Oasis of the Seas - Cabin Photos

These cabin photos weren't taken until our last day so forgive the lived in look.

Our cabin door - still with an insert key lock

 We didn't even notice the doorbell for the first couple days. Above is two closets next to and opposite our door so we only had neighbors on one side.

Inside our cabin looking back at the door. It really felt like you walked the length of two cabins to move from space to space.

Our muster station was supposed to be the Aquatheater but those plans changed due to the weather.

It was quite the trial and error when it came to what light switch controlled what. The cabin really is set up for each of your extended family groups to have their own zones with separate light switches, thermostats, and safes. Below, our entryway left plenty of room to stow our empty suitcases. No need to force them under the bed or in a closet. Now if you had 6 other cabin mates, that might not work so well.

The door on the left is the secondary bathroom. To the right is a small closet behind that wood door with the first safe. By the bathroom door is the first thermostat control presumably for the living room space. We never did find a proper balance for any of the spaces.

This bathroom held an enclosed shower stall and decent counter space. Both bathrooms had enough spare L'Occitane products to take 20 showers a day if we wanted. I never used the conditioner since I don't use conditioner at home but I found the shampoo left my longer fine hair a little tangled and stringy. This was the bathroom Dad used exclusively since he wanted the enclosed bedroom. It took me until nearly the end of the cruise to realize that both showerheads not only slide up and down for height challenged people but it also pivots at the top so the water can either come straight down or at an angle from above. Spent many a shower trying to hold the sprayer in the inch of space between my head and the ceiling inside my bathtub shower and I'm only 5'7". Dad, who is less fluffy than me, said he had to prop open the shower door in order to bend down to wash his lower body.

With your back to the first bathroom, you can peer into the master (a.k.a. mine) bedroom. 

Just around the corner from the mirror in the above picture is this full closet. That thinner lower bar for hanging clothes also had hangers with smaller rounded tops just to fit that bar. Note that both this and the master bedroom closet had robes supplied. We never bothered trying them on. We took to tossing our dirty laundry into the bottom of this closet until we were ready to fill a laundry bag.

Dad's bedroom on the left, mine on the right. You could hear if the other person opened their door and walked around but it was quiet enough if one person wanted to stay up and watch TV or snored.

First up - my bedroom. A rarity for me to get to sleep in a full size normal bed on a cruise:

Plenty of storage and a flat screen TV I used for everything from late night channel surfing to fall asleep to constantly double checking our account balance. It was here that I'd notice how they'd always put our specialty restaurant tip charges on Dad's account, reverse it, and then add it to my account as the primary name. This was the case whether I signed the receipt or he did. And yes, even though there was no cover charge or upcharge for any specialty restaurant meal, we still had to sign a $0 total receipt. It was also here that I discovered we got charged erroneously for popcorn in the theater. One quick note to Smitha via the Loop got that cleared.

Since it was just me, I basically used up these two shelves for sunblock and meds; and the cabinet on the other side for shoes and underclothes. Tons more storage than I ever needed in this bedroom alone.

Yes, there is a second fridge behind the middle door under the TV in this master bedroom. However, as others have reported, it does get blocked from totally opening by the edge of the bed. Still opened enough to have me grab a water bottle for medication and any Vitamin Water I could desire. 

The cabinet on the far side also gets blocked by the edge of the bed:

Long stretch of open floor space leading from the side of the bed to the vanity area. To the left is yet another door leading to the balcony. For each of the floor to ceiling entrances to the balcony, there was this sheer curtain for daytime light and the darker brown thicker curtain for privacy and darkness for sleeping.

There is a light around the mirror plus the side mirrors open for tiny storage shelves. Also a moveable magnifying mirror for ladies to sit and enhance their beauty. 

And since everyone always asks about plug options - that's my Kindle charging so it fits big box plugs just fine. Also used these outlets to charge my phone via a USB converter plug with my charging cable. 

And for the first time on a cruise, a hair dryer that wasn't either attached to the wall or to the inside of the drawer!

Standing on the other side of the bed looking across the room. The open door is the door leading to the bathroom. As you can see, those four hooks on the inside of the door came in handy after our beach day at Labadee. The one drawback about the wardrobe style closets with mirror doors - you can only get the two right doors open if you fully close the bedroom door. Otherwise it swings open and bangs into the open closet door.

My closet had the same setup as the hallway closet with its own robe set. This is the inside of the first two doors.

This is the narrow third closet that requires the bedroom door to be closed in order to open fully. This is where I found it easiest to hang longer clothes like my dress. Note the 2nd safe in this closet. Below: the bedroom door fully closed from the inside. There was separate light switches for the balcony, the overhead recessed lightning and for the bedside lamps. I took to just turning on the bedside lamps until I got into bed and then could reach their switch from bed. Another thing to note if you're traveling with extended family: The bedroom doors themselves have no lock. No guarantee of privacy so either get really up close and personal with your family members or save the alone time for when everyone else is out of the cabin.

The nightstands on each side of the bed had a drawer and cabinet for storage. The silver box above in this picture is the tap switch for the bedside lamps. There was a single outlet behind each nightstand but it wasn't easy to get to. I just convinced myself that it was more beneficial if I was made to get all the way out of bed to turn off my phone alarm in the mornings and left it plugged in on the vanity counter.

My bathroom - keep in mind both bathrooms and the balcony entrances required a small step up to go in and out. One of the last days I misjudged the step into this bathroom and ended up kicking my bare toes into the door frame. Thankfully I caught myself by reaching out for the bathtub edge so the only thing that bruised was my knuckles. 

