PRebecca

Mine loaded on the 19th. I am happy to report I was able to apply my cert to an already booked Oasis sailing I had for Jan 2023. 

We are currently on Odyssey TRANSATLANTIC cruise. So far we have a fantastic cruise, very relaxed atmosphere. We have 1800 passenger (16 kids only) and we also have a beautiful Labrador on board, everybody’s favorite. The food is awesome, the crew is amazing. Good entertainment. 
We’ve just docked  in Puerto Rico due to medical emergency (not Covid related). I believe someone had a heart attack last night. After Alpha emergency call last evening, we took a sudden turn to south and our captain announced this morning we have to make this quick emergency stop tonight. We are already pulling away from the dock and heading out to sea. 

We will be staying on Odyssey for 2 months. I am here to answer any questions you might have. 
 

So after many years or only ever booking a indoor cabin, last October we "finally booked" our first ever balcony room on the Symphony. Needless to say, we REALLY loved it. My wife said she can't ever go back to an inside cabin now!!!
Well???? Now??? I decided to book our first ever Junior Suite for our next cruise on the Harmony of the Seas! I have a fear that now "I" will never be able to go back to a standard balcony 🤣 Anyone ever make this mistake?? I better not ever book the next level up otherwise I'm sure to be in big trouble!!! 🤣🤣🤣

Great start to the day today. We got up and headed down to the gym for a workout around 8:15ish. 
 


When we were done we wanted to eat (of course). The WJ line was insane so we thought about trying the MDR but it was 9:35 and MDR stops breakfast at 9:30 apparently so we waited it out and honestly the line was superficial because we waited barely 5 minutes so not a big deal. 
One observation I do have to say is the WJ is a complete cluster F inside- it gets congested because everyone just sort of congregates and attacks stations at once from every directyion. But we made it out of the battlefield. There were a decent amount of places to sit though and the food was actually good. I got a mixture - fruit, potatoes, french toast…. and also unpictured was half a bagel. 


We went back to the room to change and pack a bag to hit the pool deck.
11:00am report from the pool deck is I’d say it is busy but we didnt have an issue finding chairs (we wanted the upper deck) and weather is beautiful 😎

While many of us on this board are helpful and wouldn’t intentionally provide bad information, you really need to contact the onboard medical staff.  While it’s probably motion related, they will best be able to diagnose the problem and work with you on a solution that works with your medical history.

Hey all!
I thought it would be fun to do a live blog for a short trip on the Oasis this coming week. 
Quick summary and intros are in order:

About us and pre-cruise: 
It will be myself and best friend Mel, just 2 girls in our early 30s. This was a fairly “last minute” trip as far as cruises go; we booked it a little more than a month ago (mid March) after a quick convo about how we both wanted a short getaway. 

(^ that’s us in Alaska last summer - fun tidbit, that’s where we are from)
I live in central NC now so I will be doing a direct flight from Charlotte to Miami; and Mel will be coming from Atlanta so will be doing a direct from ATL to Miami. We coordinated our flights where we both land around 9-930am Sunday morning to meet at the Miami airport— yeeeep, the morning of. I know all the seasoned cruisers are gasping in anxiousness for us 😂 but yes, fingers crossed everything goes as planned. We got the earliest ship boarding at 11:30. 
This is my 4th cruise ever, my most recent was actually also Oasis in Feb 2019. Mel has been on 7+ but this is her first ever Royal Caribbean (mostly Carnival previously) so I’m really excited for her to experience this ship! I know it has had a revamp since I was on it last. I should also note that this is our first time cruising together.
 
Stateroom, extras, etc: 
We are average Joes’ and will be staying in an ocean balcony room (deck 7, forward). 
As far as “add ons;” all we did were internet packages. Went back and forth on the drink package as we both do drink some [alcohol] but the math didn’t really make sense for us (we don’t drink soda or anything other than water really either) so we were okay just paying as we go. 
 
FOOD, glorious food:
We both LOVE food. I should mention that I am a vegetarian incase that interests anyone else following along. We opted for the late traditional dining (8:00). We chose that over the early 5:30 seating (too early for us) or the My Time Dining because we agreed we like the traditional with same waiter each night and eating late allows us to get in more snacks throughout the day (haha). No major plans for specialty dining ahead of time but we may end up doing something once we are on board if it looks/sounds good and of course based on availability for reservations.
 
