So, one of the things we were most looking forward to on the Oasis was the entertainment. I love live shows. I especially love it when I can relax and enjoy them in my native tongue and not miss little plays on words or innuendo, etc. One of the coolest things about the Oasis class ships (for me) is that they feature a full Broadway production show. On Oasis this is (soon to be was) Hairspray. I really like Hairspray and was super excited to see it. There are also lots of other shows on the ship, including a comedy club, ice show, and the dive shows I mentioned before.
All those entertainment options on such a big ship come with a price (not a monetary one, don't worry, the cruise fare includes all the shows). Oasis holds far more passengers than can be seated in any one venue at a time. To insure that everyone has the opportunity to try see everything a "ticket" system has been set up. Guests can prebook shows online before cruising, or at designated times on the ship the first day. Booked guests can enter the theatre up until 15 minutes before show time and be guaranteed a seat. At 15 minutes before curtain, non booked guests are allowed in to fill empty seats.
It takes away some of the total relaxation that a cruise ought to be, but it does mean you don't miss out on something you really want to do. So, I made sure I was online and made all of my reservations in advance, and then worked out my dinner time reservations around the show times (we had flexible "My Time Dining" seating--which was important as there is no way to work out the shows around one fixed time, that I could find anyway).
There were a lot of glitches before the cruise with this online booking system. Shifting from the typical 7 night cruise to one 12 night seems to have thrown the Oasis prebook system into chaos. Our sailing was not able to book until much later than the norm (and even after 5 night Med sailings going on after us were) and when we were finally able to one of the major shows (Come Fly With Me) was not available.
When Come Fly With Me finally came online about 3 weeks before the sail date, several of the previously booked things were moved or cancelled, which meant many of us suddenly found ourselves double booked and had to spend an hour or two online (or the phone) again trying to sort out everything to see all the shows and dine nightly.
Thankfully it was all sorted (or so I thought!) and by the time we left for vacation I had printouts showing all of our prereserved showtimes and dinner times for our group of six.
Our first night onboard we had prebooked Oasis of the Dreams, the fully produced dive show with dance and all kinds of interesting stuff going on. We had dinner, saw the show, and all in all felt it was a great evening. David and I spent a bit of time just enjoying the ship and finally headed back to the room around 11:00.
After crawling into my PJs I did something I rarely do onboard a ship, I flipped on the TV. There is a whole system to see your onboard account and your reservations and get messages on the TV. It looked interesting and I thought I would click around on it and try it out. It showed a message, which I figured would be welcome message of some sort. Clicking on it, I read that the Day 5 showing of Hairspray had been cancelled and we had been rebooked onto the Night 1 show at 8:30-----so, in other words, we had just missed it!!!! I am not really sure how RCI expected me to be at both Hairspray and Oasis of Dreams simultaneously anyway.
So, we got dressed again and went down to guest services to sort things out. Showings of Hairspray had been paired down to just the one on night one (that no one had prebooked, as prebooking had it on night 5), a matinee on day 2 and a very late night (starting at 10:30) showing on day 2. Yep, a 12 night cruise and all 3 showings are jammed in to 2 days! (I realize some of the performers are in multiple shows and other shows happen in that same space, but even at that there would have been a possibility to spread it out among at least 3 days, and really should have been a better booking system).
I had offered to lead and organize a cabin crawl on day 2 at 2:00 so we were not able to book the matinee and had to settle for the very late showing the next day. We were lucky though. By mid day the next day, more people were finding the messages and no tickets for either show remained (others did not realize there was an issue until they arrived at the theatre on days 4 or 5 at their prereserved times).
The whole thing was a complete debacle and that one piece of stress was truly a failure on RCI's part. To the credit of the onboard staff, eventually a fourth showing was added one afternoon midtrip (and while it played to a nearly full house, there were enough empty seats that we felt justified in seeing it a second time ourselves).
