Oasis Thoughts

[Christie]

Just wanted to start a little thread with my random thoughts this far. First RCI cruise, western Caribbean. Used to be primarily a Disney cruiser

 

-Ship is a lot cleaner than i excepted

- After about a day, you get a good feel of how to navigate the ship

- There are less activities I actually want to participate in onboard than DCL

- Did chefs table last night. Cool experience but was 4 hours long (8 pm- midnight). Needed a designated walker back to the room

 

Labadee today. Looking forward to trying a labadoozie and falling asleep in our cabana. My one year old is licking the sea salt off of the table on our balcony right now. Kinda gross but kinda funny too. Have a great day, everyone

[Matt]

Great idea, thank you for sharing.

 

I'm guessing if you needed a designated walker back to the room, you definitely enjoyed the experience? ;)

[michelle]

love Chef's Table but its almost over kill !  but cool experience.  Interesting on activities but

I can see that if you are a "Disney person".  Let me know how you like Entertainment
I tend to think RCI has the best next to Disney.

Labadee is amazing  - Enjoy

[Christie]

Yea, chefs table was a bit much. I felt like I spent all day recovering from it.

 

Still haven't seen much entertainment due to our schedule. The oasis of dreams show keeps getting rescheduled due to weather. My sister saw an ice show last night and said it was better than anything she has seen on a Disney boat.

 

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I liked Labadee more than Castaway Cay. I loved the mountainous terrain. I felt like you didn't have to walk far for anything. Loved the blocked off suite beach. More to do. Food was better. Sorry Matt, wasn't a huge fan of the labadoozie (but I'm a light weight and don't really like to taste the alcohol in my drinks lol).

 

LOVE the open play area for ages 5 and below on board. My daughter could spend all day in there. I can't believe Disney doesn't have something similar.

 

I'm gonna go ahead and say over all the food is better on RCI as well. I guess I should put the disclaimer that I haven't eaten in the MDR at all yet, but the variety is definitely better and I feel like the food is more incentive and served warmer. DCL's menus can start to feel repetitive.

 

I wasn't thrilled about the casino on the boat but it's really tucked away.

 

The concierge team on DCL is better than RCI but the suite benefits are better on RCI.

 

Miss the little chocolates on my pillow at night on Disney. But I guess for the price difference, I can bring a lot of chocolate on board :)

[DocLC]

 

Miss the little chocolates on my pillow at night on Disney. But I guess for the price difference, I can bring a lot of chocolate on board :)

Or just go to Café Promenade and get a treat there and put it on the pillow yourself. :)  Much better than those cheap chocolates.

[FloatMe]

love Chef's Table but its almost over kill !  but cool experience.  Interesting on activities but

I can see that if you are a "Disney person".  Let me know how you like Entertainment

I tend to think RCI has the best next to Disney.

Labadee is amazing  - Enjoy

Going to Labadee for the first time in October and we are really looking forward to it. I do have a question however. I like to run in the morning. If i were to run on Labadee, how far might it be around the perimeter and is there a suitable path around the perimeter?

[Christie]

Going to Labadee for the first time in October and we are really looking forward to it. I do have a question however. I like to run in the morning. If i were to run on Labadee, how far might it be around the perimeter and is there a suitable path around the perimeter?

I'm probably not your best bet to answer a running question, but I would venture to say it's not what you are thinking for running. Labadee is just a section of Haiti that is closed off to the locals. When you go up the zip line (via crazy bump ride in a truck), you see one of these security check points with locals trying to get in (maybe to do work?). Leading up to this, there is just one main stretch of sidewalk/ road that is extremely busy. Everything is off of this main drag. From the ship to the end of the main road is 1 mile, tops. So there's not a "perimeter" per se. I'll see if I can upload a pic of the map when I get back.

[Christie]

Oasis of dreams show was cool stunt wise, but I had a hard time following a story line. Definitely completely different t than anything Disney offers at sea. Think cirque de soleil meets collegiate diving team.

 

I watched several online versions of the love and marriage game show leading up to the cruise and was really looking forward to this. It was mediocre at best. Not sure if we just had boring couples, but I didn't even find the questions were that funny. And I liked the old format where the women leave and he asks the men questions and them brings them back out to ask the women. Now they just have them facing opposite directions and they use a white board to jot down their answers. The host does 99% of the taking including reading the answers, so you miss the personality of the contestants.

 

We are at Giovanni's table last night. The osso bucco was the best thing on the menu followed by the eggplant Parmesan. My mom said the cannoli was the best one she's ever had.

