Missing this board - but I'll be back soon!!

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

I'm missing all my virtual buddies here on the Celebrity boards since I've been over on Royal as I have my Anthem cruise in 10 days. (Planning to do a live...I'll post the link once it's up if people are interested. It's the first time I'll have been on something so large.) But once that's over, I'll be back prepping for my Beyond ABC cruise on 7/27. And then again for an Eastern on 7/20/25 (my "Oh ship! It's my birthday!" shirt gets another go!)!!

 

Hugs y'all!

[PTC DAWG]

👍

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

With a busy week ahead, I started my RCCL trip report already.

 

 

[keesar]

On 2/7/2024 at 9:15 PM, WrittenOnYourHeart said:

I'm missing all my virtual buddies here on the Celebrity boards since I've been over on Royal as I have my Anthem cruise in 10 days. (Planning to do a live...I'll post the link once it's up if people are interested. It's the first time I'll have been on something so large.) But once that's over, I'll be back prepping for my Beyond ABC cruise on 7/27. And then again for an Eastern on 7/20/25 (my "Oh ship! It's my birthday!" shirt gets another go!)!!

 

Hugs y'all!

Have a good time on Royal.  I have been sailing on Celebrity for years but miss the energy level on the Royal ships where we started cruising.  On a couple of Celebrity cruises, it was like a senior center.  Relaxing but very quiet.  Too quiet if you get my drift.  

[2belgiantervs]

On 2/7/2024 at 9:15 PM, WrittenOnYourHeart said:

I'm missing all my virtual buddies here on the Celebrity boards since I've been over on Royal as I have my Anthem cruise in 10 days. (Planning to do a live...I'll post the link once it's up if people are interested. It's the first time I'll have been on something so large.) But once that's over, I'll be back prepping for my Beyond ABC cruise on 7/27. And then again for an Eastern on 7/20/25 (my "Oh ship! It's my birthday!" shirt gets another go!)!!

 

Hugs y'all!

Maybe we’ll see you on Beyond 7/27! We’re going on that one too!

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

1 hour ago, keesar said:

Have a good time on Royal.  I have been sailing on Celebrity for years but miss the energy level on the Royal ships where we started cruising.  On a couple of Celebrity cruises, it was like a senior center.  Relaxing but very quiet.  Too quiet if you get my drift.  

 

I'm not "senior center" material, but I love the calmer, more relaxed atmosphere. I'm not one who feels the need to be high energy entertained 24/7. That's where my nerves about Anthem are coming in - it's so much bigger and there are so many things going on. We'll see though.

[DingoMom]

Hi, Written on my Heart!!

Enjoy your Royal, but we will see you on the Beyond in July!! 😘

[chemmo]

9 hours ago, WrittenOnYourHeart said:

 

I'm not "senior center" material, but I love the calmer, more relaxed atmosphere. I'm not one who feels the need to be high energy entertained 24/7. That's where my nerves about Anthem are coming in - it's so much bigger and there are so many things going on. We'll see though.

Looking forward to your review. Most of our early cruising was on Royal. We did love the shows on the larger ships although the largest we ever did was Oasis class. So nice to get such a variety. I loved the ice shows and the water shows…Much as we don’t need entertaining 24/7 we did make more effort on RC to see shows.

 

It was the noise levels throughout the ships that made us turn more and more to Celebrity…I don’t just mean the announcements, even the speciality restaurants seemed loud. I don’t know how much had to do with size, design or clientele!

 

I would add that we did find quiet havens on Royal ships of all classes. It may be worth asking on the Royal Boards recommendations for quiet daytime havens and evening relaxing bars on Anthem for when/if you want to escape the more active Royal vibe…

 

I always find it strange when people ‘condemn’ RC as not being like Celebrity…It doesn’t aim to be…Both ship styles have their strengths. Whilst, like yourselves, we have cruised mainly Celebrity in recent years I would consider a RC cruise again. However, I would board (as I think you are) looking for what it has to offer, not expecting the Celebrity ambiance…

 

Sincere best wishes for a wonderful cruise!

[keesar]

3 minutes ago, chemmo said:

 

It was the noise levels throughout the ships that made us turn more and more to Celebrity…I don’t just mean the announcements, even the speciality restaurants seemed loud. I don’t know how much had to do with size, design or clientele!

 

 

Very similar to my perspective.  What I liked were the variety of shows and being able to ice skate.  Also, the group dance parties in which people did participate.  The noise level got to me as well and all of the kids running around out of control.  Kids would get on the  elevators and push every floor button.  Dishes left on the stairs.  It got so bad  that the captain ordered all children back to their rooms for an announcement.  That brought us back to Celebrity.

[chemmo]

Just now, keesar said:

 

Very similar to my perspective.  What I liked were the variety of shows and being able to ice skate.  Also, the group dance parties in which people did participate.  The noise level got to me as well and all of the kids running around out of control.  Kids would get on the  elevators and push every floor button.  Dishes left on the stairs.  It got so bad  that the captain ordered all children back to their rooms for an announcement.  That brought us back to Celebrity.

The children issue we did experience on an early September cruise on Oasis but on our Allure cruise there were next to no children but quite a few loud adults, many quite elderly. One day we inadvertently sat on three unsaved sun beds poolside between two groups of saved. Eventually a large group arrived who obviously knew each other and settled each side of us. Not only did they yell across to each other we were asked to pass over sun cream etc. We suggested we swap beds so they would all be together but they declined saying they wanted the ends of the rows not the middle! You definitely have to laugh at the comedy of such situations! 
 

