Artemis908

I think Ft. Lauderdale Airport had to be the worst/most disorganized airport I have ever been to. We came back on a Saturday along with tons of other ships and they wouldn't even let you check in and go through security until 2 hours or less before your flight. So we stayed on the ship as long as we could and then had to stand around for an hour before we could even go through security. Also had the pleasure of standing in a very long line for the bathroom and watch airport employees consistently cut the line. Good times :P

So I would shoot for 1-2 and hopefully avoid a long airport wait.

The price is my main hesitation. $50 is a lot of money for some paper decorations but I guess I could consider most of that cost related to putting them up. It would be nearly impossible for me to put them up without my husband there and would be nice to board the ship and have the decorations waiting for us. Our anniversary isn't until later in the cruise but we want to enjoy the decorations for our entire trip.

Has anyone recently done the anniversary room decor? Was thinking of doing this for our 5th wedding anniversary cruise in May. Are the decorations exactly the same as they are pictured? Did someone put them up for you before you boarded?

You can bring 2 bottles of wine with you when you board the ship.

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/customersupport/faq/details.do?pagename=frequently_asked_questions&faqId=5442&faqSubjectId=336

You can also order a bottle of wine ahead of time and have it sent to your cabin.

https://secure.royalcaribbean.com/royalgifts/onboard-delivery/wine-cellar/

A lot of local Haitians work within the walls of Labadee. Plus, Royal Caribbean's "Labadee" is simply a peninsula which is open to the water - and technically accessible to any Haitian with a boat. Sure, security keeps locals away - except on that one protest day.

 

So - because some Haitians work there, and live in "Haiti" - they are affected by political things. But, to be honest, it is my experience that for the most part, they "leave their problems at the gate" when they come to work. I speak Haitian Creole, and even when I discuss the state of the country, they are very careful when choosing their words - I suspect they've been told not to bring country problems to the tourists.

Wow, that's really interesting. I bet they appreciate that you can speak to them in their native language, I doubt many cruises know how to. When we were there last, I noticed it was a mix of people that seemed in a really bad mood (some of them wouldn't even acknowledge our presence) and others were very nice and friendly. So just about what you'd experience in New York :P

How much of what happens in Haiti really affects Labadee? Just seems so closed off from the rest of the country. It has a fence with guards, so pretty well protected. To be honest, we never explored the island, but I had heard about people saying when you get closer to the fence you may see people begging. Not sure how true that is.

I've been seeing non-stop posts on Facebook about the cruise and 90% of the news sources have been negative. But bad news makes good news because no one tunes into your show if you have positive things to say - people want to see pain, anguish, fear.

From what I've read on these forums, a lot of passengers seemed to say that it wasn't as bad as the news would leave you to believe. To be honest, people will complain about anything and everything. They just want to see what they can get out of the deal and so make themselves as vocal as possible.

Maybe the prices of the cruises will go down and I can upgrade my cabin for our cruise on the Anthem in May. :D

Are you really leaving from Philadelphia or are you leaving from a suburb? A car service is going to be expensive from PA. What I would do is get to NJ and take a car service/uber/cab from there. You have a few options with the train like Amtrak or SEPTA Trenton line. If money is no option and you really don't want to go on a train, just remember that the driver is charging you more because they gotta drive back to Philly too. If you just got yourself to Newark, it'd be $20-50 depending on if you did a shared shuttle or private car/cab.

If you're staying in Newark, I honestly wouldn't walk around too much in the area. It's just not a great area, especially alone.

Luckily Newark Penn Station is close to NY, both to midtown and downtown. There's the typical tourist places like the Museum of Natural History, The Met, MoMA, Central Park/Central Park Zoo. I would recommend considering making a dining reservation or making plans for a nice dinner since NYC has some of the best restaurants in the world. There are plenty of places you can do solo without feeling weird about it.

Status of Liberty, Ellis Island, Times Square, Little Italy, and Chinatown are some other places that come to mind. Also if you're up for it, a Broadway show is something I'd highly recommend. Especially Book of Mormon and Avenue Q.

I was married on a Princess cruise a few years ago. I agree about the balcony dinner, it was awesome.

