Dave85

Thanks for your tips OP. The one thing that really drove us nuts on our first BA cruise was the insanity at the buffet at breakfast time. I really wish we knew about the smaller buffet at Moderno! We'll definitely check it out when we're back on BA in May.

Awesome! Looking forward to your review! :)

Bon voyage Radio! Hope you have smooth seas.

RCI's been doing the coupons on the sea pass cards for Diamonds and up for at least two years now with great success... Defies logic that X is handing out paper coupons. My parents are currently on Eclipse and were very surprised to see the coupons. I guess they haven't been used on any of their previous X cruises.

While I'm disappointed that I didn't personally get to experience and over-the-side ride, I'm glad to hear that they're being offered again at least part of the time. It was such a shame to not take advantage of that unique feature... the going up and down was cool, but the swinging over the side of the ship is truly iconic, as depicted at the top of the daily Cruise Compass and on the Sea Pass cards! Hopefully I'll get to do it whenever we next return to Anthem.

I will be taking 12 day in February out of New Jersey and was wondering when it will start to warm up (2 sea days) going and when we will get cold weather coming back (3 sea days). I am trying to keep heavy clothing to a minimum but don't want to be cold. Thanks.

With the 12 night itinerary, I would feel comfortable planning for 2 cold days going down and 2 cold days coming back in the middle of winter, just to be on the safe side. I haven't done the 12-night in February, but that's how I'd pack. Hopefully you won't have 2 full cold days in either direction but it's tough to predict.

Loved the Breakaway - Anthem anecdote. Lol. I got a good chuckle, although I realize the pounding bass might not have been funny for you at the time. :p We also did BA in 2014 and AN in 2015, and Breakaway had an active and vibrant nightlife befitting the city from which it sails. AN was much quieter, although it was a 12-night cruise, which undoubtedly played a big part in that. Looking forward to returning to BA in May!

Wonderful review! Thanks for sharing. I look forward to reading the rest.

We stay on in Nassau and Jamaica. It's lovely to have a day where it's nice and quiet on the ship and you can get a seat right next to the pool without having to wake up super early or get insanely lucky! I've noticed that more and more people seem to be staying on in Nassau in recent years... I'd say that I want the cruise lines to ditch Nassau, but I actually enjoy the empty ship and the opportunity to see some other ships in port.

Very disappointing. I understand the safety reasons. Still--Not fun. Wish we could've gotten a day in there.

That is definitely a bummer. We made it in when we went last November and had a lovely day. Unfortunately, it's a really lousy itinerary without GSC... and the fact that BA only seems to make it in about half the time makes me reluctant to book that itinerary again.

Have they finally gone mad? $1500 NYE seats, near-doubled drinks prices, more and more surcharges by the week... This is all going to implode at some point, someone at RCI is going crazy with the onboard revenue and needs to remember quickly that not everyone who cruises with them can afford this.

I agree with you, but keep in mind they don't need "everyone who cruises when them" to afford such nonsense. Even if only a few couples decide to bite the bullet and pay $1,000 each to celebrate in 270, RCI's made several thousand dollars more than they would have made otherwise... That's a win for them.

Just insane. I've done some NYE cruises on RCI (going back a number of years) and Carnival, and vowed to never do another one because the "privilege" of paying a premium to sail on a ship packed to the gills (and with 1,000+ children) simply doesn't appeal to us. Now this nonsense? No thanks.

But, as others have correctly stated, the cruise lines will continue to charge if people will pay... they are in business to make a profit after all!

I wonder why the bumper cars were not open more? It bothers me when they have limited hours on their special events! The "exciting" areas should be open most of the time. (IMO)

I don't know if this is the reason or not, but having watched the process twice I can tell you that it takes the staff a considerable amount of time and effort to set up for the bumper cars. I was surprised by that. It isn't just a matter of driving the cars into the floor. That would be my guess as to why they don't run more frequently.

We are going on our first NCL cruise next October, and we switched from RCL because they are too expensive and NCL seems reasonable. Got a AFT giant balcony suite 7 days for LESS than what RCL charged for 5 days, Bermuda I should have mentioned. Plus we got the drink package which is insane. We hope to make NCL our main cruise line. We'll see what NCL is all about in October.

I hear ya. I really enjoy RCI and loved my cruise last month on Anthem, but they're becoming a poor value proposition as the only line I consider at the moment that is raising their prices without adding any inclusions (such as a beverage package). As I see it, all the lines are raising their prices, but if I'm paying a higher base fare I'd like to at least get a beverage package thrown in rather than just paying more for nothing... NCL still looks like a solid value for me, and I look forward to sailing Breakaway in May. Heck, I got an included UBP and four specially dinners for close to the same price as an Anthem 7 night sailing a few days later that included nothing. Anthem is a cooler ship with some mind-blowing features, but I've sailed her now and we had a blast last time on the BA!

