Quantum Of the Seas 22nd March 2021 Semi-Live Report

[Ethanol95]

7 hours ago, linz98144 said:

Do you have any updates/ details on what is different in regards to Covid? Do you have to wear a mask everywhere? Sign up for all activities? Limited seating? Etc..

Yes! Mostlty of what @direptorhas said. As long as you're swimming, you dont need to. Sat in the hottub for half and hour with my upper body above water, but no one had ask me to wear a mask. Masks have to be worn wherever you are throughout the ship. I took a run on the deck with no mask for 3 laps. Thought for sure someone to tell me off. Amazingly no one did, so if you're excercising its safe to say masks are not needed, unless its the gym. 

[Ethanol95]

These are some of the pics from our lunch at Jamies Italian yesterday. I figured that the internet is fast, just that our cabin has bad signal. Half of the cabin can never connect to the internet. Bummer.

[direptor]

17 minutes ago, Ethanol95 said:

Yes! Mostlty of what @direptorhas said. As long as you're swimming, you dont need to. Sat in the hottub for half and hour with my upper body above water, but no one had ask me to wear a mask. Masks have to be worn wherever you are throughout the ship. I took a run on the deck with no mask for 3 laps. Thought for sure someone to tell me off. Amazingly no one did, so if you're excercising its safe to say masks are not needed, unless its the gym. 

Oh yeah forgot about exercising. Its not needed in the gym as well if you are working out.

[Sail n Snow]

8 hours ago, linz98144 said:

Do you have any updates/ details on what is different in regards to Covid? Do you have to wear a mask everywhere? Sign up for all activities? Limited seating? Etc..

Just keep in mind everything RC is doing in Singapore is to fulfill Singapore Govt requirements and temporary laws to include no Alcohol service after 10pm with drinks finished by 1030 pm. 
 

So in other locations they may have less restrictions based on local requirements. One thing that has changed a bit since our Dec cruise is we are not getting temperature scanned everything 5 min. That has seemed to be relaxed and only at key points.  Like the casino, shows and windjammer. 

[Sail n Snow]

1 hour ago, Ethanol95 said:

These are some of the pics from our lunch at Jamies Italian yesterday. I figured that the internet is fast, just that our cabin has bad signal. Half of the cabin can never connect to the internet. Bummer.

Great photos and write up. Have you noticed the specialty restaurants don’t seem to be that full?  We’ve been eating earlier but it seems they have space even with only being at a less capacity 

 

I’ve heard the sailing is at ~1700 passengers and it doesn’t feel crowded at all. 

[Ethanol95]

27 minutes ago, Sail n Snow said:

Great photos and write up. Have you noticed the specialty restaurants don’t seem to be that full?  We’ve been eating earlier but it seems they have space even with only being at a less capacity 

 

I’ve heard the sailing is at ~1700 passengers and it doesn’t feel crowded at all. 

Yes indeed! Most specialties i've been to were around 40% of full reataurant capacity. However when we were booking timings, big parties were given dedicated timings at all specialty restaurants. 

 

I did ask a staff onboard and can confirm that there are currently 1700 people onboard. 

[Ethanol95]

9 hours ago, linz98144 said:

Do you have any updates/ details on what is different in regards to Covid? Do you have to wear a mask everywhere? Sign up for all activities? Limited seating? Etc..

Also take note that all shows, bumpercars, table tennis, gym, ripcord all need to be reserved before attending. Seating at show venues is quite a challenge for a party of 7. We usually have to split as 3 seats in a row is the most you can find before the next is reserved for social distancing. 

[Ethanol95]

After breakfast, we attended two Trivia activities. The first was guessing country flags and the second was guessing that Michael Jackson song. The crowd was rather bad for the first, but the energy and turn out was much better for the second. 

 

Lunch was at 12pm at Jamies Italian. It was overall a good-great experience. Our waitress Mihaela from Romania was almost as good as Raj last night at Wonderland. The cold cut plank and appetisers were very good! The pastas, not so impressive but still okay. And the dessert was good. 

 

Once lunch finished we took a rest in the cabin before going to the seaplex for table tennis. Reservation slots for table tennis were 20 minutes each. The receptionist was kind enough to give us B2B sessions (which actually flew by quite fast by the time we were done setting up and getting into things). There were 4 table tennis tables so getting a slot wasn't too hard. 

