malackym

And here I thought I was the only one having this problem!

Mark.

Never felt rushed at Dinner on the early seating, but we always felt rushed to get to dinner, when we had to leave whatever we happened to be doing to get to the early seating. I do feel, though, there is a more relaxed atmosphere during 2nd seating.

Mark.

 

I always keep my last patch on usually a 1.5 to 2 days after the cruise to help get my sea legs back and let the medicine slowly leave my system.... this tip I learned the hard way the first time using and ripping that sucker off the minute I got on land. It lead to dizziness.

 

Best Wishes

I agree with this, I have used a patch the last 4 cruises I've been on and the only time I had a problem was when I removed it the day after I put it on when we got back home. I was nauseous for a few days after.

Depending on the length of the cruise, I also put one on a day or two before the cruise to get acclimated to my worse side effect, dry mouth.

Mark.

OMG

 

Last night was a dream come true

 

So we as well as thousands of other royal fans attended the Buffet concert last night.

 

And it was hard to get in unless you followed the check in rules.

No outside drinks, no chair covers and no large purses.

 

I used my cruise wristlet which had my loyalty pins on it, yes I am Diamond.

 

Well let me tell you one thing lead to another and the next thing you know I was escorted on stage with the man himself Buffet and played the tamborine!!!!!!!!!

 

OMG the attendants selected me!!!!!!

 

It had to be .............................

 

Once they saw that diamond pin, all was taken care off.

 

As I left the stage I was handed an autographed T Shirt and some beads....

 

It was a night to remember.

 

OMG

 

Then I woke up from my dream had a pillow case in my hands (t-shirt?)

You see we went to the amphitheater in Warren Ohio to watch a tribute band of buffet....................

 

Took the cruise wristlet because you cannot take purses in....

 

Danced with everyone else close to the stage,

 

I guess those people who smoke, um........................home grown stogies overwhelmed me (No ex legit smoker 7 years smoke free)

 

got home, dreamland.

 

Well it was a good dream.

 

See what Diamond gets you.

 

Safe travels.

Welcome to my hometown, glad you had a good time. We love the concerts at the Amp!

But my Platinum Status has yet to get me anything at home. ;p

Mark.

Can't wait to hear about it, glad you had a great time.

We will be on her May'19

Mark.

I concur with everyone so far - B

I did get stopped once on the Quantum for having a tank top on.

I remember a business card, poker chip, a woman wearing a man’s pants

Thanks so much for the review! My wife and I had a great time on this cruise. My only regret looking back was that, having not received our invitation to the Meet & Mingle, I didn't ask our rooms steward about it, so I didn't go. Looks like it was a lot of fun.

Mark.

My wife and I were on the Quantum last year and did not pre book our couples massage. There was a nice discount when we boarded, but you have to have it that day. It was a nice massage but we did miss the sail away.

Enjoy your cruise and congrats on your 2nd anniversary.

Mark,

Thank for the review, my wife and i are on the June 9th cruise. Can't wait.

Mark.

Looking forward to your review.

My wife and I are on the June 9 sailing. 1st time on Grandeur and 1st time out of Baltimore.

Have a great trip!

Mark.

Have a great cruise. Can't wait for your review, it will be like going all over again!

Would love to know how your teens got on on your recent Quantum cruises?! We are taking our 2 teenage sons (16 & 13) on Anthem in July for our first ever cruise and I so want them to enjoy it. I have no doubt my youngest will find friends and be on the go all day all evening, but my 16 yo is quite shy. Any hints/tips gratefully received Thanks.

We just got off from a March 21 sailing and our 15 year old son finally warmed up to the seaplex the last couple of days. He is shy as well, but very athletic and I kept telling him to go down and play basketball, soccer, dodge ball etc and he wouldn't go. I took him down and made him watch one day, then after that, he started to warm up to the idea to the point of spending the whole last sea day there. All the scheduled events there are supervised by a crew member and he never had any problems.

First day at sea!

My daughter and I were the only two that made it for breakfast, this didn’t surprise me, we are the two early risers. My in laws I think wanted to make it, but we were walking out when they showed up. We were seated with two other couples at an 8 person table. They brought cinnamon rolls and Danishes to the table. I got the eggs benedict and it was good.

Then it was off to ping pong for me. Now I consider myself a pretty good player. There was a tournament at 10 and I got there about 9:30 and paired up with an older gentleman as we played for fun, He was really good. About 16 people showed up for the event. I lost my first match 11 – 1! Ouch. Stayed to watch the rest and the guy I played before the tourney ended up playing his brother in the finals. The brother won. I didn’t know it was his brother until I saw him again at a Samba dance lesson.

My youngest playing.

It is nice that the tables are inside in the SeaPlex. On the Freedom, they were outside and the wind made it tough to play.

The dance lesson was fun. I can’t dance, but I love to dance. Boy did I get made fun of by the cruise staff for my bad dancing, all in good fun. Even if you can’t dance, I would highly recommend going. They had several different ones throughout the cruise. It is a lot of fun to learn, or just laugh at everyone trying to learn. The cruise staff did a great job of making all their events fun. Go, join in and don’t worry about being embarrassed.

No Fred Astair

Then it was on to iFly, our reservation was for 3:30. I made it for the first day, since I figured it would be too cool to be outside. I checked around lunch to see if our group had an opening for my son, and there weren’t any. We showed up around 3:00 and the 3:15 had an opening, but not our group. So I went by myself at 3:15 and my son went in my place at 3:30. There was no problem doing this switch. In my opinion, there was no problem going alone. You really don’t have a lot of together time. You watch a 5 minute video that goes over safety and hand signals. Then you get dress yourself in a suit, goggles and a helmet. They also give you ear plugs. Remember, you need to wear tennis shoes. Once you head up to the ‘tube’ and sit there and wait for your turn, the fan makes quite a bit of noise, so you really can’t hear. Each person gets 1 minute in the tube with the instructor. Once everyone in the group has gone, they turn the fan speed up and the instructor gets in alone and does some impressive flying. The whole process takes about an hour. My wife didn’t go but took videos and pictures of us all. I thought it was really fun. There is a lot of wind in your face, but it is cool to be floating there. The instructor stands in there with your and keeps you straight, and also keeps you from hitting the walls. The suits have handles on the back for him to use. The one minute goes by real fast. I will say, my shoulders hurt the next few days. Picture yourself lying on your face with your hands flat on the floor next to your head. This is the position you are in with the wind pushing your arms with your shoulders pushing back. Also, try to keep your mouth shut, my mouth was dry for the next few hours.

Not quite "The Right Stuff", but close. My two boys and my daughter, the ham like me, at the end!

Arms up and just Jump right in

My daughter Flying!

Dinner was at Silk. It was good. One thing about this. We had reservations for 7:00. The mama mia show we had reservations for was originally scheduled for 9:00. Several weeks before the cruise, they moved it to 8:30. I called RC to see if I could move our dinner reservation up so they wouldn’t conflict. They didn’t have anything available and told me to check when I was on board. I did check and they were able to move our reservation to 6:30. We even showed up a little early and were seated with no problem. We made it to the show in plenty of time. The show was real good and the time flew bye. I do like ABBA and their songs, so that made it better, I’m sure.

I didn't notice this at Mama Mia, but later during the cruise. They want people with reservations in their seats 15 minutes before the show. They only let people into the venue who have reservations. They check your card or wrist band. After that they start letting people in with no reservations to fill the remaining (if there are any) seats.

Next up: Day 3

I'm super sad about the whole thing because I was going to let the kids explore on their own for an hour or two if I could get ahold of them with the app. But now with it costing so much per device I don't think I will.

Yea, that's too bad. It really worked out well for us. We did the same and always could get a hold of everyone anytime we wanted.

It's been reported today that with this sailing they are now charging $14.95/device.

Hi

My understanding is that with the Royal IQ app you can text people on board, like my family members instead of using a walkie talkie. This service is extra $.

Anybody know about this?

 

Thanks

Interesting. Just got off the Quantum on 3/29. At that time, the RoyalIQ app didn't cost anything. We downloaded the app and attached to the ship wifi and put our phone in airplane mode and were able to text each other, thru the IQ app, with no problem. We also could book and view our reservations.

We also signed up and paid for wifi package. This is a separate thing.

At what point in the cruise did you find out about some people having noravirus?

I would say by day four. We stated seeing our cabin doors and hallway rails soapy. Staff was really out with the Purell and they closed the Craps table. The casino manager said they were short some staff because of the virus, plus they needed staff to man the doors with purell, so they didn't have enough people to run the craps table. I only got to play one night.

From what I have read here, the position of the bed & sofa is determined by whether or not that sofa is just a sofa, or if it's a sofabed.

 

We were in 11306 & 11308, connecting balconies. Our bed was by the door in 306, and in 308 the bed was by the balcony.

Interesting, I never checked any of ours to see if they were beds, I just thought they were sofas.

Thanks for the pics of the cabins! Did all of your interior cabins have the beds by the door? Also, was there a curtain to separate off the sitting area? We'll have three teens in a category K, and I'm trying to picture how that will work.

No, funny, but two of our rooms has the bed by the door and two had the bed by the virtual balcony. The two rooms that we had right next to each other had one by the door and one by the balcony.

There was no curtain in any of the rooms, but maybe if you have three in a room there will be one. Sorry I don't know for sure.

Mark.

A few more sail away pics.

No chair hogs at the pool yet

Coney Island?

Our rooms

After setting up our excursions and pop packages, we walked around a bit to get oriented. I waited in line at the Grand to check on our resurvations and the dress code for the first night. Took 15 minutes. It is defiantly casual the first night. No jackets required. There were many people in jeans and tee shirts. There were also a lot of people waiting in line.

One thing to point out. If you do need to go to make a change or check on a dinner reservation at one of the complementary restaurants, you don’t have to wait in line for the receptionist at the one you are inquiring about. You can go to any of them. All four were usually open all the time.

I did like how everything indoors was on either deck 3, 4 or 5. I never felt like I was too far away from anything. We checked on our room at 12:45, deck 8, and they were ready and two of our bags were already there, both mine. Our party had 4 large interior rooms. Large is from the RC description, but I will say they were larger than our interior rooms on the Freedom and had plenty of closet and drawer space for the two of us. I also liked the virtual balcony, and we had no problems with it during the cruise.

Here are a few pictures of the kids room.

After unpacking it was time for the Guest Assembly Drill as the called it. We had to muster in Two70. No life jackets needed. They mentioned that there wouldn’t be enough seats for everyone and asked for people to come down to the dance floor if you were able to stand. Here is a picture of me standing. Lol

By the time the drill started, the floor was mostly full. They showed a video of what to do if anything should happen and then we got to hear, for the first time, the lovely tune from the video “Wash your hands.” Finally, we heard the captains ‘required’ remarks that we will get under way as soon as he finds the keys! The whole thing took about 25 minutes.

After the drill, it was time for our couple’s massage. The only bad thing about it was that it was at the same time as our departure and I didn’t get to see the sail away. In all honesty, I enjoyed the massage, but I will admit, I’ve never had one before and I don’t really think they are for me. My wife loved it, and I think I would be better off getting her two on the next cruise.

Here are some pictures of the sail away my kids took

I could only post 6 pictures per post, so I will put a couple more in the next post.

After the massage, we went back to our room and got ready for dinner at the Grand at 7:00. We arrived about 6:45 and walked right in to our table of eight. Mike from Philly, “How YOU doin!" was our waiter and was very entertaining. We ordered 2 bottles of wine and just relaxed. I had the salmon, it was good. ;-) We scheduled meeting at the American Icon Grill for breakfast for anyone interested. We stayed at dinner until a little after 9:00 and never felt rushed or like we were waiting.

Not wanting to get too worn out the first day, The wife and I, as well as my in laws, went up to bed after dinner. I don’t know what the kids did. I’m happy they are older and we didn’t have to keep tabs on them as much as we did on past cruises. We never took them on cruises when they were babies, but I was surprised how many strollers I saw during the cruise.

We did not go to Ken Rush’s welcome aboard show. It started at 8:00 and went until 9:15, right during our dinner. If we weren’t at dinner, I’m sure we would have gone.

Next: Day 1

The texting between the 4 in our party worked well. However, you need to add the people in other staterooms to your contact list in the IQ App. It is easy to do. Each person that purchases the FREE texting package has an extension #. Just add that extension number to your contacts in the Chat section of the app.

One more thing that is very very important!! Everyone needs to keep the IQ App open for the texts to go thru immediately. If you close the App, and someone sends you a text, the sender will get a message that the recipient is off line. The recipient will get the text, but not until they re open the app. So for best text messaging, keep the app open in the background.

Great tip, wish I could rep it. Completely agree! We had the same experience.

You and your family definitely have the photographic eye. Great pics.

 

Have you seen any of the shows at 270?

 

I'm wondering which seat to camp out on for a good view.

 

Love your review so far!

The only show we saw in two70 was Starwater. We sat to the right of the stage as you look at it, over by the bar in the front row. Great view, but we didn't get the full affect of the performance I think you would get from directly in front. My two oldest kids went to the perfomance again and sat more in the middle.

Thanks for the complements. Trying to keep the updates coming, but it's taking a little longer than I thought it would especially with this work thing!!! ;)

Mark.

My family and I used the Royal IQ app on the 3/21 Quantum sailing and it worked great for everything but the luggage tracking. I only tried it once and the app said there was no luggage for this account. The luggage showed up around 3:00, so I never checked again.

Mark.