Christmas is not big deal for me ever since De turned 5. It has been an excuse for the family to get together but I often wondered why should anyone need an excuse if everyone valued together time?
Despite that, however, I am happy for the excuse to be cruising with 33 people, family and friends this Christmas on this new ship called “Quantum of the Sea.” Within our family, Uncle Fred, Kelvin and Ivan are the only ones that are not here.
There are 5000 passengers and 1800 staff on this ship. From New Jersey to Bahamas! Total cruise distance: 2180 nautical miles / 4037 kilometers / 2509 miles!
There are lots to do on this ship including indoor sky-diving, surfing, knee boarding, bumper cars, roller skating, air hockey, ping pong, trapeze and a 30 story high observatory. There are a total of 18 restaurants but only 4 restaurants are free. This is the first ship that the Royal Caribbean Cruise line is introducing “Dynamic Dining or Anytime Dining” which means we need to call the individual restaurants to make reservations. We were only able to make 1 reservation during the whole week for all of us to have dinner together. The buffet serves identical food for the whole week for breakfast, lunch and dinner. By day 3, I couldn’t even look at the food in the buffet anymore! Quite disappointing actually! Thankfully I enjoyed the people I was with.
Besides, spending time with loved ones is always priceless!
Despite the fact we were disappointed with the food quality and service level on this new ship, I was able to save up enough great experience of cruising to not get discouraged to cruise again. I still feel cruise is a great way to do family trips. But with a big group of say more than 7 people, then we should definitely stick to traditional dining system because everyone can be doing their own thing during the day but we will all meet at the fixed dinner time to catch up with the others and to arrange for evening activities together.
My next destination is Philadelphia. I am excited to meet our relatives there because I heard great things from Uncle Andy about those relatives of ours.
Always good to read about your travels. Would not have stayed at the Enchantment Resort otherwise or found Sedona. Only cruised once around South America with the Princess Cruise. Even went to the Falkland Islands. The average age was 68! The food was good but we had to dine with the same people for the entire trip??? Have not tried cruising again. They say Silverseas is good too.
Hi Mindy,
Thank you for finding the articles interesting and glad that they’ve been of help to you in your travels. Yes, that’s one downside of cruise – you see the same people. Will keep Silverseas in my note.
Regards,
Amy