draw/lightning-round question, and whoever answers first gets the prize.

 

This leads to two representatives coming up, a young gentleman from team A and a young lady from team B. When Team B's lady steps on stage, a heckler yells, "Hey, she's a ringer, she has a Star Wars shirt!" to which she smoothly replies, "Oh honey, I have a Star Wars TATTOO" and pulls up a sleeve to reveal a lightsaber tattooed on her forearm. I would say she has become my favorite rando passenger on the ship, except she loses the tiebreaker, and you can't be Cruise Ship Famous if you don't win trivia. Rules of the game 😞

 

I decide to get some complimentary soft-serve ice cream, which is served from one of two tiny little closets on deck 15, roughly in line with the towel station. The line for starboard ice cream is easily 40-50 people deep, and I feel a deep strain of pity for the relentlessly cheerful young gentleman who is apologizing profusely for the delay as he runs out of cones and has to dash off for more. I end up not getting soft-serve until day 5 or 6, and suspect it's actually fro-yo in disguise.

 

During an afternoon walk, my wife asks why there are such stark differences in gender and nationality for the different teams on the crew; specifically, why are 99% of the MDR waitstaff male? I've also noticed that individual teams seem to cluster around a particular nationality (e.g. the security staff for disembarkation is all Indian, the poker room staff are all Romanian or Ukranian, etc.) Many theories are bandied about, but a satisfactory answer eludes us.

 

Many months of Cruise Critic browsing and Internet jokes like this one have made me leery of being either underdressed or overdressed for the first Formal Night. The good news is, it doesn't look like too many people took the dress code seriously; the bad news is, it doesn't look like too many people took the dress code seriously. I wear a blazer, dark jeans, white button-down, and a tie (which my wife correctly deduces I haven't worn since high school), and feel like I might as well be wearing a white tuxedo with tails and top hat.

 

If I recall correctly, on this evening I had a Moroccan spiced grilled tuna steak with spinach, which was one of the best tuna steaks I've ever had, and probably the best entree I had in the MDR. I was shocked how good it was. My wife had coq au vin chicken, which she declared to be excellent.

 

The two of us go up to the Arcade, where a curious psychological bias called the Anchoring Effect overtakes me. In essence, the Anchoring Effect says that if you see something really expensive (like a row of yachts for sale, or $1000 a hand preflop poker), things that previously seem expensive don't seem so bad (like a bottle of wine, or $2 a token arcade games). Although skee-ball is shamefully out of service, we play a few games of air hockey on a curved table. My wife wins.

 

Later in the evening, I go back down to play Texas Hold 'Em and win another $100. I return to the room and declare myself officially a poker genius. I am ready to quit my job and join the World Poker Tour. I have a Neo-at-the-end-of-the-Matrix vision where instead of cards I see green code flying around. I will NEVER lose a dollar playing poker again.

 

Day 4- Solarium Bistro, Cozumel, Submarine Rides, Ice Show

 

I lose $100 playing poker today, but that's not important.

 

We arrive in Cozumel and eat breakfast at the Solarium Bistro, which is smaller than the WJ, but does have outdoor seating. The Solarium Bistro, like the rest of the Solarium, is adults-only, and includes some different breakfast items than WJ (e.g. British-style grilled tomatoes/beans/sausage).

 

I will eat at the Solarium a couple more times, and while the service, cleanliness, and general vibe are delightful, the selection is limited enough that I would much prefer WJ (not to mention the WJ's Olympic-caliber chicken nuggets).

 

Then we head down to Cozumel via gangplank. The pier area is full of stuff that is the exact same from here all the way back to Florida: gold shops, souvenir shops, beach shops, Senor Frog's and Margaritaville-type tourist traps, etc.

 

We scheduled an Atlantis submarine tour through Royal Caribbean's app, which is more expensive than doing so independently, but DOES guarantee that we will be returned to our ship in time for departure (the ship will actually delay departure if a Royal excursion is late, while you are SOL if your independent tour gets stuck in traffic or whatever) Our scheduled Atlantis submarine tour has a meeting point in front of Margaritaville, and my wife and I wait dutifully there while listening to a very enthusiastic host try to get customers to line dance instead of eating their burgers and beer (another guy who is earning his paycheck the hard way).

