| Jamie's Italian is the much publicised Jamie Oliver restaurant onboard these vessels, beginning with Quantum. The menu looked good but unfortunately the few time slots available were when we were doing something else so you really do need longer to take advantage of everything on these ships. We ended up outside looking for the Cunard ships and Balmoral in the rain but it was difficult to see. Someone kindly turned off the deck light behind the Windjammer which was a big help but still hard. Since we could see sod all bar a shape of Queen Victoria, we continued getting the rooms. |
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| We made our way to our seats outside the Windjammer for our sail past Cowes and into Southampton with a picnic and some vile Nestle hot chocolate Oskar picked up from inside the Windjammer. The hot chocolate was welcome though since it was cold. The rain wasn't getting any better. In fact, as it began to get light, it looked worse. It was pretty sheltered where we were until we started the turn to dock. Suddenly we were drenched as the wind blew wet stuff on us, things crashed to the floor and you just knew then there was a Cunard event happening - grrr! Oskar wisely kept diving inside while me, like the mad older idiot I am, stayed firmly put sheltering as best I could. A couple of people did pop out to take the odd photo, one bloke snapping Mary and calling her Queen Elizabeth. We felt so sorry for the crew member trying to put the flag up as he kept getting battered with it. We gave up in the end, since Mary was taking forever docking so went and had a much needed breakfast before disembarking and waiting in the terminal for the rain to stop, which is finally did after 9am. |
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So it was all over. An all-to-short cruise. While the Quantum class resembles Solstice class on steroids, there is no mistaking when you are onboard that she is 100% a Royal Caribbean ship. I really liked Anthem and think it's a shame this class will be here one season. Makes you wonder why they bothered getting rid of Indy, though she'll be back in 2016. I'd love to do a longer cruise to get a real feel of her but with not always being able to get someone to go with me, single supplements ridiculously high these days (I'd settle for 25-50% with a return to one point per night), paying my own way and writing honestly about my experience instead of being an arse licker like the media on freebies, there is no chance. Anthem has her flaws but it doesn't stop her being fabulous. One thing no one has to worry about are lifts. They have plenty (though do wish they'd have three banks as the ships get larger instead of two) and they're roomy so no playing sardines with a couple of people like on Royal Princess, Regal Princess and Britannia. Dynamic Dining could work as well as Freestyle (which took a while) if they dropped pre-booking online, particularly for the free options. Everyone needs an equal chance to eat at the venue of their choice. I really hope they sort it out because we have that again on Harmony. There's not a lot more I can say which hasn't been except I wish I was still onboard and doing the North Star daily. It's up there in my top 10 cruises and ships (Radiance in Australia & New Zealand is still number 1 while Vision remains my favourite ship). More photos of Balmoral and the three Queens are here while photos of the ones at sea can be found here. |
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