This bathtub was high as can be to get into. Not my most graceful moment each time having to brace my hands on the edge and swing one leg in at a time. No shortage of trash cans in this cabin either for trash or for purposes of showing height in a photo. One thing we'd forgotten since we read the tip about our first RCL cruise; while that small folded over towel worked great for a safe place to step onto with wet feet post shower, there is no traction whatsoever on the bottom of the tub. I had to move around in the shower very carefully using the grab bars and still would end up getting my feet caught on the bottom of the shower curtain. One plus though is that never once did the shower overflow and get onto the bathroom floor. I suppose with the height of this tub you'd have to plug it up and leave the water running till next week to achieve that.

For some reason my bathroom hit the jackpot for towel supplies. Again, if anyone was lacking, my yard sale booth will be open soon. I lacked a lot of counter space because in addition to the 4 full size hanging towels, I always had this stack of hand towels on the right and a stack of washcloths on the left. I took to stowing my travel kit on the shelf below and opened it on top of the closed toilet to get things out as needed. My kit has a zippered pouch on each side and zips totally open to lay flat.

My one source of natural light in the bedroom with all curtains drawn back. Here you can see the partition between ours and the balcony cabin next door. If our neighbors are reading this, I hope you enjoyed the view of our balcony. Several times I turned around and spotted a curious lookie loo craning around the partition. Served as a great reminder to close the curtain before I hopped into the shower.

Looking back from the vanity toward the bed. There was a phone in each bedroom and the living room but we found that when we got calls, only certain phones would ring?

A couple nights into the cruise, I figured out that taking the front pillows from each side and laying them upright in between lessened my ending up at the bottom of the covers by morning. The side of the bed I'm facing in the above picture and often used to get into bed was severely sloped and sunken in. I'd have to crawl in and then quickly shimmy into the middle of the bed. 

Moving on to the other bedroom. That's not a weird flash effect. That white space right by the door is the first Pullman bed mounted on the wall. You learn to go wide to enter this bedroom real quick. Dad said by the 2nd night he learned to just dive into bed from the center because it was too tight to walk around under the wall beds to pull the covers back.

Dad also had a TV, phone, hairdryer, and vanity mirror along with a handful of drawers he barely needed.

Looking back toward the bedrooms from the living room. I always felt like I was walking to another country whenever someone rang the bell.

Yet another trash can - they even supplied this fancy trash can on a pole too! You'll soon learn that a lot of my posts drip with humor and sarcasm. We did get offered a bottle of wine to have in our cabin but we turned it down since we're not big drinkers.

Our "dining room" - I made a constant joke throughout the week that I was in training to become a pole dancer since you had to swing around that white pole to walk around this table. I can't imagine trying to seat more than a couple people to eat at this table. There is cabinet space to store things along the wall behind the table but we just used the counter space to stow the snack remnants we wanted to keep for later.

Formerly appearing daily in cabin 8330 - it's Pole (itely)! My new stage name? 

Behind the pole is another entrance to the balcony.

Living room TV, PlayStation 3 (never used it although I was tempted) and wet bar with phone and coffee maker. We mostly just used these drawers to corral the extra Compass papers I wanted to keep till cruise end. We did get slightly different Coke Freestyle cups - one is a lighter blue cloud coloring than the other. I finally grabbed one randomly the last day just to say I tried using it and all it reported was that I had until 5/11/18 to use it. Never identified me by name like it did when I bought the soda package for myself on the last cruise. If you're partial to keeping your cup solely your cup, you may want to bring some sort of way to mark it like a hair tie wrapped around the center. I did hear from new trivia playing friends that the Windjammer Freestyle machines were frequently broken. When I finally used mine at the machine by Sorrentos, it was out of ice. The funny thing is that while we had all this extra silverware, the glasses we used to drink from the minibar (which is included in Star Class) didn't get replaced except for the last sea day when we got down to 1 left and found we'd been returned one more.

People always ask about coffee creamer and sugar choices and I aim to please even if I didn't use any of it.

This is the safe we used and you can see the extra drink supply stowed underneath. It is a keypad safe where you decide on the 4 digit code when you first use it. I found though that this safe door was super temperamental and would not close enough to latch properly if you held the door closed too tightly. It was a fine balance of barely holding the door closed with the tip of one finger while using my other hand to punch in the code. I think this safe needed more caressing than the genie lamp.

A full closet with the same setup as the others for those using the sofa bed to store their clothes. This was where we initially found the laundry bags to use.

The sofa that becomes a bed. The cushions along the far window are just single cushions held there by Velcro strips. One design flaw I found is that behind the couch is where the main lights and sounds from any movie or aquatheater show would come into the cabin the most. The couch being flush against the wall meant that the light blocking curtain you can see in the near left corner never got pulled across. I know a lot of people say that this cabin isn't bad for noise and light disruption except when there is a movie or show. What they don't tell you is that at least on our sailing, there was a new aquatheater show cast onboard so they practiced all the time with lots of stops and starts of the same music over and over. The flip side is the great vantage point for not only the show but also whenever the performers or entertainment staff used the rock wall floor space to practice and stretch. 

On the right is yet another balcony entrance. I can only imagine the time our across the way neighbors had keeping so many little ones from running out every balcony entrance.

This is the one balcony entrance we used the most as it was the easiest path to take a snack outside or to grab anything for relaxing on the balcony. Despite the noise, this was hands down the best balcony we've ever had on a cruise. A close second is the Regal Princess' aft wrap balconies but even those are just one big curve so you're always walking around the furniture.

Whenever we hung out on these loungers or dining table, I kept wanting to peek back through these windows into the cabin like I expected someone to walk in without us knowing.

