I think we did St. Thomas poorly. On the first full day at sea, I made the mistake of going to see a Port and Shopping presentation by the disturbingly pert "Shopping Shelby," the Port and Shopping Guide, where I was subject to approximately ten seconds worth of useful Port information and approximately an hour and a half of repetitive shilling about the various jewelry stores on the islands we were going to. I was also persuaded (my weak mind!!) into buying the Port and Shopping Guidebook. I don't know what to say except please don't do this. 
Upon reaching St. Thomas we spent half the day going from dingy jewelry store to dingy jewelry store in the tourist shopping area of the island, and though I got a nice pair of earrings, this was not the best way to see St. Thomas. I came away unimpressed with the island and I think it may have been because I spent so much time here. If I were going back, I would take the gondola up to Paradise Point. 
Another thing we did was take a catamaran to Turtle Cove to do some snorkeling. The crew were very nice, friendly and fun guys, but three people got sick on the way to our snorkeling spot and many others on the boat felt mildly discomfited, including myself and my husband. When we arrived, the other boat's crew mentioned that seven on their boat were too ill to snorkel. How awful. I'm not sure how typical this was. The ride back was better. 
Having done snorkeling and scuba diving in Belize, Cozumel and Hawaii, St. Thomas was pretty unimpressive to me. For one thing (and this is not the island's fault, of course) there were so many snorkeling boats there that we were incredibly crowded, literally bumping into other snorkelers all the time--not fun. We did see a number of turtles feeding on sea grass, which was cool, and also a stingray and a few fish. The snorkeling guide put a sea urchin into our hands, which was fun, I suppose. Other than that, the reef was underwhelming, the fish were very underwhelming, and in general I would not do this excursion again. 


St. Thomas

Wow--we loved St. Maarten! This is the most beautiful tropical place I can remember being and probably the second-most beautiful We were originally going to go snorkeling here as well, but after receiving unamusing sunburns we decided to forgo that. I am very glad we did. 
What we did was, we walked a bit on the Dutch side where we were docked, had a forgettable lunch, and then took a cab to Orient Bay where we did some parasailing (I had done this before, but my husband hadn't--god it was amazing seeing all that beauty!), some relaxing on the beach (um, under the umbrellas...we were still lobsters), and then we took another cab to Maho Bay, where we chilled at a beachside bar and watched huge jumbo jets land seemingly inches from beachgoers' heads. If you don't know what I'm talking about, google it--it's pretty entertaining. 
The French side of St. Martin is incredibly gorgeous. We would consider taking a vacation here. The nefarious Shopping Shelby for some reason had advised staying on the Dutch side--why, oh why? I'm so glad we disregarded. 


St. Maarten

What is there to say about the tourist part of the town of Nassau? Very unimpressed, somewhat unsafe feeling and generally dismal. Of course, this is speaking from the point of view of someone who was in town for mere hours. It's very possible that we just didn't see the nicer areas, and living there may be very nice, who knows? We saw the Queen's Staircase (pretty, but what do you do there after you've snapped a photo and climbed the Fort Fincastle?) and the horrible touristy markets (awful, awful, awful--much like similar places in any number of cities in the world). 
It probably would've been better if we had more time to find the nicer areas. 
Atlantis: decided not to go. I know it's great and all but we felt like we had been on a crowded resort the whole week, and though we much enjoyed being on the ship, we didn't want to go to a waterpark full of more people on the land. 
Instead, we opted for the Dolphin Swim at the Blue Lagoon. This was really awesome, a highlight of the trip for sure and something we won't forget. My husband observed that dolphins feel about how they look like they'd feel: like wet eggplants. Really, everyone should do this! Of course, many places have dolphin swim experiences. We're glad we did this in Nassau, where we found the town itself underwhelming. We used Dolphin Encounters, or whomever it was, and booked through the ship after we were unable to do so independently. We thought their operation was professional and very smooth. Highly recommended. 


Nassau

Smallish but acceptable cabin, very clean and updated, very soundproof.

Both my husband and I have been to Florida before, but not as adults, so we enjoyed the experience and it gave us time to shake off our 9-hours of flying before boarding the ship.But honestly, it's still cheaper than a tropical vacation any other way if you just pay for drinks and dinner, and who wants to eat in a restaurant that large all the time when there are so many other restaurants on board?

Oasis of the Seas Review

Oasis: My 1st Cruise Ever!

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