19 Nights, 10,000+ photos, and way too many videos. A Quantum Review

[DEIx15x8]

Just wanted to let everyone know that I am back from my 19 night adventure on the Quantum of the Seas, and boy was it more of an adventure than I expected. If you've seen my thread before leaving I set out to cover as much as possible and I believe I have accomplished that and more, lol. Right now I'm working through everything I filmed but I have 10,000+ photos (all will end up on Picasa shortly), 150GB of time-lapse arrivals and departures, 400GB of videos, and 100+ audio recordings to get through. Eventually they will all be put together into my ship tour video, onboard experiences video series, and theCruiseView (complete with interviews!). While I'm working through this though there are many times where I am simply waiting for something to process so I'm going to start my review thread now and I'll keep adding as I get a chance as well as when new content is available (I'll be including photos in posts later once I have access to them online). Of course if you have any questions along the way please feel free to ask. I can tell you up front that if you can find a negative adjective in the dictionary it probably applies to the 11/23 sailing while the 12/1 sailing was about as perfect as a cruise could get. Being on both I think really allowed me to see not only how bad Quantum can be, but just how incredible as well. Throughout it all though I don't think anyone could possibly find something negative to say about the crew, they were simply the best throughout the entire experience. All of the negativity surrounding the 11/23 sailing was the fault of the team in Miami and not really anything related to the people onboard.

[Dorh]

Nice to hear positive comments. We are on QoS next month. Would love to hear more and all the do's and don'ts.

[Yorkvillain]

Welcome back Derek. I'm really looking forward to your review.

[LoneStarJeffe]

Subscribing! Looking forward to your feedback about your experiences. I want to especially thank you for highlighting the crew as a positive. It has to be very hard to listen to so many complaints caused by circumstances beyond the crew member's control.

 

Any feedback on traffic patterns of passengers during the day and what areas seemed congested?

[DEIx15x8]

A little background leading up to the cruise. I've booked new ships before and always booked them on day 1. Unfortunately school always dictated when we could sail so I ended up on the 4th sailing of both the Liberty of the Seas and Oasis of the Seas. Both went smooth, Liberty had a few issues related to her major Noro outbreak on the 2nd sailing but not operational problems. Oasis was as smooth as could be and felt very special being such a new ship with some of the major players still in place to ensure her success and constantly pointing out that we were just the fourth set of passengers on her.

 

After the Oasis the rumors of Project Sunshine started and I decided that no matter where she sailed or when I would have to be on the inaugural. As we got closer and the concept of a winter ship was becoming more clear it seemed more likely that she would be NYC bound which made the likely hood of an inaugural even more real. Eventually of course they did announce her to be set in Bayonne and announced the itineraries. I sail with my parents and split everything 3 ways to reduce the costs (a third of 1+2 + 3rd is much cheaper than 1x2). They love new ships but sail for the itineraries so it ended up that I wanted the inaugural and they wanted the 12 night southern caribbean. We decided long ago that we would never do a Bahamas cruise since we don't even get off in Nassau any more and CocoCay is hit or miss. We still wanted the inaugural experience though so in the end when booking opened we agreed that since we had no airfare to worry about we would go on the inaugural and which ever of the three southern caribbean sailings were the cheapest (with transportation to the port included). The day it opened I called and was talking to the agent as the itineraries suddenly showed up. I ended up booking the inaugural and after looking at the 3 southern caribbean sailings found the 11 night would be the cheapest so I booked our very first B2B. At this point I must make this very clear, we booked an 11 night southern caribbean cruise because we loved the itinerary and we booked an inaugural sailing because we wanted the special experience. We in no way booked a Bahamas sailing or would have even considered booking one. Had the 11 night been the inaugural we would never have done a B2B.

 

At the time of booking very little was know but with Oasis we didn't know much either. I had already developed the belief that traditional dining as we knew it was dead before ever booking. We love traditional dining and never miss a night but on the Oasis it just seemed to be trouble some with the shows being at all different times. Expecting Quantum to build upon Oasis and be more port intensive (people getting back at different times) it seemed rather obvious that some new implementation of MTD would take over. I even tried MTD on the Grandeur just before booking opened for Quantum to know what it was like, and rather enjoyed it. Took the easy route and booked in line with main seating on sea days and late seating on port days. We requested the same staff every day and beyond a few waits (up to 10 minutes) never had a problem. When Dynamic Dining was eventually announced it obviously then did not come as a surprise to me. I was however a bit surprised by the menus, or should I say lack of menus. I even expressed this directly to Adam Goldstein himself during the Dynamic Dining hangout and was assured that the menu had an expanded selection. I also stressed the lack of diversity and alternatives being a problem for families with different tastes to be able to dine together and was once again assured it would not be a problem.