 

Today we are in Falmouth Jamaica and we booked a private tour through Patrice Bailey who has great reviews online.

[Matt]

I watched several online versions of the love and marriage game show leading up to the cruise and was really looking forward to this. It was mediocre at best. Not sure if we just had boring couples, but I didn't even find the questions were that funny. And I liked the old format where the women leave and he asks the men questions and them brings them back out to ask the women. Now they just have them facing opposite directions and they use a white board to jot down their answers. The host does 99% of the taking including reading the answers, so you miss the personality of the contestants.

I think the format has to do with the cruise director and his/her "style".  I've seen multiple formats and I agree your favorite is the best.

 

Also, it does help when the couples are more spontaneous and/or do not know the questions ahead of time.

 

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I liked Labadee more than Castaway Cay. I loved the mountainous terrain. I felt like you didn't have to walk far for anything. Loved the blocked off suite beach. More to do. Food was better. Sorry Matt, wasn't a huge fan of the labadoozie (but I'm a light weight and don't really like to taste the alcohol in my drinks lol).

I am so happy to hear you say that.  I agree Labadee is wonderful and I agree with everything you said (minus the Labadoozie comment).  Nonetheless, glad you enjoyed it too!

[FloatMe]

I'm probably not your best bet to answer a running question, but I would venture to say it's not what you are thinking for running. Labadee is just a section of Haiti that is closed off to the locals. When you go up the zip line (via crazy bump ride in a truck), you see one of these security check points with locals trying to get in (maybe to do work?). Leading up to this, there is just one main stretch of sidewalk/ road that is extremely busy. Everything is off of this main drag. From the ship to the end of the main road is 1 mile, tops. So there's not a "perimeter" per se. I'll see if I can upload a pic of the map when I get back.

Thanks. I have a pretty good idea of what the area is comprised of and it's limits in regards to running. I just wasn't sure about the size. I know I'm not going to get a nice 8 mile loop, but a mile to and from the ship, repeated a few times, is much better than endless circuits on the ship.

[Matt]

Today we are in Falmouth Jamaica and we booked a private tour through Patrice Bailey who has great reviews online.

When you get back, I would love to hear more about this.

[bcarney]

Going to Labadee for the first time in October and we are really looking forward to it. I do have a question however. I like to run in the morning. If i were to run on Labadee, how far might it be around the perimeter and is there a suitable path around the perimeter?

 

If you have Google Earth installed on your computer, zoom to 19°47'07.07" N  72°14'35.84" W to see what Labadee looks like.  There's no real way to run around it, especially when there's people there.

 

P.S. I use Google Earth to check out the various ports I'm going to, just so that I have a mental bird's eye view of the place in my head before we get there.

[Matt]

If you have Google Earth installed on your computer, zoom to 19°47'07.07" N  72°14'35.84" W to see what Labadee looks like.  There's no real way to run around it, especially when there's people there.

 

P.S. I use Google Earth to check out the various ports I'm going to, just so that I have a mental bird's eye view of the place in my head before we get there.

Great advice!

[Christie]

Falmouth Jamaica today. Was incredibly pleasantly surprised with this port. The shopping center at the port was nice, new, and a ton of different things to look at.

 

Our original plan was to use a private tour company (Patrice Bailey). She would take us to the Martha Brae river raft. I left the baby in the nursery for this part of the day. I was going to run back to the ship to get the baby while the others shopped at the cruise terminal. And then we would head off to Montego Bay at their mercy.

 

A couple of things I didn't account for:

1) how nice the cruise terminal would be and that we would want to spend a decent amount of time there

2) my dad dropping his sea pass card in the river while on the raft

3) traffic on the island. Even though Montego Bay was supposedly close, the drive made it take a while

4) our private van blowing a tire.

 

The rafting adventure was fun and relaxing. You are sitting on bamboo rafts piloted by a man with a long bamboo pole. Think Venice Italy gondolas Jamaican version. I would highly recommend this experience and it's only 15 min from the port.

 

So then we came back to the boat to get the baby, but my dad had to get a new sea pass card and we wound up taking showers and eating lunch on the boat. We got almost to Montego Bay, decided we wanted to just shop at the port, and turned around to head back. This is when we blew the tire. Patrice was good about getting another vehicle out to pick us up. Our driver for the day was Trevor and he was great! Would highly recommend him. The private tour service was $45 per person for the day. You can customize your day and either go to Ocho Rios or Montego Bay.

