Anthem Of The Seas Review w/ 112 photos & 17 videos!

We recently did the 12-day eastern Caribbean cruise on Anthem Of The Seas, visiting Labadee, San Juan, St Maarten, Martinique, Barbados, & St Kitts.

This was our fourth cruise with Royal Caribbean and we had a great time. Anthem Of The Seas is now my new favorite cruise ship! I'll definitely be explaining some of the reasons why as we go along.

But before I get started with my review, how about I start off by introducing myself?

On CruiseCritic, my username is Spaniel Lover, but in real life I'm Jim Zimmerlin (everyone calls me Jim Zim) and I always cruise with my wife, Kellyn. (Pronunciation tip: it rhymes with Helen.) We're from Grover Beach, California... a little beach town on the California coast about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. We've been cruising since 1996, and this was our 35th cruise overall... but as I mentioned earlier, only our fourth with Royal Caribbean. It was a funny coincidence that during our 35th cruise, we celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary!

Most of our previous cruises have been with Carnival Cruise Lines. We did over 20 Carnival cruises, and we were quite happy with them. But a few years ago we decided to branch out and give some of the other cruise lines a try, just to see if we were missing out on anything... and it really opened our eyes! We found things about Royal Caribbean, Princess, and Norwegian Cruise Line that we really enjoyed. So, I don't consider myself locked in to cruising with any one particular cruise line anymore. Mostly I'm interested in cruising on the newest ships in order to experience the current state-of-the-art in the cruise industry.

Settle in... this is going to be a long review with 112 high quality photos and 17 videos. If you reach the last post in the series and I haven't yet covered each of the ports of call as well as where we stayed before the cruise... I'm not done posting yet! It's going to take me a couple of hours to post the whole story. The good news is that it shouldn't take you nearly that long to read it!

Here we go...

Can't wait to read. Going on anthem in October 2017.

As I'm sure you know by now, Anthem Of The Seas is the second ship in Royal Caribbean's Quantum-class, and was (at the time we sailed on her during March/April 2016) the newest ship in the fleet. Royal Caribbean takes great pride in designing their ships with what they call the "wow" factor... and this ship was certainly full of unusual and innovative features that you won't find on most other cruise ships.

The most iconic feature of Anthem Of The Seas (and her sister ship, Quantum Of The Seas) is the aerial viewing pod known as "NorthStar"...

NorthStar takes about a dozen passengers up in the air

for a spectacular view about 300 feet above the water line

 

 

 

A still picture doesn't completely give you the full idea of how NorthStar works.

A time-lapse video of NorthStar does a better job of showing what NorthStar does:

 

[YOUTUBE]mRjQJXDBrL4[/YOUTUBE]

(click the triangle in the center of the picture to start the video playing)

 

 

Here's a photo I snapped during a ride in NorthStar:

 

Reflections off the glass make photos taken from within NorthStar less-than-perfect.

My advice is to not focus your energy on shooting photos up there... just enjoy the view with your eyes.

 

Most of the time, a ride on NorthStar is fairly quick... about 10 minutes, featuring just a trip up, a quick swivel left and right, and then back down you go. But on the second sea day at the beginning of the cruise, and the second sea day at the end of the cruise, they offered extended rides in NorthStar... where they would take it through its full range of motion all the way over each side of the ship. These extended rides can not be reserved... they are on a first-come first-served basis... so just get in line if you're interested.

Have always enjoyed your videos, looking forward to this.:)

While NorthStar is really just a gimmick that adds a brief moment of fun to your cruise, the one feature on Anthem Of The Seas that I found most enjoyable and hugely better than anything competing cruise lines offer is The Solarium.

The Solarium is an adults-only area at the front of the ship, which is wind-protected and stays delightfully warm even on the coolest sea day. It features lots of loungers, daybeds, and comfortable chairs, as well as two huge Jacuzzi whirlpool tubs, and a tiered series of pools that you can relax in. It also offers a spectacular view forward.

My favorite part of the ship, the adults-only Solarium

 

 

A view of the Solarium at night

 

 

The pools are about three feet deep... perfect for sitting and relaxing and socializing.

