Poorer food, crowded

Favorite part- Probably the fact that there was lots to do on board. Adventure Ocean for the under 12 crowds. Also St Marteen (and to a lesser degree St. Thomas) were nice ports.

St Marteen was great because there were things to do, but no pressure to buy things like at the other ports.  There is a nice beach right next to where the water taxi drops you off (I think it was $5 per person), so if you don't want to do a big excursion, then I would take the water taxi over to town, then just get off and you are at the beach.  Have a nice beach day. Also some pretty nice little places to eat lunch.

St Thomas- High pressure salespeople as soon as you get off the boat.  I would recommend getting away from the crowds as quick as possible. We went scuba diving at the St. Thomas Diving Club (if you are taking a taxi- about $11pp-, ask them to take you to Izzies), which was very cool. 

Bahamas- the stop really wasn't long enough to experience it..We had to be back on the boat by 2:30, so it wasn't worth it to go to Atlantis (at least for us) which was the main thing we wanted to do.

On board, there were plenty of things to do.  However, almost everything is CROWDED.  The pool decks filled up extremely fast, so I would either go early or go late (after 3:00).  The Flowriders, zip line, and rock walls all had extended wait times, even though there were 2 flowriders and 2 rock walls. They are also only open very specific times of the day. That was annoying.  Ping pong tables were actually one of the best things on the boat- there was usually a table available, and they had arranged it so that any wind was minimized.

Food- much poorer than our first RC cruise. I know they have to cook for more people, but last year we went on Freedom of the Seas (which was also a big boat), and were able to rave about the food.  I am scared to recommend RC right now because of the food we had.  I don't know if they were really trying to drive people to the "pay" restaurants, but it almost worked with us.  Granted, I know Windjammer is a buffet style restaurant, but some of the stuff looked and seemed like it had been recycled from the past 3 or 4 days.  On the Freedom, it felt new everyday, with plenty of variety.  In the main dining room, the service was good, but the food very average.  Probably not as good as a majority of your average chain restaurants.  I did try the lobster the night they offered it for free- even got 2 of them, but it was overcooked and tough.  Probably wouldn't get it again.

Some of the other free options were much better.  The Park Cafe and the Wipeout Cafe actually put out decent food for what it was.  Not sure about the others. 

If you have youngsters- we had 11yo and 7yo-, the Adventure Ocean has plenty of activities.  Also, they have the late night party for the kids if the adults want to do something later at night.  And there are some pretty good late night (10 PM +) things to do. 

The other major gripe.  The shows are not built around the various main dining room meal times.  If you are going to do the shows, which I recommend, especially the "Come Fly with Me".  I would make show reservations as soon as possible(they do enforce the early entries with those that have reservations), then figure out your meal plans after that. On the Freedom of the Seas, all the showtimes allowed us to eat at our main dining room time.  We had chosen the 8PM meal time both cruises, so that we would never feel rushed on the days of excursions, or coming back from the sports deck/pool..  I thought it worked out great on the first cruise on the Freedom of the Seas, but it screwed up the showtimes on the Oasis.  Unless you want your kids up until midnight each night.  (Makes for a tough morning for them though, which makes it tougher for me, yada, yada, yada).

If you are going to go on Oasis, I would definitely recommend getting a balcony room, even for the extra money.  The interiors are just not made for more than 2 people. Do try to get deck 5 or 8.  The boat is huge, and these decks allow you to go between the front of the boat and the back of the boat very easily (via Central Park-8th floor- or the Main Concourse-5th floor).  I would also try to get towards the back of the boat if possible.

For the opportunity to have an extra flowrider, extra rock wall, zip line, and the water show, it wasn't worth the poor foods and the crowds.  Next we will go on a slightly smaller boat that still has most of the amenities.