First on the Oosterdam herself. We found it to be a fabulous ship! The staff was very friendly, courteous and helpful. My wife and daughter enjoyed the shows (I enjoyed the casino). We found the meals to be very good. We ate one dinner and one lunch at Pinnacle as well as a couple dinners in Lido. I do have a confession; prior to this cruise we had always done late fixed seating. On this cruise we had to do "anytime dining". We will always sign up for ATD for future cruises. We could eat when we wanted, we never had a wait. We had rotating guests to eat with which is a good thing for us and them on a 12 day cruise. We met many delightful people from Holland, New Zealand, Canada, Slovakia, Ireland, California and England at dinner and never had a bad experience. We would usually show up around 7:00 and every time were seated immediately.
Another pleasant surprise for me was smoking. I assumed that it would be worse than US-based cruises since this cruise had so many Europeans on board. I found it to be just the opposite. The casino was almost smoke-free (not due to HAL rules).
We did have a serious accident aboard the Oosterdam after we had left Kusadasi. Two crew members were injured, one very seriously so the ship had to divert back to Turkey in the middle of the night. The Captain gave us daily updates and one crew member was able to rejoin the ship during our cruise with the other crew member out of danger (but still in the hospital) by the time the cruise ended. We were very glad they were getting better and fully understood the need to take them back to Turkey.