First I want to say that while I can complain a lot, I never complain about bad service in a store or restaurant and I’ve never complained to a cruise company about their cruise. I usually bite my tongue and bitch to friends later.

I may have given some constructive criticism on review forms, but the positives have always by far outweighed the negatives. However that can’t be said when it comes to Royal Caribbean ‘s Quantum of the Seas.

A more proper name would be The Quantum Piece of Bleep and the tag line should be “You’ll be wowed if something goes right.” After this sailing we will be emerald status members, but I don’t know if I want to do another cruise on Royal so soon.

First I want to say some nice things. The ship is beautiful. Mamma Mia was amazing, and Star Water was nice too. We haven’t seen Sonic Odyssey yet and I expect it to be great. Our cabin steward was great too.

Now let’s start with to WOW technology on board. One of the things that was touted was the wearable wow band that does everything your sea pass card does. It opens your room and that’s about it. Just leave it and stick with the card, that’s what everyone asks you for anyways.

There is also the Royal IQ app which lets you make reservations at the restaurants, for shows, and for excursions. Aside from sometimes being told I’m not connected to the Internet, this worked fine for me. Others on the ship can’t get it working to save their lives. We were all given free wifi rather than having to pay for it, and I think they did this because they know the system isn’t working right.

Speaking of reservations, don’t be surprised if you show up for dinner to be told you have no reservation, even though you do. Be hopeful you get someone pleasant who will accommodate you as a new friend on board was simply yelled at by the rude hostess that he didn’t have a reservation.

I’ve heard from other guests that if you didn’t or book your restaurants before the cruise or book immediately upon getting in the ship you were stuck with the buffet. There has been varying responses all over for this. Some people have complained their way into restaurants, others are flat out told no that they are full.

This brings me to the service on the ship. Mind you we still have two more days and two dinners, but aside from one night it’s been pretty poor. If you like to take your time eating, be ready for a shock. The servers take your order and bring your food as fast as they can so they can get you out and the next person in. We’ve barely spent an hour at dinner.

Your waiter is now your bartender so if you want something other than water to drink then you have to ask, as many won’t bother asking you first. Be prepared to ask for a lot that was normally offered to you in the past.

The Windjammer on this ship is a nightmare. Good luck getting a table at breakfast. The guests won’t get up after eating and they doddle as you walk around with your plate looking for a table. The ship needs to make announcements that other guests are looking for tables so keep that in mind.

Today I sat my ass down on the floor in the buffet and ate my breakfast. One person asked me if I’d like a table, a nice server, a rarity. The manager pretended I didn’t exist as I gave him a death stare as he walked by.

Today we went to meet friends at the American Icon Grill for lunch. They texted us to come join as there was plenty of room. Once we got their one server told us to look around, yet the manager said “Go to windjammer.” Excuse me? The server ignored us until we asked for menus, which is when he claimed they weren’t serving anymore.

He eventually checked with the kitchen and said we could order from only one part of the menu. I said “no thanks” yet John did get a salad. As we were leaving it was very clear by people still getting food that they weren’t closing, the server just wanted to end his shift as his section was almost empty.

The first few days at sea were rocky, and right now it’s very rocky. We assumed it was because of the currents off the east coast, as the Caribbean was calm. However one employee said to another on day 2 “why is this ship rocking, it never rocks.”

We found out today from another employee that the stabilizers on this brand new ship aren’t working. Add that to the long list of things that don’t seem to be working. At least the toilets flush! Apparently though something didn’t work all last week and Royal had to refund over 1000 guests their full cruise fairs because of the complaints. This was told to us by another employee.

Normally you wouldn’t be told any of this, but it speaks to how unhappy the crew seems to be. This is rubbing off on the guests and bringing our vacation down.

One of the things we look forward to on these ships is the pay restaurants that are known for their excellent food. Wonderland, which is considered a molecular kitchen because of the types of food they serve, was fantastic.

