Are you currently on Anthem? Requesting Anthem updates / comments

[happy2joyjoy]

We are on the next Anthem sailing 2/23. I have yet to find any reviews from those that sailed on last week's abridged sailing. Did you experience a less packed ship (due to cancellations)? Due to the COVID-19, any procedural changes on board? Were self-service still allowed at Windjammer? Any insights would be greatly appreciate. While I'm thinking of it, who is the current captain? 

 

Thank you in advance.

[RFerrington]

11 minutes ago, happy2joyjoy said:

We are on the next Anthem sailing 2/23. I have yet to find any reviews from those that sailed on last week's abridged sailing. Did you experience a less packed ship (due to cancellations)? Due to the COVID-19, any procedural changes on board? Were self-service still allowed at Windjammer? Any insights would be greatly appreciate. While I'm thinking of it, who is the current captain? 

 

Thank you in advance.

We were on the shortened 8 Feb Anthem cruise.  We had a blast !!!

 

Yes, there were noticeably fewer pax on our cruise (word was, we sailed at 60% capacity) and it was great.  We had none of the usual problems with overcrowding on the Via or waiting for elevators.  The casino was noticeably less crowded...almost no smoking issues.

 

There were no new procedural changes except for they asked a few screening questions...have you been around anyone who was exposed to CV, etc.  Nothing "active"...only "passive" screening.  We never went into the Windjammer so I don't know how that was handled.  I never pay any attention to who the Captain is so I don't have that information for you.  Honestly, there were no differences in this cruise vs any other one I've ever taken.  They were noticeably cleaning everywhere...so that was nice.  We asked one of the crew what they did while the ship was empty.  His response...sleep, clean, sleep, clean.  I suspect that we had the cleanest ship ever to sail !

 

I am not a huge fan of Bermuda so I wasn't excited about the destination but it was a free cruise and we had a great time !  I would not be hesitant to sail on Anthem at all.  They did an awesome job of handling the situation and the shortened cruise was wonderful.

[happy2joyjoy]

Thank you RFerrington! Greatly appreciate your assessment.

[RFerrington]

20 minutes ago, happy2joyjoy said:

Thank you RFerrington! Greatly appreciate your assessment.

My pleasure

[yogimax]

30 minutes ago, RFerrington said:

I am not a huge fan of Bermuda so I wasn't excited about the destination but it was a free cruise and we had a great time ! 

Huh?  No way was this a "free" cruise.  They only refunded 50% of the base fare paid, no refund of taxes or fees whatsoever.

 

The windjammer was business as usual, no changes to self service.  The dining room was pretty empty but the service great.  Shows were pretty empty with the exception of "We Will Rock You," which was only performed twice.

[JessyCruises]

29 minutes ago, yogimax said:

Huh?  No way was this a "free" cruise.  They only refunded 50% of the base fare paid, no refund of taxes or fees whatsoever.

 

The windjammer was business as usual, no changes to self service.  The dining room was pretty empty but the service great.  Shows were pretty empty with the exception of "We Will Rock You," which was only performed twice.

 

It was my understanding passengers got 50% of the fare as refundable OBC and 50% as a FCC.  Sounds just about free to me (assuming you use the FCC).  Or was that not the compensation?

Edited February 19, 2020 by Canadian Disney Mom

[twangster]

42 minutes ago, yogimax said:

Huh?  No way was this a "free" cruise.  They only refunded 50% of the base fare paid, no refund of taxes or fees whatsoever.

 

The windjammer was business as usual, no changes to self service.  The dining room was pretty empty but the service great.  Shows were pretty empty with the exception of "We Will Rock You," which was only performed twice.

 

Casino may be involved.

[yogimax]

1 hour ago, Canadian Disney Mom said:

 

It was my understanding passengers got 50% of the fare as refundable OBC and 50% as a FCC.  Sounds just about free to me (assuming you use the FCC).  Or was that not the compensation?

We paid approximately $1700 for this cruise and received back about $700.  Taxes, fees, port charges were approximately $600 and all we got back was $6.  In addition, the future cruise credit was the exactly the same as the refund, and not 50% as advertised.