Below is what my bedroom entrance looks like from the balcony side:

Sat here one evening in these chairs enjoying the changing colors of the sunset. What a lot of people say about forgetting you're on a ship because you rarely see the water is so true. Missed a lot of my usual sunset and sunrise photo moments this trip because I didn't see the water view most days.

Below is the door leading into the dining space. Those little shelves along the sloped partition made me want to store something there so bad.

You really can spy on people climbing the rock wall from here. I noticed a lot of staff stepping away to help someone who'd just walked up and other times the gate would just be left open to the wall area. 

I'm pleased to say that these loungers passed the fluffy person test! Regal Princess' teak loungers - not so much.

I'd like to introduce you to the dining room's cousin - Pole Jr.

Is it wrong that I fantasized about sliding down this wide post?

Lots of wide open space in front of the loungers. You had to pull a chair over or sit at the bar stools to get a decent view of the aquatheater shows but for a relaxing water view, the loungers is the place to be.

My family knows that by trip end, I usually end up not only counting up bruises from randomly injuring myself but will often have ones I don't even remember getting. One such clumsiness is sitting in these bar chairs pulled over in front of the railing to watch the show. Thought I could just tip forward and slide my feet down before lifting my booty off the seat. Nope - instead the chair tipped forward so abruptly I took a balcony railing to the gut. Thankfully no actual bruising but my abs felt like I'd done 200 crunches for the next day or so. Not so pleasant when you're trying to walk around in port and your camera hangs right at the same spot swinging back and forth. Definitely be mindful of any little ones on those bar stools. 

With my back to the door that leads behind the rock wall and thus why the door at the end of our hallway says "crew only."

Oasis of the Seas - Day 2 - Embarkation Day (Part 1)

Who can sleep in on the grandest of calendar days known as Embarkation Day?! Well, excitement mixed with the sounds of rolling luggage on brick and a cycling air conditioner woke me early this morning. I stepped out onto the walkway in front of our room (oops almost typed cabin) and watched the other families dragging luggage to their cars and a couple other guys who seemed to be playing musical cars in the parking lot. Sure, moving your car from one spot to another 2 spots over made all the difference! Did I mention I'm an obsessive cruise planning nerd? And who is an obsessive cruise planning nerd's greatest resource this day and age? YouTube! Whether you want a cabin tour, a ship tour, a travel vlog, or in this part of my story, a hotel review, chances are it's there. A lot of videos filmed at this hotel pointed out that the ships could be seen from your hotel room. Here's what greeted me this early morning:

Hmm, nice but not the one I'm looking for this morning:

Ahh yes, there she is:

It was just a little windy this morning with storms in the forecast. In case you couldn't tell by the palm trees looking like they were in a wind tunnel in my pictures. 

Dad didn't want to bother with breakfast so I started my day with the hearty energy snack known as Chex Mix that we'd picked out from an airport gift shop in between flights the day before. It's kind of like having cereal right? 

Mr. I Never Get To Sleep At Night was snoring away so I tried to keep myself entertained by playing games on my tablet. My interest kept returning back to Facebook and Cruise Critic however and reading all the fellow cruisers' reports on our roll calls about already heading to the port. I had tried to share Smitha's email of warning to delay arrival because of the Coast Guard inspection but I was met with the basic response of "I'm going early anyway." Honestly, I would have probably agreed if I was in their shoes. Sit around a hotel room waiting or sit around at the port, no real difference. By 10:40AM, the restlessness (and the housekeeper's blaring radio behind our connecting door) got the better of us and we headed down to the lobby to check out. A light sprinkle had started to fall as I waited under an overhang outside with our luggage as Dad got in line to check out. Being so close to the port, I'd say 99% of the guests staying at this hotel last night were cruisers so I spent the time chatting with a lovely woman who was also heading to the Oasis of the Seas. 

Dad was back a few minutes later and we made our way to the front of the hotel. The lobby, the outside bar/pool area, and especially the front porch area were mobbed with people waiting for their turn on the shuttles. To the hotel's credit, we noticed both last night and this morning that they were moving shuttle after shuttle through repeatedly. We, after giving up on a long wait for a shuttle driver to finally leave 2 cruises ago and grabbing the nearby taxi, decided to skip the shuttle line and go straight for our first Uber experience this time. The app told us a driver was under one minute away and I honestly expected to see a car come peeling out of the parking lot over to us. Our driver did pull up from down the road a minute or so later and had plenty of room for our two big suitcases and us in his SUV. Got lots of glares from the people standing there waiting to get on the shuttle and our driver just kept telling them to call UBER instead of waiting as we climbed in his car. 

At the port 10 minutes later with the heavy morning traffic. We tried explaining about having to pull up past the crowds of people to the front where the Star Class banner is (or was supposed to be) but he seemed confused. Instead he offered to take us in the back way to the port and after weaving around some tour bus size shuttles, found an open parking space next to the door. He pulled in, unloaded our bags for us and all we had to do was walk around some people hovering by the door waiting and smoking. Turns out the purple "Star Class" banner everyone says to look for was folded up and sitting to the side of the entrance doors. We walked up to the first port employee we spotted and mentioned being Star Class. We'd dug out our sail passes and the Star Class sign Smitha sent us to show them. The employee we first encountered, Debra, couldn't have been nicer and more helpful once we identified as Star Class. There was a couple porters sitting in wait nearby and she immediately beckoned one of them over to collect our luggage. Since we were never sent luggage tags, it took another 20 seconds of effort while the porter wrote ones out for us. He loaded our two big suitcases onto a rolling cart and followed behind us while we followed Debra inside. 