 

When booking opened for Dynamic Dining I like everyone else jumped to get everything booked. For the first two weeks I was putting in more than 48 hours a week on it, more than my full time job and essentially all my time outside of work and sleeping. Unfortunately that was business as usual for the pre cruise planner. I ended up calling RCCL 1-2 per day every day until the end of August to try and get things sorted out. Then I still had to keep an eye out for issues that would randomly show up and improved dining times until just before we left. I ran into the same issues as most but also problems with dining times randomly changing or being canceled and could not get an answer as to who or why it would be done, just the exact time it occurred. Everytime I called though they would ensure that dealing with all this now would be worth it once onboard so I wouldn't have to deal with it then. In dealing with the issues I also mentioned that most of the weird problems were related to the 11 night sailing and it seemed like a corrupt reservation record and actually got them to not only confirm but explicitly state that it was in fact corrupt but could only be fixed by canceling and rebooking which would lose all the existing Dynamic Dining reservations and readjust the price to the current one.

 

When the online check in opened I completed the first sailing successfully but ran into issues with the second, attempting to save anyone after me would override their information with mine. After talking to them on the phone they got all the guest information corrected (not editable on the front end) and assured that I did not have to complete the second online check in, the first would transfer. I verified this later when dealing with a DD issue again. A few days before we were set to sail I called up to verify each of our dining and entertainment reservations with what I had since the guest ticket booklet was missing several items. Everything matched up and was in their system, they also once again assured that I would not have to do the second online check in things would transfer from the first.

 

Late Friday night while doing last minute reviews of everything before leaving Sunday I was shocked to see that a show had suddenly disappeared. When I called RCCL the offices were closed so I had to call back on Saturday morning. I ended up spending over 4 hours on the phone instead of packing in order to speak to different offices and managers. They confirmed that the reservation was canceled the same day my documentation was issued along with everyone else in the show. Nobody was able to correct the situation or even tell me when the show was now scheduled for. I knew more them then since I could see that it was now listed for a different day and they could not even confirm that. I even asked if they could send a note to someone on the ship to take care of it since they couldn't but they were not able to communicate with ships. They simply said to go to guest services once onboard and tell them what happened and they would take care of it. So after 6 months of working on their issues. More time spent preparing for this cruise than I would spend on this cruise, they managed to blow it at the last minute and still leave me with issues to take care of onboard.

[JMG]

All of the negativity surrounding the 11/23 sailing was the fault of the team in Miami and not really anything related to the people onboard.

 

It is so nice to see someone say this...I was beginning to think I was some kind of maniac because the "Inaugural" sailing disappointed so many people.

 

Subscribed to this thread. We go back on the Q in 2015 so I am very anxious to hear about the 12/1 cruise that was "happier"!

 

Thanks for taking your time to undertake this project. I am sure many cruisers will benefit from your effort to document your cruise.

[emmy]

Just wanted to let everyone know that I am back from my 19 night adventure on the Quantum of the Seas, and boy was it more of an adventure than I expected. If you've seen my thread before leaving I set out to cover as much as possible and I believe I have accomplished that and more, lol. Right now I'm working through everything I filmed but I have 10,000+ photos (all will end up on Picasa shortly), 150GB of time-lapse arrivals and departures, 400GB of videos, and 100+ audio recordings to get through. Eventually they will all be put together into my ship tour video, onboard experiences video series, and theCruiseView (complete with interviews!). While I'm working through this though there are many times where I am simply waiting for something to process so I'm going to start my review thread now and I'll keep adding as I get a chance as well as when new content is available (I'll be including photos in posts later once I have access to them online). Of course if you have any questions along the way please feel free to ask. I can tell you up front that if you can find a negative adjective in the dictionary it probably applies to the 11/23 sailing while the 12/1 sailing was about as perfect as a cruise could get. Being on both I think really allowed me to see not only how bad Quantum can be, but just how incredible as well. Throughout it all though I don't think anyone could possibly find something negative to say about the crew, they were simply the best throughout the entire experience. All of the negativity surrounding the 11/23 sailing was the fault of the team in Miami and not really anything related to the people onboard.

 

Derek was wonderful to meet you my google hangout co panelist. :) I know we share same thoughts about the Nov 23 sailing and I look forward to reading and viewing all you have to say about that and the much better 11 night sailing.

 

It gives me hope that the April 12 night I am booked on will be a much better experience.

[DEIx15x8]

Derek was wonderful to meet you my google hangout co panelist. :) I know we share same thoughts about the Nov 23 sailing and I look forward to reading and viewing all you have to say about that and the much better 11 night sailing.

 

It gives me hope that the April 12 night I am booked on will be a much better experience.

 

Yep, great to finally meet you in person as well. Have faith, if the 12/1 sailing and all the things I heard on it are any sign Quantum will be incredible by the time you sail. Both the new "Name That Tune" game show and the "An Evening With" event should be fully operational by then and both sound incredible.

[DEIx15x8]

I had to backup my camera's HDD to my MacBook as a DMG several times to keep filming, but it's now causing problems getting the videos onto my PC where I need them to view before picking clips for FCP on my Mac. It's a weird problem to have, but it's holding up any videos at this moment. I have been uploading my pictures for the past 24 hours though and have just a few days left. There all available in my Picasa linked to in my footer but I'll also be sharing each days link as i discuss it. I will be discussing each day and then at the end I'm going to discuss some of the specific aspects of how things were overall.

