PiperHolliday

11 minutes ago, terri1020 said:

We are at the port now no one has been allowed to enter the terminal. The line goes around the entire terminal building. We're hoping there isn't an issue with sailing. 

It's just because people showed up when they felt like it, even though RCCL told us not to arrive until one hour past our assigned check in times. I talked to people at the front that have been here since 10am. 😑

1 minute ago, grapau27 said:

Anthem has sailings from Southampton England this year so hopefully the azipod will be fixed before the Transatlantic crossing.

Graham.

Someone on another social media site that was onboard the last sailing said the issue is now fixed but I do not know their source/how they know. They did not provide details. If we are told anything about it once onboard, I'll be sure to share that on the live thread. 

allisonb22 has a different live thread going for this sailing, so be sure to go check that one too! 

@NinjaCat15 may be updating this thread along with me. 

Wednesday was previously supposed to be a stop in San Juan but due to their new testing policy, our ship cannot dock. 

We were also notified a couple of weeks ago that our departure time had changed to 16:30 instead of 15:00, which seems to be typical for Anthem right now. Then yesterday, they notified us that the ship is having problems with one of its azipods, so they're taking it slow and our check-in and boarding is delayed an additional hour. 

We will be heading to the port from Manhattan in a few hours, as our new check-in time is 12:30. 

🚢

Well shucks. I was going to do one! See you on board and safe travels to the port! 

I believe they have scheduled the fix for Feb 20th, as that sailing and the following sailing are marked as closed. That sailing and the following sailings were not closed when I looked yesterday via the agent portal. Even sailings that have been 'closed' for reduced capacity do not notate CLOSED beneath the date like Feb 20 and 27 do. The only other sailings that say this are on ships that aren't currently in service. 

Note: I could be wrong, I'm guessing. 

Just now, cruiserking said:

Thanks for the reply Piper. Will just have to wait and hope that everything turns out smoothly. 

 

Jonathan

I hope so. Our cruise tomorrow may be a slow one. 

1 minute ago, NinjaCat15 said:

Any Update on that time? Is it still 8:30 or is it later now ? Cruise Mapper is showing 11:30

Welcome to Cruise Critic 👋

5 minutes ago, cruiserking said:

When you say "some time" do you mean weeks or months? Just hoping our February cruise still happens. Maybe they can hold out till there next dry dock whenever that is. 

 

Jonathan

Anthem isn't scheduled for another regular dry dock for a few years. 

In recent years, they've made changes to the azipods so that a lot of the repairs can be done by crawling into the pod from inside the ship. However, if it happens to be a seal, I believe that is one of the things that does require drydock. 

3 hours ago, bonsai3s said:

We visited Israel many years ago...our passport was officially stamped.

We were told that a number of countries will no longer allow us to enter.

No worries, we have no plans on visiting any of those countries.

 

* And yes, we have been to Machu Piccu twice, most recently in 2018.  We walked right by that stamp kiosk...and there was a very long queue to get the stamp...it was a stamp attached to a small chain and an inkpad...all self-service.  I can only imagine how of those people used it on their official passport.

I had an Israeli stamp on my first passport but work required me to go to some of the countries that do not allow entry with an Israeli stamp. They got me a second passport to use for those countries. 

Now, Israel will usually just stamp a paper and put it in your passport to avoid that issue. 

3 hours ago, BND said:

Also, if you fill up the pages of your passport, you have to get a new one, so unofficial ones just take up space.  My original passport has stamps from Italy and France.  My second one had Bahamas (flew there for a vacation). My current one has none.  I have never gone looking for stamps and we've been to a lot of different countries on cruises.

I've had this happen twice. The first time, officials would just stamp over old stamps. The second time, I had pages added to my passport. When that was full, I got the larger passport book from the get-go. And of course, that's when the pandemic happens and I stop traveling so much. 

For the January 9th sailing on Anthem:

Due to a mechanical limitation with one of the ship’s azipods, Anthem of the Seas’ arrival back to Cape Liberty has been delayed. While our ship is 100% seaworthy, as a precaution, we’ve lowered our speed.

As a result, our check-in window will begin later than originally planned. Please arrive one (1) hour later than your originally selected arrival window. Arriving at your originally selected arrival time will result in being turned away until your new time while we complete this process. All guests should be checked-in and onboard by 3:30 PM. If you’re traveling with unvaccinated children in your party, please arrive before 3:00 PM. We’ve sent you and your Travel Advisor an email with additional details. We look forward to seeing you soo n!

Does wifi calling work on the voom surf & stream? VOIP was blocked on my last (non-RCL) cruise. 

I want to know if SMS and MMS will work. Anyone with an iPhone, please consider if you were using iChat and iMessage before answering - those do not use SMS unless you're talking to someone else without an iPhone. 

35 minutes ago, toad455 said:

Has there been anything official put out about the next sailing's itinerary? San Juan is cancelled, but hearing we might skip St. Kitts, too.

I don't think they are going to tell current cruisers about the next cruise. The only people that would know anything official is likely the bridge crew - anything else is just rumor. And most likely, bridge crew isn't even thinking about our cruise yet. They're handling the task at hand (current cruise) first. The most we can find out about the next cruise is passenger numbers from the loyalty desk. Even your travel agent does not have access to numbers - the 50% you were quoted is standard for all cruises in January and that's the only info given to agents (I am one). Our cruise is far below the 50% mark at this point, according to the loyalty desk. 

EDIT: Our itinerary just changed in the system and I immediately received the email about San Juan being removed. 

Also, while we all know it's coming, there's been no official information about San Juan being removed (just this person said this person got an email) and the only 'hearing' going on about St. Kitts is a couple of excursions being cancelled. The internal system still shows our original itinerary. My St. Kitts excursion is currently still on. 

I think it's futile to try to get any info about our itinerary because it will end up changing again anyway. And likely at short notice or in the middle of the night just like on this current cruise. Ports are not deciding a week ahead of time to deny ships. It is a ship by ship basis (and each attempt by the ship is treated separately) and not a blanket ban. There's no way of knowing if we will stop in any of the ports until we actually dock and get off the ship. I think we will be boarding a mystery cruise 😂

2 hours ago, alexgtp said:

 😂😂😆

When did you hear this announcement? Must have slept thru it 

We are on the next sailing and tracking the ship. Around midnight ship time, we noticed the change in course. 

Anthem is currently headed to Antigua and not St. Kitts... 

Adding the pictures after the fact did not help to drive home the thought that Jimbo's home is better than a cruise ship. It did the opposite for me LOL

15 minutes ago, Sunshine3601 said:

Edit, I just looked up original itinerary was PR, St Thomas and St Maarten so they only lost 1 stop.  Not bad.  I much rather go to st kitts than st Thomas.

Same here. 

Now I'm thirsty and hungry. 

7 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

I don't know. The only overnights that I have done on a cruise was Bermuda and you could come and go from the ship 24 hrs. a day.

I have never had an overnight with RCCL but every other line, it's always been come and go as you please - aside from Russia. I'm admittedly not very familiar with St Kitts and what there is to do in the evening or what their rules are. 

1 hour ago, Ocean Boy said:

You are overnighting there but have to be on the ship by 9PM?

I'm wondering if it's a covid-related curfew. 

1 minute ago, nelblu said:

Missing PR is not a big loss.  When we did the 12 nighter on Anthem and Quantum we arrived at there at 3PM and not a good time to go to beach and sightseeing..

 

San Juan is a fantastic place in the afternoon and evening. It's full of color, music, culture, great food and drinks. If you're looking at it as a beach destination, you're really limiting what you can do because it's not somewhere I would even consider going to a beach. I'm actually pretty bummed that we will be skipping it on the next one but I've been there many times and will visit many more so I'm fine just rolling with the punches. 

I hope you had a fun evening and all entertainment went as planned. 

Has there been any talk about how many passengers are expected on the next sailing? Sometimes the C&A desk will give the numbers. I'm pretty surprised at your low count for a NYE cruise and I'm hoping that means we will have even less on the next one (good for passengers, bad for business). 

10 hours ago, DrSea said:

I have cancelled many cruises on other cruise lines before the payment deadline for years and had charges returned to me before I had to pay the credit card statement. So this is a new experience for me actually. I literally cancelled a princess cruise a month ago and got the refund within a day.

 

Again, RCI said that they were not going to charge me bc it was cancelled within 24 hours. They ended up charging me anyways.

Royal is horrendous with IT and communication. But all of my refunds have shown up in a very reasonable amount of time (for me, the start of the pandemic was more like what you're describing). But what you're experiencing is not an acceptable business practice and I'd be annoyed, too. 

But I just want to point out that I've had horrendous customer service from Princess, as well. I've not had to deal with any refund issues with them but I have been treated very badly by their reps, even as a TA. One time, when there were charges on my onboard account that weren't valid, they tried to tell me it's okay because I was on a cheap travel agent rate (I actually was not on a TA rate). I asked them how I'm supposed to trust them with my clients and they responded with, "Well you get great rates as a TA and you have a cruise booked in two years! You should be happy about that!". So I told her to go ahead and cancel that cruise. That's not customer service. 

I feel like customer service hardly exists anymore. Now I just expect companies to not do what they're supposed to and that's really sad. I really hope you can get it resolved soon. 

9 minutes ago, CPT Trips said:

Looks packed with poor masking compliance.

Be safe.

Perhaps if RCCL offered testing at the port before boarding, I'd feel alright walking through (but not lingering around) a crowd like that on embarkation day. But when everyone tested up to two days before getting on...I'd probably steer clear. Vaccines don't mean much for transmission this time. Although, is the MDR or theater much better? 

1 minute ago, alexgtp said:

 

Puerto Rico was canceled. We are getting 2 extra hours in St Thomas. We knew about PR 48 hours prior to cruise and ppl were given option to cancel for full refunds.

 

No Swedish Pumas listed for this trip. We have:

Latin Heat salsa band.

Guitar and vocals Scott Orchard.

High Voltage in Music Hall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two extra hours in the next port isn't very beneficial when it's earlier than things are even open 😜. I'll be fine with a sea day instead of SJU on our cruise next week but it's just funny they say they're giving more time in St Thomas. 

Thanks for the thread, following along!