Very late, very long, Anthem July 14th 9-night Bermuda and Caribbean review

[PQI]

Hello everyone!

 

Sorry for this very late, very long review, but I wanted so much to write this given all the bad reputation the Anthem has from negative reviews. I have returned from my vacations a while ago, which included a 9-night cruise on the Anthem, and would like to leave what were my thoughts on the experience overall. According to my roll call, our cruise was completely sold out, so keep that in mind while reading this review.

 

I'll just give a little bit of my history and prior experience cruising, as to put this review into perspective. I'm from Brazil, and I have already gone on three cruises prior to this one, but all of them in South America and all of them through MSC. Two of those cruises were out of Rio de Janeiro, going to the northeast region of Brazil (Salvador, Maceio, etc.), and one sailing out of Santos to Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Punta del Este. Going on a cruise out of the US has always been a dream for me, given that the ships that come to Brazil are usually small or very simple compared to the ones available abroad. I will compare to this frequently throughout the review.

 

PRE-CRUISE: I was planning my vacations with my girlfriend around April this year when we finally decided to go visit New York (which was something both of us really wanted to), and took the opportunity to take a cruise given I always wanted to try a different experience and the Anthem would be there. As soon as we booked the cruise, I went straight to the Cruise Planner and all the shows were already available for booking, and also some of the activities. We went ahead and booked shows and dining right then. A little bit after that I decided to purchase the Premium Package when the 30% discount sale began. Also, as I’m from Brazil, the prices in the Cruise Planner were showing up as Brazilian Reais and Royal’s exchange rate then were absolutely great, given BRL was skyrocketing at the time due to the Brazilian crisis and political instability. My girlfriend decided to wait and think a little bit more prior to purchasing hers, and the exact day she decided to purchase was the day Royal instituted their “Dynamic Pricing” policy and prices had gone up quite a bit. She ended up paying 90 dollars more that I did because of this. We also purchased a BOGO dining package, I purchased two FlowRider lessons and the Jet Ski ride in Labadee for myself and my girlfriend purchased the Labadee zip line and the Jet Ski passenger tour to ride with me.

 

One week before our cruise, we received an e-mail saying that some of our show schedules had been changed and that they moved us automatically. I went it to check the new schedule and thankfully it was nothing major, and I just had to change one dining reservation. In Brazil we are used to dining late, so we scheduled all our dining to around 9pm every night. We didn’t have problems, but it could be because of that, given most of the time all earlier times were booked out.

 

Now, if you’re sailing the Anthem and find this review to be to long for you, just please take those three tips with you:

 

1- Do make reservations

2- Make your reservations as early as possible

3- SERIOUSLY, DO MAKE RESERVATIONS!

 

I will get to that a little bit later on.

 

BOARDING: given my previous experiences cruising, boarding the Anthem was a dream. As I was not familiar with New York and its traffic, I left the hotel early at around 9am and got to the port at around 10am. There was absolutely no traffic, and by 10:30 I had already left the luggage with the porter and had the SetSail pass stamped and ready to go. Now, another piece of advice: do your check-in online! Checking in at the port was simply verifying the passports, asking a few security and health questions and we were good to go. Since there was some time yet to begin boarding, I decided to walk a little bit around the pier to go check the 9/11 Tear Drop memorial and chase some Pokémon (sorry, couldn’t resist… hahaha). On previous experiences cruising, boarding has always been a nightmare. Ports here in Brazil are usually organized in a Brazilian fashion, which could translate simply to not organized at all. You have to run through a crowded pier with your luggage to find where the porters are, then go to the other end of the pier, do all the check-in process, such as giving credit card info, and everything, then waiting in a crowded room with no air-conditioning until your group is called out. This most times took a few hours. On the Anthem, after coming back from my Pokémon-chasing and tour around the pier, I just went through security, took a picture, sat down for half an hour I think and then they started calling priorities and all the people sitting down to board. I was on the pool bar, sipping a Pina Colada, before noon! By the way, as most of you must know, you don’t get your SeaPass cards before rooms are ready on the Anthem. There was also no stamp or sticker on my SetSail pass indicating that I had a Premium Package, but I didn’t even need to mention that to the bartender, so don’t worry if you also don’t get one. By 1pm on the dot the rooms were ready, and my SeaPass card was already waiting for me on the door. Inside the cabin were my girlfriend’s SeaPass card, excursion tickets, a paper which should show our restaurant reservations (but was actually blank), the Voom password (yes, no Internet before rooms are ready) and the reservations for our BOGO package. They had reserved for us Chops Grille on night one (SCORE!) and Jamie’s for the second.