Plans, excursions, fun, etc: 
Neither of us are huge scheduled people while traveling so we are very much along for the ride. 
In this case, the trip is more about the ship for us. We’ve both been to Costa Maya and it wasnt anything super exciting to us, but we do plan to get off the ship. USUALLY when I’ve cruised I’m with my boyfriend or a smaller group and we go explore on our own or book private tours (outside the cruise company); but being somewhere we aren’t as excited about and being just two girls in our 30s we aren’t feeling as brave so we decided on just paying the $55ish to do a trip to the beach thru Royal as we felt it was simpler and safe that way. We didn’t do a ton of research (again, wignin’ it) and it just sounded simple. Give us sand and beautiful water! 
As far as fun/entertainment we are interested in catching the Aqua 80s show and then we will see when we’re onboard what other things we may want to check out like comedy shows, etc. We plan to get lots of relaxing time (and hopefully sun) on the pool deck. 

I hope you all enjoy following along. We are pretty easy going and I plan to share info along the way about packing, the embarkation process, capacity, food, fun, service etc (including pictures of course). 

The best thing is to do NOTHING right now.  As they said, wait for the cruise line to contact you.  Do not cancel anything on your own.

I'm SO EXCITED for you having the villa!! What an upgrade!!! 
 
 

I'm SO EXCITED for you having the villa!! What an upgrade!!! 
 
 

Just won our bid for a Villa Suite! Too bad we can't add people to it after the fact.

Go big, or go home!  Book the loft! 😜
#teamOAclass #teamDeck17

No, unfortunately your status does not transfer to your husband.  Just you…
I’m not sure there is any recourse re: the promised JS.  You certainly have nothing to lose by calling Club Royale and asking about it but honestly, I wouldn’t hold my breath.  Hopefully I’m wrong and they can fix it.
Casino points and perks are pure voodoo.  You really never know what’s going to happen !

On the road!
Flight out from SFO yesterday started out great.  Quick stop into the Centurion lounge for the mandatory, "I'm officially on vacation" bloody mary.
Wheels up on time just before 0900 and we had a really spectacular tail wind which shaved 40 minutes off of the trip.
Landed in Miami and that's where the fun began.  No gates available.  OK, that happens.  Continue reading book.  30 minutes... 1 hour... 90 minutes... 2 hours.  I think the flight crew was at least if not more miffed than the pax.  Door opened to applause at the 2:15 delay mark.
Miami airport was having some kind of meltdown.  People sleeping on the floors; lady with a kid said they'd been waiting almost 3 hours for their luggage to get to the carousel.  Anyway, our flight's luggage came out in about 45 minutes and the ~15 minute taxi ride to the hotel was uneventful.
The hotel is nice.  It's a little away from the "dynamic" Miami stuff but still in a good location with an estuary and decent view of a slice of Biscayne Bay.   AMEX FH&R scored again.  Went from a floor 16 "city view" to a floor 30 water view.  I'd take some room photos, but meh?  It's a hotel.  Nice big tub, which I will poor-man's Jacuzzi.  It's a bit windy for the pool on 16.   You can see the ships in port from the balcony.  🙂
Plan for today is to just pedestriate myself around and check out the area.  1130 show time for Boaty McBoatface tomorrow.

 

Yup that was the cruise I was talking about.  Daughter & I spent Monday afternoon taking a Dramamine nap!  Of course hubby & son were on the pool deck watching the sloshing pools!  🤢  And I am that “ the Atlantic is always rough” person.  What? 2 Atlantic cruises isn’t enough to jump to conclusions???

Swell can be harder to see compared to wind driven waves.  Here is a time lapse video that makes swell more obvious:
This was on Symphony of the Seas.  Despite otherwise "flat" seas with no apparent wind driven surface waves you can see the swell and the pitching motion that stabilizers can't compensate for when video is sped up, or in this case, a time lapse video.
All ships regardless of size are impacted by swell.  If another ship, small or large, left the same port two days later also going to the same destination their experience would be completely different.  A guest on that ship might declare "it was great, no motion at all" while a guest on Symphony might draw the conclusion "the Atlantic is always rough" but they would be wrong.

** I do not work in the service industry so this is not coming from someone working for gratuity. I answered a question as to my Genie gratuity a few weeks ago and was "verbally scolded" by someone as trying to sway people etc, etc. to give more money because "I must be working for tips" 
So personal, but here is what we do. Before a sailing we go to our local bank branch and get a pack of 50 singles as well as a great deal of 5's and 10's. We usually have 20's on hand as that is what the cash machine spits out. (sometimes Publix will change out to small bills for us also. 
Porters and room service always get gratuity. We use @WAAAYTOOOsuggestion as a base line & set aside 5.00 for breakfast if sitting down to dine, 10.00 for lunch and 20.00 for dinner. We tip along the way, now this amount changes if the service which is few and far between is lacking. * One time on the Oasis Thanksgiving 2021 we received terrible service for dinner in CK and our gratuity was adjusted to reflect that. Please note that was just one sailing and our timing was off because @wordell1was on the same sailing with a later reservation time and he had great service. Ours was probably a one off sailing, time and staffing probably to blame. 
We usually connect with our cabin steward & tip extra in the middle and then the end of the sailing. 
Do what you feel is comfortable, please don't ever feel pressure from what we share here. everyone of us has unique experiences, don't stress over it and enjoy every minute of your sailing. Time is the most priceless thing we have. Be present & enjoy.

