I am at the St. Thomas airport after three enjoyable nights onboard Oasis of the Seas’ maiden voyage and then not so enjoyably missing my flight back to Miami. I’ll be back briefly in Nassau on Friday for the traditional plaques and keys ceremony but I’m finished cruising on Oasis for the time being. I hope you all get to cruise on her.
We have nearly 1,000 Diamond Plus and Diamond members of the Crown & Anchor society on this cruise. The loyalty of these customers to our brand is breathtaking. Many of them now travel together, design handbags and other accessories for each other and generally know more about Royal Caribbean International than I do. I had dinner the other night with four couples and one single guest each of whom has cruised with Royal Caribbean over 100 times. One couple is boarding a ship in February and will cruise nearly continuously until May. There is a bit of a competition amongst some of them to see who can get to 300 cruises first. I would be happy to get a week of vacation.
At the Diamond Plus brunch event, Captain Bill and I got a taste of what it’s like to be a godmother. There were paper invitations that were blank on the back side and that became the opportunity to have us autograph dozens and dozens of invitations. One family came with their official Oasis of the Seas inaugural poster and had us sign that. The best one is the guest who won a watch in the raffle. That guest asked Captain Bill and I to sign the little pillow that the watch band goes around inside the box it comes in. For some reason the acronym CEO wouldn’t come out on the pillow.
I’ve played Presidential Ping Pong with travel agents many times but yesterday was the first time I played with paying guests. Almost every match involved a picture taking session and one player had me autograph the entry for Presidential Table Tennis in the Cruise Compass. There was one great story. A female guest came to play with her own racquet inside a very nice racquet holder. I shook her hand and asked if she played tournaments. She replied that 12 years ago she and a partner were the U.S. National Champion doubles team in age group competition. She was talking about 65 and over. Now she is 78 and playing with a bum knee so I won easily despite the energetic support she received from the crowd. Afterwards we discussed how she took up table tennis in her 50’s to keep occupied after her husband passed away. And became the national champion!!! Wow.
I went to the bridge to watch Captain Bill, the St. Thomas pilot and our navigation teams bring us into Crown Bay for the first time. Apart from a helicopter hovering overhead with a videographer, a film crew on the bridge shooting everything going on, the ship being featured on the first six pages of the local newspaper and all sorts of hoopla on the pier, you would never know it was our maiden call. Seriously, it seemed like everyone on the entire island was talking about Oasis of the Seas in person and on cell phones. The guy I bought the local paper from at the airport wanted to know how he can offer shore excursions to St. John to our guests. The CBP officer at the airport was two hours away from going onboard. The woman sitting next to me at the gate was fretting that the guests coming off the ship might affect traffic for whoever she was talking to. We don’t have as many guests onboard as will have in January, but hopefully the ports of call will feel an immediate economic benefit from the ship’s arrival.
this ship looks amazing can’t wait for Oct 09/10 whenallmy family will be onit.
hi adam
we are booked on the oasis for continuous cruises on oct. 9 and 16. we are diamond plus and live near bayonne. we go on the explorer a lot and our next cruise on it is march 7, 2010 for our 50th anniversary. i checked on line to see about booking it for seversl cruises in 2011. i noticed that there are only cruises up to april and one in may. on our last cruise on the explorer on nov. 12, i heard rumors that the explorer will be pulled out of bayonne. please advise if that is true and we hope another ship of her class or better will take its place. thanks.
What happen to the special event hosted by Adamn on the Dec 5th sailing of Oasis? I was on board. I’m a diamond member and nothing????
Congratulations to you and your team for delivering everything that was promised over the past couple of years… and more! The Oasis really is spectacular and goes way beyond “Wow”! We were so impressed with the size and beauty of the ship. Each “neighborhood” is filled with beauty, fun and surprises. Speaking of surprises, they were everywhere, from the escalator when disembarking at Labadee, from deck 3 to deck 1 to the art that was everywhere. Thank goodness we had 13 nights/days to enjoy and explore… and still found surprises as we disembarked (such an easy process) at the end of the Inaugural sailing. One of the best “surprises” was to see so many of your “best of the best” employees on the ship. Our thanks for some wonderful experiences and, again, congratulations on such an awesome ship!
Missed playing with you because I was having Tapas at Vintages. Awesome ship!!! So much to so, so little time!
hi ruth bryant—
we are doing the oasis on oct. 9 and 16th, 2010. hope to see you on board. maybe at the meet and mingle.
What a beautiful ship! I have enjoyed watching the development over the past year, and can’t wait to sail with 22 friends and family October 2-9, 2010. The video blogs have really given a wonderful insight to how amazing this ship is. Congratulations and thank you for all your blogs!
I know you’d like to have a cruise ship that uses water for fuel. Send me an email so we can start making some plans together.
Cheers,
Kevin West
President
Reading this post seems it was one of the finest cruise trip that the writer have ever gone through….all of the things described here sounds so good and awesome.Even I desire to go for some such kind of trip with my husband and kids.
Congradulations on a truily wonderful ship. It’s great to recognize the planners, but I hope you always remember the people that create a wonderful cruise experiance. The waite staff,servers, salespeople, counterpeople, room attendants, etc, etc. They are your greatest assett. A ship is just an object without the smiles and greatings of it’s crew. For myself, and my Mother they are what/who made our experiance truily wonderful. They are the reason I intend to cruise again, and with Royal Charibbean. There were minimal complaints, and these were minor. Again, congradulations on a wonderful new ship. Joey
Hello, my name is lisa and i will be going on the Oasis of the Seas April 8th. However, i am not so fond of the stops, i mean, Haiti(just had an earthquake) Jamaica(-__-) and mexico (im gonna be burned alive.) also what if this is another relapse of Titanic!!?? I mean, co’mon.. could it have been any more of a coincidence that Titanic 3D comes out 4 days before my cruise. Yep, just my luck. Well fellas, CHEERIO! and be safe.
—Michele