Oasis- second time is a charm 10\1-10\8 from NJ

[OCSC Mike]

1 hour ago, ScottD said:

Most of the clothing won't be packed until Saturday, mostly because I like to do laundry at the last second so we have none laying around except what we produce on vacation when we return.

I mostly do the same thing. I don't actually finish packing until the morning before we drive to PC, lol. I'm a bit anal about wrinkles so I leave my shirts out on hangers and then quickly fold them and pack them. Everything else will be packed.

1 hour ago, ScottD said:

We were planning on going up to North Jersey the night before and checking out a baseball game in NY (Mets play my Phillies so it would have been cool- and tickets for the Mets are a whopping 1 dollar on stubhub right now)

Any away game is cool but it would be a fairly meaningless game.

On a related note, now that we've booked an Allure 5-nigher last minute for late next month, I started figuring out which sporting events would be taking place during the cruise (it's a weird WED-MON). Eagles are @ Washington Sunday 1pm, will see what I find with no Playmakers. Orlando City will open their 1st round 3-match playoff series that weekend but Apple TV has MLS so I will just watch it on my phone, even if it's on delay. And lastly, when the Phils upset Atlanta again and make another run, the World Series starts, lol. At least I'd hope that would be shown somewhere... but let them get there first.

[ScottD]

10 minutes ago, OCSC Mike said:

On a related note, now that we've booked an Allure 5-nigher last minute for late next month, I started figuring out which sporting events would be taking place during the cruise (it's a weird WED-MON). Eagles are @ Washington Sunday 1pm, will see what I find with no Playmakers. Orlando City will open their 1st round 3-match playoff series that weekend but Apple TV has MLS so I will just watch it on my phone, even if it's on delay. And lastly, when the Phils upset Atlanta again and make another run, the World Series starts, lol. At least I'd hope that would be shown somewhere... but let them get there first.

Nice, being on Oasis for the NFC Championship game earlier this year was pretty fun, but I did feel a little left out when I saw the pics and videos of the city celebrating.  We have an Eagles\Washington game when we board this Sunday and all 3 wild card games, which are on ESPN, so we SHOULD be able to at least check in on them over the course of the nights, and watch on my phone if needed. I told my wife I'll be watching the aqua show with my phone playing the game on my lap.  And yeah, the idea of the Mets game sounded fun until you realize you can't find a hotel for under like 2-300 bucks up that way, and between that and parking for the game and the cruise, it would almost start to eat away at the savings of not having to fly to Florida! The whole idea of this one was a day of cruise drive right to the port, and I'm sticking to it. I did tell the boy maybe we would drive into NYC after the cruise since he's never been...at least let him get a glance of Times square and the Empire state building

[ScottD]

Vacation off to a good start: was scheduled to work 4am-2pm but the boss just got in and told me to leave whenever I want and get my vacation started- so I'll be rolling out of here no later than MAYBE noon...and that's a BIG maybe. Got the kids soccer game tomorrow morning about 20 minutes away (somehow the road games tend to be closer to home than the home games, which are about 40 minutes away) and that's my last commitment before the trip. 

[SweetPea]

Ok friend. We're leaving this barge in tip top shape. If you ruin it, it's on you. 

Enjoy every moment!!

[JVPIII]

Have a fun filled week on the Oasis! Love this ship!!

[asquared17]

ITS CRUISE DAY!!!!!!!!

[ScottD]

7 hours ago, SweetPea said:

Ok friend. We're leaving this barge in tip top shape. If you ruin it, it's on you. 

Enjoy every moment!!

Ha ha...thanks for the great blog leading up to it, I still gotta catch up on your last day or so, but that'll give me something to do while we're unpacking! 

[ScottD]

6 minutes ago, asquared17 said:

ITS CRUISE DAY!!!!!!!!

Finished packing at approx 1115pm last night..we're definitely NOT those people in our FB group that have been bragging about being packed for 2 weeks already. Sorry, I don't have "vacation underwear" and "vacation tshirts"...I wear em all until the last minute,do wash snd shove em in the bags.  Family is still asleep, I already pulled the car in front of the house (Philly living...I was parked almost a block away from my house last night) loaded it up, and just re-parked a block in the other direction. Plan is to be on the road by 9, check in is at 11.  According to Ole Mr Googs,it's an 1:27 ride. So IF we left on time...which is looking very doubtful, we get there right around 1030, park and be right on time for check in. I'll keep you all posted on what time we ACTUALLY leave,and check in. 

