Jamesszy94

Maybe I can finally convince my dad to cruise out of Brisbane now... his reasoning was that: it's the same ship as Ovation - so there's no point.

I'm happy to get a Voyager class back. Would be nice to have a Radiance too.

Yep I saw the thing about Voyager sailing year round from Brisbane here @Chili. Yay to getting an older Quantum class than Ovation I guess 🤦🤷‍♂️

During some idle time this morning, I was thinking about how pricing is through the roof, and wondered if a correction may be coming. I have no idea, because Royal Caribbean's marketing seems superior to the other cruise lines and demand seems disproportionate to Royal vs other lines. I looked for late May sailings from Miami, Port Everglades, Port Canaveral and Tampa. I compared the May 25 sailing on Icon, Symphony, Wonder and Enchantment for similar category cabins to compare with Carnival Celebration. I realize it's not completely apples to apples, but this was eye opening.
Results (guarantees when the option was available):
Carnival Celebration -- 7 night sailing on May 26 from Miami -- total cost for two is $2,543.30 -- cost per night $363.32 Icon -- 7 night sailing on May 25 from Miami -- total cost for two is $9,767.38 -- cost per night $1,395.34 Symphony -- 6 night sailing on May 4 from Port Everglades -- total cost for two is $2,994.48 (the sailings from PE were limited to Symphony 6 night and 3 night -- not a good comparison) -- cost per night $499 Wonder -- 7 night sailing on May 26 from Port Canaveral -- total cost for two is $4,707.94 -- cost per night $672.56 Enchantment -- 7 night sailing on May 11 from Tampa -- total cost for two is $3,798.76 -- cost per night $542.68 per night I have to conclude that unless there is a correction soon, I may be trying other lines. I just don't see that the value that Royal has been known for exists right now considering a ship like Enchantment gets more for 7 nights than Carnival's second newest ship that has been getting good reviews. I am loyal to Royal, but there is a limit, and sadly, I am close to it. I'm curious to know what others are thinking.

ngl, I had to check the post date of this multiple times to confirm it wasn't an April Fool's joke.
Matt! Matt! Why hast thou forsaken us?!?
 
😉

I've always defended @Matt when someone claimed he was being a princess.
Now I'm not so sure.
🤣🤣🤣
 

And he would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling bloggers !

Ship: Quantum of the Seas - Easter sailing 
Room: Grand Loft Suite with genie Yen 
Itinerary: Brisbane > Noumea (New Caledonia) > Mystery Island (Vanuatu) > Port Vila (Vanuatu) - 8 nights
Who: Andrea, 43; husband Andrew, 43 and kids Jordan, 11 and Marcus, 8. This was our first ever cruise. We would definitely go again but only in Star Class (where are my fellow suite snobs at?). 
We flew from Melbourne to Brisbane at 8:00 with no delays, arriving just before 10:00. In an Uber on the way to port and found the Star Class banner by 10:30. A short delay behind the B2Bs but all checked in and through security with Pier genie Elliott by 10:45 where we met our genie Yen. 
Straight to Vintages after muster for a drink and run down with Yen to tweak the itinerary a little. We received white WOW bands instead of purple as they had run out of purple a couple of sailings back. 
Room was ready by 11:30 and full of snacks, drinks and bottle of Moët for sail away. Sadly the weather in Brisbane was dismal and was grey, gloomy and raining. We didn’t meet our room attendant until the evening. 
We had lunch at Coastal Kitchen which was very quiet before heading off to explore the ship before the crowds really kicked in. There were 4900 people on the sailing including 1300 kids. Due to the weather we didn’t taken many pics on embarkation day. 

We went back to the room for sail away which was spot on 4:30pm and then headed back to Coastal Kitchen for dinner. The line for the Windjammer went all the way to the stairwell. After dinner we headed to the headliner comedy show where Yen had drinks waiting for us. The comedy left a bit to be desired so we headed off early to get an early night. 
Day 2: First sea day was action packaged for us. Breakfast at Coastal (we didn’t set foot in the jammer or the MDR the whole time), bumper cars, rock climbing wall, ifly, suite sun deck, lunch, back to the sun deck, Star Class bridge tour then dinner at Jamie’s. 
Jamie’s was easily our favourite specialty restaurant, both the food and the service were top notch and there were lots of options for the kids. Our Jamie’s server ended up being our favorite person on the ship other than the genie. No show tonight as I didn’t think Sequins and Feathers would be appropriate for the kids. 
 
I read a lot of Australian naysayers saying that nobody dressed up for any of the themes nights. Garbage! Almost everybody was dressed up for formal night in some capacity and looked fantastic. 

