First ever cruise - Oasis Western Med. 28.07.24-04.08.24

[Plasticbrain]

By popular demand (I am looking at you @PPPJJ-GCVAB ) I will try to blog about our first ever cruise! 

First of all sorry for any typos/autocorrects from Norwegian

As I am writing this we are 12 hours away from departure from Kristiansand towards Barcelona

About me: 

For those of you who havent "met" me yet: Nice to meet you! 

I am Chris 39 from Kristiansand,Norway (half British as well!). I usually work with marketing and I write song lyrics.

I am going on a first ever cruise together with my mom (age 63) and my 2 daughters age 9 and 10. (I am a single parent) 

The cruise:

Oasis of the seas (WHAT a ship for our virgin cruise!) Western Meditteranean. Itinerary:

Day 1 (28 of July): Barcelona

Day 2 (29 of July): Mallorca

Day 3 (30 of july): Marseille (they alternate between sea day and port day on day 3, our cruise has port day)

Day 4 (31 of July): La Spezia (with connection to Florence/Piza)

Day 5 (1 of august): Civitavecchia (Rome)- this cruise is made up of cruises from Barcelona-Barcelona and Rome-Rome, so "half" the passengers will swap on this day, so many new people to meet! 

Day 6 (2 of August): Naples 

Day 7 (3 of august):  Sea day (our only sea day of the whole cruise!)

Day 8 (4 of august): Barcelona

 

Our travel plans (we are spending 3 days in Barcelona precruise, since my daughtwrs have never been there, it will be my third Time there and my moms 7th or something) :

July 25th: departure 04:30 Kristiansand-Amsterdam-Barcelona. Arrival 10:25 

July 26: Barcelona 

July 27: Barcelona

July 28/day 1: Barcelona (embark ship, early, we have the key) 

July 29/day 2: Mallorca - Beach

July 30/day 3: stay on ship, maybe a quick outing in Marseille

July 31/day 4: we were supposed to do Florence but due to my daughter having motion sickness (2 hours bus each way) and the foretatt saying 39 degrees celsius, we are just going for a stroll in La Spezia instead

August 1/day5: Rome like in a movie with lunch (full day excursion)

August 2/day 6: Capri/Casita - my mom want to go to Capri so she is taking the ferry there, whilst me and the girls have reserved a Casita for the day

August 3/day 7: Everyone is on the ship, wonder how full ut will feel..

August 4/day 8. Fly home at 11.30 from Barcelona, arrive home in Kristiansand at 17.30.

I will try to make one post with some pictures from each day, starting with Barcelona tomorrow. 

Hope you guys want to follow me/us, and feel free to ask questions.

-C-

[WAAAYTOOO]

YIPPEE !!!  You finally made it !  SOOOOO happy to hear that you are finally getting to cruise.  I look forward to hearing all about it.

Congratulations and have a GREAT time !

[Plasticbrain]

31 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

YIPPEE !!!  You finally made it !  SOOOOO happy to hear that you are finally getting to cruise.  I look forward to hearing all about it.

Congratulations and have a GREAT time !

Thank you! Well, dont jynx it , still a few days until we are onboard, but fingers crossed. But yes, thabks for all the help. This will be so good! 

[Sweety]

Have an awesome cruise filled with amazing memories.

[asquared17]

hooray!!

what a fantastic trip this will be for you and your girls!! (and your mom )

[Mish]

Cheers!  We will be there too! We will be coming from Northern California, near the Golden Gate.  We also reserved a Casita, not sure yet if we will keep the reservations.  This will be the first cruise for our two kids, ages 13 and 16. They now say they want to see it all, every port, very town, every pizza and gelato there is to me had along with the culture and history.  BUT the heat might have something to say about it!  Anyway, we will be on the look out.  We have the Key as well and Anytime dining.

[PPPJJ-GCVAB]

I’m here!  Can’t wait to follow along!  Sooo excited for this one!

[Plasticbrain]

11 hours ago, Mish said:

Cheers!  We will be there too! We will be coming from Northern California, near the Golden Gate.  We also reserved a Casita, not sure yet if we will keep the reservations.  This will be the first cruise for our two kids, ages 13 and 16. They now say they want to see it all, every port, very town, every pizza and gelato there is to me had along with the culture and history.  BUT the heat might have something to say about it!  Anyway, we will be on the look out.  We have the Key as well and Anytime dining.

Awesome. See you at the welcome lunch then maybe. Or if you guys need a teammate for the Harry Potter trivia look no further (I just Might have read the books around 70 times...) 

 

[Plasticbrain]

July 25th - Barcelona

So we started from home at 04:25, and landed in Barcelona 10:30. 

