WAAAYTOOO

We were originally scheduled to have Giovannis for lunch (since they closed Chops on us) but we had decided that we didn’t want to eat that big a lunch.  We decided we would eat at Portside BBQ instead. THEN a huge delivery of food from Joyce and we decided to just graze on this instead. So we never really ate lunch at all. 
#stayflexible

Honestly, it was enough food for 4 people.  This happens all the time on SC so we weren’t surprised.

Speaking of good, we have Coastal Kitchen rezzies at 6:00.  Allegedly it is filet night.  I guess we’ll find out soon !

 

More lowdown on refurbishments.  Joyce is so wonderful. I’m in love with her already.  She assured me that the drapes ARE new.  She said that all carpeting on the ship was replaced.  
 

Sabrina, JUST for you !  Joyce is going to take pix in 8330 for us. This is one of the suites she is Genie for, this cruise.

 In case anyone was wondering, there is a LOT of bleed over noise from the sail away deck party into our suite.  It’s WAAAY louder than anything in the ATS...even with the doors closed and locked.  It’s early so not a problem right now.  Later, it would be a definite problem. 

Ok. Back in the room after muster drill. Resuming room recon

Front door and dining table  it seats 7 comfortably.  8 in a pinch, maybe.

Wet bar. First time ever !

Complimentary drinks.  They just kept coming and bringing more and more. 

Door to the second bathroom on the table.  Second closet

Second vanity/dressing area

Inside the second bathroom

Shower in second bathroom 

Potty in #2.  Wait....that didn’t sound like what I meant to say 

Couch  Duh 

Winders

More winders

The balcony is the one aspect where this suite falls short  it is TINY compared to most SC suites.  Oh you’re looking for a giant balcony, this suite is not for you

Hot <damn> tub !   Right now it’s inop.  Said something about the drain plug.  They came to replace it once and it didn’t fit.  Hopefully they’ll get it fixed soon 

View looking forward on the balcony.  The pool deck.  There is no view at all (except superstructure) looking aft

Our drapes keep getting “stuck”so they are working on them

On 12/1/2019 at 3:05 PM, twangster said:

And somehow I evaded your camera in the suite area in the terminal...

I am so glad that you made it. I was concerned that the storm might have impacted your flight. Muster drill is over !  Yippee !!

50 minutes ago, Hagar said:

Seems funny to type "see them" as I am missing my canal cruise today and a AN cruise next month due to a retinal tear ;>( 

Modern medicine is wonderful though as well as faith of course so maybe can keep the HM in April ;>)

Yikes !  Sorry to hear about this.  Hope it all rectified itself soon 

23 minutes ago, Jill said:

You are among friends here who are great enablers. We will never talk you down off the ledge.

No truer words...

Dan schmoozing with Super Mario

 

He told Dan he will be on Oasis for a couple of months.  His office sign has been relocated from the pool deck on NAV to the pool deck on Oasis

25 minutes ago, DanielB said:

Beautiful pictures!  Thanks for sharing and enjoy that awesome room.  I agree with Dan (anyone with that name is usually correct)  I would never leave that room.

Cheers!

 

Thanks, Dan.

25 minutes ago, twangster said:

Bobby Brown on board.  

<eye roll>
 

35 minutes ago, twangster said:

And somehow I evaded your camera in the suite area in the terminal...

You’re like a ghost..  #ghostbot

35 minutes ago, SpeedNoodles said:

I think I see you! Or at least your ship! 

Yes !  That is me !

18 minutes ago, SCCHRIS32162 said:

The SC greeter was not wrong. There is a porter that is assigned to take your bags and stay with you through security until you are upstairs and then they hand off the bags to the ship porter and they take them to your room. 

I do understand this. It’s just that we have had too many epic fails for getting our luggage delivered when SC. We now insist on keeping our luggage with us ALL the way.  It has worked perfectly the last 2 times.  

Next is a suite recon. Sabrina, it is my unprofessional opinion that the only thing that has been refreshed in this suite is the mattress and MAYBE the carpeting. I know for sure the drapes are not new. There’s a possibility the couch/sleeper bed might be new. 
 

Dressing table (and bathtub reflection) in MBR

Closets next to dressing table 
 

Same closets, open

Closets/ drawers on the other side of the dressing table 

Opened

One more set of closets

Inside

Star Class laundry bag.  Sorry it’s upside down !   This is one of the great under-advertised joys of SC.  You can send your laundry out every day !  I already have 2 bags full from Brilliance even though I sent our out once on Brilliance 

Ginormous bathtub

His and hers sinks

Each sink area has its own outlets for electric razors.  Wish they gave power outlets the same priority !