[OCSC Mike]

5 minutes ago, ScottD said:

vacation tshirts

Eagles t-shirt today I assume?

I normally just grab 8-9 random t-shirts for cruises but for this one I might have to strategically plan based on which of my teams is playing when, lol. Orlando City will start the playoffs that weekend, Eagles Sunday, and possible NLCS/World Series if the Phils pull the upset again.

Save drive to the port!

[SweetPea]

Traffic should be good! I know. We just went in the opposite direction.  Boo.

[ScottD]

Well we didn't leave until like 1030 and boarded around 1230. Traffic was a little heavy since we got there so much later but still moved pretty smoothly.  Boarded, hit sorrentos as it is our "ritual" (we did it once before). Oh..I was really active in the FB group for this sailing and got recognized by two different families in the promenade...my wife wasn't sure if she was proud or really embarrassed. Grabbed the pain in the ass drink cups then decided to shoot up to 15 for a stroll...as we were on the elevator we noticed every one going to cabin only floors and realized we must've missed the rooms are ready announcement, so we jumped off on 14 and found the room.  Went upstairs for the end of the FB meet and greet/sailaway. My son started freaking out as we got to the bridge..swore we were gonna be the first ones to misjudge and slam that bridge. 

Anyway..just got back from dinner at mdr. Requested a window seat and actually got one! Great view as we ate, and it was all pretty good. Wife got fried chicken, son got NY strip and I devoured a prime Rib. I noticed that my favorite dessert wasn't mentioned on any night so I asked about it..and that warm chocolate chip cookie dish thing is no longer. So..we split cheesecake,Boston cream pie and a weird peanut butter bar thing.  Off to try and force the kid to AO and check out the adult comedy show. Oh, @OCSC Mike yep..we all had Eagles shirts on. Missed the OT but heard the EAGLES chant from playmakers up on the pool deck when they won!

[OCSC Mike]

33 minutes ago, ScottD said:

we all had Eagles shirts on. Missed the OT but heard the EAGLES chant from playmakers up on the pool deck when they won!

Weird game but they won. Washington should have gone for 2 but happy they didn't. That's cool to have a large contingent of people rooting for your team onboard. Down here, I guess maybe Florida or FSU would have a lot of support on a CFB Saturday but that's about it. Local news talks about Tampa and Miami... but no one in Orlando cares about other pro teams just b/c they're in the state unless they're from there.

Glad you got a window table and the MDR was better than reported. Looking forward to reading more about non-Star Class stuff (I love you Star Class bloggers, you know that, but I like reading about food I'll actually eat too, lol).

[Xaa]

12 hours ago, ScottD said:

Grabbed the pain in the ass drink cups

I don't mind the cups.  Oddly, Freestyle coke machines are a benefit of a Royal Caribbean cruise and missed more than you would think on others.  I'm a soda fiend so I'm never carrying mine empty.  Always has some Diet Coke Lime in there.  Then I abandon it before dinner and just get regular glasses at dinner and after.

[OCSC Mike]

47 minutes ago, Xaa said:

Freestyle coke machines

I'm cheap and only but 2L bottles (of store brand, lol) at home... but I had a free soda from somewhere as an app reward and they had a Freestyle machine. I think I took 5-10 mins to pick out my free drink, lol. Too many choices for someone who just drinks generic Diet Sprite at home.

[Xaa]

It's like any new technology @OCSC Mike, there's a learning curve before the efficiency gains are realized.  I remember fumbling through it my first time seeing one at a Wendy's several years ago.  Now I move through it quite easily.

[LandstromCruise]

4 minutes ago, Xaa said:

It's like any new technology @OCSC Mike, there's a learning curve before the efficiency gains are realized.  I remember fumbling through it my first time seeing one at a Wendy's several years ago.  Now I move through it quite easily.

I owned a restaurant that put these machines in about 12 years ago when they were really new.  When we first did it we actually had an employee stand at the machines to teach people how to use them.  And the amount of wasted product was crazy.  People would stand there and put some concoction together, taste it, and then dump it out and do something different.  People did love the machines though.  

[OCSC Mike]

12 minutes ago, Xaa said:

It's like any new technology @OCSC Mike, there's a learning curve before the efficiency gains are realized.  I remember fumbling through it my first time seeing one at a Wendy's several years ago.  Now I move through it quite easily.

