We have cruised twice now, so we are certainly not experts. But we have done lots of other types of traveling and really enjoy cruising so we decided to try the Royal Caribbean's "Oasis of the Seas" - the big one! We had cruised once with Holland America before on a relatively small ship so we were excited to see and do more on the Oasis ship.
There are a ton of things to do on this ship, if you're into things like rock walls, wave rider (surf and boogie board), casinos (very big casino!), lots of shows to see, some shopping, and lots of little bars everywhere. You really can't get bored but you may have to wait in line to try some of the attractions.
More importantly, we were looking forward to eating! Our last cruise was so memorable because of the delicious food, so we were half expecting the same quality as HA...but RC does NOT live up to the same food quality. The food was in fact quite bad. The selection at the buffet was horrendous and the food was pretty bad quality. The dinner selections in the dining room were better but pretty tasteless. The food in the pay-for restaurants (which are near impossible to get in unless you book within the first 2 hours of cruising on day 1) were subpar. I did not enjoy paying for food that tasted like it had been tortured and depressed before it made it to my plate. They have a 'Johnny Rockets' in the Boardwalk area which was decent, but it's greasy burgers and fries and you can't live on that for a week. There is a little snack shack with some mexican type foods (tacos, chips, salsa, etc) near the pools and it was ok but the hours were short - I wish they had it open until at least midnight. The room service was free, but the selection was very small and not very appealing either.
I could go on and on about the poor food, but you probably get the idea. In terms of drink, they are expensive but the cocktails are freepoured so you don't need to worry about getting ripped off! You can purchase wine packages (5-10 bottles depending on the pkg you pick) and it seems to be a pretty decent deal if you drink a lot of wine, especially at dinner. Pop, water, etc are all pay-for and are pretty expensive (you can also get water and pop packages but I'm not sure if it ends up being cheaper or not - I don't drink pop but drank plenty of expensive water!).
The ports we visited were Labadee, Haiti (their own private island with an all-inclusive resort feel), Falmouth, Jamaica, and Cozumel, Mexico. Haiti and Jamaica were not great, Cozumel was excellent. The vendors in Haiti were very pushy and not willing to barter much (which was a little surprising to me). The island itself is nice, they have plenty of beach chairs and hammocks to hand out in, and lots of bars too. RC put on a decent lunch buffet for all cruisers while we were there. Jamaica was Jamaica. I've never been a fan because of how the locals treat visitors. We didn't leave the gated area that is close to the ship but friends from the ship who did leave the gates told us it was the worst experience of their lives. They were followed, harassed, and verbally tortured. We did buy some really nice wood carvings from a vendor in the gated part but he was the only vendor willing to do some serious bartering. The locals acted like they could care less that we were there, so I was less than willing to give them my money. Cozumel was a huge hit, the locals were friendly and mostly courteous. Senor Frogs (where we spent most of the afternoon!) was excellent and a ton of fun. All in all, I loved Cozumel and would return there for a weeks vacation in the future.
All in all we had a great trip, but kind of wish we had taken the Eastern Caribbean trip for the "better" ports. We met quite a few cruisers who had done the Eastern trip the week before and stayed on the boat for the second week in the West and most of them said the Eastern ports were better (save for Mexico, everyone loved it there). The food was the biggest disappointment and we will probably not sail with RC again solely based on that. The ship was fun, the food was not!
Any questions, I'd be happy to answer them!
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