 

Table Tennis finished around 4 which was when i wanted to go to the gym. I had forgot to make a reservation and so arriving at the reception of the fitness center, they tried to accommodate me which was nice. They gave me a blue party band to strap on. Apparently the gym was filling up in the next hour or 2. This band was used so that if they needed to make room for new guests with reservations, they would be able to do so comfortably without inconveniencing certain guests too much. 

 

Dinner was at Chops Grille which was again, good. And this was followed by Star Water show at 270.

 

The Menu!

 

 

 

 

[Ethanol95]

StarWater was something I'd seen before and forgot that I had seen it before, but I think all of us thought that apart from the robotic arm screens and the main singer, the show wasn't very entertaining. It got boring quickly. Which was a shame. After 7 years i expected the show to either improve or become different all together. The concept of the dance itself was what dragged the entire show. It was just a glorified fashion show act. You get the point, I shan't go on any further. 

 

From my balcony the next morning I saw Ovation Of the Seas sailing behind us for a while. The picture is quite blurry. 

 

This was considered near us haha! Breakfast was less today as we had planned to eat lunch earlier today to catch the juggling comedic show by Steve Rawlings at 1:45pm. 

 

Almost the entirety of the last day was spent in the Casino! The Grandparents wanted to play some more and so we all joined. It was nice to see that on the BlackJack tables, players were roughly around my age. This was a common sight throughout the Casino which you don't get to see on Genting/World Dream out of Singapore. 

 

After a while we headed to the main dining for lunch. We planned to go to Silk, but were escorted to American Icon Grill instead. I heard it had filled up already. The food was good for main dining. I think the standard of food has vastly increased in quality since being on a royal ship 5 years ago. Here are more pictures of Lunch. 

 

Caesar Salad with Prawns

 

 

Lentil Soup and Normal Caesar Salad

 

 

Probably the largest portion of Qaesadilla i've ever seen. 

 

 

Surprisingly, one of the best gnocchi I've eaten. 

 

 

And for dessert, white chocolate mousse with raspberry coulie.

[Merion_Mom]

It is so interesting seeing all the familiar dishes of food!  It feels like forever, and it feels like only yesterday.

 

Ethanol, thank you for sharing your cruise with everyone.  💗

[Tree_skier]

33 minutes ago, Ethanol95 said:

And for dessert, white chocolate mousse with raspberry coulie

Now I’m really jealous. 

[Lady Hudson]

Thank you for this report.  It was great to see familiar places on Quantum.  Hope you had a wonderful time onboard.

[kernow]

Really enjoying your review. 

 

It's so nice to be reminded that somewhere in the world things are 'normal' and we might all get there one day soon.

[Ethanol95]

I enjoyed the show put on by Steve Rawlings. His show was more of a slapstick type humour show, which made it enjoyable to watch. The evening show was more of a let down. We walked out halfway, not so much because of the act, but because the magic tricks that were being performed were mostly smaller in size, which was hard to see when seated in the Royal Theatre. Due to social distancing one row of 10-12 seats would have 2 if not 3 people at most and this made the audience very spread apart. I was seated at the back right corner of the theatre. To watch this show was impossible, because there was no screen firstly for viewers at the back (and mind you, the hall is pretty large when all space is used), and secondly, that the second floor of box seats were intruding our line of sight from the top to the stage as it was elevated quite high. Visual elements on the large screen at the back of the stage was also not visible to us. It seemed to be that the staff were more focused on adhering to social distancing rules, rather than worrying about the enjoyment and satisfaction of entertainment in that venue. 

 

Also there was staff member who saw that we moved two seats to the right because of a pillar blocking. He was so adamant to make us move, although I saw no point in that. Sitting directly behind us were three people less than a meter away. Still, he wanted us to move right, and that didn't change the distance from them, but because we were sitting in 'reserved seats' for social distancing, he made such a fuss. So we left. 

 

Dinner on the last night was at Izumi. I had heard less great things about this place compared to the other specialty restaurants, but I found the food to be quite good. Some of the rolls were really good. 

Here are some pictures from that.  

