If I have anything approaching a "traditional" time to take a cruise, it has been the first week after the new year.  It is the lowest priced week of the year, and typically lets me stretch my dollars further.  Plus, the older cruise crowd has gone home for the holiday season, the weather is cooler, and traffic on the road to Florida is not as great.

I am taking the kids on a hybrid cruise/vacation with another line in September.  However, as with most such trips, there just isn't the same relaxing quality when I have the weeblows with me.  As such, I'm looking ahead to my traditional January dates for a personal cruise.  

As usual, lots to debate and figure out.  For the coming week or so, I am going to work through the issues here.

The real debate begins with which ship to choose, the choices having been narrowed down to Oasis of the Seas and Freedom of the Seas.  The former is obviously the sexy new beast in the Royal Caribbean International fleet.  The latter is the lead ship of the beloved Freedom class, which I experienced as part of Liberty of the Seas' pre-inaugural cycle.

I am a huge fan of the Voyager class and her derivatives.  I think they may be the best expression of modern cruise ship design afloat.  I've been on Explorer, Voyager, Navigator, and Liberty already.  The class is familiar, inviting, and one I'm entirely sure of enjoying.  Oasis of the Seas is obviously the mega-ship without pier.  Absolutely a wonder of modern engineering, and historic if only because of her raw basic size and such.

Yet, for her size and the temptation to be drawn to the biggest and newest out there, I can not bring myself to simply lock Oasis into my plans.  The lack of a true promenade deck, a feature I personally value and use intensively on every cruise, just does not exist on the Oasis.   I also tend to look at the features and wonder if it might not be better to wait to travel with a group, or perhaps my kids again.  Though the number of places and ways to "people watch," is greater without question, aboard Oasis, compared to Freedom.

In the end, I don't think selecting a ship is going to come down to the class.  I think I would be perfectly happen cruising on either ship.  So the debate will boil down to itiniary, stateroom category, etc. 

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