ChristianDecker

Question: All prices are shown to me in EUR. Am wondering if I could also pay in USD and if the prices would be lower then as my credit card does the converting and not RCCL ... ?

I'm not having any credit card fees (including mid rate is applied) ...

Other way round - if a US customers books such a cruise, is it then automated in EUR too ? So is it based on country of journey or country of guest and can this be somehow changed ...

Just spend several hours to align our excusions (only 2 to be able to see other things 2), shows (5) and specialty restaurants (3) and 2 formal nights ... pre-booked internet package due to advance rebate.

What a fun to do this... :cool:

Also system of RCCL is very nice, reliable and fast.

Didn't do the soda fountain pre-booking as I don't want to wait to get the cup in the cabin ...

Glad that I did it as my date seems to be a full ship and I want to avoid the hazzle onboard.:D

Now my credit card is fire hot ... :eek:

I'm ready ... can't wait ...

Dear Cruisecritics,

in 30 days from now I will be sailing her ... I'm so excited. So I'm currently preping my trip.

I have been searching for a while, but did not find it:

Currencies

Please, what is the currency on board of HoS ? So what is accepted for paying (both things you consume as well as tips). I want to pay tips in cash as this is my clear preference.

Normally it is USD, but since she is quite some time in Med (=EUR), I wanted to ask.

Which currency is dispensed on on-board ATMs ? I prefer this, as my credit card does not charge ATM fees.

Or is both EUR and USD accepted and if yes, what exchange rate is applied ?

Tipping in cash

Tips in cash: What do I have to do to be able to do so ? Normally I go to front desk and ask them to remove auto-Charge. But with all these new dining options ...

Formal nights

Are there formal nights ? And if yes, please which nights ?

Thank you and regards

Christian

PS Sorry, that I MUST have overseen this info somewhere, but currently I feel like being 6 again on 23rd of Dec ...

You must book through Amex Platinum services. ... Each cruise, the fares have been higher than other offers.

Same observation for me ... much more expensive through Amex than on the 'market'.

I have used the annual $200 airline credit, whether for baggage, food or gift certificates.

May I please ask what you mean by this ? I only know the 'miles'/membership rewards points to collect for each money you spend.

Do you have to book through Amex or pay only with Amex (or non of it) ?

I was wondering to upgrade my Gold to Platinum if I had good reasons for it making the difference in price somehow vanish with options that I do really need ...

EDIT: OMG!!! My signature is not current ... Harmony is not on it yet :eek::eek::eek: Have to fix that IMMEDIATELY.

Although I might get flamed for the following and without making my post 10 pages, I would like to express that after many RCCL cruises I finally did one (my first and last one) Aida cruise on AidaBlu (Med) as I have heard soooo often on my RCCL cruises and on land that Aida is good or even best.

On the ship we have experienced a loyalty to Aida of 95% of the people we met. Even cold food was named good as it has this brilliant variety that you can get nowhere.

If you love American ships and you don't ahere to German (as a language on a ship) don't do Aida.

1. Excursions
   VERY good. A+++. Really loved them. Very good tours. All in German, with highly motivated guides, all well educated. Wireless hotspot with FOC internet in bussed... RCCL is much weaker here.
   
2. Route / Stops
   Very well picked. Many of Aida's routes RCCL does not do yet.
   
3. Ship
   Small, had trouble to find my way, often felt to be on a one-way-or dead end street. Hard to find floor signs. I have been on Oasis class 3 times and there it was very easy. I'm spoilt by RCCL. On Aida my mom (74), who was also on Oasis already, did often end up somewhere wrong. Much to little amount of public toilets.
   Reception: Mid of the 'queue' (if you want to call this a queue) ends in front of the elevators.
   Cabins are nice coloured though.
   NEVER saw our cabin attendant.
   
4. Food
   Good variety. FOC beer and wine during dinner. Loved the burger place. Very good food in there and very friendly staff.
   In my one week all our food (and I had many in any restaurant that was included) was in max. lukewarm to cold, except in the burger place. Filet steaks were cooked to be dry and were served once half cold.
   Nice remarks and requests from us, e.g. requesting for warm fried egg, were in max. answered grumbling. Requests were not taken but I was asked to provide online feedback myself after the cruise. And believe me, we were really trying to be polite.
   There are often many times during the day you can't get ANYTHING to eat nor drink on the ship that you don't have to pay for. No coffee served 24/7 FOC.
   Could post more ...
   
