Cruise Review - Oasis of the Seas, October 16 through 23, 2010

One week on the Oasis of the Seas is not enough.

We were on a group cruise on the Oasis of the Seas from October 16
through the 23. There was so much advance buzz about this ship that we
started booking this group in September, 2008 and ended up with around
130 people in the group.

So here are some random impressions, observations and thoughts about the
world's biggest cruise ship and the week we lived aboard her.

But we'll start this cruise in the cruise terminal. When you have 6000+
passengers getting off a ship and being replaced by 6000+ more
passengers a few hours later, you had better do some planning. Royal
Caribbean's stated goal was to design a cruise terminal that would
effectively move people from "terminal door to the ship's deck" in 15
minutes. And they did it. The check in desks are arranged in a V shape
in the middle of the room. You go through security first, as you enter
the building... then you are guided to the appropriate check in station.
We arrived at the terminal at 11:50 AM... usually the peak time for
check-in, and were on the ship by 12:05 PM. 15 minutes, including a few
minutes of kidding around with the check-in agent.

One other thing that helps..... Royal Caribbean is allowing people onto
the ship as early as 11 AM. And for the real Early Birds who just have
to be at the terminal at eh crack of dawn, there is seating for 3,000
people. Excellent design and planning by Royal Caribbean.

OK.... let's talk about size. The advance knock on the Oasis was that
it would be "too big". Fact is that the Oasis is 1184 feet long. Only
72 feet longer than the Freedom of the Seas (1112 feet) and only 149
feet longer than the SS Norway (1035 feet) and only 180 feet longer than
Carnival's newest mega-liner, the Carnival Magic (1004 feet). The ship
is broken down into "neighborhoods".... the Promenade and Central Park
take up midships on decks 5 and 8... and the Boardwalk area takes up the
aft third of the ship on deck 6. By breaking the flow of traffic into
sections like this, the ship really didn't have the "huge" feel that
many people expected.

Still..... this is one big mother of a ship and while most people didn't
seem to notice after a few days, there are still a few who by the end of
the week were a bit overwhelmed by the size. And that is OK. There are
all sizes of ships for all types of tastes.

Entertainment..... I am a huge fan of onboard entertainment. When I go
on a cruise, I want to be entertained. Here you go:

I have been on over 60 cruises and the production of HAIRSPRAY was the
best show I have ever seen on any cruise ship at any time. Period.
Nothing else comes close. Instead of trying to reduce a big show down
to a one hour format... Royal Caribbean gives this one a full 90 minutes
to play out. Cast was talented, the soundtrack was enhanced with live
musicians and the staging and sets were pretty good. We liked it so
much we saw it twice. When the Allure comes out, the feature show will
be CHICAGO and I can't wait to see how they do that.

The other big show was a blend of high-flying, acrobatic aerial acts,
trapeze, etc. Certainly not on the same level as hairspray, but pretty
good. The "headliner show" was comedian Bobby Collins.... who did a
pretty funny show.

Other venues include a comedy club where we saw two pretty good
comedians, the ice rink where they perform the standard Royal Caribbean
ice show and the Aqua Theater. The Aqua show we had scheduled was
rained out.... and the replacement show was also rained out. The show
was then re-scheduled at a time that wasn't convenient for us. The show
got mixed revues from people in our group with some liking it a lot,
while others... not so much. I'll have to see for myself when I get the
chance.

FOOD - OK... from what we heard, the Windjammer buffet was totally
packed for lunch the first day of the cruise. So much so that we didn't
go there. We met some friends and went to Giovanni's Table instead.
This Central Park restaurant serves a lunch menu that is almost
identical to the dinner menu, except the price is $10 per person.
Lunch was great! The Antipasto for two was a huge platter of prosciutto
and various salamis and cheeses along with marinated mushrooms and
peppers. There was m ore than enough for two... in fact, all 4 of us
picked at it and there were a few things left over. All of the entrees
were fine. Service was good, A nice quiet lunch in a smaller
restaurant was a great way to start the cruise.

The Windjammer. Built to seat 700 people at a time, smaller than the
WIndjammer on the Freedom of the Seas. I talked with one of the food
service supervisors about this and he explained that they have so many
other venues open for breakfast and lunch that once people get used to
where everything is, there isn't usually a big crush of people in the
Windjammer. Lunch is available at he Promenade Cafe, the Pizza place,
Central Park Cafe (get the roast beef sandwich and thank me later)
Johnny Rockets, Seafood Shack, Wipeout Cafe and the Solarium Bistro....
in addition to the main dining room In addition, on your cabin TV and
on information screens all around the ship, you could look up to see how
busy every restaurant was at the moment. There was no need to go to to
any restaurant that was crowded... because it was very easy to find one
that wasn't.

