Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Time truly flies. We're just under thirty days out until embarkation day! This countdown is officially on.

Since my last post, Izmir has been dropped from our cruise. While there has been whispers of another port, ultimately, Carnival decided it wasn't feasible to fit another port in our itinerary. Our first port was cancelled due to a security advisory issued by the U.S. in Turkey. While I'm disappointed by this cancellation, safety does come first. I was looking forward to revisiting Turkey because I had lovely time at Ephesus during our last Mediterranean cruise, but also mostly because I wanted more of these amazing Firinindan Raspberry Tartinis I had purchased from a convenience store in Kusadasi, Turkey. I know, so random, but it truly makes me sad that I won't be able to stock up on my favourite snack.

However, taking Turkey out of our itinerary also means we will have to pay a VAT (Value Added Tax) on purchases made during our cruise. This complicates everything. Our departing port is Athens, so if Carnival is charging VAT based on Athens, then we will be paying up to 23% tax on purchases made on the ship (different purchases are taxed on different rates).

All in all, I am so very disappointed we won't be visiting Turkey during this cruise. It causes a big financial wrinkle in our trip (plus a sad tummy). Nonetheless, I'm trying to staying positive because it will be an amazing experience. I'm so excited to visit Malta on my birthday! Now onto packing... how will I fit 10 days of dresses in a medium size suitcase?

Accommodation Talk

Wow, has it really been two months already?

Since moving out from my parents' place back in November, I've been keeping busy with home life. Unfortunately, groceries don't buy themselves and bathtubs don't clean themselves.

The good news is I've been slowly doing some planning on the side. We managed to book both hotels for Athens and Barcelona. We'll be staying by the Acropolis in Athens, and in the Eixample neighbourhood in Barcelona. The hotels are definitely pricey. I entertained the idea of booking our accommodations through Airbnb, but ultimately, I didn't really feel comfortable about it. We'd already done Airbnb in Rome a couple of years ago and we didn't particularly love it. Unfortunately for us, we didn't have the most pleasant first experience. Our contact was hours late in meeting us, and we never met the owner. The apartment wasn't cleaned well prior to our arrival. The second shower was literally a locker, so the four of us shared one bathroom. After that experience, we decided to stick with hotels as long as the price was decent.

We are now officially less than 50 days away from our sail date! I'm definitely very excited about this cruise, and thankfully, time has been flying by. The next step is to book our tours and excursions, my favourite part (other than outfit planning). I'll keep you posted, and this time I promise I'll be back in two weeks, not two months!

Hotels with Views of the Acropolis & La Sagrada Familia aka "Hotels I'm Not Staying At"

All Aboard the Fun Ship

carnival.com

We've been itching to go back to Europe since our first trip in 2014. We wanted to explore more of Europe, but we also wanted to cruise - and that is an expensive combination! So when we found out that Carnival was returning to Europe with a brand new ship, we decided to hop onboard the third sailing this spring! This will be our seventh cruise and our longest to date - it is a ten-day cruise from Athens, Greece to Barcelona, Spain.

We first booked this cruise in early 2015. Since our booking, the cruise has become much more expensive due to the falling Canadian dollar. Since Carnival has a strict cancellation policy and we had already put down a big deposit for the cruise, we decided to go ahead with it and book our flights. Now comes the waiting game - and of course, my favourite part: the planning process.

I am so excited to visit Barcelona and Athens. We will be staying in Athens prior to sailing, and in Barcelona before flying home. Although I heard Barcelona is Pickpocket Central, I'm hoping to hear some positives to outweigh the negative comments. If you have any suggestions as to what I should see or do during my stay, I'd love to hear them!

carnival.com

Operation Oasis: Day 7

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

The Final Sea Day 

Here we are on Day 7, the last day of our cruise. What a bittersweet feeling!

