Thanksgiving Oosterdam Review

[Scorpiorose]

Here is the quick and the dirty (not much dirty to report):D

 

1. Of all of our RCCL and carnival cruises the food was the best on this cruise. They seem to keep a tighter control over the buffet, serving for you most often which keeps it cleaner, less hogging going on, not open for kids to mangle, and it's just a nicer atmosphere. The food was good with fresh omlettes made to order daily.

 

2. Dining Room was the best. Only one miss and the quickly tried to make it better, the cut of meat was the problem really! I stick to healthy eating salads, sugarless desserts and veggies lean meats, husband eats it all and we were both well satisfied. (The dirty here was that the tables are so close together our poor servers had trouble sometimes reaching us).

Room service!!! I'd rate it excellent! I had a steak sandwich that was heaven, eggs in the morning were fantastic!!! They have a sea sick menu too, I had to try that with the return trip.....remember to take that bronine!!! It was broth, cheese and crackers. The trick is to not every get sick and take those pills on a regular basis but if you do feel a little sick be sure to keep something in that stomache! Their menu was perfect and I beat it by the evening....

 

3. The service all around was great!!! Everyone friendly, nice. Great cabin and dining experience with our servers. We had a nice reception for our CruiseCritic party, they had champagne and snacks.....very nice! Great to meet everyone!

 

4. The dirty here was a very sarcastic crew member at the photo studio - he wouldn't help, the photos were a mess and no one could find their photos which were poorlly marked and disorganized and just shrugged his shoulders when I told him I'd waited in line for over an hour for photos on formal night on the stairs and they weren't printed or on the wall. He just looked at me, seriously.....finally I came down again and said you told me to come back and you look for them, he just looked at me again....I looked around myself and low and behold they were with a stack of pictures on a table.....I didn't get it..... The photos are a problem on this cruise, we honestly got to the end of the night and hadn't found a picture of us yet that one of our eyes weren't closed....I was determined to get a good one on that final night.....(I'm not that picky) so we did wait in line that last night for a hour, the photographer on the stairs was really good but treated every family as a private sitting, taking up to 20-30 min. on each, rearranging them, taking more of individual members.......my gosh.....There were only a few that actually got photos on the stairs due to large families that seemed to think they were the only ones, he'd take 30 min. on them so there weren't that many pictures of the stairs, I was happy I finally found them, they were ok so I was able to buy one picture, they were expensive though, $39.95......overall not a good experience.

 

5. Embarking was a breeze as was disembarking.

 

6. The spa, I usually don't partake.....but it was tempting when they offered a head, neck, foot, hand massage, champagne AND a mini facial.

Well it was pretty lame...no champagne, the massage gal not that good, and talked the whole time, I've had all of these, not worth the money. Save it for a resort off the ship would be my advise.

 

7. The ship is nice, somewhat segregated, but nice big cabins!!! We were upgraded from a VF obstructed view to a VA - back of the ship with a large deck!!! Boy that was heaven!!! No one bothered us even though we could see eachother on the back of the ship......it was so nice. It is due an upgrade in terms of remodeling....which I hear is in the works. I'm glad we sailed her as is, maybe we'll compare her once she has the overhaul.....I hate to think of those nicer bigger cabins becoming smaller when they try to squeeze in a few more cabins.

 

8. Our table company were great, nice people, enjoyable experienced cruisers. One pair had luggage lost, they were given a $600 budget to buy some things at the shop on board, their luggage was on it's way to hawaii on the zandam....which was in port with the oosterdam when we left so they knew they wouldn't get their luggage for the cruise. The gentle man also was given a tux two nights....not bad really.

 

9. Kids, there were a lot of kids......but boy they did a nice job with them, we'd see them march buy in a line, on their way to the kid pool or what ever. I didn't see kids running amuck, it was mostly families together. No bother with them at all.

 

10. Smoking.......I am sensitive to this but it was never a problem....ppl seemed to know the places to smoke it was fine. The cabin was fine too, couldn't tell if anyone smoked in that room.

 

11. They could use upgrade on bedding, it wasn't that nice.

 

12. Ports - Cabo - went to our favorite beach bar the Office, it was nice, beach nice....food good.....PV - Blah - last time there we found some good deals on silver, leather, blankets....this time, the prices were doubled and at times what I'd pay at home! The deals were part of what we liked.....$40 for silver earrings? AND when you paid in restaurants like FROGGIES they gave change in pasos and only exchanged the rate at a lower rate....a rip off! A beer, a mini beer, was $5.00! IN MEXICO? Come on......We found a nice local little place in the inner city, we wonder off the beaten path, we got 4 margarita's for $6 and good food! We wondered into the real city, Old PV and went in the meat markets.....very interesting, I was looking for plantanes.....couldn't find any without a 100 flies on them, a little too much mexico for us but really interesting! Anthony Bordaine would enjoy that place! We loved it, so much better than the port shops! MZ - We wanted to sip beer and lay on a beautiful beach and we were scooped up by some time share ppl at the pier....we told them right up front...we wont buy, but they said we will take care of you....just come look. So we did.....and they did! They promised us a talk, it was long, but not altogether unpleasant...they ate breakfast with us, a good breakfast, showed us the resort, beautiful, gave us $50 in food and drinks, we swam in the pool and ate and drank....had trouble spending that much and when we left, they gave us $50 in cash. We made money that way, it was nice. If I had had the money, I might very well have bought a time share there, it was beautiful, high class, but I have other travel plans.

 

Over all a great and enjoyable cruise! The word for this cruise was RESTFUL!

[Scorpiorose]

....and I ran on the deck every morning, deck 3 was the recommendation. If you want to walk, walk on the upper deck, deck 3 has some tight corners and it's a good idea to separate the walkers and runners. My plan was to get up before everyone else, I did at 5:30, by the time I was done, I had time for a shower, and waited for my room service in the morning. It was nice running with out others around, other than the deck clearners who are also up at 5:30 washing the deck, I had to run around their hoses and in the deck water but that was fine and they are so nice and patience when I came by, diverting their hoses. 3 times around is a mile.

 

Questions.....

[Williebill]

Thank you for your report.

[mr. godfredo]

I am glad to hear that you enjoyed as much as we did! Thanks by the way, our kids were very well behaved and were taken care of nicely by the fine staff at Club HAL!!!!:D

[Scorpiorose]

I was amazed at how well the kids were managed and were kept busy.....! Glad you had a great experience too!;)