 

 

There are three pools, stacked one above the other, and each one spills over in to the next lower one

 

If you're interested in videography, you might be wondering what camera I used to shoot that video. That was shot with a DJI Osmo... a motion-stabilized video camera that's kind of like a GoPro mounted on a mini-steadicam. It's great for walking around and shooting video in motion... as you get a fairly smooth result, rather than the shaky video you would get with a regular handheld camera.

In the Solarium tour video, I showed you one of the Solarium's secret little features: the viewing platform, directly above the bridge, with spectacular views. This is a fantastic place to go for a great view when the ship is leaving or entering a port. It's basically the same view that the Captain has.

As you saw if you watched the video, not only does the secret viewing platform have an amazing view ahead of the ship, but also a view looking all the way along the side of the ship to the back. Therefore, if you value your privacy, I'd recommend against booking one of the balcony cabins that's right up there at the front of the ship. People standing out on the viewing platform have a pretty good view on to the balconies of at least the first six cabins on each deck of the ship. If you're the kind of person that likes to go out on your cabin in your bathrobe, and you don't want people looking back at you, check the deck plans and book a cabin more towards the center or aft end of the ship.

 

There's some nice patio furniture within the Solarium, with big soft cushions...

 

There are also some very comfortable day-beds in the Solarium, although I failed to get a picture of any of them.

The Solarium is one of the best examples of where Royal Caribbean totally out-shines Carnival Cruise Line. Carnival has an adults-only area of their ships called the Serenity Retreat, but it pales in comparison to the Solarium. On most Carnival ships, their Serenity Retreat is located up on the top deck at the front of the ship... very similar to the location of the Solarium. But Carnival didn't bother to build in any effective method of wind protection... so when the ship is in motion, their Serenity retreat gets horribly windy and uncomfortable. Royal Caribbean was very smart to completely surround their solariums in glass on their Quantum-class and Oasis-class ships.

Another big difference between Anthem Of The Sea's Solarium and Carnival's Serenity Retreat is the water feature. Carnival doesn't have anything but a couple of Jacuzzis in most of their Serenity Retreats. The 3-level water feature in the center of the solarium is spectacular and really beats the heck out of what Carnival offers in this area.

The one area of comparison where Carnival wins in a solarium versus serenity battle is in the quality of the loungers. Loungers in the Carnival serenity retreats have super-comfortable thick cushions, similar to the chairs you see in the previous photo. If you look in the upper right corner of that photo, you can see that Royal Caribbean's loungers don't have any cushions at all. This would be one thing that Royal Caribbean might want to address.

Earlier this year, I did a much more expensive cruise in The Haven on the Norwegian Escape. I have to say that I actually prefer the situation in The Solarium on Anthem Of The Seas to the situation in The Haven Courtyard on the Norwegian Escape. Sure, the Solarium is more crowded... but I really like the cascading pools, the view forward, and the larger Jacuzzis. Honestly, if I had to choose between a 7-day cruise in The Haven or a 12-day cruise in a regular balcony cabin on Anthem Of The Seas... I'd take Anthem. (And I'd save a significant chunk of money versus The Haven, too.)

The outdoor swimming pool at the center of deck 14 is "party central"... this is the place to be if you like to be where the action is. You'll have a hard time finding an available lounger here after about 8 AM on a sea day. There's a big video screen next to the pool, and there's usually either a band playing or some pre-recorded party music.

On the first day of the cruise, it was quite cool outside, so there was hardly anyone at the outdoor pool

 

 

On a normal day in the Caribbean, this is what you can expect out at the main pool:

 

When you're relaxing out at the outdoor pool, it's fun to see NorthStar in action above you...

 

 

 

A children's water play area is located next to the outdoor pool...

 

The children's water play area has a really smart design with a nice gentle slope and is only about one foot deep at the deepest end. This is perfect for even the youngest toddlers.

Because Anthem Of The Seas sails out of New Jersey, the designers knew that an outdoor pool would be unusable on certain days. So, they put a second swimming pool on deck 14, and they enclosed this one in glass, similar to what they did with the Solarium. But while the Solarium is an adults-only area, this indoor pool is open to all ages.

 

 

 

The pool situation basically boils down to this:

 

Outdoor pool: Loud and fun, mostly filled with kids, adults sunbathing all around.