 Beautiful walk-in shower 

Door to the potty

Potty and bidet !  Yippee !!

Coming down from the bathroom into the bedroom

 

You can see that the privacy shades are up.  They come up from the bottom and this is as far up as they go.   When we got to the suite it was as hot as h, e, double hockey sticks in here.  I think they like to “present” the suite with all the drapes open but that heats up the room like a broiler.  First thing I did was close every drape and shade and turn the AC down to “quick freeze”.  

Outlet situation on both sides of the bed.  Still wholly inadequate. 

 

That’s it for the bedroom/bathroom areas.  It’s almost muster drill time so I will  come back later with the Living room area

So we’re finally here !  Yeah !

Embarkation was awesome. Only epic fail was in getting the taxi driver to drop us at the right place. We are 1 for 5 on this issue. Not sure why we have such a hard time getting to the SC banner (so far only successful at Port Liberty) but we schlepped our bags down to the purple banner and made contact with the SC kiosk. Of course, we had to fight off numerous porters trying to take our bags but we trekked forward until we reached our destination.  
 

Then we had to fight off the SC greeter who also insisted that we surrender our bags but our will was great and our mission clear-our bags are staying WITH US !

So once we cleared the greeting area our next challenge was Security.  Dan wasn’t particularly pleased when he realized he was going to have to pick up all of the bags and place them on the security conveyor himself (the price you pay for keeping your bags WITH YOU.).

I thought I had captured the bags going through the scanner but I guess I didn’t.  They did, however, all make it through successfully and our next stop was up the elevator to the Suites waiting area.

 

 

 

 

 

That luggage cart would become very important in about 5 minutes.

 

The moment we walked into the Suites waiting area, they announced that boarding was beginning.  We had to wait for Joyce, but it was no more than 5 minutes and I spotted her.  We met and she summoned a ship’s porter to help us with our bags.  So for those who wondered how it works (to keep your bags with you rather than having the porters bring them), here it is in action  

 

 

They loaded up the luggage cart and on we went, straight through boarding to our suite (Grand Panoramic Suite 1758).  There are no stairs on this suite so I had the porter just drop the bags inside but if we had been in a Loft suite, I would have asked him to take them upstairs.

I really, really like Joyce.  She is funny and has an infectious smile.  Look what she did for us before we even got to our room !  It is on our Suite door.

Dan claims he never wants to leave the suite.  It is, in fact, the nicest room we’ve ever had.

3 minutes ago, DanielB said:

@WAAAYTOOO Good morning and enjoy your transition to Oasis.  Happy Sailing and again thanks for taking us along.  

Good morning, to you, Daniel !  Thanks so much.  It’s another beautiful Miami day !

Great job, Ashley.  You were a true blog sleuth and not afraid to go out of your way to report every detail.  Thank you for the time and effort it takes to do that.

Today was incredibly busy and I am beat.  Will give a very brief overview

Walked off with self assist at 7:15 with the Suites Concierge. Without a doubt the best disembarkation ever, including Star Class.  Dan and I were #3 an 4 off the ship.  Basically never even slowed down. Walked straight off.

First disappointment - no National Rental car shuttle but in fairness, it was 7:15. I suspect they showed up later.  We grudgingly paid $8 ea for a shared shuttle to the airport where we got our ride for the day from Tampa to Miami.  Total cost - $17.09 b/c I wanted XM radio.  Great deal (used points).

We did 2 real estate recons and neither really suits our needs.  Honestly, The only thing that is going to make Dan happy is a high rise condo in downtown Miami that overlooks the port.  That’s all....

After leaving our second stop (Lakewood Ranch), we began the very long and very boring drive to Miami.  I thought it would never end !  

Finally pulled into Miami airport to return the rental car a bit after 6 PM.  Called for an Uber to pick us up but he never found us and cancelled the trip on us.  Very annoyed !  Ended up taking a taxi from MIA to the Marriott Biscayne Bay. It didn’t cost much more than Uber would have been but it was still annoying.  Is there a way to rate an Uber driver if you don’t actually complete the ride ?

We hadn’t had anything to eat since b’fast at Chops at 6:30 so we were famished.  The slop they were offering in the Concierge Club was utterly unappealing so we went down to the restaurant downstairs.  I had forgotten (until I looked at the menu) how awful the food was the last time we ate there....but I was out of options so I ordered a quesadilla. Ugh.  2 bites and I was done.  The truth is when I am very tired I just can’t eat so I don’t think I would have enjoyed it even if it had been appetizing. Dan gobbled down his poke bowl.