LOL, the issue was me seeing 20 different drinks that looked appealing and not being able to decide than having technical difficulties. Even narrowing it down to diet/zero sugar, there were like 10 different flavored lemonades and all these flavored iced teas, in addition to normal sodas of course. I have issues choosing... that's why I'm such a WJ fan.

5 minutes ago, LandstromCruise said:

And the amount of wasted product was crazy.  People would stand there and put some concoction together, taste it, and then dump it out and do something different.

Yep, used to see that all the time at the movie theater we used to frequent, especially with kids.

@ScottD Sorry for the hijack, just eagerly awaiting your next post. I'm guessing cruising is getting in the way of blogging... priorities man!

[ScottD]

I do love the freestyle machine..great to have other options. I'll usually fill it once in twice a day but once it gets left in the room by late afternoon...it's staying there. 

Forgot to add that since we have a casita for day 3..the best day to get it,in my opinion due to the fact that we don't dock until about 1pm so we get it for a port day price but have it a majority of the day while at sea. But thanks to the fine people here on RCblog, I knew to go reserve it on night one and not wait like it tells you to. Got the one we wanted (and 4 others already had reserved at that point). 

Not much about last night..saw the adult comedy show,it was funny. One guy was just making fun of the crowd the whole time (me,with my giant beard got called out a few times). The other guy was all ship based humor...making fun of door decorators and dock runners. Our son was passed out when we got back to the room but I knew he wanted to do the balloon drop so we woke him up JUST in time to get down for midnight. Wouldn't ya know he's jumping on the balloons and BOOM...he comes down hard on his ankle,starts crying and all. Got him upstairs and it seemed fine after a few minutes. I'll see when he's moving around later.

I'll make my Monday morning so far a separate post...lol.

[Xaa]

7 minutes ago, LandstromCruise said:

I owned a restaurant that put these machines in about 12 years ago when they were really new.  When we first did it we actually had an employee stand at the machines to teach people how to use them.  And the amount of wasted product was crazy.  People would stand there and put some concoction together, taste it, and then dump it out and do something different.  People did love the machines though.  

I hear ya.  I don't kid myself that there is a flavor combination that I might discover at this point of my journey.  I'm just thankful to have access to the entire existing flavor universe.  Wendy's is seriously the only place where I can get Diet Coke Lime.  

Even without my favorite flavor, I really like just being self service throughout the day on the ship.  I drink enough that ordering them all through the day would be annoying to me.

[OCSC Mike]

Just now, ScottD said:

One guy was just making fun of the crowd

The kind we like.

1 minute ago, ScottD said:

The other guy was all ship based humor

The kind that make me want to walk out. We get it, cabins are small and cruisers eat a lot.

[ScottD]

A little background on my family...they both like to sleep. That's it.  I woke uo around 7am, showered and took notice that the little map channel-we keep that on at night for music and light-showed us REALLY close to the coast of VA, looked off the balcony and saw a ton of cargo ships and bouys..stuff I wouldn't expect to see this far out. Not a minute later the captain comes on and said at around 3am he turned around and started heading to the coast for a critical medical issue and eventually the coast guard pulled aside In a small vessel and took them.  

I walked up to WJ,enjoyed a little solo breakfast and brought the family back some danish/donut/cereal to eat at their leisure. 

[ScottD]

Just realized I haven't posted many pics, so here's the few that I've actually taken... Oasis as we pulled up in Bayonne, my sons "tradition" as we board, our dinner table window, and a few mocktails ive tried. I swore I'd take a lot of pics,  but i ate my dinner and realized i took no pics of it, and realized about 9 mocktails in that i took no pics..so ill probably over-do it with pics today.   

[SweetPea]

41 minutes ago, ScottD said:

and BOOM...he comes down hard on his ankle,starts crying and all.

I hope your son is ok! 

[ScottD]

Not much to add for the day. We made it kind of a lazy day, ships been rocking pretty heavily since yesterday. Still swaying a lot at almost 9pm tonight. Captain also announced we are having a very slight propulsion issue and it'll slow us down enough to cause about an hour delay to PC tomorrow.  No biggie for us. Had some lunch at WJ..me and the boy had burgers and chicken fingers, I added some mac and cheese and he got spaghetti.  All was fine...nothing to write home about, nothing to complain about. The Mac was really good,though.  Wife and I went to the Love and marriage show, the "old" couple was married 62 years, and were frickin hilarious.  That was the first time we've actually gone to one and it was definitely fun.