Indoor pool: A little more quiet, but still mostly filled with kids except at the beginning and end of the day.

Solarium: Adults only. Pool is less than 3 feet deep. Good pool for chatting with your fellow passengers, or for relaxing.

 

 

 

On deck 14, not far from the indoor pool, there's a towel station where you can checkout towels using your seapass card.

 

Personally, I like Carnival's towel system a little better. On Carnival, you'll find two pool towels in your stateroom on embarkation day. Your stateroom steward will change them out as necessary, or you can exchange them for dry ones as needed, up on Lido deck.

One of the most innovative features on Anthem Of The Seas is the aft theater, which is known as Two70. The name comes from the 270 degree view out the huge picture windows at the back of the ship... but the fun starts when they lower the screens over those big picture windows, and the entire wall of windows becomes a giant projection screen.

Then, as if having a gigantic projection screen didn't open up enough interesting possibilities, there are six big high-definition video screens mounted on to robotic arms. The robotic arms let those video screens dance to the music and move around in all sorts of creative ways. It's really hard to describe the creative stuff they do in the shows in Two70... you just really need to experience it for yourself!

Because there is no "backstage" in this theater, performers tend to pop up from below,

thanks to several big elevators built in to the stage.

 

Or, they drop down from up above...

 

Those six video screens mounted on robotic arms can be configured in all sorts of creative ways...

 

 

It's amazing how during the day, Two70 is a lounge with big picture windows that look out the back of the ship... but at night they drop down screens over each of the windows and it becomes one gigantic projection video screen.

In this next photo, the dark glass area you see is the gigantic row of picture windows that gives Two70 the spectacular view during the day... and then at night they lower the screens and they can turn it in to anything they want.

 

Besides featuring big production shows like Spectra's Cabaret, Two70 can be used for all sorts of other things.

One performance I really enjoyed was something they call a "Virtual Symphony".

 

I have a soft spot in my heart for United Airlines... so I got a little tear in my eye when the Virtual Symphony orchestra played "Rhapsody In Blue", which is the song that United uses as their theme song. Sitting in Two70 and watching the virtual symphony made me really want to try harder to do one of the items on my bucket list: to see a live performance of Camille Saint-Saëns symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 78, the "organ symphony". My brother introduced me to it when I was just a kid, and it's still my favorite piece of classical music. I have just GOT to see that performed live some time!

Fantastic review so far and I am looking forward to the rest of your photos and videos.

I've only sailed on Royal Caribbean's Freedom-class, Oasis-class, and Quantum-class ships... but they've all had something similar to this onboard. None of the other cruise lines have anything like this, as far as I know. It's basically an indoor area that feels very much like a big-city shopping mall. On the Freedom-class, they throw some big parties in here at night... but they did not do that on Anthem Of The Seas.

One weird thing about the Royal Esplanade on Anthem Of The Seas is that the shops are super high-end luxury shops... the kind of things you might expect to see on some cruise line for the ultra-rich, not on a mass-market cruise line. They had one conventional cruise ship gift shop, but it was about the smallest cruise ship gift shop I had ever seen, with the most limited selection.

Back to the tour of some of the public spaces onboard...

They were smart to build a dedicated space for musical performances on Anthem Of The Seas. They call it "Music Hall"... and it features a perfect stage for music, a bar, a dance floor, seating on two levels. While sitting here listening to a rock band play, I couldn't help but think of some of the cruises I've done on the Carnival Breeze... where they have this awkward setup for music in a place they call "Ocean Plaza". It's right in the center of the ship where there is a constant traffic flow, so you literally have a stream of people walking through the space as the band is playing... and there's no real place for people to sit down directly in front of the band to watch and listen. The band has to play to an audience seated to the left, and an audience seated to the right. The whole thing is just FUBAR. Anyway, that was the silly design of the Carnival Breeze I was speaking of. The design of the Music Hall on Anthem Of The Seas is much better... although perhaps on the next generation of ships they might be smart to squeeze in even more seating.

 

Here's another photo I shot in the Music Hall one night.

I call this photo "what happens on a cruise ship, stays on the cruise ship"!

 

 

Finally, before we move on from our general tour of the ship...