First experience when we landed is do not order taxi service from booking.com in Barcelona (only reason I used it is to reach top tier of the genius  loyalty program) 

1. The guide from the taxi company was 5 minutes late (10 really because we were 5 minutes late ourself) 

2. The driver was 10 minutes later than that, and he just had to answer some messages before he could start driving. 

3. He was definitely not a licensed taxi, he could not drive in the bus/taxi lane, so he used loads of extra time 

So a taxi trip that should have talen 45 mins, took 1,5 hours... and as a person who has trouble with changes and stress, the fact that we had to rush the rest of our day was not fun...

We arrived at the hotel at 12 (could not get room until 14, which was fine, but he offered ro check us in to save time). We then went to Primark to shop and spent 200 euros (clothes in Norway are SO expensive, back home it would easily be double that) 

After primark we went back to the hotel, but the lady had to spend a lot of time anyways, so the checkin thing did not work, also they aaid our room was not ready. It ended up with us having to run to our lunch reservation, luckily we are in Southern europe, so they are not as rigid with time here... (last time i was really happy with our hotel - Hotel Barcelona Cathedral, this time has not started superb..) 

We ate lunch at Antic Tapes Ferran. Really good food and service

After lunch me and the girls went to Barcelona Zoo (mom did some shopping). It was nice! We also got some candy toogoodtogo from Papabubbles, and some crazy taiwanese icecream from "Snowmonster". 

Before going out for dinner the girls took a quick swim in the hotels rooftop pool. 

We ate dinner at Los Carcaroles, the food was good, but I have never ever experienced so much broken crockery and glass in one evening ever (I counted 3 broken glasses, and 2 plates of food straight to the floor, you guessed it - that was the food for me and my oldest, so the wait got long (at least they Gave us some tapas for free), and one kid falling off his chair, that one was not the waiting staffs fault though) Sigrid Elise (age 10) rated the day "thumbs up", Sofia Marie (age 9) rated it "so,so" (like me, she is sensitive, so she also get stressed about things, and she is not used to all the rushing/walking) 

But hey, we are here in lovely warm Barcelona. And things can only improve now, right?

Simce neither me nor the girls have gotten more than maybe 3 hours sleep in the last 24, I say good night now (23/11pm). And will try to post again tomorrow evening.

-C-

 

 

[FionaMG]

Glad you made it! Have an amazing time.

[Plasticbrain]

July 26th- Barcelona

A much better day today!

Note to self: dont make time specific plans first day of arrival with sleep deprived kids and dad. It is a wonder what sleep and food can do. 

Today we started the day by going to Parc Guell. We spent time relaxing at the hotel, and in the afternoon I Surprised the girls with a trip to "Bubble planet Experience" (SO worth it! They were thrilled)

For dinner we ate at Tlaxcal mexican. Lovely tacos. 

Only downside is that my back really hurts, I got 5 "jolts" of lower back pain today. The girls made fun of me and compared me with Edna form the Incredibles (or something like that, have no idea what that means)

 

[PPPJJ-GCVAB]

Back pain is the worst!  I’ve had disc issues for most of my adult life.  Lower back and cervical.  I did have cervical disc surgery, called ACDF, 23 years ago and only in the last few have I felt like another disc is impinging on my spine.  So a good 21 years of relief…amazing.  At my age now…not sure I would agree to another neck surgery as that one was extremely tough.

Just relax when you can and take it easy.  

[Plasticbrain]

July 27 - Barcelona

Last day in Barcelona (off ship at least)

Today was ok, not as bad as day 1 in Barcelona, but not as good as yesterday. 

We started off the day by going to Tibidabo Mountain. We were supposed to go to the amusement park, but apperently the "single-parent FAMILY ticket" I got was for one person so I would had have to get 3 tickets, after getting admittance from the ticket clerk that this is "misleading" he still would not give us 3 tickets, so we just left.

Just to see: If a ticket is called single-parent family ticket would you guess you would have to get 1 for each family member? 

We went down the hill to the Cosmocaixa science museum instead (we were supposed to go there anyways, but we got to spend longer there, and got earlier back to the hotel than planned. Which was good since I got a bad headache and the girls needed naps. Now there is no headache or backpain and we are getting ready to pack out of the hotelroom. Tomorrow morning we are boarding the ship. Now the real adventure begins. 

 

Hope you will follow me for the next 8 days

 

-C-

[asquared17]

it’s cruise day!!!!!

[Plasticbrain]

July 28th Barcelona/Oasis

Cruise Day!!!! 

