Tag: beach

Oasis of the Seas: Day 7, Our Final Sea Day :(

Our final day at sea couldn’t have started off better. Once again, clear blue skies and beautiful water were all we could see. We’ve been pretty lucky with the weather all week, and this last day on board was no different.

Once again, looking to avoid buffet crowds and enjoy a more relaxed environment, we headed to Park Café for breakfast. This little spot really is nice, and while it doesn’t offer the selection the Windjammer does, it’s a fine substitute if you’re not looking for a buffet.

This final day at sea was fairly relaxed, with no shows on our agenda. After breakfast, we headed in for a round of trivia, followed by a towel folding demonstration. We enjoy these, but this one was pretty short. I think they quickly made two animals and ended it, lasting only about 5 minutes. Not sure what the rush was, and the guests around us seemed as perplexed about the rush as we were.

Next up, we headed for the zipline. This is something we’d been meaning to do since day 1, but decided to wait to avoid the lines for signing waivers (since the electronic waiver system in the cabin wasn’t working). Note that to do the zipline, you at least have to have socks on. If you don’t have closed shoes (tennis shoes, basically), but have socks, they’ll loan you shoes, but if you show up without socks, you’re not getting on. We were all set, and after a short wait in line, took our turns flying across the boardwalk! While not quite as exciting as the zipline in Labadee (we should have done this one first J ), it was still a treat to see the boardwalk from directly above it.

After a quick lunch in the MDR, we headed to the comedy club for Captain’s Corner, where guests could ask Captain Rob anything they wanted. It was a very entertaining hour, as he’s very well spoken and quite funny at times. I highly recommend attending this on any ship, especially this one.

After the talk, we headed to the Schooner Bar for progressive trivia. We thought we were in a good position coming in to the 3rd and final round, and scored 19 out of 20 on this one, only to find out we’d actually tanked the first round and ended up not placing in the top 3. Oh well, we had fun regardless!

After trivia, Bayley changed into a bathing suit, and we headed up so she could try the FlowRider. It wasn’t all that busy mid-afternoon, and she got on after a short wait in line. She was glad she did it, but took a hard fall into the rear barrier, and didn’t want to give it another go due to the resulting headache. We also watched the FlowShow later in the afternoon, where the Flowrider staff shows off their skills. If you have the time, this is really fun to watch, just be sure that you stand a bit back if you don’t want to get wet!

At dinner, it was time to say good bye to our wait staff. I can’t say enough good things about Gerson and Rydon’s work this week with us at table 649. They were very friendly and attentive, and they’re definitely one of the best MDR teams we’ve had in a long time.

We didn’t really have a lot on tap in the evening, so after a quick picture with King Julien and a stroll around the ship, we headed to the Promenade for the DreamWorks “Move it, Move it” parade. Even getting there 15min prior, the best spot we could find was near the aft area of the promenade, which was a mistake. If you really want to attend this, stay forward of the Prmenade Café, or you’re not going to see much of what goes on, in part because of the smoke they pump in at the beginning. Puss n Boots comes down in the Rising Tide, but he’s at the forward section of it facing away from aft.

I spent a little time after that walking around various areas of the ship, including a trip up to the Flowrider area to catch the sunset. Really, really amazing view from up there.

The rest of the evening consisted of the TV and Movie trivia round, held in “On-Air”, which wasn’t even close to the size they needed due to the large crowd that showed up. It was fun, regardless, even though we got knocked out in round 1. After that, it was time to pack and put our suitcases out, sadly.

That pretty much covers our final day on the Oasis of the Seas. Over the next couple of days, I’ll get our thoughts on debark and overall impressions of this cruise up and published. Hope you’ve found all of this useful and entertaining, I know we enjoyed experiencing it!

Oasis of the Seas: Day 6 in Cozumel!

Our final stop on this cruise was in Cozumel, a port we’ve been to several times in the past. Normally we use this as a beach day and just grab a cab to one of the local resorts, but having already spent a day on the beach in Labadee this time, we decided to try a dune buggy excursion through a supplier we’ve used in the past for both clients and ourselves, ShoreTrips.

The ship docked pretty early, and started allowing people to get off at about 8:15. We weren’t scheduled to meet our tour guide until 11am ship time (10am local time), so we hung out and ate breakfast at the MDR before getting off to check out a few of the local shops. It was pretty humid, and none of us really had the patience to walk all of the port shops in that heat, so after picking a couple of things up, we grabbed a cab to the Hotel Cozumel and Resort where we were scheduled to meet our guides ($12 for 5 people for the cab ride).