We woke up around noon and immediately went to the Windjammer Cafe for lunch one last time. As we walked up the stairs, we saw a large sheet cake (with a thank you message) at the entrance! I've never seen this before! People were ogling the cake and taking pictures (like myself), and children were trying to grab a piece, so I skipped when they cut the cake.

It was a cloudy day as we continued our journey back to Fort Lauderdale, but it was a sea day so the deck was completely full. The sun went away in the late afternoon and it became very windy again. It was starting to get chilly so we left to get ready for dinner. When we got back to our room, our disembarkation papers were waiting for us. It was time to pack. I had to have my absolute favourite dessert again - the chocolate pear tart - so we ordered room service as we started to pack.

We had dinner in the dining room in the evening. The star of our meal was the bay scallops with the cauliflower puree. I, myself, had three of these appetizers. The cauliflower puree was "to-die-for" delicious! We also got to try a fish dish that our Filipino neighbours were having as well. A little bit on the dry side, but it was nice to try something different! Nothing caught my eye for dessert, so I went with a sorbet. All the chefs came out and danced to "I Gotta Feeling" with the waiters. It is a tradition on Royal Caribbean ships and it was a lot of fun to watch/sing along.

We said goodbye to our waiter, Kevin, and thanked him for his sense of humour. He was headed to Europe to the Harmony of the Seas so we wished him the best - maybe we'll see him again one day. Funnily enough, he spent the last four years on the Allure, and our family was on the Allure in May 2012, so we were definitely on that ship at the same time!

We rushed back to our cabin to finish packing. We finished just in time for Oasis of Dreams. The show had been cancelled on our first night due to weather conditions. A side note, I've heard that it is almost always cancelled on the first night due to weather, so if you are planning to watch this show, do book the second showing later in the week. Oasis of Dreams is a show filled with synchronized swimmers, skilled divers and acrobats. It was amazing to watch them perform at sea in the night time.

We didn't want our night to end. We spent some time in the casino, and eventually cashed out our points. We had enough for a few keychains and a Casino Royale t-shirt. At last, we decided it was time to go to bed. Tomorrow morning, we'll be in Fort Lauderdale.

Disembarkation 

We were the second group to disembark, but it was way too early for us. So we decided to take our time. Our stateroom attendant woke us up prior to docking, which we weren't happy about. However, we didn't realize we hadn't docked as we rushed to get ready to leave. It turns out we were an hour behind. Sometime during the night, the Oasis had picked up two men who were stranded in the middle of the ocean with their boat. As a result, we were delayed. We left our cabin for breakfast at Park Cafe and finally left the ship when it closed at 10 AM.

The line to retrieve our luggage was backed up, but it was a quick process otherwise. We grabbed our luggage, which were the last ones standing for our disembarkation group, and went through customs. Soon, we were on our way to our hotel.

Flights to Vancouver were mostly in the early morning and we knew we wouldn't make it so we had one more night in Fort Lauderdale before flying home to Vancouver. We caught a Panthers' game that night. Although the Panthers lost, we had a great time and experience.

It was a nightmare going home with cancelled flights and a re-route to Miami, but with all that craziness aside, we had a very relaxing cruise. It was a much needed vacation as we hadn't cruised in over a year! We always have a lovely time with Royal Caribbean and this cruise was no exception.

Well that's it: our entire seven day Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Oasis of the Seas. I hope you've enjoyed my trip report!

Operation Oasis: Day 6

Happy New Year! I can't believe 2016 is already here. This past year has passed by so quickly! I wish everyone a happy and healthy 2016. Here's to more adventures in the upcoming year...

