twangster

Enough time had passed that the boarding process had commenced. Fortunately we had been given an In Transit card which was like a magic fast pass into and through the Overseas Passenger Terminal. It couldn't have been easier with a dedicated entrance, ABF and security queues. It was really easy. With that I was back on board enjoying a beverage in the pub waiting for cabins to become available.

I figured I might as well have a local beer or two and some lunch while I waited.

When ABF gives you lemons, make lemonade. Having sailed from Sydney before and knowing the area I decided to walk over the Sydney Harbor Bridge to get some photos of Quantum in Sydney. I already knew the route, it's pretty easy with elevators in places where there are stairs if you need a lift. A constant flow of ferries in and out.

Someone is getting blocked! Newly minted Diamonds in the making. In the theater waiting... New Sea Pass card, In Transit card and my passport. One of these would be a massive time saver later. In the theater they asked if we had planned to get off to explore or planned to get back on board right away. Forecast was rain and the weather radar didn't look promising. Thirty or so of us chose to wait in the theater and re-board immediately. ABF would require the ship reach zero count much like CBP does in the US but we were informed we would be processed and return to the ship immediately. There were several pages for two guests failing to disembark. We all waited for them to be found. Finally it was our turn. Away we went... ABF and the Intercruise agents in the terminal had a different plan. We were marched to an elevator and then outside to join the masses waiting to board. It was a sea of people but fortunately the light rain observed earlier had stopped. So now we are outside in GenPop.

Overcast with rain forecast. No Godzilla! Don't attack Sydney!

Day Three / Day One (B) Sydney and the end of cruise #1. An early arrival into Sydney.

A consecutive cruiser letter let me know the exact process was still to be determined by the Australian Border Force. We were to meet in the theater the next morning where we get our new Sea Pass cards and more details how ABF would process us. The consecutive cruiser letter had a specific time to arrive at the theater and they would be enforcing this time. No need to be early. Mandatory NZeTA check for consecutive cruisers.

Day Two (A) Day two is a sea day as we sail down the coast from Brisbane to Sydney. It was a beautiful day with lots of sun. At times we could make out the Australian coast on the starboard side. Still not on Aussie time I was up early, working. The sun rises from the bottom down under!

Later that night... The Instant Reward Casino offers are different down under. There is no short versus long offers, there is only one list for any cruise from Australia. Ah. Smell that smoke free casino air!

I took a quick nap and woke up just as we were sailing away. Quick shower and off to Coastal Kitchen for dinner. I already knew I made the list for the Suite Lounge and Coastal Kitchen access on the transpacific so I made Coastal Kitchen dinner reservation on select nights. I didn't want to book all twenty three nights in Coastal Kitchen figuring that by picking select nights there would be some time slots available for Sea class or Junior Suite guests as well. On other nights I'd have a burger in The Pub or eat in the Windjammer. There is no shortage of food on a cruise.

The Brisbane cruise terminal as seen from the ship:

I have sailed on Quantum to Alaska and three other sister ships in this class so I was already comfortable with the ship. I had received an email letting me know as a Pinnacle I had made the list for access to the Suite Lounge and Coastal Kitchen. The top forty are given access to manage the numbers and save space for suite guests. I headed to Coastal Kitchen to make dinner reservations. Night one is still the Filet night so how could I resist? Given that I made the booking for the two night repo cruise not long before the sail date I had a different cabin compared to my cabin for the transpacific. With only two nights I didn't unpack my suitcase for the first cruise. Cabin 7244 - 2D balcony

Cruise Day! My friends are loyal Royal cruisers who had just gotten off Quantum having completed several consecutive cruises to wrap up the Australia cruise season the day I arrived. As frequent cruisers their car pretty much drove itself to the port albeit on the wrong side of the road. The cruise terminal in Brisbane is nice but a bit of a drive from downtown. Boarding had already started so it was very quick through the regular boarding day steps. I will say that security was very particular, even more so than the security at the Sydney domestic airport terminal, requiring anything electronic, anything at all, to come out of my backpack. It was more thorough than the airport security in the US, Japan and Australia. At least I know we will be safe on board!

Many other species here as well. There are some weird looking animals in Australia! We did some other Brisbane sightseeing as well. Later that evening it was off to a Broncos game. The Brisbane Broncos in the NRL that is. Still not fully on Australia time it was late but a thoroughly enjoyable night. Broncos won! Time for bed.

