Live and Solo: B2B on Oasis Feb 4 - 18, a Running report

[DandDM]

Will try to keep this someone organized without too much wandering...will see what happens.

 

For those that have followed along, hope you'll agree that it was a great cruise. Met new people, did new stuff, saw new shows, won in the casino, ate too much; everything I'd wish for in a trip!

 

Cabin.  I was in a GS on deck 14. Chose this floor as I knew I'd want to go up to the SL/CK on deck 17 often, but didn't really even consider a CLS on deck 17 as they are so big, a pain to get to (if you don't use elevators much) and frankly, very expensive. This was as close as I could get to that floor. However, this was not a great choice as I was under a public deck and more importantly, under a table tennis court.  There was very little noise from the deck (late one night I got out of bed and climbed up a level to yell at some kids who were jumping off the furniture), and couldn't hear the table tennis from my room, but on the balcony, the table tennis could get noisy.  Did like that the room was close to the stairs. If I could choose again, would look for something on the starboard side, close to the elevators, and on deck 12 or 13.

 

Room steward was great and usually had my room done without me seeing him, but often saw me in the hall and said hi/asked how it was going or if I needed anything. Got 'gifts' on two nights each cruise: a fruit tray and small desserts. Had many cups of coffee from the machine.  

 

Food.  I won't spend much time on this as you saw what I ate and I gave my opinions, but overall was completely satisfied with the food. I guess you didn't see it all; I stopped by Windjammer two or three times for a snack and made some nachos in el loco fresh (I think that is what it is called).  I didn't try the main dining room so can't comment on that. I thought the quality at Windjammer was fine, but didn't have enough of an experience, and don't have a lot of past experiences, to really form an opinion on how it compares to the old days.

 

One comment on the CK - by the end of the second week was struggling to find new things I wanted to try on some nights, so if on another week, would be revisiting stuff I already tried. Service there was fantastic and waiters quickly learned my name, wine preferences, and to not bring bread.

 

Entertainment.  Think I saw all the shows and a few of the events. The only 'dud' was Tracta the impressionist (intentionally didn't report on that because the review would not have been good).  Saw the aqua show twice.  In another year or so, if I'm back on the Oasis, would watch Cats again.  

 

You know, I guess I do want to tell my Tracta story... I got to the theater early and it was pretty empty.  Grabbed a seat about ten in from an aisle, near the middle.  Right when the show was starting, a family of five or six sat in front of me.  A little girl (maybe five or six) was in front of me, and she wasn't interested in the show at all; was playing "peek-a-boo" with me and squirming around.  She was small and it wasn't a big deal. Then maybe ten minutes after the show started, a big family came in and filled in the seats between me and the aisle.  A bunch of kids.  Next to me was a young man, probably 11 or 12, who at first was on his phone.  Its screen was bright and his mom made him turn it off. With no phone, he quickly got bored and started to mess with his siblings, and sometimes when he turned to interact with one of them, his lankly legs would shift and he'd kick me.  THEN, a toddler from one of the families started to babble.  No words, just ba-ba-ba-baaaa.  No one did anything and the kid kept going, so after the third time the kid kicked me, I got up and moved as far as I could the other way, feeling bad because I sat right in front of one couple and next to another, disrupting their space.

 

Once I got away from this mess, focused on the show, and realized that not only had a seen it before, I didn't like it the first time. It was not my type of thing and was way outdated (recall it was outdated when I saw it a few years ago).  So now I just wanted to leave, but had the two families to my left, and 12 people (I counted them) between me and the isle on the right. Mapped out that if it climbed over a couple rows of seats, there was a route where I would only have to get around six. Finally decided I would just wait out the rest of the show, thankfully could now just barely hear the kid babbling.  

 

It is a short show; 40 or 45 minutes and I made it through.  Would think this was over, but no!  I patiently waited in my seat for the show to end, the CD to make his comments and the crowd to thin. I didn't want to deal with the family.  When I finally left, had to walk around a group of people that had gathered near the exit and noticed some motion. The same kid that kept kicking me was messing with a brother within the group; he stumbled and fell right into me. I don't know what I did to get this bad karma; I just went back to my cabin and went to bed after that.

 

Comments to be continued.

[DandDM]

Continued...

 

Itinerary. Chose these cruises because of the ship and superbowl; didn't really think about the stops. This might not be a popular opinion, but I don't have any real desire to go back to either private island.  If I want to do a beach stop, can do at other ports, but I never do because I don't really care for beach days. Wouldn't NOT do a cruise just because it is one of the stops; I think of them as sea days.

