NewSalt

No suggestions but the idea of your lovely surprise brought a tear to my eye.

A little late to the party, but when I booked our first Anthem cruise, I didn’t tell DH how big the ship was because he hates large ships. It was his favorite ship. It was very well laid out, and as others have said, other than breakfast at Windjammer, never felt crowded.

When DD's in-laws returned from a cruise a couple of years ago, they told of seeing someone in the Windjammer filling a coffee mug with smoked salmon every morning. By the end of the cruise, they had run out of smoked salmon. We sailed on the same ship a couple of weeks later, and it was only available on request.

I still can't figure out what you would do with that much lox.

The comment about a 20% tip confused me. Twenty percent of what? The cruise fare? An $800 tip for a two-person cruise of $2,000 each seems a tad extravagant.

We've sailed on other cruise lines but not RSS. Two things we found handy were a retractable lanyard ID case for a sea pass card and luggage tag holders.

A friend has just her first cruise ever and it's on RSS. I'd like to get her a small bin voyage gift. Are these items things that would be useful on RSS?

I've never been very bothered about who is cruise director but we recently had Clo on the Brilliance TA and now I know why people care. She was outstanding, friendly, funny and always out and about around the ship talking to the passengers. We even got up to do the 8am walk a mile every day because she made it such fun.

 

Julie

This is exactly how I felt. I never understood the threads about favorite CD's because none of them made an impression on my. I couldn't even tell you the name of one we had. But our last cruise with Clo showed me how good a CD can be. Loved her morning walks.

As others have said, morning coffee in my pj's, especially as we near a port, especially Bermuda. Watching the pilot ship pull up to our ship. Watching shooting stars late at night with a glass of wine.

When we cruise with DD and DSIL, we get connecting rooms, or at least balconies, so we can babysit while they get a rare night off to catch a show or some music. More often than not, they prefer to sit on the balcony with a drink and some hors d'oeuvres and watch the reflection of the moon on the water.

My least favorite thing is watching our return port come into view. 😕

I feel a little bit like Typhoid Mary. After talking about doing it for a few years, last week I finally made plans to spend some time in the Florida Keys next year before our February cruise AND booked a cruise for next summer to St, Martin, among other places. Just a few days ago, DD and I were talking about how much we were looking forward to re-visiting one of our favorite beaches.

Of course, we'll be disappointed if we can't, but that's completely a third-world problem compared to what the unfortunate people on those devastated islands are facing. My heart breaks when I think of how little so many of those lovely people have and now they've lost even that. And they'll also face a loss of income for quite some time until tourism returns to normal. On several of the tours we've taken in the Caribbean, the tour guide has pointed out damage from hurricanes that happened years before.

But I do find it a little humorous, in a gallows-type way, that every communication I've seen from the cruise lines regarding cruises that are being extended have mentioned reduced alcohol prices as the first item being offered at a reduced rate. Priorities, people!

?

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No Such thing as "Dairy Free Cheese".

Tell your friend to "man-up" for the week........

Congratulations for winning the "Most Ignorant Post of the Year" award.

Or should I have told my DGS at age 3 to just "man up" when he was served bread that had dairy, despite being assured that it did not and had an anaphylactic reaction? Instead of having his father plead with him to " stay with me" and not die should he have said " Just shake it off?"

It's amazing how people feel free to pontificate about things when they absolutely no idea what they're talking about. Of course, the alternative theory is that they are lacking in all human compassion. I'm not sure which category you fall into.

ALLERGIES ARE LIFE-THREATENING CONDITIONS.

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I live in Florida and don't cruise during the height of hurricane season (anymore, I did cruise in Sept. once).

 

 

 

However, whenever I see a post asking "should I book a cruise in August, September? I hear it's hurricane season?" all I read on Cruise Critic is "of course, cruise lines stay away from hurricanes, nothing will happen." I think this does a disservice to those who don't know any better. Airports can close. Cruise ports can close. And cruise companies will protect their bottom line first and you will come second. That's never mentioned to those who ask. And if everything does go well and the hurricane doesn't hit your port or your itinerary, they are never told you'll spend at least a week stressing out whether your cruise is a go or not, or whether you can get to the port or not.

 

 

 

Those rates are cheaper for a reason.

Oddly enough, the Anthem cruise I booked for next summer was slightly higher for an August sailings than the July one I booked. That's never been true before. Go figure.

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I'm reading your thread we're sailing on Serenade in February, and, as you said, there are relatively few reviews of this ship. I really wasn't interested in this part of the world.

But your pictures have captivated me, and this cruise is now on my bucket list. Looking forward to reading more.

