Sea Squirrel

Our daughter has her hopes up every sailing that we’ll get a guy genie, lol.  We never have.  She’d probably be over the moon with Shane. 

Did you find Shane pretty flexible with the unwritten stuff or a true stickler @AshleyDillo @Lovetocruise2002 ? 

@Lovetocruise2002, who would you say is your favorite on the current Oasis team?

We’ve had Leticia before and read a lot of good things about Derrick as well. We don’t really know too much about the others. 

Anyone know who the current genies are on Oasis?

Reserving hibachi through the CP and getting the fee waived once on-board is a pro tip. We had reserved it awhile back before we upgraded to Star but I just went to look to see what was still available and sure enough no 7 or 8PM for the entire sailing and we are still 80+ days out. 

I can understand cutting the excess snacks due to waste @GregD   We had a sailing where we had to request the Genie stop sending food, it was too much. 
 

Thanks for the heads-up on the Galley tour. We’ve done the bridge tours on Qs and Os so not interested in doing that again but we we’ve never had a galley tour. I think we may skip that one too, lol. @AshleyDillo mentioned some of them are coming back. Has anyone had a back stage in the theater or Aqua show? 

On 4/15/2023 at 12:34 PM, Jkaczano said:

Sailed Star class on Anthem in March.  It was our worst star experience of our 5.  Still trying to figure out if it is “star” in general or this specific genie.  Differences that I noticed (and I do realize these are nit picky that I may not have even picked up on had we not done Star before):
 

Genie would not send food to the room (snacks) unless specifically requested.  No genie “gifts” at the end of the cruise.   Room was not ready when we boarded and bags were not directly delivered to room - genie actually had to track down a missing bag which was halfway down the hall and no where near star class grand lofts.   Bags had to be placed outside room night before by 10.

we did still have Starbucks, patisserie, 2 times on Northstar (1 extended), 1 hour star class time on Flowrider, and the behind the scenes tour  

If it was our first star class, would have been our last.  We already had Star on Oasis in September booked, so I’ll know then.  

We had an almost identical experience 2 sailings ago and said to ourselves a lot of what you said. We weren’t sure of it was the genie, new policies, etc. We decided it was probably just us. We’ve definitely learned to communicate better/more direct rather than expect them to anticipate like we’ve always done. Our last sailing on Ovation last summer was much like what we normally experience in Star, it was great, but we did a better job telling our genie what we really wanted. I’m sure will have a great experience this summer. 

With all the recent cutbacks, has anyone noticed if there has been any real impact on any of the unlisted perks such as behind the scenes tours, waived fees for escape room, sugar beach ice cream etc. Of course it is up to the specific Genie but those examples seem standard genie to genie.  We’re considering upgrading from a CLS but wanted to see if there have been any recent noticeable differences . Many thanks. 

Both were no charge for Star on Ovation last summer.

We had that late arrival to BC last year. I looked back and we had Izumi at 1230 that day. I cant imagine it has changed. 

Hi @Lyman Dayton  You might consider checking cruismapper.com to see what ships are in port that day to give you an idea of how  busy the port will be. Just Google ships in port Nassau and choose cruisemapper. Scroll midway down and select schedule. We are on Oasis in July and there is only one other ship in Nassau the day we arrive so not too busy. 
  As for the excursions, it is my understanding that Blue Lagoon has a roundtrip travel time of about an hour so that might leave you about 4 hours at the island.  You may consider that when deciding. I can’t speak for Pearl Island. For what it is worth, we’ve been to Nassau with many ships in port and just walked to a few nearby bars/restaurants and didn’t have an issue finding a table. 

Great pics @ChanaC   You’re camera blows my IPhone out of the water; pun intended, lol. Thanks for sharing. 

Interested also. All I could find was service availability in Seattle. Has anyone used it at any of the FL ports recently. 

1 hour ago, TravisMA81 said:

You might get lucky and your room could be available.  I booked Lago Mar Resort in Ft.  Lauderdale after my last cruise.  They said I could drop off my luggage and use their pool, restaurants, and beach access until my room was ready.  I got there around 9:30 am and to my surprise, my room was ready.   

Good Choice. We love Lago Mar! It’s our go to in Ft. Lauderdale. 

Most hotels have a bag hold at the front desk. Give your hotel a call and see if they will hold your bags until check-in. We’ve done that plenty of times. 

9 hours ago, RCVirgin22 said:

Maybe the chairs should come with timers, I mean it shouldn't take long to dip in the pool and come back, right? Or go get a drink/restroom break.  I don't advocate for "reserving" a chaise all day or while you go take a nap, eat lunch or whatever takes 2-6 hours time. But it would be a pain to have to change chairs every time you had to get up to use the facilities or get a drink. Since I have nothing to leave behind because I don't carry much beyond my MP3 player to listen to while sleeping and sunburning, so there's nothing for me to eve use for "reserving" my chair.  Now I've never sailed RCL, but others I've not had too much difficulty finding  a place to sit. Though it might be different if you're trying to seat a family of four. 

When I lived in The Netherlands, the free short term lots used parking disks. You slide the dial to the time you left your car. Longer than 2 hrs, you got a ticket. If the attendant noticed the dial was set with a time later than the current time, you got a ticket. Royal should use these bad boys, lol. In all seriousness though, I think the non-threatening signs are a good try, even if it is just to make non-hogs feel better. 
 

As long as they keep filling the ships…I seriously think brand loyalty is on the back burner right now. I honestly believe they brought in Liberty for fleet triage. They will squeeze every penny until the post-covid travel bounce is over. Heck, if it were my company to run, I might do the same to appease the shareholders. 

I couldn’t agree with @Neesa more. We normally sail Oasis & Quantum class but as the itineraries seem to never change, we’ve started booking more of the smaller ships for more varied destinations. IMHO, the smaller ships aren’t much cheaper than the Os & Qs these days. We are paying as much for a OS next March on Explorer as a CLS on Oasis this July!  But who am I kidding.  As things are these days, I’m just happy big Jason L hasn’t stripped any benefits from the Qs and Os, lol. 

On 3/14/2023 at 11:28 PM, Tashana727 said:

Hello RC family, I will be cruising in June 23-30, 2023 on the 7 night Oasis of the Seas Bahamas Cruise. I previously did this same cruise in August 2022 and remember doing a jet ski excursion at RC Coco Cay Island. But I am not finding it listed any longer. Anyone have any idea what happened? or of how I can find out more or book it?

Hi @Tashana727. We sail Oasis 2 weeks after you and had the same question. For our sailing, Jet ski, Balloon and zip line were not showing in our CP. after some digging, we found out that they have never been loaded to the Oasis cruise planner. However, they were loaded to Independence that visits CCC the same day. We called Royal and they confirmed they were never loaded for Oasis passengers but were for Independence. Now most are sold out without ever having been offered to Oasis passengers. Royal opened a ticket but we have not heard anything back. I checked your sailing and it is the same as ours. Loaded to ID but not to OA. Most are already sold out. You may want to call Royal. They will tell you they are just sold out but you have to push them to see they are loaded to Independence and ask to speak to resolutions. I attached a few screen shots from Independence visiting same day as you (sails 6/26/23 at CCC 6/27). 

25 minutes ago, CanHardlyWait said:

Cause prices go up at Disney all the time and less and less families now go. LOL. Think again.

I think Disney could charge families their first born and people would still line up to get in, lol. 

I’ve been reading a lot of reviews on different sites and it almost seems like the classic options are quietly creeping back into MDRs.   

IMHO, the elephant in the AARP article comparison is as Ampurp85 was saying, not an apples to apples comparison. The land based options include all beverages, dining, internet and gratuities.  Most AI have multiple specialty dining restaurants on the upscale end, including the two referenced by the article. I could be wrong but I believe Oceania is also 100% all inclusive and more upscale. I’d think that to make an even remotely close comparison, AARP should have used the Star Class experience and pricing. As @Neesa said, it is really about what value means to you and I wholeheartedly agree. We’ve always loved RC but these days, maybe not always the best value for us when we are choosing a vacation and that is ok.  Doesn’t mean we will ever stop cruising, we may just pump the brakes a tad before pushing the deposit button. 

We used Ronys too and set up our own. We did Daniel Johnson’s Monkeys and Sloths first then spent the rest of the day at Infinity Bay with a day pass. It was a nice day and we were back to the ship about an hour before all aboard. 

1 hour ago, SpicyCherry said:

Looks amazing....Nellie's Beach looks like it's right next Barefoot Beach so that's an option. Did Barefoot seem crowded at all, though?

Barefoot wasn’t crowded at all. The only time we noticed a crowd was the BB buffet but it still was not super crowded and easy enough to get lunch.