QUANTUM Dec 1-11, 2014 REVIEW w/lots of photos

L O L !!!! :eek: No freakin' way!! :p

 

 

 

Haha, I just knew that the guy with the massive camera hanging around his neck probably knew a little bit about shutter speeds, let alone framing and keeping the camera straight ;)

 

 

 

Seriously though, thank you sparkx. I already placed this photo in my top 100 folder from all over the world and RCL ships, and have shown it to several people. Got you to thank for it :D:D:D I can just imagine how pro your photos are... you should come back here and do a photo tour

Not a problem! Always happy to help, I'm glad it came out so well! I'll be uploading all of mine soon with a review of sorts so watch out for it! I've gotten about halfway through them so far!

I noticed you caught all the commercial filming on the pool deck in your North Star photos ... I'm one of the poor souls who am sat in it!

Keep the photos coming!

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Loving the review! Was there storage space under the bed in your cabin to store a suitcase(s)?

Thanks!

Loving the review! Was there storage space under the bed in your cabin to store a suitcase(s)?

Thanks!

Yep, 26" suitcase and backpack under the bed, easy to get 2 suitcases down there if you needed (ie. carry-on plus suitcase). Closet and storage was just right for a solo, hung my suit and dress pants, shirts just right.... any more clothes and it would've been tight... two sets of clothes for two people 100% impossible imo

Thank you for the amazing review. It's great to read it from the perspective of someone traveling solo (which I do often)! It's also great to see such an upbeat positive tone and that you found so much good to say about this ship. With as much new technology as they are pushing forward on this ship it didn't surprise me that there would be many tech issues and teething problems, but it sounds like day by day they are resolving them and refining the overall guest experience.

You're welcome :D. Yep, gotta have fun and be super happy when you're on any amazing vacation and incredible new ship, regardless of any small issues :D

I'll be uploading all of mine soon with a review of sorts so watch out for it! I've gotten about halfway through them so far!

 

I noticed you caught all the commercial filming on the pool deck in your North Star photos ... I'm one of the poor souls who am sat in it!

Oh yes, I'm assuming your photography is professional or extremely good hobby photo quality. Would love to see them, I'll be looking out for it.

Ah!!! So you're going to be famous in one of the RCL promos lol?? They asked me too but I was booked on IFly one day and then something else another, I didn't want to bother.

For those of you reading this review, there were two filming groups on board. The first was an RCL film crew that got off in St. Kitts day 8. They were filing a new promo for RCL which was a promo for the entire fleet, not just Q. The new promo spot will obviously feature the brand new Q over all other ships. I asked one of the film crew about this. It will be an international promo, so maybe something you'd see in your cabin? On the web? etc.

The 2nd film crew was there the entire cruise. They were from Discovery Channel. I got to talk to a couple of the guys several times as they were staying in the balcony cabins on deck 12 on the way to the CL. Maybe some of you did as well. I didn't have a long chat so if any of you have any info, please post here. I assume that this will be a full hour show like the Oasis had when first built and on it's first cruise. I've seen the Oasis show several times on Discovery so hopefully this sailing will be the one featured for Discovery in the next few months! :)

As mentioned, my San Juan excursion was the evening Old Town and Beaches Bicycle Tour. Unlike my Serenade tour where I spent a ton of time reviewing the ports, I'm not going to do that here as we're all here to learn about the ship. I'll touch on my excursions and day activity in each port hopefully in one post, longer days in 2 posts (so 12 pics max)

The bike tour was extremely well run. Once all participants gathered by the tour guide, we were escorted walking down the promenade maybe abut 4-5 blocks to the rental bike shop. The bikes are a little hokey as they only have a front wheel hand brake plus a rear wheel foot brake by pedaling backwards, and then of course the little ringing bell on the handle bars... but this added to the charm of the tour

I think they mentioned the entire trip was a little over 12 kms (maybe about 8'ish miles) and it did last until approx 8pm. The last hour of our ride was in pitch darkness and we had little flashing lights placed on our bikes forward and back. Two guides followed us around to ensure we stayed in a pack and to direct traffic with flags (kinda like a police cavalcade escorting the president to the white house... stopping traffic at various cross streets to allow us through first)

We rode up the hill first to the beach, then over the floating bridge connecting Old Town to the Condado area. Here's a pic of Condado with the beaches and resorts in the background that some of you will likely recognize. Our tour guide was a cutie so had to get a selfie with her lol

We were also taken to a night spot, a square called the Plaza de Mercado. It's a huge market by day, but there's little bars and restaurants all around with many locals enjoying their evening. We were served a fruit smoothie for free at one of the kiosk bars. The salsa was playing so "cutie" kinda challenged in her description of the square that we should get into the mood and do some salsa... how can I resist? I grabbed her and turned her, did a couple of bars of salsa and they were all impressed with the foreigner gringo lol! That was a nice stop. We stopped at various places, and of course with night photography and being on the bike, not all my photos are the best, but I do have a decent memory of this tour.

