Anthem review June 2 2016 - 9nt

jonj · June 12, 2016

Everyone was so helpful in answering my questions I wanted to pay it forward

We sailed on the Anthem of the Seas June 2-11, 2016.

There were six of us and were in a Royal Family Suite (RFS). This is our second cruise with Royal Caribbean; the first was on the Explorer of the Seas quite a few years ago. Our cruising history, we have sailed once on HAL and Princess, twice on Carnival, twice on NCL and are platinum (highest level) on Disney cruise lines.

I will not be doing a daily play by play review but will note my thoughts, photos and compasses.

Being used to Disney cruise where they have set dates of when everything can be booked depending on your Castaway Club level or if you are in a suite I have to say that not being contacted by the concierge until the week before was a little unnerving. Reading that restaurants were crowded and not being able to get a seat if you didn’t have reservations I did reserve restaurants even though we were in a suite. Once the concierge contacted us she was able to reserve our cabana on Labadee and was able to move some restaurant times around that weren’t available for the time we preferred when they first opened up online.

Ship – We all loved the ship, I found it to be a very pretty ship and easy to get around

Staff – Everyone we encountered was very nice

Concierge Lounge – we used it daily and enjoyed meeting others and didn’t find anyone that wasn’t friendly. The concierge was Dionne and she was fabulous

Being in a suite we had free Voom and we found it to work very well. Note, write down your access code other than just the paper they leave in your room. Two of the code papers went missing and we were thankful we had jotted it down in our “notes” app on our phones. I have to say that upon boarding it wasn’t working all that well but by that evening it worked fine

Suite welcome gift was a bottle of champagne, two bottles of Evian in glass bottles and a fruit plate (whole fruit). On the second night we had a cheese plate and chocolate covered strawberries. A cheese plate was also sent on night 3 and on night 5 we received another fruit plate. Being in a Sky Level suite class the minibar was not included. The water was not replenished

Royal IQ app – useful but could be better. I liked that we could check our account and see the compass, however the compass only showed activities and not times that restaurants / buffet, etc. were open.

Check your accounts often as we found some discrepancies. Four of the six had a drink package. The two 19 year olds had the replenish, two of the adults had the ultimate and myself and my daughter did not have any package because we really do not drink enough to make it worthwhile. The ones that had the drink packages did make good use of them. Some of the drinks appeared on our account even though they were supposed to be under the packages. During dinner one evening my daughter ordered a drink (not on the package) and the person handling the drinks brought her another without her asking. She let him know she did not order or want a second, he took it back but never removed the second charge. One night one of the boys had Pellegrino water and was charged but should have been under the replenish package. Items were easily removed and taken care of by concierge but if we didn’t check the account we would not have been aware.

Beverage package costs – there was a lot of discussion on the cost and the changing prices on cruise planners. We purchased the Ultimate packages when the 20% offer first came out and glad we did. I was on the fence but after reading we could cancel went ahead and purchased them. Good thing we did because a few weeks later the prices had increased. One of the first things I did when boarding is to look at the prices and they were indeed the higher price so the 20% pre-purchase was lower than buying onboard

Edited June 12, 2016 by jonj

jonj · June 12, 2016

Activities – our young adult children and their friends enjoyed all the amenities on the ship. They did Ifly, flow rider, bumper cars, rock climbing, Puzzle Room, etc.

Puzzle room (escape room) we had asked the concierge to reserve this for us and they couldn’t until the day the cruise began. She had asked me to go see her once onboard but the sign said she wouldn’t be there until 2pm on boarding day. I went to guest service to reserve it and stood online for 20 minutes and when they checked we were already booked – I wish we had some notification that it was done so I didn’t have to wait in that line. We split up where some of us went to guest service and some to Sea Plex to sign up because there were conflicting reports on where it was. It was guest service, there was no sign up sheet in sea plex at all and when the desk was finally manned they said sign up was not there. We all took part in this activity and it was fun

Shows – we get up pretty early and found that we didn’t plan our dinners well. We had planned our dinners for 7:30pm and couldn’t see the early shows as they would go into dinner and the late shows ended up being too late most of the time. Now we aren’t huge show people so we didn’t want to change our dinner times but will plan better on our next cruise.

We did see We will Rock you and enjoyed it. The kids went to see the comedians and Quest and enjoyed them. We really did not like Spectra at all. The dancing was very good but that was the only thing we enjoyed about it

Show seating – the shows we did go see we did sit in the reserved “suite section” We thought the seats were in a great location in the theater and lounges. On the nights we did use this we arrived about 20 minutes prior to show time

Solarium – when I first saw photos I thought I would use this daily however with only a few windows on the side that open it was very hot in there and not a great place if you want to tan. I can see it being a great option during days where the weather is not the best.

Suite sun deck – used it daily and not crowded at all, towels are provided, there is also a shower to cool off if you do not want to go down to the pool, there are two water fountains there also.

I felt that the big screen by the pool was under utilized. They only really showed a movie at night, once they showed the tennis match. On Princess and Disney they show movies all day long

Edited June 12, 2016 by jonj

jonj · June 12, 2016

Food – we ate at Jamie’s for lunch, Wonderland and Izumi with the BOGO package for night 1 and 2, Chic for lunch one day, The Grande, American Icon and Silk. We also ate many of our meals in Coastal Kitchen.

The menus on the TV in the room were not always accurate I would suggest looking at them either in the concierge lounge if you have access or at the restaurants directly.

Windjammer – we had breakfast there twice and it was just ok. Had lunch there twice and thought lunch was much better than breakfast. I really enjoyed the beef and chicken Shawarma. We didn’t eat there for dinner but did walk through two nights just to see what they had and found that on one side of the pasta area they were cooking to order chicken, steaks and pork chops.

