Operation Oasis: Day 4

When I woke up to get ready for our excursion, we had already docked in St. Thomas. The excursion we had booked was the Sapphire Beach Island Drive. Overall, it wasn't all bad, but reviews for this excursion were pretty harsh. Now I'm not expecting limo service, but our shuttle was pretty ghetto like everyone else said. It was a long, and dangerous 20 minutes on the narrow, steep roads of St. Thomas. We arrived at the beach to discover the resort was under renovations, which meant a lot of shoddy looking buildings and a mystery food menu (we later discovered it was a BBQ station hidden behind the hotel). The water at Sapphire Beach was cool and it was mostly calm, but there were enough waves and movement for the water to become cloudy. We had complimentary snorkeling gear, but the cloudy water made it difficult for us to be able to see anything underwater.

Look at that! Not one single soul on the beach! Just kidding. There were tons of beach folks to our left. We were second cruise group to arrive, and there were a few vacationers, but it did not feel crowded at all. We lounged on the beach, and I read a book as the boyfriend slept.

On the way back, our driver stopped at this popular peak for us to take photos. You can see three ships docked on the left side, Havensight. Oasis docked on the far right, at the lousy dock, Crown Bay, with no stores. But what a view it was! It was just breathtaking. We requested to be dropped off in downtown, and we grabbed lunch at a Greengos. It was quite expensive as we only ordered two quesadillas with water. Our bill was $35 USD after tip due to the mandatory 18% gratuity. After a short walk around the block, we took a taxi ($4 per person) back to the terminal. As we waited to board the ship, we were entertained by the street art on the ground. 

We stayed in the dining room for dinner that night. Our server surprised us with a Jamaican goat curry. The featured dish of the night was chicken gyoza, which was surprisingly delicious. However due to bad presentation, I don't have a picture of the dish. The boyfriend thought it was freshly made on board, but I thought they were store bought frozen gyozas. I guess we'll never know!

After dinner, we walked around the Boardwalk again. We like to get in a quick walk - and a breath of ocean air every night after dinner. At that time, it is often way too windy on the upper decks, so the Boardwalk was perfect for us. Our entertainment of the night was a late night comedy show featuring Kivi Rogers, and another comedian. Unfortunately, I do not remember the name of the other comdeian, but Kivi stole the show. He kept us in tears the entire time.

Day five was another port day at St. Maarten, one of my favourite ports. I'll be back soon to tell you all about it. Hope you're enjoying my trip report, stay tuned!

Want to start from the beginning? Navigate through our cruise here:

Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 - Day 4 - Day 5 - Day 6 - Day 7

Operation Oasis: Day 3

Day three started with an early wake up call to the spa. I had an appointment for a full body massage with hot stones (for an extra cost). Unfortunately for me, I have very tense shoulders so it wasn't as relaxing as it was painful. In addition to my treatment cost, Royal Caribbean charges a mandatory 18% gratuity on top of it.

Day three was also our first sea day of the cruise. The winds were strong and the waves were rocky at sea. After the spa, I took a quick nap before lunch at our favourite place, the Windjammer Cafe. Afterwards, we spent the rest of our day on the deck in the Solarium, watching the clouds.

We decided to skip the dining room for dinner. Instead, we headed to Sabor for a Mexican fiesta. Sabor is a la carte, therefore there is no cover charge. We ordered two dinner tasting menus for our group. The tasting menu allows you to order one small plate, one taco or quesadilla, one main course, one side and a box of sweets. Our waiter made fresh guacamole in front of us. We ordered a ceviche, calamari, tuna crudo taco, quesadilla, mole short rib, and Mexican rice. Two samplers were plenty of food for us, we had no room for dessert!

The entertainment of the night was the Headliner Show at the Opal Theatre. The entertainer was Kenny James of Star Search fame. He sang old favourites, with a backup band and his son on bass. He got the crowd dancing and singing along, but it was a quiet night with a half full theatre. It was good music for the night, but I felt Royal Caribbean could have done a little bit better. You can tell why Kenny James was singing on cruise ships - his voice certainly wasn't very strong.  I believe he had a CD for sale after his show, and he was also offering autographs by the exit.

We turned in early after the show. But I didn't go to bed just yet, I ordered a chocolate pear tart from room service while the boyfriend chowed down on the Sabor desserts. My absolute favourite dessert on Royal Caribbean ships is this chocolate pear tart on the room service menu. It is the best! Not overly sweet, and just the right amount of fruits to chocolate. I always try to have it as often as I can when I'm on board.

The next day was our stop at St. Thomas, the only port with a booked excursion, and we had to get up early. Until then...!

Hope you're enjoying the trip report, I'll be back soon to tell you more!

Want to start from the beginning? Navigate through our cruise here:

Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 - Day 4 - Day 5 - Day 6 - Day 7

Operation Oasis: Day 2

Our first port of call was Nassau. We had an early arrival at 7 AM. Because we had been to Nassau before, the boyfriend and I decided to sleep in. We had looked out our window to a dark, and gloomy looking sky. We finally woke up around 11 AM. We grabbed a couple danishes from Cafe Promenade before heading on land.

