Oasis of the seas

Excellent mini review! I suspect your "plan" works on virtually any mega-ship. We just got off BREAKAWAY a few weeks ago and did virtually the same thing. Even stuck our noses into some restaurants and other venues that were closed on embarkation day. Just change the names! When all the renovations are ironed out in Galveston, we just might give an OASIS class a try. Same distance from us as N.O. Thanks again!

Since you have been on some of the smaller ships you will find several venues are very similar except that they are larger. For example the Windjammer will feel similar but the layout will be a little different and there will be more stations.

One of the challenges is balancing your time on board vs on excursions. The ship has so much to offer that you could choose to stay on board instead of getting off at the ports. If you have already cruised on smaller ships to the same ports this might be a good idea. I suggest that on embarkation day that you board early (late morning) if possible then head right to Windjammer when they open. This will allow you to get lunch prior to the Windjammer getting crowded which it always does on embarkation day. Then slowly work your way down each deck getting an overview of everything available. Do not stop too long at any one venue as you will never finish. Getting an overall survey of the ship will help you create your bucket list of things that you would like to check out in more detail. Once you do this you can then decide if some of the on board venues have more appeal to you than the excursions.

For our first trip on an Oasis ship, we deliberately chose an itinerary where we had already been to several of the ports and we spent a lot more time on the ship. On a more recent trip on Symphony in the Mediterranean we were more interested in the ports. Since Symphony had several new venues compared to Oasis we made sure to focus on these as opposed to the ones we had experienced on the Oasis. Since you may also be familiar with some venues that are also on smaller ships such as Izumi or Chops for example you can take the same approach.

We really like Central Park especially in the evening as they usually have some form of musical entertainment. We found it was typically not crowded and very relaxing. Perfect after early seating for dining or prior to a late dining seating.

Regardless what you do, I hope and suspect you will have a wonderful time!

I just got off Oasis. Nothing complicated about it, it just has a lot a activities and venues. I enjoyed the Central Park area. The Specialty restaurants are generally good. I liked 150 Central Park a lot and Chops was good too. Sabor was overpriced for what it was, in my opinion, $20 per person extra for either tacos or quesadillas, but the guacamole was good. You can use your Starbucks app at the Starbucks, earn point rewards with Starbucks, but not redeem star rewards. Starbucks prices were 2-3 dollars higher than ashore.

You will have a good time!