QoS 26-June Cruising from Shanghai

Ok, here we go off on another RCI cruise, this time with friends and no kids ex-Shanghai to Japan.

I've been a bit worried about how the cruise will go with the expected 4400 Chinese and 200 "Internationals". But if the last 5 days in Shanghai have taught me anything it's been how friendly and warm the Chinese people are. I will admit I had preconceptions to the contrary and I am glad that I have experienced some local contact in their home country.

Our friends are flying in tonight from Hong Kong and hopefully their flight will be cleared to land. There has been some issues with HK to Shanghai flights over the last couple of days. Earlier the were told the flight was cancelled and they would miss the ship! Super conservative me got here last week.

Got a balcony cabin on the hump, looking forward to getting on board with no hassles and settling in to the first few cocktails.

More tomorrow once we are safely abord

Cheers

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Cheers to your cruise... enjoy!

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Great news is our friends arrived around 9pm last night, just 6 hours late from a 2hr flight! But we are all hear now and meeting for breakfast at 9.00.

Intention is to grab 2x taxi's at 10.15 and head off to the port. I am expecting about a 45min ride from our Hotel - Le Royal Meridien near People's Square. Great hotel pre-cruise by the way, fantastic location. So if we arrive around 11.00 we will be attempting to be on board for lunch around 12.00.

More on how the transfer goes and the checkin process later.

Cheers

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Well boarding was as smooth as silk. Priority line for anyone who didn't look Chinese. Escorted through the boarding process up to Chinese emigration. All up we were on board in 40mins from kerb to ship. Very happy.

Had a quick bite in Windjammer before it got busy. Was slammed when we left at 1.00pm.

Booked all our restaurants and the Starwater show.

Sittin' and chillin' in La Patisserie (pseudo Starbucks).

Very glad we were in priority line, general boarding didn't look.like fun.

Crew advise the ship is full and there are 1200 kids aboard!

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Eagerly waiting to read more. I'm very keen to try the Quantum class ships. We live in Mumbai, India and we literally have 2 Quantum class ships in our backyard (as compared to the Anthem which is all the way in NYC). However I've heard some horror stories from close friends and family of cruising with the Chinese. Look out for them at the buffet and elevator lines.

Cheers!

Nick

Haha Nick I am avoiding the buffet entirely. We are doing speciality restaurants each night. Chops last night was really good, only about 10 diners so great service. Chef even came out to chat and see how we liked our meal.

Couple of issues on the cruise so far.

1. Internet reliability is rubbish! Our group is using this to communicate around the ship (well trying too) but its up and down all day. Waited in the queue for assistance for 25mins only to then be told "oh sorry the whole ship.is offline due to bad weather" the sea is like glass :( theu could have posted a sign. I will be asking for a credit for today. There is a function in the Royal IQ app that allows onboard chat and calls but I was told it isnt released for use yet. Not sure I believe this is true, maybe they dont want a large number of support requests and have it turned off...

2. We were not aware thet they closed the restaurants for lunch service at 1.00pm. Thankfully an officer saw my expression took us in the back door so we could eat.

3. A lot of shops are closed for "special events, please join the queue". Really queue up to spend my money? Weird.

4. Not that it worries me but the pool is closed with a big net over it. Looks to be about only about half full of water.

We are walking down all stairs and up if 3 floors or less. Works off the drinks and avoids the lifts which can be quite full.

On a positive, the bars are completely empty, so as long as we avoid the other 3 groups of Australians and Ammericans service is great. Except at the bars attached to a restaurant as the policy is no more than one bar staff per bar at any time.

Off ship in Fukuoka tomorrow, I have preplanned a self guided day out. Happy to post full instructions once we have completed sucessfully our tour of the Dazaifu shine and surrounding area.

Cheers

Andrew

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Who is the Cruise Director and Activities Manager?

Thanks - enjoy your cruise!

Joe12 the cruise director is Chris Brown, no idea who the activities manager is I think she may be Chinese.

Why do you ask?

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Strang shore day today, the itinerary said we would be at Kumamoto bit the dock is in another city called Yatsushiro. Approx 21miles away, over an hour by taxi and over $100.

We had a quick look around Yatsushiro, not much to see and back aboard for lunch.

Origional itinerary was South Korea which was changed after we booked so a bit of a poor day.

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Will be following your posts, particularly the itinerary ports.

Joe12 the cruise director is Chris Brown, no idea who the activities manager is I think she may be Chinese.

 

Why do you ask?

 

 

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I maintain the CD List and it is difficult to get info from Asia, so thanks for the confirmation that Chris is CD.

Well we are ashore now, back in Shanghai. Again everyone we meet in Shanghai is friendly and helpful. A guy in the street walked us four blocks as we couldn't find our hotel.

Can't say anything remotely the same for the Chinese nationals on the ship. I get that it is their culture and custom to push to get what they want but they were just grabby and so rude. Of course there were exceptions.

The crew were amazing and went to great lengths to make the "international guests" as comfortable as possible. But they can't make up for the dumbing down of the offer from RCI. More on this later once we get home but my initial and strong thoughts on these short cruises out of China is DO NOT BOOK THIS IF YOU ARE NOT A CHINESE NATIONAL (caps intended).

Will do a more detailed review noting the positives (headliner acts, staff, additional charge dining) and the negatives (mostly to do with the significantly reduced offering and rubbish complementary "food").

Cheers

Andrew

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We love Chris Brown.:)

We love Chris Brown.:)

Did this same cruise on May 30th. I thought Chris Brown was an absolute pain. Least favourite of all.

My expectations for the cruise and China were so low that I was pleasantly surprised at how I enjoyed the cruise. But everything OP has said is true. Windjammer like a zoo. Ended up losing it with a one of them queuing up for the dodgems!

Enjoyed reading this.

More on this later once we get home but my initial and strong thoughts on these short cruises out of China is DO NOT BOOK THIS IF YOU ARE NOT A CHINESE NATIONAL (caps intended).

Just a word of advice - careful how you word that as the politically correct crowd on CC may have issues with that and may provide "feedback".

Just a word of advice - careful how you word that as the politically correct crowd on CC may have issues with that and may provide "feedback".

I second that. The moderator is hyper active here.

My response to a " politically incorrect" posting was deleted together with the politically incorrect posting. I agree that politically incorrect posting has no place here.

Unsavory remarks can be said but it must not be insulting and offensive to any group of people.