Spectrum of the Seas - 22DEC19 - Hong Kong B2B

[KristiZ]

Day 4 — At sea

Today turned out to be mostly about music. 

Breakfast at Silver dining again. This morning was Christmas, and Royal had 2.5 hours of Santa giving out gifts to the over 1000 children onboard this sailing. Crazy! We also did Northstar (see above) this morning. Lunch was room service on our balcony, watching birds chase flying fish. After lunch MisterZ napped and I trotted around the ship taking photos for you all  

My first sighting of the Stowaway Piano Player was that afternoon. Music #1. 

Then we checked out the Bionic Bar. In the name of research, of course!

Diamond lounge before dinner, and then we ate at Silver dining. It was nice, but the menu doesn’t change so once was enough. You order your app and entree from the menu and then get sides, salad, dessert, and more entrees from the buffet. 

Crab cake and prawns:

 

Next we found the Stowaway Piano Player again and got to request songs. He’s quite good. Music #2. 

Then we went to the Music Hall to hear the Aura Band, a bluesy-pop cover band. They were fun and I really like the Music Hall venue. Music #3. 

Music Hall staircase:

Behind the Music Hall bar:

 

Last we stopped at the Schooner Bar to hear Girl Named Jake, who we had caught briefly two nights before. Music #4 was also excellent!

Schooner Bar:

 

We really have been pleased with the live music on this trip! 

 

[KristiZ]

Sichuan Red

We wanted to try the specialty restaurant Sichuan Red during this trip, since it is currently only found on Spectrum. It makes sense a ship built for China would have a Chinese restaurant, particularly Sichuan cuisine (southern and spicy). It was $35 per person, with a few upsale menu items. The $35 included a cold appetizer, a hot entree, a soup, and either a side dish or a dessert. However, there were a number of substitutions you could make, like the broccoli entree instead of a side dish. The server was patient in explaining our options. Also, if you bought an upcharge item, it came in addition to all the other food. It ended up be one metric crap-ton of food (that’s a specific technical measurement on this side of the world  ).

It was fantastic! If you don’t like at least a bit of spicy, this restaurant is not for you. But if you can handle it, everything we ate was amazing! If you get a chance, eat here for sure!

Sour & Spicy Soup:

Not even all the food we had. From top right — fruit appetizer (in case the pickles were too spicy), Chinese Lettuce Leaves with Sesame Paste Dipping Sauce, Green Pepper Chicken, Assorted Pickles, Sour & Spicy Soup, Mapo Tofu, Wok-Fried Chicken with Chilis, and Crispy Fried Sea Scallops (center, $25 upcharge). Not pictured: white rice, Sichuan Spicy Noodles, Stir-Fried Garlic Broccoli

Spectrum does not currently offer any dining packages, FYI

[KristiZ]

@Sweety, this one is for you! No red velvet cake so far, but this red velvet cheesecake sure was good! Dining room night 6

 

[WAAAYTOOO]

Kristi, I am going to steal your "metric crap-ton".  That is the funniest thing I've read all week !!

That thing in the middle with all of those red peppers !  Holy crap-ton !

[SpeedNoodles]

OMG,  Sichuan Red looks good enough to book the ship on alone!  I could eat like that daily and never get tired of it.

[AshleyDillo]

1 hour ago, SpeedNoodles said:

OMG,  Sichuan Red looks good enough to book the ship on alone!  I could eat like that daily and never get tired of it.

Ditto!  I want a Sichuan Red and Hot Pot on my ships!

[Lovetocruise2002]

They need to expand Sichuan Red to other ships!!  I desperately want try this more than any other specialty restaurants!  The food in those pics look amazing!

[Andrew72681]

8 hours ago, KristiZ said:

It ended up be one metric crap-ton of food (that’s a specific technical measurement on this side of the world  ).

That’s .90 imperial crap-ton of food

[Andrew72681]

2 hours ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

They need to expand Sichuan Red to other ships!!  I desperately want try this more than any other specialty restaurants!  The food in those pics look amazing!

