She Sails Away

A couple of thoughts so far. They don't require you to check towels in and out, they're just everywhere. They're in chairs already, and they are also in stacks on different shelves throughout the pool deck. They're very nice towels, very thick and absorbent.
 

Restrooms are touch free which I think is fabulous.

 

They have elevators aft and forward, nothing in the middle, and elevators are very slow even if there's no one else seemingly in the area waiting on one.

 

They have four main dining rooms, each with a different menu. If you have my-time dining you just choose the menu that sounds the best to you and go over when you're ready and see if or when they can accommodate you. They have one dining room open each day for breakfast and lunch out of the four.

 

their buffet is very nice. It's divided into lots of little sections like a food court, so it just looks like everything under the planet is available. Lots of made to order things. What makes it extra nice is the seating area. They have seating on both sides of the buffet and it's really spread out and spacious, no tables crammed right next to each other, no weaving sideways in between tables to get to a chair. They have handwashing stations.

 

of course they have a huge selection of desserts available all the time, and attached to the buffets is a little area called scoops. This is a small ice cream bar, hand dipped ice cream with a few toppings available. This is complementary. They have one nondairy option (sorbet) that changes each day.

 

The shops here are mostly super upscale, like Bulgari watches and Tom Hardy and designer handbags and a really huge Effy jewelry section. You're not going to find a T-shirt shop on here.

 

unless I'm missing it, there are no common area trash cans anywhere except the pooldeck. I mean anywhere. You can walk around with an empty paper cup or a balled up tissue as long as you want, you're not gonna find anywhere to throw it. Your best bet is just going to a restroom and throw it away there in one of their trash cans but there are no common area trash cans laying around. Up on the pool deck they do have some of those metal trash cans for aluminum and plastic recycling and they do have a small slot for basic trash, but down on the main decks, there are no trash cans and I find that just baffling. And the same goes for their lounge areas.
 

I met my room steward last night. He was in a huge hurry, going from room to room passing out stacks of different papers, so we didn't chat much. He handed me my papers and I quickly asked him if he could empty the refrigerator at his convenience. So we never did chat about whether or not he comes once a day or twice a day or what time.

 

I was away from my room all morning and came back at 12:30 and he had not been there and his cart was not in the hallway, so I assumed that meant he does evening service. I got in the shower and since I travel alone I almost never close the bathroom door. I mean why would I. So I'm showering with the bathroom door open and I hear pounding on the door and I'm shouting, "don't come in please I'm in the shower", and I hear the door open anyway and I hear a "what?" And then a "oh I'm sorry," and I was just like....seriously? Agh.

 

when I came out he was cleaning the room next-door and he nodded and smiled and I said hello, hoping he hadn't seen anything, I did have the closet door wide open blocking the shower view, so I don't think he did, but it was awkward. I came back an hour later and he still hadn't been into the room and the minute I walked into the room he was suddenly knocking, ready to come in and clean. I left my room a couple of hours ago and I probably won't go back until dinner.

 

I adore my cozy little elegant room and it's little infinite veranda. It was definitely a problem last night though with the room rocking. It was just very dramatically noticeable in that room.

 

The view is obstructed but that's OK, it's still a perfectly tremendous view, no problem having it obstructed by the lifeboats and things.

 

I am on deck six and the deck six hallway reeks of sewer. This has not gone away since we sailed.

 

There was drama down the hallway today. I came back to my room and there were three uniformed security guards standing in front of somebody's door down the hall. The door was open and they were addressing someone inside the room. I heard a woman's voice say very loudly, "that's not mine." They said something else and she said, " I don't know how that got there. I've never seen it before."

 

Last night starting around 10 o'clock, there were two disco parties at two opposite ends of the ship but basically the same. Each one had a small dance floor and a live band singing 70s disco hits. The crowds went wild, this is exactly their wheelhouse. One of those places was in their lounge area called The Club, which is really a wonderful wonderful space. More on that later. The other was at the bar and dance-floor area under the big chandelier. They called it a chandelier party and the chandelier was strobing and flashing. The people on the dance floor were going crazy for the songs and couples were really grabby with each other.