 

One of the passengers was blind and had a service dog with her to help her get around.

If you've ever wondered where a dog goes potty on a cruise ship,

this next photo, taken on deck five near the lifeboats, solves the mystery.

 

Really enjoying your cruise review! I always use to brush off the newer ships, and give the "I'll just sail on it when something bigger and better replaces it, and the price goes down", but now I am seriously interested in trying Anthem out. I really like what I have seen so far!

Thank you for taking the time to write this review, I really enjoy your high quality photos and commentary! :D

We've stayed in all sorts of different cabins during our 35 cruises... everything from the cheapest interior cabins to some very expensive suites. Royal Caribbean suites are VERY pricey, so for this cruise we elected to stay in a standard balcony cabin, category D5. Our cabin number was 12182, if you have any interest in looking it up on the deck plans.

I chose this particular cabin because:

• It is near the forward elevators, but not so close that we would hear noises from it.
   
  
• The deck above is passengers cabins, as is the deck below. Therefore, it isn't a very noisy location.
   
  
• It is an easy walk to the Solarium and the indoor pool.
   
  
• Using the forward elevators, you can quickly get to and from the Royal Theater and the Music Hall.
   
  
• It's a fairly easy walk down the hallway and up two sets of stairs to get to the Windjammer restaurant.
  

Once we got onboard, we discovered that the cabins on Anthem Of The Seas have some very cool design features that I hadn't heard about. So I put together a video that clearly shows some of the smart design choices that Royal Caribbean made in designing these cabins. Please take a look at this video tour of our cabin:

The top unit is controls for the heating and cooling system. It is very responsive and works extremely well. In the picture, the display is showing that we asked the system to keep the room at 73 degrees, and in the upper left it is confirming that the temperature in the room is indeed actually 73 degrees.

The idea for the bottom unit is that you would stick your room keycard in the slot when you're in the room, and take the card out to keep it with you when you leave the room. The power to the cabin shuts off a few minutes after the card is removed. We find that a little inconvenient, so we just bring a spare keycard with us from a previous cruise

and leave it in the slot at all times. That way my actual room keycard stays in my pocket at all times, and I won't tend to leave the room without it.

Thank you for posting. Looking forward for the next pictures. :D

The full story is that I've been in to Cocker Spaniels since I was a little kid. In fact, from 1995 through 2010, our hobby was breeding American Cocker Spaniel puppies. (Now it's cruising!) We've got a thing for the Disney movie "Lady and the Tramp" because the central character is a cartoon version of a Cocker Spaniel. On a previous cruise vacation, Kellyn bought a stuffed animal version of "Lady" at the Disney Store in Miami... but they didn't have "Tramp" in stock.

The day before our cruise on Anthem Of The Seas, we stumbled on to a Disney Outlet store in the big shopping mall in Elizabeth, New Jersey. As luck would have it, they had "Tramp" in stock... so we grabbed one, and brought him along on the cruise with us. During our cruise, our cabin steward had a lot of fun pairing Tramp up with various towel animals.

In the hallways outside the passenger cabins, there are pieces of framed art placed at random intervals. I liked that this particular item was in the hallway, directly opposite our cabin door. It made it easy to find our room without having to look at the stateroom numbers. Plus, I liked the vacation message it offered...

Down the hall from us, another cabin had something similar, but with a less vacation-oriented message. We jokingly referred to the cabin across the hall from these posters as "the low self-esteem" cabin.

 

 

While we're on the subject of cabins...

 

Our cabin was an actual balcony cabin, but on the other side of the hall there were some interior cabins with "virtual balconies".

One day, when the cabin steward was cleaning one of them and had the door propped open, I snapped a picture of the virtual balcony.

 

It's looks fairly real in the photo, but the truth is that in person it looked totally fake.

I do think it's cool that all 500+ interior cabins on Anthem Of The Seas have this feature, though.

One negative thing I should probably mention about the cabins on Anthem Of The Seas is that the televisions do not receive programming from NBC, CBS, ABC, or FOX. So, if you're hoping to keep an eye on your favorite network TV show during your cruise vacation... you're out of luck. Set your DVR accordingly!

