You pay your money and you take your chances...

Quantum of the Seas doesn’t quite WoW like it should. The technology is wonderful but the service and food need a serious overhaul. We sailed on Mar.13th for 8 days and had an outside cabin with balcony on the 10th deck midship. When we embarked there were no staff to greet us, that never happened on any of our six Celebrity cruises. We made our way to our cabin which is nice but felt narrow and the bathroom is tight, there are no drawers in the bathroom, just open shelves. Our cabin steward was great, very thorough. Although we were Crown and Anchor we did not receive any robes or q-tips, cotton balls? Nothing extra in the cabin. Prebooking restaurants and entertainment was a nightmare, we had three cabins but could only link two, I spent hours on the phone the RCCL but they couldn’t fix it and told us to wait until we boarded to move all the reservations to the same time, how’s that for customer service and is that how you want to start your cruise? The buffet is average, the food was somewhat bland and we were surprised by the small variety of items for omelettes, salad bar, and pasta bar. We had no bacon one morning which almost caused a riot. The next day the buffet was only partly open at 11:45 am for lunch, what a mess. There is a lack of seating in the buffet so they are always asking guests to leave so others can take their spots. As you will read over and over dynamic dining is a bust, we were supposed to be assigned a restaurant on the first night but that didn’t happen. The for fee restaurants were by far the worst we have ever experienced. Ladies were often not served first, wait staff reached across us to serve so you had an armpit in your face. One night we counted 26 glasses on our table of 8, just crazy. This is the only cruise I’ve taken where I didn’t gain any weight! lol The ship is crowded and you definitely want to lineup early for shows, the lineups stretch far back into the esplanade. The North Star is a mess also, the wait is often over an hour and the line winds around the upper pool deck on the port side blocking a large section of prime lounge chairs, unless you don’t mind a crowd of strangers standing and staring at you, what else do they have to do? We always make a point of getting to know the staff and are well aware how hard they work, we were told repeatedly that the staffing issue was a mess. Wine at dinner is served in a carafe, not from the bottle which was surprising. The ship ran out of a number of items before the end of the week, very poor planning. The gym is great but there are no showers or sauna nearby unless you want to pay for the full week use at the spa. If you want a bite to eat while enjoying the pool area you have to pay “a la carte” at Johnny Rockets or else get dressed and go to the Windjammer buffet. Be prepared to clear some tables for yourself as buss staff are often slow. This was our first experience on Royal Caribbean and most likely our last, I wasn’t sad to leave this ship, eight days was too many.