On NCL the noodle bar/dim sum restaurant was one of our favorites. Was hard to get in but the food was great and no upcharge. 

[Sweety]

9 hours ago, KristiZ said:

@Sweety, this one is for you! No red velvet cake so far, but this red velvet cheesecake sure was good! Dining room night 6

 

I want a piece. Yum. Yum.

[KristiZ]

1 hour ago, Andrew72681 said:

That’s .90 imperial crap-ton of food

Exactly! Good to see they’re still teaching conversions in school

 

[KristiZ]

Two70

This was another space I was really looking forward to experiencing on this ship, especially with the loss of my beloved Viking Crown. I have to say it did not disappoint — I love being able to sit and watch the ocean. And you are so close to the water! This is another venue where the seating is so interesting, too. 

The Cafe:

Attached to Two70 on the upper level is the library, which I was glad to see even if it is small:

Off of the Library is the Boardroom, a gorgeous space for puzzles, games, private gatherings, etc:

 

[KristiZ]

Quick shout out to @twangster for the recommendation on the Image Size app. Not sure how I’ve made it this far in life without it — super easy and useful! Thanks!!

[KristiZ]

Day 5 - Ilocos

Today started in Silver dining for breakfast, and then back to the cabin to slather on the sunscreen before our full day shore excursion in the Ilocos region of the Philippines. “Huh! Where’s that?” you say — just like I did when we booked this cruise. And then I continued to say it for many months as I failed to do any real research on the place and Royal failed to have any shore excursions in the Cruise Planner. At 29 days prior to the cruise, two excursions appeared — hooray! Having still done no research, we picked one based completely on the other excursion saying “time for shopping”, which we had no interest in.

This is a tender port, so I felt it was important to book an excursion through Royal just for my own peace of mind. Also, our track record with full-day excursions in the Philippines actually getting back to the ship on time has run 50-50. **Spoiler alert — our track record is now 80-20 returning late  ** Anyway, slathered up with camera in hand, we headed to our tender with our group. 

Tendering took about 15 minutes. The dock was obviously a cargo port, and a very small one. The local city council had set up entertainment for our arrival:

We walked through a small museum with a bit of history of the area to get to our buses. One brilliant thing — there was a tent set up with an official money changer right at the dock. Only Philippine pesos are accepted in the Ilocos region, FYI. (Sorry this is a crappy shot but I actually didn’t see it until I was on the bus):

I expected the tourist facilities to be a bit more rustic than elsewhere in the Philippines, and I was not wrong. However, they rolled out the red carpet for us and in general did a great job. The local mayor for the Ilocos Sur region even rounded up free moto-taxis to take people into the closest town when he realized many passengers had made no accommodations for transport!

Turns out Spectrum was the first ever Royal ship to call on Ilocos, and the FOURTH cruise ship EVER. The last one was a Star Cruises ship two years prior! That one docked at the gravel shipyard in Ilocos Norte about 45 minutes north of where we were. 

Our tour bus was “experienced”, but comfortable enough and the A/C was frosty so no complaints. We drove about an hour and 20 minutes north to Laoag town, the capital of Ilocos Norte. Our guide was very good. Her day job was working for the vice-governor of the area. She was a licensed tour guide for English speaking and Mandarin speaking tours. Her *third* job was cooking Indian food at the housing complex for the Indian engineers working on road improvements. Underemployment is a problem in the Philippines...

We saw the town center, the American-built capitol building, the Spanish-built town church, and the Marcos family regional courthouse. Yes, that Marcos family. They are still a Really Big Deal in the area; Ferdinand’s grandson is the current mayor and a grand-niece is a senator. There’s even a university named after Ferdinand’s father.