 

 

 

Day 1a: November 23, 2014

 

This was not my first spotting of the Quantum of the Seas, I visited Cape Liberty back on November 10th to welcome her to the country and complete inaugural experience (or so I thought I was doing).

 

[YOUTUBE]EFo_2Ingqjw[/YOUTUBE]

 

 

Day 1 photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/115365916503583655211/QuantumOfTheSeasNovember232014Embarkation

 

Arriving at the terminal on 11/23 it felt eerily similar. All the signs were up and everything was ready but the road leading to the terminal and the terminal itself was surprisingly quiet. It was a rather interesting occurrence that you don’t often see when arriving for a cruise, especially on a ship this big.

 

 

The terminal itself is beautiful. Not overly flashy but very high tech looking and really compliments the Quantum of the Seas. They look like they were meant to be together, as I’m sure they were. Unfortunately the time did not live up to anywhere near the hype that Royal Caribbean had built up. I intentionally timed it just to see how long it took from curb to ship including lap marks at each major point in the process.

 

 

I have to say it wasn’t bad, things seemed to run smoothly, but it certainly didn’t meet the expectations set forth. Had Royal Caribbean never mentioned anything about time I doubt I would even be mentioning it because it honestly did not feel slow, just not faster than normal. Our scheduled arrival time was 10:45am. Based on Royal Caribbean’s promise we should have been on the ship by 11:00am at the latest. We were early to arrive so you have to give them forgiveness for not meeting the 10 minute promise but we still should have been aboard within 10 minutes of our scheduled arrival time then. Instead we were not aboard until 11:17am, 52 minutes after we arrived. Even within the process individual steps took nearly the entire 10 minutes to complete.

 

It’s a rather smooth process. When you get out of the car they take your luggage at the curb and place the new luggage tags on them for the RFID tracking system and hand you the “receipt” stickers to keep for later. I’m not sure why, but just like in Southampton they were just throwing the scrap paper on the ground, certainly not very green IMO and made everything look a mess. From there you walk to the terminal entrance and it’s a very large open space. Their isn’t very clear direction as to what you should be doing or where to be going but someone should come over and get you. When we came in several people were standing around with tablets and we waited around a bit and then grabbed one. He ran into troubles with his tablet almost immediately and had to go get someone from IT to come fix it for him. Didn’t know it at the time but that was the start of what to expect for the next 8 days. He struggled to get it recognize us, pull our info up, and do just about anything. Eventually though he got us checked in and one of his tasks is to scan each of the luggage receipts to register the bags to us. This is something I will be mentioning again in 19 days. In total that step took over 8 minutes. We then were directed to the security checkpoint. They have a ton of stations all lined up and the flow is really strait forward from where they check you in. Unfortunately they too were having technology issues. The agents were very vocally complaining that the equipment was mis-calibrated and far too sensitive. As a result they were getting false positives on nearly everyone and this stage too took over 8 minutes. From there we entered the main waiting area. This was a very large space with stations setup all along the back wall for handling items like printing set sail passes, taking boarding photos, and accessibility needs. They also had several photo stations setup but all but one were rather cheesy cardboard cutouts. The one photo station with a real ship photo took 16 minutes to get through. From there we still had a short wait before they were ready to open the gate to enter the ship. This area unfortunately did not seem as well planned out. Adam Goldstein had previously mentioned that they had some chairs scattered around for the off chance that they may be needed. Well they were certainly needed and there were nowhere near enough chairs around. Since the ones that were there were scattered it also made it incredible difficult to move around, essentially one giant mob in the middle of the room. Speaking ahead I believe this was a huge mistake and hopefully they’ve rectified it because it seems like they are going to be needing those seats every week (or at least the three that I saw).

 

Once it was time to board though it was a rather exciting ceremony, certainly the coolest I’ve seen from any port. The entrance to the ship is a giant door angled at the far end of the terminal with a series of the new sea pass kiosks in front of it. The kiosks look really cool and modern with a glowing glass piece and a very slim structure that houses the actual equipment (a mac mini). With this full setup they announced that boarding was set to begin and ceremoniously open the large garage door to reveal the escalators to the ship. Once through the check it’s a fairly fast process up the escalators (or the elevators) and then a long walk through the sky bridge. The largest I’ve ever seen and I believe they said it is officially the largest in the US I believe. It’s also incredibly flat, didn’t even notice a hint of angle to it which is great for anyone with mobility issues. When we entered the ship you go directly into the Esplanade where it meets The Via with easy access to go down to deck 4 and guest services or over to the elevators.

