Cruise ship review: Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas
What's it like to sail on Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas? USA TODAY's cruise review site, Reviewed.com Cruises, offers a glimpse this week in its first in-depth review of the iconic vessel -- one of the world's two largest cruise ships.
Broken down into six parts, it's the most extensive appraisal ever of the 5,400-passenger Oasis of the Seas to be posted online, and it includes more than 1,000 photos showing nearly every interior and exterior space of the vessel.
Overall, the reviewer gives the four-year-old ship solid marks, noting such "amazing" elements as its lushly landscaped Central Park area and an outdoor Boardwalk with a traditional wooden carousel. Oasis' entertainment offerings are "as good as it gets at sea," the reviewer says, and it boasts an unusually diverse range of cabin sizes that make it "a boon for large, multi-generational families and other groups" looking for a single ship that will satisfy a wide range of budgets and agendas.
Yet while Oasis is a marvel in many respects and offers "something for everyone," from zip lines to ice skating to wine tastings, it's not without flaws, the reviewer adds. Dining options included in the fare are "strictly average," and most of the many additional restaurants available with a surcharge "aren't significantly better." In addition, while cabins are "comfortable," they're also "fairly average for newer, mass-market ships," and crowding is a problem on Oasis at times -- though perhaps not as much as one would expect for a ship of its size.
Visit Reviewed.com Cruises to view the full Oasis of the Seas review, which was written by one of the site's in-house, anonymous reviewers. As with all Reviewed.com Cruises reviews, the reviewer traveled on the vessel incognito and at USA TODAY's expense.
Launched in October 2011, Reviewed.com Cruises was designed in collaboration with Reviewed.com, a network of online review publications owned by USA TODAY, and it's devoted to helping would-be cruisers find the perfect ship.
Reviewed.com Cruises is the first cruise review site to use anonymous reviewers. Unlike reviewers at other sites, Reviewed.com Cruises reviewers never will travel on free cruises provided by cruise lines, nor will they base their reviews on cruise line-arranged "preview" or "press" cruises for travel writers or any other sailing where their presence on a ship is known.