A Philippines staple, the Jeepny:

Next we went to the Marcos’ family home in the region, a beautiful home on the edge of a lake, that is now a museum:

Finally we stopped at a fantastic old Spanish church of St Augustin, a UNESCO World Heritage site:

Then we headed back to the ship. We were 10 minutes past all-aboard, and 40 minutes past the last tender. The ship ended up departing about 30 minutes late. Oops.

Off to Vintages for a nice glass of wine before dinner:

For dinner we tried Silver dining, which does a blend of menu and buffet. MisterZ had the crab cake and prawns, I had the chicken. It was all very tasty! The menu is the same every night:

We ended the night at the Music Hall, listening to the Extra Band. Another good one!

**MisterZ has promised more Ilocos pictures, so stay tuned for a second post on the topic!**

 

[KristiZ]

Ilocos pt. 2

As promised, real photos!

Laoag Cathedral (St William’s Cathedral), built 1612:

Sinking Bell Tower, built 1612, sinks 1” per year:

Ilocos Norte Capital building, dressed for Christmas:

Moto-taxis, hold 2 passengers in the side car and one sitting side-saddle behind the driver:

Paoay Church, built 1694:

The only shot we got of the inside:

Because wedding!

 

[KristiZ]

Day 6 — Subic Bay

Another morning, another tasty breakfast at Silver dining. We docked in Subic, Philippines, at a former US Naval base that had been returned to the Philippine government after the catastrophic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991. Even though this was a docking port instead of tendering, we still chose a Royal excursion. Mostly because all the close-in stuff to do involves duty free shopping and that’s just not our thing.

We chose the Puning Hot Spring and Jungle Adventure tour. Turned out to be a slightly misleading name, and the whole thing was not so much disorganized as badly communicated, but we enjoyed it anyway. Also, we ended up back to the ship late. Oops, again.

The welcome show:

Scenes in the town of Angeles on our way up to the hot spring:

Our transport part of the way:

Jungle:

Dinner in the MDR, which was lobster night (lobster for MisterZ, Stir-Fried Beef for me):

After two full days of touring we were a bit tired, so our evening was low key and we turned in early.

[JLMoran]

That last menu shows Seafood Basket, which looks to me to be the same as the seafood tower at Chops, for $99!?!?!

For that price, I hope it’s 100% line caught off the side of the ship and filleted / cooked seconds before plating!

[KristiZ]

There is a function in the app that turns your phone into an X-ray at one spot on the ship. In the forward stair landing between deck 11 and 12 is this artwork:

Point your phone at the picture and you can see into the bridge, live. I think Symphony has this same option. It was interesting, and you can see crew moving in and out of the shot.

[KristiZ]

Covering all the holiday bases!  

 

[KristiZ]

Subic Bay - pt. 2

A few more shots from our shore excursion:

 

[KristiZ]

Day 7 - At Sea

This morning MisterZ was feeling exceptionally loungy, so I went to CafeTwo70 to grab some breakfast items. They were very tasty! Apparently we should have gone here sooner in the trip  

Seas were rough today. We were sailing through the tail end of a typhoon. Personally I’ve seen worse, but the crew who hadn’t been on smaller ships were saying this was the worst they’d been through. There were sick sacks available in the stairwells, but they didn’t seem much used, fortunately.

Today we had our Entertainment Tour from our Diamond status. I was really looking forward to seeing the differences with the older ships; we had most recently done one of these tours on Explorer. We started with about 30 minutes of discussion with the Theater stage manager and the dance supervisor. This was particularly fun because the Stage Manager’s mother was on the tour too, on her first cruise. She was very proud of her son — it was cute!

The Theater holds about 2200 guests:

Props and costumes:

Backstage fun:

The biggest surprise for me was how similar it all was to Explorer. While there were some tech advances, like the spotlight tracking devices, the dressing rooms and storage places were all the same (just a bit bigger). The Theater has 29 singers and dancers, and Two70 and the Music Hall have their own totally separate teams. If you get a chance to do this tour, jump on it on any ship. So interesting!