 

 

Since they messed up our one entertainment reservation I did as they said and went to Guest Services. This was the new style like on the Oasis but taken to the next level. The back wall features a series of iMacs but up front are people walking around with iPads to assist. This would work if their weren’t many people but with so many issues their was always a massive line and the people walking around would not always pay attention to this so it took forever to finally get some assistance. They could not do anything and said to go to Boleros to take care of it. So I headed over to there and they were able to look up the entertainment reservation and actually said that I already had the show reserved according to their system but when they looked deeper found that the show did not exist any more even though it still showed as a reservation for me. They had to call for assistance but eventually were able to wipe the old reservation and book the new one. Only issue was that they had no way to see dining reservations and their system did not show if their would be any conflicts outside of other entertainment bookings. Unfortunately I left everything with the rest of my family so that i could more quickly take care of this so I then had to go to American Icon and wait in another line in order to get someone to look up my dining time for that day so that I could compare it to what had just been booked for entertainment. Luckily they were far enough apart that it wasn’t a problem but if it had been I would have had to keep going back and forth until something got worked out. It truly was a stupid setup but when you think about it that’s the way it was rolled out online as well, no thought about the fact that entertainment and dining reservations need to be paired up. It wasn’t too hard a process but after 6 months of working out issues it was over an hour I hadn’t expected to waste when boarding.

 

We then wanted to go drop our stuff off at the room as that is what they had said would be available upon boarding. Unfortunately just like others found out during the preview sailings the rooms weren’t ready until 1pm. Instead we lugged our luggage up to deck 15 and went to North Star. It was just before noon when it would be opening and already their was a short line. We waited through about 2-3 rides and then got to go up. It was a neat experience and one I’m glad we did as it rarely operated the rest of this sailing. Like others have said it only went up and down since it was in port but it still provided a great view of NYC, the ship, and the port.

 

 

 

We then headed to RipCord to get that reservation before visiting the Windjammer for lunch. We then went back to our room and picked up our SeaPass cards. The room was beautiful. Felt huge compared to every other ship. The balcony felt like a nice size as well. Our last on the Indy was a mini hump so it was smaller than that one but still a nice size. The furniture was nice as well and could fit together to create more room for standing which was great. The entire cabin is very well through out. A lot of attention went into the details of how someone uses the cabin. They built a lot of storage into it and added the extra USB charging ports which were a huge help. I’ll discuss this more later as well.

 

It was a decent lunch and the Windjammer was nicely laid out. I’ll get into more details on that later. The one thing I will point out is that they had no lemonade. Not a big deal for most but I have a weird love for it and for me it’s the item that signals that I’m on a cruise. They did have it on day 2 and I believe every other day so I’m not sure why I couldn’t find it this day.

 

We then explored the ship. It was incredible easy to figure out and feel at home after just one pass through. Two70 looked incredible, but I have to admit my first impression was of disappointment. They built it up to be an incredible venue but it felt rather humble when we were there. The views were great but it was almost like a library in there. Luckily this would not remain the case, but it certainly gave a very different first impression from my final one.

 

[DEIx15x8]

We then had to attend the muster drill. For some reason it was not stressed about as much as usual in the compass. Most people were their early. It’s amazing how every time we cruise it seems like more and more people are going to their station before the alarm is sounded. I think at this point the majority are already waiting when it’s time to go. Our station was in the Royal Theater. One person in my family has mobility issues so we were able to sit at the top of the theater on the lower level. Unfortunately it wasn’t very well thought out. They present all the information on the screen to either side of the stage but neither can be viewed from the top few rows. If they had shown it on the stage’s screen as well we likely would have been able to see it.

 

Following muster it was time to depart, an item completely absent from the compass which left many off guard. The original time was 5pm but it was later changed to 4pm which seemed to have caught many off guard. At about 4:45 as I was done watching our departure many people were just heading out to watch and rather surprised to see they missed everything. The fact that their was no sail away party either certainly didn’t help things.

 

It was a nice departure, cold but not freezing and the sun was setting just as we were going. We had a nice size crowd (for Cape Liberty) there to see us away. The main issue is that there are very few places to watch from outside. You can go on the jogging track or the bridge wings but nowhere has a full 180º view forwards and both are limited to several small slots between the glass panes in order to take photos/videos. This leads to a lot of crowding. Many did stay in the Solarium where it was nice and warm but the glass in their makes it bad for photos. Sailing under the Verazzano bridge of course was the highlight as always. I was intentionally watching for the funnel to be lowered but didn’t notice anything. They may have lowered it slightly but she seemed to clear the bridge with plenty of room.

 

 

 

 

For the first night we had a late dinner at American Icon Grille. I was surprised to see that there was still a line. It wasn’t an issue with have seating but more that their reservation system was down so they were having to do everything by hand and had no access to anyone’s reservations so they were operating on a first come first served basis and trusting people to say truthfully if they had a reservation. For how poor a system it was though it didn’t take long, only about 10 minutes to get in. Dinner was a bit slower as well though since their system was also down. At the same time the Royal IQ App was down as well as the Royal iQ Kiosks around the ship. Both suffered the same problem, you couldn’t login to the system, it would simply claim you didn’t exist. The food was delicious though and IMO lived up to the claims of better quality that Royal Caribbean made. Everything looked much more presentable and the waiter seemed more knowledgable. He was also very social and friendly just like we were used to in the past so our first exposure to Dynamic Dining while filled with bugs and issues was still an overall pleasant one.