 

The Atlantis submarine tour starts with a boat ride (about 20-30 minutes) to a point in the middle of the ocean where we meet with the submarine. The boat ride is choppy, and I realize what a difference motion stabilizers and 250,000 tons of displacement makes in avoiding seasickness. One of the crew gives us a very ominous-sounding safety lecture in both English and Spanish, punctuated with jokes to put as at ease with our apparently impending deaths: "Pull this cord to inflate the life vest. Or if the cord doesn't work, try blowing into this tube. And if that doesn't work, sir, it is just not your lucky day [pause for uncomfortable laughter] I'm just kidding, of course. We've been operating submarine tours in Mexico for twenty-eight years and we've never had to use any of this equipment. I'm not even sure any of it even works anymore [nervous chuckles]"

 

Boarding the submarine requires a few steps backwards down a ladder, but once inside the cool and dark interior, we have a wide variety of portholes to see wild coral, fish, and other aquatic life on our tour. It's pretty cool, except because of the lack of light 100 feet down, all our photos and videos are washed out in blue.

 

After returning to the ship, we have a late lunch at El Loco Fresh, dinner in the MDR, and head down to the skating rink to see the Ice Show. Oh yeah, the Oasis has an ice rink. It's a testament to the sheer amount of stuff there is to do onboard that I didn't even bother to try ice skating.

 

The Ice Show is a figure-skating extravaganza set to classical and then classical rock music. I was introduced to Ice Dancing as a sport/art by my buddy putting on the Winter Olympics after a particularly disappointing Super Bowl, and was entranced by the grace, the speed, the athleticism, and the fact that the Italian team kept getting jobbed by the judges. All of these aspects are on full display at the Ice Show (other than the judging problem); I highly recommend you reserve seats and try to get there early enough to sit in the front row. Your appreciation of the sheer difficulty of stunts performed and skill needed to successfully pull off these moves will go up in proportion to how close you sit to the ice.

 

Then I go and lose $100 playing poker, but that's not important.

 

Next up: Roatan, A Lack of Sloths, Chops, Aqua 80!

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Day 5- Roatan, A Lack of Sloths, Chops, Aqua 80

 

The seas are rough going to Roatan, Honduras, with the boat's motion finally coming through the deck. My wife and I discover that unfortunately, keeping the curtains open so we can see the sea moving by outside actually exacerbates the feeling, so we keep them closed to avoid seasickness.

 

A few things I noted while waiting in the room:

 

1) The TV includes ESPN, which I'm deliberately avoiding to try to deal with my horrific college-sports-related anxiety, but also a map channel that lets you see Oasis' course, speed, and position on a map. It's pretty neat, and gives grouchy passengers something to nitpick (this will come up later when playing poker). 

 

2) My wife and I ordered a case of 24 bottles of water, because she believes in bizarre, Communist ideas like "drinking water on a regular basis" and "putting our valuables in the in-room safe". 24 bottles was enough that each of us could drink regularly, take a few with us on excursions, and still have a couple left at the end of seven days. You can also fill a water bottle at the Freestyle Coke machines, and I'm sure any of the bartenders would be happy to do so for you as well.

 

3) Room service is available for $7.95 + service charge + a tip (though continental breakfast is free). You can either use the in-room phone to order, or for breakfast, leave out a little doorknob hanger menu with your requested items and time for delivery out before 10pm the night before (several of these menus are provided for you on the first day).

 

We only indulge in room service once, ordering late-night quesadillas if I remember correctly. I was assured that our order would be delivered in 20-25 minutes, so I planned on eating in an hour's time.

 

To my surprise, 22 minutes later there was a knock at our door. Our order was reasonably hot, which is basically all you can ask for from room service.

 

4) It's a good idea to be checking your SeaPass spending account on the app or on the TV's included channel to see what charges you have racked up from ordering drinks at the bar, merchandise, etc. About 3-4 days in, my wife and I discovered that we were being billed the daily service charges for my parents' rooms. Guest Services went in and added a credit to cancel out the charges after we informed them.

 

We arrive at Roatan late, so there was a surge in passengers waiting to get off the ship to hit their excursions. My wife and I have booked some kind of eco-tour; the main attraction was that we would be able to meet and hang out with some sloths, as well as experience local culture, see exotic birds and animals, etc. But the main attraction was the sloths, as evidenced by a boy who came on the minibus with us who had brought his stuffed sloth with him.