Can’t wait to board Oasis in the morning.  We anticipate calling an Uber at 10:00AM. Sorry you are having to disembark, Ashley.  I enjoyed your blog so much !

Night, all.

 

I can’t believe the LA said to go online to do your preferences !  Of all people, they should know that that is no longer an option for anyone !  Pure incompetence or laziness.

I brought some plastic straws with me on this trip.  Didn’t use a single one on Brilliance and bet I won’t use one on Oasis either.  It’s a nuisance to carry them around and no way to keep them clean until I use them.  Great idea but not so easy to implement.

The bottom line -with any  Royal “sale” is to ignore the discount bologna and look straight at the “bottom line”. It’s all voodoo mathematics and the only thing that really matters is what amount are you paying. Find a price that you are comfortable paying, purchase it,  and watch to see how it fluctuates from there.  If it goes down, cancel and rebook. Ignore the “fake” gimmicks 

17 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

Take pictures!  Still no pics of any of the Star Class suites on any social media forum.  And see if Joyce will sneak you into an ATS for a quick pic too. 

I will try !

Final thoughts on Brilliance

Our suite (1052) was very nice  The fixtures in the bathroom seem a bit dated (lots of gold) but it was clean and everything worked !  Of course we are directly beneath the pool deck so there’s a bit of bumping and chair-moving overhead, but they aren’t super loud and it wasn’t objectionable.  The room is close to the elevators without being noisy.

The Suites lounge (Iliana) was very helpful.  We did not go into any of the lounges during Happy Hour so I have no idea how crowded or uncrowned either of them got.  IMO, the Diamond Lounge has a better view than the Suites Lounge.

We never set foot in the MDR so I have no idea how good or bad it was.  We went into the WJ once for lunch on day 2 and it was standard.

Voom service was sluggish occasionally but once I learned how to successfully switch from one device to another, I had no problems with Voom. To my knowledge the signal never dropped entirely. I will say, however, that there seemed to be a lot of people out in the “common areas” with laptops so I feel that there may be some dead spots.  No direct knowledge of that.  Just an impression. 

I did not go to any shows.  Dan went to 1 magic show which he said was ok. Sadly, we never made it to a showing at the Cinema.  I hope others did.

The kids’ water splash area is a small and uninspiring place at the aft of the ship, completely separated from the main pool area.  While I’m sure the kids couldn’t have cared less (they seemed to be having a ball), I felt bad for the parents b/c they were totally isolated from the rest of the adult areas.  We did go to the Solarium one afternoon.  It’s lovely there but there is only one TINY hot tub. Even Grandeur has 2 !  It was day 4 before I realized there was a Park Cafe back there.  The roast beast looked good we but didn’t try it. The main pool area seemed very busy. 

The casino is smallish and was hoppin’ the entire time it was open.  That probably has a great deal to do with the fact that this sailing was on the “complimentary” list for a long time. It makes sense that there are a lot of gamblers on this cruise. BTW, the same is true for next weeks Oasis cruise, so I expect the casino to be very busy there, as well.

No opinion on bar service as we never ordered a single drink other than our coke or pelligrino with meals.

I’ve already talked about the specialty restaurants. Chops got progressively better all week. I think embarkation lunch is a logistical nightmare for Chops. The suites breakfast at Chops was always good.

We will be walking off with the Suites Concierge tomorrow at 7:15.  We will go directly to the Tampa airport via National Car Rental shuttle where we have a car reserved.  We will be doing  a little house hunting recon during the day, and then on to Miami where we will spend the night at the Miami Biscayne Bay.  Then, boarding Oasis at 10:30 on Sunday.  Looking forward to meeting Joyce, our Genie.

33 minutes ago, bossdog421 said:

This also wont interfere with any on board credits I already got as part of my initial promo either right?

All of the booking promotions from your original booking (AoNC etc) will move over with your upgrade. What would NOT move with you are cabin-type promotions such as those that go along with Central Park and Boardwalk rooms. 

Yes. If you are upgraded to a Star Class suite, you get all the SC amenities including the Genie

4 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

Be prepared @WAAAYTOOO!

No worries from me.  I don’t even so much as brush up against a slot machine.  As long as they don’t dick around with the tables. I’ll be good-to-go.