 

 

After dinner we went to Two70 to see if we could catch anything. The poolside band was in there playing in front of what I believed was a Vistarama but would later learn was simply a frozen image of one.

 

 

After that we headed to Music Hall to see the tribute band for our sailing, Slippery When Wet. As a Bon Jovi fan I loved it. Something I can honestly say I’ve never thought after any other tribute band. It was a great event and certainly lived up to the intimate club feeling that Royal Caribbean had promised it would provide. Their wasn’t any dancing or anything though, people simply sat and watched as they would have done in the main theater. Afterwards though it took about 10 minutes for my ears to readjust from the loud sounds. This ship is loud; Music Hall, Two70, and the Royal Theater all have incredibly powerful sound systems!

 

 

After that I wandered the ship and recorded theCruiseView before heading off to bed. For the first night we had no gifts and not a single mention of the word inaugural or even the word first. By this point on both the Oasis and Liberty I had heard 4th sailing several times and things were feeling much more special even though they were just regular sailings that late into each ships life.

 

I started this last night so I can now say that by the time I finished writing it I have been able to get all my time-lapse videos generated, just need to send them through Final Cut Pro to get graphical overlays. I have also been successful in finally getting my videos in my PC, though I only have two HDD done out of the five so far. It’s at least great progress. This was a rather long post, but I think a lot of people are interested in the first day and it is a rather unusual day, especially on Quantum so I wanted to give extra details. The rest will be a bit shorter with more photos.

[DEIx15x8]

Time for another update, I’ve been working to get my videos onto my PC and now have a somewhat complete idea of what videos I will be offering. Check out the list below and let me know what you think. After the list I’m going to post a few comments that I would like some feedback on.

 

11/23/14 Sailing

-C&A Welcome Back Party

-Captains Corner

-Two70 Technology Tour (more like a talk)

-Groovytown (odd format)

-RoboShow 1 Perspective

-RoboShow 2 Dance

-Bayonne Departure

-Port Canaveral Arrival/Departure

-Nassau Arrival/Departure

-CocoCay Attempt

-Bayonne Arrival

-Port Timelapse

-North Star Bayonne

-North Star Nassau at night

 

12/1/14

-Captains Corner

-Coffee Chat (may not post)

-RoboShow 3 Animation

-RoboShow 4 Robo Science (early demo)

-Bayonne Departure

-San Juan Arrival/Departure

-St Maarten Arrival/Departure

-Martinique Arrival/Departure

-Barbados Arrival/Departure

-St Kitts Arrival/Departure

-Bayonne Arrival

-Port Timelapse

-North Star at Sea

-North Star Barbados & time-lapse

-North Star high winds at Sea

 

TheCruiseView

-Day 1-19 featuring daily dining and venue tours along with 10 interviews

 

The main questions that I have are related to if some of them should be posted or the best format that everyone would enjoy. The first item is Groovytown. If you are not familiar with it they changed the format of the 70’s Party and it’s now an hour long dance party with a series of small moments. I think posting the entire thing is a waste as it’s mainly just people dancing in a club. I believe that i will be editing it down to just the actual CD staff parts. Any thoughts on this, especially from those that may have actually seen it and know the format?

 

The Coffee Chat was Jimmy Rhodes discussing his time in China and reading some of his blog posts. I’m not sure I should share that moment but at the same time half the event was Jimmy really opening up about who he was which I think many people who may never have sailed with him but will be may enjoy hearing. Should I post it or keep it back? Those who saw it may have a better idea on this as well, but everyone’s opinion matters.

 

I have several North Star videos as well as a single time-lapse run. I think posting each of these individually would be best as they are different locations and times. I believe only the Bayonne one is a complete start to finish recording but I move around the gondola so editing would probably be best anyway. Should I post each individually or make it one very long video?

 

Thanks for all the help everyone, and I hope you all keep enjoying the info, pictures, and of course videos!

 

 

Now on to Day 2a: November 24, 2014

Day 2 photo album: https://picasaweb.google.com/115365916503583655211/QuantumOfTheSeasNovember242014DayAtSea

This was the second day and of course that meant we were still up north. Surprisingly though it wasn’t that cold. It was easily shorts and short sleeve weather. Not sure I’d go as far as a bathing suit, but it was certainly much nicer than we often think of when leaving from the north in winter. The seas were a bit rough though, not the waves that make the ship roll, but genuinely just rough looking. The Quantum can handle the seas nicely but she seems to suffer severely from hull slapping. Having the very first balcony on the port side of deck 10 I can say that it seemed to be about every 30 seconds that you would feel a rather violent shutter and hear the hull slam. I’m not sure if this is related to the rather short bow or not, but something about the design certainly seems very flawed to me. Maybe we just hit some unusual wave patterns but even later in the sailings when the pattern was very different we still felt a very unusual amount of shuttering, especially for the relatively small waves we were seeing. It was certainly something that caught me off guard. We have experienced far worse seas in the past and have never felt so much shuttering. While she was fairly smooth and shuttering does not really lead to sea sickness, that constant banging and violent shaking can actually be far more annoying.