 

After we finished shopping and got back on board, we cleaned up and then went to dinner on the hibachi side of Izumi. Once again; RCI impressed me. We do hibachi a lot so I feel like I know all the tricks and jokes. Our chef was funny and did a lot of things I've never seen. The food was great (almost excellent, but not quite) and the Mochi ice cream dessert was delicious.

 

Calling it an early night tonight as we have an early morning with the all access your.

[Matt]

Love the report, thank you!  I love getting first-hand reviews of shore excursions like this.

[Christie]

The one thing that sucks about this cruise? I was one cruise away from platinum status on Disney and I'm not sure I'm going to hit it now

[JasonD]

The one thing that sucks about this cruise? I was one cruise away from platinum status on Disney and I'm not sure I'm going to hit it now

Sounds like a good problem to have to me....

[Matt]

The one thing that sucks about this cruise? I was one cruise away from platinum status on Disney and I'm not sure I'm going to hit it now

I believe that was exactly when I left DCL.  

 

Trust me, you're going in the right direction!

[Christie]

Good evening! Had a full sea day today.

 

We started off the morning with the all access tour. Due to knowing certain people with DCL, I've been to parts of Disney's boats that even tour groups don't get access too. So I was slightly worried this would be repetitive. But it wasn't! We had a tour of the aqua theater, galleys, provision rooms, laundry, engine control room, some crew areas, and the bridge. Worth the $$.

 

Afterwards we had lunch in the coastal kitchen. I had a massage at 1. I'll definitely say Disney takes the cake for the spa. We had issues early in the week with the spa so I wanted to think it was just a one time thing. While nothing necessarily went wrong, it just wasn't worth the $$. Yes, the spa is much bigger, but nearly as nice in my opinion.

 

Watched the belly flop competition from our balcony and then bummed around the room until dinner at chops. I felt like chops was alright, but not knock your pants off like I was expecting. I think I was given the tip of the filet. My husbands steak was beautiful but mine looked like it went through a meat grinder first. Didn't have time to order another one. Service was mediocre at best. Timing was off with food and drinks, the people who brought out the food didn't know who ordered what, and the waiter basically forced my mom to order shrimp with her lobster after she clearly stated she didn't want them.

 

After dinner we went and saw Come Fly With Me. Here's my conclusion with entertainment vs Disney. RCI definitely has a greater variety of shows with incredible talent, but the story lines are lacking big time. Of course, Disney is the master of story telling.

 

Early night tonight as we have to get off early in Cozumel tomorrow. We booked a private boating charter through Captain Ron's charters.

 

Have a good night!

[Matt]

Good evening! Had a full sea day today.

 

We started off the morning with the all access tour. Due to knowing certain people with DCL, I've been to parts of Disney's boats that even tour groups don't get access too. So I was slightly worried this would be repetitive. But it wasn't! We had a tour of the aqua theater, galleys, provision rooms, laundry, engine control room, some crew areas, and the bridge. Worth the $$.

 

Afterwards we had lunch in the coastal kitchen. I had a massage at 1. I'll definitely say Disney takes the cake for the spa. We had issues early in the week with the spa so I wanted to think it was just a one time thing. While nothing necessarily went wrong, it just wasn't worth the $$. Yes, the spa is much bigger, but nearly as nice in my opinion.

 

Watched the belly flop competition from our balcony and then bummed around the room until dinner at chops. I felt like chops was alright, but not knock your pants off like I was expecting. I think I was given the tip of the filet. My husbands steak was beautiful but mine looked like it went through a meat grinder first. Didn't have time to order another one. Service was mediocre at best. Timing was off with food and drinks, the people who brought out the food didn't know who ordered what, and the waiter basically forced my mom to order shrimp with her lobster after she clearly stated she didn't want them.

 

After dinner we went and saw Come Fly With Me. Here's my conclusion with entertainment vs Disney. RCI definitely has a greater variety of shows with incredible talent, but the story lines are lacking big time. Of course, Disney is the master of story telling.

 

Early night tonight as we have to get off early in Cozumel tomorrow. We booked a private boating charter through Captain Ron's charters.

 

Have a good night!

Sorry to hear the service in Chops wasn't what you were expecting.  I've usually had great service and even better food there.

 

As for entertainment, many of the non-Broadway shows do not have a single plot that carries over between scenes.  Royal Caribbean shows tend to be more of a "revue", where it's about performances and great music.  Personally, I found the DCL shows to be repetitive in the sense of plot (good vs evil, dreams come true, etc). But that's just me.