On our very first night onboard, we had dinner at the "American Icon Grill". This is very similar to what would be known as "the main dining room" on most cruise ships, except that advanced reservations are required, and it had a menu that was less international and more American-focused than you'd typically find in a cruise ship dining room.

OK, I have to give you fair warning and let you know that I'm about to begin a rant:

That photo of the pork chop dinner from the American Icon Grill is a perfect example of everything I hate about fine dining and "foodie" food... and perfectly illustrates why Kellyn and I eat almost all of our cruise ship meals in the buffet, rather than in the conventional restaurants.

I've got no problem with that pork chop. The pork chop was fine. But I've got a BIG problem with that TINY portion of potatoes and vegetables served along with it. Do you even see the potatoes in that picture? They're located between the five green beans (wow, how generous!) and the three carrot slices. That is, at most, two bites of potatoes. And that's why I prefer to eat in the buffet, where I can control the portion sizes.

To see how it should be done, let's look at this next photo, of my dinner from Chops Grille... the steakhouse on Anthem Of The Seas:

Notice the gigantic baked potato served with the generous portion of steak.

In my opinion, that's the proper portion of potatoes to serve with a meat entrée.

 

So, we never went back to the American Icon Grill after that first night.

I'm a fan of the buffet, where I can control the portion sizes.

 

 

 

The buffet on Anthem Of The Seas is pretty amazing!

They incorporated a very important feature

that I've never seen in any other cruise ship buffet before.

Take a look at this next video, where I explain it to you...

 

[YOUTUBE]hMzZjfriEZA[/YOUTUBE]

We cruised on Independence of the Seas last year, and they had a pretty darned good buffet at lunch and dinner , but breakfast needed some improvement. I was delighted to discover that the breakfast situation had improved on Anthem Of The Seas. For starters, they had added quite a few more omelet stations, making it much easier to get a freshly cooked omelet just the way you like it.

At breakfast on the first day, Kellyn and I each had omelettes... but we got them from different omelet chefs. I got mine from Ari, who you see in this next picture. He cooked my omelet absolutely perfectly.

Kellyn got her omelet from a different guy, and he burned it. Really, it had black marks! So every morning from then on, I went back to Ari for my morning omelet. Every day, for the rest of our 12-day cruise, I had an excellent breakfast to start the day:

Notice the Lawry's seasoned salt. I bring that from home. It makes the eggs and the potatoes taste better than regular salt does. And contrary to a common misperception, it contains no MSG.

I used to always use Carnival's breakfast buffet as the gold standard that I compared all other cruise ship breakfasts to... but I was very impressed with breakfast in the Windjammer on Anthem Of The Seas. For me, this is the new cruise ship breakfast standard that all others will be judged against. Here's an example of one little thing I noticed they did...

A lot of the hot food that is served in any breakfast buffet is cooked way in advance and then kept in a warming tray. Let's use breakfast sausage as an example. If they cook up a big tray of sausage at 6:30 AM, stick it in a warming tray, and I eventually pull a couple of links of sausage out of it at 7:15 AM... that sausage that was cooked 45 minutes ago is still OK. No problem. But some things are best when they're really hot, right off the griddle. Pancakes are one of those things. On Carnival, and probably on most cruise ships, really... they cook up big trays of pancakes and then they sit for a long time in a warming tray. On Anthem Of The Seas, I was really impressed to see that they had a big griddle right there in the Windjammer, with a cook grilling up small amounts of several different types of pancakes. He wasn't in some big kitchen downstairs, grilling up 100 at a time and sending them up to the buffet... he was right there, grilling up about 8 or 12 at a time. You could actually get a fresh, hot pancake. It was impressive that someone had examined the buffet process and thought about how it could be made better and had actually realized that they had a pancake problem in their other ships and that for this ship they needed to add a pancake grill right there in the restaurant!

While we're on the subject of the Windjammer buffet restaurant, let me clue you in on a somewhat hidden outdoor eating area at the far back end of the Windjammer. I bet a lot of people who sail on Anthem Of The Seas never even discover it. When the weather is nice outside, this is a fantastic place to eat your meal...

Because it's at the back of the ship, it's wind protected, too.