 

Have no problem with Nassau and St Thomas; talking to others, regret (a little bit) not doing any excursions. Finally, no desire to stop at any Jamaican ports; been to three different ones and have stayed in a resort, and can't think of a reason to get off the ship in the future. 

 

I may talk about this later if I get that far, but for future cruises, want to do more stops in Central/South America and Panama canal.  I'm a history fan so enjoy the Mayan ruins and old civilization stuff 

 

Superbowl. Guess I should talk about that. I ended up having a good time, but only because I paid for a seat. To be part of the crowd and get a decent free seat, probably would have needed to claim the seat 60 - 90 minutes before kickoff. If I was with a group, might have been more fun. As I put in my earlier post, I wish they had the game on in more venues with different viewing options. And since there is a suite lounge and a suite debt, seems like they could have set up an event on one of those spots...

 

Future cruises. This goes back to my comment about ports.  For once in as long as I can remember, do not have any cruises booked.  Usually, I book one on the ship and already have the next one or two set up already. When I booked these two, they were four and five on the list. I spent a fair amount of time looking at options while on the ship, and got some ideas the Next Cruise folks (both for Royal and Celebrity) but didn't find one that jumped out. Some friends recommends a few Celebrity opitons that I will keep looking at.

 

What I found was that the newer ships had very boring (in my opinion) itineraries and very high price tags. When I found cruises that were interesting, they usually left from less popular ports, were on older, small ships, and were still very expensive (but cheaper than the big ships).  The two I found most interesting was a partial Panama transit on a small ship out of (can't remember which it was) Tampa or Galveston. Then there was a Mexico cruise out of New Orleans that was priced well and I've never been to New Orleans so could do that.  I almost pulled the trigger on that one, but I want to do more research on New Orleans first.

 

So nothing booked...

[DandDM]

I've rambled enough.  Final, general, thoughts.

 

Very glad the trip was two weeks. The first was a bit of a blur and I would have been bummed to leave that quickly. By the end of the second week I was ready...could have stayed longer, but felt the time was right.

 

Really, really, enjoyed the bartenders (Sherwin and Roman) in Vintages. Met a lot of people there, drank too much, and just generally had a good time. As much as I like to plan, never know what a cruise is going to be like; this one was the Vintages cruise!

 

Regarding my decision to make this a 'running cruise' - I'm happy with that. Sure would have been nice to sleep in some mornings and not think about what I was ordering, but it was worth it. I still ate a lot (probably too much for my goal) but I feel good about how it went down. Don't know if I'll ever have the need to push myself this much on a future cruise, but if I do, know how to do it.

 

Finally, stairs!  Made it all two weeks without an elevator!! Was very tempted after some runs (especially St Thomas) and when I just wanted to quickly get something up or down the stairs. Could probably write a page on my thoughts on stairs and all the tricks and strategies I used to keep it going!  Also sure I built up some stair specific muscle, but unfortunately, don't have any stairs in my regular life to keep that up. I guess it will be useful next week in Vegas and taking the street overpasses. Related - I'm on the third story of my hotel. Other than bringing my bag up here, have still been using the stairs.

 

You now know more than you ever wanted to about what I thought about this cruise; please let me know if any questions. 

 

As I posed earlier, will come back with any updates, especially about the race, but I'm pretty much wrapped up with this trip.  Six AM flight tomorrow 😞

 

Thank you everyone for following, happy cruising!

 

 

 

 

[fla33023]

2 hours ago, DandDM said:

This is different for me too! I'll share my thoughts, but welcome anyone else with more 'local' knowledge to chime in.

 

I consider the service charge the gratuity (or tip) and have not given extra. Kinda like the 18% that cruise lines add to bills (I wonder if that is where the idea came from here...)

 

Where I live (Pacific North West USA) there was a period of time where restaurants would claim to be socially responsible by adding a "Living Wage" tip to your bill. For most places it was 15 - 18% and they were upfront about it, saying that the tip ensured that employees received a 'living wage'.  If you didn't like it, you could have it taken off, or you could give extra. Once again, very upfront about it. This didn't last long and all of the restaurants I know of that tried it out, later stopped and went back to a traditional tipping system.

 

Have treated what I've seen here as being similar, but it has not been done the same way. First off, I didn't notice anything on menu or table that specifically talked about it.  Second, it was buried in the bill as a 'service charge.'.  Finally, the receipt to sign (or when the bring the machine out) had it included on the total with additional line for tip. I specifically asked my waitress about it today, I said, "This is the tip, right?".  She nodded agreement, but based on a language barrier I noticed when ordering, not 100% sure she understood me.

 

If I was going to tip extra for outstanding service, would only calculate the tip based on the food and drink cost before taxes and the service charge. 

