TonRin

I will add to this as I did a cruise on Quantum earlier this year. You're right they do charge because they don't have enough time to give all 4000+ passengers a ride during the cruise because most cruises are shorter. However even on the 8-night cruise they still charged for it. What's worse is the duration of the Northstar ride is shorter than normal as advised to me by the crew on the day and they will not swing it out over the side of the ship as shown in the promotional pictures. Straight up and down only, apparently due to wind factors whilst at sea.

I did it, and paid for it, I wouldn't bother doing it again.

I-Fly though, my wife enjoyed the experience and it was worth the money I think.

Hope this helps!

Ok, for food...

Windjammer - Overall the food was great. Always a good selection and plenty of it. They would refill most times if you were looking at it and it was getting empty. Wait staff are super friendly and will help you find seats if needed! Desert bar was always stocked up. The highlight were the Chocolate Chip Cookies. They were amazing! Freshly baked and unbelievable... You have to get in quick though as the Chinese grab platefuls of them to take back to their rooms. Don't miss out! You will thank me!

The Grande - Food was great. Escargot here in garlic butter same as most ships I think. Most other usual items were here. Treat this as your usual MDR experience.

American Icon - Has a burger on the menu and some pistachio encrusted salmon which is pretty awesome. It was all very nice. Calamari entree was nice too. The Salted Caramel desert is yummy! Don't miss it!

Silk & Chic - We didn't eat dinner in either of these unfortunately so can't really elaborate on them at all!

Coastal Kitchen - Usually for suite guests with Gold cards only, we had no issues with our Junior Suite Silver card getting in here for any meals. breakfast, lunch or dinner were usually just walk right in. They do say that at dinner, Gold card guests get priority but It was never more than 3/4's full anytime we went there! Food was great again! Service is also awesome!

Kung Fu Panda Noodle bar - We tried it, it was ok! Wouldn't rave about it. It is in the open so on a cold day is a bit windy with no doors! Doesn't cost much but Windjammer is just around the corner with a better assortment and no charge!

Wonderland - It is definitely an experience worth trying! Food is weird to say the least! Liquid Olives, Liquefied Lobster all pretty crazy but tasty. The beef shank was huge and easily could feed two people. The meat just fell off the bone, better then I had ever seen before! Whilst most of the portions are small, the mains are pretty big and it will fill you up pretty easily! The Pistachio Ice cream is worth the wait too!

SeaPlex Doghouse - great for a quick snack. Cony Island Hot Dog is pretty standard.. Great with onion and ketchup! pretty standard!

As for having a drink:

Michael's Pub - Will almost always be empty unless there are an unusual amount of Westerners on board. Good place to go for a quiet drink really!

Music Hall - If you want to have a laugh, go here for the Karaoke session. You will think that Elvis has returned and is singing Mandarin! They go nuts.. Your ears will hurt after a little while though!

Schooner Bar - Another great bar to go for a quiet drink most of the time. Go there late at night and say hi to Laby the pianist from Malaysia. He's really very good at playing and singing and has no problems with most requests. He can also sing songs from many different languages, mandarin, filipino, malaysian, english, japanese etc...

Pool Bars - As it was pretty cold on both our cruises, the pool bars were closed most of the time. The Solarium bar was open but again, alot of Chinese don't go there to drink so it's usually pretty deserted!

Casino - Unless you really need to go there, I would say give it a wide berth. Like being in an ashtray. Good for a quick look and amazing how some people can blow money like that but each to their own I guess! High Rollers room is near the Music Hall. Also pretty ordinary unless you have oodles of cash at your disposal!

Hope this helps a bit! Food overall on the ship was excellent. We never had a bad meal. Sure the buffet is crowded, but it can be like that on other ships too I guess!

One last thing, Don't miss going to the wings above the bridge for a great look at the side of the ship. Located at the front edges of the Solarium, the doors are heavy but they are small open decks for a look see!

Enjoy..

Cheers

Just doing a B2B on Quantum in Asia now and on turnaround day, breakfast was served until 8:30am only. We didnt have to disembark in Shanghai but we did have to go down to the gangway, clock out and back in again. We were lead by a staff member before and passengers were let off.. Pools were open but that was about it. No bars, no food! It seem deserted. Yours may be different. I even got moved on by a staff member who was fogging the prominade. Have fun on your B2B.. Cheers

We are on the Quantum right now on our way back to Shanghai to complete the 5 day Busan and Fukuoka cruise. We also completed the 8 day cruise to Hiroshma, Tokyo & Kobe aswell B2B. Everything Emgee says is absoltuely correct! Be prepared to give a little space to the Chinese people but be some what assertive and push back with a smile sometimes. They will not be offended at all and somewhat expect it actually. This will be very evident when exiting the lifts! Also be prepared to squeeze an extra 4 family members onto the lifts when to us it is already well over full! They will try! The sales on the promonade are the most amazing acts of agilty you will see from people. How some older ladies can squeeze there way into grab a cheap watch is spectacular! Watch from the 5th floor balcony for a great laugh. Be careful if you are carrying coffee around. Also plan your shows well and plan to arrive atleast 1hr early if you want a really good seat as they fill up fast!

Hiroshima - The full day tour to Miyajima Island and the A-Bomb dome doesnt give you alot of time at each. You will get about 1 hr at Miyajima Island and it would probably take at least 2 hrs to comfortably walk around it and see it properly! You will fell a bit rushed, but it is very nice to see. The Dome is eerily inspiring knowing its history. The walk around the parks that surrpund it were very nice. The Museum is a little disheartening and not for the faint hearted. Some pretty dreary images in there. Again only about 1 hr or here. If I had the choice again, I would do the A-Bomb dome and look around the city more from there. Miyajima Island while nice, was just a ferry ride with a shrine and some deer roaming around. Very clean spot except the toilets there.

Tokyo / Yokohama - We didnt do any cruise excursions here. We got to the train station and caught the bullet train down to Odawara where we grabbed a guide and went to see Mt. Fuji and Lake Ashi. Unfortunaltey it was an overcast day so we only got the bottom two thirds of Mt. Fuji, but we did get to play in the snow near Lake Ashi for a few hours and then had a great lunch in a small Japanese restauruant on the edge of Lak Ashi. Beautiful scenery. I am suprised RCCI doesnt organise a tour to this area! It is about a 2 1/2 drive back to Yokohama though so your time there is limited!

Kobe - We got the free shuttle into the city and probably wasted about 5 hours just looking around the open malls there. They are huge! We had dinner of Kobe Beef (Very famous) at a small restaurant just near the entrance to China Town. Be prepared to pay for it as its not cheap but tepinyaki style was great for a group of 10 of us and atleast we can say we tried it! It is extremly nice beef by the way, only small!!!!

Fukuoka - Again we did our own thing today. We got a cab into the city centre (Canal City Shopping Centre) and then walked around from there to about 10 different shrines and temples close by and some parkes to try and see the Cherry Blossoms. We saw a few but we probably needed another day or two to see them all blooming.. Missed it by that much!

The Quantum is an amazing ship. Have your pedomoter ready as it very big! The four main dining restaurants are all worth a try. The food was great.. Windjammer food was quite good too we found. Whilst it did get busy if you just delay your timing by 30 mins or so from opening time, it filtered out pretty quick and there was space to move! The staff there (Georgia and Iowan - Both Head Waiters) were great and were happy to help out with anything you need). Watch for the Chinese taking copious amounts of cookies and fruit! Where it goes, I have no idea!!!

JR (Bartender - Music Hall) and Roberto (Bartender - Michaels Pub) were also great. The staff will almost fight over you when they see your a Westerner. They will always say Hi and be happy to have a small convo with you. They do not get that much with the Chinese. Even the Chinese staff will be eager to say hello! They love tips of they do a good job and it is a rarity for them to see them handed out! I did feel that the staff did not need tips to be friendly though which was refreshing. They were always eager to please!

Im sure there will be other stuff that I have forgot, so I will have a think about it and add more later if I remember it. Just remember, it's your holiday so enjoy.. Be prepared for a slighlty different holiday though. There will always be plenty of room in the paid restaurants, the pool areas, the bars and the sun decks to relax on! If your a gambler or like to pig out at the buffet - Your screwed!

(As a disclaimer - I am Australian but I am married to a Filipino so I kind of know about the Asian culture a bit. If you had 20 family members fighting for the last bowl of rice at dinner, you would learn to push too!)

Cheers

We are sailing this moment through the Korea Strait on the Quantum of the Seas to South Korea and I can tell you the RoyalIQ app has been great. It helps as it is a mobile compass to check on things you want to do aswell as book shows or restaurants easily! It does everything! Well worth the download!

Have fun with it!

Cheers

I am sitting at Beijing Capital Airport about to board a China Eastern flight to Shanghai.. I will let you all know what the short haul flight is like!

Cheers

Great to see a review of Quantum on the go. We are getting on when you get off. We are doing the 8 day cruise and the 5 day cruise B2B. I will be reading this review with baited breath! We are currently doing a 10 day tour of China prior to the cruise. I am sending this post from a chilly Beijing which is currently -2deg celcius! We climbed the great wall today! I'm knackered now..

Have a blast!

Cheers

One word!!

DIVORCE :D

Then she can have all the land holidays she wants!

We are doing a 12 day tour of China before the cruise, so our smog recepticals will already be full. The cruise wil be our escape from the smog! Lol

It ok Jenn, they did it to us on the Mariner in 2014 for 10 nights! Just carry a copy around with you and don't miss the ship!!!! :eek:

Cheers

Awesome answers there Big_M. I have planned ahead a bit and organised a private car to drop us off and collect us from the wharf so no public transport needed thankfully! Having said that, I am 130kgs so I think they would find it hard to push me around on a bus! :) We are flying locally in China to Guanzhou that day so we don't need to go far to the domestic airport thank goodness. Beats trying to go right across town to Padong International. I here it can take up to 3 hrs for that trip!!

Guess I wont be lugging my suit all around Asia then which I am ok with aswell. We have 3 stops in Japan on the first cruise and 1 stop in Japan and 1 stop in Korea on the second cruise so it sounds like I will need 3 copies of each passport. Easily done. :D

How was the crew? They would be happy to see some extra foreigners onboard I guess! Our first cruise is 8 nights so I expect there will be a few more foreigners on that one being one of the longer cruises in Asia.

How did you go with the food? Any hits and misses?

Hope I am not annoying you with all these questions! :rolleyes:

Cheers

Some more questions for you Big_M,

1/ Did they have a formal night and did many get dressed up did you notice?

2/ How was embarkation and disembarkation in Shanghai?

I'm sure there will be more! ;)

Cheers

I was wondering if anyone has cruised the 6 night itinerary out of Shanghai that goes to Japan and South Korea. I have looked though the row calls, and did not see one for the week that my DH and I are going. (March, 6, 2016) I did look at another week, and it had little to no people on it. This is a last minute trip my husband planned for us. We are from Indiana and in our early 30s. I am looking for any tips, important info, and so forth. Thanks in advance !!

 

Jennifer

We are getting on when your getting off Jennifer. :)

What stateroom are you in?

Cheers

As general info they will take your passport the whole cruise - make sure you have 2 copies of each passport cover page as they will instruct you, to enable you to get your entry stamps for Japan. You get those from 7 a.m the morning of arrival in your first Japanese port.

Is that 2 copies of each passport becuase you had 2 stops in Japan Big_M? So if I have 4 stops over the 2 cruises, I will need 4 copies of each passport data page?

Sound like you had a great time! Did you pay for the NorthStar?

Cheers

You are my best friend, the one I can share all my secrets with.

Well not ALLLLLLLLLL my secrets! ;)

Instead of the wine bottle just carry the Coke freestyle cup that you get with those drink package. Comes with a spill proof lid. Just do a walk around the ship for an hour and visit every bar,

I love how all the alcoholics look out for each other on these forums! Gives me a warm and fuzzy!

Excellent idea by the way! Will be trying that out for sure! :)

I don't think so... Nothing illegal for me thankyou.

Theres nothing illegal with that Bob. You are free to take drinks where ever you want on the ship and buy as many as you want I am led to believe. If you are on a drink package you can only get 1 every 5 mins or so, but if your a paying customer, they won't stop you! I think its a great idea! I may try it on Quantum in March!

Cheers

We are doing B2B in March. The first sailing is 8 days!!!! It is the longest cruise they are doing out of Shanghai so it's not a short cruise. 2nd cruise is 5 days.

My idea would be to charge for it upfront and if you show up at your timeslot they refund it back. If you don't show, they charge sticks! Seems there only issue is not being able to control it. They should be better at it!

I just don't think they should be able to start charging on cruises that are already past their final payment date and fully paid!

My 2 cents..

Here is the response I got from my email to RCI about the charges on Quantum:

______________________________________________________________

Dear Tony,

I hope this email finds you well.

Allow me to apologise for not answering sooner, as we strive to provide the

best possible service on and off our ships.

As per your query, I am sorry this decision has made you upset. However,

please try to understand that when this was complimentary, we were having a lot of issues with guests that were booking everything before hand and then not showing up to their reservation and then several guests would miss the option of enjoying the attractions. You can rest assured that the

information will be shared with our management team in Miami and please try to understand that we need to remain equal to all our guests.

Should you have further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us as we

are eager to help.

Kind regards,

Marco Vinicio Velasquez

Cruise Administration

Telephone: 1800 754 500 • Fax: 02 4322 0326 • Email:

cruiseadmin.au@rcclapac.com

____________________________________________________________

In my email I asked how they can change it after final payment has been made. My understanding is once final payment is made there is a contract between RCI and myself. I cannot make any changes without some form of penalty, why should they be allowed. Guess they forgot to answer those bits. I guess my response is all those travelling on Anthem must be model citizens and turn up for their appointments every time because they are not having the same issues there apparently. Isn't that what a booking process is for. Seems the issue is they can't control it. Asian or not, this is wrong!

Oh well.. Guess I get screwed this time!

Happy sailing everyone!

Your friend could have been on the wrong ship and the luggage could have found its way to the right ship. ;-)

Is there any such thing as the wrong ship.. least your still cruising! :)

Hi tincoll... do not hesitate to do the All Access Tour on your upcoming Quantum sailings if you have the chance :D

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=45076447&highlight=access#post45076447

I may do it on Quantum, Hoopster95. I did see your tour pics a while back. Seems very similar to what we did on mariner except we got to go to the engine room. One other place we visited that I forgot was the Medical facilities. 9 out of 10 of us couldn't help ourselves and had to look inside the morgue! It was empty thanks goodness! Only room for 3 in case your interested! Ill work on some of my photos to upload!

Wife and I did one on the Mariner of the Seas back in 2014. Cost was US$150 pp. We went to the following places:

1/ Laundry

2/ Rubbish/Recycling plant

3/ Control Room (Engine room as a bonus)

4/ Crew Area

5/ Main Galley

6/ Back Stage Ice Rink

7/ Bridge

We were pretty lucky on our tour I am led to believe. In the control room the Chief Engineer just happened to be there and after asking us very quietly if we would like to see the engines (obviously we all said yes) we headed down for a walk around the actual engine bay. Very noisy but no problems with photos anywhere on the tour. On the bridge the Captain came and spent about 30 mins with us answering questions, posing for photos, generally chit chatting. Was fun standing out on the wings of the bridge looking down the side of the ship. In the Kitchen we met the head chef who explained the goings on behind the scenes. We tasted some food he was working on. The Laundry was very interesting. Huge machines that we all got a chance to try for folding sheets. Crew area is like another little world below decks, eatery, bar, lounge and their rooms! The ice rink and show area we were shown where it is all staged, where the props are kept, the control booth for lighting. There were some of the performers practicing on the ice so we got to meet them and chat a bit. There was about 10 of us on our tour. Have to wear long pants and closed shoes! Took nearly 3 hrs all up.

I think it was well worth the money. Don't know if I would do it on another ship or not but was definitely worth doing once!

Hope this helps!

Our very first cruise ever was B2B in Asia on Mariner. Our 2nd ever cruise will be B2B in Asia on Quantum! I think I've created a monster...

Same cabin was great, no need to pack up, same great room steward. Most of the staff remember your face and seem even friendlier than they were on the first cruise. Great experience! Can't wait for March!

Bring it on!

Just off the phone with RCL about this ~

 

If you have booked already, there's no additional charges to be imposed on iFly and Northstar, and, as of now, no official future charges to be made on both of these. The RCL rep wanted to know exactly where this was coming from, I told her it was the RCL blog - which is not official anyway.

 

So, if you have already booked a cruise on this class of ship, you will NOT be imposed any additional fees for iFly or Northstar. I made sure to have her annotate this on our booking for Anthem in June.

 

Lastly, she told me there are no plans on charging additional fees for this on Anthem.

Thanks for your effort JohnJen but I think you might have rang Sesame Street rather than RCI. I can assure you they are charging for them on Quantum for my March 12th booking which was fully paid for in November. I know this because I have just made payment through the RCI website for my North Star and IFly bookings. Even though I started this thread with the breaking news a few days ago, this will be my wife's and I first time on a Quantum class ship and I don't want to miss out on the experience. The booking times were very limited already, so to wait till I was on-board would have been crazy. Make no mistake, I will be really happy if RCI refund my money and before I made the first post on here, I wrote a rather stern letter to RCI showing my unhappiness with the decision. I guess we will see how it plays out. You were right though, it may not happen on Anthem. It seems RCI may be a little judgmental on their decision to only hit the Asian market and even though it cost me an extra AUD$100, I will make sure I have a good time anyway. It may sway my decision to by a t-shirt this time though.

PS - It never came from any blog... It came from me and a Canadian family booked on a Quantum cruise and it has shown up on our cruise planners. I never mentioned a blog at all. Thanks anyway!

Happy sailing!

With all the technology they have, they could enforce bookings and swiping a sea pass to get in, which would ensure 1 per person. Similarly, the only means to handle queues is not to add a charge... otherwise the buffet would need a charge on a number of cruises!

 

I also looked at the link coralc supplied. 2 flights for a 1st timer are $62 there, and RCL are intending to charge almost half that for 1 flight. So it appears the charging basis is moving to a similar full commercial basis i.e. make money like any other venture, rather than just as a pricing disincentive to discourage queues.

 

In any case, even if that was a poor justification, it doesn't address the retrospective application to cruisers who already made bookings on the basis that these were included. That doesn't justify changing with one week's notice in any way.

If Cruise Critic had a 'LIKE' button, I would push it!

I just booked and paid for the IFly and North Star because I don't want to miss out, but I am damn sure I will have my say when I get on board!

I hope they are worth the hassle!