Sizzlechest

5 minutes ago, fscool said:

I see from your Cruise Compass pics that they indicate that they get into Bermuda at 8am and don't open the doors until 830am.  Do you know if they actually got in earlier than that?  I was hoping to be off the ship right at 8am and hopefully earlier....

I don't know since I got off later.

38 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

 

I believe it does go over about 20 degrees.  I had a group of friends on this same Anthem cruise and I watched them live streaming their North Star trip and it went over the rights, both left and side.

20 degrees side to side. Not this:

Staff

I never had an issue with rude staff on any cruise. Maybe I’m just lucky. However, the staff on this ship were hands down the friendliest I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. Everyone I had to deal with was courteous and nice. The only problems were with The Key program as I will review separately.

Bumper Cars / Escape Room / Northstar / iFly / Rock Climbing

All these ship-specific attractions were awesome. I had a lot of fun doing them. I didn’t do ping-pong or XBOX. Northstar was great, but keep in mind it does NOT extend over the side of the ship as you may have seen in some promotional material. That doesn’t happen on Anthem. The bumper cars are no joke. They work and feel like “real” bumper cars. DO IT!

Internet

I got the fastest Internet speed as part of The Key. It worked really well considering I was able to stream Hulu in the middle of the ocean to my FireTV. By the way, yes, you can bring your FireTV on board and connect it to the back of the TV using an HDMI cable. You just need to buy a Samsung TV remote so you can switch the inputs since the remote RCL provides does not have that button. There must be some packet prioritization going on because I was NOT able to stream my Slingbox from home. If you were planning to use a Slingbox to get local news and sports, don’t bother. It doesn’t work. Also, don’t assume you will be able to bring a laptop to connect to your VPN at work. That will not work either.

Yes, you can use your cell phone to make phone calls and send texts if your phone and carrier allows WiFi Calling. Here’s how to test it at home:

1. Ensure your phone can connect to your home’s WiFi.
2. Turn on airplane mode. This will kill all connections.
3. Turn on the phone’s WiFi. Verify your phone can access the Internet.
4. Search your phone’s settings for WiFi Calling and enable it.
5. Try to make a call and send/receive texts. If it works on land like this, it will work on the ship.

The WiFi was down for periods of time and voice calls weren’t always clear, but it was mostly worth it.

Royal IQ App

It was nice to have the day’s schedule at your fingertips. The MDR menus for the entire cruise were available, too. However, no access to your photos. The app didn’t allow reservations even after it was registered to me when we first got on board. I had to go in person to the Music Hall to do it. It worked fine later that day.

And the lobster tails are surprisingly good!

Link to high quality scans of the Cruise Compasses for all 9 days:

https://1drv.ms/f/s!AjlFvM-kUCwhgrcuoXvFplBML3v6yg

Food and Beverages

Disclaimer: food reviews are too subjective. I may like what you don’t and vice-versa. You may not think what I feel is important is important.

Overall the food was good. The dinner selections were what I would rate as acceptable. The taste, texture and presentation were what I would expect for a cruise of this nature. If this had been a cruise on Celebrity, I might have been disappointed. I had most of my issues with breakfast where items in the MDR were not prepared correctly and lunch selections at the Windjammer weren’t very appealing to me. Nevertheless, I never went hungry.

I purchased the deluxe beverage package and was not disappointed. If you’ve ever wanted to try it on RCL, this is the ship to do it. Every type of drink I tried was covered. Starbucks cappuccinos every morning, dirty martini’s with Grey Goose or Tito’s, milkshakes from Johnny Rockets without any other purchase, etc. I never had to wait long for a drink, even at a busy bar like at the pool area.

I’ve heard that ships with an actual Starbucks on board are exempt from the drink package and Johnny Rockets that have a cover charge instead of a la carte pricing prevent a lone milkshake from being purchased. The Anthem does not have these problems.

I like to bring a case of bottled water and a case of soda to keep in my room for convenience. While RCL allows one case per stateroom, don’t bother if you have the drink package. You can get bottled water from any bar. Soda cans are available in the Windjammer and other places. This is a major plus for RCL. I don’t know if this policy extends to other ships, but it makes the drink package very attractive for folks on the fence.

Pluses and minuses: The pizza place is open from lunch until 3AM. The pizza was really good. They always make pepperoni and plain cheese with an additional variety they rotate each day. The other offerings were mostly forgettable. Breakfast at Sorrento’s was a waste of time. They serve sandwiches there, but they are uncooked. An Egg McMuffin (no they don’t actually call it that) uses an untoasted English muffin. Café Two70 has the same item and will put it in a panini press, but it’s hardly any better. I tried another kind of an egg sandwich on a croissant and when I bit into it, it was slathered in mayonnaise. I don’t mind mayo, but it was NOT welcome on this kind of sandwich. The pizza is free and service is very fast. It definitely makes up for other food-related deficiencies you may find. I can’t believe RCL charges $2.50 for popcorn! Every other cruise that I’ve been on, popcorn was free. I can’t say I blame them since people were lined up to buy it. I’ll take free pizza over popcorn any day. The hot dog stand at the Seaplex was really nice. I wish they had brown mustard.

I didn’t do specialty dining. However, I had a scaled down Chops lunch with “The Key.” It was really good, but I couldn’t image paying the price for Chops based on what I had.