5. Pool site
   The biggest pool was smaller than a bigger sized RCCL whirl pool. In ANY whirlpool on the ship I was not able to sit with my feet stretched (I'm 6 foot 2) leading me to issue with my feet (under water, bubbles) touching somebody else in areas I don't want to ...
   Nude area: Big nude area, taking many of the little pool area space. So called SPA area you have to pre-book and pay. Don't even start to compare this with BOS or Oasis solarium nor think of the entire pool deck comparison.
   
6. Entertainment
   Anytime bar had nice disco music. Biergarden (own beer brewed on ship) had 2 nice day music session during our 1 week, felt like in Spring break on those occasions/days. Really nice. Also the staff cocktail mix 1h on the pool site was nice.
   Theatre in size is smaller than the shows of RCCL being done in the atrium of the ships. Shows are weak to horrible. 1 'big' show per day ... which some were even distressing. E.g. one night the show of the day was two performers were doing adhoc-theatre with no 100% story line, both playing drunk people ... this was even transmitted to the pool site in loud sound ... even the Aida fans were requesting to have the sound turned off.
   Captain was almost invisible. His introduction was weakly done poolside.
   After half of our trip we stopped participating in most entertainment.
   

No Sorrento's at Quantum.

Really? NO Sorrento's on Quantum???

You have been sailing her, but ...

I have seen pics of it and look e.g. here

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/quantumoftheseas/dining/restaurants/sorrentos/

Or do you mean Sorrento's is only open during special times of the day, i.e. not during early embarkation ? Not even after noon ?

@hallasm

Thank you very much for your lovely Video+Music ... I have to watch it over and over again ...

Dear CruiseCritics,

I just learned that Coke Freestyle maschines are now conectable to mobile devices via an app:

or also

http://www.coca-colafreestyle.com/home/

According to the demo video, I highly assume that the maschines have to be online for that or at least offer WIFI etc. ...

Does anybody have any info if or when RCCL will upgrade their maschines accordingly OR

are all maschines already App-enabled ?

Thank you in advance for your information.

Cheers

Christian

Nice pics. Thank you!

The "coloring"/Color schemes/combination of colors are different to other RCCL ships. Looks more elegant in many ways but - as always it is a question of taste - I do not like it or need to adopt having been on quite a few other RCCL ships.

A little too much glamour, goldish etc.

Don't aim to complain, just my personal taste.

Does anyone know if the "coloring" of the Quantum class will remain the same on all 3 of them or is this slightly changed for Anthem and/or Ovation ?

As Oasis and Allure are the same in that aspect, I do hope that they do not keep this for Quantum class.

Guess you will then have to pay the single fare.

Your parents should go for insurance. Although it is a short notice talk to RCCL about anything that they could do for you and/or your parents.

I was not able to resist in posting the following snapshot of one the videos ... WHAT a view ...:eek::D:p:cool: MAGNIFICANT!

WARNING ahead: Put your cup of coffee down ... as there are chances that your chin knocks it off your hand on its way down :eek:

...I am looking forward to sailing with her again this coming Sunday...

Oh ! Have to admit one thing: Sailing any RCCL ship, and you even do BoS, with Clo as CD is absolutely adorable and ten thousand times better than me having to work these days with my next cruise being in about two month from now ... :D

Clo: I (including my family) am sorry to disagree . For various reasons I don't like her. Don't intend to mention my list why (to prevent being flamed here). We saw her on BoS in Jan 2014.

I even regard Ken Rush better than her.

She is not bad, but have seen many better ones.

But all in that area is a question of personal taste.

Richard Spacey (no longer with RCCL, but Celebrity Cruises) is my all time best.

PS The current list of cruise directors may be found as follows:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=44504398&postcount=2101

The thread is being edited pretty often, above post is the last full list posted as of now and lists Clo currently being on BoS. Nothing there about when she would leave.

Thank you all so far for your comments, especially to steamboats and your links :D

PS Was afraid to get flamed for this thread ... good to see that this did not happen :cool:

Dear RCCL fans,

I am a big RCCL fan. Among many things I also like RCCL's 'Save the waves' activities.