 

Another interesting Carnival versus Royal Caribbean comparison is with the cookies. I don't know how Carnival manages to make such horrible cookies, but they do. They taste like something you'd find in a bag on a grocery store shelf... like something cooked weeks ago. These chocolate chip cookies from the Anthem Of The Seas buffet were delicious, and were right up there with fresh-out-of-the-oven made-by-Mom cookies from your own kitchen. Sometimes they were actually warm, but that's hard to do when you're feeding 4500 passengers. A good trick to use if you grab some cruise ship cookies and they're not warm: put them on a plate and let them sit in the sun for a few minutes. The Caribbean sun does a good job of warming up and softening cookies!

So far in the Carnival versus Anthem Of The Seas food comparison, Anthem Of The Seas has done VERY well. A winning streak like that never lasts, though! Now it's time to talk about burger joints, and I'm afraid that on this matchup Royal Caribbean not only loses, but it's a double fail. I am talking, of course, about RCI's "Johnny Rockets" restaurants versus Carnival's "Guy's Burger Joint".

When Carnival teamed up with Guy Fieri and started adding "Guy's Burger Joint" to their fleet, it was the most genius cruise ship improvement I have ever seen. Those burgers are SO good. Johnny Rockets just does not compare well to Guy's Burger Joint at all. To add insult to injury, it's a double-fail on Anthem Of The Seas, because for some reason that I can't figure out, they cut way back on the seating for Johnny Rockets, compared to the ones on the two other Royal Caribbean ships I've sailed on. During a busy lunch rush, there is simply nowhere near enough seating at the Johnny Rockets restaurant on Anthem Of The Seas.

Now that I think about it, it's actually a triple fail. Not only is the food better at Guy's Burger Joint, and there's lots more seating, but it's FREE, too. They serve thousands of Guy Burgers each day on a Carnival ship... and there's a reason!

The best burger on the high seas: a Guy Fieri Burger

Even the fries are superior to all others!

 

 

Carnival also has a better setup for their soft-serve frozen desert served up on the Lido deck.

They offer both soft-serve ice cream, and soft-serve frozen yogurt, and it's available 24/7.

Royal Caribbean operates theirs during much more limited hours,

and there's no sign indicating what it actually is.

It didn't taste like either ice cream or frozen yogurt to me. I don't know what it was!

 

 

 

While I've got a rant going here, let's talk about drink prices.

My wife and I did very little drinking on Anthem Of The Seas because the prices were just sky high.

Including mandatory gratuity, these two mixed drinks set us back $22.36

And look at the size of those drinks... those are tiny!

Speaking of drinks, I'm sure you've heard about Anthem Of The Seas' high-tech robo-bar... where you put your drink order in on a little tablet computer, and a robotic bartender mixes up your drink for you. It's fun to watch! Here's a video...

The robo-bar is VERY crowded the first couple of days. My advice is... if you want to try it out, wait until the crowds thin out a little later in the cruise. We didn't actually order a drink at the robo-bar... Royal Caribbean's sky-high drink prices and tiny serving sizes pretty well turned me off to drinking... so I can't speak to the quality of the drinks that the robotic bartenders served. But I did notice an awful lot of people abandoned their drinks at the robo bar after taking a few sips. You don't normally see a bar with nearly-full drinks abandoned on the tables... but we did notice that more than a few times at the robo bar.

I feel like this section of the story has turned a little more negative than I wanted! This would probably be a good time for me to reiterate that we had a FANTASTIC cruise on Anthem Of The Seas and that it is now my favorite cruise ship and that this was one of the best cruises we have ever taken. Just because I pointed out a few things, I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression! Great ship, great cruise. Bravo, Royal Caribbean. I see you improving with each new ship. I can't wait to see what you come up with next! I am far more likely to cruise with Royal Caribbean in the coming years than with any other cruise line.

The SeaPlex is a very interesting multi-purpose sports facility located on decks 15 & 16, aft. (Directly above the Windjammer restaurant.) It can be configured as a basketball court, a soccer court, a roller skating rink, a circus-style trapeze training facility, or as a bumper-car track. I think the bumper cars are the coolest use of this space, so let's start with that.