I want to mention a small incident that happened during our visit at Maho Beach. I wasn’t planning on writing about this because I wasn’t entirely sure if it was relevant, and it’s a silly thing but I guess it does affect my report because I'm missing a lot of photos! The waves really were strong that day, and the tides were high. As I was looking for a spot on the beach, I settled near a high rock in the middle of the beach. I didn’t exactly set my belonging down, because I was waiting for the rest of my family to arrive, and I was trying to get their attention. A woman swooped in and literally set her station up and sat down on the rock I was standing in front of. Her husband, uncertain - and aware she was taking someone else’s spot, followed suit. I was so shocked at her rudeness, I was tongue tied and I couldn’t say anything. I also didn’t want to cause a scene, so I moved to the lower rock next to her. I put down my beach bag and towel, and WOOSH. A huge wave came and took everything away. I chased after my flip flops, and luckily the boyfriend caught the handle of my beach bag before it floated into the ocean. Everything in my bag from my camera to my book was soaked. As a result, I don’t have many pictures from the last two and a half days of my cruise. My phone was shot after the incident. It then spent the next two days in rice, and luckily recovered. My camera recovered the next day after I cleaned all the sand out of the lens, but the battery died (because I stupidly bought the wrong charger), so I was unable to use it. So, that’s my hiccup/sob story of the trip. 

Day six was our second sea day. While we were sad to be on our homestretch of the cruise, we were looking forward to be able to lounge on the ship for two days. Our plan for the day was to book our next cruise.

We slept in, and woke up round noon. We stopped by the Solarium to grab a bowl of miso soup and grabbed lunch at the Windjammer Cafe. We lounged on the deck with our phones in the afternoon. We had purchased the internet package after it significantly dropped in price on the second day of the cruise. It worked out to be $13 a day for 5 days. Boy, were we glad to have it on the last two days. We’ve become so dependent on the internet, we didn’t know what to do without it.

Nowadays, you have to book an appointment with RCI's Next Cruise desk to book your next cruise. Walk-ins are only accepted when there are cancellations. I guess on a ship this big, some form of order is required. Since we were already booked on a Carnival cruise for 2016, we were looking at 2017. We wanted to explore the southern Caribbean, so we had a good idea of what we were looking for. We settled on a 10-Night Southern Caribbean cruise on the Serenade of the Seas. At the time of booking, the second passenger's fare was half off and each person is to receive $100 onboard credit for the upcoming cruise. In addition, we each received $50 onboard credit for our current cruise on the Oasis. After our booking, we went back up to the deck to watch the sunset.

It was our second and final formal night. As usual, we got all dressed up to have dinner in the dining room. It was lobster night, and we were excited for it. On our previous cruise in Europe, the Splendour, skipped lobster night much to our disappointment. We also had a special dessert. All week, our neighbours in the dining room were eating Filipino food. One of the cruiser had a nephew who worked as a chef on the Oasis, so he was always making special dishes for them. They had a fruit and jello bowl, and our server served us some as well. Initially, I thought it was the infamous halo-halo dessert, but it wasn’t. It was very delicious, but the boyfriend and I remembered it was also Baked Alaska night, so we both ordered one as it was our favourite cruise dessert. I gotta say though, I do prefer Carnival’s baked Alaska more so than RCI’s. 

After dinner, we decided to participate in the professional photoshoots set up around the ship. Unfortunately, we didn’t end up buying any photos. I’m not sure if the skill level has gone down with the photographers but none of our photos turned out very well. There were even a few where our heads were cut off in the photo! We returned to our cabin for a quick change.

Our entertainment of the night was Come Fly With Me in the Opal Theatre. The show had aerial (trapeze) arts, dance sequences and vocal performances. It was the one show we thoroughly enjoyed during the cruise.

After the show, we wandered over to Studio B where The Quest Game Show was taking place. It was our first time watching this game show, and we had no idea what to expect. Well, it was definitely an adults only activity! It was hilarious watching the participants try to complete their quests, and a bit awkward at times. Some people were really willing to do anything to win! I definitely would recommend watching if you're up for some laughs on one of the last few nights of your cruise.

One more day before disembarkation in Fort Lauderdale. What a bittersweet feeling! Stay tuned as I wrap up this cruise report. 

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