novicetraveller

So I had some of my clothes sent to laundry service a few days back and got them returned in the afternoon of when we were in St Maarten. I didn't get around to opening the laundry due to being a bit busy.

I have opened the laundry bag to find that I am missing all of the shirts that I had sent off for washing. And all the underwear that have been returned have not been tagged. On all the cruises I have been on, the clothes have been tagged with my room number. I am wondering why I haven't received my shirts back. I will go and speak to guest services to get an answer, but suffice to say, I am not happy, especially as I have been charged the amount that I have been.

I am back on board the ship from my visit to Martinique. Whilst there are some great excursions via RCI, doing a private tour on your own or in a small group is so much more enjoyable. We went to the Volcano, botanical gardens, the village that was destroyed by the volcano around 100 years ago and a couple of churches. More info to follow later. Just need to decide what to do tomorrow in Barbados.

I get it, same ole, same ole...

How is the ship so far? It it living up to expectations (and hopefully those expectations were good)?

Where to tomorrow?

 

 

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To be honest? After hearing all the negative remarks about the Anthem, I decided to go with no expectations at all. There were one or two niggles, but not worth shouting about. So far, I'm happy enough with what I have seen. In general, the staff are good. Only had one problem with a bar staff giving me someone else seapass card during the headliner act, but was fortunate enough to meet the people who had my seapass card whilst in the queue. I would have been annoyed if RCI didn't provide a new card, but won't be able to tell you that tale.

We are off to Martinique today. Arrival time around 9am and return by 5:30pm. I am on a private excursion with 2 other Cruisecritic members from a site I am not sure I am allowed to provide a link to, but will provide some details in my post-cruise review, providing we make it back on time to the ship.

Quick review of today. We docked into St Maarten today at 9am and departed at 5:30pm. I've been to this island a few times and to the beach at least once before. So today I could have stayed on the ship, or go and photograph the planes that were landing into the airport. I abandoned the idea of going to the Butterfly Farm as I couldn't justify the Taxi fare to take me there from the beach and from there to the port.

I don't dislike St Maartin, but I wouldn't do a tour unless it was one that smacked me in the face and said to me "Just do it!", so it was a case of going down to Maho Beach and took a few landscape shots (see above) and a few Aeroplane shots (see below).

For those who have never been to St Maarten, or have been to St Maarten, but not the Maho beach, yes, they are that close. :)

It has been a pretty much uneventful day to be honest. I came back to the ship after 4 hours being on shore. I spent some of the free time sitting on my Balcony looking at the glass panels and listening to the birds squawking. St Maartin is a lovely place to visit if you haven't been there before.

Pardon me if my review of the island isn't great, it's not as bad as I am making out.

Some images have been posted on my cruise diary on that well known social media site.

If I have time, I will write a review with a couple of images on here later. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day and I hope I don't get left behind. :o

Ok, quick review of yesterday.

Yesterday was San Juan day, well half day to be fair. I decided at the last minute to take a RCI excursion to Old and New San Juan. I saw it went to the Fort.

The Fort was the main reason for getting off the ship. I could have gone on my own, hired a taxi, walked or taken the cruise excursion. The weather wasn't great in San Juan where it was raining on and off all afternoon.

Was the excursion worth the money? For a guided tour, probably. I don't know if there are cheaper ones available, but for a mass transporting offering it does the job.

Last night's Headliner act was one of the best I have seen on an RCI ship.

Today we are heading to Sint Maarten. I plan to take a taxi to the beach and then to butterfly place and back to the ship. Don't plan to do much today in Saint Maarten.

What he actually did was give a non-answer. He basically said there are no current changes, not that there weren't going to be in the future or any plans to. It was a very carefully worded answer. I looked at DH and said "well, that was a non-answer". The person who asked the question, let it go at that and didn't pursue a more specific question.

Technically it was am answer, but not the one you were expecting. ;)

Those questions were asked at the Captain 's Corner on last week sailing 4/8 and the HD responded and gave no indication of any changes. I guess it's a hush-hush thing right now. Maybe they 'll give us a little more information on current sailing and maybe not.

I suspect that whoever I ask, I will get conflicting / contradicting answers and it will result in he said / she said and my contact is high up in RCI debate. So any info I may be able to provide will need to be taken with a huge pinch of salt.

OMG You made me laugh. It looks like a martini glass with a blue rim & base.

I will see what I can do. As always with requests, I can only complete if the opportunity presents itself.

My original plan today in San Juan was to go to the fort via Taxi and spend a few hours there photographing. However, earlier today I decided to do the Old and New San Juan tour. A lot of it was informative, but my specific objective was to go to the old fort to take some photos. 40 minutes at the port isn't enough, but with the weather changing all the time during the day, I don't know if I would have had a better opportunity to get some snaps.

Had dinner in Windjammer. Didn't realise they had a Mongolian corner. I've fallen in love with Windjammer at last.

Went to the Royal Theatre to watch another headliner act. This is the act that was on tonight - http://donovanandrebecca.com/DONOVAN_AND_REBECCA/index.html. I thorougly enjoyed it, as this type of artistry is my type of thing. It may not suit everyone, but for me, it was the perfect end to the day.

The weather wasn't great today, sadly. I'm hoping the whole cruise isn't going to be jinxed by the bad weather. Tomorrow is Sint Marteen. Nothing booked, so may go to the beach in the afternoon and to the Butterfly place to take a few shots.

i was wondering if you could take a clear picture of the specialty coffee menue in 270 cafe.

If I make a visit to 270 during the day, I'll try and remember to do so.

How was the Internet and is it worth prepaying for it.

The internet is good. Some occasional glitches which were fixed by disabling and re-enabling wireless on the laptop and the phone. There were occassional slowdown in connection, but I can only assume people were either facetiming, skyping, Whatsapping, etc. etc. at around the same time. Other than that, uploading hi-res images to my Flickr stream, Facebook and writing my blog entry simultaneously appeared effortless most of the time.

Was it worth pre-paying for? As I can't remember if I am entitled to a discount if I booked it online, I say it's worth getting the internet, whether it's in advance or on the ship. The good thing is that for as long as there is internet activity, you won't get disconnected.

One more question, this about the Meet and Mingle. Were there any refreshments?

 

Thanks

 

Roy

The usual light refreshments were available. Nothing to boast about.

While you're on the cruise can you conduct a casual investigation to confirm any of the following: menu changes coming and if so, when?

Dynamic Dining leaving (or changing)!and if so, when?

Thank you in advance. Love your review! Enjoy your cruise!

 

 

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If I am able to make the Captains Corner on this cruise, I will try and ask. I am supposed to be on Dynamic Dining, but I am avoiding it as I was booked in on the 2nd seating which I didn't want due to my medical condition.

Could you please take a photo of the current sloozie glass. I know they change them every year and I collect them.

 

Thanks

 

Aileen

A what now? I wouldn't know what one would look like if it slap me in the face and hugged me.

Is there a deck that has a track where you can walk all the way around the ship? Thank you!

 

Enjoying your live review! Appreciate you taking the time to do this for us!

I don't know about walk, but there is a jogging track on Deck 14 or 15.

Just been walking along Deck 4 about 30 minutes ago. I suspect a lot of people have never seen a bargain before. :eek:

Whilst it is possible to get around via other decks, I'm just wondering if the staff could break up the area a little bit more so that the passengers can move around more freely. It's not as bad as the Anthem of the Seas, but with the limited space for passers by to get past the crowds, it makes some limited sense to spread out the area a little.

Just a few more images from Labadee Beach.

As before, if you want to see larger images, please head over to my Cruise Diaries page on that popular Social Media site. However, please be aware that the live review will be conducted here. I may post larger images in my post-cruise review.

A quick review of Labadee.

There have been some changes since I was last there, or at least from what I can remember). There's a new beach on the far side of the land rented by Labadee. This is ideal for the larger ships such as the Quantum class and Oasis class ships. Other ships will benefit with more distribution of space.

As a vegetarian, I struggle to find a positive about the beach buffet, but as a I diabetic, I know I have to eat regularly, so I had to make do with something over nothing. Some Salad, Rice and Corn on the Cob. I'm sure the non-veg eaters loved the food, but the rabbit food wasn't to my liking. (Sorry if you don't know what I mean by rabbit food, but feel free to look at the Urban Dictionary as to what I mean).

The beech has some more features, like an open air bed. I didn't pay attention to the cabanas as I didn't use them myself on this cruise. Access to Dragons point was closed when I went there in the morning. I don't know if it opened up afterwards, but there was some waves splashing against the walls which may be the reason for it being closed.

I've done Labadee a few times. I don't do snorkelling, Zipline or many other things, so it's not an exciting location for me. It's a nice location, if you like beeches, but for me, apart from the photo opportunities, I won't sing and dance about it. It's not for everyone.

Today is San Juan day. According to the Cruise Compass, there are threats of thunderstorms. I hope this is a mistake, as I hope to go for a walk around Old San Juan.

Have a great day everyone.

The cons you mentioned do concern me as it would bother me too.

 

Any recommendations on other hotels around the area that you saw that might be more desirable that we could still get transportation into NYC easily?

 

 

and Thanks so much for your reviews!!

Unfortunately, I don't know NYC or NJ well enough to advise. I hope someone can help. If you are flying into NJ and you are not driving, please check if the hotel has a free shuttle service.

Sad to hear this about the hotel. It's the one we choose for our May 12th and 13th pre-cruise stay. We choose it because it had good reviews on trip adviser and was close to Penn station to hop on and head to time square and similar areas in NY. :/

Hi Libertybelle41, as always, make your own judgement when you stay in this hotel. For you, the issues I raised may not be as bad for you.

I generally don't have an issue with the Hilton Hotel, just felt it needed some work done, but it wasn't a major problem. If I had major issues with the room, rest assured, I would have asked for a different room.

Just a quick couple of questions to people following / seeing this thread.

Do you believe RCI should try and attract new headliner talent / acts to cruise ships or keep with the same old, same old?

Also, if you have seen a headliner act before, would you see them again if they were on your cruise?

I will give my thoughts, hopefully, tomorrow, but I welcome your views.

I found that all of the shows were too loud. I think that the sound technicians on the Anthem, as on all RCI ships, must be hard of hearing.

To be fair to the technicians, if it isn't loud enough, people will complain.

Today is Labadee day. Not my favourite of ports, mainly because I don't like beaches and don't snorkel. I've done the walking tour and the Coastal tour. So I had a choice. Stay on the ship, or get off and do some photography.

The weather was pleasant today. 27 Degrees C's (around 79 Degrees F's) and a mild wind in places. Here's some images from today.

More images to follow tomorrow, possibly after the visit to San Juan, which may involve going to old San Juan to see in the sunset.

I am in the process of uploading the images to my Cruise Diary on that well known social media page so that you can see the high resolution versions of the images.

Don't worry about offending anyone. Tell us what you mean. I looked it up, but all definitions are ones that I know. When you use "camp", what do you mean?

Believe me, the Cruise Critic police are watching this thread closely and will lock me up if I told anyone. :o ;)

FYI - the mostly US based readers may not know what this means.

This is true. Sadly whatever term I would use, it could cause offence. I am still trying to figure out the most appropriate term to use without causing any offence to anyone.