Live! Anthem of the Seas March 24-31, 2023 with Dragon of the Seas

[DragonOfTheSeas]

Norfolk is a Navy town. They rally around when anything goes wrong.
 

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the area around the dock. It is known as waterside, and it is a very popular section of the city. If you are able, go down a day early to enjoy, the scenery and the restaurants. Check out Nauticus on the Internet and see if you would enjoy visiting that. It’s just beside the cruise ship terminal. There’s also a small park right on the waterfront and they often have events there. You might want to check the schedule for the city.

 

if it was me, I would stay at either the Hilton or the Marriott. Each of them is only a block or two from the port.

 

If you drive down and have transportation, you might want to go to Virginia Beach for the afternoon before. It’s a very family friendly beach. Very modern and clean. There is a boardwalk and there are hotels adjacent to the boardwalk but It is less commercial than Ocean City, for example. 

[DragonOfTheSeas]

Here are a few more random shots from around the ship
 

 

 

these are from Two70

 

 

 

and this was the end of a program called the house of mouse.

 

 

 

 

We got there just as it ended, and they were deciding which team won. Note the three team captain standing in the front. The team on the left captain looked to be about 12. And that team won. The interesting thing was that, the prizes were beer cuzzies. Haha

 

that would normally be a perfectly good prize, but you had to know that if the game was called the house of the mouse, that it was going to be a child filled audience

 

The bionic bar

 

 

The royal Esplanade

[DragonOfTheSeas]

I’m in my happy place, the solarium. It took me a while to find a seat. They are not near each other —but that is no issue. We are like vultures looking for prey. 
 

The staff is putting notes on seats with just towels and removing them after a half an hour. But there’s certainly more people who want seats than there are seats in the solarium today.

Edited March 30 by DragonOfTheSeas

[DragonOfTheSeas]

The ship is holding an Easter egg hunt in the kids club this morning. No telling how they’re going to do that with all these children. But as I passed through the indoor family pool, I noticed that there were a lot less people.🥚🐰🧺

[LuCruise]

4 hours ago, DragonOfTheSeas said:

We were usually done by about 7:45. Our waiter was very fast. If we ordered two appetizers, he always put them on the table at the same time. I’m not sure if that’s the new procedure or if I was just what he was doing too. Make sure dinner moved along quickly.

 

yes, that time works really well for us too
 

 

I really like that they are adding a third dining option in-between.  5pm/5:30pm is too early, but then we don't like to eat so late (and I wonder how it'll be hard to coordinate with shows).  So a 6:30pm time sounds perfect.  My only concern though...is we like to be relaxed in the MDR.  We don't want a 2hr dinner, but also don't want to feel rushed.  On our cruise on Wonder a few weeks ago, it started out perfect.  Dinner was 5pm, and we were walking out close to 6:30pm...perfect pacing.  The last two nights though I was more annoyed as felt we were rushed and we were walking out prior to 6pm...finished our appetizers and they were brining out our main course right away.  But with adding another fixed dining time, they will have to rush the 1st and 2nd dining times.

[DragonOfTheSeas]

6 hours ago, LuCruise said:

I really like that they are adding a third dining option in-between.  5pm/5:30pm is too early, but then we don't like to eat so late (and I wonder how it'll be hard to coordinate with shows).  So a 6:30pm time sounds perfect.  My only concern though...is we like to be relaxed in the MDR.  We don't want a 2hr dinner, but also don't want to feel rushed.  On our cruise on Wonder a few weeks ago, it started out perfect.  Dinner was 5pm, and we were walking out close to 6:30pm...perfect pacing.  The last two nights though I was more annoyed as felt we were rushed and we were walking out prior to 6pm...finished our appetizers and they were brining out our main course right away.  But with adding another fixed dining time, they will have to rush the 1st and 2nd dining times.

There is very little time between courses.

[DragonOfTheSeas]

10 hours ago, DragonOfTheSeas said:

Norfolk is a Navy town. They rally around when anything goes wrong.
 

