Engine problems on the Quantum of the Seas

[CruiseWendy]

11 hours ago, heatherandnick said:

I’m scheduled to be on the Aug 22 sailing and we can’t decide what to do…our itinerary is still the same if I go on RC’s site, but the RC app shows an itinerary change for us (skipping the glacier). We are trying to decide if we should scrap the cruise and just do a Seattle/Oregon road trip (too expensive to change our Seattle flights)

 

For some of you more experienced sailors, do you think all signs are pointing to them pulling out of the glacier for the 22nd as well?  This is supposed to be our first Alaska cruise and the glacier day seems pretty important… is it the highlight of the trip?  Kinda hate to do a “glacier cruise”  without the glacier.

thanks!

It's very much a personal choice. I'm local to Seattle and am cruising on August 15th. I've been on two previous Alaskan cruises, one went without a hitch, the second we purposely went on because it went to Hubbard Glacier. A severe storm with 20+ ft waves hit and we couldn't make it to Hubbard glacier. It's still an amazing cruise and you can still see the Mendenhall glacier. Cruising the waterway is lovely but it's still worth the cruise without it in my opinion. Then again I live in Seattle and have experienced both. 🙂 Best of luck on your choice!

[CatLadyFemme]

On 7/11/2022 at 5:53 PM, CruiseWendy said:

It's very much a personal choice. I'm local to Seattle and am cruising on August 15th. I've been on two previous Alaskan cruises, one went without a hitch, the second we purposely went on because it went to Hubbard Glacier. A severe storm with 20+ ft waves hit and we couldn't make it to Hubbard glacier. It's still an amazing cruise and you can still see the Mendenhall glacier. Cruising the waterway is lovely but it's still worth the cruise without it in my opinion. Then again I live in Seattle and have experienced both. 🙂 Best of luck on your choice!

I will be on there too with my partner MxCatLady!

[Elitebuff]

Hi, I just logged in and noticed that my excursion for Juneau has been removed from my calendar.  I also see that they removed Juneau from the August 1 sailing completely and added another sea day. Anyone else on this sailing that can confirm?

[shellunderwater]

I believe you agreed to changes when you signed the cruise contract.

[DaKahuna]

We are not on your sailing but I notice that on our August 29 sailing the Endicott Arm & Dawes Glacier and Juneau  is no longer showing on the Web site itinerary, and on our September 5 sailing Endicott Arm And Dawes Glacier is no longer showing, although Juneau is still showing.  I have not heard anything from Royal about changes to the initial itinerary for either of these cruises. 

 

[Italy52]

We are on the August 22, 2022 sailing of the Quantum and we still have Endicott Arm & Dawes Glacier plus Juneau on our Travel Summary.  Our documents were just emailed to us.  Realize that things could change --- this is what we have as of now.

[DaKahuna]

4 minutes ago, Italy52 said:

We are on the August 22, 2022 sailing of the Quantum and we still have Endicott Arm & Dawes Glacier plus Juneau on our Travel Summary.  Our documents were just emailed to us.  Realize that things could change --- this is what we have as of now.

Thank you..  That is very good news.  

 

[Biker19]

3 hours ago, Elitebuff said:

Anyone else on this sailing that can confirm?

Welcome to CC and coming out of lurk mode.

 

You can also ask this in the Roll Call thread for your sailing along any FB group for it.

[Tlbecker1]

5 hours ago, Italy52 said:

We are on the August 22, 2022 sailing of the Quantum and we still have Endicott Arm & Dawes Glacier plus Juneau on our Travel Summary.  Our documents were just emailed to us.  Realize that things could change --- this is what we have as of now.

We also noticed that on our cruise documents.😀

[AZDee]

Any update on the engine issue? I had heard they were expecting the arrival of the part sometime this month. My concern is I have 29 days scheduled on her from Oct 3 to Nov 1 going all the way from Vancouver to Brisbane...Not sure if they will take passengers if the ship is not at 100%  

 

[chengkp75]

2 hours ago, AZDee said:

Any update on the engine issue? I had heard they were expecting the arrival of the part sometime this month. My concern is I have 29 days scheduled on her from Oct 3 to Nov 1 going all the way from Vancouver to Brisbane...Not sure if they will take passengers if the ship is not at 100%  

 

Ships are very often "not 100%" with passengers onboard, and none the wiser.  Every engine, every 2.5 years, is completely torn down for overhaul, that takes about 4-6 weeks.  During that time, the ship is operating without one engine (i.e. not 100%), but as long as the itinerary does not require full speed, no one knows it is happening.  I doubt they would cancel a Transpac due to one engine being down.  

 

The current problem is that there are two engines down, one for overhaul, and one waiting on parts.  So, the one undergoing overhaul will be completed, even if they don't get the part for the other, and the ship can do very well without the one engine.

[twangster]

38 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Ships are very often "not 100%" with passengers onboard, and none the wiser.  Every engine, every 2.5 years, is completely torn down for overhaul, that takes about 4-6 weeks.  During that time, the ship is operating without one engine (i.e. not 100%), but as long as the itinerary does not require full speed, no one knows it is happening.  I doubt they would cancel a Transpac due to one engine being down.  

 

The current problem is that there are two engines down, one for overhaul, and one waiting on parts.  So, the one undergoing overhaul will be completed, even if they don't get the part for the other, and the ship can do very well without the one engine.

 

I appreciate the differences between being down one engine on an unplanned basis versus taking another engine offline for scheduled periodic maintenance.  