 

Since I wanted to try Wonderland, I went to the Wonderland desk and talked to the host there. She promptly changed our reservation from Jamie’s to Wonderland. Now, I don’t remember her name, but that girl deserves the first recognition on this review for going well above and beyond to please us. On the second night, when we were supposed to dine in Wonderland, we had a show (The Gift) scheduled right before dinner. Due to technical problems, the show was cancelled on that night and they moved us to night three, which actually screwed up a lot of my plans (more on that later). As it was cancelled, there would be a performance of the tribute band Led Zepagain exactly at the time we were supposed to be dining. As I’m a huge Led Zeppelin fan, I decided to go there and try to change our reservations for an earlier time so I would not miss the performance. She said they were completely booked up (as every single restaurant in the ship), but that I could come back as soon as the restaurant opened as if there were any cancellations she could get us seated. I did get there as soon as the restaurant opened, and she told us unfortunately no one had cancelled, but that if we wanted we could wait and if anyone didn’t show up we could get in earlier. I told her I would be by the Bionic Bar, on the other side of the Promenade, waiting. Not long after that, should have been fifteen minutes or so, she signaled me from there and we got a seat! The restaurant was actually empty, which was recurring during the cruise. My guess is that loads of people reserve seating times at the restaurants, don’t show up and do not bother to cancel at all.

 

Now, for the problems: Our SeaPass cards had the Premium Package stickers on them, but the Coca-cola cups for the Freestyle machines were not in the room. I thought they would be delivered to our room later and did not worry about it. When it was already 5pm and they still did not arrive, and after seeing a lot of people carrying them around the ship, the Coca-Cola Vanilla drinker in me got anxious and I went to ask a guy selling drinks packages on the Promenade about it. He told me it could take up to 7pm for them to be delivered to cabin, and if they did not arrive until then that I could go directly to him on Bolero’s, where he worked in the evening, and he would give me and my girlfriend our cups. And the cups did arrive in the room at 7pm. Although it did take long, I must give another special recognition to this guy selling packages on the efforts and for personally standing up to solve the problem.

 

Another problem were our luggage. When we were walking to our stateroom, as soon as they opened, we found my girlfriend’s luggage standing randomly in the middle of a corridor, nowhere near our cabin. So we already carried it to our room. As my luggage didn’t arrive for some time after that, I decided to go on a recon mission around the corridors to find it, and also found it standing randomly in the middle of another corridor. I don’t know if they were yet to take it to my room, but that puzzled me.

 

I didn’t need guest services yet by that time, but I must point something out: when I went to the Promenade to check on the Coca-cola cup thing, lines at guest services were absolutely HUGE. Now, I don’t know what that was about, but do whatever you can to avoid going to Guest Services when you board!

 

CABIN: I had booked a guarantee and was assigned room 11525 well in advance to the cruise. This is a forward, inside accessible cabin with a virtual balcony. I am not disabled (I had not required this type of cabin, and even let Royal Caribbean know this as soon as I was assigned in case anyone needed it), and therefore I cannot actually review the accessible features of the room properly. What I can say is that the room is pretty big for an interior room (actually the largest cabin I’ve ever seen on a ship, including the balconies my father had on MSC). It does have bars and a foldable bench in the shower, emergency cord in the bathroom and emergency buttons by the bed and door, accessible wardrobe, a much larger door and the door opens with a button on the inside. One thing I can say is that the team responsible for answering the emergency signals from the cabin is fast and responsive, given that my girlfriend accidentally pushed the emergency button by the bed thinking it was the light and they promptly called our cabin to know if everything was OK. The virtual balcony is incredible, being a live feed from the outside of the ship. It is great to be able to know beforehand how the climate is outside or what is going on, all from an inside cabin!

 

One thing I must say about this cabin, though: it is right underneath the Adventure Ocean area. And those kids can really be very noisy until very late at night. You will be hearing thumping on the ceiling constantly throughout the day until a bit after midnight. To me, it sounded as if I were right under a military headquarters with soldiers marching the entire day. If you like to take naps in the afternoon or go to sleep early, this room is definitely not for you. Another possible problem is, being an accessible room, it does not have anything on the bathroom floor to divide the shower area, which could cause floods on the bathroom or even in the room itself. However, during the entirety of our 9-night cruise, we only had problems with it once, when the water went over the grates in the door designed to hold the water and it got the room carpet a little bit wet. The bathroom floor also dries up pretty quickly, in a matter of a few minutes.

 

THE SHIP: Anthem is magnificent! It is really a very, very beautiful ship. It is very different from any experience I’ve ever had cruising so far. There were a few problems, of course, some of the technology still needs some perfecting but all in all it was definitely a great trip. I do must say, though, that the ship did feel crowded at times. First of all, Royal iQ. For those of you who do not know what it is, it is an app developed by Royal Caribbean that only works on the ship wi-fi that you can use to check the daily compass, manage your onboard reservations, check your activity schedule, etc. Until the middle of the cruise, I had some trouble getting it to work. My full calendar, for instance, always showed an error message when I tried to open it and it only worked after I think day 5. I could, however, check my dining, entertainment, and other activities by going to their specific areas, and was able to change a restaurant reservation through the app. The account charges and credit were also working correctly on the app. Those errors I experienced with the calendar occurred not only on my smartphone, but also on the iPads provided onboard. The in-room TV, however, always worked flawlessly. Also, it was great being able to check the daily menu for all the restaurants on the TV! Another technological thing was that I had the WOW band, and I liked it a lot! I always go workout at the gym when I’m cruising, and keeping the card with me is always terrible. I’m afraid I might forget it, or that it might break while in my pocket if I accidentally hit it with a dumbbell or something like that. Having the WOW band allowed me to keep my SeaPass card safe in my cabin. It worked great at the bars, and you only have to take it out if you are not near any of the POS computers or in a restaurant. You also have to take it off at the FlowRider, as the force of the water can take it out (personal experience). Besides that, no problems with it!

