Live Blogging Anthem of the Seas July 18 sailing!

So - the DW and I are on the Anthem for the next 14 days on our honeymoon. For some inexplicable reason (I probably wasn't hugged enough as a child), I am going to attempt to liveblog the cruise. If there's an emphasis, it will likely be on food, but I'll likely touch on everything. I say food because we've managed to book every restaurant on the ship, and my goal is to provide reviews on all of them. DW may pop on to post and weigh in her two cents (or is it pence?). DW is also playing an important support role, because she does not drink, and I do, so for the evenings where I overindulge she is going to make sure nothing slips through the cracks.

A bit about us. I'm 33, and DW is 32. We've both been long time cruisers, first with our families and with each other. We've almost exclusively done RC, with a few Celebrity cruises early on. We are definitely fans of RC - we think the cruises are good value for the money - that's not to say they are perfect, but it works for us. We do quite a bit of specialty dining and other upgrades where we see value. We have only cruised the Caribbean thus far, so this is a fun change for us. Historically, the Oasis class ships are our favorite - we like the size, activities, Central Park (which is probably one of our favorite vacation spots... not sure if that's sad or not), etc. So we're quite excited for Anthem and to see how that stacks up.

I am going to post pictures, but am alternating posting between a laptop and my ipad, so it may take a bit to get them online.

Final disclaimer - I do want to see this thing through, but it is my honeymoon - so - apologies if I get distracted.

I also know there are several other CC members (we will see you all tomorrow morning hopefully!), but if you have any questions, ask away and I will answer.

So -- here we go, part one of Day 1!

Embarkation, as many have noted, was a snap. Porter service was great, and the lines nearly non-existant. We had done all of the log in stuff at home, and to our delight everything went fine. We definitely viewed it as our easiest embarkation to date, although we've never had any real issues embarking.

Hopped on the boat and headed to Cafe 270 for a quick bite. We usually do Park Cafe, so it seemed to be consistent. The initial meal was a little hit or miss. I grabbed the steak sandwich, it was good, but DW's crab bisque and turkey club were just "ok." A brown and cream puff were also up to snuff. We decided to start exploring the ship since our stateroom wasn't ready yet. We wandered up to the North Star, which was just opening -- and only a minimal queue. So we hopped in line and got a jump on things. AWESOME experience. I'll post pictures later, but it definitely exceeded expectations. I'm not sure if we'll have a chance to do it again with all our excursions, but I could see it being amazing in a number of ports on the trip.

On to our room! We are staying in a spa junior suite, and liked the layout. While the walk in closet is gone, there is still ample storage, and the dual sink and bathroom setup is excellent. The only oddity was that there was no trash can in the bathroom. After talking to our attendant, he said he can bring one in, but that they only do it "on request" because of the size of the bathroom. That is the one downside of the spa junior bathrooms, the floor space is minimal. After getting settled, we changed and went off to explore the ship.

Note these are initial impressions, and I am curious if they bear up. First and foremost, she is a beautiful ship. As many others have said, it feels more like a celebrity ship than Royal, and that isn't a slight at either line. That said, there are definitely "hipper" RC type areas (the Music Hall - which was awesome and I hope lives up to the vibe- and Bionic bar for example). The esplanade and Via are very cool. One thing we noticed throughout the ship is that there are a lot of cool hang out "nooks" and also a lot of areas where one deck overlooks another (for example, the Via by vintages overlooks one of the shopping areas, and there are overlooks in the indooor pool. Very clever designs in my opinion. Speaking of pool, the pool setup here is very nice. With the solarium and indoor pool being shielded, that gives more "all weather" pools (although I know it gets crowded based on what others have said).

Finally, we were impressed with the decor and theming in the various restaurants, both complimentary and specialty.

A few technology notes... it didn't think we existed at first when we synced the app (fixed in short order, I think we tried too early in the embarkation process), the luggage tracking didn't seem to work (others have noted this) and it didn't apply our coupon for internet, but I'm sure we can get that fixed. Our OBC isn't correct either, but these are all relatively minor and I'm sure we'll get them fixed. However, all of our reservations we made prior to the cruise carried over. Interestingly, a spa reservation we made on board did not show up.

Tonight we're off to the Chef's Table and then finding some fun after. I will post the Chef's Table update later tonight or tomorrow.

Congratulations on your wedding and honeymoon!

Looking forward to your reports. We're booked on Anthem next year and are very much looking forward to it.

Regarding the app issues/coupons/obc... it might be that they had not yet closed out the financials on the prior cruise. Similar issues happened to me last month on Liberty. By late afternoon/early evening everything was up to date.

Enjoy your cruise!