Day 7: Sea day! All 4 of us get motion sickness yet we had no issue at all on this cruise. I packed half a Rite-Aid “just in case” and we used nothing. The lozenges came in handy for Yen who had developed a very scratchy voice. 
After CK this morning we had the Star flowrider - there was only one session for the whole cruise which was a little disappointing. Marcus was too short to ride so it was just the 3 of us and just one other guy so we did get about 5 goes each. Was great fun but we thought the instructors should have gone over a few things beforehand - it was impossible to figure out what progressions they were asking you to do whilst riding. 
We legged it from the flowrider to Jamie’s for the cupcake class where we made a frog. It was nice to do a quieter, craft activity and everyone had fun. Our fave waiter was there to look out for us too. I believe this one isn’t actually included for Star but we were not charged. 
Yen had booked Andrew for a whisky tasting so I took the kids to Schooner Bar for trivia. This was our first time being in a gen pop area. It was virtually impossible to get a drink. It would have been quicker to message yen the order and have a totally different bar deliver it. Most of the people in the bar looked like they should have been cut off hours earlier. We did semi ok in the trivia and then headed back to the seaplex for the escape room. Yen had organised a private session for us as the kids are both under 12 and no other Star Class passengers had signed up. Andrew got lost after his whisky tasting (he was the only person on the tasting) but eventually joined us. The kids were great at it, especially Marcus who loves math. The adults couldn’t have done less and the staff member was laughing at us the whole time. We didn’t finish 😂 
Dinner back at Chops - Andrew and I both had lobster which was fantastic. Sonic Odyssey wasn’t on until 8:30 so we went back to the room to shower to save time later. By this time Andrew was half asleep from the whisky tasting and the dinner wine but he managed to make it to the show. He then slept through the whole thing. We loved Sonic Odyssey - it was well worth the later night.
 
 Day 8: last day at sea. After breakfast in CK we did the galley tour which was really interesting. Our CK maître-d took the tour. It was interesting to hear how long serving some of the staff are - it’s so rare these days to see people working for the same company for 15-30 years so RC must be doing something right. 
 
After the galley tour we did a few more rounds of bumpers and then the laser tag which was crazy fun. Andrew got the high score and I came third, the teenage boys on the other team were livid. The laser tag was supposed to be Star only but nobody other than us had signed up. Yen said her other 2 rooms didn’t really do activities and when we saw Jade she said the same. 
 
We headed back to the room as the kids wanted to do some art for the tip envelopes and go and give them out. Marcus and I went to Jamie’s for lunch so he could give Kadek his tip and drawing and Jordan and Andrew went to Izumi. We found our room attendant and apprentice on the way back so the kids could give them their tips. 
 
When got back to the room we had a lovely cake waiting. Yen had organised a thermal suite day pass for Andrew and I so we went to the suite sun deck for a while and then left the kids to run out the rest of their arcade credit. The thermal suite was dead quiet so felt like a private oasis.

The kids had organised a pizza and banana split delivery with Yen for their dinner as they didn’t want to come to Wonderland and had asked Bagus to leave the bed out so they could watch Five Nights at Freddy’s. Off we went to Wonderland which was fine but very much a one and done for us. 
 
When we headed back the kids had just finished their movie and had lots of stories to tell us. Wijaya had come to clear away the afternoon snacks and had made them some lovely origami animals, Yen had popped by to deliver some gifts (kissing mugs for us, shark blanket tails for the kids) and Bagus and Iskander gave them a mini towel animal workshop when they were doing turndown.
 
Day 9: Disembarkation. We had a later flight so stayed on for as long as possible. There was no room service which we didn’t realise so Yen bought our coffee order. We would have told her not to worry if we’d known! We had a late breakfast in CK. I haven’t said much about the CK service, our main server generally seemed very distracted. She missed items and forgot entire meals loads of times and she called me Melissa more than once…
Yen came to meet us at 9 to walk us off. Disembarkation was seamless and we were off by 9.30 and in a taxi to the airport. In a full circle moment it was pouring rain again in Brisbane. 
 
I got rather teary saying goodbye to Yen. She was just amazing and was the perfect fit for us. Overall the Star experience exceeding our expectations. We very much did the cruise for the kids but turned out that we also loved it. The kids were so well behaved the entire time and really seemed to grow in confidence and got a little bit of independence. 

I found the blogs so helpful as a new cruiser so a big thanks to everyone who posts about their travels 


 

Day 3: Another packed sea day. Andrew and I went to Pilates in the morning and were the only people there. The instructor told us that the class is always busy and then people show up late due to the time change backwards. Our genie had warned us that our phones wouldn’t automatically update - guess nobody else got the memo. 
 
