Dave85

Lol, Dave I can totally picture your face saying this right now!:D

Lol :p

There was one Royal Night on night 2 I believe. The captain was available to take photos for an hour. No personal cameras allowed. I didn't go so don't know if they offered complimentary champagne or not. Not too big a deal is made of if on this ship.

They offered the complimentary champagne, but overall the event was totally forgettable.

That is very funny indeed! :D Don't get me wrong, I was definitely entertained by the show. But honestly, the "dude" who played Spectra himself kept coming right up to my mother-in-law and myself and peered through us with those intense eyes of his and scared the bejeebers out of both of us! :eek::o

LOL!!! Hilarious :D

I agree with you 100%!!!!! In fact, I might go so far as to say that once is TOO much for Spectra! :eek:;) No doubt there was a lot of talent and technology involved, but yikes...who thought that show up? :p

 

I loved Starwater though! It was "pretty" whether you understood it or not. Spectra was just....different...for my liking.

Hah that's funny, because we LOVED Spectra's! It was very much to our taste.

Dave, can you tell me what Tribute bands they had in the Music Hall?

 

 

 

Thanks

Beatlemaniacs were on board. I dislike bands so I generally avoided them. Rock the Boat seemed to have a big following too.

Food is sooooo subjective. :) We thought Silk was awful (and we LOVE Asian food); nothing tasted good. Oddly, we had the best service there of the "complimentary" venues where we ate.

 

 

 

American Icon ... totally indedible "Ruben [sic] sandwich" which the menu said was made with pastrami but was some sort of foul tasting meat. The candy bar dessert, however, was pretty good. Harried service at lunch, we decided not to try dinner there.

 

 

 

We did enjoy Devinly Decadence (to our great surprise, given the concept) --- breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The enchiladas were spectacular. Really flavorful. (Don't miss the brownies.)

I tried the reuben in the Windjammer because they spelled it properly on the sign up there, and although I didn't think it was inedible at all, it definitely was not a standard reuben that one would expect to get here in the states.

Service at Silk was excellent and they were clearly trying very hard. They asked us for feedback on various dishes we tried, which we provided. Service at American Icon was fine for dinner, slightly more rushed for lunch. Food was good both times.

Sorry to hear about your dining experience in The Grande. We will be on Anthem next year on 3 different cruises.In which restaurant did you have the best experience?

Devinly Decadence was outstanding, and we also really enjoyed Chic. Silk has a great menu if you like Asian food (variety of types), and American Icon was also solid too.

Sorry for the technical questions - but do they make everyone go to their rooms to wait for the alarm? I was thinking as long as we know in advance where our drill location will be' date=' we can make our way down (near) there early.[/quote']

 

 

No worries. You can go ahead of time but you need to make sure the crew members at the door scan your cards so they know you attended. That's all.

Is it printed on the WOW band?

Yes

Mostly Spice for late night dancing and occasionally Skyline Bar off of the casino.

 

Tracy

Thanks Tracy, sounds good to me.

Thanks - do they still make you use the steps to get to muster location? We are on deck 7 and hubby has bad knees....

Yes, but if you need to use an elevator due to physical issues just tell the staff.

I'm sure it will vary by night, but we were all dressed up with tux and cocktail dress, and few people we saw were dressed appropriately which was a disappointment. Some wore jeans, even saw a lady in long shorts and sneakers. My advice is do what you want but don't feel pressured to super duper dress up if it's not your thing. On a side note, this was the worst restaurant we dined it, truly dismal service and food and we cancelled the second reservation we had even though we had a tux in our cabin ready for use. I hope your experience will be better. On a positive note, it's a truly beautiful dining room, the prettiest on board.

Agreed -- we had the same experience on the same sailing.

 

We had Dynamic Dining and ate in The Grande between 5:30 and 5:45 all three times we dined there. We were always immediately seated at a table for two, usually near a window, each time as well. The area we were seated was never full since they just opened, but whenever we left (usually less than an hour later) the place was filling up and there was a long line outside waiting to get in.

 

My guess is that as the evening wore on they got more crowded, more overwhelmed, and hence more hurried and hap-hazard (and the lobster in turn became over-cooked). Our lobster (all three times, for both myself and my mother-in-law) was cooked to perfection and the server always removed it from the shell, and placed the shell on a bread dish out of the way. We had similar experiences in all the restaurants, but we dined every night between 5:30 and 6:00.

 

Bonnie, that must be it -- you eat extremely early, right when the restaurant is opening. We started every dinner between 8-8:30. By that point, The Grande was churning out poor food and the servers were running around all frazzled, creating a scene reminiscent of something between a track meet and a football game. Shockingly, this wasn't an issue in any of the other restaurants....... hmm, sounds like a management issue to me!

Unfortuantely, the majority of cruisers don't eat as early as you/Bonnie, so they really to get their act together in The Grande. I said as much in my online survey.