On arrival, our guides Omar and Ronny from Cozumel Buggy greeted us and led us over to some seats in the lobby. Once we got all checked in with them and they went over what the tour entailed, they led us and the two other groups to our buggies. These things were pretty cool, just note that whoever is going to drive needs to be able to drive a stick, all of their buggies have 4-speed manual transmissions.

We started with a drive out of the city, following Omar all the way, and eventually ended up driving along the incredibly scenic coastline before stopping at a little resort for about 30min of beach time. Here you can order food and drink if you want, but you do have to pay for it. The guide carries water and soda in his buggy that’s included, so we didn’t choose to buy anything, we just hung out in the ocean for a while:

After the beach break, we got back in the buggy and drove down the coastline a little more before stopping at El Cedral for some Mayan history. The guide gave us a talk on the history of the town, and took us for a little traditional Mayan food. We also had the chance to take pictures next to a Mayan temple and purchase some items from local vendors.

Next up, we drove around the remainder of the island’s coastline and back to the hotel we started at. That brought us to the last parts of the excursion, snorkeling and lunch, in that order. The snorkeling itself was just okay, as you hop in the water from a pier across the street and swim out in to a rocky shoreline area. We did see some small fish and a couple of rays, but it was pretty choppy, and I think the three of us were pretty well spent by the time we got back to the pier and got out.

After getting out and dried off, it was time for lunch. We ate at the hotel’s buffet and were served fajitas, along with a few sides. They cooked up both beef or chicken, but ran out of chicken near the end of the line. I had the beef, which wasn’t bad, but the fries on the buffet were pretty cold. Oh well, for the most part I think everyone got filled up before we called it a day and grabbed cabs back to the boat.

We were all pretty worn out, and decided to skip dinner in the MDR, as nothing on the menu really seemed worth getting cleaned up and dressed up for. We had tickets to Come Fly With Me, the acrobatic show, so we hit that up at 8:30. It was a pretty good show, save for the singing.

After the show ended, we headed to Johnny Rockets. This isn’t free for lunch or dinner, but at dinner you pay a $6.95/pp cover charge and can eat whatever you want on the menu. Soda and water are included, but shakes and anything with alcohol is extra. I had the Route 66 burger while Bayley had the grilled cheese, and we both ordered the bacon cheese fries. Yummy… I have a lot of working out to do after we get home to burn all this off…

That about covers day 6. I’ll try and get my recap of our final day aboard the Oasis done tomorrow, with a post on our disembarkation experience and final thoughts a few days later after we’ve had some time to decompress and put our thoughts on the sailing together.

Oasis of the Seas: Day 4, Visiting Jamaica!

Going in to the cruise, I think we all were a bit apprehensive about stopping in Jamaica. Our only other visit to the island was 8 years ago on an NCL cruise, and it ended with a pretty serious injury to one of my daughter’s hands due to negligence on the part of the zip line operator. That was also the cruise where we saw that if you’re late coming back from a cruise line sponsored excursion, they will in fact wait for you. Due to the injury we were an hour late getting back to the ship, and obviously the last tender from shore before departure.

On this stop, things couldn’t have ended any differently. We booked an excursion through Royal that took us to Dunn’s River Falls for a climb up the falls, followed by a lunch stop at some resort, and ending with a 35-minute river tubing trip. There were a couple of lows, but overall we had a lot of fun!

After getting off the ship and meeting at the designated location for our tour, we were broken up into two groups of ~15 for the bus ride. It was nice not being packed into some large tour bus, the small groups were perfect. On departure, they told us they were changing the order, and that we’d do the falls first, so that we could avoid the larger crowds that show up later in the day. That was fine with us. After about an hour of riding in the bus, we arrived at the falls to a mostly-empty parking lot. There were a couple other small tours there, but the place never felt overcrowded.

After getting all checked in, we were assigned a guide and videographer and were led to the bottom of the falls. For those who have never done this, it’s really not that hard. They scrub the path every morning to keep it from getting slippery, and are always pointing out the best spots to step on the way up. Now, there are times that your group has to hold hands and form a human chain while climbing, but overall it was pretty easy to get around. The guide was great, and while the videographer did a good job of capturing everyone along the way, we chose not to pay the $40 for the DVD, as I had my GoPro with me.