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

I'm back! And lesson learned!!! Royal is not for me anymore - at least not their larger ships!! Anthem was totally full (4905 passengers!!) with 1600 under 18s and it was so obvious - especially since our first 2 sea days and last day and a half of sea days were too cold to be outside (and the afternoon of our first returning sea day we encountered rough seas so Flow Rider, climbing, and iFly were all cancelled meaning everyone was inside.

 

I'm glad I tried it - now I know. And I did love Spectra's Cabaret in Two70. But other than that, I am ready to be back on Celebrity in July!! (Also Disney in November for my best friend's wedding. I actually really like Disney...kids tend to stay in their clubs which don't have the random hours of opening or closing like RCCL did.)

[chemmo]

2 hours ago, WrittenOnYourHeart said:

I'm back! And lesson learned!!! Royal is not for me anymore - at least not their larger ships!! Anthem was totally full (4905 passengers!!) with 1600 under 18s and it was so obvious - especially since our first 2 sea days and last day and a half of sea days were too cold to be outside (and the afternoon of our first returning sea day we encountered rough seas so Flow Rider, climbing, and iFly were all cancelled meaning everyone was inside.

 

I'm glad I tried it - now I know. And I did love Spectra's Cabaret in Two70. But other than that, I am ready to be back on Celebrity in July!! (Also Disney in November for my best friend's wedding. I actually really like Disney...kids tend to stay in their clubs which don't have the random hours of opening or closing like RCCL did.)

Thanks for coming back with your updated reasoning…Like you whilst I would never say never again I do think I would avoid the bigger ships. I hope you still managed to get a decent vacation.

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

1 minute ago, chemmo said:

Thanks for coming back with your updated reasoning…Like you whilst I would never say never again I do think I would avoid the bigger ships. I hope you still managed to get a decent vacation.

 

Thanks. Overall I had a good time. I splurged on a beach bed at Coco Cay, which gave me a nice zone to chill in. And I did love Spectra's Cabaret. I always sleep well at sea, so that's a plus!

[Lastdance]

On 2/10/2024 at 3:28 PM, keesar said:

Have a good time on Royal.  I have been sailing on Celebrity for years but miss the energy level on the Royal ships where we started cruising.  On a couple of Celebrity cruises, it was like a senior center.  Relaxing but very quiet.  Too quiet if you get my drift.  

Exactly...and I have been a senior for years; however, both of us love a calming energy, but not so much that everything is slow-moving without a sophisticated vibe.  Our Caribbean cruise was exactly this, but now we are sticking with Europe/AUS/NZ...we just had no idea, as hadn’t cruised the Caribbean in decades, but now we know and have learned our lesson the hard way.  A good friend of mine felt the exact same way, but I didn’t listen very carefully.  I loved Beyond, so that’s why we booked...wrong!  I need more than just the ship experience!  Europe is not for everyone, but it is for us...we also cruised Royal in the beginning too, having so much fun!

Edited February 25 by Lastdance

[TeeRick]

Hi @WrittenOnYourHeart nice to hear about your Anthem cruise.  Mrs. TeeRick and I also jumped to the dark side and went over to RCCL second week of February on Symphony, an even larger ship (5500 passengers) than Anthem.  We have also been on Anthem a few years ago.  I think Anthem has a number of features shared with Edge-Class.  What do you think?

 

Our Symphony cruise (in a Crown Loft suite) was really very enjoyable with great service and food (Coastal Kitchen- like Luminae).  We booked another RCCL cruise on Indy next year (Canary Islands) in a Grand Suite.  As we are D+ on RCCL we get pretty much free drinks (5 per day each) in addition to the ones included in the Suite Lounge.  So a good deal for us anyway.  All in, less expensive than Sky Suites on Celebrity.  We also are looking to do Beyond or Ascent soon on Celebrity.  Back and forth between the lines works for us.  There are some very nice folks on the RCCL board here on CC too.

[TeeRick]

17 hours ago, Lastdance said:

Exactly...and I have been a senior for years; however, both of us love a calming energy, but not so much that everything is slow-moving without a sophisticated vibe.  Our Caribbean cruise was exactly this, but now we are sticking with Europe/AUS/NZ...we just had no idea, as hadn’t cruised the Caribbean in decades, but now we know and have learned our lesson the hard way.  A good friend of mine felt the exact same way, but I didn’t listen very carefully.  I loved Beyond, so that’s why we booked...wrong!  I need more than just the ship experience!  Europe is not for everyone, but it is for us...we also cruised Royal in the beginning too, having so much fun!

We really enjoyed the entertainment on Royal too.  On an O-Class ship like Symphony the entertainment, bar and dining options are exceptional.  That is why we like Royal in the Caribbean.  For longer destination/ itinerary-focused cruises we do Celebrity, but really looking now at Silversea. 

[hcat]

22 hours ago, WrittenOnYourHeart said:

I'm back! And lesson learned!!! Royal is not for me anymore - at least not their larger ships!! Anthem was totally full (4905 passengers!!) with 1600 under 18s and it was so obvious - especially since our first 2 sea days and last day and a half of sea days were too cold to be outside (and the afternoon of our first returning sea day we encountered rough seas so Flow Rider, climbing, and iFly were all cancelled meaning everyone was inside.

 

I'm glad I tried it - now I know. And I did love Spectra's Cabaret in Two70. But other than that, I am ready to be back on Celebrity in July!! (Also Disney in November for my best friend's wedding. I actually really like Disney...kids tend to stay in their clubs which don't have the random hours of opening or closing like RCCL did.)

Welcome Back!  Doesn't hurt to try.. we tried Oasis and counted down til we could disembark..It just was not good for us!

[SbbquilterUT]

Luckily there are cruises for everyone, just not all the same cruise luckily.  We did a 12 night transatlantic on the Anthem and it was a great ship for us and very few kids, mostly toddler and younger.