So we arrived quite early (I had baked in a 45 minute window in case the driver did not come or something like that) but hey, he arrived 10 minutes early. We had to wait around 40 minutes at the terminal before we could check in, but hey, guess who was first through check in? We were! We were not completely first on ship since we stopped for photos, but still we were onboard around 10.35 so we had plenty of time. We were also first into and out of The Key lunch. Aside from doing 2 trips to guest services (first was to Block the kids from spending money, second was because that blocked my account, because apparently my card was registered on my kids account), and having to call on stateroom attendant twice (1. Beds were not separated as they should have been 2. The kids had no sheets on their sofabed, so minor things) Day 1 was AMAZING. The staff are so friendly and we have had loads of good food and drinks. We have even had time for pool, arcade, rock climbing, carousel and adventure ocean, and we might go for the ballon drop depending on if we can stay awake 1 hour longer (mom is asleep so definitely no balloons for her, me and the kids are still up...)

I reckon we have had in total 9 refills on the soda machine, 5 mocktails, 5 sodas in the restaurant, 1 frappuccino and 2 milkshakes on day 1, unsure if the refreshment package (we paid 30$ pp per day) was worth it on day one, but I am sure it will be in the coming days. 

The stateroom is very nice, and quiet, and we actually got everything placed nicely. 

So all in all a GREAT first day. 

 

 

[WAAAYTOOO]

Wow !  That’s a very busy first day !  Congrats on making it !

[PPPJJ-GCVAB]

What an exciting and active start to this awesome cruise for your daughters!  They are adorable.

[MaryS]

Your girls are so cute!  Looks like you all are having a great 1st day.

[Plasticbrain]

4 hours ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Wow !  That’s a very busy first day !  Congrats on making it !

 

3 hours ago, PPPJJ-GCVAB said:

What an exciting and active start to this awesome cruise for your daughters!  They are adorable.

 

1 hour ago, MaryS said:

Your girls are so cute!  Looks like you all are having a great 1st day.

Thanks! They are the best. Yes it was active, I think we all fell asleep minutes after I wrote the post, so no balloons for us... (my youngest will be disappointed, but we needed the sleep since we are getting up at 06, well I woke up at 03.30, but they are still asleep). Looking forward to day 2

[Plasticbrain]

July 29th/day 2 - Mallorca

Wow, first of all, I feel we have done so much already it feels the cruise is almost over, but in reality we have only done 2 days (one pf which started late) and have 5 full days left! Wow! 

We started by having some donuts (for the kids) and Coffee (for the adults) delivered to our room before we went to Solarium Bistro for breakfast (so nice, and since we went right after they opened at 06.30, we had the place almost entirely for ourselves)

Then we did the extended beach excursion to Palma Nova beach. Me and Sofia (my youngest) were supposed to go Parasailing, but a week ago we got notice they had to cancel and refund due to staff having to pass mandatory medical examination. So with no activity the extended excursion felt too long (even if I went for a walk to a barber shop for a shave). But the girls and especially my mom enjoyed the sun, so it was fine.

Back aboard we ate at El Loco or as Sigrid now calls it "my place" (she loves her tacos) 

After that the girls did some ice skating before we got all dressed up and ready for formal night. Main dining was good, the apple crumble = YUM

Me and the girls finished the day by going to "Hector is magic", they enjoyed it a lot. I am glad we have Aqua 80s scheduled for tomorrow and not tonight (the 21 show tonight was cancelled and the 23 show had to stop at 23.30. Both due to "technical difficulties" from our room (7319 is close to Aqua theater) we could hear the music, and they had to restart a song 3 times, so something was very wrong (15 minutes of Tainted love anyone? ) 

Now everyone except me is sleeping, so from somewhere in between Mallorca and Marseille at 23:49: GOOD NIGHT 

-C-

[OCSC Mike]

5 minutes ago, Plasticbrain said:

Solarium Bistro for breakfast

6 minutes ago, Plasticbrain said:

Back aboard we ate at El Loco

My daily routine!

I also tend to have those donuts (or another pastry) with my coffee before breakfast but I'm a big kid.

Keep enjoying!

[Plasticbrain]

6 minutes ago, OCSC Mike said:

My daily routine!

I also tend to have those donuts (or another pastry) with my coffee before breakfast but I'm a big kid.

Keep enjoying!

Nice. Breakfast at Solarium was very nice. And donuts in the morning is too hardcore for me , but on cruise being a big kid is a good thing. At least I think so?

[OCSC Mike]

5 minutes ago, Plasticbrain said:

on cruise being a big kid is a good thing. At least I think so?