Yes we do tip above an beyond the pre-paid gratuities.  Having worked a decent part of my life in the service industry, I always tip better than average/expected.    I divided the pre-paid numbers across what I thought it would cost to stay in a nice hotel, eating in restaurants, etc.  Lets just say that the numbers came out below 10% and I'd be the worst tipper ever.  The beauty of tipping on board is that it improves the already fantastic service, and for so little money.  Giving the room steward $20 on embarkation day will pay off for the duration of the cruise.  Tipping bartenders and waiters will only make them even more attentive.
The crew is away from their families for months at a time just trying and earn a living and provide, and I am sure none of them are getting rich doing so.  A few bucks here and there isn't a huge expense for me, but it may make a very big difference in their lives.  It's just the right thing to do. 

After being a long time reader and an avid viewer of Matt's youtube channel, i decided to make an account!
Octavio here, from Argentina! Started cruising back in 2006 when i was only 14 y/o! After that moment i couldnt stop. 
Im currently 29 with 20 cruises done so far and 165 points, so getting really close to Diamond plus!
 
Did 2 cruises with my fiance since the covid restart, Odyssey (3rd sailiing right after it restarted, with an insanely low capacity) and Symphony. 
Booked Oasis from Cape Liberty (October 2nd..so close yet so far) to receive my 30th birthday - couple trip. And also Harmony on new years eve (Family cruise!)
Im so glad to be here, Carla and myself love cruising and our goal is to hit Diamond plus asap, and slowly grind them Pinnacle points! 

Royal Up offer just processed for our 4/30 cruise - OV to OV Balcony! YAY! 16 days! 

I'm not!  I'm frantically looking in here for updates and/or anything that discusses our cruise.  I'm constantly going into royalcaribbean.com looking for updates and/or anything that discusses our cruise.  I'm calling my old Army buddy who is going with us, and discussing the cruise.  I'm a 70 year old teenager again. I'm busting out of my skin.  
🤭🤪
 

Yep, my Excitement Level is at it's peak.  It's only 30 days now until my Fun Meter starts to wave back and forth.  
Woke up this morning, turned on this electronic addiction device and found that my TA emailed me some documents for info purposes.  So, I logged into royalcaribbean.com and my luggage tags are ready to print.  Isn't it funny how everything happens, at least to me, in little milestones.  I'm so old, I don't like to wish time away/would go faster, so I don't like countdowns.  But, going on a cruise, especially on RCCL, is one countdown after another.  Now, I'm counting down in hopes of getting the email from our Genie.  Which is actually an unknown day/date.  Then the COVID pre-cruise test, then the flight to Seattle, then boarding/embarkation day.  No, I'm not excited, not much, eh!  
It's been far too damn long since I've cruised.  I do keep a positive attitude that everything will be as I'd hope it will be.  My old Army buddy and his wife are traveling with us, like they do on most other vacations, we are like brother and sister, but this is their first time on Royal.  We've really really built up Royal and Star Class to then.  I can't, however, help to have concerns in the back of my mind that things won't be as I remember them, pre-COVID.  But, we'll see.   

Only taking one double points cruise, but it's doing its most important job. Starting at 66 points, so need 14 for Diamond. Wife wanted to limit the spending on a purely points-motivated trip, so 4 nights on Adventure out of Cape Liberty (live less than an hour away) to Canada. Booked interior solo. 4 nights + 1 extra point for solo doubled up gets me 16 points. And thanks to price drops, moved myself up to an aft balcony -- which my folks graciously decided to make the upgrade cost a birthday present. Interior was costing me under $500 all in solo.
With the Diamond drink vouchers, my wife and I will forego the DBP on our 9-nighter on Oasis next summer. So the <$500 saves us from the >$1000 in drinks next year.
Mission accomplished.

We were on track to get to Diamond Plus in 2026. With double points and some fortuitous accounting on the home front, we're on track to get to D+ in July of this year.

How about the light switches.  Was in a Grand Suite on Oasis and after 7 days I still couldn't figure them out.

Thank you all so much for your thoughts 🙂 we have decided just to spend an extra day in Vancouver. Now if we could just figure out the testing requirements… I will try to post some thing about our experiences, perhaps not a full blog, so other people can understand what they might need to do later in the season.