Christie

Not worth it in Oasis in my opinion. Go with 150 Central Park instead.

It is open for lunch. $15/pp. so worth it.

You can pay to have you clothes ironed if you wish.

As someone who has cooked for 50 people on a thanksgiving and someone who has cruised on thanksgiving... cruising on thanksgiving is the best. No food prep and no cleanup and plenty of places for that post meal nap. Enjoy!

Hello from College Station! But I spend the weekends in The Woodlands a lot, so even closer!

My first experience with RC was in a suite and the pillows were amazing. When we cruised a few weeks ago in a regular room, the pillows were my biggest complaint. One was not enough and two was too many. I'll be bringing my own from here on out.

There were plenty of wheelchairs on Freedom a few weeks ago. When you go to muster, stick near the exit. They will let you go before anyone else so you can get an elevator

We didn't see one on Freedom Sept 3 sailing

We did it on Oasis and really enjoyed it, but my husband and I are operational nerds. We had a really in depth look at the aquatheater, the galley, the laundry, the engine control room, provisions (where they store all the food), crew hang out areas, and the bridge. Each stop had the person in charge speaking to the group. We were encouraged to take pictures. I don't think I would do it on a smaller ship.

Funny, this is one of the reasons we love DCL

Oooh this is a good one! Let me see if I can get some coherent thoughts. We are huge Disney fans. DVC members, got married at Disney, go at least twice a year, etc. When DCL first launched, it was a no brainer. Have sailed 9 times with Disney from 3 night Bahamas cruises to 12 night Baltic Sea in the Walt Disney Suite. Cruising Disney was natural for us. And we honestly believed that cruising anybody else was going to be like going to Six Flags after going to Walt Disney World. I too was an avid listener of WDW Today. 5+ years. I had always heard Matt's intro but never checked out the website. And then he moved on and I missed listening to him on the podcast. I gave the new guys a few months and finally unsubscribed. My mom had mentioned at one point wanting to try Oasis of the Seas since it was then the largest in the world. I started listening to the podcast and made the pitch to her to try Oasis over Christmas. I figured if Matt was a Disney guy and a RC guy, what do we have to lose? I also listened to Len's guest appearance on the podcast at least 10 times. My expectations were low for RC. I was fully expecting the Six Flags experience. When we got on board and started exploring, my mom and I were like gee, this is better than we expected! There are some things Disney does better (upkeep of the ship specifically, I think service slightly on DCL slightly beats out RC, and some of the theming on Disney can't be beat.) But there were many things I liked better on Royal: 1) The speciality dining variety, especially on Oasis. This was huge for us. We are foodies and really appreciated the variety of restaurants we found on Oasis. We are looking forward to Anthem for this same reason. 2) The calmness of the nursery. Even on a Christmas cruise, there were far less kids in the nursery than there was on Disney. I was so nervous dropping my daughter off at the nursery on DCL. On the same token, the huge open play area on Oasis for the kids was a huge plus for my family 3) The food overall was better to me. It was served hot, which is something we found lacked with Disney. I was impressed when we took the all access tour how just about everything is made from scratch. There is very little heat and serve frozen food. I can't speak to Disney as I haven't toured their provisions area, but this impressed me. 4) Variety of ships and itineraries. We were running out of things to book with Disney. While I love the Magic, they put the new ships on the same basic itinerary and it's hard to want to book it. The Magic is the only ship that does really cool itineraries (Besides the Wonder in Alaska). 5) I think Disney beats out Royal in the Stage Shows and family shows, but the variety of entertainment on Royal is awesome. The aquatheater is such a unique place. 6) Brand name shopping on board really appeals to us. Big plus for Michael Kors, Kate Spade, Tiffany, etc. 7) We find the Royal Suite Class benefits better than what DCL offers. 8) C&A benefits are way better than Castaway Club. Plus you get more points for longer cruises and suites. With Castaway club, my 3 night Bahamas cruise counted the same as 12 night in the Walt Disney Suite 9) The recent price increase has made it hard to book. While we feel like DCL is a great cruise, it's certainly not *double* the experience on RC. Do I think we will ever cruise Disney again? Absolutely. But it will probably be a pretty specialized itinerary. We feel like Disney really puts together great European trips and excursions. We are really looking forward to Anthem of the Seas though. It seems like such a specialized ship with a lot of cool features.

That's funny. I was going to say I highly recommending binge listening to all of your old relevant podcasts and even some non-relevant ones :)

We were given one access code and if too many devices were logged in, we would get a pop up telling us so. This was 2 weeks ago on freedom, but we pre purchased our plan.

Also, even if you don't plan on streaming anything, I would still get surf + stream for the higher speeds. We had this and at prime times of the day, it could still be painfully slow

If you prepurchase your internet package (which I suggest you do for a discount), you will get an access code when you check in at the port. When you want to log off of a device, make sure you go to logoff.com. Simply turning off the wifi will not work (unless it's been 2 hours and then the connection times out). If you are using an iPhone and are connected to the wifi and can't get the login screen to come up, use captive.apple.com. Not sure what it is for android devices. We copied and pasted the access code into the notes on each device so we always had it. Or you could take a pic of it.

Long time Disney cruiser here flipped to RC. Started cruising Disney when I was 12 when their first shipped launched. My sister was 2. It's true that Disney has great ships and great kids programming, but so does Royal Caribbean. And I know you said cost wasn't really a factor, but you can just about get two trips on Royal for the cost of one on Disney. That's a deal breaker for me. Plus, there are a lot of things Royal does better. The Oasis class ships will flat out blow your mind. There's a whole boardwalk area with a carousel, hot dogs, arcade, johnny rockets, and an amazing theater where diving shows are held.. while the boat is moving. 2 rock climbing walls. 2 flow riders (surf simulator). Ice skating rink. The Royal Promenade which is basically a shopping mall. Central Park which is literally a park at sea and you don't see the ocean. Amazing specialty dining. These ships run eastern and western Caribbean itineraries with most stopping at Labadee- Royal Caribbeans private chunk of Haiti. You're kids are going to love this one. An alpine coaster, water park, zip line over the ocean, and so much more Oasis is moving up to Orlando. Allure is staying in Fort Lauderdale. The brand new Harmony ship will be in Fort Lauderdale. This ship is just like Oasis/Allure with a few amazing additions like water slides and a 10 story dry slide called the ultimate abyss. I would definitely suggest booking connecting rooms for you guys. If you want to really treat everyone, book a two Bedroom aqua theater suite. These are completely aft on the ship and have a balcony that's just about as big the room. It overlooks the aquatheater so you can watch the shows and movies from your balcony. Plus it's star level concierge so you get a royal genie (think butler), all of your alcohol and specialty dining included, free internet, included gratuities, and so much more.

Wow, great job!

I'm sure this is in Matt's blog post, but also know that if you like a particular travel agent, you can transfer the reservation to them after you get off the boat. You have 60 days to do so.

I'm so glad that RC does this. They don't have to, but it's totally rad that they do without issue

Yes please. Can also add Nov 20, 2017- Vision Thank you

😳 no thanks lol

I hope this isn't true. I particularly thought the schooner bar had an interesting menu.

We take our passport cards off the ship and leave the booklets in the safe in the room. If something happens and you need to fly home from a foreign country, you need the booklet.

Yep, they started letting us off right at 7. We were through customs by 7:11

If I find one on Puerto Rico, I'll let you know how it goes so you can do it on the group cruise. Hi there! The excursion doesn't need to be through RC necessarily. It is still in business!