After the climb, they lead you back to the bus through the little market place there, where you do encounter some pushy shop owners. This is one of my least favorite parts of Jamaica, as we all remembered it having some of the pushiest locals of any port we’ve stopped in, and this area was no exception. After a string on “no thank you” responses, we made our way back to the bus to head out for lunch.

The lunch stop was some little resort along the way where you get access to a buffet with some mediocre eats. Things like jerk chicken, rice, beans, salad, and assorted deserts. One thing to note here, on the way in they give you a very small glass of rum punch. That’s the only free drink you get here. Period. Bring water… Also, a very pushy gentleman will take your families picture on the way in, and try to get you to buy it on the way out for $10. He’s a pretty bad photographer, as a few pics were blurry, and ours was fogged over. Yea, no thanks.

After leaving the resort, we took a short drive to the starting point for the river tubing. This was an absolute blast. The last time we did something like this was in Belize, cave tubing, and we were highly disappointed. That wasn’t what I consider tubing, as they pulled us down the river the entire way, there was zero current. Here, there was plenty of current, with a few small drops along the way. Nothing to fear though, it was really, really fun!

After tubing, we all loaded up in the bus for the long ride back. As we were leaving, it started raining pretty hard, which made the drive back even slower. On arriving back at the port (around 4:30pm ship’s time, if I recall), it wasn’t raining there yet, but was about to start. We walked through a couple of shops and picked up a few small items before heading to the ship right as it started pouring. One nice thing about the enclosed shopping area at the port, the store owners aren’t pushy like they are everywhere else.

Even though we got back pretty close to dinner time and were soaked and tired, we managed to get ready and make it on time, and enjoyed another tasty meal with more excellent service from our wait staff.

After dinner, we headed over to Dazzle for Battle of the Sexes, but the best we could do seating-wise was an upstairs section against the center glass, and even with that view, couldn’t really see a thing. A lot of people seemed to be really unhappy with the views in there, and a number of others left without being able to find a seat. That was a pretty popular game show that was held in a really horrible venue. I think we stuck it out for 10 minutes before we decided to head to the boardwalk so Bayley could take picture with the penguins from Madagascar:

That pretty much did it for the night. Bayley went hunting for a snack, but with some very limited options at 9:30pm (basically Sorrentos and the half a dozen items in the promenade café), chose to skip it. We’re still really surprised at how limited late night snacking is on a ship this size.

Oasis of the Seas: Our Day 3 Stop in Labadee!

Two ports down, one to go! For this post, I’ll focus on day 3, which saw us spending time in Labadee, Haiti. This stop was a first for us. We’d stopped at a Royal-owned private island in the past, Great Stirrup Cay, which we had fun at, but Labadee blew that out of the water.

For this stop, we’d booked spots for the 11:30 zipline time, and planned to just hang out on the beach the rest of the day. After getting off the ship, we headed over to the zipline desk to check in (which you should do right away no matter how late your scheduled time is). After getting the waivers filled out and getting our “flight time” wristbands, we walked over to Columbus Cove to set up camp. We chose this based on other reviews indicating that it’s the least busy of the beach areas due to distance, and were glad we did. It’s a pretty short walk over there if you take the correct path, and when we arrived, one of the attendants arranged some beach chairs beneath a couple of palm trees just a couple of feet from the water for us.

We spent some time hanging out in the water, which was the perfect temperature, and resting on our chairs before heading over to the zipline for our scheduled time. Side note: When we left Columbus Cove, we did leave some of our stuff on our chairs, since we planned on coming back, and nothing was touched while we were gone. Arriving at the zipline area, we did get a locker to store the two bags we carried with us from the beach, and that locker cost $8. Granted, you get access to it for the whole day, but we only used it while we were on the zipline.