How and where was the muster drill?I haven't cruised in 5 years' date=' and I have heard they don't corral you like a heard of cows outside anymore with your life vest on - true?[/quote']

 

Correct, muster drills on Anthem are in the various large lounges / restaurants around the ship. All indoor and no need to wear life jackets like in the bad ol' days. ;)

We saw lots of folks on Anthem using their free drinks in the bars throughout the ship in the evening. You don't even need to ask they will accommodate you no problem.

Yep, and we had an excellent experience using the free drinks throughout the ship. The bartenders on Anthem were happy to accommodate.

The Diamond Lounge was absolutely MOBBED on our sailing, 900+ D and above! :eek:

We've now done both and the Anthem was simply a cut above. We had a blast on the Breakaway and would sail her again if the price was right, but the food in the included restaurants on Breakaway wasn't very good, whereas it was very good on the Anthem. Anthem also had more diverse entertainment, as well as two indoor pool areas for the cold weather days. Breakaway has none unless you've in the Haven.

All in all, Anthem gets the nod from us, even at a reasonably higher price point.

Sorry if I missed this (was cruising the last 12 days), but for the folks returning, what are they using as a DJ dance club at night since starting service in the Caribbean? Is it just Spice H20, or are they using any indoor venues?

We were on the Anthem TA. Wi fi worked great in all public areas, but not in our cabin. The IT guy told me there's a router for every five cabins (hence you can be in a bad spot), and then told me to "step out in the hall." :rolleyes: They gave us 20% back on our internet package (unasked).

Makes sense, I bet our cabin was in a dead zone. Oh well -- I don't spend a lot of time on the internet while on vacation.

And were people actually on line to buy them?

 

I'd certainly try them if they were free, but my Cruise Critic lanyard and hole in the normal card has worked fine up to now, and I'm sure it will continue to.

Yes, there were people waiting on line to buy them in the hours following embarkation. Very short to no lines by the first evening.

Do u think kids would enjoy this show ? They are 8 and 10

I have no idea, I'm sorry (don't have kids).

Just got off the same cruise. 4 of us shared a sign-on, and we had no problems at all. Great speed in virtually all areas of the ship, including our cabins. We used an iPad, Galaxy Tab and Android phones. Never a problem.

 

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Hmm, odd. I was watching almost all of Kcjarvis' periscopes, which all had great connections.

 

 

 

VOOM was great on Oasis, too.

How odd! VOOM worked great for us on Oasis too in May, no issues. We had issues with both my iPad Air and my wife's droid something-or-other phone. Maybe we were just unlucky and our cabin was in a dead zone between routers or something.

What activities went on during the 3 days down & 3 up in the chilly weather.

Only one day was chilly in each direction. Full slate of activities in the SeaPlex, various trivia contests, bingo, etc., and keep in mind that there are two indoor pool areas that were very heavily used.

And by contrast, we just had 3 marvelous dinners in The Grande! ;) Food was cooked to perfection and service was swift and efficient! We had no true complaints in any of the other restaurants we dined in either. For us, the best meal of all was last night in Devinly Decadence! I wish we had not waited until the last night to eat there! It was yummy! My favorite dessert the entire 12 days was that wickedly decadent Icon Candy Bar in American Icon (we had it served with vanilla ice cream as the "antidote" to all that rich sweetness). I actually told my waiter in The Grande one night that I wish I could have the Icon Candy Bar for dessert for that meal and darned if he didn't bring me one, along with my favorite Grande dessert (the Key Lime Tart).

 

Oh boo hoo! Now I am craving cruise food and am sitting here eating a container of greek yogurt! Poor me! :o;)

Just goes to show how you can sail on the same ship for 12 days and have polar opposite experiences! I'll be telling RCI what I thought about The Grande when I complete the survey in a few minutes.

We definitely agree about Devinly Decadence, however. Outstanding! We ate there twice and both times had the surf and turf lobster tails and filet mignon, and it was delicious both times. Unlike our lobster in the Grande, which was overcooked to the point of being nearly inedible, the lobster at DD was cooked to perfection and the steak was perfectly seasoned. I almost wished we ate there more than two nights!

Otherwise, we enjoyed the food (and menu overall) at Chic the second most.

We got off Anthem today and found the WiFi to be spotty for the entirety of our cruise, both in cabin and around the ship. When it worked it was nice, but it wasn't always working. We decided that VOOM should be renamed MAYBE -- maybe it'll work, maybe it won't! RCI, get on that new marketing. ;)

Seems that the WiFi issues are contagious if they're now affecting the cruise terminal. I must say our check in for the November 10 cruise, once we got past a 20 minute wait driving up to the pier, was simply flawless and definitely our fastest check in ever.

Was the Gift in Two70 or the theater?

Theater. Spectra's Cabaret is in 270 and we thought it was outstanding.