Our Starbucks standing order was waiting when we headed back which we took to CK. Then it was another 2 rounds of bumper cars before the backstage tour of the Royal Theatre. The tour was some sort of Crown & Anchor event that we had glommed onto and was full of fairly rude pinns and who did a lot of interrupting and touching stuff they weren’t supposed to. The kids said the oldies were worse behaved than kindergarten kids on a field trip. The tour was interesting, if a bit long at a full hour. 
 

Lunch at CK before more time on the suite sun deck. The belly flop competition had just finished and the deck was an utter shambles. The kids blew through some of their arcade credit in the late afternoon while Andrew and I had some down time. We did sign them up for kids club but it was so disorganised and chaotic that we did not send them. They’re very mature and responsible so we were happy to let them spread their wings a little on their own. I bought a family pack of octopus 🐙 plushies for arrival and the kids had a huge pink one that was spare. They took it to the arcade and asked a little girls parents if she would like it. We ended up seeing them on a tender after that and she was still holding on tight to it. Too cute! 
 
Dinner at Chops. I didn’t seem to take any photos. The food was fantastic but the service was very mid. Certainly nothing like the warmness we had received in Jamie’s. We went to the hypnotist show which the kids just adored and then did some roller skating before bed. 

Count me on this sailing. Gonna be my first time on Royal in a good six years! Haven't sailed with them since before the pandemic hit. And this sailing will mark a few moments for me:
I turn 55 four days before sail-away I finally hit Platinum status (for all that means these days 😏) First sailing on Odyssey First time in Antigua and Barbados (too bad no Curacao, but 2 outta 3 ain't bad) And yeah, it's been a minute since I posted to these boards. 😉 

I was on Odyssey in Nov of 2022 the first sailing after the end of the Med season. She was very low on the totem pole for me as far as Royal's ships go. My major dislikes were the layout, the Esplanade, and lack of decent shows. This was still during the restart so a lot of the specialty restaurants and such left a lot to be desired as well; we could never get service at Playmakers. I didn't have a problem with the elevators. I had more of a problem that if you didn't go a certain way, you wouldn't be able to access your room. I actually decided Quantum class was a one and done and that I wouldn't sail that class of ship again. After that I have sailed a lot of more classes and ships. So, I begin to look on Odyssey with more grace. I am sailing Quantum to Alaska in Sept. I wouldn't call this class a dud, more so an outlier. 

Matt would never turn down free champagne. Even if it meant free champagne from a Carnival subsidiary.

Loyal to Royal?!?  Not so fast, here comes Princess Matt!  🤣

I like sailing other lines to try something different. 
Royal feels like home compared to other lines but if I never left home, home would get pretty boring. 
I don't have bad cruises on the other lines, they just don't feel like home.
Maybe it's good to try another line if for no other reason than to remind you what line suits you best.

I was comparing the markets on the basis of route stagnation, not the actual ports of call. 
Unless it's a casino comp I can't see myself booking a Royal ship to the Caribbean.  Yawn.  Same old stuff on every itinerary.  Just about every Royal itinerary in the Caribbean is all about beach, sun, water sports, etc.  No history.  No culture. 
Seriously repetitive.  Different island, same s***.  Is that you feel about Royal in Australia? 
Granted for many, especially those that have to suffer a miserable winter somewhere, beach, sun, water sports, etc. sounds pretty freaking great.
 

Other cruise lines go to Tonga and Fiji including Celebrity.
Royal tends to stick to Mystery Island, Noumea and sometimes Vila. The itineraries are less diverse than they used to be because some islands never reopened for cruising after Covid, and also some places limit the ship size. Maybe having Voyager/Adventure will provide opportunities for new ports.
Cruises also tend to be shorter now than they used to be with less opportunity to travel further afield. I think it is the cruise ship equivalent to chocolate bar manufacturers who make the chocolate bar slightly smaller each year but still charge the same price.
Also the ships are travelling slower so a port stop that used to take 2 days now takes 3 so the total number of port stops is less.
 

Carnival and P&O Australia goes to ports like Moreton Island, Fraser Island etc, and P&O goes to Fiji. P&O also goes to Norfolk Island. But what do I know. 🤷‍♂️
You can't really compare ports in the United States to Australia imo, because while, yes, you still need to travel to get to other ports around the US, at least the other ports still have some variety in their itineraries. Unlike Australia where we literally only have Quantum and Ovation and they basically have identical itineraries.
 

South Pacific again... I knew I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up for new itineraries. 

Shame about Brilliance having to cut the cruise short, I can only imagine how many disgruntled guess there's going to be, but stuff happens and it's out of our control. At least they're getting compensated and the compensation is actually decent.

I’ll trade you the Allure (Galveston ‘26) for the Odyssey and a ship to be named later.

So funny how people like different things because Anthem is our favorite ship. Very sad we are losing her. 😪 The indoor pool was amazing in February when we sailed. 

Love Odyssey, hate the elevators