 

Now that I've seen it twice here in Miami Beach I am guessing that it is pretty common in the area...other might have more thoughts.

 

Cheers,

I live in Hollywood and dine in Miami maybe every other month.  It's rare that we tip additionally, maybe $5-$7 if the server was extra friendly which can be rare in Miami!  However, I'm also not eating in super fancy restaurants so maybe that is a factor as well. 

Edited February 19 by fla33023

[fla33023]

31 minutes ago, DandDM said:

I've rambled enough.  Final, general, thoughts.

 

Very glad the trip was two weeks. The first was a bit of a blur and I would have been bummed to leave that quickly. By the end of the second week I was ready...could have stayed longer, but felt the time was right.

 

Really, really, enjoyed the bartenders (Sherwin and Roman) in Vintages. Met a lot of people there, drank too much, and just generally had a good time. As much as I like to plan, never know what a cruise is going to be like; this one was the Vintages cruise!

 

Regarding my decision to make this a 'running cruise' - I'm happy with that. Sure would have been nice to sleep in some mornings and not think about what I was ordering, but it was worth it. I still ate a lot (probably too much for my goal) but I feel good about how it went down. Don't know if I'll ever have the need to push myself this much on a future cruise, but if I do, know how to do it.

 

Finally, stairs!  Made it all two weeks without an elevator!! Was very tempted after some runs (especially St Thomas) and when I just wanted to quickly get something up or down the stairs. Could probably write a page on my thoughts on stairs and all the tricks and strategies I used to keep it going!  Also sure I built up some stair specific muscle, but unfortunately, don't have any stairs in my regular life to keep that up. I guess it will be useful next week in Vegas and taking the street overpasses. Related - I'm on the third story of my hotel. Other than bringing my bag up here, have still been using the stairs.

 

You now know more than you ever wanted to about what I thought about this cruise; please let me know if any questions. 

 

As I posed earlier, will come back with any updates, especially about the race, but I'm pretty much wrapped up with this trip.  Six AM flight tomorrow 😞

 

Thank you everyone for following, happy cruising!

 

 

 

 

Thank you for taking the time out of your vacation. I really enjoyed your review. I'm not a runner by any means but it was fascinating to see you stick to your goals during a cruise. My next one is in March and I will certainly take the elevator but I want to push myself to do steps more. I will think of you! Safe travels home and looking forward to the race review!

[gambler]

Thank-you for a great review. Good luck on the race.

[sddsddean]

Thanks for a great review…looking forward to our 3 weeks on Oasis in April.

 

Thanks also (and fla) for comments on tips.

 

Simon

[DandDM]

1 hour ago, fla33023 said:

Thank you for taking the time out of your vacation. I really enjoyed your review. I'm not a runner by any means but it was fascinating to see you stick to your goals during a cruise. My next one is in March and I will certainly take the elevator but I want to push myself to do steps more. I will think of you! Safe travels home and looking forward to the race review!

Have fun on your cruise, good luck on those stairs 🙂

1 hour ago, gambler said:

Thank-you for a great review. Good luck on the race.

Thanks!

1 hour ago, sddsddean said:

Thanks for a great review…looking forward to our 3 weeks on Oasis in April.

 

Thanks also (and fla) for comments on tips.

 

Simon

If Roman or Sherwin are working in Vintages, say hi for me!  Hope this gave you some useful info!

 

Cheers,

[Coralc]

Very enjoyable cruise report! Thanks for taking the time. Good Luck in the race! 😊

 

New Orleans is a very fun city! But I think it is probably more fun to have a friend go with you to encourage more exploration. I find that when I am by myself, I tend not to be as adventurous about exploring places. Not because I am nervous, I just lack motivation. 😁

[DandDM]

8 minutes ago, Coralc said:

Very enjoyable cruise report! Thanks for taking the time. Good Luck in the race! 😊

 

New Orleans is a very fun city! But I think it is probably more fun to have a friend go with you to encourage more exploration. I find that when I am by myself, I tend not to be as adventurous about exploring places. Not because I am nervous, I just lack motivation. 😁

Thanks for your comments!  I have to agree with your message as I sit here in my hotel room watching the Daytona 500 instead of exploring more of Miami…but it did get kinda cold out 😃

 

Edited February 20 by DandDM

[perfect match]

Thank you very much for a great cruise report. We’re back on Allure in about 2 months, so hearing about your time on Oasis certainly helped me get excited - not that I need any help getting excited about going on a cruise. 😂

 

You also helped me get fully on track with my own exercise program. I had started to struggle with getting my workouts in due to a decline in my own motivation. Seeing you getting all of your workouts in helped me get back on track with my own. 

