tkltomp

Yes, the Wife & I are going.

Greetings,

During our recent Oasis stop in Saint Martin, I did the Down Hill Trek and did not have a great time. 

When I disembarked and met the guide on the pier she was a little distracted and inattentive.  We walked over to the bus stop and filled out a wavier, then waited about 20 minutes for a bus.  We got on that bus drove through Phillipsburg and parked at a construction site for 20 minutes.  Then, a smaller bus pulled up and the guide told us we were on the wrong bus.  After that we went straight to the park.  We offloaded and were offered walking sticks (take one) and got on the truck to take us to the top.  At this point 5 of the 16 people on the tour asked about bicycles.  The tour guide was confused and after a few moments of conversation those five people were surprised to discover that "down hill trek" meant walking not mountain biking.

We got in the truck, which took us up the mountain.  Once we got there we unloaded and walked a short distance to two different overlooks for pictures.

We then started the hike down.  The trail was not very well maintained (I definitely recommend a walking stick).  The trail was overgrown and filled with ruts from running water.  Several people (old & young) had trouble navigating many parts of the trail.  The whole hike was about 2.5 hours and there was some rain which the trail a bit more challenging.

Once at the bottom the bus was nowhere to be found.  After another 20 minutes the bus showed up and took us back to the pier.  The bus stopped downtown to drop off three people, who wanted to shop.

Overall the trip was ok, the confusion/delay with the buses was annoying. 

I was just on Oasis two weeks ago.  We went to NextCruise and talked to a very nice man, who really gave us no compelling reason to book anything.

One good thing about NextCruise is you can run through a lot of Itineraries and ships very quickly.  This really helps narrow the scope of your search and proved booking early saves the most money.

Ultimately the cruise we wanted wasn't available yet (Allure Summer 2019).

We just stayed in 14226 on Oasis (Sister to Allure).  We could hear running and some thumping during the day, but at night not a peep was heard.

It was actually louder in the hallway a couple doors down from our stateroom.  That area would have held interior staterooms but was filled with the pool and accompanying infrastructure.  There was some buzzing and humming audible in the hall.

I liked deck 14 for easy access to pool deck and Wind Jammer.

4 hours ago, DocLC said:

Utah also tends to have the lowest percentage of smokers.  I went with the 20% given that there's a small contingent of international guests onboard. I actually did a lot of research related to smoking in grad school, so I could bore you with all kinds of statistics. I also think the CDC numbers are a bit low as there are a number of "recreational smokers" who don't identify themselves as smokers. 

I think the smoking issue has become more of an issue because smokers are much more restricted to where they can smoke. As a result, it's becoming more noticeable (e.g., in the casino) as that's where a lot of smokers congregate as it's one of maybe two or three places where they can actually smoke. This did pose a problem on our recent Princess cruise, though, as we needed to avoid the forward stairwell as smoke drifted up several decks from the casino (bad ship design) but it wasn't a problem anywhere else onboard. 

Before smoking was banned in cabins, we had a horrible experience on Holland America because the room smelled terribly of smoke, particular in the bathroom. They had to run various air cleaning equipment and replace some of the soft goods to just make the room tolerable. 

I guess the point of my rambling is that there's no solution that will make everyone happy and that it may not be as bad as some imagine. 

True, you cant please everybody but a little common courtesy on all sides goes a long way.

I don't smoke but I don't mind smoking sections.  Live and let live.

However, there are reasons cruise lines fear smokers, and its another case of idiots ruining it for everybody.

We are doing a Navigator Baltic cruise in June.

We are going to bite the bullet and take the Stonehenge tour which drops us off at Heathrow afterwards.

We just could not resist seeing Stonehenge, but its not cheap.

35 minutes ago, Floski said:

But Disney ain't got Hogwarts!!!

 

But Disney will soon have Star Wars........

I would agree that Disney is better for younger kids.  However its huge and if you have never been it can be very intimidating.

Have you considered using a Travel Agent (TA)?  They can be very helpful with this type of package deal.

Without getting into the minutia of rack rates at Disney hotels, TA's can be very helpful in getting the best deal.

MEI is good and has worked very well for me.

Does seem a little counter-intuitive.  The whole point of the compound is keep the aggressive people out.

Will definitely keep an eye on this.

For me JR's is all about the Milkshakes.

I don't love it, I hope it will grow on me.

I heard a rumor the the Royal Caribbean Blog store was going to have Lanyards soon.

Any truth to that Matt?

MEI is great.  My MEI TA (Jacki) also keeps an eye of the sales, automatically.  It's great to get an email letting me know the fare went down and I picked up some OBC.

On my upcoming B2B on Oasis I had to re-book because RL got in the way and all it took was an email to Jacki.

I know most of that doesn't apply to the group cruise but a TA sure makes life easier.

She also handled a Disney World vacation for me.

This is the Fiscal Year 2017 Cruise ship schedule from Port Canaveral:

https://www.portcanaveral.com/PortCanaveral/media/Cruise-Assets/FY2017/Master-Cruise-Schedule.pdf

Oasis seems to have a "Scheduled" time of 06:00 AM. I'm sure results vary due to an almost limitless amount of factors.

My MEI TA (Jacki) also does European River cruises.  A TA could be very helpful in answering a lot of your questions.

Greetings fellow cruise connoisseurs,

Going on an Oasis B2B out of Port Canaveral and was wondering about parking.

The Port does not have an option for 14 days of parking.

I was wondering what others have done?

Get off during turnaround day and run the car out and back in?

Leave it and hope they don't notice?

Use off-site lot?

Or some sort of local hotel cruise and park package?

Thank You

Yes, I'm with Matt, transfer to a TA.

My MEI TA always checks my reservations when the new sales are released.  I love those emails letting me know she got a cheaper price and/or some OBC. 

Very nice, going to start my own collection in August.

When Symphony of the Seas arrives in Miami RCCL will have all four Oasis Class ships operating out of Florida.  

Is it possible that Majesty will be "Retired" and Oasis will pick up on the Bahamian itineraries?

Similar to what the "Mouse" is doing with the Disney Dream?

We are doing a B2B on Oasis in August and last week I was able to Reserve all our shows.

3 hours ago, Lyrical said:

We ordered from AMAZON, and love these.  Laynards:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0178IZVO6/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

luggage tag holders/RCI size: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M5MDAS0/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Luggage tags                                                              Laynards

https://www.amazon.com/Over-Door-15-Pocket-Organizer/dp/B000TCVUA8/ref=pd_sim_198_5?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B000TCVUA8&pd_rd_r=CD52JE41B2S4NHDRV2XZ&pd_rd_w=Qe8Kv&pd_rd_wg=pptC0&psc=1&refRID=CD52JE41B2S4NHDRV2XZ

over the door hanging organizer that is great too!!!

 

Those luggage tags look nice.  Are the ones sent by Royal flimsy?

3 hours ago, Matt said:

You did not miss anything, as we don't have any....yet.

I'm hoping by August so we can wear them on our Oasis B2B. 

15 minutes ago, Matt said:

When I used to cruise with Disney a long, long time ago, lanyards were big and I remember buying some to bring on my first RC cruise and it seems like that is not the case with RC.  There are certainly some people that wear them, but it's not widespread.

I just keep my family's SeaPass cards in my pocket (unless we are on a ship with WOWbands).

You can buy them online, but they are also sold onboard the ship.

But Matt, I didn't see any in your store or did I miss them?

The best "Holiday" for us is when our kids are in school and its cheaper.

I found the "My Calendar" tab in the Cruise Planner to be quite helpful as well.  It really lays-out the whole schedule.