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LIVE - Couple's Blog from Quantum - Feb. 20, 2015

curryshake

By curryshake,
in Royal Caribbean International

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PennStateFan123

PennStateFan123

Posted
Posted
Tonight is probably the absolute highlight of the entertainment on this cruise. Truly, this has to be the pinnacle of the long tradition of the show while at sea. After a wonderful dinner, my wife and I are seated in the Royal Theater, soaking in the vibrant buzz of hundreds of cruisers in anticipation of...

 

a puppet show.

 

 

Is that the "guest entertainer"?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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gaylemh

gaylemh

Posted
Posted
Tonight is probably the absolute highlight of the entertainment on this cruise. Truly, this has to be the pinnacle of the long tradition of the show while at sea. After a wonderful dinner, my wife and I are seated in the Royal Theater, soaking in the vibrant buzz of hundreds of cruisers in anticipation of...

 

a puppet show.

 

If it is Ron Lucas, he is actually pretty good. I thought the same thing "a puppet show" until I saw his act.

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imjoyful2

imjoyful2

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LOL Tequila always makes for good proof-reading! ;) While I haven't commented since the very beginning, I am checking in several times a day to catch up! :D

 

Our favorite bartender (Zai Ma) told us that he had suddenly been moved from a cruise that goes out of Florida

 

They moved a lot of crew unexpectedly due to the dining issues. Our favorite head waiter from the Explorer got moved to Quantum with 1 days notice (because he is amazing at what he does! Say hi to Dario from Croatia for me, Jenn, if you see him!) I feel bad they didn't get more notice to prepare.

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gamblinmon

gamblinmon

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Posted

I am really enjoying your review. We are on the sailing the Quantum soon.

Is there a place you can leave your carry on luggage on embarkation day befor the cabins are ready?

Thanks in advance, enjoy the rest of your cruise....my friends are on the same sailing as you.

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curryshake

curryshake

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I am really enjoying your review. We are on the sailing the Quantum soon.

Is there a place you can leave your carry on luggage on embarkation day befor the cabins are ready?

Thanks in advance, enjoy the rest of your cruise....my friends are on the same sailing as you.

 

Not that I'm aware of. But we were able to get into our room within an hour or so of boarding and spent the time in between eating lunch, so it wasn't a big deal.

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curryshake

curryshake

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Day 7 - Labadee, Haiti

 

Hard to believe this is our last day in port before we head back to NJ. We're up early again and I can just make out the outline of Haiti's mountains off in the distance as we approach Labadee.

 

I don't have too much to report from last night. Before dinner we stopped at Vintages for an aperitif. I realized I had left my seapass card back in the room, and DH was kind enough to go back to get it (a good 8 minute round trip) while I placed our orders. We have been waited on by Roongnapa almost every time we've been there, and she has learned what we like and has made some excellent suggestions. DH's first choice of wine wasn't available, so I asked for his second choice - the petite sirah she recommended a couple days ago which is quite good. Instead, Roognapa offered me a sample of the Torrione petrolo from Tuscany. I told her that since it was for DH, he could sample it when he got back. She pointed out that he and I have very similar palates when it comes to wine, which is true, so I tasted the wine and it was excellent. DH loved it. I tried a glass of the Mer Soleil barrel fermented chardonnay and it was a little too oaky for me.

 

We ate at Jaime's again. DH saw the waiter we had had the previous time, Kumar, so he asked the manager if we could have him again and he said sure. We had the meat board and accompanying side dishes again. This time we skipped the fried risotto balls and had an extra serving of the fried calamari. It was all excellent, again.

 

Before we left, we were speaking with the manager, and he mentioned that it was a good thing that we had early dinner reservations. He said they were overbooked for later in the evening and that he had told this to his management, to no avail. I'm not sure what the point of having a restaurant manager is if he doesn't have any control over reservations. I feel bad for anyone who had to wait in line last night or change their dining venue because of RCI's poor planning. I also feel bad for the staff at the restaurant who probably had to put up with understandably cranky patrons.

 

I'd like to take this opportunity to say something about dining on cruise ships in general that I haven't quite been able to understand. I love food. I love eating. I don't, however, have the capacity to eat a lot of food -- as sad as I sometimes find that to be. It seems that every time I've eaten dinner on a ship, whether here on Quantum or on the Disney Fantasy, the servers have been quite insistent that I take more food, to the point of seeming distressed when I don't. I can't figure out if it's because they think I'm just trying to be "ladylike" by ordering less or because maybe they think I don't care for the food. At any rate, what I really want is the ability to order just an appetizer and dessert, or just an entree without being made to feel as though I've brought the server's world to an end. Especially after I explain that I just don't have room for more food. Small eaters of the world, unite!

 

Last night after dinner we saw the scheduled entertainer, Ronn Lucas. He's a comedian with a puppet. I remember seeing his routine (probably on Showtime or HBO) when I was a kid. So I found the first one third of his act funny, but repetitive of what I remembered. The second third involved a member of the audience, who did a great job. That portion was hilarious. The final third (what he jokingly called his encore even though he never left the stage), was not as funny as the rest of the show. It was a fun performance, but probably my least favorite of the trip so far.

 

It appears as though we're not going to have a cover band for this cruise, unless we picked one up at Puerto Rico and they aren't starting until tomorrow. We do have the house band, Horizon, and they're quite good. They play a large variety of music.

 

Time for some breakfast, if I can drag myself away from this warm, sunny balcony with the increasingly stunning view of Haiti. I had no idea it was so mountainous.

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joand452

joand452

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Just want to pop in to say thank you for live blogging throughout your cruise. I'm enjoying it.

 

I do have one question -- does the Quantum dock at Havensight or Crown Bay? I know we won't be on Quantum again, but maybe Anthem down the road??

 

Thanks, and looking forward to more!

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LongTimeTvlr

LongTimeTvlr

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Okay, back to last night. We saw Starwater in 270. Only people who like to watch half naked men and women gyrating on stage and doing contortion acts in the air would enjoy something like this. Luckily for us, we love that kind of thing!

 

Seriously, to say I found the show impressive would be an understatement. The gowns and costumes were stunningly beautiful, the dancing and acrobatics were great, the lighting and video backgrounds were amazing (except for one brief campy part during the 1920s segment). The vocals were outstanding - and I have sung in my share of choirs over the years. But my favorite part was the music itself. I lost count of how many sampled songs I recognized. Just the first piece blended sampled segments from Madonna, Peter Gabrielle, Deee Lite, and a couple other artists I can't remember right now. Whoever found a way to combine such disparate music into a beautiful and coherent whole and then put new vocals and a modern sound over them is an absolute genius. Other pieces had bits from The Police and Cab Calloway, among many others. I'm going to try to see it again before the end of the cruise.

 

Dinner was at Chic. It was our worst dining experience yet. So far service has been pretty good or great everywhere, but it was terrible last night. Perhaps it was because our reservations were very late and the staff was tired. We never saw the assistant waiter, and our head waiter was rude even though we went out of our way to be polite to him (I grew up in Texas and DH grew up in the Midwest, so being polite to others is in our blood). Even though most of the tables around us were empty, we had to wait a long time to make our order and even longer to get our food. The food was not good. I had a tomato and onion salad, which was exactly that with a little dill. The waiter realized he had forgotten the herb dressing that should have come with it until I was almost finished. I also had the crispy salmon, which was a bland piece of salmon with phyllo dough strips stuck on top of it. These were neither crispy, nor flavorful. The asparagus and carrots that came with the fish were good. DH had the baby greens salad with goat cheese and thought it was okay. He also had the snapper with crushed potatoes and creamed spinach. He didn't care for it at first, but decided it was good by the end of the meal.

 

The strangest part of the experience at Chic was the end of the meal. The waiter came to our table, asked for our stateroom number three or four times as he fought with his iPad (you would think he would have it already, since we had reservations), and then he just walked away while mumbling to himself. We sat there for a couple more minutes and then got up and left. We knew we didn't owe anything since the wine we had was under $12. Needless to say, we won't be going back to Chic.

 

One note here - DH and I have both designed and managed the development of websites and user interfaces professionally over the years, and RCI really needs to fix both their customer website and the interfaces on the crew members' iPads. The user experience provided by their commercial website is bad, as I don't have to tell anyone who has used it. And I have watched several crew members fight with counter-intuitive screens and workflows that require them to ask for the same information more than once. They also need to beef up their servers and/or bandwidth because at boarding the lady who was helping us had to wait one or two minutes for each new screen to load. It's not as if RCI doesn't know how many people will be boarding at the same time. I'm sure crew members find these issues frustrating, and that feeling can't help but get passed on to the passengers in one way or another.

 

 

 

Tonight is Grande and maybe a virtual concert back here in 270.

 

Great thread. We were on the Quantum cruise right before yours. We loved Starwater and Sonic Odyssey. We thought that on our cruise all the entertainment was first class. Mama Mia is the best show we have seen afloat.

 

We also ate at Chic, twice in fact. Our snapper was also mediocre, however I had the crispy Salmon and I thought it was great. Crust was crispy and the salmon was very good. I am sure this stuff varies from night to night.

 

We also had a strange experience. I ordered the Crepe Napoleon for desert and when it came is was clearly not a crepe nor could I see any resemblance to Napoleon. When the waiter returned he asked how I liked the desert and I told him I didn't. He then said he thought so because no one likes that desert! Thanks for letting me know :-)

 

We loved Grande. Ate there 7 out of 11 nights and we always had great service and meet several really interesting fellow guests. Food was great, except one time my wife's sole was tough and flavorless, but a second time it was good, variations again, and the atmosphere is the best. Loved the piano player though I never saw him. Saved a tip. Just kidding, I am sure it was piped in.

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BillOh Holiday Sharing Rare

BillOh

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We had a fun day on the beach at Labadee, and then relaxed on the ship and played a little pool. Tonight we're dining at the chef's table. Goodbye Caribbean; next stop - New Jersey.

 

 

 

I assume by pool you mean billiards? I wasn't aware Quantum had a pool table. I have played on Jewel.

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ftn807

ftn807

Posted
Posted (edited)
I assume by pool you mean billiards? I wasn't aware Quantum had a pool table. I have played on Jewel.

There are four (I think) tables on the fourth deck, behind the bar in the Music Hall. We were in port at the time, but I heard through the grapevine that they are self-leveling when the ship is rockin'. They are also smaller than what I consider to be a standard size table, and the balls are all either red or yellowish orange, plus a cue ball and eight ball. No cost to play.

 

If I'm wrong about any of this, I'm sure I'll be corrected in 3, 2, 1...

Edited by ftn807
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BillOh Holiday Sharing Rare

BillOh

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There are four (I think) tables on the fourth deck, behind the bar in the Music Hall. We were in port at the time, but I heard through the grapevine that they are self-leveling when the ship is rockin'. They are also smaller than what I consider to be a standard size table, and the balls are all either red or yellowish orange, plus a cue ball and eight ball. No cost to play.

 

If I'm wrong about any of this, I'm sure I'll be corrected in 3, 2, 1...

 

Thanks for that. I've been highly enjoying you and your wife's review/update even though I currently have no plans to sail Quantum, but I always feel I can learn something of interest on any review and yours certainly hasn't been lacking in that regard. Maybe we will try Anthem in a few years.

 

Jewel's pool table is a 8ft length from memory. If my some chance you go back by there and snap a picture great, but don't make any special effort.

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ftn807

ftn807

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Heard there were free drinks for everyone at all the bars last night due to having to close the 4 main restaurants last night because of air conditioning problems. How did that go over with the passengers?

Lots of fighting, rioting really. But don't worry, the robots from the Bionic Bar restored order. Do NOT mess with those two.

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