Here is a hint... Breakfast is being served at Johnny Rockets... no
charge. They'll make you eggs any way you want them, omelets, fried
potatoes. Just ask and they'll make it. When it is crowded the service
can be a bit slow, but they'll tall you about that when you get there.

The food in the dining room was pretty good. Caesar salad is available
every night and to my taste, was very good. Outstanding dishes were the
lamb shank and the cod fillet. Prime rib was very good as was a shrimp
and fish tempura dish. Steaks..... not so much although I did have a
strip steak one night that was better than I expected. We were invited
by some friends to dinner at Chops one night and my steak was delicious.

Odds and ends....

WiFi signal in our cabin was good.... but you have to go to one of the
Internet offices to sign up. Used our laptop to download email, log
off. Answer email, log on, send answers, log off. Doing it this was,
the $35 package for 60 minutes was more than enough time.

Cabins are pretty standard Royal Caribbean. Not much innovation except
the 32" flat screen TV has a real clear picture.

My favorite place on the ship was the Solarium. Ample seating so no
matter when I went there was always a chair. LOTS of BIG hot tubs and
you never felt crowded... and the hot tubs are open all night. We had
an impromptu hot tub party after dinner one night at around 11 PM.

Pet peeve..... children in strollers. If your child is old enough to be
smoking, he is old enough to walk. Some of the strollers I saw on the
Oasis were the size of a small bus.

The children's pool area is wonderful. There are various pools of
differing levels for the kids, and a fun zone with water "cannons' etc.
The infant's pool has a warning sign stating that the maximum depth of
the water was 2 inches. (It also has a detailed sign explaining about
children in diapers, etc)

Elevators - two banks of elevators, fore and aft... 12 elevators in each
bank and the cars are BIG. Except when everyone was trying to get to
the dining room at the same time, there was seldom a wait for the elevator.

Cabin Steward was excellent..... waiter was OK. Seems he and he
assistant had just started working together and after a day or two,
meshed a little better. I heard that the waiters and assistants work
together for only two weeks then rotate. I'm not sure what the purpose
of this is, but if true, they should re-think this policy.

The crew is noticeably friendly. Both Cabin steward and waiter called
me by name after the first day. Crew members seem to be happy on this
ship. It is as if they know they have 6000+ people and they are trying
hard to make it as personal experience as possible. Oh... and a high
percentage of the crew is from Jamaica. Seems when Royal Caribbean
decided to stop at the new port of Falmouth, they did a lot of
recruiting in Jamaica for workers. The people I talked with are excited
about the new port. Most won't live close enough to Falmouth to visit
home, but their families can come to visit them when they are in port.

Met an assistant waiter from Turkey who had been on the ship for 4
months. He met another crew member from Turkey... and they got married
on the ship. He told me that Royal Caribbean was very supportive of
this and promised that that future contracts would be arranged so they
could continue working on the ships together,

Pre-reserving shows. You can go online and reserve what shows you want
to see starting about 3 to 4 months prior to sail date. They only
reserve 75% of the seats for any given show. Doors open 30 minutes
prior to showtime and you don't have to sit through Bingo to get a good
seat. At 10 minutes prior to showtime, they open the doors to anyone...
reservation or not. We saw Hairspray twice... once with a reservation
and once without. None of the shows were packed to capacity and it
looked like even people who showed up at the last minute were able to
get in. No big deal.

Disembarking - One of the most pleasant surprises was how quickly and
smoothly the disembarkation process went. NO ANNOUNCEMENTS! If you
want to participate in the early Express Walk-off and can carry ALL your
own luggage, you were welcome to leave the ship starting around 6:15 AM.
If you checked bags, you are given a numbered tag. Disembarking
numbers are displayed on the information screens around the ship and on
the TV in your cabin. Breakfast starts being served at 5:30 AM. They
don't stress it much, but they would like you to be out of your cabin by
8:30 AM.

We had a 2 PM flight from FLL, so were in no hurry to get off the ship.
We were given number 53 (out of 87) and the chart left in our cabin
told us that our number was scheduled to leave the ship at 8:20 AM. We
went to the Windjammer for breakfast at 8 AM and to our surprise, it was
very easy to get a table. by 8:45, the info screen showed that they
were already releasing numbers in the 70's for disembarkation. We found
our way to deck 5, walked off the ship after about a 5 minute wait. Got
to the luggage area and there were our bags, joined the line through
customs and were through the building and out on the street in less than
15 minutes. Once again, i can't emphasize how well this terminal is
designed for getting people on and off he ship quickly and efficiently..