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the area around the dock. It is known as waterside, and it is a very popular section of the city. If you are able, go down a day early to enjoy, the scenery and the restaurants. Check out Nauticus on the Internet and see if you would enjoy visiting that. It’s just beside the cruise ship terminal. There’s also a small park right on the waterfront and they often have events there. You might want to check the schedule for the city.

 

if it was me, I would stay at either the Hilton or the Marriott. Each of them is only a block or two from the port.

 

If you drive down and have transportation, you might want to go to Virginia Beach for the afternoon before. It’s a very family friendly beach. Very modern and clean. There is a boardwalk and there are hotels adjacent to the boardwalk but It is less commercial than Ocean City, for example. 

I’m sorry this post was supposed to be in another thread. For people who were coming to Norfolk. I didn’t notice I was in the wrong thread soon enough to delete it.

[DragonOfTheSeas]

Speaking of Norfolk. We are headed back to Norfolk to meet a helicopter from the Naval Air Station. During our “we will rock you” performance we heard an alpha, alpha alpha. Just a few minutes ago the captain came on and told us that we were going to meet helicopter because of medical emergency.
 

This is our current location. 
 

[DragonOfTheSeas]

28 minutes ago, DragonOfTheSeas said:

Speaking of Norfolk. We are headed back to Norfolk to meet a helicopter from the Naval Air Station.

 

Actually, it was a Coast Guard helicopter. It appeared to be Be very close to the ship. 

 

[teddie]

21 hours ago, DragonOfTheSeas said:

I wanted to write a post about the main dining room for dinner. As I mentioned earlier, we originally signed up for my time dining with a reservation at 7 o’clock each night. So Royal Caribbean selected us to be part of their experiment for a 630 fixed dining time.
 

that has turned out to be quite the blessing. First of all our waiter and assistant waiter are excellent and we’ve had a great experience all week. Secondly, the lines to get into the dining room are simply outrageous every night. It’s such a crowd in front of the dining room, that we go in a side door to get to our table each night. 

 

This is a picture outside of the main dining room. the right hand side of the hall are people without Reservations the left-hand side are people with Reservations I don’t see that the people who made reservations are in any better shape than the people who didn’t. 
 

I would be really annoyed to have made reservations and have to wait in line like this every night to get seated. 

 

 

i

Thanks for your review.  It's extra nice to read, as we just sailed our third time on the Anthem, the most recent time being the 03/17/2024 sailing--we prepared the ship to be ready for you :).

 

The whole MTD "reservation" process is clunky as heck!  While the hostess is lovely and clearly works very hard, something is wrong with the way this goes.  The "reservation" line is slow, and I can only believe that the "without reservation" line is slower.  The checking of availability takes way too long.  It is not a smooth process by any means.  I am not sure if the software is ineffective, or if the hostess's preparation is lacking.

 

Interestingly, since we had a full suite on the 03/17 cruise, we felt again that the process was clunky for the Coastal Kitchen as well.  Again, lovely, hard working hostess.  When you arrive at the podium, if the hostess is not there, you will wait in the hall outside the closed doors of the CK until she comes out after seating the previous guest.  Then comes a somewhat longish wait for the hostess to locate a table for you,  I felt badly for those on line behind us!  This was extra tricky at breakfast on a port day prior to disembarking--even arriving early incurred at least a 10 minute wait in the hall for the hostess to emerge from the CK. (We were patient and didn't complain or ding anyone/anything on the survey.)

 

We loved the service in the MDR on previous cruises, and really loved the service and food in the CK on this most recent one.  But something has got to change for the seating process!

 

Teddie

 

 

 

 

[DragonOfTheSeas]

34 minutes ago, teddie said:

Thanks for your review.  It's extra nice to read, as we just sailed our third time on the Anthem, the most recent time being the 03/17/2024 sailing--we prepared the ship to be ready for you :).

 

The whole MTD "reservation" process is clunky as heck!  While the hostess is lovely and clearly works very hard, something is wrong with the way this goes.  The "reservation" line is slow, and I can only believe that the "without reservation" line is slower.  The checking of availability takes way too long.  It is not a smooth process by any means.  I am not sure if the software is ineffective, or if the hostess's preparation is lacking.