The first thing to point out about the bumper cars is that they're battery operated. So, unlike a traditional bumper car setup you'd find at an amusement park, you don't have a pole sticking up from the back of each car to make an electrical connection with a metal grid on the ceiling. So, these cars can't go all day long in continuous operation... they occasionally need to recharge. That's why you only see the bumper cars running for about two hours at a time, and then they configure the SeaPlex for some other event.

Notice that huge crowd lined up all the way around the lower level of the facility. Those people weren't just standing there watching... that was the line to ride the bumper cars! At the beginning of the cruise, the lines are crazy-long. In the photo, you're actually only seeing about half of the line that day! Just wait a few days and come to the bumper cars a little later in the week, and you'll find much shorter lines. We were walking through the SeaPlex one night about half-way through the cruise and there was almost no line. We rode the bumper cars, and got right back in line to ride them again after that.

Another fun activity in the SeaPlex is roller skating. I'm horrible at roller skating and ice skating, so I didn't try it. But there were some good people-watching opportunities! This little girl was cute...

 

Some people found the roller skating experience more terrifying than others...

 

On one of our shore excursions, we met a really nice family from Pennsylvania. A few days later, I was walking through the SeaPlex and saw the mother and daughter standing in line to participate in the flying trapeze activity. So, I set up my camera and shot this video of them giving it a try. The daughter was a natural athlete!

In my pre-cruise research, I had noticed something about Anthem Of The Seas that I couldn't figure out. You can see it in this next photo. Take a look at the top of the ship, to the right of the big yellow giraffe... and see if you can guess what those two rectangular blue structures are.

The answer to the mystery is that those two blue thingies, awkwardly sticking out at the top of the ship, are just little game rooms that are part of the second floor of the SeaPlex. There are two on each side of the ship, and they contain things like ping-pong tables, air hockey tables, and a nice little game room full of X-Box consoles.

 

 

Perhaps you're wondering about that big giraffe in that picture earlier.

Her name is Gigi, and she lives next to the rock-climbing wall.

 

 

Here's a better picture of Gigi...

 

 

I was impressed that Gigi survived that big storm back in February without any damage.

She must REALLY be anchored down well!

In case you don't already get the concept, there's a big propeller down under that screen at the bottom of the tube. It sends a constant stream of air up the tube, and if you orient your body in there just right, you can have that stream of air hold you up. It's a little like skydiving, without the sensation of falling. I didn't try it myself, but it was fun to watch... especially in between sessions, when the instructors were practicing by themselves.

When passengers are participating, the instructors keep a pretty close grip on the person in the tube, to help keep their body oriented properly to ride the stream of air. It's kind of like watching someone ride a bike with training wheels on. The real fun comes in watching the instructors goof around in between passenger flying sessions.

Anthem Of The Seas is based in Bayonne, New Jersey, at the Cape Liberty cruise terminal. They call the cruise terminal Cape Liberty because right from the deck of a cruise ship that's docked there, you have a SPECTACULAR view of the Statue Of Liberty as well as Manhattan.

I shot this picture from an open window in the Solarium

(Full disclosure: 400mm zoom lens required to make it look this close)

 

 

 

In my pre-cruise research, I had seen this next photo quite a bit.

It's Anthem's sister ship, Quantum Of The Seas.

 

Based on that photo, when I booked this cruise I was thinking we'd have an experience similar to that... sailing right in front of the Statue Of Liberty, beautifully lit up, at night.

However, after looking at Google Maps, I came to realize that the ship was unlikely to pass directly in front of the Statue Of Liberty, since the statue sits in the opposite direction from the path a cruise ship would take to go from the Cape Liberty cruise terminal out to open water. Once I thought about it, I realized that the fantastic photo of Quantum Of The Seas directly in front of Lady Liberty was probably shot during a one-time-only photo opportunity when Quantum made her very first visit to New York harbor. Also, when I looked at my cruise documents, I noticed our sailaway time was scheduled for 3:00 PM... so it certainly wasn't going to be nighttime conditions like in that famous photo.

Nonetheless, we truly did have a spectacular view of the Statue Of Liberty from the minute we got onboard the ship in Bayonne. It was really great to have that first lunch in the Windjammer restaurant and to look out the window at that spectacular view. The big 400mm zoom lens on my camera makes it look even more spectacular than it really was, but it was still pretty spectacular!