 

The Seaplex is a magnificent area. Unfortunately, I only had time to do the bumper cars there once (as I was addicted to the FlowRider lol), but it was loads of fun. I at least got to see it working as a sports court a few times. This is one of the places you could feel the ship being crowded, as the queue for the bumper cars could get insanely huge. One time it was actually forming a line all the way around the Seaplex area!

 

Near the Seaplex I found the puzzle room, but I don’t think it was working on our cruise as I have never seen reservations open up for it and every time I passed by the room was closed. Too bad, there was a Coca-Cola Freestyle machine sitting all alone in there that I bet had the Coca-Cola Vanilla flavor! Hahahaha Speaking of the Freestyle machines, a little bit of a rant now. The machines in the Windjammer and the one in the Doghouse were constantly out of the majority of flavors. The most “consistent” ones were the machines in Sorrento’s, that had all flavors almost every time I went there.

 

Another thing I did not try out was the iFly. I had reservations for it on the second day of the cruise, but I completely forgot about it. I did, however, watch the people doing it many times while I was in line for the FlowRider and I must say I do not regret missing it. Basically, it takes one hour, with the preparation and everything else, but the session itself lasts barely ten minutes. From what I saw, people basically went in the tube with the instructor holding them, stood there for a minute gliding mid-air, then got out. After everyone got a minute gliding mid-air, the instructor would get in the tube, perform a session with a variety of stunts, then receive the applause and that’s it. While it looked like fun, and everyone who did it said it was a blast, to me it seemed like a wasted 59-minutes for a 1-minute activity, so I didn’t even bother re-scheduling it. I also must say that I think that because there is also an iFly place here in Sao Paulo where I can go whenever I want to experience that, so to do that on the ship would actually take away time I could be doing other stuff onboard that I can’t do on land. I think it would be better if Royal changed the way it works so that people actually could practice and try to get some skills like it is with the FlowRider.

 

And that brings me to the FlowRider! I had never done it and I simply loved it! I spent a good deal of my time there trying to master it, but it is pretty tough! I thought it would be easier given I skateboard, but that is completely different. I had two lessons on it. The lessons have around six people on it, and basically the teachers help you learn to boogie board or stand-up surf, whatever it is you wish to learn. Now, you don’t actually NEED the lessons if you want to learn it because the same teachers already teach you during the regular hours, but they are good given there are only six people to rotate and so you get more time to practice without having to wait half an hour on the queue to get another try. This is specially true if you want to learn to stand-up surf, as it is really difficult to master. Now, one thing I disliked about the lessons is that they are not separated by boogie boarding and stand-up surf. On my first lesson, everybody wanted to stand-up surf, so we got a lot of tries and time on the wave to practice. On my second lesson, there were two kids who wanted to do boogie boarding. When this happens, they take some time of the lesson for the people who want to boogie board, so that for me felt like time wasted. They really should split the lessons into boogie boarding and stand-up surfing. My second lesson was not nearly as productive as the first one.

 

Regarding the pools, I’ll first talk about the Solarium. For those who don’t know, it is adults only and I didn’t in fact see children inside the pools while I was there. The three-level pools are pretty nice and this is a nice and relaxing place. There was an indoor pool as well, where I didn’t spend much time, and the open-air pool. In the open air pool there are also a few jacuzzis, a lazy river and also a kids zone. What I liked the most about the open-air pool was the band! That band is incredibly awesome! I loved the band music by the pool and truly liked to chill there by the bar with a few drinks and listening to the band. There is also an ice cream machine by the bar with varying flavors, and I loved to get a Mudslide by the bar and then drop some ice cream from the machine into it! Hahahaha By the way, the guys at the Sky Bar and the North Star Bar deserve some recognition as well for their great service!

 

About the North Star: it was impressive! It is really a very different thing to do on a ship, and also being able to see it from another angle! I had reservations for right before the sail away from Labadee, but also got to go one day at sea. My recommendation: do both, one day at sea and one day at a port. It is awesome being able to view the islands from up there! Also, if you don’t have reservations you can just go right up and they might put you in if there is any vacancies. We did that one day at sea and we went right on the next run.

 

The 270 is very impressive! The view is awesome and the shows there are spectacular. The guys at the bar were awesome as well, as soon as they saw my girlfriend approaching they would start preparing her Cotton Canditini hahahaha. Also, it was my favorite place for breakfast in the ship. I loved the breakfast burritos and the royal egg muffin. They also have the famous roast beef sandwich, which I found to be very deserving of all its fame!