Mazal Tov on your wedding and honeymoon. Wish you and your bride a long and happy life together :).

Will follow avidly, as I try to gather every piece of info :D

And, thanks! Will be following along. Sailing Anthem for New Years Eve.

Following and Mazel tov! Looking forward to our Anthem trip during Thanksgiving week this year[emoji4]

Looking forward to your review. Did you happen to notice if Jamie's was open for lunch on embarkation day?

looking forward to your review. Thanks very much

Congratulations. We have booked Anthem for our honeymoon in March 2016 Caribbean 12 nighter from Cape Liberty so will be following this post for dining inspiration. Have a lovely honeymoon!

Mel

Congratulations! Looking forward to your live blog. We are sailing Anthem on the 15 August cruise and I'm already very excited. Trying to soak up any piece of information and photos prior to sailing! Thanks for spending time on your honeymoon doing this!

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As potentially predicted, the Chef’s Table wine got the better of me. I'm having some issues with getting the pictures posted, so bear with me and I'll hopefully have them up later today.

Now let’s talk about the food from chef's table!

Let me start by giving the bottom line up front – worth every penny of the substantial upcharge for the Prime Table. There have been a few changes from the “Chef’s Table” experience, but the core is intact, and the food and wine were superb. There is no longer a chef who walks through each course, but the sommelier was fantastic (he actually has trained several of the other chef’s table sommeliers). According to him, the menu is set by corporate, and then he picks the wines. The menu changes every 3-4 months, and I will note (and as you can see with the picture below), it is not what they’re showing on the website (at least not what I was showing). It was just us and one other couple – we booked because of the 30% off the first night discount, and it seemed overall that it was a slow night for specialty restaurants.

The amuse bouche was sauterne jelly with crab salad – very sweet, it complemented the dry champagne they started us with. The salad course was lovely – very fresh vegetables and the vinaigrette adding the right amount of spice. The pea soup was good, candidly I think it could have used a tad more bacon to add in that saltiness but otherwise was excellent (really, a small nitpick if there ever was one). Interestingly both chardonnays were not oaky – very clean and crisp. Unfortunately, we failed at a picture of the short rib beef ravioli – I was several glasses of wine in and DW loves her ravioli—so that course is without a picture sadly. It was, along with the other courses, excellent. Apparently the pasta comes from Jamie’s Italian, which should be a good sign for that upcoming dinner. Completing the meal was the roasted tenderloin, which was incredibly well cooked and quite delicious. Dessert was an excellent combination of chocolate. The dessert drink was a tiramisu martini – since the chocolate was so intense, they didn’t want to pair it with a dessert wine, as it would overpower the wine. The drink was a little overly sweet for me, which didn’t stop me from drinking it, but it was the weakest pairing in my opinion. Do note that this is again, a nitpick, and not a critique.

Rather inebriated, I decided it was time to go lose money at the casino. The casino, however, was quite dead. No one playing craps (my game) and roulette was wide open. DW and I did a few spins of roulette and then headed to 270 for the welcome show. At this point I’d have to defer to DW, because I was feeling the 7 glasses of wine, but it didn’t really hold our interest, so off to bed we went.

Day 2

I woke up in surprisingly good shape (comparatively, anyway) and after a bit we rallied. Café 270 again for breakfast. DW got a bagel with lox and cream cheese and a burrito, I got the breakfast burrito and a fruit cup. The bagel was great – salmon was good quality. The burrito was good, but they didn’t warm DW’s correctly, just mine. A little random.

We stopped in the meet and mingle, but we got there late and had to leave early, and everyone seemed to have sort of paired off, so we didn’t get a chance to mingle before heading to our massage. We did the couples massage, which was consistent in good quality as our other cruises (for those who don’t know, Royal subcontracts all of their spas to a company called Steiner, so there’s brand consistency there ship to ship).

Now we’re off to the rest of the day. It is gloomy and cool in the Atlantic, but the solarium was warm (if crowded), and the water was warm. More updates later (and pictures finally).

Looking forward to your review. Did you happen to notice if Jamie's was open for lunch on embarkation day?

Yes, it was, from 12-1:30. They also had free food samples out too.

Just kidding... no photos yet. Did not realize cruise critic doesn't like imagur.

Photos! For Real! Really!

First, the North Star fully extended. This was right before we got on.

Next -- from the North Star, our ship and the bay. The angle is a little weird because I was pressed up against the glass with my lens to minimize the reflection.

Next, a shot of Southampton and their impressively large Ikea.

Now on to the food!

Here's a shot of the menu for the Prime Table.

And then a nice pic stitch (thanks DW!) of our meal, minus the ravioli, which were consumed before their photoshoot.

And lastly, the chef who visited us at the end and our awesome sommelier.