Debra used her phone to text Smitha to let her know we were here and assured us that Smitha would meet us inside. Debra led us through a secondary door next to the one being monitored by port staff and escorted us next through security. Our porter followed close behind putting our suitcases through the scanner after we sent our carry on bags through first. I joked to Dad that I felt like I should be doing the royal pageant wave as we were rushed past the throngs of people already seated and waiting. Debra had us wait over to the side once past all the security and another employee came right over. After a few quick words with Debra, the second employee took our passports and passes from her and rushed away. Debra explained that since the Coast Guard inspection was still going on, they weren't technically allowed to check anyone in yet, much less let them board. They were getting around this rule for the Star Class people by taking their info from us and checking us in while we stood to the side so that it didn't look like we were standing at the counter getting checked in. The employee came back a few minutes later to return our passports and handed us our official Star Class sea pass cards. 

I could now see why a previous reviewer commented on the now darker purple look to the cards instead of the old black coloring. It really does look super close to the magenta coloring of Sky Class cards. 

Once we got our cards, around 11:15AM, Debra led us to the "suite" waiting area which was roped off and guarded by port employees. It's the farthest you can walk into the terminal without walking directly up to the ship and has more couch plus chairs seating instead of the straight back chairs in rows the rest of the passengers get. The waiting area was already quite packed but Debra took the initiative to direct us to two spots together on one of those round cushioned seats you might find in an old movie theater lobby. There was coffee, juice, water, and pastry snacks set up but by then had mostly been picked clean. I grabbed a couple cookies for Dad and cups of water for both of us while he watched our carry on bags. We were glad that we'd taken the time to tip our porter as soon as we all got through security because he took off and disappeared with our luggage by the time we were in the waiting area. 

Soon we noticed many lavender shirt attired genies wandering around. I happened to choose a purple shirt at random to wear today and Debra made a point of saying to look out for those "wearing a shirt close to the color of your shirt." Pretty sure the first genie to wander by was the infamous Israel I'd read about in so many other reviews. Soon we noticed a young woman standing across from us in her lavender shirt looking at her phone and then squinting back in our direction over and over. I motioned to Dad that I bet that's our Smitha and sure enough, she soon came over and tentatively asked if we were Al and Danielle. We confirmed that we were and she explained that she'd been trying to look up our photo on her phone to be sure it was us and not finding any photo. Smitha gave us a quick briefing about waiting for the inspection and stepped away to go find her other family she was expecting. They ended up calling her and the two discovered that they were talking to each other from 10 feet away. Around 11:40AM, the genies started gathering their respective Star Class guests to stand in front of the doors to the gangway so that we would be in the front of the line when the call comes to board. As we'd been sitting waiting, we heard several intercom announcements about keeping the middle section clear. Now, as we were the only group standing in the middle section, we just stood there staring at the woman as she stared at us continuing to make announcements about staying clear of the middle section. I guess she was required to make such an announcement every so often because even she was laughing with us by the time she was done talking. 

We soon got to meet the other occupants of the 8th deck 2 BR ATS on the opposite side of the ship as their large family with several children were our embarkation buddies all going onboard at once with Smitha just before noon. Within a couple minutes of walking toward the gangway, one of their children started to get a little too excited as little ones do and wanted to go everywhere but where Smitha was trying to lead us. She quickly took his hand to walk with him and I think in his eyes it was love at first sight. We entered via the Promenade deck and discreetly, Smitha asked if I minded being left to wait while she got the other family settled in their cabin first. I of course understood and agreed. We all piled into an elevator together and the young boy who'd been holding Smitha's hand immediately got upset because he'd been led to the back of the elevator to stand by his parents. He pushed around everyone until he got back in front to stand by Smitha. His parents assured him that she wasn't going anywhere but he shot back a look that showed he definitely didn't want to take that chance.

The nightclub Dazzles is the central point of deck 8 so Smitha left us waiting there while she walked the family to their cabin. If you ever want to experience the fun house mirror effect, look straight out toward the boardwalk area of the ship through those windows behind the stage in Dazzles. We might as well have been in rough seas with the distorting effect it made me feel as I was trying to point out all the things I'd seen in vlogs to Dad. Dad opted to take a seat in the empty nightclub with our bags and I wandered out to the corridor to look at the artwork. By the time I returned to take a seat myself, Smitha appeared from the back of Dazzles to rejoin us. She thanked us for waiting and we assured her again that we understood how a family of little kids would not be as willing to sit and wait like us. 

We followed Smitha into the stairwell where she opened the big door marked with that "rooms not ready till 1:30PM" sign and led us down the hall. We passed several open cabins still being cleaned and one crew member who turned out to be our steward Ann Marie, tried to stop us with a warning that the cabins weren't ready. Smitha asked if she was the new replacement and explained that we were Star Class passengers. The 2 BR ATS is literally the farthest down the hall on deck 8 you can go. Our cabin door was on the right and a crew door/closet was perpendicular to it marking the end of the hall. We headed inside and Smitha had already set out the menus and extra Compass editions I'd requested across the coffee table. She went over the paperwork in our folder explaining our reservation schedule, our internet codes, and all the perks we could enjoy on board. She mentioned reserving seats for the shows and we took the time to ask about modifying that to get seats on the aisle with a spot in between as Dad likes to be on the aisle. We also asked to sit more toward the back for the comedy shows and usually find that seats in the 1st balcony level for regular shows are better views than the front row we'd read they automatically reserve for you. That was no problem according to Smitha and she made a note in her paperwork. Smitha pointed out how she'd gotten me a bag of gummy bears and would be getting Dad his M&M candy when the shop opens tomorrow. I had expected the candy would be more like a bowl that got replenished but a bag each is all we ever got. No big deal as we didn't eat any of it until we got home anyway. 