 

Now, for my favorite place in the ship: the Music Hall! I loved it so much! I love rock ’n’ roll and always had a good time with the shows here and the people at the bar were great as well! The snooker tables around were always occupied, by the way. I also love the karaoke, too bad that my voice was really bad due to a cold I had right before the cruise and only managed to sing on the last night.

 

RESTAURANTS: I know food is really subjective, but I must say I was truly impressed with everything. On my experience with MSC, the food never got to blow me away. It was always acceptable, nothing very out of the ordinary, except perhaps for a good bolognese lasagna and that’s it. The rest was always bland, overcooked meat, and so on. On the Anthem, however, the food always surprised me. Even the weakest restaurant of all, which I’ll mention, was better than any meal I ever had with MSC. Before going on to review the food, I will talk about the experience overall. I had Dynamic Dining and had pre-reserved all of my dining beforehand. I did, however, change my plans onboard a few times. One time, as I mentioned, was at Wonderland, which I discussed previously on this review. The second time was on the third night. I had a Flowrider lesson finishing by 7pm, and I had reserved The Grande for 9pm. Our The Gift reservation the night before had been changed for this night due to technical problems, at 9pm. So I had my first schedule conflict. As I said, all restaurants were entirely booked up every single night of the cruise, including the specialty restaurants. Now, as soon as I got out of the lesson, my girlfriend and I rushed to the room, got changed into formal clothing and went right to The Grande to check whether we could get a seat as a walk-in. We were seated in 15 minutes. On the third time, my girlfriend and I just really liked Chic and wanted to switch our reservation for repeating American Icon Grill to repeating Chic. I easily changed this reservation through the Royal iQ app, so no problems here. Just keep in mind we are really late dinners and always went to dine at around 9pm. I don’t remember seeing many earlier slots available. Now I’ll talk about each restaurant in the order I visited:

 

Chops: I’m a true meat lover, so I was looking forward to trying Chops. It was also pure luck that Royal reserved it for us on the first night as part of our BOGO package. So, my first dinner in a Royal Caribbean ship was in Chops. I must say, given I had not tried any other restaurant onboard yet, I was very impressed. A nice atmosphere and the way everything is served is pretty nice. The filet mignon was exactly the way I like it, a big, tall, cut, medium rare so it was almost raw in the very center. A very, very good beginning. However, as I stated, if I had tried other restaurants before I might not have been so impressed, as when I ate the filet mignon at The Grande for instance I thought it to be on par with the one served at Chops, so why bother paying a specialty restaurant for it? And in The Grande they can even throw in a lobster tail with it! So unless you like the more private atmosphere, the Chops exclusive sauce or the choice of sides, I’d say Chops is not that much worth the price for the meat only.

 

Wonderland: Now this was the dining experience of my life! Seriously, I had never eaten such different, unexpected and delicious food in my life. It begins by the experience itself, where instead of asking what you want from the menu, the waiter asked us if we had any allergies or something we really didn’t like. He is one of the few people whom I remember the name, Bogdan, so kudos to him for the excellent service. He then chose what he would surprise us with from the menu, creating a combination of three to five dishes he brought at once to the table. When he brought the food, he explained to us everything by detail, how it was made, what it represented and how it was supposed to be eaten. My girlfriend doesn’t like fish and seafood at all, and she ended up eating crab, lobster and other things and found it delicious. He repeated that for another two rounds, each round bringing three to five dishes to table, for us both to share. So yeah, prepare yourself because it is a lot of food. Then he brought us the desserts, which were surprising and delicious as well. Anyone there should also try the drinks, as they are very unusual as well and really good. My girlfriend was so much in love with the Cotton Canditini that she made me learn from the bartender how to prepare it. If you are only doing one specialty restaurant on board, I’d really suggest going to Wonderland. And be adventurous, do not let a dish go by just because you don’t like an ingredient, and you won’t be disappointed.

 

Grande: Our first night at The Grande we had to eat in a rush given we had a show scheduled in 45 minutes after we sat. I let our attendant know it (kudos to you for the great service as well, Sheerey) and we were able to make it in time. This was our first time in one of the complimentary restaurants, and to be sincere I went there already expecting something like that MSC experience I talked about, with bland food and overcooked meat. By the end of the dinner, I was blown away by the quality of the food. I had the Surf & Turf for this night, and Sheerey asked right away if I wanted a lobster tail with it. So, for my first dinner, I had filet mignon with shrimps and a lobster tail, that didn’t come anywhere near overcooked. In fact, it came medium rare just as I asked, and on par with the one served in Chops. I was extremely surprised and a bit turned down I had to dine in such a hurry given the time for our show. My girlfriend loved the Chocolate Molten Cake! She even tried a few ones in NYC when we were there after the cruise, and said none of them matched the one she ate onboard. We went to The Grande on our last cruise night as well and it was just as good as the first night. We didn’t have to ask for a table with Sheerey, they already put us in the same table we sat the other night automatically. I had the escargots for the first time in my life on this night, and I regretted not having ordered it the first time. This time, my girlfriend asked Sheerey if she had the Chocolate Molten Cake even though it wasn’t on the menu. She said she would look, but that she almost certainly didn’t have, and asked what else would she like if she didn’t have it. Turns out when Sheerey brought us our plates, she brought to my girlfriend not one, not two, but three deserts! She said they in fact didn’t have the Chocolate Molten Cake, but she brought her the one she asked for, another dessert she thought she would like and also the Warm Cookie Plate from American Icon Grill, given it was something similar to the Molten Cake (hot with ice cream). I think I have never seen my girlfriend’s eye so bright with joy before. Thanks a lot Sheerey!