Immediately following the tour was our consecutive cruiser meeting. There were about 160 back-to-backers on this cruise. Cruise staff told us what to expect the next day, and how to handle things if we were planning to go ashore or not. It was very helpful.

Next we went to our favorite lounge chairs in the Silver area. For lunch, strictly for research purposes, I fetched pizza from Sorrentos:

It was perfectly reasonable — not amazing but very edible  How’s that for failing to add to the raging pizza debate on this site??

Dinner in the MDR for our last night with our waitstaff:

Also, we just squeaked in to the 50 year thing, this being the end of 2019. The cake was surprisingly delicious!

We had intended to see both Silk Road and The Effectors tonight, but both were canceled due to high seas. DO NOT LEAVE SHOWS UNTIL THE END OF YOUR TRIP! In our case, we knew we had the next sailing to catch them so while disappointed, we were not crushed.

This is one of my new favorite cruise sights, a hallway full of bags that does not include mine:

Hahahahaha! Bye, poor suckers that have to go back to the Real World! (Too mean? #sorrynotsorry)

 

[KristiZ]

Adventure Ocean

Not having any tiny humans of our own, we have never paid attention to the offerings onboard for them. Turns out there are a ton, and they’re all really cool!  

Adventure Ocean on this ship is two stories. It’s a big space, but since there were 1000 under 18 on the cruise (and 800 under 18 on the second leg) it needs to be. 

This was a cupcake class arranged only through the kids programs; it wasn’t in the cruise planner at all. I was attempting to get a photo without being too stalker-y, so it’s not my best work...

 

[KristiZ]

Arcade

Another area I had never looked at on a ship before! The space was small, located off the Seaplex, but it was well done, I think:

This style of vending machine is huge all over Asia so I was not surprised to see this:

 

[KristiZ]

I have gone on a bit about the Silver area on this ship so I figured I better back up my blathering with photos:

While this is called the Solarium, it is not adults only. It is restricted to Junior Suites and above, and Diamond and above. Your SeaPass or Wow band opens the doors.

[KristiZ]

Pools

A few snaps of the other pool areas!

Indoor Pool and bar:

Splashaway Bay and Splashaway Cafe:

Main pool, Sky Bar, and Northstar Bar:

 

[KristiZ]

On 12/28/2019 at 6:24 AM, Andrew72681 said:

On NCL the noodle bar/dim sum restaurant was one of our favorites. Was hard to get in but the food was great and no upcharge. 

Actually, there is one station in the Windjammer called the Noodle Bar. You pick your noodles from 3-4 choices, add your ingredients (fish cakes, greens, mushrooms, etc) and then give your bowl to the cook. He hands you back your cooked items and then you pick your broth and additions (soy sauce, sesame oil, vinegar, etc). There are also a few buns and dumplings in this area. It’s fun, tasty, and free!

 

[KristiZ]

Morning of Day 8 - Turn around day

Docked in Hong Kong this morning, and the weather is again not cooperating for photos. Here’s a marginal one of the lovely Kai Tak Cruise Terminal. Yes, that is a city park on top of it:

I also realized I took this picture the first day and forgot to share it, so here you go:

Today we went to Silver dining for breakfast. Then back to our cabin to pack up or drawer contents as instructed — our cabin steward would move our suitcases and hanging items to our new cabin for us. Nice!

At 8:45am we went to the left side of the MDR, 4th floor, and scanned “off” the ship. Then we picked up our new SeaPass cards, our free Wow bands, and our special luncheon invitation. Next, we went out the right side of the MDR and scanned “on” the ship. THAT WAS IT. No Immigration meeting, no need to leave, nothing! Lovely!

We immediately used our new, fancy gold SeaPass cards to get into the Gold Suite Club  

Here’s the Gold Lounge:

And The Balcony, a private sun deck (less impressive on this rainy day. I’ll try to get a better shot later):

Then at 11:30am we went to the special lunch for consecutive cruisers. It was held in the Sichuan Red restaurant with the following menu:

It was outstanding! Turns out most items were from the Gold Dining recipes.

