Culturally Enriching Cruises - Asia on Quantum

After seeing some amazing deals on airfare we impulse booked a cruise out of Shanghai visiting Japan this October. This is a "Culturally Enriching" cruise, which as I understand it means that the vast majority of the passengers will be Chinese, and some of the venues/activities/menus on board are focused on the native culture.

I found a flyer from 2015 highlighting some of the things to expect: http://www.royalcaribbeaninternational.com.au/rcfilelibrary/files/News/15_08_19_RCI_Culturally_Enriching_Cruises_TradeFlyer_FA.pdf

I also noticed a few changes from our previous cruises, namely the dining option was called Cosmopolitan Dining (Cosmopolitan Dining lets you choose between two dining times and sit on a first come, first serve basis in any of our main restaurants.) and the North Star and Rip Cord are both paid for attractions.

If anybody has done a culturally enriching cruise or an Asian cruise, could you share anything else to expect different? What are some of the cultural differences that would be good to know about before boarding? I know smoking is more common/popular in parts of Asia, and the casino will likely not have a non-smoking section, and that on a lot of ships in Asia they expand the casino to have more gaming/high roller space.

I'm assuming restaurant menus and the cruise compass will be available in English?

There was a recent Quantum review which had some info for you.

Menu is in English.

Thanks Biker. I searched the forum, but didn't think to check the dedicated Reviews page. The most recent review was excellent and gave me a lot of info.

So a friend and I did the Quantum of the Seas Shanghi>Nagasaki>Bosun>Shanghi over Christmas break. So here is a quick run down of what to expect.

The boarding process is a bit chaotic. Expect to go thru immigration before you board (checking out of China). I am Emerald and the shore personnel were more interested in moving us along like cattle vs if we had status. Look for the VIP signs as if you have status at all those are the lines for you. No signage for the different status levels.

RCCL WILL collect your passports. The will get you two copies of your passport. You will use one of the copies for each of your stops in Japan and South Korea. And you go thru immigration at each stop. One of the stops was processed on land, the second they do the immigration check on the ship. Before returning to China they notify you what time to get your passports. They have a table set up on each floor for distributing them.

Jamie's Italian is not open for lunch on disembarkation day.

All the cruise director, video, ship announcements, compass and menus are in English for you.

The free dining rooms will have two menus. The standard one for that restaurant and a classic Asian fare menu.

If you have ever been on a Quantum class ship before and 270 was your get away from the chaos spot to go to forget it on this cruise. Busy ALL the time.

The main theatre shows tended to be in English, or they were performance that did not require vocals at all. (so very unique and cool music performances, RCCL production shows were kinda ala Cirque de Soliel'ish.

No Johnny Rockets, replaced with a noodle spot.

As to Asian "experience." Mainland Chinese do not understand the concept of personal space so be used to being "squished." (elevators, shopping)

The one huge difference you will notice is the lack of the standard RCCL game show type activities. No Quest here. There will be some Korean Pop dance off type things. But a lot of the standard activities just will not be there. They will be replaced with shopping, more shopping and even more shopping events. RCCL should just make a specific ship for this market where there is one entire deck for stores, one for gambling, and one for restaurants.

So for restaurants, the mainland Chinese eat, and I mean eat like there will be no food tomorrow. You will see a 5' 95 year old Chinese lady balancing 5 plates of food, it was incredible to see. 270 is packed anytime they are serving food, Windjammer will be 50% Asian cuisine and 50% the regular fare but you will not be able to find any seating there. If they post they are serving lunch from 11-2, folks will be there for the entire 3 hours. It is not like a normal cruise where you go to eat, then leave. They will eat and socialize that entire time. I did notice that they tended to put the English speaking guests in the back corner all together. I believe they did this so they could utilize wait staff who spoke English and not Chinese.

Book your excursions early. Everything was booked up but one or two excursions when we got on the ship.

The pool deck areas/Solarium..... devoid of human beings other than easterners which is few. Our cruise was 95% Asian, 5% easterners.

Language will be zero problem.

We sailed on Ovation of the Seas from Hong Kong to Singapore last November, and so please keep in mind that our experience may be different from Quantum.

Our cruise was described as a cultural enriching cruise, but with the exception that was noted by martinpj about the lack of standard RCCL game shows, we didn't see a lot of differences from our other international sailings.

Boarding in Hong Kong was efficient, once you made the drive out to the port.

They did keep our passports, and you needed to let them know which port you needed to purchase a Visa (if you didn't tell them then they charged you for all).

We did see some of the lack of respect on personal space, and pushiness at the elevators.

On our sailing, there was not as much use of 270, in fact on some nights it was just empty.

The casinos were very crowded, and at times it was very difficult to get a seat at the table, and we did not find it overly smoky.

Debarkation was very easy in Singapore.

The menus and the Cruise Compass were in English. And every worker we encountered spoke English.

Thanks Gordo and martinpj, that's some good info to have. Maybe I'll have to see for myself, but pushiness in elevators and extremely crowded Windjammer seem pretty common no matter where we are sailing to or from. I don't think we need to worry about the Visas, we need a Chinese Visa before we go to get to China for the cruise, but all the ports are in Japan which doesn't require a Visa for US tourists.

Game shows were never a huge draw for us, so that's not a major loss.

Shore excursions, we're looking into booking our own through local tour groups, but we'll make sure to prioritize that research so we can book the ones on Royal if necessary early.

Was this in my top 5 favorite cruises... no. But I really think that was attributed to so many of the excursions being sold out. We really only had one left at each port to choose from.

There was nothing from the ship experience that I was dissatisfied with.