Royal Esplanade on Ovation of the Seas

The place to be in the center of the ship. It does get somewhat crowded though. Beautiful area with a lot of good venues around. I would recommend less sales items put out by the cruise line as it does make it difficult to move at times.

Great variety of shops and pop up markets

Some of the shops seemed to be aiming at only the top end of the market. On other vessels the range of merchandise was much more affordable. I did not see a single person in the Cartier shop on any of the days or nights I was on board. The lack of Guess merchandise was very disappointing too as I always replace my hand bag collection when I cruise on RC ships virtually every two years.