 

For the "other' engine that is receiving scheduled periodic maintenance they originally modified three cruises in August.  Recently they extended that maintenance window to include everything through the end of September (rest of the Alaska season) meaning another four weeks and more than doubling the time frame for doing the scheduled periodic maintenance.  

 

Any insight on the scheduled periodic maintenance?  Was the original three week timeframe normal for this type of maintenance? Or did they underestimate how long this work normally takes to complete?

 

In other words is a 7+ week maintenance window for periodic scheduled engine maintenance for one engine normal?

[AZDee]

54 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Ships are very often "not 100%" with passengers onboard, and none the wiser.  Every engine, every 2.5 years, is completely torn down for overhaul, that takes about 4-6 weeks.  During that time, the ship is operating without one engine (i.e. not 100%), but as long as the itinerary does not require full speed, no one knows it is happening.  I doubt they would cancel a Transpac due to one engine being down.  

 

The current problem is that there are two engines down, one for overhaul, and one waiting on parts.  So, the one undergoing overhaul will be completed, even if they don't get the part for the other, and the ship can do very well without the one engine.

Thanks I was just a little concerned they would not want to take the ship all the way to Brisbane filled with passengers when all 4 engines were not working...

[AZDee]

1 minute ago, AZDee said:

Thanks I was just a little concerned they would not want to take the ship all the way to Brisbane filled with passengers when all 4 engines were not working...

 

57 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Ships are very often "not 100%" with passengers onboard, and none the wiser.  Every engine, every 2.5 years, is completely torn down for overhaul, that takes about 4-6 weeks.  During that time, the ship is operating without one engine (i.e. not 100%), but as long as the itinerary does not require full speed, no one knows it is happening.  I doubt they would cancel a Transpac due to one engine being down.  

 

The current problem is that there are two engines down, one for overhaul, and one waiting on parts.  So, the one undergoing overhaul will be completed, even if they don't get the part for the other, and the ship can do very well without the one engine.

Okay one other question...this voyage is 29 days in total, do you think they would be able to keep the schedule as planned without all engines working? 

[twangster]

4 minutes ago, AZDee said:

 

Okay one other question...this voyage is 29 days in total, do you think they would be able to keep the schedule as planned without all engines working? 

 

The only reason they had to re-jig all the Alaska cruises was because one of the legs required a high speed run.  When they couldn't do the high speed leg the changes rippled into other port stops causing more of the itinerary to be updated.

 

I've never watched a transpac to know what the speed requirements are.  If none of the legs require high speed runs then the whole cruise may be able to proceed as planned.  If one leg requires a speed that is now unattainable they would likely make a change to one stop while leaving as much of the rest of the itinerary as planned if they can.  It all depends.  

 

When they plan a cruise itinerary they wouldn't normally plan to do the whole cruise at high speed as that burns a lot of fuel and leaves no margin for adjustments for unplanned deviations such as weather or a medical diversion.

 

The best thing to do is plan for the cruise to go as scheduled.  It's entirely possible the work will be completed before the transpac starts and everything after that will be normal.  

[AZDee]

20 minutes ago, twangster said:

 

The only reason they had to re-jig all the Alaska cruises was because one of the legs required a high speed run.  When they couldn't do the high speed leg the changes rippled into other port stops causing more of the itinerary to be updated.

 

I've never watched a transpac to know what the speed requirements are.  If none of the legs require high speed runs then the whole cruise may be able to proceed as planned.  If one leg requires a speed that is now unattainable they would likely make a change to one stop while leaving as much of the rest of the itinerary as planned if they can.  It all depends.  

 

When they plan a cruise itinerary they wouldn't normally plan to do the whole cruise at high speed as that burns a lot of fuel and leaves no margin for adjustments for unplanned deviations such as weather or a medical diversion.

 

The best thing to do is plan for the cruise to go as scheduled.  It's entirely possible the work will be completed before the transpac starts and everything after that will be normal.  

Thanks so much that makes a lot of sense and currently two stops have not yet opened to cruise ships so maybe missing those are in the works .

[chengkp75]

1 hour ago, twangster said:

In other words is a 7+ week maintenance window for periodic scheduled engine maintenance for one engine normal?

For the larger 16 cylinder engines on Quantum, I would have expected a 4-6 week timeframe.   Three weeks is overly optimistic, IMHO.  Even if they brought on extra personnel to work longer hours per day, there is a physical limit on where you can stick all the pieces (each of the 16 pistons is 18" in diameter, and 40" tall, and the cylinder liners are larger) in ways that you can easily clean, inspect, and service everything in a logical order.

[BecAus]

1 hour ago, AZDee said:

Thanks so much that makes a lot of sense and currently two stops have not yet opened to cruise ships so maybe missing those are in the works .

 

Hi AZDee, what are the two stops that are not open yet?

[AZDee]

New Caledonia & Vanuatu,

International boats, except cruise ships, are allowed to enter New Caledonia. Since 1st August 2022, previous Covid-19 entry formalities are also no longer applied to travellers coming by the sea. Travellers arriving with their own ship may consult our New Caledonia's harbours page.

[AZDee]

2 minutes ago, AZDee said:

New Caledonia & Vanuatu,

International boats, except cruise ships, are allowed to enter New Caledonia. Since 1st August 2022, previous Covid-19 entry formalities are also no longer applied to travellers coming by the sea. Travellers arriving with their own ship may consult our New Caledonia's harbours page.

These two ports are still showing from the original itinerary from over a year ago in hopes they will open soon. I had excursions cancel stating due to COVID, but in reading the article where this was taken from it seems the government wants some changes before they allow ships in such as more economical  support to the islands.