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just of Anthem 12/22-12/30 some hints and observations

one9marine

By one9marine,
in Royal Caribbean International

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one9marine

one9marine

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Make sure you have an assigned dining time before boarding. the 4 dining rooms is a cluster@*#^. We had "my time dining" but not an assigned time, had to scramble for a time we wanted. The sea pass cards can't be punched because of the chip technology, if you use a lanyard is has to have a card holder. For the Northstar there is a height requirement of 42". If you are told different by guest services or anyone else it's wrong. on our ride time their was a family who argued with the attendant about their toddler be allowed because "guest services" said it was ok. They really beat the guy up, kudos for him for not allowing them. Their solution was to leave the toddler in his stroller at the bottom while they went up. he started crying, the attendant came up the steps to tell them, the mother's comment was "he'll be ok, he won't remember it." My wife and i were appalled at her callousness.:mad:

Boleros has 2 for 1 margaritas a few times, watch for it. We liked "We will rock you", Outstanding. We missed "The Gift", heard from quite a few it was no good. Did hear somebody say they liked it. The headliners were ok.

Chair hogs were out in force on sea days. You can eat breakfast in the dining room on Deck 3 to avoid WJ.

 

if you have questions i will try to answer.

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Merion_Mom

Merion_Mom

Posted
Posted
Make sure you have an assigned dining time before boarding. the 4 dining rooms is a cluster@*#^. We had "my time dining" but not an assigned time, had to scramble for a time we wanted. The sea pass cards can't be punched because of the chip technology, if you use a lanyard is has to have a card holder. For the Northstar there is a height requirement of 42". If you are told different by guest services or anyone else it's wrong. on our ride time their was a family who argued with the attendant about their toddler be allowed because "guest services" said it was ok. They really beat the guy up, kudos for him for not allowing them. Their solution was to leave the toddler in his stroller at the bottom while they went up. he started crying, the attendant came up the steps to tell them, the mother's comment was "he'll be ok, he won't remember it." My wife and i were appalled at her callousness.:mad:

Boleros has 2 for 1 margaritas a few times, watch for it. We liked "We will rock you", Outstanding. We missed "The Gift", heard from quite a few it was no good. Did hear somebody say they liked it. The headliners were ok.

Chair hogs were out in force on sea days. You can eat breakfast in the dining room on Deck 3 to avoid WJ.

 

if you have questions i will try to answer.

 

Who was your Cruise Director and how did you like him? Who is currently the captain? Did you fly? ;) (iFly) Did you like it? Did you do any specialty dining? Did you eat in the Solarium Bistro?

 

Welcome home to the snow. :D

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Dina7

Dina7

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We have My Time Dining on our upcoming Anthem cruise too. I really didn't want to reserve a set dining time as I like the idea of eating when we want and depending on shows, may not want to eat dinner at the same time every night.

 

Just wondering what was the size of your party for dinner?

 

I have read from others about MTD that if you're only a party of two, which we are, it shouldn't be a long wait for a table most of the time. What do you think?

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reallyitsmema

reallyitsmema

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We have My Time Dining on our upcoming Anthem cruise too. I really didn't want to reserve a set dining time as I like the idea of eating when we want and depending on shows, may not want to eat dinner at the same time every night.

 

Just wondering what was the size of your party for dinner?

 

I have read from others about MTD that if you're only a party of two, which we are, it shouldn't be a long wait for a table most of the time. What do you think?

 

We have done MTD on Anthem twice this year, without reservations (February and November). We had no issues getting a table at the time we wanted. We were a party of two.

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Dina7

Dina7

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We have done MTD on Anthem twice this year, without reservations (February and November). We had no issues getting a table at the time we wanted. We were a party of two.

 

Thank you. This is very helpful and what I thought the dining situation for two would be. We are sailing in Nov. as well :)

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CruisingfromDE

CruisingfromDE

Posted
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Who was your Cruise Director and how did you like him? Who is currently the captain? Did you fly? ;) (iFly) Did you like it? Did you do any specialty dining? Did you eat in the Solarium Bistro?

 

Welcome home to the snow. :D

 

I did iFly on Anthem on our Oct cruise. First, your group goes into a small room to watch a quick video and learn hand signals because you will not be able to hear the attendant once inside iFly. When it was over, I looked around and said "I can easily be talked out of this!!!". Proceeded upstairs and was last to go in our group, kept looking at the exit thinking to myself "I'm just going to make a run for it" :D ... so scared, I thought I would throw up once inside. Decided not to run and I'm soooo glad I did it. I LOVED it. Will do it again next year. It only lasts a minute, but really fun experience.

 

Barbara

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motherof

motherof

Posted
Posted
The sea pass cards can't be punched because of the chip technology, if you use a lanyard is has to have a card holder.

Do they still de-rezz easily, or does the chip technology take care of that? We had to replace our (pre-chip) cards several times after they got too close to a camera or phone. Is it now safe to put them near a phone or camera?

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Clarea

Clarea

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Do they still de-rezz easily, or does the chip technology take care of that? We had to replace our (pre-chip) cards several times after they got too close to a camera or phone. Is it now safe to put them near a phone or camera?

Yes, the RFID chips are not affected my magnetic fields.

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jflatto

jflatto

Posted
Posted (edited)

We were on the same cruise. Take these as some general comments. We were a party of 4 with our twin son & daughter (15). I did not find the cabin doors decorated. DW and I were surprised. Two years ago we were on the Disney Fantasy for Christmas and many of the cabin doors were decorated. Didn't see that many decorations on the Anthem.

