Very Long Halloween Trip Report

Discussion in 'Grand Oasis Sens' started by Fredmgill, Nov 2, 2016.

  1. Fredmgill

    Fredmgill Guru Registered Member

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    Oasis Sens Trip report
    Will start off by saying what a great vacation we had! This was our 11th trip, our 7th Halloween trip, the HNH group has always been top notch and this year was no different. We intend to share our honest review of the resort so those can make their individual assessments as how to spend their hard earned vacation dollars. This will be long, if you are undecided, this might answer some of your questions.
    I would like to start off by saying we had paid $2100 for this trip, that included 9 nights all-inclusive and nonstop roundtrip airfare from Newark. I believe this is relevant as it was a great value and we do factor that in to our assessment of the resort. I will add one other point, we have learned that we may have been “spoiled” by some of the amenities at Temptation Resort. As both Resorts are classified and priced as 3 star resorts. I believe what we experienced at Sens was what a 3 star resort represents and what we have come accustom to at Temptation is above and beyond the 3 star level in many aspects.

    The resort itself is beautiful. The ocean views from the pools and many rooms are incredible and can never be matched by Temptation. We did not have an ocean view room and even the view from the lagoon side was nice. We had a 9th room floor that overlooked the Shillabar pool. Our room was beautiful. Everything worked, we had an issue with water one morning and called the desk and it was fixed in 5 minutes. The architectural design of the resort was amazing…. But….. somewhere along the line when the highly educated, highly paid engineers were designing this layout it appears there were a number of major issues overlooked. For example the main pool area. Very nice multi-tier design…. But why would anyone design a layout where the main purpose of the guests are drinking their free alcohol and are then required to walk down, a minimum of 2 flights of concrete steps to go to a bathroom. There are many areas where a number of bathrooms could have been placed in accessible areas. The swim up bar, which is the most common area these guests will be getting their free alcohol has 1-3 flights of concrete steps… then through a waterfall to gain access. There has been a lot said about all the stairs at this resort, and I would agree that it is plenty, I do have to add one thing though… I did point out at one point we were commenting on all the stairs while riding the elevator to our rooms…. Which we all can say after a night of partying at TTR we would have loved to get into an elevator to get to our rooms. So about the elevators and the engineering design of the resort. The resort has the lobby in the middle and room towers on each side, each tower is 9 floors. There are 2 elevators in each tower but only 1 of the elevators goes to the 9th floor, not the worst thing in the world… someone a little smarter than the design engineer looks at the plan, scratches his head and says, ok, just put separate buttons for the 2 elevators…. Nope, that didn’t happen, so if you’re on the 9th floor and you push the button and the other elevator is there or comes, the elevator that you need will not come. It takes everyone, even those without the Engineering Degree about 30 seconds to figure out that you have to reach into that elevator, push a button for it to go away, then push the button again and now your elevator will come. Just makes you say WTF?

    The Food, like I said earlier, this is a 3 star resort and I believe it is exactly that. The breakfast buffet is adequate, I would say that may be the only thing comparable to TTR… not quite there, but comparable. Although they do not have a bar in there. So my first morning when I asked for Baileys in my coffee, I was quite disappointed. That day we made a trip to town and I bought a local version of Baileys for $12 and brought my bottle with me to breakfast every day. The buffet is only open for breakfast, which I though was odd. This is not our preference, but I know many people don’t like to spend their vacation time sitting down to eat, they would prefer to grab something quick and continue with what they are doing. Not an option here. Out by the main pool is a lunch shack that does burgers, fries, chicken tenders and a small variety of fairly quick lunch foods. This generally was a decent option, the food was OK, you can go there right out of the pool and it was decent. The Italian and Mexican restaurant is also open for a sit down lunch. We did the Mexican a couple of times, again that was OK… Things were similar to TTR…. Just not at the same level. Dinner time had the 3 walk up restaurants, again the Mexican, Italian, and the Shillabar, which was their steakhouse. We did not do the Mexican for dinner, we did the Italian a couple of times… same opinion…. It was OK, just not at the same level. The Shillabar restaurant I would say is definitely your best option for a good meal. The Ribeye steak was great, they have a NY Strip steak, was told by many to stick with the Ribeye. They had other items which many of us tried, and we never had a disappointing meal there…… With that being said, we did see a young lady, who will remain nameless, get asked to leave the restaurant and change her very revealing outfit… BTW. Same outfit worn at TTR with no issues. We did get reservations to 3 specialty restaurants. Their reservation system can be a little frustrating, being there 9 nights did allow us the time to get into what we wanted. Just a quick assessment on them, if you have the opportunity try them out, they are not for everyone, it’s more about the atmosphere, which is great. To be honest, we left the Black Hole and went right to the Italian restaurant and ate again. You may or may not eat much of what they serve, but the show is worth the time.

    Service: We spend a lot of time asking the staff How long they have been there. I would estimate about 75% of the folks we talked to have been there less than a year. Some as long as 6 years, our favorite breakfast waiter has been there 4 years. This is the biggest difference in the service level and speaks volumes of how Original Resorts treats their employees. We also spoke with a handful of former TTR employees who can’t wait for the resort to reopen. The service again was fine, there was a small handful of employees that really went above and beyond, again, what we are spoiled with and accustom to at TTR. For example, on Monday Ricardo from the breakfast buffet on my last day asked me where my bottle of Baileys was and I told him that I finished it the day before. Without asking, he went to the other side of the resort to the VIP bar and brought me back some for my coffee… That is service.... Also have to give a shout out to Luis at The Box, if anyone encountered him, he was many steps above the rest…. Especially when he was passing by the pool area and someone approached him with a can of whipped cream.

    The Party: This is by far the most important aspect of our trip. You can deal with food issues and service issues, but we are all there to have a good time. And have a good time we did! By all means the resort recognized we were there and In our opinion embraced our presence. There may be different perspective of this as people party in different ways. We enjoy the daytime pool party and evening shows and happenings. We are not the dance and drink to the wee hours of the morning people so we cannot give that perspective. As some of you know, Lisa has an addiction… to whipped cream. During day 2 when she had entertainment staff laying down so she can lick whipped cream off of them, she knew things were going to be all right. 12 cans later, well, there wasn’t a sad face in the pool! They did do a nice job with events at the Shillabar Pool, including a great job for Halloween, until the sky opened up and it was moved to the Kinky Bar club. Kinky Bar was their version of Nice Shoes, although well air conditioned, it was about 1/3 size, which is probably adequate without our large group of partiers. The shows they put on were amazing. Fully choreographed singing and dancing shows with pretty talented performers. They also had other shows throughout the resort at different times. These shows are not for everyone’s likings, as it does stop the partying to a degree. We enjoyed them. As far as room parties, we had 24 of our closest friends in our room and had a blast. No one got thrown out, no one got any spankings… Well, maybe afterwards.

    Summary: We had an amazing vacation. I would say it was 90% the people and 10% the resort. Would we recommend this resort? As an alternative in this price range, with a group that knows how to have a great time under any circumstance…. Yes… As a stand-alone resort that we were just going to vacation on our own…. No

    Want to finish up by Thanking Steve and Jannet, for giving us this platform and bringing us all together for the opportunity to have the most fun we could never imaging. We had the privilege to go on their possible last Boobs Cruise for a while and it was Epic!
    Paul & Lisa
     
  2. shaw&sher

    shaw&sher Regular Registered Member

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    Good trip report. We stayed at this resort 3 years ago and would agree with you on the service, stairs and pool bar side of things. We would not go there just to vacation on our own either no TTR VIBE. Go with a group maybe.
     
  3. ajay

    ajay HnH Repeat Offenders Registered Member

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    Thank you both for taking the time to post this! We agree with everything you said! Jeff needs more whipped cream Lisa :)

    Thanks to all the hnh crew for making this party happen!!!! Our group rocks!!!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  4. Kevin&Lana

    Kevin&Lana Regular Registered Member

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    Fredmgill .....Thanks for the review as some of us April Addicts are trying to gather information. Was the pool topless or should I say comfortable topless as i have heard mixed reviews on that ?
     
  5. Fredmgill

    Fredmgill Guru Registered Member

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    We had arrived on Sunday, a few days before many of the HNH arrived. At that time there was certainly comfortable toplessness going on. By the middle of the week, as the masses arrived there was plenty to be had. Allegedly, there may or may not have been bottomless at numerous times. Never an issue. The upper tier level pool is where the more reserved had stayed. I equated that to the Quiet Pool. You could see many folks were curiously watching our group, some migrated their way to us and joined the party. As usual, all were welcomed and I'm sure we made many of their vacations much more memorable.
     
  6. FandS

    FandS Enthusiast Registered Member

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    Thank you for the very detailed review. Are you able to elaborate on the dress worn at restaurant? A group of us is heading there in a few weeks and would hate to run into the same thing.

    Sent from my SM-N910W8 using Tapatalk
     
  7. Jimmy & April

    Jimmy & April Newbie Registered Member

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    Great review...the people you surround yourself with, will make all the difference, for sure!!
     
  8. Jimmy & April

    Jimmy & April Newbie Registered Member

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    Following....
     
  9. Fredmgill

    Fredmgill Guru Registered Member

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    Allegedly, it was a very shear lace mid length dress with nothing underneath. So I'm told! Worn many times at TTR, not saying they were totally wrong:cool:
     
  10. Altracy22@aol.com

    Altracy22@aol.com Enthusiast Registered Member

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    So just to clarify your girl was naked, went through 12 cans of whip cream,got thrown out of the restaurant,hosted the toy party and tore up the Boobs Cruise?Sounds like a new ringleader is born
     
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