LIVE from Quantum of the Seas, sailing April 12th!

[BugsyCruiser]

The negatives about Quantum:

 

Quantum seems to have an issue with running out of items(mainly food) at sometimes only halfway through the cruise. Whoever is in charge of ordering stuff and the quantity would be fired if I was in charge

 

Service really suffers in the free restaurants especially American Icon. An average of 3 hours for dinner? Not asking how you want things prepared when you order things like eggs? Holding up your cup for a refill on coffee and the staff sees you want one but will not fill it? Food items coming out cold? I think a lot of this falls on the managers and the training they are giving. It has to be better than this. One exception in my opinion is Silk. I thought the food and service were good there both times I ate there.

 

The lack of things to do in the Cruise Compass. I remember on Oasis and Allure getting a huge amount of activities listed daily to the point that it would make your head spin. This is not the case on Quantum.

 

Guests Service is an afterthought on Quantum. It was woefully understaffed. This is because...

 

Quantum is too reliant on the technology. The attitude is almost like "don't worry, an IPad will take care of it. Sorry, but I like human interaction and it is lacking on Quantum. Don't get me wrong the technology comes in handy when it comes to things like the very good wifi service I had but in other areas it's more of a pain than it is a help.

 

The Bionic Bar is neat but after a couple of visits it becomes dull. The area could be used for so much more in my opinion.

 

Jamie's going to ala carte pricing on Anthem is very disappointing and it's such a great restaurant but I won't eat there if it goes to ala carte pricing. In my opinion this will backfire on RCI.

 

I agree with Emmy that while the ship is very nice, why didn't Royal push the envelope like they did with Oasis class? Royal has always been known to do things that no one else does yet they gave us a ship that everyone looks at and says "It's a Celebrity Solstice class ship only bigger."

[BugsyCruiser]

So there you have it my friends! Quantum class has a lot of things to really like about it but also a lot of things not to like about it. I can only hope that things will be improved and go much smoother on Anthem when she arrives in the states. With that, LIVE from Quantum of the Seas has concluded!

 

I wanted to take the time to again thank everyone that followed along and commented and the kind words everyone had for my thread. I also want to thank all my wonderful friends that chose to join me on this sailing plus all the new friends I made on this sailing and had fun with it. It really DID make my cruise that much more enjoyable.

 

I really enjoy doing these LIVE reviews and appreciate all that follow along so again, THANK YOU :)

 

Until next time.... ;)

[ladybird1292]

Thank you so much for your live thread. I have loved reading about your experiences. Thank you for an honest review. Best wishes.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[cruisinghawg]

Sad it is over but happy to have gone with you!!! Thanks for trip big guy!!!!

[CVU]

Thank You!!!:)

 

Sure hope RCL listen and you all made these comments on the Survey about the negatives. They were very good points and should be listened too!!!

3 hr for dinner is not good. That is time passengers are not spending money on board??

Running out of food is not acceptable. Surely by now they must know how much to order for a cruise??!!!:rolleyes: Perhaps they are budgeting food orders to pay for the new ship??

 

Haven't been on Solstice so I guess that is a very good thing!!!:D

[KS Sunflower]

Wow! Thank you for your excellent review. Sounds like improvement is still needed on the Quantum, after six months. We sailed on the TA and I was not impressed with the iPads at check-in or at Guest Services. How could Royal Caribbean get so many things wrong on this ship?

 

Hopefully, someone in upper management reads your comments.

 

Looking forward to meeting you on the HOTS.

[midwestchick]

Loved your live report and I've read every page...keeping DH awake and showing him pictures. Although I have no intention of sailing on this ship, I rewmember your X cruise and your dining in Blu.

A question...how have you become a Packer fan living in Chi town burbs? Love your Packer hat. I'm another Packer fan from IL. :D

GO PACK GO.

[JamesEM]

Enjoyed your review and photos, until next time stay safe.

[sakapfet]

Que sera sera. Make love tonight and be happy. Happy cruising everybody.

[July4]

Great review, enjoyed following and reading every comment. Looking forward to Anthem next April.

[Tommy3putts]

Very well done. Enjoyed tagging along for the ride.

[Luvscruising44]

Chris, just finished viewing your review and it was excellent as usual. Thank you for doing this and taking the time and the expense of doing this. Brought back many memories of a wonderful cruise with lots of wonderful Quayzie friends. So enjoyed meeting everyone and so blessed to have made the cruise.

 

Luvs

[Lionesss]

I must truly say these last 10 days I have enjoyed going to your thread and reading your updates and viewing your pictures.

 

It has been a rough cold winter and you brought the experience to me and made me forget the outside conditions.

 

Just glad you were willing to take the time to put this together.

 

Thanks again.

 

Looking forward to traveling on line with you again.

 

:D

[sea-cruise]

Grateful for your complete honesty. Pax spend a lot of hard earned money, and deserve their expectations to be met. I don't think anyone expects RCI to "Exceed Expectations", but at least to be acknowledged, fed well, and not fleeced with extra extravagant charges.

 

When I read the comment regarding $15 for a chocolate martini, I was very disappointed in RCI. Please don't get me wrong. I'm not a cheapskate, looking for bargains. DH & I have taken our grown children & grandchildren on many cruises, and we've gladly paid for their balcony staterooms/cabins, including tours, drinks, spa, etc.

 

 

We've sailed RCI for many years (back to the first ship in their fleet), as well as Celebrity when they bought their first ship from Chandris & kept the X on the stack. (for new cruisers, this is the Greek letter C) We were among the first passengers to pay $45 pp to join the Captain's Club in the early 90s.

Mr Fain treated us royally, upgrading us, sending wine & fruit to our staterooms each night, inviting us to dine with various captains & hotel managers, bridge tours, & tours of engine rooms, and we always loved both RCI & X, but we are so very disappointed watching the decline in services.

 

Yes, the ships are beautiful, but to hear that food is skimped and passengers are ignored is depressing.

I hope they read this and improve things, for the benefit of all passengers.

Edited April 25, 2015 by sea-cruise

[emmy]

Yes, I can see it now!!! Thank you SO much for reposting. That photo captures so many aspects of emotion. I can almost feel what you were feeling as you gazed at the ocean. I'll bet it would win an award if you & Emmy entered it in one of the RCI photo contests!

Thanks again! :)

 

 

hmmm now there's a thought. :) Knowing Chris as I do that photo of him was a photo of love. I can imagine his thoughts at the time.

 

Now I was on two early Nov sailings of Quantum and was disappointed in the ship. It has improved vastly and it really seems to be coming into its own now. I think the testament to that was at the Captain's Corner were there were NO negative comments or questions at all. The mood there was upbeat unlike the inaugural Captain's Corner.

 

I feel the ship is leaving us all too soon and has just started to be accepted as a wonderful cruise option in the northeast area. We will have to start a new love affair soon for Anthem. :)

 

Will miss you Quantum. More time with us would have been great to see you grow as a cruise option here in Bayonne.

 

 

Edited April 25, 2015 by emmy

[BugsyCruiser]

Loved your live report and I've read every page...keeping DH awake and showing him pictures. Although I have no intention of sailing on this ship, I rewmember your X cruise and your dining in Blu.

A question...how have you become a Packer fan living in Chi town burbs? Love your Packer hat. I'm another Packer fan from IL. :D

GO PACK GO.

 

Appreciate you following along. I became a Packers fan when they got Brett Favre and the rest is history ;)

[BugsyCruiser]

hmmm now there's a thought. :) Knowing Chris as I do that photo of him was a photo of love. I can imagine his thoughts at the time.

 

Now I was on two early Nov sailings of Quantum and was disappointed in the ship. It has improved vastly and it really seems to be coming into its own now. I think the testament to that was at the Captain's Corner were there were NO negative comments or questions at all. The mood there was upbeat unlike the inaugural Captain's Corner.

 

I feel the ship is leaving us all too soon and has just started to be accepted as a wonderful cruise option in the northeast area. We will have to start a new love affair soon for Anthem. :)

 

Will miss you Quantum. More time with us would have been great to see you grow as a cruise option here in Bayonne.

 

 

 

Emmy I think what you just said sums it better than anything I could have said. It had indeed improved greatly and I wish it was staying here. Let's hope they've learned from the mistakes in the past and Anthem will be as you said our new love affair

[BugsyCruiser]

Chris, just finished viewing your review and it was excellent as usual. Thank you for doing this and taking the time and the expense of doing this. Brought back many memories of a wonderful cruise with lots of wonderful Quayzie friends. So enjoyed meeting everyone and so blessed to have made the cruise.

 

Luvs

 

Thanks Luvs. It was great to meet you on the cruise :)

[chawkjewel]

Thanks for the review! It was awesome to follow along for the last two weeks.

[Mr & Mrs. Smith]

Thank you so much for sharing your vacation with us, it was very generous to spend your precious vacation time uploading photos and answering questions!

[depplep]

How does the Bionic Bar know what drink to make?

[BugsyCruiser]

How does the Bionic Bar know what drink to make?

 

You sit down at one of the screens and tap your seapass card which will then bring up the menu. Select your drink and then watch the robots make the drink and there is also a monitor to tell you which conveyor belt your drink will be at when completed

[loudbmw]

First - thanks Chris for posting the live review, it was fun to follow along during the sailing and to see if I was on any of your photos (not).

 

We loved the Quantum and would not hesitate sailing on the Anthem next year. We chose this sailing because of the itinerary, the slightly warmer weather and we figured that many of the kinks from the early sailing would be worked out (they were).

 

We arrived at the pier right at our 10:30 am scheduled time. It took about 20 minutes for us to reach the luggage drop off point, park the car and walk back to the terminal (skip the bus - it faster to walk). Be sure the luggage handler sticks the bar coded luggage tag on your luggage and to your boarding pass, that will allow you to track your luggage.

 

Check in the the agent took only a couple of minutes as we had uploaded our photos and credit card info previously. Security had priority lines for Suites and Pinnacles, none for any other C&A levels. In any case we were aboard by 11:15, not bad. Two70 was the place to go upon embarkation with very short lines for food. Sadly our luggage didn't make it to our room until after 5:00 pm.

 

We had pre-booked all our restaurants and shows prior to sailing for 7:15 pm. I found it difficult to change them on line prior to the cruise when the show schedules came out and I had a few conflicts. Once on board, our iPad made quick work of revising our schedule. A couple of times the app showed no restaurant availability at our desired time but we could walk up and be seated usually with no wait. The app worked flawlessly for checking our schedule, our on-board account and making changes to restaurant times unless they were fully booked.

 

Free Restaurants:

 

At almost every dinner we were seated immediately when we arrived at our scheduled reservation time, The only exception was Grande after the Sonic Odyssey show. We had an 8:15 reservation and made a bee line to the restaurant as soon as the show ended at 8:10. There must have been over 100 people waiting in the "have reservation" line. Right across the hall was Chic with no line. We bailed and Chic seated us immediately.

 

Most dinners took between 45 minutes to 75 minutes depending if we had dessert so no complaints there. We only ate at the American Icon Grill once (it was OK), Silk twice (very good) and Chic three times (excellent). Grande was very good but a little slow and hot so most men removed their jackets.

 

Specialty Restaurants:

 

Jamie Olivers was fantastic! We had dinner once with a BOGO and lunch three times at $15. The meat plank is excellent as well as all the pasta dishes. Sadly they are going al-la-carte on the Anthem which is going to drive away much of the lunch crowd. Wonderland was good but I wouldn't go there again without a BOGO. The Diamond Plus BOGO dinner coupons were honored both Day 1 and Day 2. We received a $12 specialty restaurant on board credit - no idea why since we used a BOGO both nights.

 

Windjammer:

 

The best windjammer in the fleet for lunch as far as I'm concerned. Many stations (not the buffet tables) prepared the food right in front of you so it was hot and fresh. The center station by the kitchen always had a chef who cooked up something special each day - go there first. We tried the windjammer once for dinner and I was slightly disappointed with the variety.

 

Oh - don't forget the windjammer freshly baked cookies, they are to die for. The Chef told me they went through 30,000 cookies the previous spring break week.

 

Shows:

 

Mama Mia was great, would see it again. Sonic Odyssey started out strong but faded a bit in the second half. Starwater was very good - no plot but excellent dancing. Plan on being there a hour early if you want a prime seat. They did scan room keys for reservations. Some folks who seated themselves earlier to see Starwater were asked to leave if they didn't have a reservation.

 

Activities:

 

Northstar was fun. Many times the lines were long but we went just prior to them opening the gangway in Puerto Rico and waited only 10 minutes. I had a reservation for iFly day 2 and didn't get the hang of it in the 1 minute you get. I went standby on the last sea day and got to go again as it wasn't anywhere near full and I did much better.

 

I'm a big Flowrider fan and this cruise didn't disappoint. The previous week (spring break) had 1,300 kids and the lines I'm told were very long. This cruise had only a handful of advanced riders and most mornings, only 2 or 4 surfers showed up the first hour. The sports staff was great.

 

Concierge Lounge:

 

There were over 100 Diamond Plus cruisers and 13 Pinnacles on board which made for a very crowded lounge. It was always very busy ay 5:00 pm and the Concierge (Mario) dug some folding chairs out of a closet and even gave up his own chair at times. By 6:00 pm the rush was over. The bar servers in the Concierge lounge were excellent. The Captain stopped by almost every night to mingle.

 

Internet:

 

Disappointed that the 60 minute internet package was not available. Instead they had a 24 hour unlimited package for $30 as well as the normal $15/day for one device, $20/day for two devices that had to purchased for the whole cruise.

 

Our $60 Diamond Plus coupon could be used to purchase two $30 twenty-four hour packages, so you and your spouse/partner could get a total of four 24 hour unlimited sessions. Since this was a 12 day cruise, that option wasn't a good one for us. Instead, we used our Verizon international data plan for the first 6 days to check e-mail.

 

As on the Oasis, they start offering lower cost internet plans later in the week. On the Quantum, they started offering a 3 day unlimited plan that cost us $.05 (yes 5 cents) with our Diamond Plus coupon for one device starting on day 6. When the 3 day plan expired, we used our second coupon for another 3 day plan. Our total cost for internet was $6 for Verizon (prorated for a partial month) and $.10 for unlimited ship's internet days 7 through 12.

 

The ship's internet was very fast and worked great.

 

Debarkation:

 

We had a six hour car ride home an elected self assist to exit the ship. We arrived at deck 5 at 6:15 am and the line for self assist started at the aft elevators and extended all the way to Two70 (that's a long line). Surprisingly, when they started debarkation at 6:30, the line moved very quickly and we were driving away by 7:00 am after walking the long trek to our car (skipped the bus again).

 

There is a priority line at Customs for Suites and Pinnacles which looked to save about 15 minutes when we left the ship. I jokingly asked the agent where the Diamond Plus priority line for Customs was? (there isn't one) She said "close enough-get in the Suite line", so it's worth asking.

 

While some things need improving, the good far outweighed the negative and we had a great time.

 

Lou

[jerseygirl777]

So there you have it my friends! Quantum class has a lot of things to really like about it but also a lot of things not to like about it. I can only hope that things will be improved and go much smoother on Anthem when she arrives in the states. With that, LIVE from Quantum of the Seas has concluded!

 

I wanted to take the time to again thank everyone that followed along and commented and the kind words everyone had for my thread. I also want to thank all my wonderful friends that chose to join me on this sailing plus all the new friends I made on this sailing and had fun with it. It really DID make my cruise that much more enjoyable.

 

I really enjoy doing these LIVE reviews and appreciate all that follow along so again, THANK YOU :)

 

Until next time.... ;)

 

Hi Chris, Your live review was wonderful as usual, you always take lots of pictures & give so much info on what the ships offer, I'll be looking forward to when you cruise on the Regal Princess as you'll be on a different cruise line. The picture Emmy took of you looking out the ship's window was beautiful, did you know she was taking it? You should get enlarged & framed! Thanks for all your hard work in allowing so many of us to "travel" along- Linda

[KS Sunflower]

Emmy I think what you just said sums it better than anything I could have said. It had indeed improved greatly and I wish it was staying here. Let's hope they've learned from the mistakes in the past and Anthem will be as you said our new love affair

 

I commented earlier about your great review and pictures but one comment above really stands out. You said "it had indeed improved greatly and I wish it was staying here". For those of us who were on an earlier cruise, there was much room for improvement. It had to get better.

 

I can't help but think Royal Caribbean used us as Guinea Pigs, in preparation for sending the ship to the Asian market. Otherwise, why didn't they send it directly to Asia? :confused: Perhaps the Chinese are not as tolerant? :)

 

Thank you for not sugar coating your review. I thought the Quantum was a beautiful ship but I do prefer the Oasis Class. Not as many gimmicks.