[KristiZ]

Cabin tour

After lunch our cabin was finished. Here’s the tour of cabin 13132:

From the door:

From the back looking toward the door:

Looking into the bedroom:

From the back of the bedroom, looking at the desk and bathroom door:

The bathroom, with Jack and Jill doors (one from the main area and one from the bedroom). There is a second sink on the right of this shot:

The balcony:

And of course, the pillow menu!

 

[SpeedNoodles]

My goodness, what a lovely room!!!

[KristiZ]

7 minutes ago, SpeedNoodles said:

My goodness, what a lovely room!!!

Yeah, it doesn’t suck even a little bit  

[SpeedNoodles]

Just now, KristiZ said:

Yeah, it doesn’t suck even a little bit  

Is that a Grand Suite?

[KristiZ]

16 minutes ago, SpeedNoodles said:

Is that a Grand Suite?

Yup! The layout is great. They really use space well all over this ship. 

[Traveler]

1 hour ago, KristiZ said:

Yup! The layout is great. They really use space well all over this ship. 

Have  a lovely second week , will be interesting to read about the differences between the silver and the gold lounge /dining .

We were at October on the Spectrum and as you,  we found the silver dining room to have the same menu every night so we skipped it . I think the sliver dining room is more like the Solarium dining room on other ships while the gold dining room is more like Coastal kitchen ...
If you will see the  silk show  , please tell me what its all about as we failed to understand . 
The  270 cafe was our place for quick breakfasts , its quite good . If you like to taste something different try the dragon fruit cheese tea at the tea place  , we liked it allot and its covered in the drinking package.

Enjoy the cruise , its fun to read you blog. 

[Lovetocruise2002]

Loving this blog so far @KristiZ!!! And keep those food pics coming, although they are slowly killing me because it all looks so good!  This ship is so similar to Anthem, yet not. And the colours/decor in the GS are lovely!

[KristiZ]

Rest of Day 8 - Turn Around

After our terrific lunch, MisterZ retired to the cabin for a nap and I went to the spa for a scrub. It’s a really nice space:

The secret side door from the Gold area:

The relaxation room:

A treatment room:

Here’s one sail away picture from foggy, uncooperative Hong Kong:

For dinner we went to Gold dining for the first time. It was fantastic! MisterZ had Dover Sole and I had Spicy Beef Brisket. Our waiter said they have their own totally separate kitchen and absolutely everything is made to order, even the Caesar salad:

It seems the menu may not change every night, but there is a lot of variety. 

After dinner we went to see Silk Road, which deserves its own post!

 

[KristiZ]

The Silk Road

This is one of two unique shows on Spectrum. It’s done in Two70, twice per night, every 2-3 nights on the cruise. That means if you’re on a short cruise you have less than a 50% chance of seeing it  (Two70 holds about 350 people per showing, the ship holds around 5000.) One perk we didn’t even realize WAS a perk is that the Diamond concierge will book you for one of the showings on your trip. Unfortunately you’re unlikely to be able to change it, as the bookings fill up immediately (there is no advance booking). There is a standby line for each show but your chances are still slim. The first week of our trip, we were booked the last night, last show. The day we had rough seas. So no show for us!

Fortunately the magic gold SeaPass we have now got us in without a reservation to whatever show we wanted. Whew!

@Traveler, you asked for a plot synopsis. Um... yeah  Here’s what we got: “The future Mrs. Marco Polo from the East, and Marco Polo from the West, adventure down the Silk Road and see lots of sights and dangers before they finally meet.” I will say that after we saw it we read the bit Royal has in the app about it, which starts with “many ages ago, Zeus, the king of all the gods, sent two eagles...” What?? I’m sticking with my interpretation! Haha! 