Sure... it's only when I cruise... let's go with that...

[Sweety]

Loving your action filled cruise. Your pictures are great.

[SynEpona]

On 7/24/2024 at 8:01 AM, Plasticbrain said:

By popular demand (I am looking at you @PPPJJ-GCVAB ) I will try to blog about our first ever cruise! 

....

Hope you guys want to follow me/us, and feel free to ask questions.

-C-

We will also be on our family's first cruise, same ship, but from Rome, next month and I've been debating a liveblog Thank you for starting yours, it's been a good read while we're working on final tasks, packing and squeezing in one more camping trip, before we head to Rome from Canada. Your daughters look like they are having a fabulous time!

[Plasticbrain]

3 hours ago, SynEpona said:

We will also be on our family's first cruise, same ship, but from Rome, next month and I've been debating a liveblog Thank you for starting yours, it's been a good read while we're working on final tasks, packing and squeezing in one more camping trip, before we head to Rome from Canada. Your daughters look like they are having a fabulous time!

Thank you! You should totally do a liveblog! 

[GregD]

I'm glad you are having a great time. Oasis is one of my favorite ships, I've had nothing but amazing cruises on her, don't listen to @asquared17 about her being cursed. FWIW, I loved walking around Kristiansand when I cruised to Norway a few years back! My kids keep asking when are we going back. 

[Plasticbrain]

3 hours ago, GregD said:

I'm glad you are having a great time. Oasis is one of my favorite ships, I've had nothing but amazing cruises on her, don't listen to @asquared17 about her being cursed. FWIW, I loved walking around Kristiansand when I cruised to Norway a few years back! My kids keep asking when are we going back. 

About to write todays post, speaking of cursed... so maybe, just maybe @asquared17 has a point.. anyway you should totally come back to Kristiansand. The new art silo just opened right by the cruise port, and it is amazing! 

[Plasticbrain]

Day 3/30.07 - Marseille 

The girls slept in today, so we did a late breakfast in the Windjammer (It was Packed!) After that we spent a couple of hours on pool deck (today I really used my refreshment pack, total of 7 mocktails today for me alone plus coffee and ofcpurse soda from the freestylemachine) 

After getting "boiled" me and the girls watched cartoon (Migration) at the aquatheatre. Then we ate lunch at park cafe and played some chess in the park. In the afternoon Sigrid wanted to bathe some more, so mom took her, while me and Sofia played cards and went exploring. Que arcade story:

Ok om day 1 the girls spent quite a bit of time in the arcade, there was this really hyperactive boy there. He started hitting the Machines when he lost and he ran away with one of the balls for the bowling machine. Sigrid lost 2 credits since there was no ball in the machine. On day 2 the same boy was in the arcade making havoc (he was around 11 according to my girls who are way better at determinimg kids ages than I am) We reported the boy to the first staff we found, but not the lost credits. Today when Sofia wanted to play, in addition to the 30% broken Machines she lost credits both on the bowling machine and on a claw machine (que tears), so I talked to guest services (4th time in 3 days...), they refunded the credits and told me the boy had been banned from Arcade, many people had reported him and they had him on camera.. btw the Arcade on Oasis smell really moist or something. 

Later on the girls were getting some sweets from Sugar Beach (I had promised them for the movie, but they did not open until 18), Sofia had like a 25% full bag, but when we walked back straight after purchasing it the bag split in the corridor of our stateroom (que more tears, Sofia is a sensitive child with very strong emotions) I took pictures of the sweets all over the hallway and ran straight down to Sugar Beach, when I showed him pictures he found the 2 sorts she had lost and filler the bag way over halffull, that is service for you! And by the time I got up the have already vacuumed the hallway(Que happy kid) 

At 19:30 we did our private photosessiom, the photographer took us to the park, the boardwalk and the viewpoint on the running track for pictures. We were supposed to view them tomorrow at 19:30 but... (que curse and add the arcade and candy cases) BOTH aqua 80s shows tonight was cancelled as well, I heard someone say it was some issues with the lights. So our show for today at 23 was moved to tomorrow at 19.30 instead... 

We ate dinner at 21 in main dining, lovey as usual. Our waiter at dining (due to my mushroom allergy we have the same waiter and table at my time dining, and I preorder the night before to avoid cross contamination) is Amazing, so is our stateroom attendant, I mean everyone (maybe except one store lady) is so serviceminded and friendly, but those 2 go above and beyond. 

After dinner me and Sigrid went for a walk in the park to get some "daddy and Sigrid time" as I write this the 3 others are sleeping. 

Good night! 

