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Just off the Anthem - thoughts

argyllsock

By argyllsock,
in Royal Caribbean International

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argyllsock

argyllsock

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I'll be posting a review of our cruise as well but thought I would post my thoughts here.

 

My wife and I just completed the 7 day Bahamas cruise out of Bayonne. To put my thoughts in perspective, we’ve not sailed with Royal in 5 years; our last cruise with them having been on Enchantment of the Seas in 2012 (same itinerary but departing out of Baltimore). In the interim, we’ve sailed with Celebrity, NCL, Windstar, HAL, and Silversea.

 

We booked this cruise about 10 days ahead of departure. For many reasons we tend to book vacations ‘last minute.’ Our criteria was a 7 day cruise departing on Saturday or Sunday out of Baltimore, New York, or Boston. Our options were NCL, RCCL, Carnival, and Disney. While we enjoyed the one Disney cruise we took many years ago, the prospect of a Halloween cruise to Canada’s maritime provinces didn’t appeal to us – the weather can be downright miserable in Nova Scotia in late October! We weren’t keen on NCL as they seem to barrage you with sales pitches everywhere on the ship! Carnival certainly isn’t for us,so we ended up with RCCL.

 

We drove to the port and parked at the onsite parking garage. It may be a little pricey at $20 per day,compared to the nearby lots, but it is extremely convenient. You are literally 100 feet from the terminal.

 

In general, we enjoyed our cruise but were disappointed in Royal’s apparent fascination with technology over all else. I think with additional staff training and clearer processes the guest experience would be much better! For us, we experienced the following issues:

 

1. Going to our cabin we found that there were no Sea Passes for our room. It took 40 minutes in line at Guest Services to get passes issued

2. Somehow Royal managed to omit our drink package from our sea passes even though we received a letter in our stateroom describing the package we had ordered! Again another hour with guest services to get this resolved.

3. A pre ordered gift was delivered without the corresponding card and message (small nit but it really ruined the message!).

4. We had the Ultimate Dining Package that gave us 40% off bottles of wine priced at $100 or less – but none of the specialty dining servers were aware of this. Again, a small nit but kind of annoying to have to train a server everynight.

 

I thought I would summarize our experiences by category:

 

Check In

 

Getting onto Anthem was extremely quick. We had completed online check in and arrived at the terminal with our paper passes. Going on board was as simple as having the pass scanned and answering the standard health questions. From entry to walking onto the ship might have been 10 minutes…and this included going through security.

 

The Ship

 

Anthem is abeautiful ship with a lot of different things to do. Easily has the most things I have ever seen on a ship – bumper cars, circus, iFly, flowrider, NorthStar observation pod,arcade, casino…the list goes on and on. We both enjoyed the Northstar and the bumper cars!

 

The ship is in great shape and we found the common areas were well maintained and clean.

 

We really came to dislike the promenade area. Royal loves to have ‘sales’ in this space and it was packed with people most of the time. This area reminded us of cruising with NCL.

 

Anthem could have used another bank of elevators – we always waited quite a while for an elevator.

 

Entertainment

 

Royal excels here. The evening shows were allfantastic as were the comedians and the cruise director. There are plenty of activities throughout the day to go to and participate in. Royal has more trivia contests in a day than Celebrity has for the entire week! Spectra’s Cabaret, The Gift, and We Will Rock You were all fantastic. The other ‘ship produced’ shows (welcome, farewell) were quite well done. Royal is clearly the industry leader here.

 

Royal apparently no longer offers any free movies in the cabin – only for fee. Movies were shown on the pool screen and a couple of times in the Royal Theatre.

 

Pools

 

Anthem has three pools: outdoor, indoor, and adult only (solarium). We stayed away from the outdoor pool as it was always crowded and quite noisy. The indoor pool was less noisy and we ended up there a few days as my wife likes to swim in the ‘deeper’ pools.

 

Thesolarium was adult only and beautiful. However, the tiered pools were good only for soaking in as they are rather shallow. It was a quiet oasis that we would retreat to periodically.

 

Movies and sporting events were shown on the screen in the outdoor pool area. However, the screen is on the starboard side and is only easily viewed by a small number of deckchairs. I don’t know why Royal didn’t place the screen either fore or aft to be more accessible.

 

Food

 

Having the Ultimate Dining Package meant that we never ate in one of the Main Dining Rooms. We ended up in Wonderland and Chops twice, and Jamie’s three times. As my wife is a vegetarian, we didn’t go to Izumi. While we enjoyed the dining we found that the limited specialty restaurant selection wore on us and we weren’t all that excited about eating by the last few days of the cruise.

 

A word on the Ultimate Dining Package – we found it to be a great deal as it provided for seven nights of specialty dining along with specialty lunches on sea days, and offered 40% off of bottles of wine under $100. We don’t drink outside of wine with meals so this was perfect for us. The only drawback: staff didn’t know about the wine discount.