 

They have two plunge pools here and I spent most of the morning today in one of them. It's a tank just a little bit larger than a big hot tub, 3 feet deep, nice and warm, no jets, and it's called a plunge pool because it's built up against the glass of the side of the deck so it looks like you're going to plunge right over the side. I alternated between the plunge pool and the hot tub all morning and it was really wonderful. 
 

we are in Nassau today next to MSC Seashore and it's huge. It's a couple of decks taller than our ship. Hardly anybody from our ship got off today. I looked over the side many times today and there was almost nobody walking off our ship, but the seashore has a steady stream of people leaving.
 

there are a handful of kids aboard but not very many. They do have kids clubs though.

 

There is a film crew here this whole cruise, filming different parts of the ship for advertising purposes. I was annoyed because I bought a seven day pass to the thermal suite and wanted to use it from 4 o'clock to 7 o'clock last night. (It was only available from 4 to 10 PM yesterday.) However when I arrived at four I was told it would not be available until after seven because the film crew was in there. As it turned out after seven I was completely seasick, so it wasn't an option to go use it then. The same film crew occupied a big part of the pool this morning for a while. 
 

there is an area here called Eden. It is so interesting. It has a strong earthy theme to it and there's lots of moss and plants and grass everywhere, including growing out of the ceiling. They have a little bistro type area in there with a very limited supply of sandwiches and snacks and carved meat, I mean it's very small but it's nice, and then they have some desserts.

 

One of the options to get to Eden is to walk through this enclosed hallway that's filled with mirrors and huge blocky silvery shapes and wispy statues. Pretty cool.

 

 I disappeared last night because I got seasick. I got free medicine from the Medical Center, took it, and then sat in the frigid freezing blowing air on the rooftop garden area (their version of Central Park, sort of) for four hours last night watching the Bills game on the big screen TV. There were about 20 of us die hards out there. They were showing it in the sports bar inside but that was completely full. The fresh air and wind really helped. A staff member came around with shrink-wrapped fuzzy blankets and passed them out to all of us which was just wonderful. I felt much better by the time I went to bed and my room wasn't rocking and swinging quite as dramatically. 
 

I have been a sleepy fog all day though from the after effects of the medicine.

The public restrooms here are touchless. You just wave your hand over the door and it opens. Why has no one else incorporated this yet?

Prettiness abounds

I have explored all afternoon and I feel like I've only seen about a third of the ship.

 

unfortunately my evening has come to a screeching halt. The ship is rocking a lot. I mean like a LOT. People in the Facebook group are questioning if this is normal because it's their first cruise. Got hit with a wave of seasickness kind of suddenly.

 

I took my meds and I have been on the top deck in the freezing cold billowing wind watching the football game for the last two hours. The medicine has kicked in and the cold air is really helping. I'm going to stay here until bedtime. I have to say as much as I adore my room it is really really swaying and very noticeable strong motion in there. (Deck 6). I may have to sleep on the pool deck. no food for me this evening

This is most of the menu for their steakhouse. More menus to come.

 

The first two screenshots with cocktail mixes are from their sports bar, not the steakhouse.

8 minutes ago, PPPJJ-GCVAB said:

So glad you ditched the shuttle!  Sounds so absurd!  This ship is AMAZING looking!  

Well one thing that I kept thinking about is, what if I had a flight to catch? And believe me the people in line all around me were frantic and anxious and could not sit still. This was not a mob that waited quietly and everybody stood in line and nobody tried to cut.  
 

There is no reason it should take well over an hour to shovel people and their bags onto a bus and get on out of there.

OK so this is what happened with the shuttle. First of all there was a couple thousand people all waiting and wanting that shuttle to the airport. So I had to wait in a super super long line just to get near the front. That took almost an hour.
 

When I got to the front The line manager told me to just wait off to the side since I was going to the port. I waited a long time but he forgot about me so I had to go find him and ask again. He directed me to a different holding area with hundreds of other people. We stood there a long time.  The shuttle arrived.
 

