F1guynz

So here I go...."telling" on myself.  Sheesh...
I made the rookiest of rookie mistakes.  I double-booked (overlap) cruises !  I still can't believe I made such a stupid, rookie mistake but I sure did !
When I booked our annual tier casino cruises yesterday, I booked the 9th and the 16th of March B2B on SY.  All was well until I realized that we had JUST booked a 10 night EX cruise (an instant casino comp from leg #1 of this trio) for 3-20-25.  That means that I would still be ON SY when it was time to board EX.  OMG, the panic !  I felt like I was going to be sick.  I had JUST spent HOURS on the phone with Club Royale to get these 2 bookings (plus fix another comp that had gotten totally FUBAR, but that's another story....) made and now I had to go BACK and move the March 16th to March 2nd.  I was fully prepared to have to pay a $200 fee to move this cruise but it had to be done....moving the EX cruise was not an option since there was no other 10 night cruise in the casino offer to choose from.
I got BACK on the phone with Club Royale and honestly, it could not have gone more smoothly.  No change fee, she simply changed the sail date and that was that. I didn't deserve such an easy fix to a TOTALLY avoidable blunder on my part. The only problem was that there was a very small upharge for upgrading from the interior offer to the XB, Ocean View Guarantee for this sailing. For this particular cruise, the XB was slightly more than the 4V (which is the way it usually is.....I just got super lucky with my original bookings) but I gladly paid it to have my mistake behind me.  In retrospect (this is not an excuse....just an explanation) this pricing upcharge is the reason that I originally chose the 9th and 16th instead of the 2nd and the 9th.  The fact that I was already booked on EX never entered my pea brain.  Anyway....crisis rectified.  We are still on B2B on SY but slightly earlier than we were, originally.
UGH

It has docked at Fergusson container terminal before it didn’t go very well for the passengers as there were lots of issues with shuttle buses.
i think Royal now generally just skips Auckland until more investment is made in berthing facilities.
There are some on the council that want to move the ports of Auckland up north to free up the land for development so there will not be any investment in infrastructure in the foreseeable future.
i think generally speaking the other cruise ships are not as long as Princess and  P&O can use the cruise ship facilities.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/travel-troubles/130841698/welcome-to-auckland-cruise-passengers-left-at-container-yard-after-buses-fail-to-show-up
 

In my experience this is near the cheapest they will be. There may be some price drops but usually they go up from here. We not in rush to book so time will tell if they have a real sale.

The pricing the suites on Anthem is WOW (and not in good way). Seems to be about double what we have been paying on Quantum.
The GLS we had on Quantum cost around $13,000 NZD in total, now that is the cost PP.
 

I guess that makes sense why it was considered "sold out"
Might book this one cause it has Dunedin...

The pricing the suites on Anthem is WOW (and not in good way). Seems to be about double what we have been paying on Quantum.
The GLS we had on Quantum cost around $13,000 NZD in total, now that is the cost PP.
 

@Jamesszy94 I think that is because cabin type is only available midship. When I look at the deck plan for available cabins it goes all the way from front to back.
these screen shots show what I mean, I selected the most forward and most rearward cabin and they are both identified as midship.
 

In my experience this is near the cheapest they will be. There may be some price drops but usually they go up from here. We not in rush to book so time will tell if they have a real sale.

Cruises are live now.
@Jamesszy94, @mattymay

Cruises are live now.
@Jamesszy94, @mattymay

Cruises are live now.
@Jamesszy94, @mattymay

Yes, I think I'm out for that season. I have Star of the Seas in March 26 so that's probably a good thing anyways.
 
Spectrum is already released. I think it will just be Ovation in Singapore.

Not very exciting itineraries and we will have been on Voyager in Croatia in September.
Now we need to wait for Asia release to see if there is anything enticing there, it would be cool to try Spectrum at least once.

Not very exciting itineraries and we will have been on Voyager in Croatia in September.
Now we need to wait for Asia release to see if there is anything enticing there, it would be cool to try Spectrum at least once.

No Fiji in the new itineraries from Brisbane. Lunganville is a new port but that is about it.

These are the links to the itineraries I have seen.
https://creative.rccl.com/Sales/Royal/Deployment/2025_2026/Australia/AN_2025-2026_Australia_Deployment
https://creative.rccl.com/Sales/Royal/Deployment/2025_2026/Australia/VY_2025-2026_Australia_Deployment
 

No Fiji in the new itineraries from Brisbane. Lunganville is a new port but that is about it.

These are the links to the itineraries I have seen.
https://creative.rccl.com/Sales/Royal/Deployment/2025_2026/Australia/AN_2025-2026_Australia_Deployment
https://creative.rccl.com/Sales/Royal/Deployment/2025_2026/Australia/VY_2025-2026_Australia_Deployment
 

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.
 

Great to hear you had a fantastic cruise.

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 


 

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 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. 

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.
 

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.