Oasis of the Seas, from a travel agent's perspective

Oasis of the Seas…Blog entry #2 November 15th, 2009
Oasis arrived with much fanfare, to her home, Port Everglades in Ft Lauderdale FL, on Friday morning November 13th
From here she will take a series of short, “shakedown” cruises to be sure her staff and systems are 100% functional for the first revenue customers on December 5th. I will be on one of those shakedown cruises, November 20th to 22nd. My name is Stephen Lord and I am a travel agent in Denver Colorado.
I’m fascinated by her size. There is nothing larger than the Oasis floating on water. The Oasis has 2,700 cruise cabins. At double occupancy, this equates to 5,400 guests. With triples and quads, her population can swell to 6,300. Add another 2,100 crew members and you begin to realize the enormity of potential problems. And with that largess, come a need for a much larger cruise ship Terminal and a more technologically advanced infrastructure.
Port Everglades and Broward County (owners of the Pier) spent 75 million dollars and took 22 months to triple the size of Terminal 18, just to handle this ship (and her sister Allure of the Seas due out in 2010). # 18 is the largest, and technically innovative, single- ship terminal in the world. It has 90 check-in counters, digital signage (that can be updated in a moment’s notice) to direct the flow of traffic and keep people moving. Obviously, RCCL would be worried about long lines of people.
For it’s part, Royal Caribbean says there will be no back-ups! RCCL claims that your cruise vacation will begin the moment you arrive at the Terminal. Terminal advances and their new system of online check-in promises to take guests from “the Curb to the Cabin” in 15 minutes. I will let you know.
But, if she’s that big, where will she go? Well, with a draft of 30 feet, cruise ports that hope to lure-in this ship (and her potential economic gains) have to “super-size” as well. Nassau Bahamas, St Thomas USVI, St Maarten, Costa Maya Mexico, Cozumel Mexico, Falmouth Jamaica, and Labadee Haiti (RCCL’s private island experience) are currently the only cruise ports large enough (and deep enough) to handle our gal.
In my next entry, I will talk about the on-board experience. There is nothing like Oasis in the fleet of any other cruise line. Restaurants, entertainment, and organization are all on steroids when it comes to Oasis of the Seas
Stephen Lord and Jeff Gregory own All-Inclusive Vacations, an agency specializing in vacation travel, located in Denver Colorado www.all-inclusivevacations.com (303) 980-6483