We cruised on the 3/17/12 Western Caribbean sailing of the Oasis of the Seas. On this cruise was myself (Female, 44), my mother with limited physical mobility due to health issues. Also along were my sister, Brother in Law and their 6 month old baby. We all had balcony staterooms but my mother and I were in a handicapped accessible room (room 6226) due to her need for a scooter and wheelchair. If I could book our rooms all over again I would have chosen one on the Starboard side. It seems that we always docked on the starboard side and I would have enjoyed watching the ship go into the different ports along with a view of the islands. Instead we always had an ocean view on port days. The only exception is Cozumel where the starboard side had an amazing view for about two hours until the Celebrity Millennium docked and blocked their view. If you are renting a scooter to help navigate the ship consider bringing along a collapsible standard wheelchair to help with embarkation and getting around the ports. Also a scooter cannot be stowed under the tour bus or put in the back of the taxi vans. So we were very glad we brought it.

Prior to sailing I reserved all our shows. I tried to book as many afternoon shows on sea days knowing that with a baby and my mom we wouldn't be able to stay up late. I was really glad we booked in advance and selected afternoon shows. We were exhausted most evenings. I also reserved a hillside cabana in Labadee, the Dunns River Falls & Dolphin Cove excursion in Jamaica and the Discover Mexico & Chakanaab Park excursion in Cozumel. The only specialty restaurant we pre-reserved was Giovannis Table. I also ordered the Royal Caribbean tote bag and two water bottle holders from Gifts and Gear. The tote bag was worth it. It had a pocket for a large bottle of water, zippers for a sea pass card and pockets for sunglasses and sun screen and a center pocket large enough for a towel and water shoes. I used this every day. The water bottle holders we didn't use because they were too small to hold anything larger than a 16oz bottle of water. Things I was glad I packed: An over the door shoe organizer for all my stuff. It really kept my room organized. A pen and highlighter to mark on the cruise compass (there's so much to do you really need to highlight the things you are interested in or it gets lost) and Binoculars to look at the islands from the ship. I also brought my own water shoes for Dunns River Falls. Things I wish I had brought: More sunscreen! I went through a ton of it just because we had to reapply every time we got out of the water.

Embarkation: We arrived at the port at 10:30am. We wanted to board the ship as early as possible because there were a number of things we needed to take care of. Check in was simple, from the time we left our bags with the porters to having our sea pass cards it was probably 20 minutes. We waited 15 minutes in a common area and then they began boarding a little after 11:00am. We had reserved a scooter from Special Needs at Sea and knew it would be waiting in the stateroom. However, my mother would have had great difficulty navigating the ship at ports or getting on or off the ship so we brought along her foldable wheelchair for back up. We were certainly glad we brought it! The ship is absolutely massive. The wheelchair allowed us to disembark easily at Cozumel and Jamaica and fit the chair on the tour buses. In Labadee we just took the scooter off the ship with us. More on ports later. Read more