 

Chic: We liked it so much we ended up changing the reservation from one of our nights where we were supposed to repeat American Icon Grill to Chic. They also serve breakfast and lunch, and I found both to be great as well. I was only disappointed by the Nutella crepe. When someone says they have a Nutella crepe, my mind imagines that big crepe filled with Nutella cream inside, with some bananas , that when you cut it the Nutella spills out all into your plate. Well, it was nothing like it. It was a more or less small crepe, filled only with bananas and a mere decoration with Nutella on top. If I were in a restaurant, I would complain of false advertising, as to me that’s not a Nutella crepe, but a Banana crepe with hints of Nutella, but enough said. Besides that fact, it was good and we loved the breakfast in Chic, so we went there I think three times. If we had discovered it earlier on the cruise, we might have gone there more times. It was actually pretty empty and very easy to get a seat, so I think most people don’t know about it.

 

American Icon: Before the cruise, my girlfriend liked the sample menu from American Icon Grill the most, so we ended up booking this restaurant on two nights. The service was excellent, and our waiter Rodrigo was awesome. He was also the waiter on one of our breakfasts in Chic. However, it is not that the food was not good. It was great. However, we just felt like it was too “commonplace”, and we wanted to try different and complex food we do not find so easily elsewhere and that’s why we changed our other reservation. It might be a good choice if you are with kids or people who do not like more “gastronomical” dishes, however. The desserts here, on the other hand, were an absolute blast. We loved the warm cookie plate!

 

Silk: This was one of our great surprises! Had we another night onboard, this is probably where we would go. My girlfriend was afraid of what she was going to find when she was there, as she usually dislikes asian food, but she loved everything! I am more adventurous so I was looking forward to it. The food is innovative and very well done, and I found everything I tasted to be very good. The pork tacos were delicious. For the desserts, my girlfriend had the mochi ice cream and loved it as well. It is very different and tastes really good. I am now trying to reproduce it at home. Hahahahaha

 

Solarium Bistro: This is the restaurant I was most disappointed with. I didn’t think the food was exceptionally good, it was just OK. The appetizers are actually a buffet with a variety of dishes and appetizers you can serve yourself. The ceviche was not very good. The desserts were so-so as well and also served buffet style. By the way, it was empty when I went there, so it could be a good option if all other restaurants are crowded and you don’t want to eat in the Windjammer.

 

Johnny Rockets: much like Johnny Rockets on land. It is pay-per-item. Milk shakes here are not included in any drinks package, by the way. Not much to say here.

 

Sorrento’s: I liked the pizza here! They are freshly made pizza, and they have a menu of four flavors they are serving that day. You can also order an entire pie if you wish. The sandwiches at the adjacent place had so-so sandwiches. The chicken roll was pretty good and the shrimp sandwich too, although I felt it was too much bread and too little filling. As I said before, the two Freestyle machines located here are the ones I found to be most consistent on the availability of flavors.

 

Bionic Bar: it is more of a gimmick than anything, but it was pretty cool, especially being able to create your own recipes. Also, the drinks are made really fast, so it is a great option for getting one when you just want a quick fix. I liked to stay there sometimes getting drinks while my girlfriend was getting ready.

 

SHOWS: My experience with MSC’s shows were “meh”. My cousins and I usually went there just because all our family was there as well and also because the ships didn’t have much else to do. On MSC, they consisted pretty much of the common “headliner” shows on Royal Caribbean, but usually with a little less quality, so something like singers one night, acrobats the other night, dancers and so on. Didn’t change much. What a difference in Royal Caribbean! Although I must say I didn’t go as much to the theater during my cruise, every show I watched was awesome! I must say I didn’t see any headliner show though. The game shows were a blast, and I was really impressed with how everything is setup just like on TV! The Gift was a very pleasant surprise, as the effects and everything are up to par with that of Broadway shows and very impressive. We were quite lost with the story though at the beginning, but it all made sense by the end, and what a great story! We Will Rock You was simply amazing, the band is great, and so are the actors, the stage, effects, everything. Bohemian Rhapsody by the end was also an amazing finish. Spectra’s Cabaret was very entertaining, the music is really good and it does showcase all the incredible things 270 has to offer. The only thing I can really complain on the shows are… the guests. But I’ll reserve some space for that at the end as I believe it really deserves some attention. Also note that the shows fill up and reservations are required for Spectra’s, We Will Rock You and The Gift, so reserve them as soon as you can. There was always a huge line of people waiting to be seated as walk-ins. And if you do have reservations, show up early to get good seats and do not arrive on the last minute, as they release the seats ten minutes prior to the start time of the show. I arrived within half an hour prior to We Will Rock You and got excellent seats.