In conclusion..... (finally)..... the ship proved to be so popular with
our group that over 50 people took advantage of the onboard booking
agents and immediately booked our Halloween group cruise next October on
the Allure of the Seas http://www.cruisemaster.com/allure2011.htm

Personally, I loved this ship and this group cruise. After 60+ cruises,
this one was different and at the end of the week, instead of being
"ready to go home", I was wishing that I had booked a back-2-back and
could stay onboard another week. I haven't had that feeling since the
Grand Princess was introduced. Simply put, to my mind, the Oasis is a
game changer and right now is the standard that all other mass-market
cruise ships will be measured against.

And if you are still reading this, you are either a cruise fanatic or a
glutton for punishment... and in either case, I thank you!

George L

--
George Leppla, MCC
Countryside Travel
7815 Masters Drive
Shreveport, LA 71129
1-800-603-5755
www.CruiseMaster.com

On 10/30/10 5:13 PM, George Leppla wrote:

Personally, I loved this ship and this group cruise. After 60+ cruises,
this one was different and at the end of the week, instead of being
"ready to go home", I was wishing that I had booked a back-2-back and
could stay onboard another week. I haven't had that feeling since the
Grand Princess was introduced. Simply put, to my mind, the Oasis is a
game changer and right now is the standard that all other mass-market
cruise ships will be measured against.

And if you are still reading this, you are either a cruise fanatic or a
glutton for punishment... and in either case, I thank you!

George L


Glad you posted your comments. With my teaching schedule I most likely
won't be able to go on any of Suzy's next few Viking sailings... so I'll
have to find my own way onto one of these two ships to scoop them out.

I imagine I'd have to agree that they'll be a game changer, though they
may have reached a price point (as far as cost to build the ships) where
companies (including RCI) may not have the financial resources to out do
these ships without putting the entire company at bankruptcy risk.
Carnival hasn't had the stomach to make another QM2 sister at $1
billion... and these 2 sisters are $3 billion combined. That's a LOT of
money. They may not have peaked engineering wise, or design wise... but
they may have hit a wall from a financial perspective.

It will be curious too see how the future plays out.

But RCI seems to definitely have drawn a "new line in the sand".

--Tom

In article ,
(Cruise Crazy) wrote:

Nice review, George. Glad you all had a great time on the Monster Ship.


I still attribute to crass discrimination that they did not take my
suggestion for a name. I mean, what is wrong with Death Star of the Seas?

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke

I agree many that is "Crass" to some cruisers. Perhaps they should book
the Queen 2 because they interested in Class or the Dams ships that are
cheaper and more sedate . I like fun and relax when needed. The Oasis
of the Seas provides any thing you would desire. You pay special
restaurants but the costs are less than the top line ships for there
fare. Maybe it is egoistic?

Live today...tomorrow may never come.

On Oct 30, 3:13*pm, George Leppla wrote:
One week on the Oasis of the Seas is not enough.

We were on a group cruise on the Oasis of the Seas from October 16
through the 23. There was so much advance buzz about this ship that we
started booking this group in September, 2008 and ended up with around
130 people in the group.

So here are some random impressions, observations and thoughts about the
world's biggest cruise ship and the week we lived aboard her.

But we'll start this cruise in the cruise terminal. *When you have 6000+
passengers getting off a ship and being replaced by 6000+ more
passengers a few hours later, you had better do some planning. *Royal
Caribbean's stated goal was to design a cruise terminal that would
effectively move people from "terminal door to the ship's deck" in 15
minutes. *And they did it. *The check in desks are arranged in a V shape
in the middle of the room. *You go through security first, as you enter
the building... then you are guided to the appropriate check in station.
* We arrived at the terminal at 11:50 AM... usually the peak time for
check-in, and were on the ship by 12:05 PM. *15 minutes, including a few
minutes of kidding around with the check-in agent.

One other thing that helps..... Royal Caribbean is allowing people onto
the ship as early as 11 AM. *And for the real Early Birds who just have
to be at the terminal at eh crack of dawn, there is seating for 3,000
people. *Excellent design and planning by Royal Caribbean.

OK.... let's talk about size. *The advance knock on the Oasis was that
it would be "too big". *Fact is that the Oasis is 1184 feet long. *Only
72 feet longer than the Freedom of the Seas (1112 feet) and only 149
feet longer than the SS Norway (1035 feet) and only 180 feet longer than
Carnival's newest mega-liner, the Carnival Magic (1004 feet). * The ship
is broken down into "neighborhoods".... the Promenade and Central Park
take up midships on decks 5 and 8... and the Boardwalk area takes up the
aft third of the ship on deck 6. *By breaking the flow of traffic into
sections like this, the ship really didn't have the "huge" feel that
many people expected.