 

Interestingly, since we had a full suite on the 03/17 cruise, we felt again that the process was clunky for the Coastal Kitchen as well.  Again, lovely, hard working hostess.  When you arrive at the podium, if the hostess is not there, you will wait in the hall outside the closed doors of the CK until she comes out after seating the previous guest.  Then comes a somewhat longish wait for the hostess to locate a table for you,  I felt badly for those on line behind us!  This was extra tricky at breakfast on a port day prior to disembarking--even arriving early incurred at least a 10 minute wait in the hall for the hostess to emerge from the CK. (We were patient and didn't complain or ding anyone/anything on the survey.)

 

We loved the service in the MDR on previous cruises, and really loved the service and food in the CK on this most recent one.  But something has got to change for the seating process!

 

Teddie

I agree with you. The two MTD lines were huge and slow. We were so glad that we had been given the trial 6:30pm fixed seating.

[Neosophy]

1 hour ago, DragonOfTheSeas said:

2 hours ago, DragonOfTheSeas said:

Speaking of Norfolk. We are headed back to Norfolk to meet a helicopter from the Naval Air Station.

 

Actually, it was a Coast Guard helicopter. It appeared to be Be very close to the ship. 

 

I hope your arrival time and disembarkation time isnt affected, I read your start of cruise and the delay really seems to wreck havok with the drive/parking.

 

Live about 45m from the terminal, so driving in tomorrow.

[DragonOfTheSeas]

1 hour ago, Neosophy said:

I hope your arrival time and disembarkation time isnt affected, I read your start of cruise and the delay really seems to wreck havok with the drive/parking.

 

Live about 45m from the terminal, so driving in tomorrow.

If I hear that, it’s going to affect us in anyway even if it’s tomorrow morning, I will post so you’ll know. Have a great cruise.

[perfect match]

14 hours ago, DragonOfTheSeas said:

We were usually done by about 7:45. Our waiter was very fast. If we ordered two appetizers, he always put them on the table at the same time. I’m not sure if that’s the new procedure or if I was just what he was doing too. Make sure dinner moved along quickly.

 

yes, that time works really well for us too
 

 

Thank you. It would be tight getting to an 8 PM show after dinner but definitely doable. Timing for an 8:30 show would be perfect.
 

I don’t think there’s much of a chance we’ll see a 6:30 dining time show up on our upcoming Allure cruise at the end of April but maybe on Wonder in September. I’ve already figured out workarounds for show/dining conflicts on Allure at this anyway. I would definitely request the 6:30 dining time slot if it became available. 

[DragonOfTheSeas]

During dinner tonight, one of the crew-members dressed up and walked through the various dining rooms, entertaining the kids while they were waiting in line and at the tables.

 

it appeared when he was walking that the alien was carrying him, and then he had a baby doll in his arms that moved its arms and head. It was really something. Ha ha ha.  As if the “my time dining” lines weren’t crazy enough already.😜

 

he was happy for me to take his picture

 

[DragonOfTheSeas]

We are back!  Currently 6:05 am. So no worries about us arriving late.

 

Wr kept her in good shape for the next cruise. Have a good time. 

 

[DragonOfTheSeas]

They met us at breakfast this morning with complementary mimosas. Now that’s the way to end cruise.

[perfect match]

18 hours ago, DragonOfTheSeas said:

We are back!  Currently 6:05 am. So no worries about us arriving late.

 

Wr kept her in good shape for the next cruise. Have a good time. 

 

Beautiful picture! 
 

Thank you very much for a great review.

[mets123]

On 3/30/2024 at 10:39 PM, DragonOfTheSeas said:

During dinner tonight, one of the crew-members dressed up and walked through the various dining rooms, entertaining the kids while they were waiting in line and at the tables.

