A Complete Quantum of the Seas Experience

Since the last Royal Caribbean Cruise trip ended abruptly with a COVID scare, I was determined to use the cruise credits for another trip before the Quantum of the Seas sails away (I heard the next ship is a smaller vessel). 

As we were already familiar with the cruise ship, we cleared the immigration checkpoints fairly swiftly and after dropping off our stuff in the cabins, we went up to the open-air deck. M and I got ourselves the beverage plan (what's a trip without beverages?!) and I immediately got myself my first tipple. 
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In fact, over the course of the next three nights, I would have consumed the following (in the right sequence):

• Aperol spritz
• Pimps Cup
• Ultimate Mai Tai 
• Glenridell 
• Cabernet Sauvignon
• Malbec
• Moscato
• Bionic Tea (yucky drink)
• Mojito
• Riesling
• Riesling
• Cuba Libre
• Mango Daiquiri
• Campari Orange
• Cabernet Sauvignon
• Cabernet Sauvignon
• Mimosa
• Prosecco
• Prosecco
• Frozen Margarita
• Appletini
• Watermelon Rum
• Negroni
• Negroni
• Prosecco
• Prosecco
• Prosecco
• Negroni

So all in all I had a total of 28 drinks (!) over the course of a few days. I was eager to try a variety of drinks, but I didn't really enjoy the sweeter ones. Ultimately I was happy with the prosecco, and I could do with just a good Negroni. The worst drink was the Bionic Tea, which was a bad mix of Blue Curacao and Tequila and some sugar syrup. ​

I found the food to be rather decent (for the price which we were paying). There was no need to visit a specialty restaurant at all. As we went on this cruise during the low season, we were well-attended by the service staff. ​

​Naturally, my favourite spot in the entire cruise ship was the solarium. The solarium was designated as a kids-free zone, so we could really unwind and relax with ambient jazz music, low humidity and fresh sunshine. I was determined not to get an internet plan, so that I could concentrate on some good ol' reading.

I prepared some ebooks on my Kindle, and started with The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin. I got to about 50% of the book but found it to be rather dry, and switch over to The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, which I finished on Day 2. By the end of the cruise, I was also halfway through Persuasive Copywriting: Cut Through the Noise with Impact by Andy Maslen. I took some notes on my Ultra for future reference as there were some great tips which would without doubt come in handy for my Wellaholic marketing later on. 

The other fun thing which I was looking forward to trying again was surfing at the Flowrider. Most of the slots for the Flowrider was allocated to the boogie board. In order to do the surfing, we had to wait for the 1630 to 1700 slot for advanced surfers. I wasn't very experienced in surfing, having done it only once at the Wavehouse at Sentosa, but I was resolute to try it again. And it was great fun! 

​All in all, it was a great trip, filled with great food and drinks, great company, excellent conversations and lots of exercise and group activities. With no overseas travel in the next year (or two), this cruise was a great respite from the humdrum monotony of daily work back in Singapore. I look forward to the next trip soon!