[DandDM]

1 hour ago, perfect match said:

Thank you very much for a great cruise report. We’re back on Allure in about 2 months, so hearing about your time on Oasis certainly helped me get excited - not that I need any help getting excited about going on a cruise. 😂

 

You also helped me get fully on track with my own exercise program. I had started to struggle with getting my workouts in due to a decline in my own motivation. Seeing you getting all of your workouts in helped me get back on track with my own. 

You are welcome!  Having an ‘audience’ helped motivate me 😀

 

Enjoy your cruise…Allure is my favorite. 
 

Cheers,

[gottaluvit]

Thanks for your review - it is helpful as I embark solo on Oasis on Sunday!

[cruisinconniebean]

3 hours ago, gottaluvit said:

Thanks for your review - it is helpful as I embark solo on Oasis on Sunday!

There is a few of us on that cruise as solos!

[DandDM]

Quick run update. After a long flight from Miami and a quick stop, primarily to do laundry and repack, in Tucson, arrived in Las Vegas last night. View from room. 

 

To the reason for the post, went for the first Vegas practice run. Very pleased to report that I didn’t have issues with breathing at this altitude. But the overpasses really slowed me down. Had five in each direction, so ten total. Because of that, overall pace wasn’t great, but I’ll share the splits as I did pretty good when flat. 
 

 

 

[perfect match]

On 2/20/2024 at 4:09 AM, DandDM said:

You are welcome!  Having an ‘audience’ helped motivate me 😀

 

Enjoy your cruise…Allure is my favorite. 
 

Cheers,

Allure is my favorite, too! I purposely chose her for this cruise because we will qualify for our first crystal block on the first leg of our B2B so that’s the block we will get. I just wish she was doing seven day cruises instead of these silly 3 and 4 day runs. That’s just not enough time on a ship like Allure! 

[DandDM]

Race is done!  First off, run from the other day, did a route that avoided the overpasses. Note that these blocks were a mile long!  Always thought Las Vegas blocks were huge!  
 

[DandDM]

The race itself was huge!  Read that there would be 27,000 participants. 
 

Could write a lot about this crazy and new experience for me. I haven’t run an organized race like this for a while and never one this big.  Only in Vegas could you get a selfie with showgirls. 

 

Lined up at 4:30, did not pass the start line until 5:15 (note that each bib has a chip which was read at start and finish, so was not ‘penalized’ for late start). Some photos waiting to start. 
 

 

 

Finally running, very entertaining course. 

 

 

 

 

Despite the crowds, had a good run. Three minutes faster than training run on ship…

 

Reward for all this, stopped for an In-n-out burger!

 

 

Have some pains this morning, blaming the standing around and time between stretching and starting the race. Could also be my age 😃

 

Undecided if I’d do this again, right now the answer would be ‘no’. With what I learned about the race would do things a bit differently which might make it better, so will let things settle for a few weeks and think about it more. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[KEG21552]

Congratulations on a great finish

[HBE4]

Thank you for a great trip report & the race update.  Seems like a late start for a race, is that to avoid the heat? I didn't think Vegas was that hot this time of year.

 

And I can't think of a better way to reward yourself than with an In-and-Out burger. 

[perfect match]

You had a great race! Thank you for the update.

I’ve done a few Run Disney races when I was younger and before my knee and hip replacements. They were a lot of fun, Disney characters everywhere. Unfortunately, when discussing activities restrictions following my surgeries with the doctor he said no running or bungee jumping with a bungee cord around my ankles. Since I’m really not much of a runner and even the thrill seeker in me has no desire to try bungee jumping I really promised him I wouldn’t do either of those things! 😂

[DandDM]

17 hours ago, KEG21552 said:

Congratulations on a great finish

Thanks!

14 hours ago, HBE4 said:

Thank you for a great trip report & the race update.  Seems like a late start for a race, is that to avoid the heat? I didn't think Vegas was that hot this time of year.

 

And I can't think of a better way to reward yourself than with an In-and-Out burger. 

They talk about the heat, but agree, it’s not usually too hot. I think it has a lot to do with traffic as they couldn’t get away with closing the strip to vehicle traffic mid day. 

11 hours ago, perfect match said:

You had a great race! Thank you for the update.

I’ve done a few Run Disney races when I was younger and before my knee and hip replacements. They were a lot of fun, Disney characters everywhere. Unfortunately, when discussing activities restrictions following my surgeries with the doctor he said no running or bungee jumping with a bungee cord around my ankles. Since I’m really not much of a runner and even the thrill seeker in me has no desire to try bungee jumping I really promised him I wouldn’t do either of those things! 😂

Haha! I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some bungee jumping going on somewhere around here this weekend🤣 Thanks for following and posting in the report!