Regardless, it’s a terrific show and everyone should see it if they get a chance at all! I would see it again in a heartbeat, because there is A LOT going on the whole time and I’m certain I missed some great stuff. 

Here are the best pics we could come up with:

 

[KristiZ]

On 12/30/2019 at 9:27 PM, Lovetocruise2002 said:

And keep those food pics coming, although they are slowly killing me because it all looks so good! 

Your wish is my command — here are the photos that had not yet made it into the blog!

Caramel Apple Blossom, Consecutive Cruiser Lunch

Chocolate Lava Cake, Gold dining

Dover Sole, Gold dining

Shrimp Cocktail, Gold dining

Baked Eggplant, Consecutive Cruiser lunch

Spicy Prawns, Silver dining

Crab Cake, Silver dining

Vegetable Tempura, Main dining room

Black Cod, Gold dining

Creme Brûlée, Gold dining (sorry about the missing bit!)

French Onion soup, Gold dining (not very photogenic, but delicious!)

Holiday Ham, Gold dining 

Oslo Bucco, Gold dining

Spice Cake with Rum Sauce, Gold dining

White and Dark Chocolate Mousse, Gold dining

 

[KristiZ]

Day 9 - At Sea

We got up a bit late today, and just ate leftover cookies and fruit for breakfast. Heh.

Off to Skypad for our VR time slot, which was unfortunately canceled since everything was still soggy from the rain overnight. Rescheduled for the last sea day. On our way back we noticed that bumper cars were just starting up. We used our “go to the head of the line” pass to get right in. It was fun! Especially the little old Japanese ladies zipping around, smashing into things, and laughing their heads off  As a note, Spectrum was originally charging $5 for bumper cars in the Asian market, but they have dropped that fee.

Start your engines:

11am was the Suite reception in the Gold lounge. Very few people actually came, maybe 10 plus the folks having lunch in the Gold dining right next door. The snacks were delicious! Several officers came through and chatted a bit with everyone.

MisterZ was uninterested in lunch at that point, so we retired to the cabin for blogging. About 1pm I headed to the Windjammer for noodles, which I brought back to the cabin. The Windjammer on Spectrum is HUGE. More than double the size of Explorer (which, truth be told, doesn’t have enough space for the number of passengers she holds. But I digress.) They also play “thanks for coming, now get out” messages regularly to assist with turnover. Here are a few shots to give you an idea:

Next we went to Leaf & Bean to try the coffee and tea. All the items are an additional charge, but the prices are reasonable and the drinks tasty. Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of the beverages. Sorry!

Dinner was at Gold dining again. Same menu as the night before. MisterZ had Black Cod and I had the Sliced Chicken. Both were excellent.

After dinner we listened to more music in a couple of different venues and then turned in, trying to be good since Day 10 will be the first “up and at ‘em” port day of the whole trip.

 

[KristiZ]

Casino

We are not big gamblers (I am currently the proud owner of 7 whole club points!), but I would be remiss in talking about a ship for the Asian market without at least a little about the casino. It’s a big one!

Table games as far as the eye can see! Many of the tables were for Baccarat. Lowest limits I saw were $5:

Lots of slots as well, all digital. Many of them would do a variety of denominations, from one penny to one dollar. There were 4 sections this same size:

The ship regularly offers free intro to gaming sessions, almost every night.

There’s also a VIP Casino space on a totally different deck. I wasn’t ever able to get a peek inside, much less grab a photo. Rumor has it the price of entry is a minimum $10,000. Also, apparently you can have all your meals and drinks in there, in case you never want to leave!

[KristiZ]

This ship has some terrific tucked-away seating spaces. I love how they use every nook and cranny. And I love that people used the spaces constantly!

The Silver/Diamond Lounge:

Outside of Two270 (that I apparently liked so much I photographed from two directions on two different days):

A hidden spot above the indoor pool:

Outside the Seaplex on both sides:

Deck 5 smoking area, one of the nicest smoking areas I’ve seen anywhere: