dschultz56

I ordered a double Makers once and the bartender seemed kind of pissed when I gave him my Seapass with the Ultimate Drink package.

23!

We have done Canada/New England about 4-5 years at varying times (Late Sept, Early Oct, Late Oct). When the fall colors look the best is very hard to tell and even where. One year they looked great in Maine but no so much in Halifax and other Canada locations...and we went to Maine first. This year they were probably the best, but we had a lot of overcast days and the photo's didn't look as well. We are booked on Adventure in mid-Sept this year. We'll see how it goes. Regardless, it's a great cruise after a summer in Houston.

The free drinks whether we are in the DL or a lounge/bar.

I just did a redemption and originally put in yyyy and I got an error that it was just yy. Worked when I corrected it.

Everything at Jamie's was wonderful. Ate their three times when we were on Anthem last year. It was all very good.

We are just off Serenade. Cafe Lattetudes was generally open 6:30am-11pm. Par Cafe hours varied during the day depending on other venues that were open, whether it was a Sea or Port day, but was only each evening until midnight. Generally nothing other than Room Service available after midnight.

I change after dinner to something more casual. Like others suggested, I would take 1 suit and 2 shirts. If you change after dinner, you can easily wear the same suit another night or two if you want to dress up again.

Connoisseur Club on Voyager and Freedom class is wonderful. Wish it was fleet wide!

Connoisseur Club on Voyager and Freedom class is wonderful. I wish it was on the other classes of ships.

Same as others. Been below the pool deck on Liberty and several other ships and never heard noise from above.

Not in our experience of having a suite. The main door to access the cabins on the deck is closed until all cabins are ready.

Captain Johnny on Allure of the Seas is our favorite. We want to book him on Harmony as soon as we can figure out his schedule and sync it with ours.

Getting closer - 57

I have been trying to go to my payment screen for a cruise in 2017 and keep getting a screen that says, Sorry, Something went wrong. Same thing when trying to book a cruise by ship.

We had a couple of the enrichment talks on our New England/Canada cruise a few weeks ago. They were really good talks about the ports.

Hi could you tell me if its ok to take an iPad mini as your camera on the tour

As that's all I travel with now

 

Thanks for your feedback

Should be OK. Can only take pictures, no video. And no pictures of any security screening procedures before entering the engine control room or the bridge. Here is a link to ours from Mariner a few years ago so you know what to expect.

The last night of our recent Anthem New England/Canada cruise they had an event in Two-70 called Red - A High Performance Nightclub Experience. Definitely for the younger crowd. We went for a while, but the music was not from my days in nightclubs. But it was a great experience - incorporated the acrobatics, rings, etc. in the experience.

Short review of our recent 9 night Anthem of the Seas cruise to New England/Canada. This was our first time on Anthem, but we have been on 8 Royal Caribbean cruises in the past. We are in our mid-50’s, so little comments on the sport activities or flow rider.

First, the ship. The layout does take some getting used to. Most of our cruises have been on the Voyager and Freedom class of ships, so we are used to having a Royal Promenade as the focal point. The Quantum class is very different and it took us 1-2 days to get our bearings on where things were. But I still found myself at the wrong end of the ship more than once. But generally we were pleased with it toward the end.

Cruise director staff – fantastic. This was Abe’s last cruise on Anthem before he heads over to Harmony. His staff was great and we enjoyed the Bingo host and others.

Shows – also very good. We missed our reservation for The Gift, but We Will Rock You was fantastic. We also enjoyed Spectra’s Cabaret so much that we went Stand By on the last show and were able to see it again.

Two-70 – fantastic venue. Lots of different events and activities in this venue. Was really a great addition to the Quantum Class. We also enjoyed the Music Hall, too. Again, a very versatile room.

North Star – great to go up in this, but disappointed that it didn’t go side to side over the water as they show in the advertisements. We were told on this length of cruise they can only go up for 10 minutes in order to accommodate everyone (we were on a 9 day cruise – not sure what length of cruise allows for more time in the ride). They said going side-to-side takes 20 minutes and they could not get through all guests if they did this.

