FionaMG

According to the blog that shall not be named, he isn't.

How are you getting the Compasses to look so pristine? The pics I posted of mine were always a mess! Are you posting screenshots of the digital version or something like that?

I know and everything always looks so neat and tidy as well as delicious. I don't know how he does it! I've never seen the WJ offerings looking so pristine and untouched! 😂

Yes, I had real problems posting on CC from Harmony from ship WiFi in September last year to the extent that I wondered if there was some blocking going on because as soon as I switched to my phone's mobile data the problems stopped. And I remember some posters on Anthem reporting similar issues around the same time.

Same with us when we came off Anthem on 5th October. It wasn't until after we got home that I realised but I was still in time to screenshot our account from the app. I hope this isn't another things that's being "discontinued". It certainly shouldn't be.

I agree. To me, that would make no sense at all.

The time limit is probably 30 days, the same as if you make a named booking; It used to be 60 but was changed to 30 in the fairly recent past.

They definitely didn't have this on my Anthem sailing. I think probably it's what @little britain said, to help ease congestion in the D lounge.

Haha, yup, it's porridge to me! AND, like a true Scot, I make it with salt not sugar.

Have a great time @njkruzer! 🙂

Yay! Another @laurieal review! 😊 We just got off Anthem 12 days ago, so I'm delighted to be able to revisit her. Have a fabulous time!

Before covid cancelled everything, our original plan was to have spent time in NY and then take the TA back to Europe. I think I might have mentioned that to you at some point and it probably stuck in your mind because I seem to remember you saying something along the lines of you'd never done a TA but it was something you would perhaps consider doing in the future?

No, we were in Europe, so we boarded within a day of each other but far, far away. If i'm not mistaken, Anthem should just have started her TA back to the States a few hours ago. We'll be sailing on her out of Bayonne on the 23rd of April next year, 8 nights to Port Canaveral, Miami, Coco Cay and Nassau. Who knows, if you do manage to fit one in around then that might be an option for you. The prices are pretty good. With a bit of luck we'll get to see WWRY then. 🤞

My pleasure! Bilbao is still on my to-do list! We had fully intended walking to the port. The problem was that the boat show was on that week and it occupies the whole area that you would normally walk through to get from PI to the port, meaning a very long round-about hike that we didn't fancy with luggage. As I understand it, even people staying at the Holiday Inn were unable to walk because the walking route was inside the area that was closed off for the boat show.

Thanks. It certainly does seem a long way away. I have always thought that Royal could leave one of their smaller ships in Europe to do Canary Island cruises over the winter. They could home port in Tenerife or Gran Canaria and do 3 and 4 night cruises round the Canaries, with perhaps an occasional 7-nighter to take in Funchal and/or Cape Verde, in similar fashion to what they do with Navigator in Southern California. I would think there would be a market for that type of offering, when so many Europeans head down there for winter sun every year. Maybe one day...

Ohh, that's not good. I hope it didn't take you too long to feel better. Neither of us felt ill at any time during our cruise and I can't say I noticed an abnormal amount of coughing when we were out and about around the ship, nor did I hear any comments or rumours about covid. The only time we went down to deck 3 was when we were getting off at port stops. That said, I suspect someone was ill in the cabin two doors down from us as they had the "sleeping off the adventure" sign up all day long and I saw a female officer-type crew member there at one point. However, this was a sea day and it was a bit rough (the barf bags were out on the stairs) so what little attention I paid put it down to seasickness, although I obviously could be completely off-base. We did enjoy watching the bumper cars, even though our rather dodgy backs made us play it safe and not ride ourselves.

We did, thanks. 😊 We'll be back on Anthem again next spring out of NJ, as we recuperate a trip to the Big Apple 🍎 that got "covidated" early in the pandemic!

My next planned cruise isn't until next year, and I plan to do a live thread there too. I may not be the only one because this is the ONLY itinerary Royal has from Bayonne. Its the 14 night Bayonne to Greenland roundtrip run on the Jewel. I'm excited for that. If i'm lucky, i might be able to squeeze another cruise out around march - may, but we'll see. Nothing is booked there. So until next time, Thank you for taking the time to read and follow along. I've only just now managed to catch up with you Rogue! I wasn't able to keep up with you while doing my own "live" on Anthem. This was a great review, such a different itinerary from the more usual Caribbean ones. I am really looking forward to your Greenland one next year as it's sure to be fascinating. Our next one is going to be on Anthem again, as we recuperate the New York trip that we lost to covid. It will be a rather uninspiring 8-nighter down to the Bahamas at the end of April next year, just before she heads back across the Atlantic for her summer season in Europe, but the trip is more about the Big Apple 🍎 than the cruise so any itinerary will do! Wishing the two of you all the best in the meantime. 🙂

Just caught up with you now after being away on Anthem for 12 days. 😊 I was interested to see you mentioning the smoke in the casino. On Anthem all indoor areas - casino included - were smoke-free. Smoking was only permitted in two small outdoor spaces, one on deck 5 and one on deck 14. I wonder if it's because she was sailing from the UK and if smoking will be allowed in the casino again when she arrives back in NJ later this month. I remember thinking how much nicer it was in there without the clouds of smoke.