Interestingly North Star was closed all day, but it was for technical reasons and not the weather.

 

They also noted the grand opening of Hublot Bvlgari which seemed kind of cool at the time, but just rather confusing when it appeared a second day on the compass and two more times the next sailing. Not sure what they were trying to pull but it seemed like a rather obvious scam to get people in the store and make people buy to be that “first” sale which got something special.

 

This night we ate at Silk and were able to get in fairly quickly. There was no real line and the service seemed a bit smoother than the previous night. The system was still down though. This time the guy went through the line and was checking room numbers against a hand written paper. As we left I noticed that they now had an excel spreadsheet open on the computer. It seems like they had learned from the previous day and had now started receiving an Excel dump of the nights reservations as a backup.

 

After Silk was our Mamma Mia reservation. This went smoothly to get in and I absolutely loved the show. Really surprised me since I hated the movie and absolutely cannot stand the concept. The idea that they made an entire play/movie out of the concept that a women was so slutty she couldn’t figure out who got her pregnant just seems rather pathetic. But I do love Abba music and the show really hooked me. I think it was the simplicity of it all that did it. The whole ship is very flashy but this play is now. It is very simple lighting and a very minimalistic set but the cast is incredible and everything just seems perfectly balanced so that the music and cast can shine. There was something about it that just felt right. Jimmy Rhodes opens it with a bit about the set, lighting, and costume being the original styles so that may have been it. Either way they managed to make the one show I was rather dreading since the announcement into one I loved which wasn’t easy.

 

Later I went to Bon Jovi again and then stopped by Two70º where the Robot and Vistarama teams were once again at work all night.

 

This night we once again received nothing for the inaugural and still hadn’t heard anybody recognize it as such.

 

Having now written two days I have to say this feels very redundant to what I filmed for theCruiseView. For this reason if nobody objects I think it’s still valuable to do a post on the turnaround day and departure day, but I’m going to switch to posts focused on certain areas such as particular dining venues and shows as well as comparing the sailings more. I think this will be more beneficial for all and much more enjoyable for me to type. I hope everyone will still keep reading.

[iceburg1]

I vote for including the entire Coffee Chat with Jimmy Rhodes but only including the abridged version of Groovytown.:)

[iceburg1]

Hi Derek,

 

Love your thorough reviews and all the details.

 

A few questions:

 

1) Did you hear anything about adding any "classic" dining choices to the dinner menus of any of the non-specialty restaurants?

 

2) Is there a separate menu or additional vegetarian choices aside from the few listed on the main menus? If not, was there any talk of adding this?

 

3) Any ice cream available in the WJ or only the soft ice cream on the pool deck?

 

4) Any word on reserving the iFLY Ripcord in advance via Cruise Planner online? It is listed on our 1/23/15 Cruise Planner under Onboard Activities but no option for actually reserving appears.

 

5) Someone on CC said that they bought the 60 minute internet plan and used it over the entire length of the cruise even though RCI in the description of the packages says that the 60 minute plan had to be used up within 24 hours. Any word on this?

 

Thanks.

[DEIx15x8]

Hi Derek,

 

Love your thorough reviews and all the details.

 

A few questions:

 

1) Did you hear anything about adding any "classic" dining choices to the dinner menus of any of the non-specialty restaurants?

 

If by classic you mean some items from the old menu, the answer is likely not. I say that because I was told very directly that they will not be skewing away from a venues dining theme, and if people do not like that style food they can gladly make a reservation somewhere else. I'm not joking, I was actually told that in the interview when questioning the lack of alternative menus and the fact that I was shown the menu for Chic when asked about other items at the Grande.

 

2) Is there a separate menu or additional vegetarian choices aside from the few listed on the main menus? If not, was there any talk of adding this?

 

On the first sailing I asked every venue about alternatives and was as mentioned shown the menu for the venue across the way. After my interview during the second sailing though where I was once again told they existed I went back to check and was able to get one for Silk as well as American Icon but not The Grande or Chic, I was simply shown the other venues menu once again. The alternative menus I did see were a mixed bag though, neither seem as accommodating as the old menus. The one for American Icon IMO is a waste just so they can claim they have it. They simply took existing menu items and barely modified them.

The one for Silk on the other hand feels more complete and I really don't understand why it's not part of the real menu. It still isn't that accomodating but it's tight to the theme and I can tell you the Lo-Mein was the best thing I ate in Silk beyond the Spring Rolls (also not on the official menu).

So yeah, they've got menu problems, and a bit of an attitude problem too when it comes to who should be right. The correct answer is not them.

3) Any ice cream available in the WJ or only the soft ice cream on the pool deck?