 

We didn’t set foot into the Windjammer buffet until the sixth day of our cruise. We found it very hectic and chaotic – although the food was quite decent for a buffet. The biggest drawback? A staff member on the PA constantly ‘reminding’ people to give up their table so someone else could sit down. Aggravating. Really aggravating.

 

One thing I really liked about Windjammer were the hand washing stations located at the entrances, and the routing of everyone to them when entering. The buffet is probably the most likely place that you will contract Noro if it’s on the ship and frequent hand washing is the primary way to reduce the possibility of getting it.

 

We did eat at Café 270 and the Solarium restaurant most of the time for brunch (we generally ate only two meals a day on the ship). Both provided decent quick serve meals.

 

Cabin

 

We had a balcony cabin on deck 10. Royal put alot of thought into the cabin as it was very well laid out and felt spacious. In fact, it felt like the most spacious non-suite cabin that we’ve been in.

 

There were a couple of drawbacks. First off, Royal has installed the tiniest in room safe I’ve ever had. It barely accommodated my iPad – if you have the larger iPad or a laptop you aren’t locking it up. In fact, the safe was too small to even store my headphones! Secondly, the walls are very thin – we often heard our neighbours (thankfully quiet most of the time).

 

Our cabin steward was non-existent. We didn’t even meet her until our third day. While the room was kept clean, we had to ask to have towels replaced and shampoo/lotions/etc replenished. The service was a little disappointing relative to what we have experienced on other cruises.

 

Fellow Travellers

 

Anthem had a wide range of travelers from all ages. There really wasn’t a dominant age demographic. Most of the cruisers came from New York,Pennsylvania, and New Jersey with maybe 100 guests (my estimate) from outside of the United States.

 

Royal kept the kids and teens busy with programs and activities. We experienced none of the horrors we’ve heard about from other cruisers. In fact, the kids tended to be the best behaved of all of us on the ship!

 

Debarkation

 

When checking in online, we indicated that we would self carry and wanted to leave as early as possible. Of course, Royalhad us debarking in group 22, which was scheduled about 2 hours after debarkation started! I have no idea why they bother with asking for debarkation information and then completely ignore it.

 

A quickcall to Guest Services got us moved up to the first Self Carry debarkation slot at 6:30 am. Debarkation was very smooth – we were in the waiting area at about 6:25, were called to depart at 6:35, and were through immigration and heading to the garage at 6:45.

 

Overall

 

We both thought it was a decent cruise with great entertainment. The ship was beautiful and well maintained but it’s very big. Despite its size it did feel very crowded at times – in particular, the Esplanade and outdoor pool areas.

 

We enjoyed the entertainment but are finding that we like a bit more of a sedate cruise. The ship is ideal for younger couples and families. Not great for older couples who like quiet time.

 

 

I think we will do Royal again – but on one of the smaller ships in the fleet. We enjoyed Royal’s slate of entertainment but missed the intimacy and perceived better service of a smaller ship.

Edited by argyllsock
Fix spelling and grammatical errors.
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grapau27

grapau27

Posted
Posted
I'll be posting a review of our cruise as well but thought I would post my thoughts here.

 

My wife andI just completed the 7 day Bahamas cruise out of Bayonne. To put my thoughts in perspective, we’ve notsailed with Royal in 5 years; our last cruise with them having been onEnchantment of the Seas in 2012 (same itinerary but departing out ofBaltimore). In the interim, we’ve sailedwith Celebrity, NCL, Windstar, HAL, and Silversea.

 

We bookedthis cruise about 10 days ahead of departure. For many reasons we tend to book vacations ‘last minute.’ Our criteria was a 7 day cruise departing onSaturday or Sunday out of Baltimore, New York, or Boston. Our options were NCL, RCCL, Carnival, andDisney. While we enjoyed the one Disneycruise we took many years ago, the prospect of a Halloween cruise to Canada’smaritime provinces didn’t appeal to us – it can be downright miserable in NovaScotia in late October! We weren’t keenon NCL as they seem to barrage you with sales pitches everywhere on theship! Carnival certainly isn’t for us,so we ended up with RCCL.

 

We drove tothe port and parked at the onsite parking garage. It may be a little pricey at $20 per day,compared to the nearby lots, but it is extremely convenient. You are literally 100 feet from the terminal.

 

In general,we enjoyed our cruise but were disappointed in Royal’s apparent fascinationwith technology over all else. I thinkwith additional staff training and clearer processes the guest experience wouldbe much better! For us, we experiencedthe following issues:

 

1. Going to our cabin we found thatthere were no Sea Passes for our room. It took 40 minutes in line at Guest Services to get passes issued

2. Somehow Royal managed to omit ourdrink package from our sea passes even though we received a letter in our stateroom describing the package we had ordered! Again another hour with guest services to get this resolved.

