twangster

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.

I assume you've quadrupled my salary as a result?

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/
 

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/
 

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.  

You would think it would be more efficient to flip the smoking and non-smoking casinos.  Give smokers a compact space to smoke and breathe each others smoke, give non-smokets an expanded space. 

Hey Everyone!
As I stated way back in the beginning of this, we were in a 2 bedroom grand suite. It was my first time in the same cabin with my parents since 2008 (On the Indy actually which I will be on this summer again, although solo this time...). We had separate bedrooms and bathrooms so it really wasn't bad and I think my mom liked having the common "living room" type space in the middle of the room.
Anyways, we were in room 10634:

It had a doorbell, I know, very exciting content here:

When you entered the room, you were in a hallway, on the left was my room and on the right was the walk in closet and the second bathroom.

Walk in closet:

Second bathroom, basically a standard cabin bathroom, worked fine for me:

My bedroom:

My Closet in front of the bed:

(I took the hanging shelf thing with because I watched many cabin tours of this cabin and knew about the minimal drawers/ no shelves in the second bedroom in advance)
Then, if you go forward from the hallway I showed earlier, we had the living area:

More storage in the living area:

The door on the left was the cooler and the right was a cabinet:

Next to the TV above, you will see a door to my parent's room:

Closet on the left of the bed:

Cabinets in front of the bed next to the TV:

Closet on the right of the bed:

Desk/vanity, to the right of the closet that was to the right of the bed:

(Yes, I know this is a mess, blame my mom)
Bathroom on that bedroom, pretty much the same as a JS bathroom:

Balcony photos (these are not great, I took them from the inside because I got around to taking these photos about halfway through the cruise and it was cold and windy outside so I refused to go outside to take them, sorry! I hoped it would get better but it never really did until we got to Vancouver):




Ok, so overall, we liked the cabin. It had ample storage for 3 people and probably would be fine with 4 as well, we all agreed the 8 it sleeps would be pushing it though. If my room had the upper bunks down, I don't think you could open the closet, it was pretty tight in there. We liked the living area and played lots of games on that coffee table. And the balcony is huge and would be great for a warmer weather cruise, sadly ours wasn't that.
The biggest negatives we had were:
1. My parents are not used to sharing a sink anymore and are spoiled with GS and OS normally so they were not so happy with the one sink in their bathroom even though they knew about it in advance. The sink also was one of those huge over mount sinks and as a result they had no counter space really in their bathroom.
2. My room didn't have a mirror at all and the only mirror in the common area was in my bathroom. So, the only place I could do my hair was on my desk without a mirror since I needed an outlet and obviously cruise ship bathrooms don't have outlets. Or in the common area also without a mirror. I knew about this in advance so I took a travel mirror but it still seems like a mistake to not have a mirror at least in the common area. I ended up waiting until my mom was ready sometimes and using her vanity area but she also had managed to cover that with all her makeup so it was a mess and not super convenient. Also, I was generally faster than her so waiting was not ideal.
Overall, those were the only negatives so clearly it wasn't that bad.
Anyways, since we clearly didn't kill each other, we do have a 2 bedroom aqua theater suite booked next year on Utopia. Hopefully we aren't pushing our luck!

Thanks for putting up with me for this 8 day sailing and let me know if you have any further questions!
- Ashley
 

Wow, back so soon, very unlike me...
Anyways day 9 aka Vancouver and travel home!
We had gotten an email a few months back that due to the tides, we would be docking in Vancouver late in order for the ship to make it under the Lion's gate bridge. We weren't supposed to dock until around 8:30, and get clearance until around 9:30. The next guests weren't getting on until the next day in Seattle so there was really no impact there, and in theory it meant we could have had a more relaxing disembarkation day, especially with our flight not being until after 4:30pm since we waited for the direct flight on Air Canada, but you know how Royal is, and even if Royal wasn't that way, my mom would have managed to kill the relaxation. Even though we weren't scheduled to dock until 8:30, we still were told to vacate our cabins by 8:30 and most of the venues closed for breakfast at 8:30 or 9. So after that, everyone just sat around the public spaces on the ship frustrated, more on that later...
Here is us going under the bridge in question:

In case anyone was concerned, we fit. Then, to kill time, we went to breakfast at Coastal Kitchen like 10 minutes before they closed, we normally aren't those people but we became those people. We had booked the late transfer to YVR and were supposed to disembark at 11am so we figured, let's try to kill some time.