 

PERSONAL RANT:

 

Now, I believe this will probably fire up a discussion in here, but it must be exposed. Being Brazilian and having sailed only in Brazil, with cruises filled with Brazilian people, I always thought that the selfishness and complete lack of education and manners in guests were because they were all Brazilian, as we tend to think around here. After my first cruise abroad, I do have to say though that selfishness, lack of education and manners and most of all self-entitlement are all widespread plagues. Having people all around the world onboard just acting like that took all of my hopes in mankind. The worst thing in my cruise was, believe it or not, the guests.

 

Just to begin with: this cruise had the worst case of chair hogs I have ever witnessed on a cruise. Also, just to worsen the situation, Royal Caribbean staff did absolutely nothing about it. No matter the time you got to the pool, there were no loungers available. Many of those had ghost occupants the majority of the time. It was very common to get to the pool and see all loungers with a towel on them, but only half a dozen loungers or so with actual people on them. Some people occupied one lounger with a book, another with a sunscreen tube, another with glasses, and another with a bag, and those would remain like that the whole afternoon. If you and your whole family are sitting by the pool and only need somewhere to store your stuff, you only need one lounger, not four or six. Heck, it doesn’t even need to be by the pool, just put them somewhere else, or leave with someone actually using a lounger! RC should be way more firm on this, especially on completely sold out cruises where the situation can quickly escalate and get out of control.

 

By speaking of “out-of-control”, I have seen many kids running rampant on the ship. No wonder things happen. There was this wannabe acrobat kid in 270 before Spectra’s Cabaret raising hell pulling all kinds of stunts on the stairs and railing of the theater, while her mother just sat there with her eyes fixed on her cellphone. Then, when something happens such as a kid like this breaking her neck, people will say that the ship isn’t safe.

 

Another case of self-entitlement happened on the restaurants. Our itinerary had a stop in Phillipsburg with sail away scheduled for 8pm. Obviously, all those people with Dynamic Dining Classic would have to be onboard before that if they wanted to dine on the complimentary restaurants. Guess what, a lot of people didn’t. And they didn’t want to dine at the buffet either. Now, I have seen one person completely bypass the line of people with Dynamic Dining with reservations by going through the Classic line and demanding for a table at that moment, even though his reservation was long gone. I’m not saying people with Classic should dine at Windjammer in cases like this, but if they want to go the complimentary restaurants they should get the line with the people without any reservation. Or take the opportunity and try one of the specialty restaurants.

 

And finally, the last case of selfishness and self-entitlement was at the shows with reservations. Some people with reservations would go inside as soon as the theater (or 270, in case of Spectra’s) opens and reserve an entire row of the theater for people coming later or without reservations. Even though the speakers said every time that reserving seats inside the theater was not allowed, people didn’t hesitate to answer that the seat was taken whenever someone asked. Lots of people with reservations ended up getting lousy seats because of this, even though they entered the theater a mere ten minutes after it opened. It should also be noted that most of those people “taking up” those seats would not arrive until the last minute or, in many cases, even after the show had already begun. This is completely disrespectful to all the other guests who made reservations for the show. On Spectra’s, there were people coming in after the show had begun and seating on the stairs, which is also forbidden as said by the speakers especially because the performers use those stairs during the show and were constantly having to ask those people to move out of the way. Royal could easily solve this problem by first closing the doors as soon as the show begins and by implementing a system where, when you make your reservations, you already select your seats just like when purchasing a ticket for any show. Then they could check you seat through your SeaPass card or even by issuing you a ticket, as they do with Shore excursions. Ten minutes prior to the show, they release those seats and the host at the door assigns the free seats for the walk-ins.

 

CONCLUSION:

 

It was the most incredible cruising experience I have ever had. OK, I may come a bit biased as my experiences with MSC were nothing that came near to wowing me, but it did really blow me away. Now, somethings might be noted, and those are the things that I think impact the Anthem’s reputation on the negative reviews. This is my opinion, so feel free to disagree. The Anthem is NOT your regular cruise. Everything is technological, and many things need to be reserved way prior to the cruise. This is required for everything to go well. It is MUCH, MUCH easier for you to change reservations once onboard if anything comes up, than it is to make all your reservations when everything is already entirely booked up. Therefore, if you dislike planning your vacation, reserving things beforehand and et cetera, and cannot get the Dynamic Dining Classic option, then this is not the cruise for you. If you do not make your reservations, you will end up on a very big line at guests services as soon as you board, or at the restaurants, to make all your reservations. After you get to the host, you will be greeted with the message that everything is pretty much booked up and the only times available are the ones you don’t like. And then, there you go, you just started the cruise with your left foot. Due to this, I would also not recommended this ship for group cruises much larger than four people without Dynamic Dining Classic. The reason is simple: it is very hard to coordinate the reservations for everyone aboard if you don’t have dynamic dining Classic. If anything happens, just like it happened to me with The Gift show, that will require you to change reservations, it will be very hard to re-accommodate everyone onboard in any satisfiable manner. Even trying to seat a large group as a walk-in would probably be hard, so keep that in mind prior to choosing the Anthem. As to the rest, the crew was spectacular and I have nothing but lots of compliments for them, all of them were really helpful and smiling all the time. The food, although subjective, for me was incredible and I felt like dining at upscale restaurants every night. All in all, the best vacation ever!