Yes it is what things have come to

 

"if you don't do it my way, you are wrong"

 

Seems to be the prevailing attitude.

 

Sad isn't it.

That was I read in those posts myself.

We often travel after our cruise, and I really appreciate being able to start on the next part of our adventure without searching out a laundromat to have clean clothes without packing a steamer trunk.

There is no way I'm trusting my clothes to a commercial laundry with their harsh detergents and hot water/dryer, even if I've reached diamond status and don't have to pay for laundry. I pay a lot of money for my undergarments, and they are washed in a lingerie bag and never see a dryer. My knits are also hung to dry. And I'm very careful with pre-treating spots. If a little of that Madeira sauce has hit some clothes, I don't want them going into a dryer and the stain becoming a permanent part of the clothing.

It takes a couple of minutes to throw a load of wash in the washer, go back to the cabin and sit on the balcony with a good book and a glass of wine, another few minutes to switch it to the dryer/put my clothes on hangers, another chapter and glass of wine, and my laundry is done and can be folded. I don't wash clothes by hand in a sink at home; that's surely not happening on my vacation.

The coin laundry and the coffee card are two reasons why we choose Princess over RCI if all others options are fairly similar.

We've done the 9-day on Anthem with our two DGSs, who are now 7 and 4, for the last three years. As pointed out, the timing in San Juan leaves a lot to be desired. We were there from 7:00 to 1:00. You dock several hours before the shops open and don't really have much time to do anything. On our last cruise, everyone else stayed on board and enjoyed the lack of crowds, while I hit a great sale at Ralph Lauren😄. The boys love Labadee and you get to spend a good amount of time there and not feel rushed.

But if I had the choice, I'd do the twelve day. I know our DGSs would be over the moon to have three more days on "The Big Ship."

We booked mid- or late January for our March 5 Anthem cruise. We had vouchers for two specialty dinners but were told that because of the vouchers we couldn't make dinner reservations until we were on board.

As soon as we boarded we went to the maitre d' and booked our preferred time for dinner. We had been told the earliest time available was 8:30 when we booked the cruise; we got the 5:30 we wanted.

We figured out our schedule and decided when we wanted to do each activity. We booked Chops, Jamie's, Spectre's Cabaret, and the North Star on the app and got pretty much what we wanted when we wanted it. North Star in the early evening in San Juan was spectacular. The only thing we couldn't get was a clam shell in Cocoa Cay, but we found they weren't really necessary. We were fine with loungers and an umbrella.

And our cruise was fully booked.

Hope your cruise is as wonderful as ours was.

P.S. The only thing I'd be diligent about is lining up for tender tickets on Cocoa Cay morning.

Sorry. First time using the new app, and I obviously am far from mastering it.

Shellster, I'm so sorry you experienced such poor treatment at such a difficult time. I would have been beyond furious, but it seems that your DM was able to focus on the positives of sailing with a beloved grandchild.

From our experience, Disney is great at what they do every day, but there's some corporate mindset that prevents them from handing less ordinary situations with even normal compassion and kindness.

Three years ago, we visited WDW with our DGSs, 3 years and 4 months, respectively. DGS3 has several severe food allergies, which we noted on our reservations, every time we made a dining reservation, when we checked into each restaurant, and repeated again to our server. Despite this, he was served a food containing one of his allergens. He began to go into anaphylaxis, and had to be given his EpiPen and transported by ambulance to the hospital. Because the baby could not be secured in the ambulance, DD, her infant, DH, and I had to wait for alternate transportation while DSIL accompanied DGS to the hospital. They escorted us outside to wait for a car to take us to the hospital IMO because they did not want other customers to witness our obvious distress. (Gotta keep the magic going.). Outside, for 30+ minutes in 95+ heat, next to the dumpsters of a seafood restaurant. Once at the hospital, we were on our own to get back to the hotel (since we were staying on-site, we hadn't rented a car) and getting the prescriptions for the meds he needed after the incident.

Afterward, no one from Disney contacted us to see if DGS was all right or if we needed any assistance. When we asked at our hotel for contact information, they refused to give us anything except the generic WDW email address.

Considering that their carelessness had almost cost DGS his life, I found their behavior unbelievable.

We've sailed twice on Celebrity and three times on RCI with DGS. They both have far exceeded our expectations on accommodating allergies, and they've done so with so much kindness that I've been brought to tears more than once. I once priced a DL cruise that most closely matched the RCI one we had planned, just as a matter of curiosity since I don't plan to give them another shot at harming DGS, especially hundreds of miles from land and a hospital. Our $8,000 cruise would have been $18,000 on Disney. No thanks.