 

it appeared when he was walking that the alien was carrying him, and then he had a baby doll in his arms that moved its arms and head. It was really something. Ha ha ha.  As if the “my time dining” lines weren’t crazy enough already.😜

 

he was happy for me to take his picture

 

I've seen him outside the WJ greeting breakfast passengers three different cruises this year. Always friendly and happy.

[Beer Belly]

On 3/29/2024 at 3:01 PM, DragonOfTheSeas said:

 

luggage tags were put on our beds this morning. It’s never a happy site.

Luggage tags ?....we cruise NCL, first time on Royal, do you need to use these luggage tags ?....first time cruising from Bayonne, maybe a Jersey thing ?

[Beer Belly]

1 minute ago, Beer Belly said:

Luggage tags ?....we cruise NCL, first time on Royal, do you need to use these luggage tags ?....first time cruising from Bayonne, maybe a Jersey thing ?

Ah.....Boss Lady just remined me, different color tags for dismemberment time

[LATTELOVE]

On 3/29/2024 at 10:17 PM, DragonOfTheSeas said:

It took us about a half an hour from the Doubletree last October. We took an Uber from the hotel.
 

I think the next time we leave from Bayonne we will go back to the Doubletree. The reason that we selected the Jersey City hotel this time was that we are Hilton HHonors members and so we like to stay at the Hilton Brand. And they had two room suites, and the Doubletree at the Penn station doesn’t have a suite like that. Our daughter was with us and we wanted to give her and us some privacy. 
 

edit: I reread my post. I’m not sure that you were asking me about the Doubletree at the Penn Station that we stayed in last time or the Doubletree that we stayed in Jersey City. So I’ll leave the above comment and add that it took us about 30 minutes from Jersey City as well. that was just to get to the port once we got to the port of course we were in all that traffic, so it took us more than an hour in total, but this wasn’t unusual situation with the anthem arriving late. 

 

 

Thank you,  this is very helpful.

[LATTELOVE]

Thank you for taking of your time to do

this review.  It was fantastic!!

We really enjoyed it.

[DragonOfTheSeas]

Thank you all for reading my thread.  I find I pay more attention to the cruise when I am telling others about it.  

 

Here are a couple of final comments:

 

I was very worried about the number of children that would be on this cruise.  Someone on the FB thread said the number was 1600.  I can't confirm that--but I would believe it.  . . . and there were some children that were running amok. However, the vast majority of them were just being children.  They were occasionally taking too loud, walking/running too fast and moving in packs.   I must admit I spent all of my pool time in the solarium and had a Hideaway Beach pass on Coco Cay.  [good strategy on my part HaHaHa] However, I have seen a lot worse behavior with less children. [and from adults] Some of the credit goes to RCL for all of the activities they had planned for the children. 

 

Food-- We felt the food was pretty good.  Breakfast was excellent each day.  We enjoyed the brunch on sea day.  However, I felt it needed to stay open until at least 1 or 1:30 to be a true brunch. We enjoyed the stir fry station in the WJ. [so good]  My DD enjoyed the chicken dishes.  I enjoyed the lamb and the beef tenderloin.  I do not feel it is a good idea to select steak.  They seem tough and we avoid them. DD gives me grief about all of the soups I eat.  

 

I feel the cabin arrangement with the JS and the solo cabin worked out well for us and we would do this again on a ship that has this.  

 

 

We did not go to very many of the entertainment options so I can't really comment on those.  However, DD did and enjoyed them.  I really liked "We Will Rock You." I already gave my opinion of Spectra.

 

Disembark was as smooth as we have ever had.  We reported to Jaimie's for the assisted disembark at 8 am.  They took us right away. We left the ship, took a taxi and got to the train station by 9am.  I paid a fee to change our Amtrak tickets from 12:22pm to 9:23am and we were off. 🚆 It turned out to be a big plus.  There was no waiting around and the later train ended up being late. 

 

I hope everyone made it home safely and you enjoy your next cruise!

 

 

 

[DELTABLUE]

Just got finished cruising with you!  Always love reading the fantastic live threads you do and looking at your beautiful pictures.  So thrilled to know that the trip worked out well for all of you and that you are anticipating more in the future.😊