 

Lastly, I would like to thank all of you here at Cruise Critic who helped me on a few of my posts prior to this cruise. It was truly great and I plan on staying for a long time, helping fellow cruisers until it is my turn again (hopefully not too far away). I am already thinking of another family cruise in a near future, and want to convince my family to go abroad this time and try something on the Allure or Harmony. Let’s see how it goes.

 

I probably forgot to talk about a lot of stuff, but post here if you have any questions and I’ll do my best to answer them!

[Karma5]

Nice review but difficult to read. Next time double space.

Thank you……...

[PQI]

Nice review but difficult to read. Next time double space.

Thank you……...

 

Sorry about that... I tried to edit it, but the twenty minutes had already passed and I could not make the modifications. Lesson learned :)

[ceejaykay]

Thank you for the detailed review. I like late dining, and I have a go with the flow attitude also, so I'm sure I'll love my Anthem cruise to New England/Canada next month.

 

I'll be on a first name basis with the bartenders at Boleros, Two70, and the Solarium bar by the 2nd day. By the way, did you visit Boleros or Vintages? I don't see many reviews of those 2 venues.

 

Thanks again!

[gatour]

Great review.

 

This is the type of review I like to see. Gives the good, bad and ugly. But more importantly puts it all in context. You gave background about yourself, prior experiences on cruises and you experience on this cruise.

[ostrich710]

As someone strongly considering an upcoming Anthem cruise, loved reading your account! A pleasure to read and thanks for sharing!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[bcarney]

Excellent review! I wish all were this thorough.

[Yorkvillain]

Now that is a detailed review! Thank you.

[Donna_In_India]

Great review! As far as chair hogs - no, RCI crew don't enforce the rules because they don't want to upset any guests. (And that goes for ANY rule, not just the pool chairs.) I think the rule should be if you are not physically in the pool or on the chair - no reserving! That would end that issue. Or....make people pay per hour! On our recent Serenade cruise the pool guy told me that he takes everything off a chair if no one has been there within 30 minutes (like the posted signs say). I didn't really believe him but then again it was a Baltic cruise so there was only 1 day when this was an issue.

 

We sailed the Oasis last August and it was just way too crowded. Lines everywhere were such a turn-off and I hate the things that you mention like people holding seats in the shows. I also am not a fan of having to make reservations for everything. Takes the spontaneity out of my vacation!

[cruise47]

Thanks for your detail review. We are on deck 10 in a forward cabin in September on a NE US / Canadian cruise. I am praying their will not be a large number of children on aboard using The Adventure area.

 

Are their usually a large number of children on Anthem in September on a NE US / Canadian cruise?

Edited August 14, 2016 by cruise47

[PQI]

Thank you for the detailed review. I like late dining, and I have a go with the flow attitude also, so I'm sure I'll love my Anthem cruise to New England/Canada next month.

 

I'll be on a first name basis with the bartenders at Boleros, Two70, and the Solarium bar by the 2nd day. By the way, did you visit Boleros or Vintages? I don't see many reviews of those 2 venues.

 

Thanks again!

 

Hahahaha That's great, I was like that with the guys from the Sky Bar by the pool and one bartender at the Music Hall!

 

About Boleros and Vintages, sorry, but I just passed by them... I did take a look at the menu on Vintages, though, and it looked interesting as it also had for fee food, but as I far as I can remember they were appetizers only. I didn't visit Boleros either. I went mostly to Michael's, as I'm more of a beer guy than wine.

 

It is a big ship, even on a nine-nighter it is pretty hard to do everything! Hahaha Hope you have a great time on your cruise as well!

[PQI]

Great review! As far as chair hogs - no, RCI crew don't enforce the rules because they don't want to upset any guests. (And that goes for ANY rule, not just the pool chairs.) I think the rule should be if you are not physically in the pool or on the chair - no reserving! That would end that issue. Or....make people pay per hour! On our recent Serenade cruise the pool guy told me that he takes everything off a chair if no one has been there within 30 minutes (like the posted signs say). I didn't really believe him but then again it was a Baltic cruise so there was only 1 day when this was an issue.

 

We sailed the Oasis last August and it was just way too crowded. Lines everywhere were such a turn-off and I hate the things that you mention like people holding seats in the shows. I also am not a fan of having to make reservations for everything. Takes the spontaneity out of my vacation!

 

In my opinion, Royal should rethink about that decision. I think it upsets way more guests who want a lounger to sit and can't find one the whole cruise than the ones actually doing this, who are just a few and always the same people. Others just to that later as a matter of "survival". If no one did that, or Royal enforced the rules, people would naturally adapt.

