beardedladies

A lot of the complaints here are really due to factors affecting pretty much any cruise line of a comparable star rating to Royal - costs are going up massively and the cost of cruises simply aren't rising to meet that gap for a number of factors others have alluded to. It's a tricky time for cruise lines - they're desperately trying to start recovering from covid, but are meeting a load of other hurdles that are coming at a time when they simply don't have the room to absorb them like they once might. So something has to give. Really it doesn't matter much that it was Royal you travelled on - any other line would have shown similar problems right now. That said, I personally think Royal are cutting too far in some areas - with food being a major issue. The poor kitchens simply don't have the budget to produce something even halfway decent a lot of the time. This is something they really need to re-evaluate. It's most painfully obvious when it's formal night and you're all dressed up and served something that really doesn't warrant the effort you've gone to. My personal opinion is that I'm cutting the lines some slack this year. I'll give feedback where it's not performing as well as I think it should, but give them a bit of time to adapt to this "new normal". So my vote is to give Anthem another go next year. See if they've listened to your feedback. If not, as they'll have had over a year of running at full capacity at that point then you can fairly say it's more to do with how they want to operate rather than how they're forced to. If you give another line a go instead and find it's better, then you may be getting an erroneous impression as all lines by then will have had the time they need to recover to their normal operations.

No, status is only recognised after you've earned it, so on the next cruise.

On the other hand, if you contact Royal directly and upgrade your room at the prevailing rate you would get your double-double points. That may be a lot more than a typical royalup bid though!