Still..... this is one big mother of a ship and while most people didn't
seem to notice after a few days, there are still a few who by the end of
the week were a bit overwhelmed by the size. *And that is OK. *There are
all sizes of ships for all types of tastes.

Entertainment..... *I am a huge fan of onboard entertainment. When I go
on a cruise, I want to be entertained. *Here you go:

I have been on over 60 cruises and the production of HAIRSPRAY was the
best show I have ever seen on any cruise ship at any time. *Period.
Nothing else comes close. *Instead of trying to reduce a big show down
to a one hour format... Royal Caribbean gives this one a full 90 minutes
to play out. *Cast was talented, the soundtrack was enhanced with live
musicians and the staging and sets were pretty good. *We liked it so
much we saw it twice. *When the Allure comes out, the feature show will
be CHICAGO and I can't wait to see how they do that.

The other big show was a blend of high-flying, acrobatic aerial acts,
trapeze, etc. *Certainly not on the same level as hairspray, but pretty
good. The "headliner show" was comedian Bobby Collins.... who did a
pretty funny show.

Other venues include a comedy club where we saw two pretty good
comedians, the ice rink where they perform the standard Royal Caribbean
ice show and the Aqua Theater. *The Aqua show we had scheduled was
rained out.... and the replacement show was also rained out. *The show
was then re-scheduled at a time that wasn't convenient for us. *The show
got mixed revues from people in our group with some liking it a lot,
while others... not so much. *I'll have to see for myself when I get the
chance.

FOOD - OK... from what we heard, the Windjammer buffet was totally
packed for lunch the first day of the cruise. *So much so that we didn't
go there. *We met some friends and went to Giovanni's Table instead.
This Central Park restaurant serves a lunch menu that is almost
identical to the dinner menu, except the price is $10 *per person.
Lunch was great! *The Antipasto for two was a huge platter of prosciutto
and various salamis and cheeses along with marinated mushrooms and
peppers. *There was m ore than enough for two... in fact, all 4 of us
picked at it and there were a few things left over. *All of the entrees
were fine. *Service was good, *A nice quiet lunch in a smaller
restaurant was a great way to start the cruise.

The Windjammer. *Built to seat 700 people at a time, smaller than the
WIndjammer on the Freedom of the Seas. *I talked with one of the food
service supervisors about this and he explained that they have so many
other venues open for breakfast and lunch that once people get used to
where everything is, there isn't usually a big crush of people in the
Windjammer. *Lunch is available at he Promenade Cafe, the Pizza place,
Central Park Cafe (get the roast beef sandwich and thank me later)
Johnny Rockets, Seafood Shack, Wipeout Cafe and the Solarium Bistro....
in addition to the main dining room *In addition, on your cabin TV and
on information screens all around the ship, you could look up to see how
busy every restaurant was at the moment. *There was no need to go to to
any restaurant that was crowded... because it was very easy to find one
that wasn't.

Here is a hint... Breakfast is being served at Johnny Rockets... no
charge. *They'll make you eggs any way you want them, omelets, fried
potatoes. *Just ask and they'll make it. *When it is crowded the service
can be a bit slow, but they'll tall you about that when you get there.

The food in the dining room was pretty good. *Caesar salad is available
every night and to my taste, was very good. *Outstanding dishes were the
lamb shank and the cod fillet. *Prime rib was very good as was a shrimp
and fish tempura dish. *Steaks..... not so much although I did have a
strip steak one night that was better than I expected. *We were invited
by some friends to dinner at Chops one night and my steak was delicious.

Odds and ends....

WiFi signal in our cabin was good.... but you have to go to one of the
Internet offices to sign up. *Used our laptop to download email, log
off. Answer email, log on, send answers, log off. *Doing it this was,
the $35 package for 60 minutes was more than enough time.

Cabins are pretty standard Royal Caribbean. *Not much innovation except
the 32" flat screen TV has a real clear picture.

My favorite place on the ship was the Solarium. *Ample seating so no
matter when I went there was always a chair. *LOTS of BIG hot tubs and
you never felt crowded... and the hot tubs are open all night. *We had
an impromptu hot tub party after dinner one night at around 11 PM.

Pet peeve..... children in strollers. *If your child is old enough to be
smoking, he is old enough to walk. * Some of the strollers I saw on the
Oasis were the size of a small bus.

