Quick Review: Oasis of the Seas, October 2017

Another cruise in the books.  We can now say we have sailed on all the Oasis Class ships, at least until next Fall when Symphony of the Seas debuts.  Don't worry, we're looking at bookings for that one as well.

Oasis in Labadee

I'm sure by now, you are all well aware of all the innovations introduced with the Oasis Class of ships so I won't go into much detail.  If you haven't been on one of these engineering wonders, you really should try it.  I know there are some people who are very wary of these ships because they carry almost 10,000 people (6,296 max passengers and 2,394 crew) but they never feel overcrowded to me.  At times, the Windjammer Café may be a bit crowded at lunch and breakfast but there are other options for those meals (Café Promenade, Sorrentos, Park Café, Wipeout Café, etc) that most people avoid or don't seem to know about.  There is just so much to do and so many venues, that no one spot is ever really overcrowded.

This was a Western Caribbean itinerary with stops in Labadee, Falmouth, and Cozumel.  We've been to all 3 more than once so nothing new to report there.

Embarkation was quick and easy.  Oasis moved to Port Canaveral last year which made it nice and convenient for us to get to.  We were at the port by about 11:20AM and after dropping off our luggage and parking the car, we wound up onboard by 11:45AM.  Our cabin was a Central Park balcony cabin, a first for us.  It's a bit weird having other balconies on the other side of Central Park facing you, and not seeing the ocean.  A couple of times, I looked out and thought to myself, "what ship is that parked next to us in port?".  Of course, it was just the other cabins across Central Park.  Mainly, we booked the cabin because it came with some perks.  You receive a free bottle of wine, free gaming lessons, and a free lunch at Giovanni's Table, Chops, Sabor, or Johnny Rockets.  We don't gamble much so we didn't take advantage of the gaming lessons and the wine was nothing special.  Lunch at Sabor was good. 

View of Central Park from our balcony.

For this cruise we decided to buy the 3 meal specialty dining package.  For $85 per person you get 3 meals at any of the specialty restaurants, excluding 150 Central Park.  Considering that Chops alone is $50 per person, this is a good deal.  We ate at Chops, Giovanni's Table, and Izumi.  The highlight was definitely Izumi.  Chops and Giovanni's were very, very good but we've done those before.  This was our first visit to Izumi and the entire meal was excellent.  Izumi is an a' la carte menu but when you buy this package, they give you a credit per person, $39 each I believe.  You can choose either the Sushi side or the Hibachi side.  We did the sushi and it was fantastic.

There was some excitement and confusion on the morning of day 2, which was supposed to be a sea day, when we awoke to the captain announcing we would be docking in Nassau in about an hour due to a medical emergency.  At some time during the night, a passenger apparently took a spill and required more medical attention than they could provide onboard.  The decision was made to divert to Nassau on our way to Labadee in order to offload the passenger so they could get proper treatment.  We docked in Nassau right next to Allure of the Seas and offloaded the passenger to a waiting ambulance.  We only stayed there for about an hour and then we were back on our way.  Too bad since it would have been cool to get off at the port and get a couple of pictures of the sisters next to each other.  This stop delayed our arrival to Labadee by about 2 hours so the captain announced that we would stay 2 hours later to make up for that.  The good news is that we heard that the passenger that was offloaded was doing fine.  Good to hear.

Allure of the Seas in Nassau

The big change with us this cruise was that this was our first cruise as "Diamond" level on the Crown & Anchor Society loyalty program.  This is where the perks start getting real good.  Each night, there is a "Happy Hour" in the Diamond Lounge for all Diamond and above members from 4:30PM to 8:00PM.  During this "Happy Hour", you can get free drinks from a limited (not top shelf) menu, free sodas and bottled water, and there is a little buffet set up with hors d'oeuvres and other snacks.  If you can't make it to the lounge, you can still get 3 free drinks from the allowed menu at any bar onboard.  This is a pretty nice perk and the lounge was packed every night.  In fact, there was something like 600 passengers onboard who were Diamond or above, so they opened the Blaze nightclub during the "Happy Hour" each night for overflow.  We met so many wonderful people on this cruise, mostly during this event.

As usual, we had a wonderful time.  We love the ship and the crew was awesome.

One little tidbit of info on future cruises from Port Canaveral.  Our captain mentioned that Oasis would leave from Port Canaveral until 2019 and she will then go back into dry dock for freshening up.  He seemed to hint that Harmony of the Seas would take it's place in Port Canaveral after that.  He didn't mention her by name but he did say that it would be a ship 1 foot longer than Oasis. 

Hits:

• The ship is amazing, just like her sisters
• Diamond Club
• Muzik Express band in the Dazzles lounge.  Great band.
• The entire cruise staff was great, especially the bar crew in Blaze during the Diamond "Happy Hour".

Misses:

• Weather wasn't so great a couple of days.  Nothing we can do about that.
• Technical issues caused rescheduling of the Aqua Show a couple of times.  We weren't able to make any of the performances.  Too bad.  We loved the one on Harmony.