We got promptly kicked out of Coastal Kitchen, along with another table we were chatting with, at 9:30. At that time, we expected at least some tags to have been called but we found out the only thing called was self carry and it was just called by the time we made it to the Suite waiting area in Wonderland. Nothing was open at this point and the water, coffee, etc in the waiting areas had long emptied out so there really was nothing to do. At 10 they were supposed to call red tags, key, etc and those were not called until after 10:30. They were quite a bit behind schedule and by 11:15 were like 45 minutes behind. They then skipped a bunch of numbers to call the late transfer (33), which was our number for the transfer. At that point, only through 15 had been called and it was just us and one other person also on the transfer waiting in the suite waiting area. The Concierge was thrilled to be done escorting people at that point 🙃.
Anyways, we proceeded ashore and were the first people in line by the buses for the transfer so we got on the first bus. Thankfully, the bus was pretty smooth and we all agreed worked out well in our situation with a late flight. The driver even made a little tour of it narrating the entire drive, here was the cauldron from the Vancouver olympics since I managed to snap the photo of it as we drove by:

They made 2 stops, one in the terminal for US flights and the second in the terminal for Canada flights, we got off at the first stop and by the time we got to the airport were just within the 4 hours that we could check our bags. We then went through security and US immigration which was all pretty smooth, they have a preferred traveler lane in the US YVR terminal that worked with Global Entry and an MPC lane at immigration. Then we waited in the Air Canada Lounge for our flight. Unfortunately, right at the time we moved to the gate, the flight was delayed an hour and a half to back up to the lounge we went. During the delay, I checked in for the Indy group cruise in June so for anyone on there, see you this summer! It was a pretty conveniently timed delay for that. Then when we headed back down a second time, they called for boarding. This was my first time flying a regional jet in ages and it also was an international flight, a very interesting combination. We were in business class, I think I have mentioned in the past that my dad only flies at the front of the plane and I guess I get the benefit of that.




Overall, not a bad 2.5 hour flight. We had better service than we did on AA on our outbound to Honolulu and the meal was actually pretty good.
Fun fact: we had previously sworn off Air Canada. So in May 2020, we were supposed to do this same cruise on Ovation of the Seas (Albeit a better 11 night itinerary with more ports at the beginning and end back then), and we had this same flight booked because AA canceled their direct flight from YVR to PHX and was going to reroute us through DFW so we insisted on a refund. AA refunded us and we booked Air Canada. That would have been some time in the fall of 2019. Then fast forward to May 2020, the height of Covid, and the cruise was cancelled but we held on to the flight hoping Air Canada would cancel it so we would get a refund. They did cancel it, yay! But they still refused to refund us, not yay. So my parents disputed the charge with Amex and got the money back but basically it boiled down to Canada's laws around flight cancelations being not as favorable as the US at that time. At that point, we had 0 plan to ever fly Air Canada again so a flight credit was useless to us. We were overall pretty annoyed with them so I think this is a case of second chances being a good thing. Now that we finally flew them, can confirm they might not be as bad as AA, although that is a low bar.
Anyways, thanks everyone! We finally made it to the point where we got home! Not that you care at this point, but we got a our luggage from baggage claim very quickly by PHX standards and then had a driver take us home.
Ok, so going to do one last post in a few minutes here about the cabin since I never got to that while on the ship...

Thanks!
-Ashley

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.  

In the future

Yep, I think at this point there’s no amount of free play that could get me to go to California.

Hey All!
I promise I am alive, I am back home, just ended the cruise with a case of cruise crud and never finished this so finishing it now...
Apparently I left off on Day 8... which was still at sea and also packing day! Everyone's favorite, right? Hope you get the sarcasm...
I don't remember what I did for breakfast but I can assume it probably was 270 cafe? I didn't take any pictures... and then we headed back to the room and the packing commenced! 
 
We finally got different towel animals...


And then we decided to change it up and went to the pub for lunch. You will also note that I don't think we went to Coastal Kitchen on day 7 at all except for my dad's solo breakfast which I really hadn't been posting about, so we let that streak continue for one more meal.





Then was more packing and more napping. And then we finally broke the streak and had Coastal Kitchen for dinner...





(Once again, not a fan of this menu so Luzy managed to get me the gnocchi from the menu the night before, it was that or something off the kids menu for me haha)




And then we went back to the room to put our luggage out:

And we then said good bye to some friends from the cruise before getting to bed a bit earlier than normal.
Thanks everyone! See you in a few minutes for a recap of our travel day home...
- Ashley