Two final thoughts on this meal. One, they didn't overstuff us despite the many courses. Good portions.

Second, beautiful room. It is separated from the main Chops room, library themed, with a table for 16. I should have shot the room to show the decor. Alas.

We are considering upgrading to a jr spa suite. Would it be possible for you to post a couple of pictures of your cabin. Have a great cruise and congratulations on your marriage. Thank you.:)

Sorry for the delay in posting. My posts are written, but the pic stitch machine (DW) has been backlogged. She has assured me that she will up her production rate for the good of all.

Continuing Day 2...

Yesterday was a fairly chill day for us, mostly lounging by the pool in the solarium and using the hot tubs. While both of the covered pools were quite busy, we were able to find seats both times in relatively short order. That said, it definitely was crowded. We also swung by the seaplex and the line was quite long for the bumper cars.

Continuing the food review (port reviews will come later once we have them!), windjammer lunch was pretty typical windjammer. We thought that the selection on board was better than other ships, with a lot more variety. I went with the Indian food, as there were 4 selections (beef curry, chicken curry, okra masala and eggplant current). Pretty good Indian, although the rice was a little underdone. DW went with lasagna and make your own pasta from the station. Desserts were also fairly typical, and pretty good. Later on we grabbed one of the hot dogs as a snack from the SeaPlex doghouse, and much as with the Oasis and Allure hot dog stands, they were great.

Dinner was at the Grande and our first official dynamic dining experience. We had originally booked for 6:45, and while the system said nothing later was available, we had swung by at lunch time and a hostess said she could put a comment in that we’d show up at 8 PM and it wouldn’t be a problem. Given all of the DD horror stories, I was wondering how this would play out. So – we showed up, waiting about 2 minutes while a group of 6 in front of us was seated, and we were immediately whisked away to our table. So that was easy enough.

Dinner itself was similar to the MDR, but I would say on the higher end as far as food quality (more on that in a moment). The service was great. Our server made sure to check in on us and told us she’d be right with us, and was extremely polite and constantly asking how her service is, letting us know we could order other food if we wanted, etc. I’m not sure if that was just her or if it’s a shipwide initiative to correct many of the issues with DD. Food came out rapidly- we were in and out in an hour or so, water and bread offered as needed.

Now, the food itself. Picstitch is below of what we ordered – wild mushroom risotto, escargot and tuna tartare starters, then duck a l’orange and veal osso bucco dinner, and then molten lava cake and napoleon desserts. All of the starters were good – the risotto was a bit heavy and a large portion for an appetizer, but DW enjoyed it quite a bit. The escargot were good, pretty typical MDR escargot (which I like). The tartare was very tasty, but very thin and a bit difficult to eat as a result (it tended to tear when you tried to load it onto the fork). For our entrees, the veal osso bucco was the same recipe as Giovanni’s table, and was very well prepared. The duck was well cooked, but the sauce a bit overly sweet for my taste. Finally for dessert, the napoleon was solid but nothing special. The lava cake was great.

Our overall impression was that it was one of the better “MDR” style meals we’ve had. That said, it is the MDR, and the comparison to the Prime Table is stark (as it should be!). With Jamie's tonight on Day 3, it will be interesting to see how it stacks up.

Following dinner, we headed off to Spectra’s Cabaret, one of the new shows in the 270 venue. It was a combination of live singers/dancers, the “robo screens” (the 6 huge screens on the end of articulated robot arms, which did cut out for one performance -- the video, not the arms), trapeze artists (I think that's what they're called. They were suspended from the air and did things I could never do), and the “vistarama” (the backdrop that is a full video screen). The show was similar to Oasis of Dreams (the Oasis aqua show performance) in that everyone was talented, it showcased all the venue had to offer as far as innovations, and I have absolutely no idea the plot or the point. It definitely continues the RC theme of “Because we can!” That said, it was a fun way to kill an hour. 270 also had its own cocktail list (more on that in a future post, they’ve done a nice job redoing the cocktail program) and had an excellent bourbon based cocktail. After all that – we headed to bed for an early appointment for our all access tour. More on that later, but here's the teaser trailer - it was awesome.

We are considering upgrading to a jr spa suite. Would it be possible for you to post a couple of pictures of your cabin. Have a great cruise and congratulations on your marriage. Thank you.:)

Yes, we'll get these up soon!

Day 3

We woke up early enough to try a sit down breakfast at the American Icon (aka main dining room). It was pretty standard fare. Pictures are below, but there isn’t too much to say. The food was serviceable but nothing special. Huevos for DW, and standard egg scramble for me.

