It was the press release about cupcakes that did it. Aboard Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas you’ll pay extra — the cruise line says prices aren’t available yet — for a cupcake at The Cupcake Cupboard, an on-board shop.

Boy, is that cheap!

Now Oasis of the Seas sounds like a fabulous ship, especially for active cruisers and families. If the ship boasted nothing more than the zip line feature, I would be impressed. In fact, I don’t think any cruise company builds more innovative, crowd pleasing ships than Royal Caribbean.

But one of the biggest lures of cruising is that food is included. Now I understand charging extra for an alternative restaurant that is a fine dining experience. But in my opinion, Royal Caribbean’s food isn’t up to Carnival’s in terms of quality and it’s beginning to sound like passengers will pay extra if they want good food.

Since the cruise line puts a lot of stock in being first, here are a few more:

*** Royal Caribbean is the first cruise line to charge extra for room service (between midnight and dawn).

*** Some nine of 24 restaurants aboard Oasis of the Seaswill have a surcharge or a la carte pricing (a record in the cruise industry). To see which dining spots will cost extra, click here to see an earlier ShipCritic Blog post on the subject.

However, I imagine that number will drop after a bit. When RCI launched the Voyager-class ships, there was an extra charge for dining at Johnny Rockets. But passengers avoided the restaurant so the extra charge was dropped. There will be a surcharge at the Johnny Rockets aboard Oasis of the Seas and I don’t think that cost-conscious cruisers will suddenly decide to pay more for a burger.

Contrast Royal Caribbean with Carnival, which also has a new, much larger, ship — the Carnival Dream — entering service later this year.  Despite the fact that there will be several new dining venues added to the ship, there is still only one restaurant with a surcharge.  And, Carnival is upgrading it’s room service menu by adding Roast Beef on a French Baguette and focaccia with fresh mozzarella and portobello mushroom and there is still never a surcharge. 

I don’t want to suggest that anyone should avoid Royal Caribbean’s ships. These vessels are beautiful and boast innovative extras — “flow rider” surfing simulator, rock climbing, ice skating, roller blading on deck. Best of all is the ship’s central Promenade of stores, restaurants and bars. The pros still out weigh the cons. 

But no one wants to feel nickeled and dimed aboard a cruise. When that happens a resort starts to look much more appealing.