However Chops Grill, which we normally love, was terrible. My chunk of beef was overcooked and was not a Fillet Mignon. It was a nasty chunk of beef. I could get a better cut at WalMart. A friend told me of a similar nasty piece they got there, and a woman in the restaurant ordered a rare fillet as they overcooked hers the other night too. Disappointing.

I ate two bites and told the server I just lost my appetite. I didn’t say it was awful and I didn’t want to wait for them to try and cook me another one. Tonight we have the Chef’s Table which was very expensive. I’ve found out it’s at Chops, so tonight I will be blunt with anything that is not up to par.

Chops is one restaurant that you are told to plan to be there for 2-3 hours. We were there an hour and ten minutes. Once again they couldn’t get us out fast enough. They no longer make the salads at your table for you nor do they wheel around the trays of desserts or cuts of meat for you to see before ordering.

Moving on, many of the venues in the ship don’t work. There is no disco, they use Two70 and Music Hall as nightclubs and also where they host game shows. Music Hall is a terrible venue for anything but music, as there only a small amount of seats from which you have a good unobstructed view of the stage area. So having a game show that you want to see the participants make asses of themselves shouldn’t be there, but it will be.

Also I get that we are going out of New Jersey, but we had four full days of a Bon Jovi cover-band in there. The bars are also understaffed and you can wait thirty minutes in the dance venues for a drink. Other bars by the pool can be the same way. I’ve walked across the ship to a bar that was empty and walked back to the venue I was originally at as that was faster than waiting for a drink there.

The Cruise Compass, the daily newspaper that tells you all the events, has been riddled with errors. It either tells you something is going on that is not happening when you get there, or something is going on that you don’t know about because it wasn’t in the compass. There are also too many events like adult roller disco that I would have loved to do, but they put it from 7-9pm when we have our dinners booked every night. I still haven’t done the skating!

Many people came on the ship to do things like the iFly skydiving simulator or the North Star. Do these as fast as you can, because I can guarantee they will break at least once. Also book the iFly the moment you step on as if you don’t you will be SOL. It booked out for the whole cruise day one.

I ordered the soda package as I normally do, but they didn’t initially have the tumblers which you hand to people to get your soda. Now this wasn’t a huge problem as they’ll fill a glass for you. However they have those advanced flavor coke machines all over the ships which work with the tumblers, but we’re unusable because we didn’t have them.

Finally by day 6 some people got theirs, others like me had to go to guest services to complain to get theirs. One would think since the machines hadn’t been used at all this cruise that they’d work. Wrong! Good luck getting out of them. The coke at least tastes like coke, which can’t be said for the root beer flavored coke the bars give you.

God forbid there is an actual problem on this ship as security has been few and far between. Underage kids are in the horrid fake night clubs every night, and they consistently break curfew and nobody does anything about it.

I hope you like taking the steps, as at least two elevators are guaranteed to be broken at any given time. They will also skip your floor and not stop as well as stop and make you get off. Oh yes, people in suites and diamond members can swipe their cards or wow bands, if theirs work, and it will immediately summon them an elevator for their use. It will also kick anyone on that elevator off. The doors will open, it tells you this elevator is needed for priority use, and you MUST exit.

If you become fed up with the windjammer or the dynamic dining restaurants, well there is always room service. Except now they charge you for it ala carte. This ship nickles and dimes you more than any other Royal ship. Johnny Rockets? You pay for everything piece by piece now rather than a five dollar cover for all you can eat. It even costs two dollars to play an air hockey game. Are you kidding me?

Many people have booked this ship because it’s not going to be here long. It heads to its home market in Singapore in May. That’s likely something Royal didn’t tell many because ultimately what people like me and you are are their beta testers. I paid a premium price to do this ship in order to help them work out all the bugs before they send it to its home market.

It is a shame because the Quantum was one of the nicest, of the 30 or so cruise ships, I have sailed on! In my opinion it really is one of the nicest Royal ships (hardware wise) out there.

[ 01-11-2015: Message edited by: nycruiser ]