Here are just some general observations about our western Caribbean cruise last week on the Oasis of the Seas. For a little background, we are a family of four (kids 12 & 14), this was our 8th cruise (7th on RCI), second time on Oasis, and second time to these ports with the exception of Labadee which we've never visited.

Embarkation went very smoothly, even though the computers in the terminal were down when we checked in, no issues. Boarding began around 11:30.

Once onboard we went directly to the Card Room/internet office to rent iPhones. It had sounded like a great idea, so we could text each other about locations, but after the 3-day trial period we returned them (at no charge). The kids didn't want to carry them around, particularly if they were going to the pool or to play on the sports court, and we often weren't able to "connect to the server" anyway. I liked the feature that showed each phone's location on the ship's map, but it wasn't enough to warrant keeping them. We reverted to using the room's voicemail system to leave each other messages and it worked just fine. Read more