mcmckuf
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2012
First, this is not a bash RCL thread or pump Disney post. No price, destination, or excursion discussions since those have been beaten to death on here. It's an honest assessment of a recent 7 night Oasis cruise from a Platinum Disney cruiser + wife with 2 girls ages 9 and 15. Outside Balcony room deck 10. Total cruise +/- 20 or so on many lines.
Itinerary: 7 day to Southern Caribbean (St. Marten, Puerto Rico, Labadee (Haiti)
The Good:
The irony here is we still managed to have a great vacation despite the RCL letdown because we just spent time together wandering around talking and people watching. The ports were some of our favorites and would do that on Disney again in a heartbeat.
Cheers!
Itinerary: 7 day to Southern Caribbean (St. Marten, Puerto Rico, Labadee (Haiti)
The Good:
- The pools - far more to choose from and not as crowded. We live in Florida so not a huge need for us.
- Dining Options - We didn't even feel like we were on a cruise but more a floating hotel at sea with local dining to choose from
- The ship - beautiful layout, central park is great, and easy sailing on rough seas. I cant say crowds were bad except at the buffets on board and on Labadee.
- Select shows - Ice skating show was fantastic, "Come fly with me" aerial acrobatic show was good/great.
- Adult relaxation area - think where the gym usually is on Disney (deck 4 on Oasis BTW), top deck, turned into an awesome eating and relaxation area with plenty of hot tubs and comfy lounge chairs.
- Gym - Free, nuff said. no views really since lower down but who really cares.
- Staff - for the most part, they were very helpful, great room attendant, servers in all dining areas, etc.
- Boardwalk activities - 2 times they had events with balloon making, face painting, etc. Helped a little as my kids were flat out bored.
- Aquatic show, a bit corny, felt embarrassed for the very talented swimmers and divers to have to go through the motions when not well, swimming and diving. Almost Monty Python level of odd.
- walk up dining options - almost all were bland basic fare. Hot dogs, pizza (weird options there), and sandwiches, AND they were not convenient to the swim deck at all. Want Pizza, 10 decks away, literally!. Want Hot dogs, same...made no sense. There was an option way back on the back by the wave riders but that was a hike.
- Buffet lines on Labadee - pretty much 75-100 people long from open to close, ran out of Mac'n'cheese early on in our line while another had plenty. Sorry, we are out. yep, not cool for the kids after waiting 30 minutes for food.
- Kids clubs were small and at full capacity every time we went. Not once did my 9 year old get to go.
- Scheduled activities didn't happen - what few non-drinking, non-merchandise selling activities we tried to go to, about half were no shows. This was mainly spa related stuff so YMMV.
- No slides- go figure?! Heard they were getting them in an upcoming dry dock but nothing to back that up.
- TV options - divided up by age. The 3-11 which should be for my 9 year old (yes, one channel per age group) played Glee constantly. That was not appropriate at all.
- The BEDS! good lord they were bad. the queen bed was bearable, the sofa fold out had zero mattress. More a pad than anything. My 15 year old will need a chiro visit. The bunk had a thin mattress only suitable for a child. We tried moving the teen (5'2") up there and her head and feet hit the rails. My family is vertically challenged so it's not us.
- Major gripe here - they closed the ice skating rink on 2 of the 3 sea days (only time open) because a group reserved it for another type of activity. The one day it was open sold out by 8 AM. see next item
- Officer(s) in charge of customer service - went to the desk to complain about the ice skating situation. They were not aware it was bought out by a private party, then no ranking person that could do anything would even talk to me. The poor junior guy actually at the desk had no clue how to handle the situation and basically took my name and room number. never heard back from them. My 9 year old was not old enough for almost all on board activities except the pool and this. Being closed meant one more disappointment.
- Activities - Here's where your families experience may vary...for us this wasn't a fun cruise. Most activities were geared for older teens and IMHO, boys. Rock climbing, zip-line, wave rider, whirl-pool type pool where your shoulders had to be like 5 feet. My 9 YO couldn't do any of those. Putt-putt and table tennis were it, though those only lasted so long. Kids clubs were full every time we went. Go download a daily planner from Cruise Critic and see for yourself.
- Other shows - Cats was both confusing and well, not suitable for kids at all; Beatles tribute show, again, my parents would have loved it. My kids wanted out of there ASAP; Comedians - adult level comedy, not for kids. They put on a comedy show where they tried to clean it up and it was still appalling at the language and discussion of hitting your kids being funny. So 3 of the nights were a disaster. With the bullet above and this, it sealed it for us. No RCL again...
The irony here is we still managed to have a great vacation despite the RCL letdown because we just spent time together wandering around talking and people watching. The ports were some of our favorites and would do that on Disney again in a heartbeat.
Cheers!
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