 

They did have ice cream in the WJ one afternoon for lunch during the 8 night sailing, but it was several waiters walking around with dixie cups of half melted ice cream they brought from one of the dining rooms. The only reason they did this was because the ice cream machines (yes 2 out of the 2) were broken the entire inaugural and people were getting very upset about it. During the 11 night sailing at least one machine was functional about 75% of the time so I never saw them do it again.

 

4) Any word on reserving the iFLY Ripcord in advance via Cruise Planner online? It is listed on our 1/23/15 Cruise Planner under Onboard Activities but no option for actually reserving appears.

 

This is a hard one. I heard a lot of things, most leading towards the idea that they want to but at this point don't think it's possible with the systems and procedures. For some reason the sports system is still seperate from the rest of the system. That means that you must go to them to book it in person and then they give you a paper with a time on it. The reservation never shows in Royal iQ and you cannot make reservations through their. It would seem they need to switch reservation systems to make it work but they also give a little bit of information to ensure people understand that they must be their on time and have proper footwear which can't be done through digital reservations. Eventually I would expect it but I'm doubting it at this point. It did show for our 12/1 sailing but simply had no dates or times to pick.

 

5) Someone on CC said that they bought the 60 minute internet plan and used it over the entire length of the cruise even though RCI in the description of the packages says that the 60 minute plan had to be used up within 24 hours. Any word on this?

 

Unfortunately I do not know anything about the way the Internet plans worked beyond that for the inaugural it did not function very well. I heard far fewer complaints on the 11 nighter but still heard enough to believe that it may not have been down constantly like the inaugural but it still was certainly not up to the speeds claimed.

 

Thanks.

 

I also forgot in my list that I have all 4 Dreamworks events recorded as well (All but one of them twice actually).

 

Since I'm going to switch to more specific item posts I am just going to post all 20 days of photos now:

0 - full album list page

1 - Day 1a (11/23/14) Embarkation

2 - Day 2a (11/24/14) At Sea

3 - Day 3a (11/25/14) At Sea

4 - Day 4a (11/26/14) Port Canaveral

5 - Day 5a (11/27/14) Nassau

6 - Day 6a (11/28/14) CocoCay Attempt

7 - Day 7a (11/29/14) At Sea

8 - Day 8a (11/30/14) At Sea

9 - Day 1b (12/1/14) Turnaround

10 - Day 2b (12/2/14) At Sea

11 - Day 3b (12/3/14) At Sea

12 - Day 4b (12/4/14) Puerto Rico

13 - Day 5b (12/5/14) St. Maarten

14 - Day 6b (12/6/14) Martinique

15 - Day 7b (12/7/14) Barbados

16 - Day 8b (12/8/14) St. Kitts

17 - Day 9b (12/9/14) At Sea

18 - Day 10b (12/10/14) At Sea

19 - Day 11b (12/11/14) At Sea

20 - Day 12b (12/12/14) Debarkation

Plus don't forget:

11/10/14 Maiden Arrival to Bayonne

 

Don't try to view them all at once, there is over 11,500 photos in there! I'll of course be pulling relevant ones to fill each of my posts as I go along still.

Edited December 16, 2014 by DEIx15x8

[KCMiller]

I'm very much enjoying your review so far! And have a few questions - first, what venues are available for lunch on embarkation day? What venues are open for breakfast on debarkation day? Port Canaveral - what did you do, what would you recommend? Same with Nassau - I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

 

KC

[JMG]

 

 

A few questions:

 

?

 

4) Any word on reserving the iFLY Ripcord in advance via Cruise Planner online? It is listed on our 1/23/15 Cruise Planner under Onboard Activities but no option for actually reserving appears.

 

 

We have another cruise planned on the Q and you can reserve a IFly complimentary 1 min flight. Under Onboard Activities select Ifly complimentary 1 min flight. Add it to your cart. Then you are given a choice of appt times. Possibly it was added since you last looked?

[snyderc635]

I actually booked an IFly reservation for my March 29 sailing on the cruise planner over the weekend.

[crayon78]

I can tell you the Lo-Mein was the best thing I ate in Silk beyond the Spring Rolls (also not on the official menu).

 

The spring rolls were on the kids menu, along with samosas and coconut shrimp. We only figured that out after our 2nd/last dinner at Silk. I wish they would put those on the regular menu, as I think they would be very popular and they looked pretty good. My advice to anyone after that was to ask for the kids menu to get the apps.

 

Strangely we saw 2 different alternative menus for Chic (on the 12/1 sailing). One was the one posted on CC before with the 4 entrees. The other had appetizers including chicken soup but we only saw that one once. A lot of confusing things going on associated with the alternative menus.

[DEIx15x8]

I'm very much enjoying your review so far! And have a few questions - first, what venues are available for lunch on embarkation day? What venues are open for breakfast on debarkation day? Port Canaveral - what did you do, what would you recommend? Same with Nassau - I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

 

KC

When I'm home tonight I'll get you the information for sure off the compass. I believe that for lunch when we boarded American Icon was only open for the B2B people. The Windjammer, Sorrento's, and Cafe Promenade were open for lunch. I believe that Two70 was not, but it may have been.