[dbancroft]

We were blessed by Royal's weird calculations on this cruise. This was our free prime interior cabin cruise. We paid 232.00 to upgrade to exterior balcony. We also paid 286.54 in taxes,fees, and port expenses. Total for cruise 518.54  we received 650.00 obc refund and 650.00 fcc. It was a fun cruise a little cold going down and back but Bermuda was beautiful. The ship was in fantastic shape and we had great service in dining room and windjammer. We had lunch in Chops on Valentines Day food was good but service was not good. 

[JessyCruises]

1 hour ago, yogimax said:

We paid approximately $1700 for this cruise and received back about $700.  Taxes, fees, port charges were approximately $600 and all we got back was $6.  In addition, the future cruise credit was the exactly the same as the refund, and not 50% as advertised.

Well that stinks!

[JessyCruises]

6 minutes ago, dbancroft said:

We were blessed by Royal's weird calculations on this cruise. This was our free prime interior cabin cruise. We paid 232.00 to upgrade to exterior balcony. We also paid 286.54 in taxes,fees, and port expenses. Total for cruise 518.54  we received 650.00 obc refund and 650.00 fcc. It was a fun cruise a little cold going down and back but Bermuda was beautiful. The ship was in fantastic shape and we had great service in dining room and windjammer. We had lunch in Chops on Valentines Day food was good but service was not good. 

 

That happened to me last summer on Empress.  I had used an offer for a free cruise and just paid the taxes.  Then when they cancelled the Cuba routes, they gave everyone that stayed on for the new itinerary their fare back in OBC.  I think I ended up with $550 in OBC and then $550 in freeplay.

[RFerrington]

40 minutes ago, dbancroft said:

We were blessed by Royal's weird calculations on this cruise. This was our free prime interior cabin cruise. We paid 232.00 to upgrade to exterior balcony. We also paid 286.54 in taxes,fees, and port expenses. Total for cruise 518.54  we received 650.00 obc refund and 650.00 fcc. It was a fun cruise a little cold going down and back but Bermuda was beautiful. The ship was in fantastic shape and we had great service in dining room and windjammer. We had lunch in Chops on Valentines Day food was good but service was not good. 

WOW !  You did even better than we did.

 

We paid a total of $4061.94 (taxes, fees and gratuities included) for our upgraded annual Prime cruise (inside to Grand Suite) and our total refunds were $5169, meaning that we actually MADE $1107.06.  Our refund was 126.2% of our full price.  Yours was 250.7%.  AWESOME !!!

[reallyitsmema]

2 hours ago, yogimax said:

We paid approximately $1700 for this cruise and received back about $700.  Taxes, fees, port charges were approximately $600 and all we got back was $6.  In addition, the future cruise credit was the exactly the same as the refund, and not 50% as advertised.

 

Had you chose not to sail, you would have been refunded 100% of your cruise fare plus taxes, fees and port charges.  You chose to sail, so you received 50% of your cruise fare and a 50% future cruise credit.  All notices that I saw posted said they were refunding 50% of your cruise fare, if the amount you got was not calculated correctly, you should call and get it corrected.  

[Midway7934]

This was my first time Star Class so it was a little disappointing to lose 3 days of that. But....We were celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary and our honeymoon was Bermuda. How ironic. Especially since mother nature gave us two 72degree days in February. We live 30 minutes from port, so the delay didn't t affect us as much as others. We were emailed Sunday that we could board between 3 and 7. They called in all the port employees to accommodate us. Royal bent over backwards to make us happy. Had a wonderful dinner in Coastal Sunday night. When we set sail on Monday the captain sailed amazingly close to the Statue of Liberty. Half our cruise fair was put on our onboard credit and whatever was left went back on our credit card. ( I subtracted the taxes and insurance from the total cost and divided it in half. It came out to the penny). We then received a certificate emailed to us on the Friday before our departure for the same amount. I had a deposit on a back to back for next year (January- February). My travel agent worked with their retention department and the entire amount was deducted (which even included a better cruise deal than was originally booked). So, I basically got a free cruise in Star Class. My Genie kept in touch with me the whole time before we boarded. This ended up being the most fantastic cruise of my life!! I realize I live close by so my experience was much different than others.

[Merion_Mom]

The current Captain of the Anthem is Srecko Ban.