Royal IQ App – not accurate in dining reservation availability. We paid for the 5 night dining package and were supposed to arrange our other dining once on board. We found Jamie’s had no availability showing when we checked once on-board. Went by the restaurant and they had plenty of times available, even being able to accommodate us on the last night when we decided to go there again. Same story with Chops, but it did show some available times but more when you went to the restaurant and inquired in person.

Windjammer – only went there for breakfast. Usually crowded, but we always found seating toward the back of the ship.

Ports – First time for us out of Cape Liberty, but we’ve been to most of the ports before. We had booked a day in Cape Cod (along with about 100 other people) for the Boston destination but were told after all other groups had left the Theater that they were canceling because the bus overheated and they could not get another. I am not sure we got the full story on this. We instead went to Quincy market for shopping and lunch as all other tours had left or nothing was available. A big disappointment for us, but I know it’s out of their control.

Portland was a nasty cold and rainy day. I think we got the remnants of Michael for that day. We had booked a trip to Kennebunkport, including a boat ride around Walker Point. Glad we had raincoats as it was miserable. But had a great lunch of lobster rolls and Blueberry cobbler at Nonantum Resort.

Bar Harbor was a very windy day with winds out of the Northwest at 55-60 mph. Two cruise ships had bypassed Bar Harbor and we almost skipped it too. Tendering was such a challenge that they eventually canceled anyone leaving after noon. The Captain said during the Captain’s Corner that they had to manually keep the ship positioned as it was too windy for the dynamic positioning to be used to hold the ship. Winds had calmed down some in the afternoon. Chief Engineer said they burned over 3500 gallons of fuel that day.

Went on Whale Watching tour out of Saint John and actually saw several whales.

Most of the crew were also very good in terms of service, but we weren’t impressed with the group directing excursions. For the excursions, we were frequently moved from one line to another when leaving in the large groups of passengers on RCCL excursions. No one seemed to have clear directions of where we were to go on a couple of the days we were waiting to leave. One crew member would move you to one line and another would come behind and move you to another. Very disorganized disembarking the ship.

Another negative was the service in the complimentary dining rooms. The first night in the Grande we were never sure who our waiter was. We started with a supervisor who was helping out and then went to some assistant. We saw our waiter once when he asked for our dessert order. It was a little better the 2nd night we dined in Grande, but still not what we were accustomed to in the more traditional dining on other ships. We had much better interaction on other ships with the waiters and assistant waiters sharing their stories, where they were from, asking about your day, etc., but on Anthem is was just down to business – what do you want to order. We did the classic dynamic dining, with several nights in specialty restaurants. We had booked American Icon for 2 nights but after the poor service and pretty bland food on our first encounter, we changed to Solarium Bistro for the other night. Service in Chops and Jamie’s was top notch, but I am sure those are the more highly trained staff. We ended up going to Jamie’s 3 nights because the food and service was so great. But the main dining rooms were definitely a disappointment in terms of service.

Overall we did enjoy Anthem and would sail that class of ship again. Maybe the change back to more traditional dining will help the service in the complimentary dining rooms.

The PDFs will not load for some reason. If anyone would like the Compasses for my sailing (or the Kid's Club paperwork with the activities), please let me know your e-mail and I will forward to you.

I would like a copy of them. Please email to dschultz004@comcast (.) net.

We are on this same itinerary Oct 6. Do you have any of the cruises compasses you can share? TIA

I have emailed the special needs email address provided earlier on all of my RCCL cruises and the distilled water was always provided. The extension cord was hit or miss as being provided before hand, but was always provided after I asked the room steward for it.

We have been on Brilliance twice in the last 2 years - both New England Canada cruises. Both times we had great experiences with the crew - beautiful and well maintained ship. The layout takes some getting used to as the Voyager and Freedom classes are our favorites.

It is still misleading. I am on the page for Anthem and that shows up.