I was pleased to see that my request for Vitamin Water in the cabin was granted even though Smitha said she would simply "try" to get them. They are included in Star Class and available for purchase at the Vitality Spa Café so I was a little surprised that it was even a question. What surprised me even more was that my request for root beer (expecting to have to settle for the Coke product of Barq's even though it tastes like licking a carbonated sugar cube) was granted with a supply of Diet Mug Root Beer, which is technically a Pepsi product! My favorite root beer is the regular Mug version so I was very pleasantly shocked by that. The extra waters and soda cans were left in the living room cabinet under the safe and we soon took to swapping out a few of the beers to the cabinet to make room for more sodas in the fridge. They did come routinely to replenish and were always great about bringing exactly what we were running low on. We would leave them a note with specific refill requests and always found more of what we wanted left on our countertop by the afternoon. 

Note the slight spill along the bottom of the fridge. One of the sodas sprung a leak it seems as we discovered the pooled liquid 2/3rds into the week. I think with our pattern of always putting something new in to get "cold" when taking something out means we never found the less full culprit. The Fanta orange soda pictured was a flavor Dad asked for pre-cruise but it wasn't delivered until we asked for it in addition to the first replenishment of Diet Coke cans. 

We also noted the tray of several extra plates and silverware wrapped in napkins left for us. It became quite the running joke because not only did we start with extra but each room service snack delivery brought another couple rounds. If you were also on this sailing and ever felt like you couldn't find a fork, I apologize because we had enough to supply our whole corridor. I joked near the end of the cruise that I was going to set up a yard sale booth out by the elevators and sell back the cutlery. Got to pay for these cruises somehow right?

This was our supply near the end of the week after we'd taken to leaving several sets on the tray of dirty dishes we had to leave in our entryway in order to make Ann Marie remove the extra dishes and food we no longer wanted:

Cabin photos and the two skating shows we experienced this day to come in the next installment. Stay tuned!

Oasis of the Seas cruise review - Introduction to Star Class

I know a lot of people want to hear about the whole RCL Star Class experience so let me back track a bit. While most cruisers are families with kids or couples traveling together, we find that the higher in cabin category we want to try, the less options for being in the same cabin and having separate beds. Not a problem for a romantic couple to share a bed. More of a problem when you are traveling as father and adult daughter. If you took a poll of every cruiser on any line, there will always be those that say "Why book the pricier cabins? All you need the cabin for is to sleep and shower." Yes, the cheapest inside cabin will solve our separate beds problem but we'd rather enjoy the perks that come with the suite life when the price and the itinerary is right. One of the reasons it took us a while to try the official Royal Suite Class on the Oasis or Ovation class ships is because at first the only options were cabins with one king size bed and the other person was stuck with a sofa bed. Not the most ideal setup unless you are traveling with your child or teen. Another reason was that until recently as we found out, the suites with two different bedrooms within the cabin (meant to sleep those with multiple extended family members traveling together), used to have a minimum amount of people to book them.

Flashback to last January when RCL offered yet another sale, we searched on RCL's website for dates that what they call a two bedroom aqua theater suite (affectionately referred to online as 2 BR ATS) showed up available to book. Not the easiest task as we soon found out that a lot of the higher level suites aren't even available to book online. You have to call and have the agent release them into the system, book it, and then yank it back out of the system. Our first step was to make sure we could even book a cabin meant to sleep 8 people with just the two of us so I reached out to RCL's Facebook page. They replied that yes, the minimum has since been changed and you can book the cabin for as little as one person if you're willing to foot the entire cost. After sitting on the decision for a couple days, we called RCL to inquire about available dates. The rep we talked to (different than the one on Facebook), was all ready to look it up for us until he asked how many people we were planning to book. When we said "2 people" he immediately turned us down, insisting that the minimum was 6 people. We mentioned what we'd been told from RCL on Facebook and the rep put us on hold to "speak to a supervisor." My fellow online cruise friends will understand my desire to put that part in quotes. A familiar mantra is if you call any cruise line twice, the second random rep who takes your call will likely give you a different answer to your query. The rep came back and insisted that his supervisor confirmed that the rule is a minimum of 5 people. Okay, now was it a minimum of 6 or a minimum of 5? Did we throw some proverbial cruiser overboard while we were waiting on hold?

We ended our call with the unhelpful rep and reported the experience to the RCL rep on Facebook who'd originally told me it was allowed. She asked who we talked to but alas, we missed getting his name in our growing frustration. She blamed it on the phone rep being uninformed and offered to have a rep she promised knew of the rule change call us when she was back in the office a few days later. Waited till 8PM that day she said she'd be back and reached out via Facebook when we'd received no call. She was super apologetic and offered to have someone call right now. I'm such an obsessive planner that in these few days of waiting, I had absorbed all things Oasis class, aquatheater suites, and Star Class you could ever want to know. So by this time when the rep who did call us wanted to share everything under the sun that we'd be getting rather than listening to my questions, my patience was wearing thin. Finally, this rep revealed that there was an available cabin in our category for April and gave us two weeks to choose from. We chose the 4/22 itinerary having long since decided that we'd take whatever was available, regardless of whether it featured ports we'd been to already. Once we made sure all discounts possible had been applied (our Celebrity status much raised us to Platinum on RCL and I had to keep reminding this rep of that so we could get the Platinum perk of a balcony/suite booking discount), we booked not only the deposit but also final payment and insurance as by this time, final payment had been the day before!

Those booking Star Class are given the time frame of a "Welcome to Star Class" generic email 8 days after booking, an email asking you to fill out a crazy survey 6 weeks out from your sail date, and finally 2 weeks before sailing an email identifying your assigned genie from which you can now correspond back and forth with your requests and preferences for onboard reservations as well as little things to make your time on board more comfortable. One thing of note is that RCL could send the emails to any email address they have registered, even if it isn't the one belonging to the person who booked the cruise and/or gave their email as point of contact. Our first 8 days email came exactly 8 days after I booked the cruise and gave my email for contact. That email came to Dad's email. My email however started getting plenty of sales offers addressed to him. Yes, I'm the neurotic one who took note of when exactly 6 weeks before our sail date fell so we could determine whether the survey came on time or not. As it turns out, the survey email came to me closer to 8 weeks out and we sent it back with our answers soon after getting it. The survey questions covered typical dinner party conversation starters like "What 3 people living or dead would you invite to dinner?" as well as ones pertinent to your onboard preferences like "Are you morning people or night owls?" and "Do you have any food allergies or dietary restrictions?"

The quicker than expected survey spoiled us because it made us even more anxious to get the introductory email earlier. We did in fact get that final step email early by about a week or two. For someone who is an obsessive planner like myself, one of the hardest things you'll experience trying Star Class is the waiting for your genie to make that personal introductory email to make any reservations when all you're reading online is other people on your sailing talking about being done with their reservations or even going to make reservations and being told they are fully booked. It took a lot of reminding myself that the magic of Star Class includes the preferential treatment when it comes to getting reservations at otherwise booked full events. It was at this email that we learned we'd been assigned Smitha (whom thanks to another cruiser's review, we learned is pronounced Smeeta), the only female genie on the Oasis of the Seas at the time. During the cruise we learned that each genie was responsible for 4 suites, 2 of Smitha's being us and our across the ship neighbors in the other deck 8 2 BR ATS. We later learned that she also had at least one of the Deck 17 loft suites in her care since we ended up paired with the occupants a couple times throughout the cruise. It was a little off putting from the start of this email because despite one of the first survey questions being "What do you prefer to be called?" Smitha addressed me as Daniel. Last I checked I didn't undergo any gender reassignment surgery in between cruises.

Our email from Smitha basically repeated the general concepts of Star Class and asked us again of the preferences we mentioned in the survey. Knowing that we'd never been on Oasis before and that all the specialty restaurants cover charges were included, we simply told Smitha that except for Labadee evening dinner, we would leave it up to her to plan our dinner and show reservations so that it gave us a chance to experience everything possible onboard at least once. We also took the time then to put in our request for a standard cabana on the suite only Barefoot Beach section of Labadee because we cared more about being equidistant to the food and restrooms as we were to the water. Let the other cruisers rush to get the over the water (OTW) and beachfront cabanas. Personally, I don't know why anyone would want the other option of a Hilltop cabana unless they never planned to get in the water.

One of Dad's favorite things to do on a cruise is grab cookies for a late night snack in the cabin as we get ready for bed. I'm more of a salty snacker so between us we requested chips, guacamole, queso, popcorn, cookies, milk, nuts, and candies like gummy bears and m&m's to have in the cabin. Don't worry healthy eating police, I also requested fruit. One of the things we made sure to note for the cabin was extra plates and silverware sets as Celebrity never seemed to supply those when we'd bring snacks back to the cabin. I was impressed that in a later correspondence, while we have no actual food allergies, I mentioned that I don't like nuts and Dad doesn't like seafood. Smitha came right back with an email double checking because I'd asked for nuts for Dad in that first email to her. As it turns out though, she put it in as a note on our account that we had actual allergies to seafood and nuts. Made for quite the panicked restaurant host when he realized at the end of our meal that I'd ordered lobster. Kudos for the special attention, maybe next time ask before we consumed something potentially injurious to us?

Smitha got back to us 5 days after that initial email apologizing for the wait (they are also juggling the needs of current cruisers while corresponding and planning for future ones like us at the time) and included not only PDF files of a dining and show schedule matching our wishes but also the menus of each specialty restaurant available. She also sent a list of Star Class perks we could expect - the same you'd find searching online. We continued to trade emails back and forth with random little questions and Smitha was always quick to reply. We told her of our travel plans and when we'd expect to arrive at the port.

A week before the trip, Smitha sent the link and instructions for the Loop app which I immediately opened on my phone and left it as an open browser window. I'd read a lot about the faults of the Loop app since the genies don't get those messages you leave unless they are sitting in front of their computers but knew that once onboard we could call Smitha from any onboard phone as needed. I think by the end of the cruise, we'd been given about 10 business cards with her phone number and email so we always had one to carry around. As it turned out, anything we sent via the Loop was answered quickly. The only drawback was the lack of any sort of notification of her reply. The morning we docked in Labadee she sent us information about a potential meeting place for an escort off the ship and we didn't see she'd even replied in the app until hours later. Thankfully she followed up with a call to the cabin when we returned to get ready to head ashore.

The Star Class perks we ended up taking advantage of by cruise end:
1) Use of genie to make reservations for us pre-cruise and a few changes during the week when we decided to swap the Headliner show for the comedy show and a dinner in Coastal Kitchen to a dinner at Solarium Bistro.
2) Priority Boarding
3) Included drinks and specialty dining (including Starbucks drinks and popcorn at the theater as well as what you chose to request for your cabin mini bar)
4) Included Voom internet (we each had our own code for one device but Smitha said to just log off one and log in on another if we wanted to use two devices per person. Dad had a couple times being prompted to re-log in and while I never had to re-log in, I did find that I'd lose signal every so often while in the master bedroom that would re-appear once I moved into the main living room area of the cabin.)
5) Included laundry (we purposefully packed for only a couple days of daytime outfits and sent out a bag almost every other day. Laundry was always returned by 5:30PM the following day since we put it out before our cabin got cleaned in the mornings.)
6) Breakfast in Coastal Kitchen (only time we didn't attend was when we wanted something quick and light before an early activity)
7) Prime seats reserved at each show (we tweaked this a couple times as most often the genies will reserve front row seats yet for shows like the comedians and "Come Fly with Me" it's a much better view to sit back a bit. Never was a problem changing before or when we arrived for the show.)
8) A cabana on Barefoot Beach in Labadee
9) Suite lounge access and suite sun deck access
10) Waived room service charge as we had snack deliveries twice a day, a snack for the aquatheater show, and one dinner on our balcony. We did try and give a little tip to the delivery person if we were in the cabin when they delivered the food.
11) Using Smitha as our go between when we had issues at restaurants and room service deliveries.

Coming up - Embarkation Day!

Day 1 of Oasis of the Seas cruise review

Nothing says panic attack like your travel partner suggesting we break with tradition and fly down to Port Canaveral the morning of our cruise to avoid "the hassle" of having to get a hotel. Thankfully he changed his mind and after much deliberation, we took everyone's advice on booking the Radisson Resort at the Port. Unfortunately, this became our second Radisson pre-cruise stay where they wouldn't honor our Club Carlson/Radisson Rewards membership. This time the reason they gave was because we'd booked through AARP for a slightly cheaper but more importantly refundable rate. The location of this hotel being four minutes from port when we had to fly in to an airport 45 minutes away just to get into town was the deciding factor.

A quick ride from a generous neighbor got us to our local airport shortly after noon for our first flight of the day scheduled for around 2PM. We flew on American Airlines so there were no direct flights into Orlando. Check in and security was fairly quick thanks to the beauty of TSA pre-check. A much better experience than our last pre-cruise flight where the agent gave me such an intensive pat down I thought she'd at least have bought me dinner first! Our first flight from Baltimore to Charlotte, NC went smoothly leaving early and arriving early. We had the luck of getting bulkhead seats on each of our flights and I'm happy to report that even all these months later, I still didn't need any seatbelt extenders! Guess we used up all our good karma because the 2nd flight from Charlotte to Orlando was delayed leaving us sitting on the plane because of a light bulb. An important light bulb like the one that goes in an indicator in the cockpit control panel you ask? Nope, a lightbulb that went into the lights along the inside cabin lighting that runs along the wall and doors. Not only did we have to wait on them to come out to the plane, look at it, proclaim "Yup, light bulb's burnt out," and go back to get a new one but also a second round of waiting because the mechanic brought the wrong light bulb! I guess someone needed their own internal light bulb replaced in that department!

Finally arrived in Orlando around 7PM and we had arranged for a private car and driver from Access Line Transportation to pick us up and make the 45 minute drive to Port Canaveral. Luggage pickup was a little confusing as after waiting at the posted luggage carousel for a while, we noticed that our flight info disappeared from the screen and re-appeared on a carousel on the opposite side. Thankfully our driver paid attention to the first carousel and noticed that luggage with our flight number was coming down that first carousel after all. She had also thought to leave her car sitting outside the exit saving us from having to walk over to a parking garage after grabbing our luggage. The drive down to Port Canaveral was very smooth and our driver took the time to hand us cold water bottles and move up the passenger seat giving us extra leg room. We enjoyed a lovely conversation chatting about our mutual cruise experiences but turned down her offer to stop at a grocery store for supplies. She pointed out how the cruise terminal was essentially up the road from where we were staying as we passed it heading to the hotel. Saw lots of other hotel chains butted up next to each other in the same area so there's lots of choices if you don't want the Radisson.

Got to the hotel by 8:30PM and check in was simple since by that time not many people were in line at the front desk. The rooms are so spread out that the employee checking us in had to draw out a route on a map to show us how to get to our room. It's always comforting to hear the employee checking you in turn to his colleague and confirm "Elevator #2 is working again currently, right?" We got ourselves quite a bit turned around trying to find our room #328 on the 2nd floor but thankfully I'm not writing this from inside a broken down elevator #2. We reserved a room with 2 full size beds and I never thought I would say that at 5'7", I had to actually jump into my bed it was so high. The bathroom space was split up so that just the toilet and tub shower were inside their own room with a closed door. The sink, vanity, and mirror were outside in an open alcove off the main space of the room. The room had a mini fridge and microwave so once you eventually find the hidden vending machines, they offer bags of popcorn you can purchase to enjoy in your room. There was one free 16 oz bottle of water left in our room for our use and once we figured out how to connect on our own, free Wi-Fi.

After relaxing long enough in our room for a pit stop and to catch our breath, we decided to head back down to see what options there were for dinner. Ended up crossing the parking lot to a restaurant called Kelseys and aside from a big gap mid meal where our waitress Kat disappeared, we had a nice dinner at 9:30PM. Word to the wise - their appetizers and entrees could have fed 4 people!

Above: Chicken nacho appetizer

Below: Philly steak sub

With full bellies and a long travel day behind us, we walked back to the hotel. We killed time by wandering the grounds checking out the pool. As we stood at the vending machines contemplating picking out some sort of poptart or granola bar for a quick breakfast, a kind woman wandered by offering us to take some bags of tortilla chips off her hands. I must say, that was a first for our travels.

We soon settled back in our room watching television and checking in online before deciding to get some sleep. Our genie Smitha had emailed while we were flying to suggest we wait until after 12PM to head to the port due to a scheduled Coast Guard inspection. Turned out the lights with the thought that we'd take it even more leisurely in the morning than initially planned. A bit of a rough sleep due to the noise of rolling suitcases along the brick paths and an a/c unit that wouldn't stop cycling over and over. We had a connecting room and we not only faintly heard the neighbor's TV shortly after turning ours off this night but the housekeeper blaring her stereo while cleaning that room in the morning might as well have been in our room as well.