One thing I noticed between this cruise and the one in January is the people. The people on this one have been a bit ruder,kids a bit less....watched I guess. 

Also.. @SweetPeathank you for asking,the kid seems fine. Hasn't even mentioned it...even after we've played about 7 rounds of that damn mini golf. 

[SweetPea]

I'm glad kiddo seems ok. 

Sounds like despite the medical reroute and propulsion issue, you're still having a great cruise. 

Also, I'm assuming you all have adequate underwear so there's that. 

[asquared17]

1 hour ago, ScottD said:

The people on this one have been a bit ruder,kids a bit less....watched I guess. 

ah yes… the alarming new trend we are all fast discovering. i was hoping this would not be the case for your sailing. 

[Ampurp85]

I just got caught up, glad your son was okay. At his age he can bounce back quicker than us pre-vintages/vintages. 

I notice as a whole people seem to be just entitled. This experience/vacation/whatever is only for them. No. In this case it is 6K people's experience/vacation/whatever.

[ScottD]

Oh yeah..forgot about dinner. Man, I'm bad at this..ha. Dinner was French night, we all kinda shared between Butternut squash soup (didn't love it) beef tenderloin (really enjoyed it) and the cordon Bleu (pretty good..would try again). Desserts were Apple crumble with ice cream and creme Brule. Both good..I loved the apple crumble,wife thought the brule was just ok. 

Sidenote: our room attendant has been great, drops ice off twice a day,made the room up at night. Thought it was funny that her welcome speech included "if you smoke..do it on the balcony and I see nothing"

I'll catch up on comments and add some more pics in the morning!

[Lovetocruise2002]

10 hours ago, ScottD said:

Butternut squash soup (didn't love it)

I tried this on Liberty and I had high hopes for it. I love basically anything butternut squash. However, on Liberty, it tasted more like baby food. It was so thick and overly sweet. I did not care for it either.

[ScottD]

Had some propulsion issues, told us that it would delay us a little but we ended up getting to PC only about 30 minutes late. We did the ole free room service continental breakfast today. Besides the English muffin being harder than a rock,the rest was edible. Wife had the Casita today so got her settled in, hung out back and forth between casita, mini golf with the kid and just killed time until we docked. 

I had already planned on bringing the boy to a mini golf/gator farm place down the road from the port. What I wasn't sure of was how we were getting there. My cheap ass figured out the city bus brought us right there and cost me 5 bucks round trip for both of us. The problem with getting in late and taking a bus was that we missed Mexican night at MDR. When we returned, wife was sleeping and we were starving. So...pizza it was..again. lol. I swear This kid eats 2-3 slices everytime we pass sorrentos. 

Had reservations for Aqua80 at 8pm but we decided we'll see it later, and grabbed a table at playmakers for some wings and fingers to watch the Phillies playoff game. Then the craziest thing happened. The server just stared at my wife for a second then said "you were here before" to which she responded, yeah we stopped in yesterday. He goes on to say "no...a few months ago,I remember all three of you"  he said he remembered that my wife was a bartender and thanked us because he saw the great reviews we left for him and the rest of the playnajers crew back in February. So that was pretty cool..I can't remember people I work with for years and this guy sees thousands of people a month and remembered us 9 months later. Anyway...the wings were really good and he brought us free onion rings which was a nice surprise.  Oh...and the Phillies just won which makes the end of  this whole day a great one. 

[OCSC Mike]

12 minutes ago, ScottD said:

I swear This kid eats 2-3 slices everytime we pass sorrentos. 

Getting an early start. I like his style.

13 minutes ago, ScottD said:

this guy sees thousands of people a month and remembered us 9 months later.

That’s impressive. I was surprised when we went on Indy about 3 months apart last year & a few crew members remembered us. Also nice to hear the surveys matter.

Phils win + free onion rings > MDR.

[SweetPea]

6 hours ago, OCSC Mike said:

Phils win + free onion rings > MDR.

 Hard to beat that!

[OCSC Mike]

1 hour ago, SweetPea said:

 Hard to beat that!

Now if he doesn't watch tonight's game in Playmakers and they lose I'll know why.