[DocLC]

Sorry to hear the service in Chops wasn't what you were expecting.  I've usually had great service and even better food there.

 

As for entertainment, many of the non-Broadway shows do not have a single plot that carries over between scenes.  Royal Caribbean shows tend to be more of a "revue", where it's about performances and great music.  Personally, I found the DCL shows to be repetitive in the sense of plot (good vs evil, dreams come true, etc). But that's just me.

I think you just described the plot to The Force Awakens. Oh wait, that's a Disney film now. ;)

[jticarruthers]

Your Chops experience sounds a lot like our last few experience, not bad, just ok.

[DocLC]

Our first Chops experience was a lot like yours, too, on the Jewel.  However, everything was extraordinary on the Brilliance.

[Christie]

Definitely fee you on the "revue" type experience with the shows, Matt. It's ok though, they are still well done.

 

Today was interesting. When researching Cozumel, I wanted a private luxury boat for the day. Stumbled across captain Ron and booked vamanos. I had done something similar in Fiji and it was one of the best days of my life. Definitely did not get the same experience here. The boat was way older than they let on, was dirty, and my sister got sea sick. So we paid for four hours and after an hour came back. Would be great if you wanted to do some hard core deep sea fishing, but wasn't the experience we were looking for today. Ate lunch at hard rock and then came back on board.

 

We dropped the sleeping baby off at the nursery and then headed to the thermal suite in the spa. Nice area, but the rainforest room on Disney is better. In the future, we will probably just do a day pass instead of the week which we get every time with Disney.

 

Interesting experience at coastal kitchen tonight. We've eaten there numerous times during the week and have never been asked if we had a reservation. Tonight, the manager gave us the how dare you show up without a reservation attitude. It was kinda weird. Maybe because it's Christmas Eve? Also, the only type of Christmas church service they are offering is midnight mass tonight. That sucks. Sorry. We have a baby and it's Christmas. There should definitely be something in the morning as well.

 

In other news, it appears as if our anniversary cruise in September will be free or nearly free due to a credit that they are giving us because of numerous maintenance issues. So that's cool!

[WAAAYTOOO]

 

What kind of maintenance issues. Congrats on the comp. that's pretty unusual

[Christie]

Mainly the toilet in the master bath overflowing. But also some ongoing ac issues. This wasn't something we requested, just something they offered up. It's 15% of a current fare to be used within a year. Because it's a holiday cruise and an aqua suite, that 15% will go a long way.

[Matt]

Sorry to hear about the maintenance issues but glad you are making the best of it.  I am also happy to hear Royal Caribbean is doing the right thing and giving you some money back.

[Christie]

I didn't think the maintenance stuff was a big deal, but we will take the credit! Nice little Christmas present especially since we already had a cruise plan.

 

Our last sea day was very nice. We went to midnight mass which had over 500 people in the opal theater. Half of the family slept in while the other half of us with a baby were awake at 6:30 lol. Had a really easy morning opening presents and then going to Johnny Rockets for lunch. That's probably the best deal on board. All you can eat soda, fries, onion rings, burgers/patty melts, and dessert for like $7. I don't think shakes are included.

 

My husband and I had to use up our razul room and private jacuzzi that were included in our ultimate suite pass. These were both very nice experiences and I'll write about them when I'm home and can upload some pictures. My parents had met with an accupuncturist earlier in the week and found out that she was also a chiropractor. So we met up and swapped adjustments which was amazing!

 

We had Christmas dinner at 150 Central Park. Everything was on point here. The meal was paced properly and the service was excellent. Food was a 8.5/10. One thing we have noticed all week is that RC serves their food piping hot at all restaurants. Disney struggles with this. Oh and the cucumber martini? Amazing.

 

Then it was time to shove stuff in suitcases, pay a trip to the photo store, and head to bed. Not a terribly exciting day, but perfect way to end the trip.

 

We are considering going to the children's museum via Uber when we get off the boat since our flight doesn't leave to 3:30 and sitting in an airport for 6 hours with a 1 year old doesn't sound like much fun.

[Christie]

Ps it's 7:25 and I'm walking down the hall and half the rooms are already flipped for the next cruise. The efficiency blows me away

[Matt]

I'm so glad to hear you had a great time.  And I am even more happy to hear it sounds like you are coming around to the RC side of things!

[dejagatkins]

We are going to be doing Chef's Table on Oasis for first time. Is the wine included in the price I already paid or is it extra? (first time cruiser here)

[tonyfsu21]

It's free and it flows. Great experience

[Christie]

It's included.