I am, admittedly, a fan of Disney Cruise Line. I've completed, I think, 14 cruises with DCL (covering all of their current ships except the Treasure). Recently, my family (myself, wife, and 2 kids) went on an 8 night sailing on Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas, along with some family members (2A, 3C). Here are my thoughts on how the lines compare:
Ship first impressions:
Walking into RCCL, there's no grand atrium, instead you're right in the middle of all the shops. 1 shop with RC merch, the rest are fancy jewelry and watches and art. The pizza restaurant is there, and a small cafe, and 2 bars. Also, for some reason, 2 Starbucks within a hundred yards of each other. Edge: Disney
Rest of the ship:
There's a lot of stuff to do on Oasis. There's an outdoor park with some benches (and more jewelry stores, and a bar) that was pretty nice, there's a boardwalk area with a (free!) carousel, there's a multi purpose area that is sometimes an ice rink, 4 or 5 pools and hot tubs, a casino (didn't partake), a giant dry slide, a zip line, flow rider surf simulators, a rock climbing wall, and more. Edge: Royal (although no dedicated movie theater and no poolside movies, which both lose points)
Pools:
The pool deck had 3 pools, plus a good sized splash area for kids who are out of diapers, and a much smaller splash pad for the diaper crowd. I think there were 3 hot tubs. Plus there was a pool and hot tub in the adult only area. The pools were never super crowded (at least when we were there), and the water was a reasonable temperature. The pool towel policy (you have to sign out your towels, and you will be charged if you don't return them to the attendant) is absurd.. Edge: Disney, because of the towel policy. The actual pools were pretty even
Rooms:
Smaller and with less storage space than on Disney. Only 1 single electrical outlet near the bed (and 3 near the vanity), no USB charging ports. I missed the split bathroom. Shower was tiny. Had a dispenser for "body wash and shampoo in one". No conditioner. Edge: Disney
Stateroom cleanliness/maintenance:
The bathroom always had a bit of a smell, but everything looked pretty clean. We had to call maintenance for a broken drawer, leaky shower head, and the balcony door wouldn't stop whistling. All were fixed, but I feel like the stateroom host should have noticed these things and called them in for us. Only 1 service per day (no turndown). Sink in the bathroom wouldn't get hot or cold, it was always just about warm. Shower temp and pressure were good. Edge: Disney
Ship cleanliness:
Never noticed any dirty restrooms or anything. There seemed to be fewer public restrooms than on Disney ships. Didn't see as much constant cleaning (interior and exterior) as DCL. Also didn't see the constant pool deck squeegeeing that we see on DCL. Edge: Disney, but not really by much.
Other Guests cleanliness:
Like Disney, the buffet had hand washing sinks at the entrance and a crew member watching to make sure you wash. Unlike Disney, no hand wipes as you enter the dining rooms. There were sanitizer dispensers, but you weren't forced to use them, and half the time I tried, they were empty. Edge: Disney
Main dining rooms:
Oasis had 3, all right above each other, but you would always go to the same one (well, on the first night they took us up to the 5th floor because the first floor was slammed, but this was unusual). Some people had set dining times, we had the "my time" dining which was flexible. But since we were traveling with family, we made a reservation for the same time each night, all together. On the nights we showed up at our reserved time, we had the same table and servers. The other nights we didn't. Our assigned servers were pretty good, 1 of the others was mediocre and 1 of the others was bad. Food quality was pretty good. DCL has more "upscale" things included - RCCL had a NY strip steak for free every night, but filet was an upcharge, whereas DCL has a few different types of steaks on different nights, plus the NY strip. (Admittedly, NY strip is not my favorite cut, so I didn't order it, but family members said it was good)
Food quality edge: Even
Food variety edge: Disney
Service edge: Even
Buffet:
The buffet on Oasis was called Windjammers, and it was in the same basic area - top rear of the ship. I feel like Cabanas/Marceline on DCL has more variety of the “rotational items”, while keeping the staples all the time. Food was pretty decent, and the French fries were better than Disney, but I would've enjoyed a little more variety, even if it's just "sour cream and chive mashed potatoes vs plain mashed potatoes". Windjammers did feel like it had more seating available, we never had to go around more than once to find a table. Edge: Disney, slightly
Other free food options:
There was a pizza place on deck 5 that was open until 3am every day. Pizza was not great but better than Disney. There were a few small cafe type restaurants with premade sandwiches, these usually closed at 530. On the pool deck, there was a taco quick service, also closed at 530 daily. The hot dog place on the boardwalk also closed at 6. Royal gets some points for being able to get pizza later, and the buffet served dinner (including burgers and hot dogs and chicken strips), so overall you could pretty much get all the food that you can on Disney, but I didn't like that the places closed so early. Edge: Disney
Upcharge dining options:
There are a ton of them - Italian, steakhouse, hibachi, BBQ, French cuisine, and Johnny Rockets. (For JR, breakfast is free, other meals are $15 each, which includes entree, side, drink, and possibly dessert. They also have milkshakes, which you can purchase a la carte, or they're included with some of the beverage packages). We only ate at the steakhouse, and we put the kids in the club, so we could enjoy an adult meal. We prepaid before we got on the ship, and it was $35/person. If we hadn't prepaid, it would have been $65 each. (They also offer multi night premium dining packages). The food was really good, the service was not. There was only 1 host, who was checking everyone in, showing everyone to their table, making reservations, and clearing tables. We waited about 15 minutes to be seated, with only 2 parties ahead of us, and everyone's table was ready. Then we waited another 10 minutes for the waiter to take our drink orders. Pacing of the meal was inconsistent - there was a gap between appetizers and mains, but no gap before dessert. I was expecting service on par with a Ruth's Chris, or Capitol Grille, or yes, Palo. Instead, we got service that was a step up from Outback, but not much. I would have been very disappointed if we had paid full price, but as it was, the food justified what we paid. Edge: Disney
Soda:
Soda is not included on Royal. You can buy one of 3 beverage packages that will get you soda - the "classic soda" package, the "refreshment" package, it the "premium beverage" package. The classic gets you just soda, refreshment adds Johnny Rockets milkshakes, cocktails, bottled water, Powerade and non Starbucks coffee, and the premium included alcoholic drinks. I had the refreshment package and probably could have gone with just the classic soda package, but the milkshakes were pretty good, and getting a bottled Powerade once in a while was nice. You also get a refillable cup to get soda from 3 Coke freestyle machines (one near the pizza place, one in the buffet, and one near the taco place on the pool deck) and you can order soda in bars and the main dining rooms. I'm not a big fan of the freestyle machines - Coke Zero is my poison of choice, and it is always awful from those machines. Diet Coke is my second choice and is tolerable from the freestyle machines, so that's what I drank all week. Edge: Disney
Kids clubs:
Both lines offer youth programming for all ages from 6 months up to 18. The nursery is an added cost but all the other ages are not. The nursery on Oasis is cheaper than the DCL nurseries, but both of them were pretty good and 2 y/o daughter enjoyed it. For bigger kids (4 y/o son's age), DCL has both the Oceaneer club and Oceaneer lab, which are both pretty big areas, and kids can usually move between the 2. RCCL has one small room for kids 3-6. They did a lot of arts and crafts activities, but I think he got bored sometimes because there wasn't as much space and not as much to do. Edge: Disney
Shows:
Disney has really great shoes, we all know this, but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the shows we saw on Oasis. Aqua 80 was a water show with an 80s music soundtrack. Frozen in Time was a figure skating show based on Hans Christian Andersen stories (although there was no dialogue or singing). We also saw Cats, which remains my all time least favorite musical that I've ever seen. The actors were talented, but you really can't do much with a show that has zero plot. Edge: pretty even
Private Island:
We went to Coco Cay, and it was pretty nice. We pretty much only did the splash pad, but it was a pretty big area - some zero depth water features, and some small water slides (2 y/o daughter could go with an adult, 4 y/o son could go by himself) that dump you out into a 2 foot deep pool. Son did the slides for probably 45 minutes or an hour. He just kept getting off and getting right back in line, he loved it. Our family said the beach party was nice but the water was cold (End of March, not surprising). We were one of 2 ships there that day, the other was the Independence of the Seas, which is smaller than Oasis, but still larger capacity than anything currently in Disney's fleet. Because we never made it past the splash pad, I don't know how crowded the other areas felt. Lunch was pretty much the same as at castaway - grilled food, but there was also a taco station that doesn't exist on castaway. Edge: Royal, for what we saw.
Activities and musicians:
We only did one music trivia, just because of the way schedules worked out. It was a Disney music trivia, and we came in 3rd place. The event host was fine, maybe not quite as personable as some of the Disney hosts, but not bad. We saw a few musicians (guitarist, reggae band, jazz quartet) and they were all pretty good. There were some others on board that we didn't get to see, like the pianist and the guitar/vocal duo. We saw the musicians outside in the park area, but they also had some sets in various bars around the ship. The ship also had a music hall, but we didn't see anything there. (Oddly, the music hall has a digital sign showing upcoming events ... at other venues on the ship, but not what's coming up in that venue. I think DCL does better with that, every venue has a sign showing that days events) Edge: Disney for the signage issue, but overall pretty even for the performers
Shopping:
Oasis had one store dedicated to RCCL merch and one small "beachwear" store. Everything else was upscale brands. Hublot, Breitling, Kate Spade, Michael Kors, Effy. They also had a few vending machines that sold toiletries, sunscreen and a few OTC meds - think Tylenol, Advil, Pepto type stuff. Nowhere to get extra diapers or wipes if you run low. Edge: Disney
Pricing:
Royal Caribbean IS cheaper than Disney, but I didn't find the price differences to be the "you can do 2 cruises on RCCL for the cost of 1 comparable DCL cruise" level of difference that is sometimes mentioned on this subreddit. RCCL frequently does promos such as "Kids sail free" or "2nd adult 50% off", and Disney doesn't often run those type of promos. I don't remember exactly what promos were offered when we booked this cruise, but I know some were applied.
Overall thoughts:
We enjoyed ourselves, and if we are going with friends or family, we would do RCCL again (although possibly booking 2 cabins to have more space, even though we're only a family of 4). However, at least for the next few years, until the kids are big enough to do more of the things, if it's just us, we will stick to DCL.