 

-C-

 

 

[GregD]

29 minutes ago, Plasticbrain said:

BOTH aqua 80s shows tonight was cancelled as well,

Hopefully they get it sorted out. If you haven't guessed yet, its everyone's favorite, and if they tell you otherwise, they are lying. 

30 minutes ago, Plasticbrain said:

very strong emotions

Totally understand this! My youngest is the same, and I would have been doing the same as you, and having that bag refilled.

 

[WAAAYTOOO]

Your girls are so sweet.  

[Plasticbrain]

15 hours ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Your girls are so sweet.  

Yes they are! Thank you

[Plasticbrain]

Day 4/ 31 of July - La Spezia

We had originally planned to go to Florence, but the combination of a 38 degree forecast and a long bus ride for my daughter who gets motion sickness made us cancel it. So we slept in a bit and enjoyed a late breakfast in the Windjammer before going ashore to see a bit of La Spezia and to eat Gelato in Italy! My girls were fascinated by trees with Oranges on them, we do not Grow Oranges in Norway naturally... 

After La Spezia we spent some time on pool deck. Today we split for lunch, mom and Sofia had pizza from Sorrentos in the stateroom, whilst me and Sigrid went to El loco. Aftee lunch me and Sofia played minigolf and then me and the girls tried the Ultimate abyss (they loved it) before dinner we had our rescheduled Aqua 80s show, so we got to see it. I do feel that it would be better at night though, the light effects were not very visible at 19.30... 

We had dinner in the Main dining room at 21 (btw our excellent waiter is called Syaaba (hope I spelt it right) and our hardworking stateroom attendant is called Joel! They both rock!!)

Aftee dinner we watched the One sky show, and now everyone is going to sleep. 

Another wonderful day! 

[Sweety]

Wonderful pictures.

[GregD]

Sounds like you had a great day!

[Plasticbrain]

Day 5/ 01 of august - Rome (Civitavecchia) 

We started early with breakfast at 06.30 in Solarium bistro. Then we went to our excursion at 8. We did the "a Walk into Roman historyvwith lunch" and I must say - WHAT a letdown! 

Lets take the positives: the driver was skilled and the bus excellent. The food was ok. And the co guide (who rode with the driver) was friendly and helpful. 

We also met (and shared lunch with) a lovely family from New Hampshire and a superfriendly guy from Canada. I am bad at remembering names so I am unsure about Mr Canada but I think he was called Mark or Michael. The New Hampshire family I am more certain of their names, they were Darren (dad) Lindsey (mom) Zac and Emma (hope I got thwir names right at least)

Now for the negatives.. the tour info States "tour with expert guide" and a lot of historical reenactments. (See pictures) what we got was:

A tour guide who knew almost nothing about the historisk buildings "this is a monumental building" (but for what?, mr Canada knew more than she did) add the fact she had to ask the way several times, googled info about the places we went to, and had poor english (and their radios were bad too, she changed 5 times) I would hardly call her an expert. Add to that the fact that the 5 historical reenactments with authentic clothes the tour promised was in fact 3 amateur level comedy acts/goofing around... 

If you have not guessed by now, me, Darren, Lindsey and Mr Canada went to shore excursions deck the minute we came back and filed a complaint. 

At least dinner was nice, right now I am contemplating whether or not I will go out for some dancing.

-C-

[FionaMG]

What a pity your excursion was disappointing. Given what you've described I hope they give you some money back. It's a very long way to go and lot of money to spend for it not to at least minimally meet expectations.

[WAAAYTOOO]

28 minutes ago, Plasticbrain said:

A tour guide who knew almost nothing about the historisk buildings "this is a monumental building" (but for what?, mr Canada knew more than she did) add the fact she had to ask the way several times, googled info about the places we went to, and had poor english (and their radios were bad too, she changed 5 times) I would hardly call her an expert. Add to that the fact that the 5 historical reenactments with authentic clothes the tour promised was in fact 3 amateur level comedy acts/goofing around... 

What a shame about this tour.  It is such a stark contrast with the wonderful tours that @Lovetocruise2002 had just a week ago !  I certainly hope you are compensated for that huge disappointment.

[Plasticbrain]

1 minute ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

What a shame about this tour.  It is such a stark contrast with the wonderful tours that @Lovetocruise2002 had just a week ago !  I certainly hope you are compensated for that huge disappointment.

We will see what happens.. thank you! 

[Plasticbrain]

14 minutes ago, FionaMG said:

What a pity your excursion was disappointing. Given what you've described I hope they give you some money back. It's a very long way to go and lot of money to spend for it not to at least minimally meet expectations.

We will see what happens, but I agree. Thank you