Once everyone on your tour arrives, they get you set up with your harness and give a quick talk about what’s going to happen before they lead you over to the practice course. This short run gives you a chance to see how the harness works, what the two positions for flight are (torpedo and sitting up) and how the braking at the end of the run will feel. That part’s a rush in itself due to how fast you stop when you hit the end. Once everyone finishes the practice run, it’s time to load up in the trucks and head up the hill to the top of the real zipline. That’s where the fun really begins 🙂

On arrival, you walk up to the platform area and they split the group in to two sides. You do get to ride with the people in your group/family, as the 5 of us all got to ride at the same time. Just like the practice run, they give you the instructions on how to launch, whether or not you need to change positions in mid-flight (based on weight and the wind speed, you may or may not need to be in “torpedo” the whole way down). Once that’s out of the way, it’s time to fly. I have to say, I’m not a huge fan of heights, but this never once bothered me. Maybe it’s the nature of the harness, or maybe because you have no control over your launch, but this was far more fun than a traditional multi-traverse zipline to me, and standing on and launching off of that big platform didn’t bother me a bit. See for yourself!

After the zipline, we hopped the tram back over to Columbus Cove. On the way there, we got a taste of why that beach is a better option than the ones closer to the ship. When we passed the first set of beaches on the truck up to the zipline and again on this tram, we saw a couple of really long lines for the buffet at that location. Arriving at our beach, there was no wait to get food, and we had no issues getting a picnic table. Seriously, this beach is like a 6-8min walk from the ship if the tram’s not available, and it’s worth it. Far less crowded than the ones right along the main area closer to the ship.

Anyway, we enjoyed the bbq, all provided at no additional cost. Since we have soda packages, we were also able to refill our soda cups at no charge while there. My package includes all non-alcoholic beverages, so I got a virgin Labadoozee for Jen, and purchased one with rum for me. Good stuff!

After lunch, we spent a couple more hours both in the water and laying on our chairs before deciding to call it a day. I have to say, Royal really knows how to get people on and off these large ships. We had no wait to get off right when disembarkation started in the morning, and even though quite a few people were getting on at the same time as us, we got through security fast, and were back in our room in a short matter of time.

Side note – The soda cup that came with my drink package went missing while we were on the beach here, and since I really wanted to keep using the Freestyle machines, I went to guest services to get a replacement. They sent me to the café, where I had to purchase another one for ~$10. I get it, they have no way to know who really lost it/had it stolen vs who’s trying to get an extra soda cup without paying for the whole package, but having to pay another $10 for a replacement didn’t sit that well with me. An easy fix would be to actually tie the chip in the cup to the guest, so if it’s lost it could be deactivated. Then charge a smaller fee if one absolutely has to be charged. Obviously that would mean having to set all bars up with chip readers to be sure cups they’re handed are valid, but still, it seems like a better solution to me.

Anyway, dinner tonight was delicious. It was Italian night, which for me meant some antipasti and lasagna. Both delicious! The sticky bread pudding that accompanied it for dessert wasn’t too shabby either. I have to say, the food and service in the MDR have been outstanding thus far. Can’t say enough good stuff about our waiter Gerson and his assistant Rydon.

We were all pretty tired after a day on the beach, but somehow managed to stay up for “Who wants to feel like a millionaire” and the “Love and Marriage” show. The former was just okay, and since it was held in a bar that was showing game 4 of the NBA finals, there were several ticked off patrons when they turned the game off at the end of the first quarter for the game show, but it happened anyway. The “Love and Marriage” show was pretty funny, and is one of our favorites on any sailing.

That pretty much ended day 3 for us. Next up, my recap of day 4’s stop in Jamaica!

Is the MSC Divina Right For You?

After cruising with MSC out of Miami twice in a three months, one thing stands out, and that’s the fact some people don’t seem to be doing their research before booking on the Divina, or their travel agents aren’t doing it for them :). Understanding the differences between the various lines is important, regardless of who you end up booking with. Proper expectations play a key role in one’s happiness with something as expensive as a vacation, so why would you book a cruise based simply on the best fare, and not at least partially on others’ experiences? I recognize that you can’t trust all reviews, but if you read enough of them, you can identify positive and negative patterns and learn to filter out the noise.

In MSC’s case, their first couple of seasons in the US really didn’t seem to go well, at least from the perspective of American passengers. I can’t really speak to that, as we didn’t get to experience the Divina before she returned in 2015, but we’ve heard and read that it was still set up in a far more European manner than it sounded like people here wanted or were expecting. I get that a line starting operation in another country should be familiar with their market and adjust accordingly, and by not doing so they turned some people off. Personally, I think it would have been interesting to give that a try. I’ve read a few posts and reviews about those first couple of seasons, but one of the fairest I’ve seen comes from someone I’ve referenced before, Scott Sanfilipo, who sailed before and after their adjustments, and recapped his 2014 experience right before sailing again in 2015 in this blog entry. It’s definitely worth a read before continuing here.

