Oasis of the Seas - Sept. 2, 2018
Return to DiscussionsSince there are no nude cruises around our anniversary in September, we've begun picking cruises that have nudist destinations at their stops. We just got off a cruise that stoped in Mykonos, Greece where we went to Elia Beach and Rhodes, Greece where we wanted to go to the Faliraki FKK beach (long story, but the FKK beach is a lot farther from the boat ramp on the public beach than we thought it would be). We booked our next cruise while on board for the Oasis of the Seas with stops in Nassau, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten. Unfortunately, St. Thomas and St. Maarten were both heavily damaged by this year's hurricanes. But if they are reopened to cruise ships by next September, we will be spending our St. Martin day (our anniversary!) on Orient Beach checking out the reconstruction of Club Orient. Anybody else going on this cruise?
September 2 - September 9, 2018
There's a fairly active roll call for this cruise on Cruise Critic, but I dont think there are any other nudists. Shore excursions in Sint Maartin came up and someone said Orient Beach wasnt possible due to the destruction. I mentioned that we still planned to go there, since Club Orient has rebuilt their Perch Bar and had a grill for basic food. Someone asked if that was the place on the other side of the rocks at Pedros. I said, yes that is the nudist resort at the southern end of the beach. There was a reply from someone who had wandered down that far on a previous cruise, but no further talk of anyone wanting to go there. Maybe once we get on the ship we can also mention heading to Orient Beach and see if anyone else is interested in sharing a cab.
Was on a ship that stopped in Sint Maarten on 1/30. Speaking with the cab dispatcher, she said nothing was opened at Orient Bay except for the nude beach. I indicated that was where I wanted to go. She said okay and directed me where to wait for a cab. Now there were 3 ships in that day, 2 of which were mega ships. Everyone wanted tours or the airport beach. After 45 minutes, it became clear that no one else wanted to go to Orient Beach and I gave up waiting. My next cruise in March stops in Sint Maarten. I'm going to try getting off the ship earlier to see if that increases my chances.
I have not been back to St Maarten and Orient Beach since the hurricanes so I am interested in knowing as well. I am a cruise and travel agent so if anyone needs help with anything, please let me know. I will take good care of you and often have better rates than the cruiselines and better amenities. And if anyone has booked Oasis or another ship recently, you can easily transfer the reservation to me and I will handle all the details and get you additional amenities. If interested, just send me a PM.
On the Big Boat Nude Cruise, one of the Club O owners gave an update of damage, what's now open, and rebuilding plans. Food is available now. Umbrellas and chairs are being rented. Beach is open. It may be three years, however, before Club O is fully going again. It'll be next year, at least, before St Martin sets new building codes for structures along the beach and Club O can begin planning what to rebuild.
When we visit St Martin on textile cruises, we 'casually' mention going to Club O and, usually, get folks interested. A couple times ago, two couples from our dinner table, and one couple at another table who overheard us, said they'd give it a dare. We had two taxi-fuls going to Orient Bay.
We heard on the orient beach forum site that there is already a good amount of cab activity to/from Orient Beach, so we will spend the day at the new Mini Perch Bar. We also heard on Cruise Critic that RCCL is running a big sale on our ship (must be getting nervous that people won't book Eastern Caribbean during hurricane season after last year). We were able to move up from a balcony to a junior suite for $100 each. Not as good of a deal as we got two years ago when we moved up for $9 each, but still pretty good. And the current JS promotion includes a free dinner at one of the specialty restaurants. So now it looks like our anniversary will be lunch nude at Mini Perch and then a nice dinner at one of the specialty restaurants when we get back to the ship.
With a week to go we are able to look at menus on the Royal app and it turns out our anniversary is also lobster night in both the main dining room and at Coastal Kitchen. So we found another night where the menus didn't look so hot and decided on going to Chops for our free specialty dinner on night 2. We will go straight there when we get to the ship and book. Each night we will also compare Coastal Kitchen to the MDR for the following night and see how many times they will let Junior Suite-ers into CK. Five days until we head to Cypress Cove, seven until we board the ship and eleven until we get to Orient Beach!
I will wear my Club Orient shirt to the meet and mingle and see if anyone comes up to us and asks if we are going there while in port. Maybe we will be able to share a cab ride over.