On to the All Access tour! Others have posted about this, but I have to say this was a pretty awesome experience. They’ve somewhat relaxed the photo policy, others have stated in the past certain rooms didn’t allow photos, but we were able to photo everything. The stops were a bit hit or miss, but the hits outweighed the misses. In order:

Galley tour – was excellent. The executive chef did the walk through, and we saw the various prep areas (meat, veggie, sauce, etc), the pressure cookers, the mashed potato vat (that’s 250 pounds of mashed potatoes). Great tour and really interesting to see how they manage all the food for the main dining rooms and the windjammer.

(top to bottom, left to right) - Digital ordering for kitchen production staff, stew being made, mashed potato vat, vegetable prep, roast prep with filets being roasted

Storage tour – wasn’t really a tour. Just the provisions master talking to us about stocking the ship. Interesting, but it would have been cool to see the meat lockers or the produce pantries.

Incinerator trash room – not so much a tour, but pretty cool. Lots of show and tell (crushed glass, etc). There was a nifty wall schematic of all of the incinerators, the bioreactors (they have 5 bioreactors as part of the cleaning process that breaks down waste before it gets filtered) which was cool to see the layout of.

Engine control room – very cool. Lots of interesting displays and screens of all the ships systems, they showed us the various sensors and what not which control all of the propulsion, electricity generation, and waste purification. You also knew these guys were important because they had an expensive coffee/espresso machine (the same one was in the diamond lounge). Gotta keep the engine control crew happy.

Laundry room – this was way too long (~30 minutes) – and could have been compressed. It was interesting to see the machinery, and the laundry master loved his staff and his business and was very nice, but we definitely lingered there a bit too long.

(top to bottom, left to right) Storage, where you can find cereal and booze side by side, engine control room, incinerators, laundry folding machine for sheets.

Crew areas – we got to see the crew windjammer, coffee shop, and walk around their space a bit. No crew disco or bar visit unfortunately.

Main theater – Also very cool, the backstage area is really quite small considering the props for all of the shows. Also cool to see all of the electronic controls for the props (to help roll things in and out for set changes), and also learn some of the tricks for them to put shows on at sea (they will change choreography to drop riskier moves like throwing people, change heels to flats, etc if seas are rough to make sure that the show goes on but the cast are safe). I didn’t get any pictures – too dark back there.

Bridge – of course, the bridge was awesome. Everything is so highly automated at this point that it almost was a bit anticlimactic. The station they dock the ship with was pretty cool, the azipod controls and the glass floor so the pilot can see when we touch the dock were awesome. You can see the controls below and the full dock panorama. They also had several command and control rooms including a comms room and an incident command room.

Heads up display, then navigation and steering, then the drop down below to aid the pilot.

(top to bottom) Panorama of the bridge, panorama of the damage control room, our captain saying hello before his noon announcement, and the weather system in the comms room.

While very pricey, as a longtime cruisers it was awesome to see how the sausage was made, or at least part of it. We were glad to do it, even though we had to wake up early.

More on the rest of the day later!

We're on the Anthem TA this fall, so I'm enjoying your posts, but can't believe you are taking the time to do this on your honeymoon. :) At any rate, congrats to you and your wife!

Congratulations and enjoy your honeymoon.

As you talk to your fellow shipmates, if anyone of them mentions that that are in a studio cabin w/balcony Ask them what they think of it. I'm considering on one my next cruise.

Looking forward to your next posting.

This is brilliant! Thanks for doing it. Would love to do the tour, but it is so expensive, especially as there are four of us.

Thanks for a great review so far. I'm on the Anthem TA this fall and have booked the Prime Table for the first night as well. Do you recall if Prime Table also has the relaxed smart casual dress code on the first night the same as Grande does?

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How much was the All Access Tour? Can you book it in Cruise Planner?

How much was the All Access Tour? Can you book it in Cruise Planner?

It's been $150 per person, and bookable in advance.

It's been $150 per person, and bookable in advance.

Thanks for help! Have to check it when Activities for our cruise are bookable.

Thanks for a great review so far. I'm on the Anthem TA this fall and have booked the Prime Table for the first night as well. Do you recall if Prime Table also has the relaxed smart casual dress code on the first night the same as Grande does?

 

 

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Funny you mention. I wore a suit but debated on wearing the tie, I scrapped it because it was day 1. The other couple, the gentleman wore a tie but quickly removed his after I joked about how he made me look bad. So I guess the point is, people to dress up, but definitely are more casual.

To other questions -- yes, all access was $150 and is bookable in advance. Good sized crowd attended both sessions on the day we went.

As far as how crazy I am for blogging this, for what it's worth, we sent the link to our friends and family as well, so we're getting a lot of mileage out of this -- I don't have to tell the same stories to everyone over and over :)