Well, DH is gradually healing and I'm back to do my final summing up. Basically, we loved it. It was very relaxing, mostly just taking it easy and no long excursions, visits to museums, churches and the like. We would happily do it again. Getting to Southampton. I won't go into a ton of detail as it won't be relevant to most readers. Flying from Faro, we were able to bypass the big London airports by going into Bournemouth. Southampton would have been even better but the weekly flight operates on Saturdays, which didn't fit the schedule. There is the potential for folks coming from elsewhere to use these two airports as well. KLM has a twice-daily flight into Southampton from Amsterdam, so if you can conveniently fly to there, you may be able to make the connection work. Flying into Bournemouth may be possible from somewhere like Dublin, which could be a useful routing especially for folks coming from across the pond. Note that these would not be connecting flights, though; they'd have to be on separate tickets. An especially enticing option if you fancy spending a day or two in Dublin AND the added bonus of clearing US immigration BEFORE your return flight. Just be very mindful of the baggage rules of the European low-cost carriers! For transport between Bournemouth and Southampton, I pre-booked with Westquay Cars who are often recommended on the British Isles board. They were fine and the price was reasonable: £65 each way. A credit card was required to guarantee the booking but actual payment was in cash to the driver. I did have trouble getting their website to work for me so was not able to do the bookings online; instead I emailed them and then called them to give them the card details. Southampton Hotel. We stayed at the Premier Inn Westquay. We've used this chain before. Generally they're reliable and reasonably priced. We paid a bit more than would perhaps have been normal because our dates happened to coincide with the Southampton International Boat Show, which we took the opportunity to visit. The hotel was fine, no surprises, conveniently located and on a good day, in theory, you could walk to/from the port. The boat show rendered that option unworkable for us but a taxi cost only £6. Getting on the ship. Fastest and easiest embarkation ever. Ten minutes from getting out of the taxi to stepping on to the ship! Cabin. Obstructed balcony cabin #6560. Largely unobstructed except for the davit to the right of the balcony blocking the view aft. Very convenient location, right by the forward lift lobby. Plenty of storage for two or even more people. This particular cabin is sold as only double occupancy but its counterpart on the port side is sold for triple occupancy. Food. We ate embarkation lunch in Jamies. First experience of doing anything other than WJ for embarkation lunch. The food was great but was way too much for our small appetites. The comfort really made it worthwhile. So much better than fighting the crowds in the WJ. I would definitely do this again. We ate all our dinners in the MDR and were largely satisfied with the quality and variety. There were a few misses and a couple of days when it was a bit harder to find something we liked. Royal really could do with introducing some new menus, though. These ones - and the speciality dining ones, for that matter - have been the same for years. We had My Time Dining and I had made reservations for the same time each night so, with the exception of the second night, we were always seated in the same area and with the same wait staff. They tried their best to give us great service but you could tell they were run off their feet. We had only a couple of breakfasts in the WJ (I hated it - too crowded, too hard to find seats and I don't like the layout. I felt it created a logjam around the food). The rest were in the MDR, where there was the option of à la carte (in American Icon) or buffet in Silk. We mostly did the buffet and tried the à la carte a couple of times. The food was good but the service was sooo slow. Our lunches were all over the place, sometimes on the ship, sometimes off; pizza, two70, WJ. All in all, we were happy with the food. It did what it said on the tin, although we acknowledge the downhill trend in quality over the years. The Gym. An essential part of my cruise experience. As usual, well-equipped, although some of the treadmills needed attention. I'll keep my habitual rant to a single sentence this time round: A gym is an accident waiting to happen so there should always, always, always be an instructor on duty but there isn't. Entertainment. It wasn't the best we've had on our various cruises but, that said, it's as subjective as food and I think it's probably more down to what we like than the quality. The audiences always seemed to be appreciative. We loved Spectra but hated the venue because of the dreadful sightlines. The magician was great. We would have liked some more visual/musical entertainment, like the production shows of old. There did seem to be a fair bit going on around the ship, trivia and stuff like that, and a few pool games as well so, although we tend not to participate, I have the impression that the entertainment team did its job fine. The Ship. We sailed on Odyssey in May and that was our first time on a Q-class ship, so it was interesting to compare it with its older sister. I can't say I'm a huge fan of the split-level promenade as one half seems to have a lot of wasted space and the other seems to be too narrow thus creating a bottleneck at busy times. I think what they've done with the Seaplex on Odyssey in comparison to Anthem is great. Again, there seemed to be some quite under-utilised space on the older ship. Loved Two70 as a lounge but not as a show venue and also, on Anthem, the fact that there was an internet café. This was sadly lacking on Odyssey and I'm not sure if they were still using covid as an excuse or if they actually don't plan on having one at all. I did go hunting for the "secret" door that I've seen mentioned, that takes you to the cabins on deck 6, but I couldn't find it. Maybe it was one that said "Crew Only". We did use the D lounge a few times and found it to be an attractive space (thanks to having windows, as opposed to the dungeon location on Harmony). It was very busy at the old "happy hour" despite the new drink voucher system. All things considered, we prefer Oasis and Voyager classes over Q but, of course, that's just our preference and would certainly not prevent us sailing on this class again (in fact, our next cruise will be on this same ship). Ports of Call. We had seven on this 12-night cruise - Vigo, Lisbon, Lanzarote, Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Funchal and La Coruña, so it was an excellent balance of interesting ports and sea days. It looked to me like a lot of people didn't bother getting off the ship much at all, preferring just to sun themselves on board. That would probably be down to the demographic, about 96% of the passengers were Brits, who've likely been to many of the ports before and only wanted time away in the sunshine. Excursions. You really don't need them on this itinerary unless you're looking to go farther afield than the port city. The only one we booked was the bus transfer to the beach in Lanzarote purely because I knew from past experience that it's a pain to get to using the local bus. We could have done it by taxi, though, as there were plenty lined up on the quay and the pricing was similar to the transfer (for 2 people; any more and you'd be better with the taxi). Everything else we DIY'd. End of cruise. We did fill in the questionnaire asking for a late departure time, since our flight home was not till late afternoon but they gave us early tags. However, GS said no problem, just get off when you're ready. Breakfast in the MDR on the last day was à la carte only, so we did the WJ and as we were up a bit earlier than planned, it wasn't too bad. After our final ding and picking up our luggage, we waited over half an hour in the taxi queue (didn't pre-book as we weren't sure what time we'd be off the ship) to take us back to the Premier Inn. They will store bags for you (even if you're not staying with them) in exchange for a donation to the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. This is very convenient if you have a few hours to kill because there is a big shopping centre right next door if the weather's being unfriendly (which it was on that day) or you can go for a wander without having to drag your bags around with you. Double points promo. I booked this cruise on board Harmony last year, literally two days before the booking window closed. The double points posted with no issue six days after we got off the ship. Only 25 more to go to get to D+. I'm working on it! Next time... Will be on Anthem again, on her last sailing from NY before she comes back across the pond for next year's summer season. Time to start getting all my ducks in a row. Thanks... So much to everyone who followed along. I loved doing the "live" and am grateful for everyone's participation and, especially, support at the end, when the unexpected happened. Until next time, happy cruising and safe travels everyone!