Orlando City plays at 8:30 tonight so I'll be double-screening.

[ScottD]

Picture dump! I took a pic of the chicken fingers but not the wings...ehhh...you all know what they look like!

[OCSC Mike]

1. Love the t-shirt game. That's the planning I was talking about, lol.

2. I already know while  your son was holding the baby gator he was thinking "This is cool but I can't wait to get back to Sorrento's."

3. Very nice sunrise/sunset.

[asquared17]

omg the baby gator!!

love the cabana and the sunset 

that baby towel animal!!!!

….why am i weirdly compelled by these chicken fingers? clearly i’ve been away from the cruise life for too long

[ScottD]

@OCSC Mikeyep..all Eagles on day 1..all Phillies for night 3. Had that all planned out!  And yes,we got back on the ship and it dumped us out onto the promenade, so of course he may a beeline to pizza. 

@asquared17the chicken fingers were awesome..love when it's actual chunks of breaded chicken and not just those flat things you get in diners.  The towel animal was well done, last trip everytime I touched them to move them,they fell apart..lol. this one is still kicking 2 days and multiple moves later. 

The gator place was fun..you play mini golf then you can pay for a picture with the alligator (we went with the mid-priced option at 15 bucks for 2 small magnets) then you can pay like 3 or bucks for a cup of cut up hotdogs that you attach to a string on a pole,and you basically taunt a pond full of these little guys until they jump out and rip the weiner chunks off the string. 

 

Well we've been docked at PDCC for about an 1.5 hrs and people are finally getting off...back to that "NY family Likes to sleep" thing. We had real room service breakfast (eggs,pancakes, lots of sides)...which I over ordered and I feel terrible. The little card says to write a quantity next to each item...we wanted 3 scrambled eggs and 3 pancakes...NOT 3 ORDERS of each! So this poor lady just kept bringing tray after tray in..lol. with the sides and toasts..it was 8 plates plus the drinks and spreads. Anyway,after that,  the family rolled back over and are both still out! I already took a stroll up top to take some pics, but it's time for me to start ripping covers off. Here's some pics from sunrise, a small portion of breakfast,  construction side and fun side of PDCC and pulled up next to Indy who had a 2 hour head start on us.

[teddy]

We made that mistake ordering breakfast one time.  So much food.  
 

Glad your cruise is going well. Thank you for bringing us along. 

[OCSC Mike]

23 minutes ago, ScottD said:

we wanted 3 scrambled eggs and 3 pancakes...NOT 3 ORDERS of each! So this poor lady just kept bringing tray after tray in..lol. with the sides and toasts..it was 8 plates plus the drinks and spreads.

LOL. Hope you have room for the CocoCay food later. I eat so much there that's the one morning I actually have a small breakfast.

[ScottD]

So...after waiting for these two to wake up, wife decides she's gonna skip coco cay, so me and the boy head out around 1215. We never saw south beach last time,so we trek all the way over there. Took us a few minutes,but finally found a lounger to throw our bag on. Brought the snorkel because he loved it last time, but the water on this side was a bit murky. So after about 10 minutes we go grab some funnel cake and mozzarella sticks for our walk to chill island. Get in there,water a little better but he decided he was gonna save snorkeling for blue lagoon island tomorrow.  We do another 30 minutes or So in the water and I realize I want food. We hit the buffet, hot dog and fries for him, bbq chicken,burger and,because I'm obligated, a cheesesteak. @OCSC Mike,at least it wasnt purple. Everything was fine..except the cheesesteak, could've done without that thing. A little upset with myself that I didn't get a shack chicken sandwich. We decided to check out that lagoon area,but as we walked by he told me he was over it. We were back on the ship by 2-230ish. So...2 visits to coco cay for a total of maybe 5 hours. 

Back to the ship, showers then dinner. Caribbean Night...again, the wife was still not feeling great so skipped dinner. I got the pulled pork  bao tacos and jerk pork chops w/fried plantains. I was going for the chicken but was told it was really spicy, got the pork chops and they were pretty spicy..so I'm really glad i didn't get the chicken if he called that the spicy dish. The kid is  feeling like steak dinner makes him all hoity toity,so he got another NY strip. 

Night plans were,once again, derailed by the Phillies playoff games..had reservations to see One Sky,but...nope. lol. I hope we didn't miss much but reviews seem to confirm we made the right choice.