We walked around downtown, and took a quick look at the Straw Market. Nothing had changed much in Nassau, but I noticed there was a lot more haggling than my previous trip in May 2012. It was humid but the wind was strong. It was pretty uncomfortable so we decided to head back to the ship. We made it back to ship at 1:30 PM. As usual, we had lunch at the Windjammer and marvelled at the Norwegian Getaway, which was docked next to us. We walked around Oasis' Central Park on deck 8, and headed back to our cabin to get ready for dinner.

So early! I know but day two was also formal night. "And that's why the ship leaves Nassau at 2 PM," our server told us the night before, "don't be late," because we would have plenty of time to get ready. I think the menu was one of my favourites during the week. Over the years, I feel like Royal Caribbean's menu has become mediocre. Usually, nothing stands out for me and I have a hard time picking out an entree. I had a roasted duck and a virgin Miami Vice.

After dinner, we headed over to the Opal Theatre for Cats. Now I've heard a lot of mixed reviews about this show, mostly negative, but I truly love everything cats (the animal) so I was willing to give it a try. I'm sorry to report that I did not enjoy the musical. After the first number, I was genuinely confused by the storyline. I had no idea what was going on, and what was a jellicle cat? The boyfriend was falling asleep, and after the song about the fat cat, I decided it was time to leave. I tried! My in-laws, on the hand, stayed and really enjoyed the second half - and I've heard that the second half is amazing, but I truly couldn't sit through the first half.

So, off we went to Casino Royale for a little while before turning in to this adorable towel elephant.

Stay tuned for day three - our first sea day!

Note: Before I started this trip report, I noticed I didn't have as many pictures as I wanted to have for our trip. This may be because we'd been on Oasis' sister ship, Allure of the Seas, on the same itinerary.

Want to start from the beginning? Navigate through our cruise here:

Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 - Day 4 - Day 5 - Day 6 - Day 7

Operation Oasis: Day 1

Hello readers out there! We are back from our Oasis of the Seas cruise. It was so nice to get away from real life. We had a very relaxing cruise with pleasant weather during the cruise and at our port-of-calls. We did have a couple of large hiccups on the way home, but let's discuss that towards the end. Let's start the review with the cruise as promised. This will be the first of a seven part review, I hope you enjoy reading along as I relive my short, but sweet cruise!

Where did I leave off last? I think I was in Fort Lauderdale! We had endured a long journey to Fort Lauderdale. Including the flight times, our layover in Chicago, and the time change, our trip totaled to 12 hours. By the time we arrived in Fort Lauderdale, it was past midnight and we were all exhausted. We had a quick check in at the Hyatt House and went straight to bed. We woke up at noon the following morning and picked up our car rental for our shopping day at the Sawgrass Mills Outlet Mall. Fort Lauderdale was cloudy but humid - weather that I very much prefer over Vancouver's. 

Saturday was embarkation day! Our hotel was close to the port as it only took us five minutes. We dropped off the boyfriend's parents and dropped off our rental car with Avis. When we arrived, there were huge crowds waiting to go through security. I'll admit, this wasn't the most fun or pleasant process. Actually, this was probably one of the worst crowds we'd been through. The decks were separated into two group and each group was to queue up on the left and right side. When we asked the crew members if there was a difference between the queues, they said no. But only when we made it to the entrance of the queue where the rope began that we noticed, that we were in the wrong line. Many other passengers noticed as well, so everyone tried to cut in front of other passengers to get into the right queue. It was not pretty. It was very disorganized and hectic, and there were no authority figures to tell us where to go.

After all the commotion, we finally boarded the ship, and we were allowed to go straight to our rooms! I'm not sure if its a Carnival thing but we always had to wait in the terminal for hours for boarding, and then some to enter our cabins, no matter what time we arrived for a Carnival cruise. Our cabin was on deck 3, starboard side, facing forward. 

After dropping off our carry-on luggage, we headed upstairs to the Windjammer Cafe for lunch. The food was mediocre, nothing special but again we noticed there were no utensils anywhere in the restaurant. We took a quick walk around the ship, but I wasn't able to get many pictures due to the torrential downpour. As the ship left for the ocean after our mandatory muster drill, the rocky waves began. It was rockier than usual and I definitely have no experienced such strong waves on a big ship. As a precaution, I took a motion sickness pill (biggest mistake of my life). We were tired from all the hoop-la, so we both decided to take a nap before dinner.

Our family had early dining reservations in the Grande dining room. Our waiter, Kevin, was a comedic character. He was always joking and laughing and that's exactly the service we appreciate! There is nothing worse than having a way too serious waiter and believe me, we've had some (re: ice cold Carnival). By the entree, I was falling asleep. It didn't say non-drowsy on the bottle!

Unfortunately due to the wind and rain, the acrobatic water show, Oasis of Dreams, was cancelled. We walked around the ship to try to stay awake and ended up in the arcade. Free play!

Stay tuned for day two on the Oasis of the Seas...

Navigate through our cruise here:

Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 - Day 4 - Day 5 - Day 6 - Day 7

Operation Oasis is underway!

Vacation has officially started and we are super excited to be away from cold, rainy Vancouver. Except it looks like it'll be rain in our forecast all week in the Caribbean.. Hopefully that will change.

Some very sad news surfaced from the Oasis last week. A passenger went overboard, and unfortunately, the search was unsuccessful. There are always two sides to every story. I will not get into the discussion but I pray the family will get some answers.

Well, we are now at the airport waiting to board our plane. Wheels up in 30!