g3off

I have onboard credit because I booked 3 specialty restaurants so I will buy onboard and use that. Lowers the price a bit...

As a fellow Vancouverite, I find your review interesting as I relate to your point of view about whiners and eating at IZUMI. My family and I are heading on Quantum in Feb. Our daughter will be 22 months old when we sail and fortunately enough we'll have a couple of sets of Grandparents with us! I was wondering if you may be able to touch on anything you may have noticed that would very family friendly and any "secrets". I understand that as a single sailor you may not have had anything like this on your mind :)

I'll be sure to say hello to Sean when I do the tour as well!

Looking forward to your future postings.

Cheers.

Hi Kelly, here is a live thread of someone on quantum right now who is answering questions when asked. From what I can tell from most reviews is there are a number of things that could have gone smoother with better training and some technology hiccups. I sail Feb2 on her and am expecting little issues. A lot of the complaints are valid, but also very easy to address and I expect they will be addressed. The positives far out weigh the negatives as the negatives can be fixed and the positives can only get better when those negatives are addressed. The only real complaint that I think will be challenged is the nickel and dining Upsell items and how expensive things are onboard with an already premium price to get on her as is. You also may have issues with booking dining options since you are booking late. I have heard walk ups will have wait times of upwards of 20-30 minutes for dinner if you do not have a reservation. Sounds normal to me at any 'decent' restaurant in Vancouver :)

Hope this helps. See thread I mentioned below.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2133545

Wow thanks for the great reply. I'm happy to hear that and so is my wife. Our daughter goes to daycare so hopefully that's helpful for her, sounds unnecessary though! Glad everything worked out so well. I think she'll be jusssst fine, and so will we ;)

This is great and helpful thank you! Do you know what the cost is on quantum?

Can anyone chime in on this subject? Cheers!

Do you think that they will have a lot of these kinks in performance whether it's staff, process, different onboard activities sorted and greatly improved by feb2nd? Yes, that's when we go on her :) also just wondering from more of you experienced cruisers what you may think about this amount of time to sort it out.

I haven't followed a ship build before this one and the reviews from launch through to when I get on before. My last cruise was 2007 on vision down the west coast into Mexico. Things were different then I think ;)

Hi. I posted something similar in the countdown to quantum board, but will ask this to a larger General RCCL GROUP.

I have a young child who will be 22 months old when we travel on Quantum. I am wondering what people's experiences are like with the baby sitting and care services.

We are nervous about child care particularly with private in room care. We are a bit more ok with larger group care in a more public setting. Do they do night time group care as well?

Any thoughts and details would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Thanks for the reply. Since Quantums program was down, does anyone have any experience with toddler care on other RCCL ships? Thoughts on that would be appreciated!

my wife and I are a little hesitant for baby sitting inside our room with an almost 2 year old. We are ok though with adventure ocean and a more "public" form of care. Too many stories and chances for things to go wrong if you know what I mean. So with that being said...

What is baby sitting like there? Is adventure ocean open for night baby sitting where the kids may sleep and we can pick em up afterwards? Any advice for baby sitting and kid care so we can have a few nights of adult fun together at the music hall? :)

Would love to hear your thoughts and experiences with child care in the tots and toddler program and general baby sitting.

What are you using to track ?

How about. "I am Lloyd, see my pictures!"

You can laugh at me all you want.

 

This is the way we raised our own children. We took them everywhere with us, and expected them to behave appropriately. They are now very well-rounded, social, cultured and learned young adults with an appreciation for the arts, and for church, and for fine dining, and for other things that most people their age have had little or no exposure to.

 

Even very young kids generally enjoy the music, dancing, and colorful costumes and sets even if they can't follow the plot of the show. They are fascinated by the stage acts - jugglers, aerialists, funny antics, etc. My daughter learned to juggle when she was preschool aged, because she saw it on a cruise.

The guy is a troll and provides no value to this thread. Never mind him.

Good for you. We are raising our daughter the same way. I don't want her to end up only having the keyboard warrior basement dweller skills like thetrail. :)

You keep telling yourself that....:)

Do you have kids? If yes, did you get them out experiencing dif shows and public activities?

My 1.5 yr old now goes places with us and does enjoy shows. Yes, she doesn't sit perfectly still and enjoys people watching. She claps when others do and jumps up and down at soccer matches with the chanting and drumming.

She learns patience to sit and how to behave for longer periods of time.. Is it perfect? No, not always but she is getting better as she grows and learns.

As long as parents are respectful of others in big public settings and know when to fold em, know when to run, then it's all good :)

What do you think about entertainment with children? We have a then 2,5 year old daughter who will be with us on the cruise beginning on Feb 2nd. We have booked dining with her and would like to make reservations for the shows too. She is a "late sleeper", so the time will not be a problem. As far as I know, most of the shows are not so long (1 hour?).

 

We will not take her to Mamma Mia, this is too long for her. But I thought about taking her with us to the Comedy show or Sonic Odyssey.

What do experienced cruisers think about that?

We will be on the same cruise as you. My daughter will be almost 2yrs old at the time of the cruise. We will try and get her out with us to some shows. Mamma Mia will be off the list though and anything very late at night. Most 270 shows she'll see and sonic odyssey and anything else that isn't too long. We intend on making a quick exit if necessary if it's troublesome. We want to expose her as much as possible to everything the ship has to offer. :)

Wow May! I shoulda been able to book by June or July by that logic. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Thanks for your replies. So much for logic and RCCL.

I know the booking system and cruise planner has been talked about endlessly due to its buggy nature, but the one thing I can't seem to figure out is if there is any logic behind when things become unlocked to book?

I am on the Feb 2nd Quantum sailing and have been able to book all my restaurants, as well as one activity, the Dreamworks character breakfast. The Spa is also available to book but haven't done anything there yet.

I haven't however seen anything on the Entertainment -- Is there a set period before it opens up? 100 days? 120 days? etc...

Cheers.

We'll be flying into NYC probably 3-4 days before our Feb2nf Quantum Cruise and are wondering about hotels in Manhatten. What are the best travel websites to find hotels, both chain and boutique? Price matters too. We want to be under 300 a night if possible, even 200 but that may be a stretch??

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks in advance!

It'll be interesting to see how they do this, it could go very well or very wrong. I was expecting Dynamic Dining when I booked Quantum over a year ago but they failed to pull it off in any meaningful way. There are no entertainment choices to make and don't even have shows every night. Everyone goes to the same shows and as a result must eat at the same two time slots, aka traditional dining with a ton of hassle. In contrast the Oasis felt horrible with traditional dining and needed Dynamic. Royal knew it didn't work which is why the waiters each night would ask if you needed to be rushed the next night. All of the different start times for the entertainment each night never flowed with traditional but will ensure the people spread their dining out like DD requires in order to operate properly. I just hope they split it into 6 dining rooms, 2 per floor, instead of 3. Six is a perfect number for a ship that does 7 night sailings. Quantum has no where near enough venues for 9-12 night sailings.

 

I have to say I'm honestly surprised by this announcement though. I expected Oasis 3 to be the first non Quantum ship to receive it so that they could have the class split 2 & 2 for different preferences. This now makes the Oasis the first ship in the fleet with Dynamic Dining when she sets sail on October 14th. Wonder how everyone booked feels about this change, especially with reservations not even open yet.

 

Wonder if this also means that Oasis will be the first with Royal IQ now as well. Seems like a requirement to manage Dynamic Dining onboard. Whole lot of Quantum firsts that really aren't firsts any more. Started when they put the virtual balconies on Navigator in January.

Quantum definitely has enough venues for 9-12 nights. I am on an 11 night in Feb and have managed to book 10 nights all in dif restaurants except The grand which we are doing a formal night on the 2nd and 10th night. Yes this includes some specialty paid restaurants too though, but not all.

All details here: http://www.royalcaribbeanpresscenter.com/press-release/1110/for-the-smoothest-trip-sail-the-smartship-quantum-of-the-seas-debuts-new-tech-to-deliver-hassle-free-travels/

That "bear" is just plain tacky. It is absolutely ugly.

I disagree 100%. I think its different and refreshing. I really like it.