The children's pool area is wonderful. *There are various pools of
differing levels for the kids, and a fun zone with water "cannons' etc.
* The infant's pool has a warning sign stating that the maximum depth of
the water was 2 inches. *(It also has a detailed sign explaining about
children in diapers, etc)

Elevators - two banks of elevators, fore and aft... 12 elevators in each
bank and the cars are BIG. *Except when everyone was trying to get to
the dining room at the same time, there was seldom a wait for the elevator.

On 10/30/2010 5:13 PM, George Leppla wrote:

Pet peeve..... children in strollers. If your child is old enough to be
smoking, he is old enough to walk. Some of the strollers I saw on the
Oasis were the size of a small bus.

Smoking kids in strollers? Is this a reference to the kid on YouTube or
a typo?

In conclusion..... (finally)..... the ship proved to be so popular with
our group that over 50 people took advantage of the onboard booking
agents and immediately booked our Halloween group cruise next October on
the Allure of the Seas http://www.cruisemaster.com/allure2011.htm

I looked at that itinerary, not very exciting other than St. Marten. I
guess they figure that people are interested in activities on the ship
so the ports are secondary.

How was disembarking in ports (and getting back on the ship)? You said
the initial boarding and embarkation was fine but did not mention the ports.

Bill

On 10/31/2010 7:45 PM, wrote:
Nice review. What type of stateroom did you stay in? I have always did
Princess, but am seriously thinking going on the Oasis or Allure of
the Seas in future. I like the mid sized Coral or Island Princess vs
the larger ships like the Sapphire, as latter can seem overcrowded
when trying to see a show or disembark. Glad to see that Oasis did not
seem over crowded. Can't see any of cruise terminals that Princess
uses (Port Everglades, San Padreo (L.A.), or Whittier) being able
handle 6000+ passengers.


We has a D3 balcony. The cabin is 182 sq feet plus the balcony.
Traveling with the group, we didn't spend too much time on the balcony
so that might have been an extravagance on this cruise.

Royal Caribbean designed the terminal building to handle the Oasis and
the Allure. People who run other ports should get on a plane, fly to
Port Everglades and get a clue. Handling large amounts of people takes
more planning that erecting "cattle chutes" and watching people stand in
lines for hours.

George L

--
George Leppla, MCC
Countryside Travel
7815 Masters Drive
Shreveport, LA 71129
1-800-603-5755
www.CruiseMaster.com

On 10/31/2010 10:17 PM, Bill wrote:

Smoking kids in strollers? Is this a reference to the kid on YouTube or
a typo?

It was a joke. Just seems that there were an awful lot of strollers
onboard.... and an awful lot of "babies" who were long past the age
where they needed to be in one.


I looked at that itinerary, not very exciting other than St. Marten. I
guess they figure that people are interested in activities on the ship
so the ports are secondary.

It continues the theme of the "ship is the destination". In this case,
for many, it is true. The only time we got off the ship was in Cozumel
and that was only to pick up some meds and some batteries.

How was disembarking in ports (and getting back on the ship)? You said
the initial boarding and embarkation was fine but did not mention the
ports.

Nothing to it. The Oasis docks at all ports and they open two gangways,
fore and aft. Nice touch... on a port day, there is a button in every
elevator that says "Gangway". They set that button to take you to
whatever deck the gangway is on. In Cozumel, hit the button and go to
deck 2. In Fort Lauderdale, hit the button and you go to deck 5.

George L

--
George Leppla, MCC
Countryside Travel
7815 Masters Drive
Shreveport, LA 71129
1-800-603-5755
www.CruiseMaster.com

"George Leppla" wrote in message
...

Nothing to it. The Oasis docks at all ports and they open two gangways,
fore and aft. Nice touch... on a port day, there is a button in every
elevator that says "Gangway". They set that button to take you to
whatever deck the gangway is on. In Cozumel, hit the button and go to
deck 2. In Fort Lauderdale, hit the button and you go to deck 5.

That was one of the many things that impressed me so much about the Oasis.
It made it very easy to disembark. The signage on this ship was amazing. I
would book this ship again in a heartbeat! There are some areas that I never
got to explore from the photos that I am now seeing from the group members
that went with us. For a ship to handle embarkation and disembarkation of
so many passengers so efficiently had to be expert planning. That was one of
the things I was dreading when I booked this ship and I was pleasantly
surprised.

--Jean

In article ,
"Jean O'Boyle" wrote:


so many passengers so efficiently had to be expert planning. That was one of
the things I was dreading when I booked this ship and I was pleasantly
surprised.


Which, for me anyway, brings up another interesting question. Are
the lessons learned on the Oasis transferable to other ships and docks
and ports throughout the fleet? Is RCCL able to save EVERYBODY time and
effort or is it pretty much only in the specially designed areas in FLL
that this efficiency is seen?

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke