Spectrum of the Seas 5d4n with a toddler

[Genevivev]

Going on Spectrum OTS in April 5d4n with a toddler (2year old), what are your best tips and tricks? Port in phuket and Patong, have you been? What did you do?

[Biker19]

7 hours ago, Genevivev said:

Going on Spectrum OTS in April 5d4n with a toddler (2year old), what are your best tips and tricks? Port in phuket and Patong, have you been? What did you do?

You might not get much feedback with such a rarely mentioned ship and circumstance. The ports of call section might have some info.

[Ethanol95]

7 hours ago, Genevivev said:

Going on Spectrum OTS in April 5d4n with a toddler (2year old), what are your best tips and tricks? Port in phuket and Patong, have you been? What did you do?

I'm going next week on the same itinerary. I don't have a toddler so can't help much there. I would guess just the general tips of making sure that you book your reservations for activities that your 2 year old might want to do onboard. Adventure ocean is always a great place to leave them if you need some time to yourselves. 

In Phuket, we plan to spend our day going to get a massage at one of the better spas on the Eastern side of the Island and hang around there, before going for the weekend night market to grab dinner and then head back to the ship. Its about a one hour car ride from Patong beach to the Eastern side, but there is more to do there, especially if you've visited Patong beach and Phuket before. 

[ARandomTraveler]

I'll be on spectrum this summer and have had a hard time finding any posts on cruise critic about it, understandably. 
 

For port info, I'd suggest looking at the descriptions of the ports on the "explore this itinerary" section of the Royal Caribbean website (for example, do a search for your cruise as though you were making a new booking, you should then see an "explore this itinerary" button). I found the descriptions under that section to be really robust and full of information that I've never noticed on the website before.

 

I would also do a search on YouTube for the ship, there's a lot of videos from people who've sailed different itineraries on the ship. 
 

Cruise Critic doesn't have port specific boards for the Asia ports, but there is an all-encompassing "Asia" board. It's not as helpful as the Caribbean port boards, but it is helpful. 
https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/43-asia/

[Genevivev]

How did your cruise go? Any tips?

[Genevivev]

On 1/28/2023 at 4:39 PM, ARandomTraveler said:

I'll be on spectrum this summer and have had a hard time finding any posts on cruise critic about it, understandably. 
 

For port info, I'd suggest looking at the descriptions of the ports on the "explore this itinerary" section of the Royal Caribbean website (for example, do a search for your cruise as though you were making a new booking, you should then see an "explore this itinerary" button). I found the descriptions under that section to be really robust and full of information that I've never noticed on the website before.

 

I would also do a search on YouTube for the ship, there's a lot of videos from people who've sailed different itineraries on the ship. 
 

Cruise Critic doesn't have port specific boards for the Asia ports, but there is an all-encompassing "Asia" board. It's not as helpful as the Caribbean port boards, but it is helpful. 
https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/43-asia/

 

On 1/28/2023 at 4:36 AM, Ethanol95 said:

I'm going next week on the same itinerary. I don't have a toddler so can't help much there. I would guess just the general tips of making sure that you book your reservations for activities that your 2 year old might want to do onboard. Adventure ocean is always a great place to leave them if you need some time to yourselves. 

In Phuket, we plan to spend our day going to get a massage at one of the better spas on the Eastern side of the Island and hang around there, before going for the weekend night market to grab dinner and then head back to the ship. Its about a one hour car ride from Patong beach to the Eastern side, but there is more to do there, especially if you've visited Patong beach and Phuket before. 

How did your cruise go? Any tips?

[ARandomTraveler]

3 hours ago, Genevivev said:

 

How did your cruise go? Any tips?

Mine isn't until July 31st

[Ethanol95]

19 hours ago, Genevivev said:

 

How did your cruise go? Any tips?

We ended up going to Bang Tao Beach which is north of Patong Beach, the beach is much nicer and less crowded. The area is themed as a lagoon resort area, with famous hotels such as Banyan Tree, Dusit Thani Laguna and Angsana. It's very much like a lake which is a different vibe to the conventional Phuket experience for most tourists. Transportation to and from that area is not cheap though. Roughly paid 1000 Baht, which is around 30 USD for our trip there and back by grab car. I think it was well worth the experience. We felt like we beat the crowd this time round. 

 

Also in Patong beach, do go to Bangla street, there is a nice Thai street food setup along one of the smaller roads there. Shouldn't be hard to miss. We managed to catch some food at dusk, right before boarding the ship. Had to make a run for it to the pier though.

 

Sad to say I do think over the decades, Patong beach has become way too commercialized and flooded with tourists it takes away from the experience. But if you've never been there before, I do think you should at least walk around there to get a sense of what Patong has to offer.

 

If you are interested in beach clubs, Patong is not the place. You can check out Kamala and Bang Tao beaches north. Hope this helps!

[ARandomTraveler]

11 hours ago, Ethanol95 said:

We ended up going to Bang Tao Beach which is north of Patong Beach, the beach is much nicer and less crowded. The area is themed as a lagoon resort area, with famous hotels such as Banyan Tree, Dusit Thani Laguna and Angsana. It's very much like a lake which is a different vibe to the conventional Phuket experience for most tourists. Transportation to and from that area is not cheap though. Roughly paid 1000 Baht, which is around 30 USD for our trip there and back by grab car. I think it was well worth the experience. We felt like we beat the crowd this time round. 

 

Also in Patong beach, do go to Bangla street, there is a nice Thai street food setup along one of the smaller roads there. Shouldn't be hard to miss. We managed to catch some food at dusk, right before boarding the ship. Had to make a run for it to the pier though.

 

Sad to say I do think over the decades, Patong beach has become way too commercialized and flooded with tourists it takes away from the experience. But if you've never been there before, I do think you should at least walk around there to get a sense of what Patong has to offer.

 

If you are interested in beach clubs, Patong is not the place. You can check out Kamala and Bang Tao beaches north. Hope this helps!

What did you think of the ship? Did it seem weird to have so much of the ship segregated for silver and gold passengers? How different were the food menus from the usual Caribbean sailings? Did you try any of the specialty restaurants? 

[Ethanol95]

3 hours ago, ARandomTraveler said:

What did you think of the ship? Did it seem weird to have so much of the ship segregated for silver and gold passengers? How different were the food menus from the usual Caribbean sailings? Did you try any of the specialty restaurants? 

 

What did you think of the ship?

TBH i prefer Spectrum to Quantum despite the suite in a ship concept. The physical offerings of the ship is of course quite significantly different from Quantum, with some saying its worse. This i will not argue cause there is some truth to that. But boy oh boy, the entertainment line up on Spectrum is miles better than what we ever got on Quantum. Especially sailing QN during the covid period. Spectrum's shows are all very good. The Effectors especially, is the best Royal Caribbean show i've see so far and i've been on many different Royal ships before. Live bands in the Music hall and in bars were amazing. 

 

Did it seem weird to have so much of the ship segregated for silver and gold passengers?

This time round i didn't have time to properly experience the segregation of suite vs non suite, as i was travelling with friends and forgoed my diamond status to dine in silver to be with them. Having said that I didn't feel as though the suites vs non suites was really in my face as a mainstream cruiser. Perhaps for only the Solarium and the exclusive dining as others have mentioned. Even when i went to the solarium with my friends, we didn't see any specific area cordoned off for silver or gold specifically. 

 

 How different were the food menus from the usual Caribbean sailings?

At the time of my sailing, Royal had been in the middle of rolling out fleet wide the new 'themed' menus that they have been conceptualizing. On my sailing, this was still not implemented. I believe it was implemented on Spectrum only 1 or 2 weeks ago. But during my sailing, we still had the classics section and a much larger menu that had rotating items everyday. For Singapore/Asia sailings, you will definitely see more local asian AND Indian options in the MDR. Some can include:

Chicken soup

Laksa

Thai Pad Thai

Noodles

Hot and Sour Soup

Sweetcorn Crabmeat Soup

Etc. 

 

Did you try any of the specialty restaurants? 

Nope, but based on what i've heard and seen, the exclusive SC specialty dining places are not fantastic. Sichuan Red is better than Hot Pot. In Asia, we have high standards for Hot Pot, and Royal Caribbean's doesn't cut it to pass at all. It's just a thing in cruising and Hotpot. Even on Resorts World Cruises, our home grown local brand, the Hot Pot is pretty bad as well.