The bus driver was an elderly man, he looked malnourished and exhausted. He started sorting out the luggage and talking to people. I told him that I was going to port he nodded wearily and told me to just stay by the side of the crowd and keep my bags with me.  After 20 minutes he still had not start loading the bags. And at that point it occurred to me that no one was going to help him, this older exhausted man was going to load all of those bags by himself one at a time.
 

there were also two elderly people in wheelchairs with their bags who needed help and he hadn't even approached them yet, he had just waved to them to hang on and he'd be over there eventually.
 

I just want to stress that during this entire time the crowds were enormous and everybody was crushing and creeping and shifting around and being very territorial and pushy at the same time.

 

The port was jampacked and a total mess. I think even if I called an Uber they would've had a hard time navigating to the pick up zone.

 

I was well over an hour and a half into the process at this point and I gave up.  I followed the directional signs to where the taxis were. There's an arrow painted on the wall that says taxis to the left. Well guess what. That's no longer applicable. Eventually I figured out the taxis are actually to the right, in the opposite direction of the arrow.  So I went and found an extremely long line for taxis. 

it took 20 minutes to work my way to the front of the line and during the 20 minutes couple after a couple tried to circumnavigate the line and cut in front. The two females running the line weren't having any of it and didn't allow any cutters.

 

by the time I got into my taxi I had been working at trying to get out of there for two hours. It was 10 o'clock. As we pulled away I looked back at the shuttle that I had originally been waiting for. It was still sitting there.

 

The cab ride over was a treat. My cab driver had a super wet phlegmy cough and you could hear the wheezing in his chest when he breathed. So the cab was basically a germ tank. I feel bad for him but I was also concerned I was going to come down with the bubonic plague. He also drove far too fast, it was kind of scary.
 

33 minutes later we were at Port and I got dropped off. I walked straight into terminal no problem and straight to a restroom where I washed my hands in boiling hot water for like an hour.

 

Within about 10 minutes we were all allowed to board. 
 

so it worked out fine but what a mess this morning! Yikes.

 

My advice to those using the shuttles for the airport… Be prepared to stand for a very long time. If standing is physically uncomfortable for you, get the Uber or get the taxi and forget the shuttle. two buses left while we were waiting in line and it took absolutely forever to load each one and as I mentioned, my shuttle hadn't even left by the time I made my way through the taxi line. My driver was still working on loading bags at that point--and that was about 30 minutes after he had arrived. There is no staff to help out with that.  It's just not worth it, get yourself an Uber or taxi to port. If you really want to do the shuttle thing, if you can wait till after 10 o'clock that would be best. Same with Uber. 

 

and here's the other thing to take to consideration, if I had waited for that shuttle that would've been one thing, but after we arrived at the airport I would've had to wait while that older exhausted bus-driver gentleman unloaded every single one of those bags by himself all over again. That would've taken probably forever. And only after we had done all of that what I have finally been taken to the port. so that could've been easily another hour onto the whole process.

Menu from Blu

That ship looks beautiful! You guys look happy. Enjoy!

Icon is on the horizon. It's been drifting around reasonably close by all day. I'm watching it right now from my infinite veranda. 

A week is not going to be enough time to lounge in all of the varied lounge spaces that I want to lounge in. Plus I pretty much never want to leave my room. This infinite veranda is amazing.

 

Eden alone, plus entire top 2 decks, require many many hours of lounging and enjoying.

You guys. This SHIP.  

 

more soon

Oh my stars, guys. The shuttle thing is 100% not going to work out. I've been outside the terminal for well over an hour and I'm ditching the shuttle to go wait in line for a taxi. More soon. Absolute chaos here and thousands and thousands of people

I'm on Oasis now, they showed the aqua show this evening at the same time the big Ravens game was going on. They showed the ravens game in studio B instead of the Aqua Theater, kept the Aqua show as is. So that is hard to say! I would assume they will also show it in playmakers.

That is amazing!

Busy busy day and it's not over yet. I have started packing but mostly I have been rotating from trivia to football games to scavenger hunts and all of those fun things.
 

tonight is seafood night at Windjammer, they had a heavy emphasis on fish, crawfish, shrimp and scallops and so forth. I got a plate of things with a side of a baked potato and my baked potato was most definitely fishy.

 

There are zillions of kids on board, and you know what they really have been great. They just haven't been the overwhelming presence they can sometimes be. Having said that, I think all of the kids on board hit a wall today and there was a whole lot of screaming and crying and little bodies rolling around on the floor and flailing legs and siblings punching each other at every possible opportunity.

