After booking this cruise 2 years ago, today is the day we finally board the Oasis of the Seas. This will be the second time Amy and I have been on an Oasis class ship. We sailed on Oasis’s younger sister, Allure, back in 2011. This time we have the kids and they get to experience a 7 day cruise and a size upgrade from their first cruise (Independence of the Seas).
Our trip here didn’t go completely as planned despite my excessive planning. First off when I called to confirm hotel reservation, I found out our hotel at the port was not open yet due to hurricane damage last fall. I then booked a backup hotel along with another room even cheaper. Our hotel did open in time but there’s still more drama about it I’ll mention later.
We were supposed to drive to the airport from Columbia on Saturday morning for our flight midday Saturday. Leading up to this weekend they started calling for a wintery mix arriving Saturday morning. I went ahead and booked the Pear Tree Inn near Lambert Airport just in case. The forecast didn’t change so right after my daughter’s basketball game Friday night we packed up and headed for St. Louis around 8:30pm. Good thing we went early as Columbia had a little ice issue on Saturday it luckily St. Louis escaped that round making our flight out to Florida uneventful.
At MCO we picked up my Hertz car rental (Nissan Rogue) and drove toward Port Canaveral with a quick stop at Walmart to by liquid essentials we didn’t want to fly with (sunscreen, bug spray, and 4 bottles of wine-2 per stateroom 😊.
I was ready to relax as we finally made it to our hotel near Port Canaveral. Now for that issue with our room. Out of all the rooms I had booked planning this trip, apparently the one I kept was accidentally the wrong hotel…in the wrong town. I thought I had a room at the hotel in Port Canaveral but my “better” price was actually the Country Inn at Orlando Airport. Luckily the Port Canaveral Country Inn has one room left so we were able to stay there and the Orlando location refunded my money.
We returned our Hertz rental this morning and grabbed their shuttle to the port at 9:30. That’s a bit earlier than they suggest (~11:00am) but we had nothing else to do so we might as well wait at the port.
After they opened the doors we breezed right through security and checking in. Then it was the stress free waiting for the ship to board. Boarding was delayed for over an hour due to excessive cleaning but I’m ok with that.
After the first Ooo’s and Aaah’s upon entering the ship, we worked our way up to see if the zip line was open. Since it was closed we headed to the Windjammer buffet for lunch.
Our post lunch time included things like visiting Adventure Ocean and registering the kids, finding our table in the main dining room, and the required muster drill.
We did get to try the zip line before changing and heading to dinner. Ethan was pretty hesitant but he did it and will likely do it again.
For dinner in the main dining room (we will likely go every night) we had appetizers like shrimp cocktail, calamari, and salad. The main course was chosen as either Chicken Marsala or Prime Rib of Beef. The rich Royal Chocolate Cake was a popular dessert choice.
We did a little general knowledge trivia after dinner. Our family team of Amy and I with the 2 kids was no match or the other adult teams that actually knew something but it was fun.
Our reservation for the Broadway show of Cats was tonight. I didn’t really know what to expect other than some like it and others hate it. Ethan and I lasted until intermission (1+ hour) and the girls made it maybe another 20 minutes. I kept waiting for a storyline to follow but I never caught on. It was cool how they kept interacting through the audience and you never knew when one would show up in your aisle. It also didn’t help that intermission was at 9:40pm. I didn’t know how much later the boy would last. 
Ethan and I left and went to play a little shuffle board behind the big movie screens at the Aqua Theater on the back of the ship.
As I’m writing this the kids are getting ready for bed at 11:30pm and I’m sitting out on our Central Park Balcony enjoying the 76 degree weather. Tomorrow is a sea day where we will go to a Meet and Greet and explore the ship some more.