For Breakfast on debarkation day i know that the Windjammer, American Icon, Two70 Cafe, and Cafe Promenade were all open. They also listed La Patisserie without a price tag. I can't tell you for certain what they served, maybe someone else knows, but it sounded like they may have had a continental breakfast setup there.

 

The spring rolls were on the kids menu, along with samosas and coconut shrimp. We only figured that out after our 2nd/last dinner at Silk. I wish they would put those on the regular menu, as I think they would be very popular and they looked pretty good. My advice to anyone after that was to ask for the kids menu to get the apps.

 

Strangely we saw 2 different alternative menus for Chic (on the 12/1 sailing). One was the one posted on CC before with the 4 entrees. The other had appetizers including chicken soup but we only saw that one once. A lot of confusing things going on associated with the alternative menus.

 

The Spring Rolls were on the original menu and we saw them being served so we ordered them the second night. On our third night the waiter mentioned the shrimp as well. It sounded like they had changed from saying you can get it off the kids menu to actually offering it by request. On the third night they also had chicken spring rolls but they were not as good as the regular ones and on our fourth night were back to the regular ones.

 

I never saw the Chic alternative menu. I went to the front desk 3 times and every time was told one didn't exist. Strange because I hated the menu at Chic and would have loved to have gotten something else. We only ate their twice and I ordered the same thing both times, it was OK the first time, and disgusting the second time so I just simply didn't eat it and saw nothing else to order.

 

They really weren't helping themselves by being so secretive about them, it just lead to more negative feelings about everything.

[ncbn0902]

I actually booked an IFly reservation for my March 29 sailing on the cruise planner over the weekend.

 

Wow, I'm curious how you did that since I'm on the March 21 sailing and they are telling me that its not available.

Nicole and Barry

[iceburg1]

We have another cruise planned on the Q and you can reserve a IFly complimentary 1 min flight. Under Onboard Activities select Ifly complimentary 1 min flight. Add it to your cart. Then you are given a choice of appt times. Possibly it was added since you last looked?

 

Just checked again. Still listed under Onboard Activities but no dates or times for the iFly on our 1/23/15 cruise. Strange!

[iceburg1]

The spring rolls were on the kids menu, along with samosas and coconut shrimp. We only figured that out after our 2nd/last dinner at Silk. I wish they would put those on the regular menu, as I think they would be very popular and they looked pretty good. My advice to anyone after that was to ask for the kids menu to get the apps.

 

Strangely we saw 2 different alternative menus for Chic (on the 12/1 sailing). One was the one posted on CC before with the 4 entrees. The other had appetizers including chicken soup but we only saw that one once. A lot of confusing things going on associated with the alternative menus.

 

Do you have a copy of the kids menu?

[JCity156]

Please tell me about this event. Other than the mention on RCI website, I have not seen any details about it. I am enjoying your review. My family sails in Jan 2015 and am glad to hear things are improving. Thanks for your efforts. I know this is a lot of work, and it is greatly appreciated.

Edited December 16, 2014 by JCity156

[crayon78]

Do you have a copy of the kids menu?

 

Sorry, I don't. They had them sitting at the check-in counter at Silk so I was looking over their shoulder at it when we were talking about the spring rolls. Only saw the appetizers.

 

They had a stack of them at the desk along with a stack of the alternative menus right next to them, so it seems like Silk might be one of the places that actually knows those menus exist.

[DEIx15x8]

Please tell me about this event. Other than the mention on RCI website, I have not seen any details about it. I am enjoying your review. My family sails in Jan 2015 and am glad to hear things are improving. Thanks for your efforts. I know this is a lot of work, and it is greatly appreciated.

This event did not exist yet and was not displayed anywhere around the ship (some other activities that weren't ready yet such as Name That Tune were on digital boards already). I believe that what we were told about as the Gatsby Party (and I was looking forward to since I love that style) is actually what I've been hearing referred to as StarWater Act 2 (possibly scene 2, but I think Act is correct). The team just rejoined the ship on Friday and they are currently involved in install for this. How it has been described to me by both the cruise director, activities manager, and the lead aerialist (may have been during the interview, we talked about so much I can't remember if this was during the filmed part or not) is that it is the party after the show. The show is building up to this great party and then it just ends. The way it will work is that instead of just ending it will transition to a party and everyone will be in attendance. The cast will continue to dance and have some aerial pieces going on at the same time.

 

During the 11/23 sailing following one of the StarWater performances they did a partial test of this concept. Check the end of this album for some pictures: https://picasaweb.google.com/115365916503583655211/QuantumOfTheSeasNovember252014DayAtSea

It was clearly not the proper event since it did not have the aerialists but at the end of StarWater Jimmy came up in his Gatsby outfit and instead of ending things he started the dance party with the DJ, triggered the fireworks, and his CD staff were on the dance floor in fully Gatsby attire as well. The vistarama and music went for a while but the CD staff left after about 10 minutes. It was kind of weird and the only time they did it but it may have been a test of that transition to the Gatsby party.