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I'll just be totally honest here: I wouldn't go on another Disney cruise if you paid me:

 

1) They treated my disabled mother terribly. This alone makes me hate them.

 

2) We didn't book a year in advance, therefore we had late dining. Tell me, what 3 year old eats dinner at 8:30pm? Why is that even an option on a DISNEY cruise? I get it, they cannot accommodate everyone at the same time. Fine. BUT....for all us losers that booked late, the buffet turned into this cheesy sit-down restaurant with very few options. It was horrible. So basically, we were forced to skip dinner.

 

3) I love kids, even those that are not mine...but truth be told, there's way too many on Disney. Obviously. It's bad enough I have to go to D-land/D-world every year for my son's benefit. However, I'm on vacation, too. I want some kind of break from all the little rugrats.

 

4) It's way cheesy how they announce the family names. Do they still do that? Gimme a break.

 

5) The character dance parties are great, but again...God help your pre-schooler from the other kids knocking them over. It was every man/kid himself at those "parties".

 

6) Service was horrible.

 

7) They treated my mom horribly. Yes, I mentioned this. This is personal...but she had a terminal illness, had to bring on board with her an O2 concentrator, had trouble with mobility, had a lot of meds, weighed about 90 pounds, etc..The bad treatment began the first day: I had to INSIST on disability boarding. I should not have had to do that. Believe me, it was obvious she needed it. It just got worse from there. Anyway, it has stuck with me these past few years. I'll never go back on their ships. I loved her so much. It kills me they treated her that way.

 

8) Plus they are crazy expensive. Total rip-off.

 

Ok, I'm done with my rant. Feels good to get that out!

 

Happy for everyone that loves them. Seriously. To each his own!:)

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Great info - thank you. We'll be sailing with our 3-year-old in a few weeks. Wondering how he was recieved at Wonderland? Seems they used to not allow children, but appear to be ok with them now.

Also, where did your son sleep? We have a similar stateroom and I'm not sure if it will make most sense to try to get him to sleep on the sofa, or if we should just give up and accept that he'll be sleeping in the main bed with us.

DD has the steward flip the couch to face the wall, and DGS loved sleeping that way.

You can take food out of Windjammer, Solarium Cafe, Park Cafe, etc. I've not seen trays at these places, so that part might be tricky.

Order a small continental breakfast the first morning and hide the tray in the closet. ;p

OP, I'm taking cold mess, and when I read your review, I thought I had written it in a drug-induced stupor.

We were on your cruise, and you put our opinions into words. I, too, never realized how much difference a CD could make. Her monologue at the Welcome Aboard show was better than some professionals. She was all over the ship and funny and charming every time you saw her.

on our last cruise, we were chatting with a woman whose DH was in the casino. She commented that "You can't lose money in a cruise ship casino," mentioning that he had won their current cruise on a previous one.

As someone who never even gets her change back when using a vending machine, I was somewhat taken aback by this comment. I've read that the odds are very firmly on the house's side in land-based casinos. Is it different on board?

My experience was much like Bigque's above. I found CC two weeks before we took our first cruise, which was on the Celebrity Summit. After reading the reviews, I was sick. She was old, tired, rusty, with gross, disgusting food.

I still remember how my jaw dropped when we boarded and I walked into the atrium. Elegantly gorgeous. I did find a little rust here and there, but it's a ship that sails on salt water. Rust happens, but I never saw more than a small spot. And the food was pretty darned good.

We just got off the Anthem, and it was a great trip with nothing I could complain of. The idea of posting a review crossed my mind, but I really didn't think another "Great ship, great service, good food" review would add much to the board so I decided not to bother. (Although we loved Jaimie's and our waiter, Pietro, so much that I may just start a thread on that.). However, if I had had a problem that wasn't resolved, I would have been much more motivated to vent about it.

Just human nature.

We were only able to get late traditional seating for our upcoming Anthem cruise. Both early and MTD were "closed", meaning no wait lists. We are hoping to change to early, or MTD with a standing early reservation, once we are onboard.

The ONLY reservation for MTD we could get for our Anthem cruise last week was 8:45, too late for us. As soon as we got on board, I went directly to the restaurant and was able to get an earlier time, one that suited us perfectly.

New Amsterdam is under $20 for 1.75 l. What's next? Kirkland's?

I am on this ship next week 19-26, does anyone know if I have a arrival time of 1-1:30 can I show up earlier and board the ship??

I've never seen anyone turned away for being early, and the back-up getting to the ship can be very long, so I'd give it a try. Our travel companions were at least an hour early for our 11:00 a.m. Boarding time last week and had no problem getting on immediately.