Oasis of the Seas Review
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Additional details
My wife and I booked this cruised about 3 months in advance of our set-sail date and were well prepared for it in every sense of the term "well prepared." Our ports of call were Paradise Island, Bahamas; St. Thomas, and St. Maarten - the "fluffy" itinerary. This was our second cruise with RC and we weren't disappointed. We arrived at the port very early (highly advised if you want a speedy check-in procedure.) The food was marvelous, the staff were courteous and pleasant (additional cash tipping really works to one's advantage.) Oasis of the Seas is an absolute behemoth of a ship. It is large. It is unfathomably large. It is obscenely large. It is perfectly large enough for a 7-night cruise if one has cruised before on a different ship and is looking to experience *everything* on this ship at least once. There is just as much quality of ship to experience as there is quantity of ship to experience. There are features on this ship that rival or surpass events and venues available on dry land. There are entirely too many things to list as to what all this ship has to offer, and I don't want to spoil anything for those of you that have not been on this ship. If you've never cruised before, I would suggest you not start with this ship simply because there is so much offered on board. If you go on any other ship, short of RC's new Quantum class (at the time of this review), you will probably be disappointed because the feature and size bar of your ship has been set at the highest currently available.
A couple of features I would suggest passing on based on my experience: Giovanni's Table and 150 Central Park of the Central Park area of the ship, and the Boardwalk Bar.
-Giovanni's Table - We had lunch reservations for the day we set sail. The food wasn't deserving of the extra cover charge. The service, while courteous, was also inexplicably very slow. I believe other cruisers had similar experiences because by the 4th night, Giovanni's Table advertisements and flyers were quite prominent throughout the ship trying to get people to come eat there.
Cabin Review
This is a very nice stateroom. The quality and comfort of the furniture and linens was nice and our stateroom attendant was quite prompt in replacing the linens when the need arose. The balcony curtains were insulated; they had a nice heavy weight to them and overlapped so they blocked out almost all outside light, even during the day. The balcony door has been vastly improved over RCs older ships; ours was relatively easy opening, did not automatically close, and the latching mechanism felt much more heavy duty and easier to operate than on our previous ship (Liberty of the Seas). The balcony was appropriately sized for the class of stateroom and the balcony chairs and table were sufficient for what they were, however, they weren't at all uncomfortable or flimsy. Be advised, those of you that have quite a few electrical devices to plug in on a regular basis, the only outlets are on the far end of the vanity close to the balcony door. (3 on top of the vanity counter next to the cabinets and 1 underneath in the same area). There are light switches EVERYWHERE in this stateroom, so there is a slight learning curve there.The bathroom was rather impressive in size and features. Lots of places and space to put toiletries and sufficient places to hang up clothing items (robes, bathing suits that need to dry, etc.) The shower was nicely sized, but I was quite disappointed to find it only had a single small corner basket that did not hold many items at all; I had to do some creative organization and balancing of our soap and shampoo bottles - no shelf for you bar soap users. The coolest and most applaud-able bathroom feature is that at night when the main bathroom light is turned off, there is a very very dim light that is just bright enough to service nighttime bathroom trips without disturbing anyone else in the room. Throughout the entire cruise, neither myself nor my wife found the need to turn on the main bathroom light at night; it turned out pretty powerful in the dead of night the one time it was switched on.The closet was interesting: lots of room to hang clothing articles and lots of shelves to put things (as well as the requisite safe). I'm not sure if it was by accident or not, but our closet had about 30 hangers in it, which was a pleasant surprise and worked quite well to our advantage. The biggest knock I have on the closet is the room's A/C system. The vent is directly above the length of the closet doors and the door configuration and design is such that about half of the airflow from the A/C goes straight into the closet unless the doors were kept open to one side (the wall in our particular stateroom); poor design on RC's part. If you like to sleep in arctic conditions: be advised the stateroom will get cold at night (with the closet door open), but not as cold as you are probably used to, and it does take a bit to initially cool off the stateroom. To counter this problem, we kept our balcony curtains closed most of the time we weren't actually in the stateroom.I would have liked the stateroom to be just a few inches wider to make it easier to get around the bed. That being said, neither myself nor my wife have large waistlines, but we did have to lean over slightly any time we had to get around the bed. I will mention that the under-bed storage of suitcases (or any other items of your choosing) is a very nice feature; we had 1 large suitcase and 2 medium suitcases that once unpacked slid easily underneath the bed. Once we were unpacked and had our room completely set up, with the layout and design of every aspect of storage in the cabin, the room did not feel at all smaller than when there was nothing in it.All-in-all the stateroom was very nice and met or exceeded most of my expectations. I would highly recommend staying in at least this class of stateroom, especially if your cruise is longer than 3 nights.