On Quantum now (11/22)

Smart ship or dumb ship? I am a cruiser with 20 prior cruises, mostly RCCL and Princess. I am generally an easy perosn to please, not fussy, willing to accept problems that arise, though as a business owner, I get annoyed easily at mis-management.

I am on Quantum currently with wife, son, daugther-in-law and 2 grandkids, in a family connected suite package (3 rroms). The ship is beautiful throughout, and the cabins are nice and roomy. The 3 room connected package is terrific, with a huge balcony.

The bad things:

1. check-in was slow, due to the "smart" procees they use. My wife and I checked in with a walking check-in agent with an Ipad mini, whose computer crashed after she checked us in, but during the check-in of my son & his family. So they took us all to a conventional checkin counter, and after 10 minutes of trying to complete it, that lady gave up and took us to the pier coordinator, who struggled for 15-20 more minutes, and then with a supervisor, finally got us on our way. Last trip on Oasis was about 5 minutes check-in, I think the smart thing failed us this time.

2. As I said, the rooms are very nice, but you recieve hard cards and wrsitbands, both of which are supposed to open your doors. The hard cards also slide into a slot activating all the lights. Nice, except when the wristband doesn't work (one of our doors didn't work with any of the 6 wrist bands we recieved, so we had to use the hard card). Picture this...my hard card is in the light slot, my wife is in the bathroom. I decide to go out for a drink, take my hard card, and leave. 2 minutes later, all the lights go out, including the bathroom. I had to take my card because my wrsitband doesn't work to let me back in. Smart thing failure #2.

3. My son's family wanted to do the skydive experience. The line to sign up was extremely long and slow...why? Because they had one guy with an Ipad mini signing people up. I'm not sure why a "smart" ship can't have that type of signup done online, but clearly pen & paper would have been faster. Smart thing failure #3

4. Today, we wanted to do the Northstar experience. It's freezing outside, and up on the deck, the wind is blowing. So where do they have us? Lined up on the shady side of the deck (maybe 250 people in line) to sign up for appointments to do Northstar today, again with a guy with an Ipad mini signing everyone up. Unbeleivable! Inside would have been smart, At least the sunny side would have been better. They could have signed us up online, or with pen & paper. Failure #4

5. Went to Chops last night. Food was terrific, great dinner with our entire party. When the waiter was taking our order, he was, you guessed it, using an Ipad mini. Very slow, as he explained he couldn't quite read the fine print options. After taking my order and moving to the next person, I asked to add an appetizer, which screwed up everything, because he had to reverse course, cancel out the order and re-enter it, since he had closed mine out already. I suggested pen & paper, and he wholeheartedly agreed, wished he could. Failure #5

My opinion, they are trying way too hard to be technelogically advanced, when the reality is that this "high-tech" stuff, when done poorly, adds tons of time to your expreince.

Its a great ship, but they need to review how they do things, because from my viewpoint, they've caused unnecessary aggravation for guests, all to attempt to be "smart".

One other complaint...the casino is very high priced, with blackjack tables starting at $50. Crazy. Maybe because its a two night cruise, and they need to make a weeks revenue on 2 nights, not sure, but I've never seen a ship without $10 and $25 tables.

 

One other complaint...the casino is very high priced, with blackjack tables starting at $50. Crazy. Maybe because its a two night cruise, and they need to make a weeks revenue on 2 nights, not sure, but I've never seen a ship without $10 and $25 tables.

What?!! I find that very odd / hard to believe. Was anyone actually playing?

Thanks for your honest assessment thus far. I hope a lot of these issues will be sorted out as the crew gets some weeks under their belt.

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One other complaint...the casino is very high priced, with blackjack tables starting at $50. Crazy. Maybe because its a two night cruise, and they need to make a weeks revenue on 2 nights, not sure, but I've never seen a ship without $10 and $25 tables.

On the way over the tables started at $5

You can use any card in the slot to activate the lights, it doesn't have to be your seapass. I believe someone on the forum used a Holiday Inn card!

You can use any card in the slot to activate the lights, it doesn't have to be your seapass. I believe someone on the forum used a Holiday Inn card!

fold a piece of paper several times into a long / thick piece and stick it in. It'll work as well. Then when you leave the cabin, you can use the door peephole window to hold your piece of paper so you can easily grab using the hallway light it whenever you enter the cabin.

On the way over the tables started at $5

Just off the 3 night, Blackjack started at $15

Just off the 3 night, Blackjack started at $15

Sounds like they jack it up for the short CTNs... $5, perhaps $10 during primetime in the evenings has long been the standard on RC.

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Thanks for the tip on the lights situation. As to the casino, I just went down again, during the day, and there are three blackjack tables open, 2 are at $50 and 1 is at $100. The $200 tables are closed. The three open tables are all full. by the way, Poker is set at $5/10 no limit, which is also high for Texas holdem, usually priced at $1/2. I thought last night they would drop prices during the day, but no, still way too high but people are playing so I guess they see no need to lower them.

On the 3 night sampler, the BJ tables both in the am and pm were $15 a hand. Did not see any $5 BJ tables at all, the casino and the tables were packed every night. Hoping on the longer sailings the BJ minimum amount goes down.

Another high-tech fail - the procedure bartenders must go through to charge for a drink. On all of our prior RCI cruises they would simply swipe your "dumb" card and the entire process would take 3 seconds. Now, apparently, for each drink they must tap in a 10-12 digit code (to log in?), then tap several buttons to ring up your order, then try to place your band or "dumb" card onto the reader, then tap the screen several more times. All in all, the new "smart" process is many times longer and more difficult than the old "dumb" process. Add to it RCI's commitment to spend more money on entertainment (Mamma Mia, Starwater) means less money for bartenders. Much less efficient.

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Another high-tech fail - the procedure bartenders must go through to charge for a drink. On all of our prior RCI cruises they would simply swipe your "dumb" card and the entire process would take 3 seconds. Now, apparently, for each drink they must tap in a 10-12 digit code (to log in?), then tap several buttons to ring up your order, then try to place your band or "dumb" card onto the reader, then tap the screen several more times. All in all, the new "smart" process is many times longer and more difficult than the old "dumb" process. Add to it RCI's commitment to spend more money on entertainment (Mamma Mia, Starwater) means less money for bartenders. Much less efficient.

 

 

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I'm on board now and haven't experienced that. I've used my sea pass and wrist band and it's swiped/scanned very quickly. :cool:

I was on the 3 night. When you book an inaugural cruise, you have to expect glitches. They are still working out the kinks. We found that people got aggravated too easily. Make sure you attend the Captain's Q&A session, and you will see they are still working out things like reservations with the Northstar and iFly (one issue is how to make reservations work if the Northstar goes down for a few hours - this happened on our cruise because the oil used in the hydraulics kept getting too cold)

Wristbands didn't work for us so we just used our regular Sea Passes. We kept another card inserted in the slot in the room for the entire trip.

The light thing sounds annoying. Is it all it nothing as far as keeping the lights on? We like to keep the bathroom light in when we sleep. Should we just bring a little light to plug in?

The light thing sounds annoying. Is it all it nothing as far as keeping the lights on? We like to keep the bathroom light in when we sleep. Should we just bring a little light to plug in?

The bathroom light actually has a night light component. It doesn't totally go off. Part of it sort of glows during the night.

The light thing isn't as annoying as it sounds. Just put your Sea Pass in the slot when you are in the room, and all the lights and the a/c will work fine. If you want the a/c to stay on when you leave the room, or want to avoid the situation the previous poster found himself in, then either ask for an extra key at guest services or bring something (like a loyalty card from CVS) to keep in the slot at all times.

The bathroom light actually has a night light component. It doesn't totally go off. Part of it sort of glows during the night.

 

The light thing isn't as annoying as it sounds. Just put your Sea Pass in the slot when you are in the room, and all the lights and the a/c will work fine. If you want the a/c to stay on when you leave the room, or want to avoid the situation the previous poster found himself in, then either ask for an extra key at guest services or bring something (like a loyalty card from CVS) to keep in the slot at all times.

Agreed. I used my hotel key card from the Embassy. :cool:

We had no trouble checking in. We were checked-in in 15 minutes and then after a brief wait were on ship in another 15. Arrived at 10:15 and were on ship by 11am. Had a few glitches with wristband in shops but card always worked, no biggie. Wristband always worked to open cabin door. Yes, any type of card works in the light slot. They need to work on North Star hydraulic fluid in cold weather. They did a nice job wait listing us when it went down. Took our names and got on in the second batch the next day. Going behind the scenes and really talking to the crew, seeing how hard they are working and how much pride they take really gives me new appreciation for this ship.

What?!! I find that very odd / hard to believe. Was anyone actually playing?

 

Thanks for your honest assessment thus far. I hope a lot of these issues will be sorted out as the crew gets some weeks under their belt.

 

 

 

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Was on the 2 night as well. BJ started at $50, 100 and even $200 minimums! One baccarat table, ready for this, table minimum $300!!!!! And the confusing part there were 2/3 tables not being used. Roulette and craps $10.

Friday night the all the tables were packed, even the Baccarat.

Just a clarification, Royal Caribbean was using Thinkpads for check in and at the restaurants not iPads (The iPads would probably have worked much better) It took us all of 10 minutes to arrive at the port check in and be on the ship but they were having some problems with the tablets they were using.

We had booked our reservation at Chops before we left and they didn't have the reservation in the system and they told us it was book so they would refund the money charged to our Sea Pass Card then we would have to go to Guest Services to get the cash.

The wristbands didn't work so well at the bars because they had to press the chip in the card on a "pad" and it was only near the restaurant. They seemed to prefer the cards since the if you got drink packages there were stickers on the cards. Also the casino bar never ran the cards through their register so it went much quicker ordering there.

Was on the 2 night as well. BJ started at $50, 100 and even $200 minimums! One baccarat table, ready for this, table minimum $300!!!!! And the confusing part there were 2/3 tables not being used. Roulette and craps $10.

Guess they forgot the ship's not in China yet !