If you are bored on Oasis you can only blame yourself

FRIDAY, MAY 11: Two Sundays ago The Simpsons lampooned Royal Caribbean’s Oasis Class ships as the family went on a cruise.

While the Oasis of the Seas does not have a go-kart track or skateboard park like The Simpsons’ ship did, there is certainly plenty to do.

One of the major differences on Oasis Class ships (Oasis and the Allure of the Seas) is that you can pre-book your shows.

Since there was a group of us, we did so a month in advance to make sure we could all get in to see the same show at the same time, but you can also do this on the ship through your interactive TV.

That’s not to say you would not be able to get in to see any specific main or comedy show without pre-booking as they open it up for “stand-bys” 10 minutes prior to the scheduled start.

We had pre-booked the comedy show for the first night, but missed it due to the fact we were still gorging ourselves at dinner.

We went another night and were able to get in and at other shows in the Platinum Theatre, other guests had no difficulty getting in either.

The only downside is your choice of seats will be limited.

Hairspray

This was by far the best show on the cruise — and I’d rank it as one of the top two or three shows we’ve ever seen on a cruise ship. The singing was superb, the acting was fantastic, and the sets top notch.

Quite often in cruise ship musicals there are one or two standout voices and the other main characters just are not up to the same standard. There was no problem with that here.

All the singers playing Tracy Turnblad, Penny Piggleton, Link Larkin, Motormouth Maybelle and Seaweed were top notch — especially Motormouth Maybelle and Seaweed.

Come Fly With Me

This was Oasis’s aerial musical programme in the Platinum Theatre. Again the singing and costumes were both on key and the aerial acts were strong. It was definitely worth seeing, but a month from now I’ll have a difficult time picking it out from other cruise ship shows in this genre.

Frozen in Time

A whimsical look at fairytales on the ice skating rink in Studio B.

Oasis hypes it by saying it will be loved by kids of all ages, and it’s true. One added feature that isn’t typical from other ice skating shows I’ve seen on Royal Caribbean ships is they had a man painting with sand — quite entertaining.

The international ice skating cast has the skills to be a sure hit with all members of your family.

Oasis of Dreams

This was the world’s very first aqua show performed on a cruise ship.

We saw this completely once and parts of it several more times as we could view it from our inside balcony.

It was quite a sight to see the performers diving 60 feet into a 17 foot pool or watching them bounce on a trampoline and then dive back into the pool.

The star of the show was a former Olympic synchronized swimmer.

The unusual factor made this worth seeing.

Comedy Show

This was held in the ship’s comedy club, a special purpose built room that hosts two shows nightly for each of the seven days.

It’s basically the same show, minus the improvs and adlibs but stretched out to accommodate the 4,000 or so guests in the small venue.

Again, this was worth seeing. We went on the last night of the cruise but I would have gone again.

Headliner show

This could vary from week to week but during our sailing we had a pair of brothers who were comedians.

I can’t remember their names, but after the show there were people having fun acting out with parts of their routine for the rest of the cruise.

Minor shows

There was certainly plenty more to do as there was also an aqua comedy show, classical music, an English piano man who played popular tunes, the nightclub Bolero’s with live Latin music, dance lessons, street parties, finish the lyrics song contest, belly flop competition and lots more. Unless you’re solely into Gregorian Chants, there was probably something musically you could like.

That’s not counting all the added attractions like the carousel, the surfing, zip line, rock climbing, and mini golf.

If anyone was bored, they had no one to blame but themselves.