Some other ideas that weren't mentioned... if there is a group of you going on the cruise with the couple, maybe getting a photographer to take some extra photos of you all together (outside of wedding photos).

Decorations for their stateroom

Bottle of wine sent to their stateroom/table at dinner

If you are concerned about the Zika virus, this may make you feel more at ease:

http://bernews.com/2016/02/ministry-of-health-issues-zika-virus-update/

Most of the time we do balcony, but we've done a suite once for a special occasion and we are doing a suite again for our upcoming cruise for our 5th wedding anniversary. To me, it boils down to how much time you spend on the ship or your room. Our Med cruise because that cruise was VERY port intensive so it some ways the bigger room was good because we were so tired after a long day at the port. Spent several meals in our room and went to the pool area once but it was very windy so we didn't stay long.

I echo the previous posters that to me it wasn't defensive at all. He gave a lot of good info and explained what happened.

Captain interview posted in another thread. Very defensive. Someone is worried about their future with the company...

 

 

here is part 1

 

part 2

 

part 3

Of course people are going to question it. Look at what the passengers just went through. Bottom line is RC is a business. Whether the captain "thought" the storm was going to be bad or not, RC in conjunction with the captain, are still responsible. People could have been seriously injured or worse. They gambled with their lives.

You're right, RC is a business. So how well would their business go if something happened to the ship? How much did Costa lose when Concordia had its accident? There are still people I know that refuse to cruise after that story. It's all about calculations and I highly doubt that the company pushed the captain and ship into a decision to go through a major storm. I mean how much money will they lose just by all of the videos and pictures circulating in the media? The morning news talked about it and I am sure it'll stop going around in social media. I can tell you that a company as large as Royal Caribbean is fully aware of the bad publicity they would get if something happened and the bad publicity they are currently getting just by going through a storm.

I'm sitting on the floor of my cabin, wishing every positive thought I have toward the captain and his crew! My husband is keeping me calm.

 

The announcements over the PA from the beginning told us this could last 5-6 hours. The captain has us basically staying in one place, continually rotating to try to best position against the wind. Riding out the storm. If you watch the ship map on the TV, you can see the angle of the wind hitting us at up to about 145 knots at the worst we've seen it display. It's so ominous, yet so hard to look away...

 

Captain is on the PA now, saying things have improved and there barometic pressure is increasing, so hoping we will be through this within a few hours. Says he is in contact with the Miami office and coast guard. I'm sure staying put is the absolute safest choice they all agree on.

 

The huge rocking of the ship at 3:30 or 4 or so started quite unexpectedly. I happened to be midway into the bathroom at the exact wrong time and had to grab the doorframe to catch myself. Fingers got slammed when the door swung shut hard on its own. I don't think they're broken, just bruised, but I would rather have ten broken fingers and still have my lfe, so this an extraordinarily small complaint in the grand scheme of things. When we get through this, I will gladly shake the captain's hand, bruised fingers or not!

 

(Sorry this was so long.)

You're a trooper! Hope you're okay and all of your fingers are feeling better!

So "theoretically" (;)) Let's say someone wanted to take photos announcing their pregnancy onboard the Anthem of the Seas, does anyone have suggestions on how to best do that or ideas on the best photographer opportunities to find? I know that photos are typically taken before boarding the ship, before dinners, and at the ports. Thinking it might be best to find photographers taking photos as much as possible for options. But said couple would probably want to hold a sign or something as part of the photo...

Any ideas? Thinking it would be cute to add a note or something that says "Boy Voyage Sleep!" or "This ship is setting sail on..."

We've never been to Bermuda without touring with a shore excursion and since we're docked in Bermuda for two nights, I am thinking I just want to go somewhere we've never been. We've been snorkeling a few times and shopping around Hamilton. So I am thinking we might head out to St. George. Is it the type of area you can just walk around and find things to do for most of the day?

On a Mediterranean trip we took with Royal Caribbean, they took all passengers' passports before we entered the ship. Apparently when we stopped they shared our passports with the customs people at the ports and then when we back to Rome we got them back. I still have the glue from the sticker the put on it :P Took forever to rip off!