The surf and turf was inedible by the 12/12 sailing. The "lobster tails" (I use quotes because they were more like prawns they were so tiny) were so over cooked they were like rubber. The beef was just gross and they covered it with brown gravy to hide the fact that it sucked

Interesting, sounds like a completely different dish. The filet wasn't covered in anything on our sailing! The tails were cooked properly and were usual cruise sized tails.

We had an issue with gross overcooked lobster tails in The Grande though. Not good.

My $.02 is that the comparative length of Quantum cruises (shorter) versus Anthem cruises (longer) creates a unique problem for Quantum passengers trying to do so much in so little time. Not an issue on most Anthem sailings. Only time will tell if crowd control is the real reason for imposing this new charge on Quantum... If it also shows up on Anthem, you'll know its nonsense.

I've been mulling booking another Anthem cruise when the next set of bookings open in the next 2-3 months, but will probably look elsewhere if they start charging for North Star and iFly. The RCI value proposition is already taking a hit with their high base prices and refusal to include anything with the high base price like most of their competition here in the U.S...

Devinly was excellent for dinner on the November 10th sailing, and we ate there twice and enjoyed the delicious surf and turf both times. It was not empty, and, in fact, once word quickly got out about how good it was it became difficult to get in for the rest of the cruise.

This news is very disappointing. I wonder if it will remain as an included venue for dinner...

Thank you so much for your review. I'm very pleased and excited about Celebrity's new entertainment direction and I look forward to experiencing it for myself on Reflection next year!

Thanks for the review -- the new approach to entertainment sounds GREAT to us! We did our Honeymoon on Silhouette a couple of years ago and the one major thing that was missing for us was entertainment. Celebrity will be more competitive for our cruising dollars if they can modernize their entertainment!

Hi LrgPizza thank you so much for that!!

Would you say there's anywhere with like a kind of club atmosphere?

Like drinking, dancing and like top 40/hip hop/dance music?

Is howl at the moon mainly rock and roll/piano type music all night?

 

Thanks!!

Howl is a lively piano bar / singing type experience with multiple performers. It's not a club with a DJ or place to dance. The latter is what we look for at night, and we only lasted in Howl on Breakaway for about an hour because we were bored.

One of the things that made my switch my Escape cruise back to Breakaway was the lack of appealing (to me) nightlife options. We loved hanging out at Fat Cats Jazz & Blues Club on the Breakaway, and then going dancing in Bliss late night. Both are missing from Escape. Yes, Bliss is small on Breakaway, but the DJ was great on my Breakaway cruise and it was packed every night -- which was undoubtedly easier to accomplish given its small size haha.

I don't understand why MSC would match Royal Caribbean Diamond.

They're trying anything they can to poach customers in a market where they don't have a historical presence... It's not rocket science. If such a small incentive earns them a new customer then they've won.

I like this idea and wish more people would use this route than going for the jugular so often in difficult situations.... (I am NOT saying the OP has done that...so don't attack)

I'd ordinarily agree with this as well, but in this case X has made it petty darn clear that they are not going to do anything for him and that while they're so so sorry, he should just go away. At the point, I think there's merit to the "going for the jugular" approach.

Never really felt compelled to try MSC, but Seaside looks like something else. I'll probably take a wait and see approach and see how the early reviews are before pulling the trigger. The status match is quite nice though!

I'm also interested in trying Virgin Cruises in a few years when they start operations. Can't wait to hear more details on what they come up with.

My wife and myself just returned from a X cruise on the Reflection. I can say they are defiantly leaning to the younger crowd. A lot of entertainment was shadow dancing, club beat music and the twenty something club scene. One night it was erotic shadow dancing in the Martini bar, another is was called risque dancing and 21 and over in the wine bar. You could tell they were trying to pull in the young club scene. All in all I had a good time but the getting drunk and jumping around to music that is not music but a thump thump drum beat is not my scene. If it were not for my family that went with us, that has informed us of all the pit falls to watch for I would be very unhappy. From Jamaica being a dump of a country where the people run you back to the boat due to their constant hawking to asking you if you want to buy every kind of drug and do you want to party. Some of the eastern European and Asian staff were very rude. Most of the staff was if anything overly friendly as you could tell they were instructed to no let you pass without asking how your day was or good morning.

Okay I'll bite: what on earth is "erotic shadow dancing?"

Little more background why I would not take a cab...

Last time I cruise out of Florida I used a cab from Port Everglades to FLL the cab ride was just over $20 and all I had was 2 $20's and driver just shrugged his shoulders and said I don't have change and walked away and left. Also had bad local experiences here at home and other locations not just Florida, so I told myself after that no more cabs for me.

Ugh, the cabs in Fort Lauderdale are THE ABSOLUTE WORST. Hands down. I live in NYC and have taken many cabs here, and still haven't had as many poor cab experiences as I have had in Fort Lauderdale, which I only visit occasionally for short pre-cruise stays.

Vent over, back to the review. :)