 

 

 

 

 

[Ethanol95]

 

 

So that just about wraps up my live cruise report! Hope you enjoyed it! Overall, I feel that there is less activities for people my age (20-25) to revisit. The only i can really think of that I had the most fun is the Casino sad to say. I didn't go on the flowrider this time round, but a lot of the riding time was cut short due to covid etc. I think the food surpassed all our expectations with the Ultimate Dining Package. We watched 3 out of 4 shows this trip, I don't know whether it was a mistake to pass up the Production show, 'Sequins and Feather's'. Based on that title alone, it doesn't sound like it would entice my party either.

 

There are a lot of adjustments with Covid, but I think it was a very safe, clean and smooth experience for cruising in such an environment. Passing through every venue or attending an event would require you to tap your sea pass card, take your temperature and sanitise your hands. Hand sanitization was also extremely emphasized in the casino. Once before entering, once before cashing in, once before play and once before cashing out. Staff would wait for guests to leave their places at the table and then would come over with a spray bottle and cloth to wipe down the entire chair. On the last night in the casino, I also saw two cruise safe ambassadors wondering the Casino, the place that is most likely to have safe distancing measures broken once in a while, due to the nature of the venue. But all protocols were strictly enforced time and time again. 

 

On the last night, baggage tags were given and we were assigned the second group to disembark (I assume its the same order as embarkation, the one we chose). Our timing for disembarkation was 7:30am. Breakfast was available from 6am, but it was too early for us, so we immediately left after waking up. 

 

Back at MBCC on a rainy day as it has been the past few days with us gone! Goodluck to the next group of passengers!

[Ethanol95]

 

1 hour ago, Lady Hudson said:

Thank you for this report.  It was great to see familiar places on Quantum.  Hope you had a wonderful time onboard.

 

1 hour ago, kernow said:

Really enjoying your review. 

 

It's so nice to be reminded that somewhere in the world things are 'normal' and we might all get there one day soon.

4 hours ago, Merion_Mom said:

It is so interesting seeing all the familiar dishes of food!  It feels like forever, and it feels like only yesterday.

 

Ethanol, thank you for sharing your cruise with everyone.  💗

Thank you! Hope it gets better soon for you all and that you may cruise sooner than later!

[livingonthebeach]

Wonderful live report!  Thanks for sharing your experience.  It gives us a glimmer of hope on this side of the world. 

[Ethanol95]

Also I bought this Royal Merch from Port Merchants, gonna try and collect all that I can. 

 

[AF-1]

Thanks for providing great pics from your "Life Report".  Have a great weekend

[Ethanol95]

3 minutes ago, AF-1 said:

Thanks for providing great pics from your "Life Report".  Have a great weekend

Ahaha, sorry if it became too general. I was trying to keep family apart from this. 

[Wordell1]

I'm interested in the mask enforcement while in the bars and poolside while drinking.  

[Ethanol95]

4 minutes ago, Wordell1 said:

I'm interested in the mask enforcement while in the bars and poolside while drinking.  

I walked across much of the ship with a soft serve ice cream in hand, occasionally I would lick it while walking to try and avoid having someone tell me off. That seemed to work for me. If it's drinking slowly, maybe they might ask you to put your mask on between sips. I was playing with one lady in the Casino, had a drink from the bar on the table. She took a while to finish it, but in between she would pull up and pull down her mask so that she could drink as it is more crucial in the casino setting than the pool setting to have it on. 

[Wordell1]

18 minutes ago, Ethanol95 said:

I walked across much of the ship with a soft serve ice cream in hand, occasionally I would lick it while walking to try and avoid having someone tell me off. That seemed to work for me. If it's drinking slowly, maybe they might ask you to put your mask on between sips. I was playing with one lady in the Casino, had a drink from the bar on the table. She took a while to finish it, but in between she would pull up and pull down her mask so that she could drink as it is more crucial in the casino setting than the pool setting to have it on. 

 

I booked on Adventure for June.  It should be interesting to see how some of this works with fully vaccinated Americans.  

[Ethanol95]

3 minutes ago, Wordell1 said:

 

I booked on Adventure for June.  It should be interesting to see how some of this works with fully vaccinated Americans.  

How exciting! Hope your cruise sails!

[linz98144]

Just to clarify, this was a cruise to Nowhere? You didn't make any port stops or have excursions.