Service in the restaurants – we found the service to be good everywhere. I did notice that they didn’t split up the tables as I thought would make more sense. For example in the Grand and Silk they had many large tables all in the same area with the same servers and they seemed as they had too many. Despite of it we didn’t experience bad service but you can tell they were tired and trying their best to serve everyone in a timely matter.

The Grande was a disappointment for me, I ordered the Osso Bucco and it was very dry, the polenta under it was very good. The lobster tails were all over done. Some in our party ordered the Filet and they enjoyed it.

Silk – I was really looking forward to it and again not a great meal – I had the Hibachi Steak and really didn’t care for it at all. The fried rice was good as were the spring rolls. The kids normally like mochi but they said the one served here was just ok they have had better. One person had the lamb and enjoyed it

American Icon was the one restaurant I was looking forward the least and the one we had the best meal out of the included restaurants. Everything was cooked really well.

Solarium Bistro – I walked through it to check what they had but did not eat here. Our daughter and friend did try it one night and said they did enjoy dinner however the entrée portions were very small. The reason they went there is due to it being a “healthier” option and they are both very much into fitness and knew going in that it was lighter fare but it still surprised them .

Jamie’s – we were not planning on dining here at all but on the last sea day decided to go for lunch and it was one of our best meals. Food was very good

Wonderland – we had no plans on dining here due to the cost but with the BOGO package it made it worthwhile to try. Some of the appetizers were very good, some were ok, the vanishing noodles were the worse dish and the server actually didn’t recommend it but one person wanted to try it. The entrees they brought were very good except for the fish, while the taste was very good it was severely overcooked

Izumi – was ok – We love Sushi and have it often at home. The sashimi was good but the rolls were just ok. Two of the six had one of the noodle dishes and they enjoyed them. This was one of our BOGO dining options and the server and head waiter did not understand the offer and first charged us for the whole meal then charged us $15 per person insisting that it was half off. I explained we had paid for the meal already and it was buy one meal one night, get one meal free. I had printed out the terms and conditions and they said they had to check with their supervisor. Two days went by and no one contacted us and the charge was still on our account. I went to the concierge and she said that they did not understand how the package is supposed to work. Contacted them and the charge was removed. We do know it was up to $30 per person and anything over we would be charged for however we did not exceed the per person charge that the package covered

Coastal Kitchen – (open for lunch on boarding day) we ended up eating here for many of our breakfasts, a couple of lunches and the rest of our dinners. The food was very good as was the service. The only disappointment was our last dinner. They had on the menu “grilled rib eye” but when it came out it was really prime rib. Not that it was bad but just not what we were expecting. The head waiter did note that they have to update the description and that our server should have noted that it wasn’t what it said. We asked why the menu wasn’t update and said that the have to go through some channels and had to wait until the person in charge of the menus makes the change.

Coastal Kitchen – they had a classic side which was the same each evening and then a daily side which changed nightly for the first seven nights. On day 8 the menu went back to night 1, day 9 was night 2, etc.

Edited June 12, 2016 by jonj

jonj · June 12, 2016

Ports - Bermuda, San Juan, St Maarten, Labadee

Bermuda we took a taxi to Horseshoe bay - four loungers and two umbrellas cost was $80

transfers were $7 per person

San Juan - the two of us took a one hour tour from one of the many people offering them when we got off the ship. $10 per person and was just enough with our short time in the city plus it started raining and we were glad we were in a vehicle. The younger ones took the ship tour to the Rainforest and they enjoyed it very much. I wanted them on a ship tour even though we normally don't take them because we were only in port from 7am until 12:30pm

St Maarten - we took a taxi to Little Bay and the Divi resort, $5 per person. four loungers and two umbrellas were a total of $30. Kids rented jet skis, $55 for 30 min.

Labadee - we rented a cabana on Barefoot Beach - we really enjoyed it

I wouldn’t have any issues sailing on the Anthem again

I will post photos as soon as I get through them. In the meantime if anyone has any questions ask away

Edited June 12, 2016 by jonj

riclop · June 12, 2016

Thanks for the review.

Surfguyxxx · June 12, 2016

Thanks for your insights.

maryr65 · June 12, 2016

Nice review. Thanks for posting.

kuddles14 · June 12, 2016

Ports - Bermuda, San Juan, St Maarten, Labadee

Bermuda we took a taxi to Horseshoe bay - four loungers and two umbrellas cost was $80

transfers were $7 per person

San Juan - the two of us took a one hour tour from one of the many people offering them when we got off the ship. $10 per person and was just enough with our short time in the city plus it started raining and we were glad we were in a vehicle. The younger ones took the ship tour to the Rainforest and they enjoyed it very much. I wanted them on a ship tour even though we normally don't take them because we were only in port from 7am until 12:30pm

St Maarten - we took a taxi to Little Bay and the Divi resort, $5 per person. four loungers and two umbrellas were a total of $30. Kids rented jet skis, $55 for 30 min.

Labadee - we rented a cabana on Barefoot Beach - we really enjoyed it

I wouldn’t have any issues sailing on the Anthem again

I will post photos as soon as I get through them. In the meantime if anyone has any questions ask away

Thank you for posting your review. My husband and I are doing this same itinerary in July. Did you have to get a day pass to Divi resort ahead of time or could you just show up?

jonj · June 12, 2016

Thank you for posting your review. My husband and I are doing this same itinerary in July. Did you have to get a day pass to Divi resort ahead of time or could you just show up?

We just showed up, there are beach attendants that you will rent the chairs from