3. A pre ordered gift was deliveredwithout the corresponding card and message (small nit but it really ruined the message!).

4. We had the Ultimate Dining Packagethat gave us 40% off bottles of wine priced at $100 or less – but none of thespecialty dining servers were aware of this. Again, a small nit but kind of annoying to have to train a server everynight.

 

I thought Iwould summarize our experiences by category:

 

Check In

 

Gettingonto Anthem was extremely quick. We hadcompleted online check in and arrived at the terminal with our paperpasses. Going on board was as simple as havingthe pass scanned and answering the standard health questions. From entry to walking onto the ship might havebeen 10 minutes…and this included going through security.

 

The Ship

 

Anthem is abeautiful ship with a lot of different things to do. Easily has the most things I have ever seenon a ship – bumper cars, circus, iFly, flowrider, NorthStar observation pod,arcade, casino…the list goes on and on. We both enjoyed the Northstar and the bumper cars!

 

The ship isin great shape and we found the common areas were well maintained and clean.

 

We really cameto dislike the promenade area. Royalloves to have ‘sales’ in this space and it was packed with people most of thetime. This area reminded us of cruisingwith NCL.

 

Anthemcould have used another bank of elevators – we always waited quite a while foran elevator.

 

Entertainment

 

Royal excelshere. The evening shows were allfantastic as were the comedians and the cruise director. There are plenty of activities throughout theday to go to and participate in. Royalhas more trivia contests in a day than Celebrity has for the entire week! Spectra’s Cabaret, The Gift, and We Will Ro****u were all fantastic. The other ‘shipproduced’ shows (welcome, farewell) were quite well done. Royal is clearly the industry leader here.

 

Royal apparentlyno longer offers any free movies in the cabin – only for fee. Movies were shown on the pool screen and acouple of times in the Royal Theatre.

 

Pools

 

Anthem hasthree pools: outdoor, indoor, and adult only (solarium). We stayed away from the outdoor pool as itwas always crowded and quite noisy. Theindoor pool was less noisy and we ended up there a few days as my wife likes toswim in the ‘deeper’ pools.

 

Thesolarium was adult only and beautiful. However, the tiered pools were good only for soaking in as they arerather shallow. It was a fairly quiteoasis that we would retreat to periodically.

 

Movies andsporting events were shown on the screen in the outdoor pool area. However, the screen is on the starboard sideand is only easily viewed by a small number of deckchairs. I don’t know why Royal didn’t place thescreen either fore or aft to be more accessible.

 

Food

 

Having theUltimate Dining Package meant that we never ate in one of the Main DiningRoom. We ended up in Wonderland andChops twice, and Jamie’s three times. Asmy wife is a vegetarian, we didn’t go to Izumi. While we enjoyed the dining we found that the limited specialty restaurantselection wore on us and we weren’t all that excited about eating by the lastfew days of the cruise.

 

A word on theUltimate Dining Package – we found it to be a great deal as it provided forseven nights of specialty dining along with specialty lunches on sea days, andoffered 40% off of bottles of wine under $100. We don’t drink outside of wine with meals so this was perfect forus. The only drawback: staff didn’t knowabout the wine discount.

 

We didn’tset foot into the Windjammer buffet until the sixth day of our cruise. We found it very hectic and chaotic –although the food was quite decent for a buffet. The biggest drawback? A staff member on the PA constantly ‘reminding’people to give up their table so someone else could sit down. Aggravating. Really aggravating.

 

One thing Ireally liked about Windjammer were the hand washing stations located at theentrances, and the routing of everyone to them when entering. The buffet is probably the place that youwill contract Noro if it’s on the ship and frequent hand washing is the onlyway to reduce the possibility of getting it.

 

We did eatat Café 270 and the Solarium restaurant most of the time for brunch (wegenerally ate only two meals a day on the ship). Both provided decent quick serve meals.

 

Cabin

 

We had abalcony cabin on deck 10. Royal put alot of thought into the cabin as it was very well laid out and feltspacious. In fact, it felt like the mostspacious non-suite cabin that we’ve been in.

 

There werea couple of drawbacks. First off, Royalhas installed the tiniest in room safe I’ve ever had. It barely accommodated my iPad – if you havethe larger iPad or a laptop you aren’t locking it up. In fact, the safe was too small to even storemy headphones! Secondly, the walls are very thin – we often heardour neighbours (thankfully quiet most of the time).

 

Our cabinsteward was non-existent. We didn’t evenmeet her until our third day. While theroom was kept clean, we had to ask to have towels replaced andshampoo/lotions/etc replenished. Theservice was a little disappointing relative to what we have experienced.

 

FellowTravelers

 

Anthem hada wide range of travelers from all ages. There really wasn’t an dominant age demographic. Most of the cruisers came from New York,Pennsylvania, and New Jersey with maybe 100 guests (my estimate) from outsideof the United States.