Of course, this was not a huge deal and we still saw the show(s) and had a great cruise. I tell the story anyway both because it IS a story after all, and because it highlights the recurring issue that RCI seemed to be having in scheduling activities and entertainment for Oasis while on a longer, sea day intensive cruise. There were a number of odd scheduling choices, with activities stacked at times and then big lulls at other times. Strange choices were made as well; an example would be that on the typical 7 night itinerary the improv comedy show runs twice. On our 12 night one it only ran one time (to a full house, clearly the interest was there). I got the feeling that the cruise director is probably excellent in knowing the types of passengers who book 7 night Caribbean sailings on the biggest ships on the water, but he fell flat in how to mange a longer sailing with perhaps a bit different cruiser type. This is something RCI really needs to improve for the return sailings and Allure crossings next year.
Scheduling issues aside, we were impressed with the level and variety of entertainment offered (I think we saw it all).
Hairspray was very well done with a really good cast. It's a shame that the show is being taken off the ship next week, to be replaced with Cats. I imagine Cats will be much easier to cast and work better for non English speakers in the audience, but I personally feel it is a less interesting show and also far too long to work well with meal times on a ship. We were told by a couple of people that RCI just renewed their royalty contract with Hairspray for 5 more years, so I am crossing my fingers that it will be moved to another ship.
The Improv Comedy Show was held in Studio B (the ice rink, but with a floor over the ice) and featured three of the comic actors from Hairpsray as well as the stand up club host, Simian (I am totally guessing on that spelling!). It was a lot of fun and we would have happily gone back a second time had it run. I doubt it will keep happening when Hairspray is gone, as Cats does not have comic actors, but who knows?
Come Fly With Me, is the other big production show that runs in the main theatre. It was written for the ship and is not going anywhere. It has lots of interesting aerial effects, lots of good, uptempo music, dancing, etc. We all really liked it and were happy to be able to snag seats (shortly after curtain, being sure to let those who might not have seen it get seats first) to see it a second time.
Frozen In Time is my favourite of the various ice shows I have seen on Royal ships. It has a Hans Christian Anderson theme that works really well.
I've already written about the dive shows, Oasis of Dreams and Splish Splash, both of which were really fun and different to watch.
There is also a stand up comedy club which featured to comedians as well as the host. We enjoy stand up and went several times. It should be noted that this shows is more adult oriented and no one under 16 was admitted.
We had more than the normal amount of "headliners" (guest performers who perform on the main stage--many of whom frequent the same ships and are known to a lot of repeat cruisers):
Earl Turner was a signer who did mostly older, Motown, tunes, but he did do a mix, all more upbeat and interspersed with some gentle comedy, etc. He had lots of energy and performed with the RCI band on stage and was quite enjoyable to watch. This is one of those shows that we sat on an aisle for, thinking we were likely to want to leave early, and ended up staying for the whole thing.
The Jerome Bell Idol Experience showcases the singing of the actor who played Seaweed in Hairspray, Jerome Bell. He was a semi finalist on American Idol and does several songs, with back up dancing from other cast members, etc. This is another show we really enjoyed.
There was also a ventriloquist and a band that sampled songs from several decades and artists (yet billed themselves as "the ultimate tribute band" --o.kay.). We did end up leaving early from these shows; they were just not our thing at all.
Additionally, there were smaller shows featuring the singers from the main shows in various clubs, generally held late night, the usual slate of trivia, silly games, etc run by the cruise staff and 4 presenters brought on just for the longer sailing (this is typical in the industry. There were:
1. A speaker on forensics who gave several talks. This is just not a topic which interests us, so we never went, but it seems many people enjoyed them.
2. A set and costume designer who also gave several talks. This IS a subject we tend to really enjoy. Sadly, we walked out 20 minutes into the first talk and never tried again. There were lots of photos of things he had done with him patting himself on the back for doing something that was hard, but not going into any explanations of what challenges he faced and how he went about working out the set anyway, etc.
3. A couple who taught Chi Kung, they were really good presenters and I was surprised to truly enjoy this. I ended up going more mornings than not.
4. A woman who "taught" water coloring. It was fun to use the materials and dink around. The presenter gave almost no instruction, did not stand where many people could see her, and often got irritated when passengers did not already know water color basics--so that was an activity I enjoyed (and it was popular, the space was full every time) but run by someone who could use some improvements. I got the feeling she had never tried to teach her hobby before.
I apologize for the complete lack of photos in this entry. Next up I'll have plenty of pictures the pool and sports areas.
--Hadley
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