Sweety

I am going to try Royal Up.

Paid off my cruise today. Mason Jar here I come. Woohoo.

I am looking forward to meeting you and Dan on Adventure on our Christmas holiday. Keep the red theme going on the Casino.

Have an amazing and joyful cruise. I have been to Mykonos before and I would love to hear about your adventure. I am glad your Mom is doing better.

On 4/10/2024 at 5:57 PM, PPPJJ-GCVAB said:

Packing list:

Red bra and panties (double my odds)….  CHECK 

I told James to wear red. I told him that he will be too sexy.  I am trying to reach Prime.

Red underwear! Who knew. Buying some today. I need to hit prime.

The dining prices have decreased 5%. Saved a few dollars on Mason Jar.

It's your turn for the big win in the casino.

Have a joyful Birthday!!!

2 hours ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Pulling away from Puerto Plata, DR currently.  At least, I think we are.  I can feel some movement and all aboard was supposed to be at 3:00 (it’s now 4:17).  Those 2 pieces of evidence together tell me we’re on the move since I can see NOTHing of the outside world from my little Promenade view interior. 

We did not leave the ship today as we have called here twice in the past couple of months and we will be back here during Part III on 4-22 (I think).  On that visit, we will be swimming with sea lions and sharks.  Yikes !

Dan is napping (again) so I’m sitting in the dark tapping away on my iPad.  Dinner tonite is in the MDR.  It will be our first visit to the MDR this cruise.  Mexican night, as I recall.  It’s not a fab menu but I can tolerate the controversially-named pork enchilada/burrito/chimichunga.  Dan likes the carne asada (I think that’s what it’s called).  We have MTD.  Hopefully EX has “caught on” to the way other ships are handling MTD and there won’t be any lengthy lines.  My recent experiences have been that they are simply seating MTD folks amidst the traditional folks at vacant tables as they become available.  It seems to be working fine but I think it’s very labor-intensive and stressful for the dining staff as they are turning tables over (figuratively, of course) many multiples of times per meal. They’re damned good at it, too.  I’m amazed at how quickly they can re-set a table and have new folks seated.  Impressive.

Then it will be off to the casiner (sic) to try and put ourselves back on our earlier “winning” track.  We were derailed last night…we both had miserable gambling experiences.  We actually ended up playing a little Dancing Drums (actually, a LOT of Dancing Drums), which is extremely unusual for us but as I’ve mentioned previously, this is Dan’s push for Prime so points are important and the tables just don’t cut it for us as we aren’t big wager-ers.  Slot machines are mindlessly boring to me but we played together on 1 machine and it was kinda fun. I was THAT person last night.  I was sitting next to Dan, playing with him (no smart-ass remarks) so obviously I was sitting on a stool, in front of another Dancing Drums machine.  I heard someone make a loud [intentional, I’m sure] remark about all of the machines being “taken” so I was guilted into putting $20 into the machine in front of which I was sitting, and pressing the button every minute or 2 just for the pretense of playing.  Since I was paying absolutely NO attention to what was going on, on that machine, I actually ended up breaking even !  Too funny. Of course we lost, eventually, on the machine we were jointly playing, but Dan got a good number of points, which was the goal.

I like dancing drums. I like the banging of the drums. Must be the steel drums in me.

Loved your blog.

On 4/5/2024 at 8:03 PM, AndreaP43 said:

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. 

We love Jamie's.

I will be trying to make Prime this year. I stopped gambling for awhile.

I will try it in June.

33 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Yes !  We ate lunch today at Chops, which is a kind of tradition for us.  There were only 4 other people eating in the restaurant which is REAlLY a slow embarkation day for Chops.  
 

We are dining at Giovanni’s tonite and Chops tomorrow night (our BOGO vouchers).  We also have a 3 night dining package so we are doing Izumi on night #4 (skipping the USA menu in the MDR), Chops on night #6 (skipping the Caribbean night) and Giovanni’s on night #7 (skipping Italian night).  That leaves Mexican night (night #3), Asian night (night #5), Royal night (lobster, night #8) and lamb shank night (can’t remember the theme) on night #9 for the MDR.  I actually like Italian night in the MDR so on the repeat of this itin (cruise #3 4-19) I will choose to do Italian night and switch it out for something else….plenty of time to make that decision !

James liked Jamie's. He put in a request to eat at Jamie's whenever possible. 

Any specialty dining?

I will be following. Have wonderful cruises.

Good Morning. Are you going to try the Fish and Ship?

Being a special education teacher I always donate. I had one student who went to Disney on make a wish. I miss Jasmine. 

Mason Jar brunch is only on Day 1. I am going to the Windjammer for that awesome seafood brunch.

6 minutes ago, Neesa said:

I second this. The inaugural prices were high. I have never sailed one and wanted to experience it. While I wished it was a longer sailing if it was I for sure would not have been able to book it. If I enjoy the ship I'll go ahead and sail her again some time later in the future .... when the pricing is better.

I booked Mason Jar.

9 minutes ago, Neesa said:

I was able to finally purchase my Evian water, limited dining still & no railway. The prices this morning on Coco Cay especially the Beach club have come down some. I guess Allure passengers aren't paying those sky high prices either, still high as in 180.00 per person for entry (no thank you) and the cabanas have come down a bit there also, just under 3,000 for a beach cabana (again, no thank you) 

We have never done a stand alone 3 night sailing, we usually paired it for a B2B but at this point the cost is prohibitive with everything else we have going on. May take a page from @OCSC Mike Oasis Pool, lunch and back on the ship for Coco Cay visit.

I just wish Royal would even tease some more information on the Railway experience. 

I usually do a B2B, but the prices are too high. I have Adventure August 2.

7 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

That'll be easy.  Let's just pick a time and place to meet !  Last year I had a great meet-up with @fireclan.  I wish I had included you in that one so I apologize for forgetting that you would be there !!!  We won't let that happen again....

...and OBTW, that photo is nearly 20 years old.  I really MUST replace it.  

I will be on the Christmas cruise.

3 minutes ago, OCSC Mike said:

Perhaps it isn't available yet or it's because it's the inaugural? I'd keep checking.

My wife and I were discussing this over the weekend since we have a few Utopia B2B's booked in the future. There's a tool someone from that other forum created that lets you see cruise planners for future cruises even if you're not booked and I saw brunch offered for whatever random 3N dates in August I chose. You can't see what days it's available but I'm assuming embarkation day since there are no sea days.

Here's the link if anyone is interested... https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ukT6gOPcu7coL92LuDcyDaWXQfO88u5kN9FEdHRj5bM/edit#gid=0

You just have to enter the ship and date then use the links to look at whatever you want. Oh yeah, and YOU MUST BE LOGGED OUT OF THE RC WEBSITE to use it.

I tried the link. No to Mason Jar Brunch. 

@OCSC Mike@Neesa, I was able to book Mason Jar for dinner today. I wanted Brunch, but they are not offering it on the three day cruise.