Some of the things he talked about from the 2014 season have changed, and some haven’t. Just know that even now, this is a different product than the contemporary US-based lines. This isn’t Carnival, Norwegian or Royal, it’s MSC and they have their own identity. I can’t emphasize this enough: When booking any cruise, don’t just look at the cost, know what you’re comfortable with, what you want, and what each line offers. When looking at the Divina, I think the main question potential passengers have to answer honestly is:

Are you comfortable in a melting pot?

The ship appeals to Europeans as well as Americans, and in talking to a family from Sweden on our Christmas sailing, it was easy to understand why. For them it came down to an affordable way to get a feel for Caribbean cruising. On some Divina sailings kids sail free, so they didn’t have to pay for either of their boys. I’m sure there are plenty of other reasons too, but along that same “melting pot” theme, there are things you need to be aware of and comfortable with:

  • You’ll be surrounded by people speaking in other languages, more so than any other U.S.-based cruise we’ve been on. It’s not something that concerns me (and most of the time I don’t even notice), but on both of our sailings we overheard people randomly complaining about it when talking to each other about how their cruise was going.
  • Ship announcements happen in something like 5 languages. This happens during anything from Bingo to the muster drill. Frankly, this got to be a pet peeve of mine. Not that it happens, but how often I’d hear a fellow American complaining about it as it was happening.

The other big complaint in this area we heard more than once was that the crew and passengers were noticeably rude. We didn’t get that vibe at all. There are both rude and friendly people in all cultures, and frankly we didn’t see any more line cutting or rude attitudes out of passengers on the Divina than we’ve seen out of our fellow Americans on other sailings.

Some of the other big differences (good and bad) between MSC and the standard U.S. based lines that we noticed on our two sailings:

  1. No sail-away party. Actually, we didn’t notice this because we normally aren’t up on deck for it on any sailing, but we did hear it from a couple of people who were disappointed by it.
  2. No music constantly playing by the pool on the Divina. True, outside of music possibly playing when the entertainment staff is out there putting on events, I don’t recall constant blaring music by the pool all of the time. The one time I really appreciated this was on the last sailing. We were docked next to one of Carnival’s ships in Nassau, which was blasting canned music the entire time they were docked to an empty pool deck, while the Divina’s was quiet and peaceful.
  3. There’s still work to be done in the Divina’s MDR. At Christmas, they really had too many tables crammed too close together and not enough staff to handle the load. Our waiters were all friendly, but really couldn’t keep up with the number of tables they had. Even though we weren’t in the MDR on the last sailing, we heard similar complaints from those who were. 8/2017 Update: As mentioned in a recent post, the MDR experience on our August 2017 sailing was vastly improved, so to us, it looks like MSC has taken customer feedback and made positive change here!
  4. You get a more international selection of food in the MDR and Le Muse than you tend to on U.S.-based lines. Some meals were better than others, but it’s an interesting change of pace. One item I can’t rave about enough is the pizza. From a food aspect, I’d go back for that alone.
  5. The included shows were better than our previous 5 sailings (3x Carnival, 1x Celebrity, 1x NCL). I’m looking forward to comparing it to the entertainment on the Oasis of the Seas later this month, as it’s been far too long since we’ve been on Royal Caribbean for me to objectively compare the two.
  6. I’ve gone on a lot after both sailings about the Divina’s entertainment staff, and for good reason. They’re friendly, fun, and they know how to engage the passengers. We had plenty to do during sea days on both sailings. It was really nice to attend trivia without the same canned questions other lines use over and over, too. They’ve stuck in our memory far more than the entertainment staff on previous ships.

I think that about covers it. Really, it comes down to comfort level with a very diverse mix of passengers. I admit that before we sailed in December we were nervous after reading a lot of the reviews, but after both sailings, we’re quite happy we went. The differences made for some fun times, and we’ve enjoyed mixing things up and getting out of the comfort zone we’d built sailing on the contemporary lines. We look forward to the Seaside’s arrival next year and definitely plan to sail her.

For now, hopefully you’re more educated on what to expect from the Divina if you choose to sail with MSC! If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments and I’ll respond as time permits!