I can be pretty absent minded sometime and I am always scared of having my purse stolen, so for us, I prefer to leave my passport in the safe. I only bring the passport with me because I have to, otherwise I wouldn't want to travel with it. Sometimes I will take a photo copy of my passport with me, but in a place like Bermuda, I am not overly concerned. We speak the same language, people are friendly, and I don't really forsee any major issues happening there. But I could always be proved wrong! This will be our third trip to Bermuda, love it there. :D

We did the Luggage Valet on Oasis and were pretty much told we could leave whenever we wanted. The lines to leave the ship were insane, I couldn't believe how long they were. We decided to wait it out at one of the lounges and just watch the line to see if it would dwindle down. When we finally decided to leave, there was a back-up and they actually stopped anyone from leaving the ship. Then once we finally got off the ship there was a huge line and little organization, even though we weren't getting luggage. I actually don't think the Valet saved us time, just didn't have to fuss with finding our luggage.

At the airport we had to stand in line anyway for our boarding passes and they wouldn't even allow anyone 2+ hrs early through the security. I would say Oasis/Ft. Lauderdale was probably the least organized disembarkation I have ever been through.

Hi! Are there any 5-day compasses floating around out there from Anthem, or has the ship not even done 5-day trips yet? I've only been finding the compasses from longer trips like down to the Bahamas or from the UK. We're going to Bermuda on Anthem in May and trying to get an idea of what activities we can expect.

For a short stay, I thought Lago Mar was great. We were there two nights, arriving in the afternoon on the first night, so really having only a day and a half to spend at the hotel. Staff was very friendly, great bartender and restaurant.

We actually didn't leave the hotel at all. We spent the day at beach, walking along the beach, playing life size chess. We just relaxed. The hotel is pretty small and kind of hard to get to places since not much is in the area. We took a taxi to the hotel and then the hotel offered a ride to the port that cost about $20.

I would recommend checking out some Disney centric forums, disboards.com is my favorite. The first thing you have to do is decide if you're going to be dining in WDW and book your restaurant reservations. They are open 180 days in advance and fill up VERY fast.

There is just SO much to do, I could spend over a week in Disney and not do everything I want to do. There's just so much to do, that's not even counting the water parks, Disney Springs, and exploring the other hotels. The Boardwalk has a great pool and there is more to do at that hotel than I think at any other hotel. It's also walkable to Epcot, making Epcot a great place to book dining reservations if you are willing to get park hoppers.

If you are looking for something quiet and low key, Disney Springs, Grand Floridian and Contemporary all offer boats for rent. If you want something really special you could rent a boat for the fireworks.

Hi! I've seen people post two menus for Coastal Kitchen. It looked like the breakfast was pretty much like the regular dining room breakfast menus and the lunch and dinner were the same menu. Is that correct?

My sail date is coming up in about 4 months and so I am starting to think about dinner reservations. I've looked at the menus and various options and I have to say that I feel like Dynamic Dining has opened up more choices in not just food, but scenery. I honestly found it boring to be in the same dining room every evening on past cruises, so I like the idea of there being multiple free restaurants.

I've been on Explorer (x2), Navigator, and Oasis. So I have experienced Chops and Izumi. The only specialty restaurant I am excited about is Jamie's Italian. I've read mixed reviews about Wonderland and considering how expensive it is, think we may skip it.

Are there restaurants on the Anthem that you'd consider your favorites or "must try"?

I traveled to Bermuda in May 2014 and had tea at Sweet Pea's at the Bermuda Perfumery in St George. Very nice tea with sandwiches, pastries, scones with jam and cream, and for an extra fee, champagne if desired. Pretty little garden location and a lovely interval in the company of friends and pleasant staff. Thought it was worth the cost (sorry don't recall price) and we enjoyed the perfumery, although none of us purchased scent. I was disappointed by the perfumery based on web site description because I thought there was a real tour of perfume making and I imagined the garden as much larger, but despite these differences it was a lovely afternoon. Laurie

I have been doing research on afternoon tea and having a hard time finding a place open while we are in port Mon-Tues. Sweet P only has afternoon tea Saturdays and Wednesdays. (http://www.lilibermuda.com/pages/afternoon-high-tea)

The Dockyard Pastry Shop might be our only option since it looks like they are open daily for afternoon tea

http://www.thedockyardpastryshop.com/new-page/