I thought RCCL also does this along their fuel consumption / burning / exhaust gas filter systems etc.

Reading the latest NABU report even the Quantum class does not get any green dot ... and as this report was published in lot of media it caught my attention.

As follows the overview of their 2014 rating (click on the upper pic to enlarge, sorry did not find an english translation, but at least you may see the ranking):

http://www.nabu.de/themen/verkehr/schifffahrt/mirstinkts/17005.html

Is there any more information on why RCCL does not use the latest technology at least in the exhaust filtering ?

Of course this causes higher cost, but as e.g. the new AIDA does quite more in that area I assume that a ship may still be operated with those modern systems.

Again, I'm a RCCL fan, simply trying to understand or get more info on this.

Hope I did not oversee any info that could answer the above.

Regards

Christian

Voice-over-IP seems to be blocked in general. Have tried it several times (e.g. recently OoS and BoS) but none worked. Did not try incoming calls though.

So I assume that Facetime is also blocked.

Guess that this is done to keep the bandwidth up and not jammed with everybody doing phone calls via internet, plus to charge big if you do phone calls using your phone while being at sea ...

Am wondering how this goes on the Quantum class with the new satellite technique having a much higher bandwidth ... does anybody have any information on this ?

Can anyone see North Star yet ?

Hope I did not oversee it or a post about this ...

If it is not yet there - where will the major lift be assembled ?

EDIT: I think I can see it on some pics I found ... but nothing with a clear pic ...

Are there any photos with more detailed pics ?

If I had to bet, I'd say there will be at least four Quantum-class ships.

I would hope so, but would not bet Money on that. Four Oasis class ships and 3 Quantums ... unless they get rid of older ships I can't imagine to have the ships of that capacity full year around.

Also Freedom class has 'only' 3 sister ships... ;-)

Did anybody find any info about any option or plans for Q4 ?

Sometimes they announce this along the steel cutting ceremony ...

It sounds like I have a lot of cruising MUST-DOs ahead in the next couple of years :p

Well, and I now have good reasons for it too :cool:

Can you share it? Would LOVE to have that bing sound as my text messages alert!!

Ok, I uploaded mine to an upload hoster, as here MP3 is not an allowed attachment type. I hope the following link/hoster is fine and allowed:

RCCL BING

(When being on the site, just press the "Download This File" button)

I did that a few cruises ago, I ensured I had my iPhone voice memo app recording each and every time I got off or on huge ship. Overall the ones I got came out descent. I use the ship "bing" for emails, and even managed to record the "do dooo doooo" tone before announcments as my text message notification.

 

At work when I get a text message a coworker speaks up, "sssssh the captain is speaking!" :-)

Do mind to please share those somehow ? E.g. I'm not sure if it would be ok to upload this to a thread here ?!

PS It's good to finally know that we are not the "only" RCCL "FREAKS" ;-)))

https://sites.google.com/site/cruiseshipsounds/

 

Click on cruise ship card reader

Thank you. A little bit better than my recording but still lots of background noise ;-)

And also I think the DINGs/BINGs have a slightly different sound on the older RCCL ships. I like the newer ones better...

Oh, one more thing:

If you love Izumi and you love to sit at the 'bar'/at the desk to watch the chef and chat with him ... you may not aim to visit Izumi on BoS.

In the Park Café RCCL's famous beef sandwiches are not sooooo good as on Oasis and Allure.

But this very much depends among others on the one who prepares the sandwich. We recently were back on the Oasis and the sandwich was not sooo good any more as it used to be in the beginning, but still better than on BoS.

Hi RCCL Fans,

just to warn you ahead - as follows a fancy question:

I'm looking for the BING sound of the check-in kiosks.

We love to go on board (and leave for a day trip). When you do so, there is a unique BING sound while your sea pass card is checked.

When being back home from one of our cruises, we had the idea to use that BING sound as our notification for any message on our mobile phone.

Guess what: Whenever we now get a new message, we instantly have this unique RCCL WOW-smile on our face ... as our memories are BING-ed back.

Initially we had a not so good recording so we did record it again along our last cruise ... but the quality is still not that good.

So my question:

I think I have heard the BING sound in songs too, but never isolated to use it as a good source. Does anybody know where to get it or how this sound is named so I could search for it ?

Thank you and regards

Christian