 

I am also turned off by the lines, but I just go with the flow. There are so many things to do on the Anthem that, if one of them got a line, I just went to another. The FlowRider for instance would be very calm and with a short line in the early morning, but as soon as the line built up to a great length I'd go do something else or get a drink.

 

I love planning vacations, so I was not bothered by having to do all the reservations, but that's just me. There's one thing I liked about the Dynamic Dining though was that I was not "stuck" with my reservation as I was with dinner times on restaurants with MDR (such as the ones on MSC I went before) or with Classic. If there was something on the compass I really wanted to do on a given time, I could simply try to move my reservations or go to the restaurant as a walk-in and check whether I could be sitted. I loved that flexibility, and that for me is what vacations are all about. It always bothered me that I had to eat every night at the same time, regardless if I was hungry or not, even if there was something going on at the same time. But again, it was just me and my girlfriend. I'd never try that with my whole family, for instance.

[PQI]

Thanks for your detail review. We are on deck 10 in a forward cabin in September on a NE US / Canadian cruise. I am praying their will not be a large number of children on aboard using The Adventure area.

 

Are their usually a large number of children on Anthem in September on a NE US / Canadian cruise?

 

Sorry, I don't know about your question... Hopefully someone will be able to answer. I would assume though there shouldn't be as many kids as there was as mine, as not only my cruise was during summer vacations it was also to the Caribbean, which I'd imagine to be a more "family-friendly" itinerary.

[Donna_In_India]

Thanks for your detail review. We are on deck 10 in a forward cabin in September on a NE US / Canadian cruise. I am praying their will not be a large number of children on aboard using The Adventure area.

 

Are their usually a large number of children on Anthem in September on a NE US / Canadian cruise?

 

All of the kids from the northeast will have started school by then (as well as the rest of the country). You may find some (under school age) but shouldn't be many.

[stowite]

Nice review. We are considering a cruise on Anthem so this was very helpful. LOL on the plague of entitled people being universal. I thought Americans were supposed to have the market cornered on that.

 

I was surprised by the decent availability of loungers on our recent Allure cruise. We had no problems although we did do as you suggested and used one chair for the belongings of 5 people. I do think if they would have some lockers there would be even less chair hogging as we usually just need a spot to put the stuff we want to stay dry.

[cyndepet]

Very nice review - thanks for sharing your experience. We are doing our first Anthem cruise in October, and I love learning new tips and such from these reviews :-)

[JustAllie]

Thanks for your detail review. We are on deck 10 in a forward cabin in September on a NE US / Canadian cruise. I am praying their will not be a large number of children on aboard using The Adventure area.

 

Are their usually a large number of children on Anthem in September on a NE US / Canadian cruise?

 

I have sailed on two New England / Canada cruises on another cruise line, and there were not very many kids on either cruise. Partly this is because those cruises take place during the school year, but also I think the itinerary appeals more to an older crowd than it does to kids. Then again, if the ship has a lot of features that appeal to kids & teens, your experience may be different than mine was. The ships I sailed on didn't have FlowRiders and bumper cars! :D

[cruiserking]

Thank You for your wonderful, detailed and funny review PQI. I too would have pictured a crepe bursting at the seams with Nutella and got a chuckle out of reading about your surprise when the dish was served with a mere drizzle instead. :eek:

 

Great read and really heightened the excitement for our upcoming Anthem voyage in 5 days!

 

Jonathan

Edited August 15, 2016 by cruiserking

[mirp]

Nice review thanks.

[Clarea]

Very interesting review, thanks.

[BillOh]

I didn’t need guest services yet by that time, but I must point something out: when I went to the Promenade to check on the Coca-cola cup thing, lines at guest services were absolutely HUGE. Now, I don’t know what that was about, but do whatever you can to avoid going to Guest Services when you board!

 

 

Lots of good information here! Thanks for writing. Guest Services always seems jammed on embarkation morning and the evening before the last day of the cruise. I succesfully avoided going there then for 11 cruises, but on the last one, we had to go. People were there for every reason you can think of.

 

 

[FM]

Great review - thanks ...

[maggie416]

What a fantastic review! Very detailed and accurate!! We sailed on the awesome Anthem in April, it was our 14th cruise and the best. 2 days after returning home booked again for next year, same cruise, 12 nighter. So glad you were not disappointed especially after taking the journey to the US!!

Marg

[erby2283]

Thank you for your review! I know how time consuming they can be to do so I truly appreciate the time it took for you to do it!

 

First, I hope you enjoyed your bucket list trip! One of of my best friends from high school was from Rio (moved from Rio to the states and then back to Rio post school) and now lives in Espirito Santo!

 

I enjoyed your review very much. Hoping we luck out and get Chops and Jamie's for our BOGO dinners (although I was made aware that I could change my reservations if I didn't like the ones I got assigned). I find that people, in general, are just more selfish nowadays. Unless they were brought up to think of others, I'm afraid that trend is universal. I also try to cruise to while school is in session to limit the number of kids on board. Here in the US, that's usually Sept-June.

[Guest maddycat]

Thanks for the excellent review. Anthem is our favorite ship. We've sailed on her once and have 2 more cruises booked on her.