 

The Royal IQ app was poor overall. Eating in Windjammer and no signal. No ship map. We had the texting package for Royal IQ (roughly 9 dollars for the each of us for the week). It was okay and helped but many times, no signal various locations on the ship.

 

We ate in the early dinner seating in Chic (one of the dining rooms). The food was fine there although our waiter had a habit of bringing us food we didn't ask for, just to try it. This seemed to us a waste. I really wish the dinner menus were posted ahead of time (or even at the entrance to the dining rooms) to help us decide if it we wanted to eat in dining room. At least once, the folks at the table next to us, got up and left the dining room right after they were given the menu by the wait staff. Disney had the menus posted at the entrances.

 

 

I had the basic wi-fi for my laptop. Did what I needed but slow. Typical download speed was 400 to 500 kbs. Never any faster. Worked for emails and websites but any picture intensive web sites were too slow to load.

 

DW and I had a balcony on the 8th floor, kids had an inside across the hall. Really thought their virtual window was really nice. My wife is more into the shows than I am but we went to the major shows. Liked the music from "we will rock you", "the gift", Spectre Cabernet" but the stories were a little weird. We are not drinkers nor party animals nor gamblers nor late nighters nor shoppers so many of those type of activities, we didn't care about. My kids, especially my son, loved the trivia. Only two sets of elevators - one forward, one mid-ship. Never any real issues. It could take a few minutes but not bad.

 

My kids did ifly and enjoyed. Each individual literally gets 1 minute of flight time.

 

Service was generally fine. All the crew seemed to be helpful and pleasant. Did notice that plates and similar were left outside the cabins, they would sit there, many times overnight before being picked up.

 

P.S. Ship was at Port Canaveral for Christmas day and all-aboard was 8:30 pm. We did eat in the Main Dining Room and didn't have a special menu.

Edited by jflatto
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reallyitsmema

reallyitsmema

Posted
Posted
We were on the same cruise. Take these as some general comments. We were a party of 4 with our twin son & daughter (15). I did not find the cabin doors decorated. DW and I were surprised. Two years ago we were on the Disney Fantasy for Christmas and many of the cabin doors were decorated. Didn't see that many decorations on the Anthem.

 

The Royal IQ app was poor overall. Eating in Windjammer and no signal. No ship map. We had the texting package for Royal IQ (roughly 9 dollars for the each of us for the week). It was okay and helped but many times, no signal various locations on the ship.

 

We ate in the early dinner seating in Chic (one of the dining rooms). The food was fine there although our waiter had a habit of bringing us food we didn't ask for, just to try it. This seemed to us a waste. I really wish the dinner menus were posted ahead of time (or even at the entrance to the dining rooms) to help us decide if it we wanted to eat in dining room. At least once, the folks at the table next to us, got up and left the dining room right after they were given the menu by the wait staff. Disney had the menus posted at the entrances.

 

 

I had the basic wi-fi for my laptop. Did what I needed but slow. Typical download speed was 400 to 500 kbs. Never any faster. Worked for emails and websites but any picture intensive web sites were too slow to load.

 

DW and I had a balcony on the 8th floor, kids had an inside across the hall. Really thought their virtual window was really nice. My wife is more into the shows than I am but we went to the major shows. Liked the music from "we will rock you", "the gift", Spectre Cabernet" but the stories were a little weird. We are not drinkers nor party animals nor gamblers nor late nighters nor shoppers so many of those type of activities, we didn't care about. My kids, especially my son, loved the trivia. Only two sets of elevators - one forward, one mid-ship. Never any real issues. It could take a few minutes but not bad.

 

My kids did ifly and enjoyed. Each individual literally gets 1 minute of flight time.

 

Service was generally fine. All the crew seemed to be helpful and pleasant. Did notice that plates and similar were left outside the cabins, they would sit there, many times overnight before being picked up.

 

P.S. Ship was at Port Canaveral for Christmas day and all-aboard was 8:30 pm. We did eat in the Main Dining Room and didn't have a special menu.

 

Menus are available on the Royal IQ app, on your stateroom TV and on the wayfinder screens located near the elevators. We liked being able to check the menus in the Royal IQ app.

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jflatto

jflatto

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Menus are available on the Royal IQ app, on your stateroom TV and on the wayfinder screens located near the elevators. We liked being able to check the menus in the Royal IQ app.

 

Thanks. That would have been helpful to know. We used the Royal IQ app and even when looking at the dining, did not see any menus or even hours of operation for dining on the app. We had to look at the printed cruise compass to see any dining times. We rarely turned on our TV and when we did, never saw on all the channels we viewed, any place to be shown a menu. As for the wayfinder screens, I looked at it in passing, for weather information but never did anything else with it.

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one9marine

one9marine

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We have My Time Dining on our upcoming Anthem cruise too. I really didn't want to reserve a set dining time as I like the idea of eating when we want and depending on shows, may not want to eat dinner at the same time every night.

 

Just wondering what was the size of your party for dinner?

 

I have read from others about MTD that if you're only a party of two, which we are, it shouldn't be a long wait for a table most of the time. What do you think?

we were a party of 4

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gaylemh

gaylemh

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Posted
Thanks. That would have been helpful to know. We used the Royal IQ app and even when looking at the dining, did not see any menus or even hours of operation for dining on the app. We had to look at the printed cruise compass to see any dining times. We rarely turned on our TV and when we did, never saw on all the channels we viewed, any place to be shown a menu. As for the wayfinder screens, I looked at it in passing, for weather information but never did anything else with it.

 

You could get the menu by pressing the menu button on the remote and then pressing dining. It wasn't on a channel.

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