 

Royal keptthe kids and teens busy with programs and activities. We experienced none ofthe horrors we’ve heard about from other cruisers. In fact, the kids tended to be the bestbehaved of all of us on the ship!

 

Debarkation

 

Whenchecking in online, we indicated that we would self carry and wanted to leaveas early as possible. Of course, Royalhad us debarking in group 22, which was scheduled about 2 hours afterdebarkation started! I have no idea whythey bother with asking for debarkation information and then completely ignoreit.

A quickcall to Guest Services got us moved up to the first Self Carry debarkation slotat 6:30 am. Debarkation was very smooth –we were in the waiting area at about 6:25, were called to depart at 6:35, andwere through immigration and heading to the garage at 6:45.

 

Overall

 

We boththought it was a decent cruise with great entertainment. The ship was beautiful and well maintainedbut it’s very big. Despite its size itdid feel very crowded at times – in particular, the Esplanade and outdoor poolareas.

 

We enjoyedthe entertainment but are finding that we like a bit more of a sedate cruise inthe daytime. The ship is ideal for youngercouples and families. Not great forolder couples who like quiet time.

 

 

I think wewill do Royal again – but on one of the smaller ships in the fleet. We enjoyed Royal’s slate of entertainment butmissed the intimacy and perceived better service of a smaller ship.

Thank you for an interesting read.

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yoboy08753

yoboy08753

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Great review thank you!!! As we sail in less than 3 weeks. Question... I see you spent time in the Solarium, was the age limit enforced during the cruise? How about at sail away if that’s where you were for that time, was it enforced then as well? I have read they relax that rule for sail away.

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TeeRick

TeeRick

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Posted

Thanks for the review. We sailed Anthem last year for 12 nights. Although we enjoyed the ship very much, I share a couple of your peeves. We found the Windjammer always crowded and difficult to find a seat, even with the announcements. We also found it difficult to navigate through the promenade when they were running their sales. Bottleneck there due to the design.

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Tin can

Tin can

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Posted

Thank you for the review, we were on Anthem in 2015 and going again on her in 2019 so found this useful.

 

Completely agree with your comment about the Esplanade not being suited to those $10 sales that drive some folk into a frenzy, the space is just not suited to it.

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mugtech

mugtech

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Posted
Thank you for the review, we were on Anthem in 2015 and going again on her in 2019 so found this useful.

 

Completely agree with your comment about the Esplanade not being suited to those $10 sales that drive some folk into a frenzy, the space is just not suited to it.

I cruise to get away from places like Walmart.

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argyllsock

argyllsock

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I would be curious if OP would read the latet thred from someone on Anthem right now concerning public places

 

If you are referring to the thread regarding the cleanliness of the public places, we found the ship quite clean. Staff seemed to pick up dishes quickly. The only spot that was a bit messy was the Windjammer - I think that was due to the huge volume of people there. Now, we tend to eat at off hours (late am and late pm) and avoid most of the dining areas at prime time so maybe we just missed the worst of it.

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argyllsock

argyllsock

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Great review thank you!!! As we sail in less than 3 weeks. Question... I see you spent time in the Solarium, was the age limit enforced during the cruise? How about at sail away if that’s where you were for that time, was it enforced then as well? I have read they relax that rule for sail away.

 

I didn't see children in the solarium during our cruise. Weather was great so they had lots of room in the indoor and outdoor pool areas. I hear that they do open the solarium up to all ages during bad weather. I can't speak to sail away as I was trapped in guest services hell trying to get our royal refreshment packages straightened out!

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Ocean Dancer

Ocean Dancer

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Posted
I didn't see children in the solarium during our cruise. Weather was great so they had lots of room in the indoor and outdoor pool areas. I hear that they do open the solarium up to all ages during bad weather. I can't speak to sail away as I was trapped in guest services hell trying to get our royal refreshment packages straightened out!

 

Wow, my drink package also did not show up, but I gave my paperwork to the bartender and I had a Pina Colada in my hand in 10 minutes.

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CanadaRob

CanadaRob

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If you are referring to the thread regarding the cleanliness of the public places, we found the ship quite clean. Staff seemed to pick up dishes quickly. The only spot that was a bit messy was the Windjammer - I think that was due to the huge volume of people there. Now, we tend to eat at off hours (late am and late pm) and avoid most of the dining areas at prime time so maybe we just missed the worst of it.

Thanks for another perspective

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Tatka

Tatka

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Posted

Thank you for nice review. We are going on her again for Thanksgiving. My feelings are similar. Nice ship with lots to do, but some places like Esplanade can be extremely crowded, and too much technology. Sometimes I felt like being in virtual reality. :) But it is so convenient to sail from Northeast and ship is well suited for sailings from colder climates.

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