 

There was a family carnival on boardwalk, which sounded terrific, but it was a zoo. There were so many folks crowding, crowding, and crowding trying to be first to grab everything, the free cupcakes, the free cotton candy, you name it.

 

I saw something pretty incredible today. Francesco the piano player was back in front of adventure ocean, which is around the corner from my room. I came out to watch for a minute. He was playing amidst the chaos of parents picking up little ones from adventure Ocean and that's where a whole lot of the screaming and crying and rolling around on the floor was happening. Right in front of his piano. anyway, a family came up and requested 'puff the magic dragon'. He had never heard it before. Someone called it up on their phone and played it. He put the phone to his ear with one hand, noodled around on the piano keys with the other hand for a second, and literally within one minute he was able to put the phone down, and play the song perfectly.

 

someone wanted him to do the same thing with "yellow brick Road" by Elton John, which is much more involved and drawn out. He did the same thing, only he took maybe two minutes this time.

 

Really amazing!

 

There was a lot of live music to choose from today and it's just so much fun to listen to.
 

I have tried answering the health questions on my Celebrity app but for some reason I can't do it right now.
 

My Ascent cruise Facebook group is posting like crazy, people are arriving in Fort Lauderdale and posting happy pictures of their travel parties and their hotel room views and all of that fun stuff. I feel like I haven't given that cruise one thought even though I've been looking forward to it for a year now.  I'm just caught up in this cruise and it's like I can't think about the Ascent until we're all done here tomorrow. 
 

there was open ice-skating in studio B today, and now studio B is a football watch party for the remainder of the evening for two back-to-back games. They surprised us and added an aqua show this evening, no reservations required. We had been told the other day was the last performance of the week but now we've got this one if we want to go.

1 hour ago, jbrinkm said:

I thought at first that the website pictures might have just been from his younger self at https://trentjean.com/ because if you scroll down the page, there are a few where he looks older. I also thought maybe he just stopped dyeing his hair to cover the gray. BUT, in a really bizarre twist, it appears that this Trent-Jean (who is Australian and, yes, it seems he is only 23 y.o.) was ALSO on Oasis as a performer. If you google him & RCI, his social media states that he was performing on Oasis and there's a video of him playing his guitar on Labadee. It looks like his contract was up at the end of last year/2023. I guess the Royal entertainment people were like - we had such good luck with Trent-Jean on Oasis, let's now hire Trent Jeann to take over his gigs. 

WOW. That's bizarre. What are the odds?

Here we go

7 minutes ago, jbrinkm said:

Is this the guy? https://trentjean.com/

Wow, glad it didn't land on your foot!

No. 

 

he has two n's on his last name. I will look for him

PS: Gnomes!

A few random observations:
 

When we are docked, the air-conditioning struggles. I believe this is the situation with every cruise ship, not just oasis.

 

Random smells keep appearing here and there throughout the ship. Sometimes when we are docked, there is a rotten egg smell floating around especially on the pool deck. It tends to get heavier as the day goes on. It's not horrible but it's noticeable. It was quite bad the day we were in Nassau, and I don't know if that was floating over from the carnival ship park right beside us, if it was a combination of both of us, or what.
 

another random smell that comes and goes is the heavy smell of cigarette smoke. Now of course this is to be expected in the casino and maybe even the entire floor above the casino. But for example, yesterday on deck 14 all around the elevators, the stairwell, and the hallways there was a huge heavy smell of cigarettes smoke for a few hours. That has not happened all week so I'm not sure what happened there. Then it disappeared. That has happened in other pockets of the ship as well. And it's heavy, not as if just one person stood around and snuck a cigarette, it smells like the casino migrated from place to place. 
 

Windjammer is just an absolute zoo, I don't care when you go. It doesn't matter if you go right when they open or after people have supposedly left for short excursions, it is absolutely crammed all the time. This is not surprising, just something I'm sharing.

 

Probably a ridiculous thing to mention but… So many bare butts. Did the swimsuit style universally change? Every single person here is wearing a tiny competition style swimsuit where the majority of their butt hangs out either side. I have tried so many times to take quick photos of the beach on both of the private islands and I've had to delete everything because there's somebody in the foreground with their back to the camera and most of their butt exposed. Yikes. Walking the pool deck is an exercise in flesh. 
 

There are more kids hunting ducks on this cruise actively day-to-day than I've ever seen before. It's very cute and a lot of people in the Facebook group are sharing pictures of their kids super happy because they found one. I found one myself the other day and gave it to the Starbucks staff member who took my order and she was very happy with it. 
 

They have permanently closed the rock climbing wall on the port side because so much equipment needs to live there permanently for the aqua theater show. The starboard-side rock climbing wall seems to suffice just fine but in general, it seems to me like the rock climbing wall is open so much less than it used to be. That used to be something you could go do all day long and now it feels like it's only open a couple of hours here and there per day.

 

This is the first oasis-class cruise that I've ever seen this many experienced adults using the standup side of the flow rider. It's been a lot of fun watching them. It's almost all men but there is one white-haired older lady out there having a blast and showing them how it's done.

 

café Promenade has had really dismal snacks all week long. I've tried several things and they all basically disintegrate as soon as you bite into them. I'm talking powdery bread for example. So weird. Sabarro's has been pretty good… Traditional greasy pizza but if you're in the mood for that, it's been great. The line has been manageable.

 

more soon

Being that this is a seven night cruise you know what that means. Right on cue for Day 6, a dramatic uptick in the amount of hacking, sickly coughing on board kicked in yesterday. This morning, even more prevalent among the masses--coughing and coughing. Oh well, this is generally how it goes on weeklong cruises.

 

It is our last day, a day at sea, and we have the most perfect beautiful weather. It's just classic sunshine and blue skies. At this point the ship is hopping. I had breakfast down in Central Park, and strolled boardwalk. The captain had a 30 minute Q and A at the Aqua theater. They're doing a family carnival on boardwalk soon and there will be face painting and music and all kinds of stuff. They are having another parade on the promenade soon as well.
 

On the promenade, they put out the last day flea market type sales, all of those port T-shirts, two for 30. I have been cruising long enough to remember when they were two for 20, ha. Even though I have bought many of these shirts before and they don't hold up worth a hoot in the wash, I bought one for my husband and one for myself.  People are swarming the tables like there's no tomorrow. Those huge watches are out, glittery costume jewelry, tiny handbags and shawls, lots of jewelry. 
 

A couple of days ago I came to my room and found that my cabin Steward had left me these amenities. I thought, aw, he left me a gift. Then I realized he was trying to rectify a situation in the shower. I forgot to mention it here. This is what happened:

 

You know how in these showers there's that container on the wall with shower gel? Correction… A shower gel that is somehow also shampoo and conditioner and soap? Well of course I don't bother using that, (it strips your hair and honestly I don't feel like it gets you clean at all), I bring my own soap, my own shampoo and conditioners, plus my own body wash and bath poof and everything else. 
 

however, a couple of days ago I did want a little bit of it so I pushed the button on top to get a squirt out of the bottom, and the entire apparatus ripped right off the wall and crashed to the bathroom floor and broke into pieces. Some of those pieces were little tiny black dials and buttons and what not. I mean it was demolished. It looked like a gorilla had come in here and just torn it off the wall and smashed it to pieces. I was kind of apalled because all I did was push the button and I didn't push all that hard.

 

I gathered up the pieces and put them in a pile on top of a dry washcloth and meant to ask my cabin steward about that the next time I saw him. But the next time he came to the room I was already gone and he took away the pieces and then a couple of days later these amenities showed up in my room. I think they realized it was pointless to come and try and fix it while I was still here. I have a feeling this thing has ripped off the wall before because it came off soooo easily. 

Safe travels today! That disembarkation day is rough, mentally and physically it's just a mess to get through.

PS: those parents setting their baby on top of the piano… I don't know, is it just me? That seems incredibly rude. Would you pick up a grown human and set them on top of the piano? Probably not.
 

Our piano player guy has had people walk in and set plates of half-eaten food on top of his piano so they can free their hands up to rifle in their tote bags and stuff. I just find it unbelievably disrespectful.