This was not my first cruise but it was my first on Royal Caribbean. Spoiler alert: It was awesome! I do not have another RCL ship as a point of reference to compare with the Anthem. Instead, I will identify the pluses and minus of this particular ship to my combined experiences of NCL and Carnival. It’s important to not rate an entire cruise line (positively or negatively) based on the experience on a single ship. For example, an NCL cruise on an older ship like the Gem is very different than on a newer ship like the Breakaway. Carnival and NCL seem to be standardizing their fleets. Major refurbs on older ships are putting them in line with the newer ones with respect to venues and features. RCL is doing this to some degree, too. I’ll be cruising on the Oasis next year and it will have water slides found on newer ships and a Bionic Bar. Nevertheless, you cannot extrapolate an experience on a refurbed ship like the Carnival Sunrise to the ship its refurbs were based on like the Vista.

This review will not be in chronological order. If you want to know more about something or are curious about something I haven’t mentioned, let me know.

Ship Layout

This is one of the largest ships I’ve cruised on and it was a breeze to get around. It never felt crowded even though we were at 100% capacity. Okay, sure the buffet is going to be crowded at peak times. There’s no avoiding that. If you did anytime dining instead of a fixed table assignment for the MDR, I guess dinner at the MDR might be a wait, but I don’t know about that. Getting reservations seemed pretty easy as long as you didn’t attempt to do it the day before.

BTW, I found out (thank to this forum) that you get bottled water with the beverage package. You may not need to bring your own unless it's for medical (e.g., distilled) reasons.

17 hours ago, BeachChik said:

 

Its not about the child remembering, the adults will remember the fun they had. And it’s about the fun in the moment, that family time. 

 

I’ve been taking mine since the youngest was 5 months old and my daughter was about 13 months the first time. They are now almost 6 and 3. I remember the experiences even if they don’t. The pictures of them meeting characters for the first time and seeing the castle are priceless. 

So it's more about your enjoyment than theirs. Gotcha.

Just now, jimbo5544 said:

If it sold more they would get more....  Sail 2/3 full out of New York in late fall or winter or full out of Miami.....what would you do.

Easy. Move Horizon to NY for peak cruises in summer. Use Sunrise and Radiance for short 3-5 day cruises. Then rotate.

1 hour ago, twodaywonder said:

Mardi Grah is also getting Shaq's Big Chicken

Yeah, but that doesn't help me. NY doesn't seem to get the top of the line ships for long.

3 minutes ago, Anton said:

Email was just sent.  They are owning it.  Packages will be honored.

Beat me to it! 🤗

7 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

They did, the Horizon was there last summer......

I know. I was on it and fell in love with it.

I wish Carnival would send a Vista class ship to NY. I'd book that cruise in a heartbeat. So far, it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

33 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

Post looks somewhat familiar......LOL so I am taking it you really really want us to know you did not like the ship.

I want to know if someone didn't like the ship. Quite frankly, I don't see how the Radiance is going to be any better than the Sunrise when the deck plans are essentially identical.

29 minutes ago, Garth2 said:

Sunrise has both Seafood Shack (near the aft pool) and Lucky Bowl (starboard side between the buffet and Guy's).  You won't know what issues there are, if any, until after the dry dock and a few Radiance cruises.

Yes, but the first sailing isn't until April 2020. That's not a lot of time to decide for a summer cruise.

"I don't get it. I heard about the $18 price so bought it then I contacted Royal Caribbean by phone, email, and social media and told them about it, then I called them back 3 different times to make sure it was a mistake. For some unknown reason, it got cancelled."

35 minutes ago, John&LaLa said:

You can just go in and get a milkshake 

That's good to hear. I've been told by other people that I need to make a purchase to get a shake on the bev package.

Is it a la carte on Anthem? I'm wondering if I can get away with a minimal order of, say, onion rings so I can get a milkshake with the beverage package.

Hmmm, the ships' layouts are practically identical except the Radiance having a couple MORE cabins than Sunrise and it has the barely used seafood shack instead of the Asian food station. 🙄  I don't see on the deck plans where the chicken place will be. Maybe the plans aren't up to date?

3 minutes ago, Liverpoollovely said:

Sunrise does not have JiJi's - it does have something called either Lucky Bowl or Happy Bowl

Oops! I was looking at Sunshine instead of Sunrise.

I cruise out of NY, so my options on Carnival are somewhat limited. The 2020 season has two ships available: Sunrise and the upcoming Radiance. The deck plans are different but similar. Sunrise has JiJi's, which I liked when I cruised on the Horizon, but Radiance will have an Asian area and Big Chicken.

I've been reading about the issues on the Sunrise and I'm wondering if the Radiance will also have the same issues like overcrowding. What's your take?

On 6/30/2019 at 1:16 PM, Noreen411 said:

I had the chicken and waffles.  I didn’t like my chicken and waffles so went up to the salad bar and had a salad made.  I enjoyed the salad.

 

 

Geez. I mean, that's TECHNICALLY fried chicken and waffles, but I would have never imagined it looking like that when ordering it. I don't blame you.

Whoa! I haven't been on a NCL cruise since 2016. Moderno was my favorite specialty, but I would NEVER pay that. Good lord, I remember the days of $15-$25 cover charges for specialties. I was thinking about a 2020 cruise and was sad that the ship didn't have a Moderno. Now I don't know whether to be sad or relived.