Great Ship, mostly great food, just ok itinerary

The Oasis of the Seas is huge, with about 6200 guests, but Royal Caribbean has the embarkation process pretty well streamlined. The bottleneck is getting through the first level of port security (some form of TSA). Once through that, there's a huge hall with more than enough Royal Caribbean staff to quickly check people in. Advice: Get there at least 30 minutes before they tell you to get there and avoid the long line to pass TSA. Once on the ship everything was great, bars and some restaurants open, etc...

Drinks 5 stars. Food 4.5 Stars... more on that in a second. DRINKS & INTERNET PACKAGE: We paid for the unlimited drinks and internet package for 2. It's well worth it, and we got our money's worth every day. My wife didn't even drink that much, but I kept track of the tab between the two of us we would have run up without it, and we made out every day. With a $13 or so dinner martini and a decent $13 or so wine by the glass by night, and several fruity cocktails or beers by day, and a smoothie or 2 at breakfast, plus a gourmet coffee, and a coke at the bar, when you add in the cost of the internet package you are making out like a bandit. The only problem is you end up drinking way too much because it's basically FREE in your mind once you've paid. The internet service was pretty good. I clocked it at about 2mbs most of the time. FOOD: As for food, I bought the 3 night specialty package (for us this was perfect). The problem is you can't reserve a specialty restaurant on line, so as soon as you get onboard you go to any one of the specialty restaurants and reserve all your dinners right then. Our favorite was the Italian place, but the Japanese place and also 150 Central Park were both excellent. We also had access to the Coastal Kitchen on the 17th deck by virtue of being in a Junior Suite. We ate there 3 times and it was excellent every time. We never ate dinner in the main dining, so I can comment. We had breakfast in the ICON GRILL 3 times, all very good. We ate lunch in the ICON grill a couple of times, and both times it was very good. We ate breakfast in the Solarium once and it was pretty good (a version of the buffet). The only place we tried to avoid at all cost is the Windjammer Buffet. If you can avoid it, avoid it. The food is so-so at best, and the place is always super crowded with people literally PILING all manner of stuff on their plates. I didn't even care for the selection. So my FOOD recommendations are some combination a specialty dinner package prepaid on your trip planner, and the Coastal Kitchen (suite guests) or one of the main dining rooms. Avoid the Windjammer at all cost. If you're in a hurry for breakfast go to the Solarium Cafe or one of the other places like Johnny Rockets. I almost forgot, the Bistro on Central Park (salads and sandwiches) is awesome. Their little roast beef sandwiches are the bomb. Also if you drink at all plus want internet, go ahead and buy the drink/internet package. Think gourmet coffees, smoothies, fruity drinks, wines, cocktails and good internet and I guarantee you will enjoy yourself more than worrying about the drink tab every time you walk by the bar.

My wife hit almost everything on the ship except for ping pong and basketball. She did knee boarding, surfing, rock climbing, ice skating, zip line, putt putt, and we went to a few shows. Definitely plenty to do on board. We didn't even have time for everything. There were a ton of other shows and activities and events we didn't even touch. There's something for everybody on this huge ship.

Tons of shows and entertainment every night. Frankly we were overwhelmed. Stay out of the casino if possible, because for some reason that place is harder to win in that in Las Vegas, and I'm talking about card games and craps... where the odds are virtually the same in both locations.

Service at the bars was better than expected, very good in fact... very few lines other than a person or 2. Service in the restaurants was mostly very good, but we had a couple of waiters who just didn't get it. Cabin cleanliness was fine, and we didn't do room service or anything special. In general the service and staff was pretty transparent and worked fine. And that's all I expect. We had not customer service glitches.

The Oasis of the Seas is an awesome ship. It's huge and except for the windjammer (ugh) buffet it's never crowded except right around the pool on sea days. But with the beautiful ocean I've found I try to get away from the pool if possible but close enough to a bar and with a couple chairs I am very happy. The ship is very well maintained. The deck layout (neighborhoods) work great. Every different area has it's own personality. The central park area is gorgeous. I can't say enough great things about this ship.

I'm calling our Junior Suite it a balcony here, but it was designated as a junior suite. The difference between an ocean view balcony and the Jr Suite is the junior suite is wider by about 3 extra feet, and it's a bit longer because it goes out all the way to the hallway vs having a indention at the doorway. We had a walk in closed and a real bathroom too. Also our balcony is about 50% bigger than a normal balcony. But calling a junior suite a suite is a bit of an exaggeration. The price isn't that much more than an ocean view balcony and it's laid out almost exactly like a regular ocean view balcony room. That said you do get access to the Coastal Kitchen restaurant for dinner, and that in itself was awesome. A real suite is laid out different, quite a bit larger, and also quite a bit more expensive. I highly recommend the Jr Suite if you don't mind spending a few hundred more dollars. There's also an inside balcony that overlooks one of the various neighborhoods. Although that's better than looking at a wall, we didn't like the idea of looking out over a busy public area and it was worth the money to get the ocean view.

Everything but a couple breakfast places are closed on disembarkation day. Then they schedule everybody by some numbering system based on when your luggage is available. We were stuck with nothing to do and anxious to leave for 2 hours. We wanted to spend more time up at the Kennedy Space Center but instead were stuck sitting in the lobby. There must be a better way.