Pay no attention to the percentages; they are meaningless. Look only at the bottom line. If you check prices once a day (only takes 5 minutes, in your coffee break for example) you start to get a feel for the prices. Every 2-3 weeks there will be a cruise planner "sale". Some things will go down a bit, some will stay the same and some will actually go up. A sale has just recently ended so you can expect the $24 internet price to go down to about $20 when the next sale comes along. Sometimes prices go down even when there is no sale which is why it's worth checking daily, although I admit to not having seen this happen myself post-covid. Note that prices vary from ship to ship and sail date to sail date, so if someone posts about a fantastic price on something on their sailing, there is no guarantee you will see that same price on yours. Hope this helps. Have fun planning! 😊

I would definitely download stuff beforehand if you can. Even on ships with decent Internet something can easily go awry. The last time I was on Adventure (thanksgiving 2019) there was a problem with one of their servers that rendered the Internet virtually useless for over half of the cruise until they were able to fix it.

On my Odyssey cruise in May it was $71.95 per person and only for flights after 11 am.

I would love to do a cruise like this one day. Thanks for sharing. 😊

Thanks. 😊 We could have saved about 100 euros by flying into Gatwick but given the state of pandemonium at the London airports and the added hassle of getting from Gatwick to Southampton, it was a small price to pay.