Quantum & Ovation Plus - 30 Day Live (hopefully)

[Mary&Jim]

Beautiful pics!

[bobmacliberty]

We had an enjoyable evening last night.  We started in the Music Hall watching Aeromyth, which as you might guess, is an Aerosmith tribute band. They were OK but sounded slightly off. The sound wasn’t mixed well and it was hard to hear the guitars. We mostly got drums, bass, and vocals. Maybe that was because we were behind the glass in the upper deck??  The lead was really into his Steven Tyler act, the time period when Tyler was pretty heavily into drugs. At least I think it was an act. The guitarist in the Joe Perry role seemed very talented but we couldn’t hear his playing very well. We decided to leave after a few songs and check out the Rock the Room game show in the Two70 Lounge. 
 

Rock the Room was very entertaining. Its similar to Name that Tune.  5 contestants from the audience compete to quickly name the song title and the artist. Sometimes, bonus points were given if the contestants would sing or dance to the song. Some of the contestants really got into it, which makes it really fun to watch. 
 

After Rock the Room, we stayed in the Two70 Lounge to listen to the Switched On band. They were really good, especially the female lead

singer. Fantastic voice. The band is from Mexico City and she clearly had a Mexican accent when she talked but almost zero accent when she sang. She did really great versions of Olivia Newton John’s Hopelessly Devoted To You and Carrie Underwood’s Before He Cheats. We’ll definitely be watching them throughout the week. Music doesn’t always reproduce well in videos, so I hope this clip of Tennessee Whisky does them justice (and is viewable). 

 

 

 

 

[George C]

1 hour ago, bobmacliberty said:

While I have a few minutes, let’s get caught up from yesterday. Sail away from Vancouver was great. I previously posted the video going under the bridge but the views in all directions were spectacular. Beautiful city skyline looking one way, gorgeous mountains looking another way.
 

Royal had a nice Diamond and up sail away celebration in the Solarium. They had a nice selection of hors d’oeuvres and waiters roaming around with trays of drinks. We met several officers who were there and also roaming around, introducing themselves. With the nice views out of the Solarium windows, it was a very enjoyable event. 
 

The ship initially started sailing NW toward the Strait of Georgia. For a minute, I thought we might sail around Vancouver Island. That didn’t make much sense and before long, we turned back south again. Since we could have floated to Seattle and still be on time, I think the Captain was just giving everyone a great view of the mountains. 
 

Dinner was in Coastal Kitchen. Service wasn’t very good. We waited 5 minutes and no one approached our table. I almost literally grabbed a waiter who was walking by and asked if we could get water and a waiter. He said yes and then disappeared. Five more minutes passed and still no one. I was ready to walk up to the manager when a waiter finally appeared. Drinks took another 10 minutes from there. Food was good…I had the crab and shrimp crusted pollock…but we were pretty full from the sail away celebration. I’ll write the service issues off as typical first night problems. I’m sure things will be better going forward. 
 

Back in our cabin, I noticed a nice sunset outside with a crescent moon off to the side. 


 

 

I went about my business getting ready for the evening and about 15 minutes later noticed that the sunset was now a bright orange, maybe the most orange sunset that I’ve seen. Beautiful. 
 

 

We like CK fr breakfast and lunch is ok but we get UDP to avoid it for dinner , also like the 40 percent off bottles of wine under a hundred.

[bobmacliberty]

Random thoughts…

 

The port of Seattle is busy today. The Eurodam is also at pier 91 with us and the Norwegian Bliss is at pier 66. 
 

Warm bread pudding with vanilla sauce is the most consistently good dessert that Royal offers. 
 

There are no college football games being show in any ship venue. Only Baylor vs Oklahoma St is on the cabin TV. I don’t see any NFL games listed as being shown tomorrow. Shameful Royal, just shameful. 

[bobmacliberty]

1 hour ago, George C said:

We like CK fr breakfast and lunch is ok but we get UDP to avoid it for dinner , also like the 40 percent off bottles of wine under a hundred.

We also like CK for breakfast. I think that’s their best meal. We’ll do CK for dinner half the time, and the other half will be a mix of specialty dining and WJ. Sometimes, we just want to casually mix a plate of various stuff from the buffet. Their Indian options always seem to taste great. We’ll do CK lunch once or twice but I’m more of a sandwich/burger guy for lunch rather than a plated meal. 

[DaKahuna]

On 9/30/2022 at 3:04 PM, bobmacliberty said:

From the ground floor of the hotel, we walked down 2 flights of steps to the lower level where 

We were guided from there thru security which went quickly. We were then guided to US Our plan was to hang out in the Suite Lounge on deck 12. Since the rooms aren’t open yet, we can’t get to the SL since you need to walk down a deck 12 hallway to get to it. 

 

 When we boarded the Quantum, we completed the muster drill and went to our room, this was before noon.  I opened the firedoor so we could get to the room and pick up our keys.  Ran into our stateroom attendant who told us the rooms were not ready yet and told him we knew but wanted to drop off a few things and collect our Sea Pass Cards. 

 

We then proceeded to deck 12 and again, opened the firedoor, and proceeded all the way aft to the suite lounge where we hung out until noon when Coastal Kitchen opened and we went up for lunch.  By the time we finished lunch the cabins where ready. 

 

Right or wrong I do not know but we just wanted somewhere comfortable to wait until we could get to our room and the suite lounge was the very place we found that.  Of course there was no service or anything other than coffee or tea from the machine available but that's okay, the chairs were wonderful. 

 

 

[DaKahuna]

1 hour ago, George C said:

We like CK fr breakfast and lunch is ok but we get UDP to avoid it for dinner , also like the 40 percent off bottles of wine under a hundred.

 

 We prefer dinner in CK over Breakfast and lunch.  On Oasis and Quantum class we will only book a suite so we can eat in Coastal Kitchen versus booking a balcony and the UDP. 

 

[DaKahuna]

36 minutes ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

There are no college football games being show in any ship venue. Only Baylor vs Oklahoma St is on the cabin TV. I don’t see any NFL games listed as being shown tomorrow. Shameful Royal, just shameful. 

College and Pro games were show in the pub. I don't remember them being advertised but they were there.  Watched Alabama beat Texas, much to the disappointment of many of my fellow cruisers.  Roll Tide, Roll. 

 

 

[Sea Dog]

Looks like a great start. That's unacceptable what happened to you in the CK. I hope it gets better. Loving your review.

[Ozark_Kid]

3 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

After Rock the Room, we stayed in the Two70 Lounge to listen to the Switched On band. They were really good, especially the female lead

singer. Fantastic voice.

That is a good voice.   270 is a favorite place for us.  You might want to try the 270 Breakfast or lunch.   We got to watch them practice for an evening show while eating. 

 

Converted the video. 

 

[#55worktoplay]

Late to the party but all caught up. This is a great review and your pictures are fantastic.

 

You did great on the I-fly. 
 

Sorry that you had crappy weather in Alaska.  
 

I hope Micheline continues to improve with her hip. 

 

Looking forward to more. 
Thanks
 

 

[bobmacliberty]

17 hours ago, DaKahuna said:

College and Pro games were show in the pub. I don't remember them being advertised but they were there.  Watched Alabama beat Texas, much to the disappointment of many of my fellow cruisers.  Roll Tide, Roll. 

 

 

No go in the pub either. They were showing soccer (the other football 😁). There was no one there and I asked the bartender if he could switch to college football. Nope. Not a big deal yesterday since Ohio State easily handled Rutgers but I better not miss my Bills playing today. Go Bills!

[bobmacliberty]

Good morning from somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. It’s day 3 of our second cruise and day 17 of our overall trip.  We gained and an hour last night.  That will happen 2 more times over the next few days. I like this occasional extra hour of sleep, and the fact that we’ll have no jet lag when we get to Hawaii. 
 

Nothing planned for today. The CD told us that the weather should be warm and sunny. My Weather Channel app can’t confirm as it has no idea where we are. We’ll probably enjoy some quiet reading and pool time. 
 

More to come…

[kernow]

Enjoying your updates so far. 

 

Is there any chance you could try to find out what capacity the ship will be sailing at on the Sydney cruises. We are on the 16th Nov cruise for a b2b, check in opened yesterday but still no covid protocols announced.

 

Thanks, hope you continue to have a lovely time. 

[bobmacliberty]

Just now, kernow said:

Enjoying your updates so far. 

 

Is there any chance you could try to find out what capacity the ship will be sailing at on the Sydney cruises. We are on the 16th Nov cruise for a b2b, check in opened yesterday but still no covid protocols announced.

 

Thanks, hope you continue to have a lovely time. 

I’ll see what I can learn. 

[Sea Dog]

Great reporting Bob! What brands of Bourbon are on board? Any top shelf stuff?

[bobmacliberty]

There is some fantastic entertainment on this cruise. We watch Switched On for 30 minutes in Music Hall before the welcome aboard show. I continue to be very impressed with the lead singer. Her voice is just incredible. We’ll watch them several more times. 
 

The welcome aboard show included one song by Ana Alvaredo, the singer/guitarist who is playing in the pub all week. Also an amazing voice. More

on her in a minute. Most of the show was the comedian Mike Pace. He had everyone rolling on the floor. Like many comedians, he did several cruise ship related jokes. He talked about how old the crowd was in last week’s Alaska cruise. My favorite line of the night…”it was like a nursing home that was being run by the cast of Glee”. He has an adult show later in the week. We’ll definitely be in that audience.

 

When then went to Boleros for a drink and to watch some great Latin dancing.  Boleros always seems to be a high energy bar. I wish I could dance like that. We shuffled to the pub to watch Ana perform. 
 

Ana sang some great songs and had the pub singing along. The singer from Switched On was there watching and Ana called her up to sing a song. She belted out Whitney’s  I Will Always Love You. Amazing. I was a little worried that Ana would have to follow that but she then nailed Before He Cheats followed by Hallelujah. Nothing to worry about. She voice is also incredible. I’ll see if I can get some videos of her also. 
 

I converted the below video and it should be viewable by everyone. Let me know if that’s not the case. 
 

 

[bobmacliberty]

30 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Great reporting Bob! What brands of Bourbon are on board? Any top shelf stuff?

I’ve only seen Buffalo Trace and Bulleit, but I haven’t really started looking yet. I would definitely love to see some Angel’s Envy or Elijah Craig like you had. I’ve had too many night time bathroom trips which means I need to transition to an ounces management strategy. Translation…less mixed drinks and more bourbon rocks or neat. 

[Sea Dog]

1 minute ago, bobmacliberty said:

I’ve had too many night time bathroom trips which means I need to transition to an ounces management strategy. Translation…less mixed drinks and more bourbon rocks or neat. 

Sane thing happened to me. Not used to having all those cocktails and frozen drinks. They go right through me. That’s why I never felt drunk all week. Plus the bartenders don’t don’t do heavy pours.

[DaKahuna]

34 minutes ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

A. The singer from Switched On was there watching and Ana called her up to sing a song. She belted out Whitney’s  I Will Always Love You. Amazing. 
 

 

 

 I have always wondered why this is called Whitney's son by most everyone when Dolly Parton wrote and sang it first in 1973 and Whitney did not perform it until 1992.  

 

[aussielozzie18]

Beautiful sunset photos.  Enjoying your review.

[bobmacliberty]

The Top Tier Event was this morning. It was a little awkward. Started as usual with the orchestra playing. I’m always impressed with the Royal orchestras. The CD John Grantham then said a few words of welcome. He introduced Tiela Hagen, the LA, but he never said her name. He just said something like “and here’s your Loyalty Ambassador”. It was almost like he forgot her name. She said a few words and introduced the Hotel Director, who said a few

words and then handed the mic to his Staff Captain. The Staff Captain wasn’t immediately sure what to do and then realized that he was supposed to introduce himself. All of the rest of the Hotel Director’s staff then introduced themselves. The whole thing didn’t really flow

like it usually does, since they’ve done this a thousand times, and there wasn’t much energy.
 

The Captain wasn’t there either, which I thought was unusual. On Harmony, Captain Johnny personally introduced everyone with his “this is the most important person on the ship” schtick. It was great. I guess there aren’t too many captains like Johnny though. 
 

Tiela then went through the numbers and introduced the top cruisers. 
 

Total C&A onboard - “about 1400”

Platinum - 300

Emerald - 116

Diamond - 338

Diamond+ - 230

Pinnacle - 52

 

Two new couples becomes pins but I couldn’t understand their names. Brian and Dale Buckley (I think) hit 1050. 
 

3rd top was Jan something from Norway at 2397

2nd top was Karen Litchenberg at 2733

Top was Lynn Armstrong at 2818

 

Apologies if I messed up any names. Once the recognitions were done, they showed off the capability of the Two70 Theater robots with a performance called Dance in a Box. Very entertaining. Sorry for the early part of the video while I adjusted my grip to get stable video and not block the mics on my phone.

 

[bobmacliberty]

Just now, DaKahuna said:

 

 I have always wondered why this is called Whitney's son by most everyone when Dolly Parton wrote and sang it first in 1973 and Whitney did not perform it until 1992.  

 

Thanks for correction. Micheline actually told me that a few months ago. Maybe she’s right…maybe I don’t listen. 😳. Whitney’s version is obviously famous from The Bodyguard. As Micheline also told me, Dolly has written and produced a lot of songs that other singers have made famous. She’s a lot more than a singing legend. 

[Sea Dog]

I like that Dance in a box. Captain Johnny is the best. Quite a few D’s and D+’s

[bobmacliberty]

Just now, Sea Dog said:

I like that Dance in a box. Captain Johnny is the best. Quite a few D’s and D+’s

Less pins than I expected.