spiralqueen

Oh my god, ok so I was hesitant on starting a liveblog for this cruise because I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to commit to it and also part of me was thinking that this cruise isn't real since it's just been SO LONG since I last sailed. Pre-COVID our last sailing was another Thanksgiving cruise in 2019 on Grandeur. But I do enjoy having these live blogs as little snap shots to look back on. Also my girlfriend isn't able to join me on this sailing but I wanted to have a way for her to sort of follow along and I figured I might as well do it in this format so others can see things too! 
Pre-cruise report:

Sailing:  November 21-28, 2021, Oasis of the Seas, 7 Night Eastern Caribbean cruise
Sailing with:   Me (34), and my parents 
Flying from:  Philadelphia to Fort Lauderdale. We had some credits for Spirit from our cancelled May 2020 cruise so wanted to get those used up and that's where it took us.  
Pre-cruise hotel:  Even though the sailing is out of Miami, we are flying into FLL and it's honestly cheaper to stay in Fort Lauderdale than downtown Miami so we are staying in the Holiday Inn Express on 17th Street we stayed in before. I love how walkable it is with a Walgreens and Total Wine right nearby. And the $5 parking vs 30+ doesn't hurt either. 
 
The itinerary is as follows:
Day 1 – Miami
Day 2  – Coco Cay
Day 3 – At Seas
Day 4 – St Thomas
Day 5 – St Martin
Day 6 and 7 – At Sea
Day 8 – Miami
But honestly....not too fussed about itinerary. Just excited to be cruising again! 
Cabin:  I think this is what I'm most excited about. When 2021 sailings were first released, I saw a post in the RCB FB group that there were great suite prices on Oasis. When I went to check on them, I was shocked what a steal some of them were. We were able to grab a 2 BR Grand Suite for only a couple hundred dollars more than the JS we had on Allure. So this is our first time sailing in Sky class and having full suite benefits. You can bet that you will be seeing a lot of Coastal Kitchen and the Suite Lounge in this blog. And I'm thinking a higher than average chance of me getting day wine tipsy at least once with the free wine and beer benefit in the lounge. 
Pre-purchases:  Not a ton pre-purchased to be honest. We didn't need to stalk internet prices because of the included suite wifi and I didn't want to bother with any drink package because of the suite lounge. My mom grabbed the refreshment package, but that is about it. Excursion wise, we are doing the Sky ride in St Thomas. Otherwise we plan on just getting off and wandering around. I kept keeping an eye on Beach Club prices for Coco Cay but I can't justify spending $160 pp when we are the only ship there and it's not at full capacity. So we will likely be rotating between the pool and Chill Island there. 
Random Pre-cruise thoughts:
Please let me know if there is anything in particular you would like me to check out or take pictures of for you. I am open to requests. I will definitely be taking note of any special Thanksgiving menus. There were some mixed responses to whether or not Coastal Kitchen will have any Thanksgiving specials.  We heard from the suite Concierge exactly 10 days prior to sailing. We were able to get 5:30 reservations in CK every night which was our first choice due to waking up earlier and also leaving us more time for shows/other activities after dinner.  Forewarning that my idea of cruise fun is lounging and reading when on board so you won't catch a review of the rockwall from me! I do fully expect to burn through 5-8 books on my kindle though. So excited to make a dent in my "to read" list.  I promise future posts will have more pictures! 

Oh my god, ok so I was hesitant on starting a liveblog for this cruise because I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to commit to it and also part of me was thinking that this cruise isn't real since it's just been SO LONG since I last sailed. Pre-COVID our last sailing was another Thanksgiving cruise in 2019 on Grandeur. But I do enjoy having these live blogs as little snap shots to look back on. Also my girlfriend isn't able to join me on this sailing but I wanted to have a way for her to sort of follow along and I figured I might as well do it in this format so others can see things too! 
Pre-cruise report:

Sailing:  November 21-28, 2021, Oasis of the Seas, 7 Night Eastern Caribbean cruise
Sailing with:   Me (34), and my parents 
Flying from:  Philadelphia to Fort Lauderdale. We had some credits for Spirit from our cancelled May 2020 cruise so wanted to get those used up and that's where it took us.  
Pre-cruise hotel:  Even though the sailing is out of Miami, we are flying into FLL and it's honestly cheaper to stay in Fort Lauderdale than downtown Miami so we are staying in the Holiday Inn Express on 17th Street we stayed in before. I love how walkable it is with a Walgreens and Total Wine right nearby. And the $5 parking vs 30+ doesn't hurt either. 
 
The itinerary is as follows:
Day 1 – Miami
Day 2  – Coco Cay
Day 3 – At Seas
Day 4 – St Thomas
Day 5 – St Martin
Day 6 and 7 – At Sea
Day 8 – Miami
But honestly....not too fussed about itinerary. Just excited to be cruising again! 
Cabin:  I think this is what I'm most excited about. When 2021 sailings were first released, I saw a post in the RCB FB group that there were great suite prices on Oasis. When I went to check on them, I was shocked what a steal some of them were. We were able to grab a 2 BR Grand Suite for only a couple hundred dollars more than the JS we had on Allure. So this is our first time sailing in Sky class and having full suite benefits. You can bet that you will be seeing a lot of Coastal Kitchen and the Suite Lounge in this blog. And I'm thinking a higher than average chance of me getting day wine tipsy at least once with the free wine and beer benefit in the lounge. 
Pre-purchases:  Not a ton pre-purchased to be honest. We didn't need to stalk internet prices because of the included suite wifi and I didn't want to bother with any drink package because of the suite lounge. My mom grabbed the refreshment package, but that is about it. Excursion wise, we are doing the Sky ride in St Thomas. Otherwise we plan on just getting off and wandering around. I kept keeping an eye on Beach Club prices for Coco Cay but I can't justify spending $160 pp when we are the only ship there and it's not at full capacity. So we will likely be rotating between the pool and Chill Island there. 
Random Pre-cruise thoughts:
Please let me know if there is anything in particular you would like me to check out or take pictures of for you. I am open to requests. I will definitely be taking note of any special Thanksgiving menus. There were some mixed responses to whether or not Coastal Kitchen will have any Thanksgiving specials.  We heard from the suite Concierge exactly 10 days prior to sailing. We were able to get 5:30 reservations in CK every night which was our first choice due to waking up earlier and also leaving us more time for shows/other activities after dinner.  Forewarning that my idea of cruise fun is lounging and reading when on board so you won't catch a review of the rockwall from me! I do fully expect to burn through 5-8 books on my kindle though. So excited to make a dent in my "to read" list.  I promise future posts will have more pictures! 

I sailed on Symphony on October 30th, it was smooth sailing for us from the time we arrived at the pier to getting onboard but we showed up at our scheduled check-in time. Now having said that I did notice there was a line off to the side and I was told the people in that line were those who showed up early before their schedule time.  If you show up early they will NOT let you inside the terminal you will have to wait outside the terminal in that line until your scheduled check-in time.  

Thank you! Suites can show up an hour before their check in time, right? I thought I read that somewhere. Up to an hour before or hour after. 

Yes. That will be part of the Concierge letter you will receive. They are using the Suites entrance at Port of Miami.

Thank you! Suites can show up an hour before their check in time, right? I thought I read that somewhere. Up to an hour before or hour after. 

Y’all are too handsome! Loving the FRESH cut!
Congratulations on the East Coast nuptials! I hope the cruise is everything and more…

Here you go, courtesy of my front yard! Congratulations and have a LOVE filled week! 

Even that isn’t working here on the Oasis. There is no special line for ‘early access’ for suites or Key. Everyone just waits until the doors open 45 minutes before showtime and they just scan your card to confirm you have a reservation and in you go.

I just dropped by Allure's Coastal Kitchen and talked to the CK manager.
They do offer a unique menu for both Thanksgiving and NYE.  They will have the standard menu on the left and a special menu on the right.  
Having said that, I don't know what he considers a "special" menu.  The same CK entrees in a different combination or something unique?  I'm not sure.  

I made our door decorations by putting magnets on the back of some cute cardboard cutouts made for teacher decorations 

According to Saruj, the manager of the CK on the Oasis, there are no plans to have a special dinner menu in the CK for New Years Eve and the hours will remain the same. As far as Thanksgiving is concerned…when the main dining rooms serve turkey…the CK will also serve turkey. But, as even he says, things can change between now and then…especially during this time of re-start and recovery. Sorry for the delay.

I’m boarding Oasis at noon today…also in a CL. I’ll ask about special dinners in the CK for holidays…especially New Years and Thanksgiving. I’ll post later.

@spiralqueen I dined on the Harmony at #CK Thanksgiving 2019. I don't remember anything special, I know they were serving a Turkey dinner with stuffing down in the Main Dining room and I believe you could ask for them to get it for you but we just went ahead and enjoyed the #CK menu, the room was electric with happy people and those windows, WOW! It was an amazing reflective evening, realizing how blessed and thankful we were to be there, the staff was so warm also. 
If I recall there was one extended family who dined in the MDR that evening and then came up to #CK for round 2!
 
 

Richard Fain said since restart half a million guests and only had one hundred and forty one cases. That's the protocols working extremely well, especially when you consider how much it has spread on land.

I made our door decorations by putting magnets on the back of some cute cardboard cutouts made for teacher decorations 

FYI… I’m J, her 15 year old.  I will also be posting updates. 

I am both excited and terrified to begin my first live Blog here of my first ever Star Class sailing and also….our wedding! I can only hope it is HALF as good as the amazing bloggers I read religiously here! 48 DAYS! Here we go!    The Story- My husband and I (I will explain!) booked this cruise for our wedding 2 YEARS ago during a Black Friday sale at an amazing price! We both LOVE cruising…so much so that we have a YouTube channel called BoosCruize so it seemed natural that we would choose to tie the knot in a small ceremony on the high seas! So after much research we decided on the Star Loft Suite 1720 on Oasis Of The Seas! This suite had a HUGE rectangular balcony that could fit guests and also give us the ocean view we wanted….and a Genie to help us pull it all off! What could go wrong?!? Enter…COVID 🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️ As you can imagine we basically needed a new pair of britches every other day for the last two years as things changed. It’s a good thing I buzz cut my head or I’d probably be bald and NOT by choice LOL     A year later we weren’t even sure if this cruise would happen but we also KNEW we wanted to be married. So when a company came to us and asked to throw us a huge West Coast “David Tutera” style wedding in Hollywood that will be published for magazines we obviously said YES! We now have two bi-coastal weddings Lol It was amazingly gorgeous but nothing was our choice. It was all chosen for us….right down to our tuxes. We feel BEYOND blessed but it also wasn’t what we had in our head two years ago. So now here we are….our guest list of 50 has gone down to 12 due to covid complications. Are we upset? HECK NO! We completely understand and are going to have the time of our LIVES on a gorgeous ship surrounded by people who love us! We can’t wait!    Who: We are an LA couple. Jarell is an international Flight attendant (yaasss benefits!) and I am an actor who just moved from NYC in time for a pandemic to close Hollywood 😂😂   Where: We are sailing on the Oasis Of The Seas out of Miami in the Star Loft Suite 1720 with stops at Coco Cay, St.Thomas, and St. Maarten    When: We sail November 7th-14th, 2021   I think that covers most of the back story and introductions! So happy to meet you all and take you along with us on this very special journey that is over 2 years in the making! Can’t wait to see who our Genie will be!    For good measure I have included a photo of the happy grooms from our West Coast Wedding!     

We have done Chill island cabanas a few times and decided a few months ago to purchase a floating cabana for the day.
Prior to getting on the ship we had contacted Derick asking him if we could reserve Cabana 16 for us. We had looked at a map and figured since it was the furthest out, the water would be deeper at low tide and there would be a better breeze. Derick worked his Genie magic and had that cabana assigned to us.
We had a late night last night so decided to get off around 9 instead of any earlier. We took the Tram with Derick to the cabanas and all I can say is wow!
The slide was so much fun too!

I’m on the 9/26 and will post them from the ship

Here's our point of view after spending a couple days in a row at CocoCay last week.
On both days we utilized the complementary areas and food.  We were extremely satisfied and have no complaints.  Chill Beach was very enjoyable, and we had no problems finding a set of chairs and umbrella.  Getting food was simple.  Disclaimer:  CocoCay was nowhere near full capacity.
Some people we met onboard the first day on the ship spent one of the days at the Beach Club and really enjoyed it.  Based on this feedback, we decided to book it if the price ever dropped from >$100 pp.
Looking at the Cruise Planner for the second leg of our upcoming back to back, we saw it went from $160ish to $88ish (I can't remember the exact amounts), so we booked it.  We are curious how we'll like the experience and want to see if we feel it'll be worth the extra cost when ship capacities start getting back to normal.
I'll let you know what our thoughts about it are mid-November. 🙂

NextDoor is so much worse, lol.

Specially for @Lovetocruise2002 #teamCK(at least for the first day) 

There is typically one server making rounds but I don't mind getting to stretch my legs and visiting the bar on the suite sundeck.
The 11am-11pm complimentary beer/wine is in the suite lounge only however it may be suspended at the moment due to protocols.  The Sundeck bar functions like any other bar on a pay-by-the-drink or drink package basis.  

I call the new Pinnacle Lounge the Pin Bin