Will Eventually Be Excellent, But Not Yet

I am currently wrapping up a cruise on the transatlantic maiden voyage of Quantum of the Seas. The app has not worked on iOS devices for most of the cruise. On its best day, it displayed our daily event schedule (shows and dining mostly) and allowed us to make dining reservations. Most of the other functionality did not perform at all. As of Day 3 of the cruise, the app froze and hasnt worked since for any passenger. The staff even removed all of the tablets from the common user stations, although they were returned a day and a half later. I believe that Royal Caribbean has taken the app down for an overhaul.

That said, the concept is terrific. If/when it performs as advertised, it will provide great convenience and easy access to information. The goal is to make cruise travel paperless -- no printed activity schedules, no papers to sign at Guest Services, etc. Some of these functions (signing releases for activities, viewing bills and more) are also available on the in-room TV, so you do have an alternative method of getting core info. The finer points of the app such as changing entertainment options, changing dining reservations, ordering room service, and online chat were not available to us on this sailing.

Royal Caribbean has had lots of system issues on this sailing, including data loss at Guest Services, repeated elevator failures, processing glitches with dining reservations causing long lines at dinnertime, slow updates to the digital photo archive, etc. However, they have also had a large IT staff onboard and are pouring lots of resources into fixing the problems.

Its clear that the cruise line wants this app to succeed and will do what it takes to get it working quickly. I suspect that guests who sail on Quantum 90 days from now will have a much different and better experience.

ecinaj44 about Royal iQ