Oasis - Teach me everything

Shanna-like-Banana

DIS Veteran
Joined
May 21, 2009
First time traveling on a "mega ship" and we're setting sail on the Oasis.

I am taking DD18 just after her graduation, along with my cousin, so it's going to be just us ladies. We have been so busy with college, testing, site visits, end of year stuff, plus we have two other children as well, that my cousin has been able to be the primary one to do the research & reading up. No boys allowed :) Rotten little brothers get to stay home with dh/daddy, lol

I've done 3 cruises prior, so I am familiar with some cruising processes, but for some reason I feel kinda like my head is under water on this one. So big, so many things to do, make plans in advance, reservations for things, etc.

Naturally we want a balance between "doing stuff" and relaxing. We've got our shore excursions squared away, we also reserved a few shows, and one other on board activity, we also picked My Time dining, just a little something to do each day. We want to make sure we take advantage of everything included, but there's so much :)

Any helpful hints, recommendations, advise for first time Oasis travelers, would be appreciated @frank808

TIA
 
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I suggest you go over to cruisecritic.com and navigate to the area about Oasis. There is a lot of helpful information there.
Denise
 
Also check out the Royal Caribbean Blog. Lots of useful information, and sometimes mistaken for an official RCI blog by alleged journalists.

I did a trip recap of sister ship Harmony (see my signature). I don't know how helpful that will be, but it might whet your appetite?

Some quick general advice:
- Don't try to do everything. As you noted, it's a big ship, and trying to do everything (or even as much as you can) will be stressful. Obviously not what you want to do on a cruise.
- MDR, Wipeout Cafe, Park Cafe and Johnny Rockets are good, quieter breakfast alternatives to the WindJammer. The drawback, of course, is that it takes time for them to get your food.
- Similarly, MDR, Park Cafe and Solarium provide a less frantic lunch experience.
- Don't sit in the front row for the comedy show.
- Chair hogging is a known issue on RCI ships. Try not to let the chair hogs/bullies ruin your vacation.
 
Last cruise was Oasis and loved it!

One of the pluses of the size is we never felt crowded or closed in like we have on smaller ships. We never, no matter the time had issues with getting lounge chairs or seating anywhere like we have on the smaller ships. Prior to this we were on Freedom and unless you were out there in the wee hours, getting a lounge was next to impossible. There are so many options for dining, drinks, etc that it really does spread the folks around.

Sounds like you are on top of things with the shore excursions and shows, to me that is the only thing we worried about beforehand. One thing I would do is pull up the Compass Daily Sheets for Oasis & your route to see what all will be offered each day ... have all your travelers look at it. We normally print, highlight a few things each day we "might want to do, and not forget about" ............ but we are flexible on most. But it does help. Like we really enjoy QUEST, but that is late one night. So we make sure we are up for the extra hours. DS likes to see/meet Shrek, so I usually highlight those times so we can squeeze one in. There are some cool things to do and see, and you'll only know about them by looking at the Compass. https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/cruise-compass?ship=275

Our first day we arrived very early to get checked in, and we wandered all over the ship to get our bearings, we made sure we knew where all the pools and recreation were and the easy way to all the eats. At first we ordered breakfast to eat on our balcony (no longer free) but then we tried the main dining room for breakfast .......... what a treat!!! We ate there every morning the rest of the cruise except Labadee day. We did one special dining (Chops) because we had credit from our TA and it was amazing ....... but honestly we didn't feel compelled to spend any more money to eat at any of the pay locations. The buffet was better than other ships, so that was fine for lunches if we didn't want to commit too much time BUT we really liked the Park Cafe & Solarium. We ate all our dinners but the one in the Main Dining Room. Solarium was where we went asap on boarding day, great way to kick off our trip.
 


Agree with PP. We had only been on one cruise prior to Oasis, and loved everything about Oasis. We had a great time!

Being a WDW fan, I'm a massive planner so I found old Cruise Compasses online and loosely planned my days to include activities we'd be interested in. The days and times were mostly the same. We enjoyed trivia but get there early as they can get crowded. Also loved the port of call t-shirt sale!

I did reserve all the shows we were interested in. We thought it was important to still show up about 30 minutes before showtime so you have your choice of seats and before they let the standby crowd in. I also reserved dining times even though we were on MTD. We were told that even on MTD, if you show up to the main dining room without a reservation, you may have a bit of a wait. I never saw a terribly long line at the MDR, but can't really speak to how long the waits were here.

Shortly after boarding, I bought the three restaurant specialty dining package and immediately made reservations for Chops, Izumi hibachi, and Sabor. Pretty much got our choice of times. The package was a great value - I don't remember the exact numbers, but it essentially allowed us to dine at 3 specialty restaurants for the cost of 2. Well worth it. We enjoyed all three experiences greatly so definitely check out the specialty dining! Also enjoyed Johnny Rockets, which is an up-charge.

On sea days, we loved spending time in the Solarium. We got there around 8am and had our best luck with seats on the upper level near the bar which was also close to the restroom. We did have to walk downstairs to use the pool which was small and crowded at times, but we just used it to cool off. Very enjoyable.
 
Our takeaway from an Oasis saling:
- They want to upsell you a lot.
- On at sea days the promenade is loaded with vendors/booths making it hard to get around.
- If you need internet service their service is tons better then Disney's.
 
Our takeaway from an Oasis saling:
- They want to upsell you a lot.
- On at sea days the promenade is loaded with vendors/booths making it hard to get around.
- If you need internet service their service is tons better then Disney's.

I'd agree with these. There was a ton of upselling. For the most part, a no thank you works just fine. But they did upsell us on the dining package which they pushed hard on, and we thought it was actually a good value as I mentioned. So just depends on what you're interested in. We had already pre-purchased the beverage package which we also thought was worth it.

The internet worked fine for us as well and DH and I shared one wifi code, so we bought it for only one device. He would log off and then I would log on, or vice versa. If you need to keep in touch with others onboard, you'd need to buy it for more than one device and then you could use wifi calling or iMessage if you have iPhones to keep in touch on the ship.
 


Our takeaway from an Oasis saling:
- They want to upsell you a lot.
- On at sea days the promenade is loaded with vendors/booths making it hard to get around.
- If you need internet service their service is tons better then Disney's.
With upsells, it's mostly about the drink package so the first couple of days try to avoid the pop-up sales stations and give a "no thank you" if a bartender asks you about it. Try to stick with the same bartender (or bar) on Day 1, or you'll probably be asked every time you get a drink.

I somewhat agree about the sales in the promenade, because there will be some sort of sale on port days, once they get out to sea. And the promenade has fixed counters for the sales, so it's not so much that they add tables for the sales (they sometimes do, but they're tucked away in an unobtrusive spot, usually by the pub) but that the crowd around them becomes 5 people deep. Which is kind of nuts, because imo the sales usually aren't that great.

We used Voom on Harmony last year and apart from my iPhone 6 having crappy wifi it worked quite well. We got it only because my wife needed it for work and we got to expense it :).
 
I went in the oasis in November for the first time and loved it. I had watched a lot of you tube videos and read a lot of articles. It really helped me feel prepared. It sounds like you’ve done all your planning with excursions and show reservations. My suggestions are to try things - you never know what will be fun to you. Our family loved the windjammer and didn’t find it crazy at all (and we were a party of ten). I enjoyed the sun deck on deck 14, amazing views. Johnny Rockets was fun. Check out the cruise compass and try to get to things early. Trivia was extremely full but a lot of fun. Overall I had a lot of fun and I’m sure you will too.
 
I was on the Oasis in March of 15. It was my father, my aunt, my father's girlfriend and her daughter. It is worthy to mention that my aunt and my dad's girlfriend's daughter are both mentally handicapped, and my father and his girlfriend don't drink. I was very much so "riding solo" on this trip. I was a little upset going into the trip, but it was my 21st birthday gift (thank you dad!), so I was determined to make the most of it. I was alone, but never felt lonely, if that makes sense. The pool deck had tons of space to lay out, so I would enjoy the sun for a majority of my days spent on board. Then around 1-2, I'd go grab some lunch from the wind jammer and come back for a little more sun. Once my food was digested, I'd head to the gym for a light workout and then go to my room and get ready for dinner at 5/6? Can't remember. Dinner was when We would all meet up and talk about what we did. After dinner, we'd either go see a show together, or go our sep ways again. My dad and his gf love to gamble, so they'd spend a lot of time in the casino. I personally enjoyed the comedy club and the newlywed games. They were so entertaining. Cats was AWFUL lol. I know some people love this musical, I so badly wish I did too because I love kitties, but man oh man this show was intolerable. My dad and I walked out half way through. I felt rude doing so but I had NO idea what the musical was even about. I couldn't understand the performers so much to the point where I had to google the synopsis of the show. That was the only bad experience. The ice skating show was spectacular and the aquatheater was astounding-unlike anything I've seen before. Sometimes they'd show movies down at the aquatheater. One evening it was Jersey boys, another evening it was Sweet home Alabama. I'd go down there and watch a movie as the ship sailed across the ocean. Honestly, one of the most enjoyable trips to date. Relaxing, fun, adventurous all at the same time.
 

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