 

Unfortunately, we are informed by our bilingual tour guide A that the due to the rain, the sloths have withdrawn to a higher area that is not accessible for tourists, but there will still be lots of animals around. Womp womp.

 

The minibus is packed to the gills, and then drives out of the cruise port parking lot and into Roatan proper. Roatan is an island off the coast of Honduras proper, whose economy is largely based around tourism and construction. This is all related by A, who rattles off facts and figures so quickly and easily he must have a second job editing Wikipedia, or possibly writing trivia questions for Jeopardy.

 

On our way there, I notice that there are not one, but TWO different Bojangles fried chicken places, complete with the familiar red logo. I don't understand how Bojangles hasn't gotten to New Jersey yet but they already have two locations in Roatan.

 

At the eco-park, we see monkeys (some caged, some allowed to roam free), snakes, Fruit-Loop-type toucans, butterflies, free-roaming cats (apparently local pets), and other animals, but, to the disappointment of us and the little boy with the stuffed animal, no sloths whatsoever.

 

Upon our return to the ship, we have lunch at El Loco Fresh, and then join the rest of my family for James Bond trivia. The host keeps referring to "Trivia with Mario" and I can't help but wonder whether the legendary lives-on-cruise-ships Super Mario is walking among us, like a superhero without his mask. This would be the closest I've been to a celebrity, other than the time I was told Randy Jackson was at the lobby bar I was staying at, rushed down to the bar, and found nobody there.

 

We then head to Chops, the onboard steakhouse, to celebrate my SIL's birthday. Chops is modeled after any old-school steakhouse: dark wood interior, white tablecloths, servers dressed up in black and white (think a Morton's or Ruth Chris', rather than a more eclectic local place). Chops is a fixed-price menu including appetizer, soup or salad, main, and dessert, and for us was about $68/person + 18% service charge + tip, and reservations are strongly recommended.

 

(our friends who had recommended we eat at Chops were shocked when we told them the price later; apparently on their half-full cruise Chops was down to $20/person)

 

Our server, a young lady named A, is very good at her job. When we mention my wife's allergy info, A offers some excellent recommendations, including a number of things that are not actually on Chops' menu but arrive at the same time as the rest of our food. I'm pretty sure she physically carried plates back and forth from other specialty restaurants to make sure my wife had a decent meal, and for that I'm quite grateful.

 

I myself have colossal shrimp cocktail as an appetizers (good, but hard to mess up), a Caesar salad (good, but the same quality as the one I would get at the WJ or MDR), and a 16 oz bone-in ribeye. Let's talk about the steak for a moment: when you go down to TGI Fridays and order a 16 oz bone-in ribeye, what they really mean is a 14 oz bone and 2 ounces of *sad trombone noise quality* ribeye. Not so here at Chops; the steak is enormous and marbled well enough to provide flavor but not enough that it becomes chewy and unmanageable, with a light seasoning that enhances rather than overpowers the steak. What a delight.

 

A, rather than letting us order side dishes, simply brings out eight cups, one for each of the sides on the menu, and asks us to sample them and let her know which ones we'd like more of. I'm an enormous sucker for French fries, of course, but the cheesy tater tots are also excellent. There's enough food that we don't bother ordering a second round of sides.

 

Dessert includes a slice of pretty good cheesecake brought out for my SIL's birthday, but I can't recall what else we ordered and shared at the table.

 

Then it's time for the Aqua 80 show. This is a must-see, and reservations are recommended. Don't sit too close to the front or you will get splashed multiple times with water. The show takes place at night in the open-air amphitheater in the rear of the ship, and includes top-shelf acrobatics and high-wire work, dancing, gymnastics, high dives, trampolines, and synchronized swimming, all set to 1980s music (Royal must have spent a bundle just on rights to the music samples). It is easily the best show we see on the ship.

 

Afterwards, we go to the jazz lounge and elbow our way into a standing-room only crowd to watch an informal concert where the stars of the Broadway show onboard sing covers of other musical theater songs. I particularly enjoy one gentleman's interpretation of "You'll be Back" from Hamilton, but all the theater people are very good and clearly having a ball.

 

Then I go and lose another $100 at poker, my stupidity finally catching up to me. I resolve to delete the letter I had addressed to my boss telling her I was quitting work forever to go be a professional cardsharp on the World Poker Tour.

 

Next up: Puerto Costa Maya, Casino, Johnny Rocket's, Cats

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