I especially like eating oysters at Cooter Brown’s in NOLA. After a day of JazzFest.
To start off with, it might not be a bad idea to tip out some of the liquid from the shell before slurping the oyster. Some people find the actual oyster fine, but the unexpected quantity of the salty shot to the tonsils rather off-putting and hard to swallow.*
I’d agree with the recommendation to try them somewhere good first. Cruise food can be terrible, I’ve heard, and you wouldn’t know how fresh the oysters actually were. The best I’ve ever had were at a restaurant in Normandy which sat on stilts over its own oyster bed. They were very fresh!
*What?
I had fried oysters from time to time as a kid but never tried them raw until I was older. I like them on a cracker with cocktail sauce and always get some when we are in Florida. My wife can’t stand the sight of them and almost refuses to sit at the same table with me if I’m eating them. 
Or sober.
I think for most people they’re an acquired taste, but I’ve been eating them since I was a kid, so I don’t know any better. Be sure to try them first at a really good place, because bad oysters can be really bad. And try some smaller ones first-- like Kumamotos. Bigger is definitely not necessarily better.
And I like mine with nothing more than a squirt of lemon juice. Yum!
I used to eat whole buckets of “shuck your own” at Bernie’s Oyster Bar in Savannah. There must be five dozen in a bucket for about $15. The first raw oyster I ever had I shucked myself. It’s a whole new level of appreciation. It’s easy too.
For what it’s worth, I never felt like I had too many even after dozens and dozens.
I have loved them since I was really young. My parents used to order a dozen just for me when I was about four or five because you can’t really get full from them. A waitress once told the seafood restaurant owner that a little kid was getting a dozen raw oysters. He came over to the table and said that little kids don’t usually like raw oysters, but, if I ate them all, he would give me as many as I wanted on the house. I went through over two dozen that night happily and he kept his word.
Yea, I’d say they are an acquired texture, rather than taste. They are actually pretty subtle tasting, if you like seafood then you probably shouldn’t have a problem with their flavor. Sort of somewhere between a rare scallop and rubbery clam in texture. I found my favorite topping was a few drops of lemon and a few drops of Tabasco Chipotle Sauce, although I like them with cocktail sauce or horseradish, too. I like them better with something interesting (spicy) and acidic to cut the “fishieness” and well, really to give them some kind of flavor. You kind of have to break their monotony up.
Personally, I’d probably rather have them fried and on a poorboy… call me unrefined or whatever, but I think they are sort of wasted and uninteresting served raw from a culinary standpoint.
QFT. There’s nothing like spending the night on a cold bathroom floor wishing for sweet, merciful death.
I get mine from Coffman Cove AK; they run a nice oyster farm down there and sell to locals during the season. I prefer mine cooked on a BBQ, just until the shell pops, I like an assortment of lemon juice, Worcestershire, Tabasco, cocktail sauce, and horseradish. I mix and match flavors and can usually polish off a couple of dozen in a sitting.
I have nothing but good memories of going to Rodney’s Oyster House in Toronto. Shuck me, suck me, eat me raw. A big selection of fresh oysters and an abundance of toppings. Pepper vodka worked for me.
Oysters are not for everyone, as I discovered when I took a boyfriend there once. He wasn’t impressed. His loss.
As a public service announcement, let me say get yourselves down to the library (or Amazon.com) and get the following book.
http://www.amazon.com/Hog-Island-Oyster-Lovers-Cookbook/dp/1580087353
It has almost everything one needs or wants to know about oysters.
Maybe thirty years ago, I ordered Carpetbagger Steak, at a local NY “Australian” restaurant. Steak stuffed with Oysters sounded good and likely tasted pretty good, as I remember. An hour or two later, I (and only I) was sick as a dog with what I assumed was food poisoning. We did continue to patronize the pub/restaurant and quite a few years later, I decided to try that same dish. Same exact results and was (somewhat reluctantly) done with the place.
Fast forward twenty years and I was eating fresh shucked oysters with friends in Florida before going out for the evening. An hour or two later I (and only I) was as sick as I’ve ever been in my life. The following evening, forlornly reading a restaurant menu, a warning caught my eye regarding the danger of eating raw oysters, especially for persons with “chronic illness of the liver" as quoted in the link, with additional words including possibly fatal. West Case Updare
I’ve had my liver checked several times in the years since and it’s apparently fine. No auto-immune issues. No problem with other mollusks or shellfish. Although it seems somewhat rare, I would just suggest being careful because…
I love 'em on the BBQ grill as well. Like you said - just till they pop.
I wowed the block party last summer with an app. of grilled oysters with a nice condiment tray.