ARandomTraveler

That's where travel insurance comes in handy.

Oooof! That's really disappointing to have traveled all the way there AND boarded the ship.

You can also choose to cancel them for a full refund up to 2 days before your cruise. I think you can also cancel them on the ship if you haven't used them yet.

At these prices??!! Just kidding. Hope you guys have fun!

We had this option for our check-in on the Spectrum (check in was in May I think, cruise was in August). There was also a QR code on the nightstand in the room (and at the guest services desk) that would allow you to make requests from your stateroom attendant. Our attendant kept forgetting to leave us face rags. I used the QR code to request them, but it only had an option for a whole set of towels. I tried that and received 2 sets of towels, neither of which had face rags. So ended up having to call housekeeping on the phone and explain. They should have a section for "other" with the ability to type stuff in, but I guess that could lead to all kinds of un-fulfillable requests.

I had Thanksgiving dinner in Izumi on Symphony last year. I'm not sure if they would have done that, I didn't ask (and didn't want Turkey), but it definitely wasn't on the menu or offered by the waiter or anything like that. We ate sushi.

Since kids are big Instagram users, maybe check the hashtags for explorer of the seas and see if the parents or kids are pictured in any of the photos that come up. You could also check the hashtags for the ports you visited and any potential popular tourist attractions or landmarks.

Aw that's sweet. I hope you're able to track them down.

I was on Spectrum this month and they were selling regular ice cream in their version of Cafe Promenade (which is called La Patisserie on the Spectrum). It was around $5-$6 with a waffle cone. I was surprised to see so many people buying it. They also had macaroons and other snacks like sandwiches and wraps for sale in another venue called The Leaf and Bean (another coffee and tea shop). I was excited to see the macaroons and started ordering one of every flavor until my daughter pointed out that they weren't free.

That's my least favorite part of the meal. I know that's one of the primary features of having hibachi, but I think it's too much work to pretend the corny jokes are funny in order to keep the table from seeming dead and awkward. Since most of the jokes are the same no matter which chef you get, I think the audience at the table can make a big difference in whether the table is lively or dead. If you have a table where nobody laughs or participates, it gets awkward. But if you have an audience who humors the chef, it works out better. Of course the personality of the chef also comes into play because if they're not really into it, they can come off more awkward than a chef who has a naturally silly personality. But overall, I really think it's more about the audience and their willingness to participate and laugh and clap. When there's more kids at the table and people who've never done hibachi before, that seems to work out better.

I've done the hibachi once on Symphony and twice on Spectrum. From my small sample size, I've concluded that they do a really consistent job cooking the filet. In fact in my experience they do a better job with it than Chops. I think the reason for this is that they have specific time frames that they cook the steak depending on how you like it (blue, rare, medium, medium well etc), and it goes straight from the skillet to your plate, but at chops the steak might sit under a warmer until the waiter picks it up which means it might continue to cook too long. However, it depends on the chef you get how the fried rice and vegetables come out. They use garlic butter to cook them, and some chefs are more generous with butter than others, and in my experience, that can make a big difference on how good they turn out. The chef we had on Symphony used the most, and that rice was my favorite. On Spectrum, our first chef didn't use much and the rice was mediocre, but the second chef used more and it was good (but not as good as what we had on Symphony). I've also found the sesame ball dessert at the hibachi is always better than the same dessert at Izumi. At the hibachi they come out hot and fresh but at Izumi they always seem like they were made the day before. They all seem to have pretty much the same "comedy routine," and in my opinion, it's a little exhausting to have to humor them and pretend it's funny for the whole hour and a half (especially if you have the dinner more than once during your cruise). That's the only thing I don't enjoy about the meal, but the food is good so I endure that part and do my best to humor them. Of course this is very subjective. My point is to say that in my experience the meal seems pretty consistently good, but the chef you get can change the way some of the side items are cooked (the meats all seem to come out the same no matter who you get).

I was on Spectrum a couple weeks ago and there was nothing in the skypad, just the orange structure sitting there unused. I was wondering why it never opened. Figured the equipment was broken or something.

100% agree about Showgirls. I saw this on the Spectrum a couple weeks ago and was really impressed. I didn't realize it was shown on other ships too, which answers my question about why it wasn't the signature show on The Spectrum instead of "Silk Road" which I found pretty cheesy.

Thank you for all the updates on ports during your return journey @bonsai3s! We've spent the duration of your second cruise leg touring Japan and it's been amazing. There are endless things to do and see, and we've spent every single day walking and taking trains and shopping and just kind of adventuring wherever the day takes us. Japan is so very unlike America in every way you can imagine, and it's been a good experience to immerse in the culture for a couple weeks to get a good feel for it. It's extremely safe here. Everything is very orderly and organized and clean. Their customer service everywhere is very diligent and detail oriented. You can have 200 people waiting for a train and nobody cuts in line, pushes or shoves. The trains are spotless, and they're quiet, and readily available and easy to navigate once you figure out how to do it. You can leave a pile of money in the middle of the street and come back the next day and it will still be there (I actually saw this exact occurrence in a train station one day when someone forgot to grab $6000 yen from a ticket machine and it was just set to the side for them to come back and claim and nobody touched it). Nobody locks up their bikes here. There's no aggression, no arguing, no yelling. It's chaotic and hustle-bustle because of all the people around all the time, but at the same time very orderly and peaceful. It's hard to explain, just something you have to experience for yourself. I've never felt so safe. We visited Kyoto and the old geisha streets of Gion. We attended a tea ceremony with a maiko (apprentice geisha). Visited Nara (the land of the bowing deer). We hung out in the famous Harajuku neighborhood, witnessed the Shibuya crossing (the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world), visited the Tokyo Sky Tree and the Tokyo Tower. We spent a day at Tokyo Disney Sea. We spent lots of time in various shopping malls (many of which are attached to train stations) and Taramachi (outdoor malls), saw many shrines and temples, ate lots of good (and cheap) food, and spent a lot of days just immersed in the day-to-day going's-on of Japanese life in Tokyo. This is not a trip I'd recommend to an inexperienced traveler. There are not a lot of tourists here, and there have been many days where we don't encounter another English speaking person. It's been a great experience and I'm so happy to have gotten to spend all this time here. But I'm ready to go home. 30 days is a long time to be on vacation and living out of a suitcase and being off my daily routine. I hope everyone who will get the opportunity to do this very unique cruise route will have a great time, and will be better prepared now having some more info about the ports and what to expect. I hope that if you have the vacation time and money to do so, that you spend a few days in Singapore and in Japan at the bookends of your cruise. It's a really long and far trip to make to this side of the world and a once in a lifetime experience for most people, so I hope you're able to make the most of it, and that you have a great time and a safe journey!

It's a lot more expensive on board. And the likelihood of you getting a desired time slot is also less likely once on board. I booked 3 treatments for 2 of us prior to boarding (6 total treatments). I planned to book us a 4th treatment on board, because the system wasn't letting me do it from home due to a specialty dining reservation conflict that I wasn't able to change until I got on the ship. Once on the ship, the cost of that treatment doubled from $150 to $300. They were offering a 30%off discount if you already had 3 treatments and wanted to book a 4th, but all 3 treatments have a "signature treatment" symbol next to it (and not many of them do). And even if they did, that's still more expensive than buying ahead of time. The massage therapists also offer a $50 off coupon if you come back to them for another treatment, but again, not as good of a deal as buying ahead of time. They do have that $99 deal that someone mentioned above, but good luck finding a time slot where it's available. If you really want to go to the spa, pay whatever they're charging online ahead of time. It'll be a better deal and you'll get the time slot and day you want.

I was wondering the same thing. We've been "stuck" in Tokyo for 2 days because of Typhoon Lan (aka typhoon #7). We had plans to take a Shinkansen train (bullet train) to Kyoto on Tuesday, but the typhoon hit Kyoto and shut the trains down. We rebooked our hotel, extended the stay in the current one, rebooked the train, and waited another day only for the trains to be canceled again. Went through the whole process again today, and thankfully it looks like the trains are operating again. This is the kind of trip that definitely requires a lot of planning with a bit of "go with the flow" sprinkled in there to adjust to all the possible travel hiccups that can happen along the way. Speaking of which, I need to hop online and start another travel insurance claim for my 2 night hotel stay from the Typhoon.

I think this is the same area we got taken to, around the corner from Chinatown. If anyone has an excursion booked, you're probably better off canceling the excursion and using the free shuttle because this was the highlight of the whole tour, the other couple stops I could have lived without, especially for $134/person vs free.

Yes, you could ask for more shots of espresso in your coffee. You could also ask for more shots of chocolate in your hot chocolate and red velvet tea (which I'm pretty sure was also hot chocolate) 😂.

We ate at Sichuan Red one time. We had the garlic broccoli which I thought was good. Not much to it, it's a head of broccoli with some garlic on top but it was well cooked and it was nice to have a vegetable other than cabbage and carrots to crunch info. We didn't have the scallops but we had some other stuff (see below), sliced pork wraps, kung pao prawns, pickeled radish and duck soup, and spicy Sichuan noodles. All of it was good. We also chose "mild," which was fine for me, but my daughter that it was spicy. If you have the dining plan, you can order up to $35/person. I'm not sure how close we got but we didn't go over $35/each and we had more food than we could eat.

Major bummer to have those places canceled. Someone at guest services told me about the Manila port change, they said it was because the port taxes were too high to visit for a short time. They were going to try and go to Goa (India) instead, but it was too far away. Sounds like they could have done Goa, given you missed 3 port days already. Oh well, it's a fun journey anyway. I hope you enjoy your trip back to Singapore. We're getting another Typhoon here tomorrow that's supposed to last 3 days, so we may reschedule our trip to Kyoto and go next week instead (the Hyatt said they'd refund my money if the trains are cancelled), so we'll just hang out and see what happens.

We arrived in Tokyo (technically Yokohama) on Saturday for the end of our cruise. We're now spending 3 weeks in Japan touring around. I've had a busy last several days since our last 2 cruise days were port days, and I've been getting my bearings here in Tokyo since we arrived. Some final thoughts on the cruise (probably mostly interesting for those of you who will be doing it in the upcoming months but not insightful for any other cruise routes): 1) Don't plan to have reliable Internet. For the 5 days we were within Chinese airspace (sea day leading up to Hong Kong, 2 days in Hong Kong, another sea day, then a day in Taiwan), we were completely 100% without ship Internet. You can only use your cell phone data (LTE) when you're in port, and it's slow, and of course that also means you're either paying really high fees to your cell phone company, or you have to have a cell phone plan with free international roaming (our T-Mobile plan thankfully does). There was a long line at Guest Services and the Voom Internet desk every day with people asking why the internet wasn't working and requesting refunds. Finally on the last night of the cruise, they agreed to give us a 3 day refund (even though we were without Internet for 5 days). 2) You should definitely plan to stay a few days (minimally) in Tokyo on your own because the Japan port stops they offered (Kobe and Mt Fuji) did not give you any real information or experiences in the real Japan. In Kobe, the ship tours took some people to shrines, but most tours (including the ones with shrines) ended with a couple hours in Chinatown. I personally enjoyed Chinatown, it was interesting and had fun food to try, but everyone else I spoke to on the ship was really unhappy about it because they felt like we had just spent so many days in Chinese ports, and they didn't come to Japan to go to Chinatown, which is understandable. I didn't care because I have almost a month of my own time in Japan, but if I didn't I guess I'd have been disappointed too. In Mt. Fuji (really a port called Shimizu) there's virtually nothing to do. There's very few excursion options, and they all basically take you to a location where you can view Mt Fuji in the distance, but that's it. If you didn't have a tour, there was a taxi line at the port you could use, and also a free shuttle that would take you to a shopping mall. If you stayed at the port, there was another shopping mall (which was much larger than the one the shuttle takes you to), and also some small kiddie rides if you have children (a Ferris wheel, some trampolines etc). There wasn't a lot of time to really do anything in Mt Fuji (Shimizu), because the ship was only in port for 5 hours, plus it took almost an hour to get off the ship, and another hour standing in the shuttle or taxi lines. Which leads me to item #3. 3) Plan for VERY delayed disembarking at almost every port. We lost 3 hours in port in Vietnam due to terrible logistics and tendering there. People with independent excursions couldn't get off the ship in time to meet their tours and were out of luck unless they could find a way to call their tour operator, which means you need a cell phone that works internationally without a separate SIM card, or has wi-fi enabled calling (which means you need to have paid for ship wi-fi or have a cell phone plan that gives you free or inexpensive data roaming (LTE)). Hong Kong and Taiwan were very organized ports that were easy to get off the ship. Taxis were available, and most people speak enough English to understand where you want to go. But you'll also need Hong Kong and Taiwanese dollars. It's best to order money from your bank or AAA before you leave for your trip. Japan disembarking was terrible in all 3 ports. At the first port you enter in Japan, you have to go through the full immigration and customs process just like if you were at the airport. They look at your passport, they take your fingerprints, they scan a photo of your face, you turn in some forms etc. We had a ship excursion, meaning we got to get off the ship right away, but even with being in a separate line from the other passengers on the ship, it took us 2 hours to get outside to our tour bus. Our excursion was supposed to leave at 9am, and we didn't leave until 10:30am, and 4 people got left behind because they still weren't off the ship by that time and our tour guide didn't want to wait any longer because she already had to cut one of our stops short. They told us we would only have to do that process once and the rest of the stops in Japan would be easy, but that's not entirely true. While we didn't have to be fingerprinted each time, we did have to go through a passport screening every time. I'm not sure if the people who had ship excursions got off in Mt Fuji more quickly, but those of us without excursions took an hour to stand in the passport line, and then another hour waiting for taxis or shuttles. On disembarkation day in Tokyo (really Yokohama), we had tag #6 out of 50, so we were almost the first people off the ship, and it still took an hour. The taxi line was also another hour long. I can't imagine how backed up things got for the people getting off later. 4) It's easy to get by in all of the Chinese ports if you speak English, but almost nobody in Vietnam or Japan speak English. Download the Google translate app and then also download the dictionary for each language (Vietnamese and Japanese) before you leave home because they're large files and take a while to download, even with fast internet at home). 5) You can't use US dollars in most of the ports. It's not like the Caribbean where they prefer US dollars. Here, if they see it, they look at it as if they don't even recognize it, and they also think that whatever you're giving them is not enough money. Their paper money starts at such high dollar figures that even if you pull out a $100 bill they think you're ripping them off because it's such a small amount in their terms (for example, in japan, their paper money starts at ¥1,000, which is about $7 US dollars, so if you pull out 7 $1 dollar bills they look at you like you're offering them scrap pieces of paper). It's very easy to get cash in Japan if you have an ATM card (there are 7-11 stores all over the place and they have ATM's, subway stations also have ATM's and there's currency exchange desks at all the ports). The exchange rate at the ports and at the ATM machines is pretty good, they both charge about 3.5%. The problem is that if you have an excursion, you're not going to have time to exchange money first. Taxi's in Japan take credit cards but I don't think they take them in Vietnam, Hong Kong or Taiwan. It's more difficult to find ATM's and currency exchange places in Vietnam, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Also, almost nobody accepts credit cards in Vietnam, Hong Kong or Taiwan. In Japan it's very easy to use credit cards (though some places still require cash), but oddly enough, you can't use credit cards at the subway stations. Those are all the tips I can think of for now. I'm off to enjoy another day in Japan (my absolute favorite place we've visited on this trip so far). I'm still doing a bad job doing currency conversion in my head (I spent $600 on souvenirs chopsticks yesterday when I thought I was spending $60 😂), and I really miss eating peanut butter (it wasn't anywhere on the ship, and it doesn't exist here in Japan either), but other than that, there is absolutely no shortage of interesting things to see and do, and delicious food to eat. I highly recommend extending your cruise stay to visit Japan more thoroughly, same with Singapore (but Japan moreso than Singapore). Oh and one final thing for those of you wondering how my initial airline fiasco turned out - I'm in the process of a credit card dispute trying to get 60% of my money back. Originally Chase credit card told me they can't dispute an airline charge if you took the flight because they have a rule that says you can't dispute that. But I took it up the chain of command and spoke to a supervisor who understood my issue, and she told me she could do a dispute for part of the money, and she let me choose the dollar amount to dispute. I quickly calculated the fare difference based on other flights for sale and came up with 60%. She told me that Singapore Airlines might argue that they need more evidence etc, and they'd let me know if so. For now, I've received a temporary 60% credit to my Chase Sapphire Reserve card. I'm flying home on Delta, thankfully.

I got a $15.99/day for the first device + $11.99/day for the second device (averaging out to $13.99/day for both devices) during the last Black Friday sale, which was a great deal and the lowest I've ever seen it.

Big no for me. A Panama Canal cruise is a bucket list itinerary, and they've replaced it with something you could do from Florida. The alternative options offered are not good enough for what they've taken away from you.

I'm on a quantum class ship right now, and I was surprised to find that even my 8th floor balcony is somewhat obstructed. When sitting on the chairs on the balcony, you can see the top of the lifeboats. I was kind of annoyed by it, but it's not terrible. I would be really upset if I was on deck 7, and definitely would not pay money for any kind of balcony on deck 6. There aren't a lot of places on board with a view of the ocean except the deck above the pool deck, your balcony, or 270 (when they aren't doing a show or playing bingo etc in there). Many of the restaurants on board have windows that are obstructed by either the life boats, or the ship signs. Chops and Wonderland windows look out directly at the life boats, Teppanyaki windows are instructed by the "Spectrum of the Seas" sign, Izumi doesn't have windows. So if you're paying money to have a view of the ocean and you get a room on deck 6, I'd be very unhappy. Deck 7 view has to be more obstructed than mine on deck 8 so I assume it's bad. I'd go deck 8 and above only.

We watched "Showgirls" last night, it was a really excellent show! I'm surprised that this isn't their headlining show instead of "Silk Road." I'm really glad we didn't miss this. Get a seat in the theater early because it fills up, and there are a lot of obstructed views. Probably the best show I've seen on a cruise ship. Great costumes, great singing and dancing talent, upbeat music that had people dancing in their seats pretty much the whole show. We have not yet tried the main dining room. I keep intending to do that so I can comment on the food there, but we've been getting really good use of our dining package (and eating way too much food). The food in the specialty restaurants has been excellent. We've gone to every restaurant at least once. We made reservations on boarding day for each day of the cruise. We've changed a couple on a whim based on what we felt like eating. The only place we couldn't make a change at was Chops. Every other restaurant has been easy to walk up to and get a table pretty much every time, so I don't know if they actually had as many packages sold as they said. There seems to be a lot of people eating in the dining room. I haven't heard much feedback about the food other than one person who said their meatball portion was too small. The windjammer has had excellent food the whole trip. I've eaten in there for most breakfasts and some lunches. There's so much variety and the food always seems flavorful and fresh. They use a lot more spices in the food on this ship which is nice, it's not bland like it can often be on other ships. We've gotten "ok" use of our refreshment drink package, but we would have been totally fine without one. There's a lack of soft drinks to choose from (Coke, Diet Coke, sprite, ginger ale, Fanta and tonic water). And they all taste like diet. They have free water, tea, orange juice, lemonade and coffee, and the free lemonade tastes better (has more flavor) than the specialty lemonade you get at Jamie's. We've had fresh squeezed juice every morning and that's been delicious every time, but again, we could have lived without it (or paid out of pocket). The specialty coffee is not very good, but maybe I'm spoiled by having my own espresso machine at home. I've tried getting specialty coffee at La Patisserie, the Leaf and Bean and in the windjammer, and it just tasted like hot milk every time. I've reverted to drinking the free coffee, but there is no cream on board for the pleabs (there may be some for the upper class folks in the suites). I've asked at multiple venues (La Patisserie, Leaf & Bean, windjammer, the dining room at breakfast and chops at dinner). They only put out containers of milk (and they are labeled as milk). They have almond and soy milk at La Patisserie for specialty coffees and they'll pour almond milk into your free coffee for you if you ask. Frozen drinks are always good on a hot day, but there's only so many of them that we can drink, and we tired out on them days ago. We paid $24.99/day ($29.49 with the 18%), so just over $700 for the 2 of us. Not a big deal and I'm not sorry I bought it, but I doubt we've broken even, and if we have it's been by force. The cost of non-alcoholic drinks on board is pretty cheap. Soda is $3 at restaurants. It's $3 for specialty teas (these are actually pretty good and are unique to this ship at the Leaf and Bean). $4.50 for specialty coffees. $11 (with the 18%) for a non-alcoholic piña colada (the alcoholic drink special each day is only $8). I don't know what they're charging for bottled water but half the time when I ask for one they don't even ask for my card. Sometimes they ask if I have a drink package and when I say yes they just give them to me. Other times they don't even ask, they just hand them over. Overall, I'm very happy with this trip. I expected to dislike the Quantum Class ship but I like it a lot. Plenty of room and lots of stuff to do, and everything is also easy to get to. I didn't even notice until today (day 10) that we can't access the front of the ship (that must be where they're housing the suite folks), so it's not like you try to go somewhere on the ship and are suddenly denied entry if you're not in a suite. You just simply feel like you've reached the end of the ship, and don't even notice that there's more to it. Another unique thing on this ship is the private karaoke rooms that you can rent for $25/hr (plus 18%). They're a blast. I was expecting the passengers to be rude and pushy (based on prior reviews and trip reports of Asian cruises) but I've found it to be the opposite. It's possible that because this is a longer cruise that it attracts a different type of clientele, or maybe it's cultural, but I've found everyone to be extremely polite. Kids are well behaved. It's just such a classy ship with a classy group of people on it and I've really enjoyed meeting all of the people from different countries and hearing all the different languages. I'm really grateful we had the opportunity to do this trip.