Brisbane My friends live just outside of the Brisbane city limits. After taking them out for dinner it was time to head to bed. The next day they took me to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. You can't visit Australia without seeing Koalas and Kangaroos! So cute! They warned me to keep an eye out for drop bears. Fortunately non presented themselves during my visit. First time feeding a Kangaroo using the Roo food acquired at the sanctuary. These things have incredible teeth and claws. Note to self - don't ever upset a Kangaroo.

Flights I found a very reasonable business class ticket from Florida to Sydney flying on ANA through Japan. Later when I added the two night Brisbane cruise the airfare had doubled so it was cheaper to leave my ANA airfare alone and book a separate short domestic flight from Sydney to Brisbane. I ended up liking the ANA routing and layover in Haneda as it broke up the flight, gave me a chance to shower in the airport lounge and the impact from the time change was more gradual and therefore more manageable by the time I reached Brisbane. By breaking it down to more flight legs over time it was easier on my body. Plus lay flay seats are the only way to go when flying long haul international and the cost for business class direct to Sydney was pretty expensive. On the plane ride from Haneda to Sydney we flew over the Great Barrier reef. While the best parts weren't on my side of the plane it was cool to look down and see it from 41,000 feet. I promise my photos will get better as this continues. Arriving into Sydney the customs process was easy and the transfer from the international terminal to the domestic terminal was simple following the signs to the free shuttle bus. Australia still allows non-passengers to go through security so my friend met me at the gate in Brisbane as I deplaned. Super easy. My cell service is with US Mobile which includes Japan, Australia and New Zealand plus many other countries. ANA included free internet with business class so I could stay connected for the entire journey. The return from Honolulu to Florida was domestic on Delta. Being purely domestic it was much more reasonable compared to a long haul from Australia to Florida.

A transpacific has long been on my bucket list so this was my first. The ports in New Zealand had just one duplicate port with my last New Zealand cruise and with three new stops in French Polynesia a lot of this cruise would be new to me. I liked that. As it turns some of the port stops were over weekends so that meant I didn't need to take as much time off work since I can work remotely on sea days. Cruise #1 Sun 06 April 2025 Brisbane, Australia - 04:30 PM Boarding Mon 07 April 2025 Cruising - - Cruising Tue 08 April 2025 Sydney, Australia 06:30 AM - Departure Cruise #2 Tue 08 April 2025 Sydney, Australia - 05:00 PM Boarding Wed 09 April 2025 Cruising - - Cruising Thu 10 April 2025 Cruising - - Cruising Fri 11 April 2025 Picton, New Zealand 11:00 AM 08:00 PM Docked Sat 12 April 2025 Wellington, New Zealand 07:00 AM 06:30 PM Docked Sun 13 April 2025 Cruising - - Cruising Mon 14 April 2025 Auckland, New Zealand 07:30 AM 06:30 PM Docked Tue 15 April 2025 Cruising - - Cruising Wed 16 April 2025 Cruising - - Cruising Wed 16 April 2025 International Dateline - - Cruising Thu 17 April 2025 Cruising - - Cruising Fri 18 April 2025 Cruising - - Cruising Sat 19 April 2025 Papeete, Tahiti 08:00 AM 11:59 PM Docked Sun 20 April 2025 Moorea, French Polynesia 08:00 AM 08:00 PM Tendered Mon 21 April 2025 Raiatea, French Polynesia 07:00 AM 05:00 PM Tendered Tue 22 April 2025 Cruising - - Cruising Wed 23 April 2025 Cruising - - Cruising Thu 24 April 2025 Cruising - - Cruising Fri 25 April 2025 Cruising - - Cruising Sat 26 April 2025 Cruising - - Cruising Sun 27 April 2025 Honolulu (Oahu), Hawaii 07:00 AM - Docked Mon 28 April 2025 Honolulu (Oahu), Hawaii - - Departure Australia has laws regarding smoking inside and these are enforced on cruise ships sailing from Australian ports. On this cruise the interior smoking ban remained in effect for the full voyage all the way to Hawaii. Twenty three nights of smoke free bliss.

Background I was originally booked on Ovation of the Seas for several in a row all the way through to the US mainland. When Ovation was redeployed to Singapore they moved displaced Ovation guests over to Quantum. We went from nineteen nights to twenty one nights frozen at our lower Ovation cruise fare. They changed Quantum's departure port from Brisbane to Sydney in the process since that is where Ovation sailed from. I had booked this before cruise fares went crazy and now with twenty one nights for the price of nineteen? That was a major win. I have some friends in Brisbane so I decided to add the two night Brisbane to Sydney repositioning cruise before the Sydney transpacific making this twenty three nights. I have visited Australia before and cruised from Sydney to New Zealand on Ovation. Spending a few days in Brisbane before the cruise would allow me to explore a different part of Australia. Now it became a win-win. I like Quantum class so it doesn't take very much to convince me to book one. On my previous trip to Australia I learned how costly it is to fly round trip between the US and Australia especially if you desire to upgrade out of economy on the plane ride. A benefit of sailing a transpacific is that you don't need round trip airfare all the way to and from Australia. Instead some of that round trip airfare money can be put towards the transpacific cruise fare. All you need is a one way international plane ticket and more time. That being said the new Quantum Hawaii to Vancouver cruise with Maui unavailable wasn't that attractive to keep compared to the original Ovation Hawaii cruise I had booked. They would price protect us but there were fewer nights and fewer ports of call. They also transferred that Hawaii cruise from Ovation to Quantum so I cancelled it for a refund of my deposit and decided to fly home from Honolulu which is a domestic flight at a reasonable cost.

Twenty three nights on Quantum of the Seas including Brisbane, Sydney, Picton, Wellington, Auckland, Papeete, Moorea, Raiatea and Hawaii. I am writing this review in May having arrived back home in Florida. Twenty three nights is a long time to take off from work and with so many sea days on this journey I decided to make this a working cruise. That ended up working out really well but it left little time to post this thread live so I am posting it all from the future, of the cruise, in the past, tense that is, which will become a recurring theme managing the date and time difference with the US as I worked remotely during the voyage. The transpacific cruise by itself was 21 nights. I added a 2 night repositioning cruise before it to make it a total of 23 nights. I don't see a lot of transpacific reviews or trip reports so I thought this could help fill in that void. I've been waiting to post this here as @mashley1021 has been posting live from Quantum's voyage from Hawaii to Vancouver occurring after my cruise. I didn't want to steal her thunder or cause confusion posting this now historical account of Quantum's Transpacific from Australia to Hawaii. You can check out her most excellent thread here: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/boards/index.php?/topic/52355-hawaii-is-calling-quantum-of-the-seas-42825/

The thing is, the more you shop TAs for maximum monetary discounts and incentives you need to understand that may come at a cost in another direction. Royal pays a host agency a commision for each regular booking. Typically the host agency takes a portion and depending on the agreement with the individual agent, the agent receives a fixed full time income, a blend of fixed income plus a portion of that commision, or an individual agent might work just for the commission as their sole means of compensation. For the most part those monetary perks you may be seeking are typically funded using that same commision. Receiving more monetary perks sounds great until you realize that if there is little or nothing left for the individual agent to take home, they may not be motivated to spend a whole lot of time servicing a booking. Instead they need volume to make a living, investing very little labor into any one of the mass volume of bookings needed to make a living. Want to change cabins? Looking at an upgrade? See a price drop? Got an issue? When an agent isn't motivated to spend very much time working on any one booking you will likely get the level of service you are effectively paying for... very little. But you got maximum perks so there is that. Agents work. It takes time and knowledge to become a seasoned pro. They need to earn a decent level of compensation or else why bother? So be careful shopping on the basis of maximum monetary perks.

Typically Voom, even paid plans, have issues checking in and performing certain functions such as retrieving luggage tags while on board a ship. The issue appears to be DNS related which can be overcome through the use of VPN but that wouldn't be available for non-paid WiFi connecticitions accessing any free websites including royalcaribbean.com. If you have close together cruises you should have already checked in for both a long time before the cruises.

I tend to pick a time that's later when I'm B2B so that guests boarding on that day don't miss out on early times. Each arrival time slot has finite capacity and if anyone needlessly picks early times then new guests for that cruise may get forced into later times.

With Voyager going back into the Pacific in 2026 it makes me wonder if the increased size of the Pacific fleet is permanent or short lived. Will they offset that by moving a ship out of the Pacific? If so, which ship? Voyager goes to Seattle after a seasonal deployment in Brisbane. Perhaps Navigator leaves? Deadhead through the Suez now that there may be some stability coming for shipping interests?

I have no insight where Navigator heads after her dry dock but wouldn't it be awesome if it went somewhere to launch a new private destination expected in this time frame?

I prefer the views from CK on Q class but alas there is no bar in there. They have a service bar for some drinks and will run out to the WJ for more complex libations. Sea Class guests are much more likely to actually get CK reservation on Q class compared to the others.