 

 

As we set sail, I also shot a little video of the view of the Statue Of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline:

 

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Sailing under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was pretty cool, too!

I captured that in a time-lapse video from our balcony...

 

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We were sailing from New York harbor in March. It was cold!

Once we got past the bridge and out in to open water,

I looked at the indoor/outdoor thermometer I had set up

and this is what I saw...

 

The bad news is that with the wind chill, it felt MUCH colder than that!

The good news is that when we woke up the next morning, it was 63 degrees outside.

And by the next morning after that, off the coast of Florida, it was in the 70s.

I should mention that there were 4,390 passengers on Anthem Of The Seas for our cruise. It was a unusual mix of people... a different demographic than a lot of the other cruises I had been on. There were a lot more international passengers than I had seen on most of my cruises. Only 2440 of the 4390 passengers were from the USA. Surprisingly, the folks from the U.K. outnumbered the folks from Canada. There were 969 Brits and only 454 Canadians. I totally loved listening to all the folks with British accents during this cruise! To this American, a classy British accent sounds pretty darned good to me.

After two full days at sea, we finally reached our first port of call: Royal Caribbean's private retreat in Labadee, Haiti. Kellyn and I have been to Labadee several times before, and we've always enjoyed it. A day in Labadee is basically a free beach day... and spending time at a warm Caribbean beach is one of the main reasons we go on cruises.

A few years ago, on our very first visit to Labadee, a crew member gave us some excellent advice. She told us that when we get to Labadee, there would be a choice of several different beaches to spend the day at... and that the best one of all, and the one we should go to, is the one known as Columbus cove. Her advice was absolutely right on target, and we've spent the day at Columbus Cove during every one of our Labadee visits since then.

Columbus Cove is the furthest beach from the ship, which makes it the least crowded... because most people settle down somewhere before they ever get all the way out to Columbus Cove. There is also excellent shade available at Columbus Cove, and a fantastic beach with soft sand and no surf at all. Bathrooms, drinks, and food are easily available.

It's not a difficult walk to get to Columbus cove... we've walked to it the last several times we've visited. Just follow the signs, or use the map, below.

I'm not exactly sure if the bungalows can be rented by just any passenger. They might only be available to suite guests. You should check on that if you're interested.

We were plenty happy to spend our day on a standard lounger under the shade of the trees in Columbus Cove. The only negative thing I can say is that this time around, the water was just a little cooler than it was on our three previous visits. We were here about a month earlier this year than we were on our previous visit last year... and weather conditions had just not warmed up enough to heat the water to the 80+ degree point that I enjoy so much during many of our Caribbean cruises. This was the most northern port of call we would be visiting on our cruise, so I was fairly confident that things would warm up more the further south we got this week. Don't get me wrong, though... the water certainly was not cold! As you can see from the previous photo, there were plenty of people enjoying the day in the water. It just wasn't as warm as it gets during a summer or fall cruise to the Caribbean.

On just about every cruise we've taken, there has been some kind of incident. Some memorable ones were the time I left my wallet at home, the time I got clumsy walking in flip-flops and scraped off the end of one toe, several times when I got sick during a cruise, and several times when I broke a pair of glasses or sunglasses. You'd think I would learn to be more careful with glasses! The root of the problem is that I'm nearsighted, so I need glasses to see things that are more than a few feet away... but I have to take the glasses off to see things that are within a few feet. When I use a camera, or a pair of binoculars, or a cell phone, or a computer... the glasses have to come off... and that's when the incidents occur! During one cruise, I had to wear prescription sunglasses everywhere because I managed to break my regular prescription glasses during the cruise. Believe me when I say it's weird to be sitting in the buffet eating dinner and wearing a pair of sunglasses... and even weirder to be sitting in the theater watching a show, wearing a pair of sunglasses!

This time around, I had the reverse version of that incident. I sat on (and broke) my prescription sunglasses while we were lounging around at Columbus Cove. Back in our cabin at the end of the afternoon, I snapped this photo of them:

But the good news, as you can see on the indoor/outdoor thermometer that I always bring along on a cruise, was that it had been a nice warm 82 degree day at Columbus Cove... and that the air conditioning in our cabin was working very well, keeping our little part of the ship at a pleasant 71 degrees.