My very own MacGyver's version of a homemade security system as neither of us were really enthralled at staying in a hotel with room doors to the outside:

Two cruises, two cruise lines, and two weeks on the high seas to come!

Thank you fellow cruise fans for visiting my small corner of the blog universe. If you enjoyed reading about my past cruises on Cruise Critic (Celebrity Equinox Jazz Fest Cruise, Island Princess Panama Canal, Grandeur of the Seas Bermuda, Caribbean Princess British Isles, Caribbean Princess New England/Canada, and Carnival Pride Bahamas), I am happy to announce that two more photo reviews will soon be available for your reading pleasure. Side note: I also sailed on the Celebrity Solstice to the Caribbean, the Grand Princess during a land/sea cruisetour of Alaska and on the Regal Princess for the first time from Venice to Barcelona, an itinerary known as the Grand Med but didn't have the chance to write them up for review. If you have any questions about any of the above itineraries, please feel free to ask.

First of the two new cruises to be blogged about will once again be Dad and I sailing together this  April and we're returning to Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. Our first time sailing out of Port Canaveral. This time, while we love sailing the suite life and enjoyed our time on the Grandeur, we wanted to go all out and booked a 2 bedroom aquatheater suite on the ginormous ship pictured below (not my photo), Oasis of the Seas! Pictured here as the cabins looking out the open back of the ship. The Oasis and Quantum class RCL ships take the suite life to a whole new level, 3 levels in fact known as the Sea, Sky, and Star Class. The more grand the suite so to speak, the higher the level it falls under and the more perks you get. Ours falls under the highest level of Star Class, the only level where not only do you get the routine perks like priority boarding and use of a more private suite lounge space and restaurant, but you also get 90% of anything onboard that would cost extra included! (Only exclusions are pastries at Starbucks (though they accept any Starbucks gift cards), full bottles of wine (though discounted), professional photos, merchandise in the onboard shops, and shore excursions) And the only class of cabins that gets the use of a Royal Genie to handle reservations and schedule everything for you among other creature comforts. Not a bad way to travel on a ship with over 6,000 passengers all waiting in line to do just that at the same time!

We picked the best date among the limited itineraries that still had this cabin class available and as a result ended up with a sailing scheduled to visit St. Maarten, Puerto Rico, and Labadee. St. Maarten and Puerto Rico (along with St. Kitts) was our itinerary for the Celebrity Solstice cruise so we're looking at it as even more opportunity to enjoy what the ship has to offer. I've found only a handful of really detailed well written reviews about the Star Class experience in my efforts to learn as much as I can prior to sailing. I hope my upcoming review will help future cruisers like those reviews have helped me. If anyone has any questions they'd like me to find out about while on the cruise, please comment here. If our included internet perk is working, I'll try to answer them while on board. Otherwise as always I'll take notes and include the answers in my review when I return home.

Just like an infomercial - but wait there's more! I did say two new cruises coming up. The second one, as it turns out will be only 2 weeks later on the Carnival Pride. (Pictured below, again not my photo)

I had this Carnival cruise booked a year in advance, long before Oasis was even a thought. We've done cruises a few months apart as of late when deals or certain itineraries prompted us to take advantage of opportunities but never only weeks apart. This is probably the closest to doing a back to back cruise I'll ever get. When we were presented with the Oasis date, Dad asks "Are you okay with it being so close to your next cruise?" "Umm, let me think, a week in between to do laundry, work off the first cruise's great food, and get over jet lag and sea legs? Challenge accepted!"

While Dad may believe that there has to be something special or unique in order to cause him to repeat a port or itinerary on a future cruise, (like trying Star Class on Oasis) I don't much care where or what cruise line I'm going on. I'd happily go on another cruise just for the sake of being on another cruise! I do have my favorite preferences but if you said to me today "Hey want to go on a cruise next week?" My answer would be "Just tell me when and where to show up!"

Case in point is this Carnival cruise's itinerary. The Carnival Pride is the only Carnival ship I've ever been on and that's only because it leaves 20-30 minutes away from my house. Same reason as why the Grandeur was my currently only RCL ship I've ever been on.

This will be my 4th time sailing on the Carnival Pride and every time has been almost the exact same itinerary. First time went to Grand Turk, Half Moon Cay, and Nassau. The rest, including this one, have been to Grand Turk, Half Moon Cay, and Freeport. The main difference between each sailing however was the other person sharing my cabin. 1st time was Dad and I back when the Pride didn't yet have the Funship 2.0 upgrades and only one suite category. 2nd time I sailed with a dear friend Teri and we shared a balcony cabin. 3rd time I was once again with my Dad but we booked it because they offered a rare single supplement fee waiving so we each got neighboring balcony cabins to ourselves! This 4th round will be with another dear friend Joni and we have another balcony cabin booked. One of my favorite activities on a cruise is to unwind by going out on our balcony. I love watching the water thinking about how it appears never ending and hides a whole world of beauty underneath the waves.

While Teri was a cruise newbie in general, Joni has an RCL and a Disney cruise under her belt already. This will be her first introduction to Carnival and I definitely intend to make sure she gets to bring home her first 24 karat gold plated piece of shiiiiiiiiiiipah on a stick!

I most likely won't have much internet use while on Carnival but if you have any questions you want answered onboard, please comment below and I'll report when I've returned and get my land legs back. :) And of course if you have any suggestions of things to check out in any of the aforementioned ports, I welcome those as well. Thank you for indulging my cruise taking and blogging addictions!