Out of 10 I would rate this as a 7. I am spoiled having had unbelievable bucket-list once on a lifetime excursions all over the world in recent years (latest in Sept in the Med) so maybe I'm a bit unfair with this rating being a little low. For reference:

4 and lower = unaccepteable

5 = just passable

6 = average (prob won't remember what I did 10 yrs from now)

7 = pretty good

8 = excellent (very memorable)

9 = incredible!!! I will rave about it to others

10 = The best ever, cannot be matched

So in my view, 7 is fair. I feel this could be a real issue for some parents going through the streets at night. I can tell you there were two families in this excursion, one with a younger boy (maybe 10?) and he had no problems. It was fun for them as the entire family young and old were able to experience the city together in a fun way.

I also wish to thank the Puerto Rican community regarding the drivers... not once were we cut off or given a dirty look with our slow group holding up traffic. There was not one time when the flag went out to stop traffic that they tried to speed up or pull ahead of us. They were very respectful all over the city no matter what street or intersection we encountered. I was really impressed by that. So for those of you driving around that night to get a few of the ship with that mess of traffic, thank you very much :)

We made it back to the rental place after about 3 1/2 hours (so about 7-7'ish I guess??) but not after having to get off our bikes in old town... MASSIVE amounts of people with Q & Gem in town, but also all the locals trying to drive by to get a peak of Q, let alone half of Old Town blocked off for a huge food festival! Festive atmosphere for those walking around that night. Once I dropped off the bike I headed back down the promenade toward the ship.

Thanks so much for your quick response regarding storage space. Looking forward to more of your great review.

I got to the front entrance of the ship and decided it was too early for me to get back on (about 2 hours until all aboard), so I just kept on walking! I've been to San Juan twice for a full day, so I do remember Old Town very well and it's an incredibly easy and excellent city to walk around on your own. You can easily walk to pier area all the way around by the fountain and promenade to the San Juan gate, through the street past the Statue of Christopher Columbus (at the column and fountains), past the old cemetery to the San Felipe Del Morro Fort... all of this in about 1/2-45 min incl taking pictures. Very easy, and this is the second time I walked it at night.

Old San Juan is beautiful and I really recommend those of you who sail on Adventure or Jewel maybe get there a day early (ie. arrive early or late afternoon) so you have the evening and next morning before boarding to tour Old Town

I walked a good hour, up to the fort and back down a different way through the streets passing by the Cathedral, the Government building and other areas I remembered. I got back around 8pm'ish to the front of the pier and headed on in, but not before taking one of my favorite pictures of the whole cruise.....

I tried to experience different things on board when I can rather than doing the same thing over and over and over again as so many people seem to do. Sailaway was no different. I had mentioned previously that I was so not impressed with the design of this ship facing forward as far as sitelines and views, but I was determined to try and experience at least one sail-in or sailaway from the forward wings above the bridge, and having previous pics of San Juan both coming and going I know I could chance this sailway.

My lunch meal at Jamie's was planned to be my big meal for the day, but I was hungry enough now and I want to mention I had my first quick dinner in the Windjammer and it was very busy... makes sense since many people had just come back into the ship after a late port stop and probably didn't want to bother getting changed for a dinner venue. I was drawn to the Asian section with currys, thai noodles, etc... I have to say for what I put on my plate it was much better quality than the Windjammers I remember on other ships. It would be interesting to hear other's opinions, but I can't remember hearing others complaining about the Windjammer like I seem to hear on other ships. I really enjoyed my dinner on the aft outdoor deck... beautiful!

But I was determined to get up to the wings for sailaway. There were already maybe 10 people on both wings, and I chose the wing closest to the pier (starboard) as that would also be the side facing the fort as we turn the corner to sailaway. With the glass being over your head, decent picture taking is impossible unless you get a spot where you can view between the 4-5 inch slots between the glass and stick your camera out. Pain in the butt! I took this shot from that forward wing looking down into Old San Juan

I then moved facing toward the back of the ship, and through the slots of the glass I took this shot as we began pulling away. Note the gentleman on his own balcony right beside me!!! Lol, ZERO privacy if you have one of these forward cabins so be forwarned

Once I viewed the ship pulling out, every other 4-5 inch slot was taken by other cruisers/photographers, so if I had pulled away from my spot I would've immediately lost it. Basically, it seemed I was forced to view sailaway in in that rear facing direction. I stayed there regardless as sailaway past the fort as we turned the corner would only take 15-20 min and I didn't want to miss it, but I knew I would never do sail-in or sailway from the wings again. Terrible view through the glass and not enough room for people imho. More importantly for me, the sitelines were limited in only one direction... top deck I can look around me 360degrees for example.

Wow! So that was a long day already and we have an early morning date in St Maarten tomorrow. There were no scheduled shows this evening with the 9:30pm all aboard, but there was the standard nightly entertainment all over the ship, including one of my favorite hangouts Boleros. Unannounced, the RCL orchestra horn section was in there with the Latin band and it was awesome!! I can't remember who I hung out with that night but there were always a few friends in there. I didn't last long though as I wanted to enjoy my day in St. Maarten so it was bedtime by midnight'ish.

love this posting and the photographs are wonderful. anxious for our cruise in April

Hi Claudio! Great review and awesome pictures!! Wish we were back on... So nice meeting you! Can't wait for the rest of your review!

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Loving the review & photos, thank you.

We are on the Quantum in April 15

Michelle & Carlo

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Oh yes, I'm assuming your photography is professional or extremely good hobby photo quality. Would love to see them, I'll be looking out for it.

 

 

 

Ah!!! So you're going to be famous in one of the RCL promos lol?? They asked me too but I was booked on IFly one day and then something else another, I didn't want to bother.

 

 

 

For those of you reading this review, there were two filming groups on board. The first was an RCL film crew that got off in St. Kitts day 8. They were filing a new promo for RCL which was a promo for the entire fleet, not just Q. The new promo spot will obviously feature the brand new Q over all other ships. I asked one of the film crew about this. It will be an international promo, so maybe something you'd see in your cabin? On the web? etc.

 

 

 

The 2nd film crew was there the entire cruise. They were from Discovery Channel. I got to talk to a couple of the guys several times as they were staying in the balcony cabins on deck 12 on the way to the CL. Maybe some of you did as well. I didn't have a long chat so if any of you have any info, please post here. I assume that this will be a full hour show like the Oasis had when first built and on it's first cruise. I've seen the Oasis show several times on Discovery so hopefully this sailing will be the one featured for Discovery in the next few months! :)

If only! It's just a hobby which generally focuses around the ships when I'm on or near them tbh! I do a bit of micro-blogging on Twitter too.

I'm eagerly awaiting the commercial, it could go one of a few ways ;) there will be a Chinese and American version of the ad, but I'm assuming both will be on YouTube ...

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Nice job on this review Claudio! You did more than we did on this cruise and thank heaven for that! We are able to live vicariously through you. Stan and I enjoyed all your pics. He was happy about the one on North Star out to the side of the ship because we never did get to do that.

Thanks also for the nice comments about the two of us. Stan says "hi".

Noelle

Hi Claudio! Great review and awesome pictures!! Wish we were back on... So nice meeting you! Can't wait for the rest of your review!

 

 

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Hey PhilNDebbie! Yes, great meeting you guys as well.... Aloha in Sept ;):D

Nice job on this review Claudio! You did more than we did on this cruise and thank heaven for that! We are able to live vicariously through you. Stan and I enjoyed all your pics. He was happy about the one on North Star out to the side of the ship because we never did get to do that.

 

Thanks also for the nice comments about the two of us. Stan says "hi".

 

Noelle

Hey Noelle!! Awesome hearing from you. Yep, I've always been active and busy on all my cruises. Love trying to do everything. Too bad you missed the NorthStar at the side, that was one of the highlites for me. I know this wasn't your best cruise for a few reasons and that you wouldn't really care for another Q cruise anytime soon... as expected class act for your comments above knowing your cruise wasn't as positive as my experience. You guys really are the best and it'll will be such a blast to meet up day 1 on Legend yes? :D I'll be looking for Stan in the CL with glasses on!! lol :cool:

I know you had a real issue with sea sickness and the movement of the ship which kept you inside/resting on some days. I know you had a midship balcony lower on deck 7, but you still felt the movement quite a bit for your liking. I was on deck 7 in my interior as well and it didn't bother me, but never does as I'm good with motion

I'll mention now for this review, and I heard this specifically from 2 seasoned cruisers, that they feel the ship moves much more than the other classes in equivalent sea conditions. Granted there were several days we had 5-6m swells (15-20 feet), these two D+/PN members were in forward balconies, one on deck 12 the other on 13 I believe, and they claim to have never felt as much movement from forward cabins as they have on this vessel. On the all access tour, it was asked to Lauren (2nd officer I believe?) about the movement and she didn't feel there was anything different... at the time she told us only one of the stabilizers were deployed and was working correctly. During the Captain's Corner (was it Capt Corner or another bridge tour??? can't remember) , this was asked to Capt. Srecko and he said during sea trials the ship was given 15% rudder at close to full speed 22 knots, and the ship did not even list 4% which he said is unheard of... he feels Q is one of the most stable in the fleet.

I set my alarm early for today so that I can watch the sail-in to St. Maarten. Sure enough, no time for the gym this morning with 8am call time at the pier, so I had assumed we'd be close to land at 7am... I could see on my virtual balcony just that, so I quickly headed up to the CL to say hi to Mario, grab my coffee, and get up to top deck.

Since I was top deck, I thought to myself I'd give the front of the ship another shot to see what daytime photos and view would look like... if you remember last night's sailaway from San Juan I wasn't impressed at all with pictures from the wing. So I walked forward past the elevator/pool entrance towards the front of the ship. This is clearly shot of the height of the glass with the photographer there pushing his way through the slots to get a good shot

Where the two gentlemen above are standing are pretty much as far forward you can go to see anything at all... as you go around the corner of the jogging track the wall extends upwards quickly and you have no view at all (I posted pictures of the area day 1). Here is the view of St Maarten right beside those two gentlemen... quite disappointing imo as the Solarium Glass takes away so much.

I decided I wasn't going to hang out there any longer as we approached so I walked back downstairs and through the Solarium. I stopped at the front windows. If you're not into viewing sail-ins or sailaways outside, then this is the premium spot to enjoy sail-in and sailaways for sure with the front of the ship vantage point.

But this was not my goal, so having decided I didn't want to hang out top deck forward, nor the Solarium, nor the aft end of the ship, I decided to quickly go out on the wing again like last night and see if my experience this morning was better with regard to the views.

This was a better experience today. The focus of sail-in was this port side of he ship as the starboard side was strictly sea facing away from St. Maarten. If you were to stay in your starboard balcony this entire morning, you would not have seen any of this whatsoever until Quantum was rotated and backed into the pier.

I took the shot below from the wing looking back down the port side of the ship. As mentioned on day 2 during the cabin crawl, not the indent midship of the balcony cabins above the life boats... exactly like Radiance Class, except Radiance has the white cover over top the life boats.

And I just had to take this second shot of how close the front balconies are to the wings (and bridge for that matter) with regard to privacy. Last night's picture may not have shown my point regarding the lack of privacy, but this one should be crystal clear

Q had begun to rotate as she would be backed into the pier. I took this shot of the ships in port with us that day from left to right: Celebrity - Constellation ("Connie"), P&O Azura, and RCL Adventure of the Seas

Here's a close® up of Adventure. It was interesting to see how many cruisers were standing at the railings of these two ships watching the Q pull in... quite a fan fare.

And lastly a close up of Connie... I have good memories on her as she's the only X ship I have sailed (Turkey & Greece).

We were docked so I went back to my cabin to get my backpack ready to head out for the day. The ship was cleared and it was easy debarkation this morning. I was able to take the following two great shots of the Quantum aft, whereby you can really differentiate the various decks from Two70, the 2 level Grand Loft suites decks 8 and 10, the CL deck 12, Conference Center deck 13, the open Windjammer seating are deck 14 and finally the open seating area facing IFly on deck 15

And here's the Azura and Adventure again from this angle on land

For those of you who have never ported in St. Maarten, it's a nice size reception area with plenty of shops, etc and easy to find your way around with clear signage to taxi's, the excursion buses, anything you need. I found my way through port no problem at all in easily less than 5 minutes and out to the main gates alongside many others who were walking to town

I was booked for a private excursion with Soualiga & Capt. Bob. I had been to Maho beach to watch the planes land at Princess Julianna twice before so I wanted to try a more all inclusive total island experience this time. Pulling up Tripadvisor, these guys were the #1 rated so I read a few reviews of their tour and booked. Capt Bob got back to me personally very quickly by email to confirm everything... all was good. There is a very clear map and explanation how to find his boats at the Marina on line, it was max a 15 min walk from the ship to the Marina just down the street from the main entrance of the pier. For reference, here's the Marina point looking back at Quantum so you can see how far it is... as a straight walk it would've been maybe 10 blocks tops.

And here's Capt Bob himself registering everyone and dividing up groups into several boats. Note our boat only had 9 people, max was 10. Lots of space and personal attention, very nice sized group. The Capt and group leader of our boat was the young guy with the white glasses, Radek from Czechoslovakia

As mentioned, I'll try to keep my excursion experiences to a minimum as the ship itself is the main focus of this review. I will say that this tour is truly excellent. We did not have good weather at all, and I remember mentioning that had it been a sunny hot day this tour would've been a 10/10 in my books. Here we go leaving the Marina with Q in the background.

We had a good 1 hour sail around the island, past a MASSIVE yacht owned my the 2nd richest man in the world (forgot his name/Russian), through canals and bridges, viewing various areas of St Maarten from the Dutch side to the French. It's worth mentioning that about 3 weeks before this tour (so about 5 weeks ago now) a major storm hit St. Maarten that they were not prepared for nor expected... it just came about suddenly. The worse thing is that is developed hurricane winds for about 2 hours and St. Maarten was the center point. There are many overturned boats, both private and commercial, beached on the sand, overturned in the water, etc.

We did hit a few pockets of sun here and there as Capt Radek adjusted the tour to try to stay away from rain as much as possible, then double back later in the day to do whatever we miss in the morning. Here we are sailing by the French capital Marigot on our way to our first snorkel spot

We passerd the north shore and surfers with Anguilla not very far away, and got to our snorkel site which was supposed to have plenty of turtles to view. Unfortunately according to Radek, the waters were abnormal cloudy with poor visibility. We had about 20-25min there and didn't see much at all. A couple of turtles did come up to breathe, and when we tried to find them they were gone in the murky water. I did get a glimpse of what I thought was a small shark, but it was a barracuda according to Radek, he knew right away when I started explaining the tail and fins. It was below me, and slowly swam away from me into the darkness, but I figured it was minimum 3 feet long.

We left this snorkel site for some beach time at a local island spot just off shore. I forget the name of this place but it's famous for Iguanas... as you will soon see! Radek dropped anchor about 50 away from the beach and we had to jump out and walk our way onto the beach from afar

This is a gorgeous place. Here I ma looking back at the Radek's boat... there were two boats there from Soualiga at this time. You can also get an idea of the cloud/storm we were trying to avoid that had been following us to this side of the island as we outrun it!

And as you step in and away from the beach at this spot, you follow the signs to the Iguanas. There's a map of the island there as well and you can see you can take a little walk all the around it. I would've loved to have done that but we had only 30 minutes here... I spent 29 min with the Iguana's lol

Turning the corner right at the boat/map in the picture above, you see probably about 30-40 Iguana's right there and all around!

These little critters weren't scared of anything, and obviously knowing they get fed every once in a while. They come and go, more come out of the bushes and down from the rocks as others leave. Personally I've never seen so many all in one spot.

The bunch of us there played around with these guys for a long time as everyone was taking pictures. It's too bad we didn't have anything to feed them. More and more Iguana's started coming out of the bushes from the hiding spots or homes I gather, but a few of us noticed right away this behemoth as he made his way down!!

What a suck! Everyone oooh'd and aaah'd at this thing as other Iguana's moved to the side making a path for him (or her). So we all gathered to check it out and the first brave soul tried to get close.. after it twitched a bit, the petting started, and he closed his eyes to enjoy the massage just like a cat lol! What a hoot

Time was running very short and I wanted to get at least glimpse of what else was offered here... very little. It's strictly an extremely quiet beach with excellent swimming. There's a small bar on the other side and another strip of loungers/beach as shown below facing the boats we had come on. Bit now it was time to move on so away I went.

My DH and I were on the bridge tour with you but, unfortunately, didn't get to meet you. I'm enjoying reliving the cruise via your wonderful review and pics. Thanks for sharing! :)

The rest of the day was very enjoyable also as we continued to outrun the rain, we never got it! It was lunchtime, and the cost also included an excellent lunch here at this beach... I wish I could remember the name of this town but I can't. If anyone knows, please do post it

The lunch was chicken or fish, and I'm so glad I got the fish... it was a nice piece of grilled Mahi Mahi done perfectly, a really good lunch. There was a bar there also (not free) but I asked the bartender to make me whatever he wanted that the island was known for. I should've known he was going to pull out the Guavaberry and made me this smoothy. As I walked away from the bar everyone asked me what it was... pretty soon the bartender had a line-up of people ordering Guavaberry smoothies! lol

After lunch we headed to a snorkel site off shore. This was much better than the first site we stopped at this morning but no turtles to be found here. The water was clear and there was more variety of fishes for sure. We had a good 45 minutes available to us here and there's lots to see underwater.

Were getting close to the end of our excursion, so we got back on and Capt Radek made his way around the island as we passed a gorgeous area of the island for the rich & famous with beautiful private homes that look like resorts. And of course what's a trip to St. Maarten without at least a cameo at Maho Beach. Earlier in the day we could see a 747 coming in far in the distance that would've been a thrill to see, so I'm sure someone from the Quantum sailing would've been there... if that's you, please please post it!! I only got to see this... a little turboprop coming in for a landing, and he was way high up compared to most landings I have seen there so not exciting at all.

Soon after this, we had made our way full circle around the island and back to the marina. As mentioned, without prejudice to the weather we had, this could've been a 10/10 excursion (memorable, one of the best in the Caribbean) in gorgeous sunny & warmer weather, would've been a perfect blend of relaxing in the shade of the boat, full speed throttle several times, excellent snorkelling with clearer water, iguanas, etc. A very nice way to see the whole island in a day. I think kids would have a total ball on this trip. Oh by the way, all the beer/pop/water you wanted was free. Thank you Soualiga.

My DH and I were on the bridge tour with you but, unfortunately, didn't get to meet you. I'm enjoying reliving the cruise via your wonderful review and pics. Thanks for sharing! :)

Ah, were you on day 3 as well? Sean was taking us around? They were really awesome up there weren't they... I thought for sure they'd limit us somewhat to what we were allowed to take pictures of, especially the control room in behind and walking in and out of there. Thank you for your kind words, glad you're enjoying this :)

So this was a full day tour... I was off the ship immediately when it was cleared and now I have about 45 min to get back there for "all aboard". No problem, plenty of fellow cruisers were walking the street as well getting back to the pier.

I went to my cabin to put away my stuff. Here's a hint for you all. Everyone... and I mean everyone!... goes to the immediate close elevators once through the security area. As you know, there's normally 20-30 people any given time waiting for an elevator. Well, all you have to do is cross I-95 (the usual crew pathway) to the same elevators just on the other side. I did that each day at port. No one followed me, I had an elevator to myself ;)

So once I dropped my stuff off, I headed top deck to check out sailaway. I suspected the other ships would be leaving before us as well since we had a 6pm departure time. Turns out Connie had just pulled away when I took this panorama

Better yet, Northstar was in full motion throughout the day. Now coming in late from shore I had assumed that it would be likely many fellow cruisers getting on board before me would've have gone to the line in order to book a time slot and receive a ticket, thus everything would be booked. But just for the heck of it I went over and checked in... there was maybe a 20min wait!!!! No brainer, I booked it and stood right there and waited the short time to get on

I was booked after the next ride, but it looks like a couple of people decided to miss their appointment time, so I was asked to go ahead early. Having waited an excruciating 10 min (add sarcasm please lol) instead of 20 minutes, of course I said yes and went on in. For those of you with mobility issues, I took this shot of the exit side of Northstar showing the handicap elevator if you require it. I must admit if I had needed it personally, I would've been extremely mad at missing a chance at Northstar as it was unoperational for most of the cruise I believe.

Up we go... there's Connie just having left port 10-15 min ago.

And here's a great shot of St. Maarten as we rise up

I don't know why, but the glare of the glass was way worse for these photos than my previous couple of times up Northstar, perhaps from the sunset or angle of light, I'm not sure. However, this is a good shot looking down on the Adventure

And finally another one of my favorite photos of this cruise, just a cool photo imo as Connie sails off into the horizon

It's interesting to note that the activity staff... same staff that run Florider, Seaplex, pool games, etc... run the Northstar! Yep, here are the controls. I don't think pressing that really big red button will ever be a good idea unless you really REALLY have to