Anthem Review from 9/3 Sailing

[Iluvmypuggle]

Thanks for sharing your review. We were on this cruise and had issues booking prior to the cruise too since we booked the cruise right before final payment. I was able to get reservations using the Royal IQ app once we boarded. Our Northstar reservation was cancelled due to the weather and we were never able to get on. Our Spectra reservation was also cancelled, but we went stand by for the first showing and got in.

 

We were really happy that we got a reservation for Escape to the Future. We did escape with 9 minutes remaining. We had a good bunch of people in our group who really worked together for the most part.

 

I really think the combination of a shorter cruise with lots of cancellations due to weather made it difficult to get to do and see everything.

 

Wow 9 minutes to go! How fun.. I can't wait to try one of those escape rooms - I'm putting it on the winter bucket list since it's a long cold winter in NJ. lol

 

Agreed about the shorter cruise & poor weather. Despite all of that, we didn't let any of it ruin our trip. We had a blast & hope you did too!

 

Great review! I'm glad that you and your husband didn't get ill. I was on the sailing before yours and agree that Anthem is a beautiful ship. We had a few issues with reservations as well, but other than that we had a great vacation.

 

Thank you! And glad to hear you didn't let a few issues ruin your trip. We were so happy to be away and enjoyed the ship & so many activities.

[reallyitsmema]

Wow 9 minutes to go! How fun.. I can't wait to try one of those escape rooms - I'm putting it on the winter bucket list since it's a long cold winter in NJ. lol

 

Agreed about the shorter cruise & poor weather. Despite all of that, we didn't let any of it ruin our trip. We had a blast & hope you did too!

 

 

Yes, we had a good time, despite the weather, but it was not my favorite ship or cruise. We found it very crowded and the ship just didn't have a great flow. I have never had as many issues navigating a ship as I did on this one. You would come out of the elevator and there we signs pointing in both directions sending you to 270. The passageways around the music hall were weird and difficult to get by at times since there are couches in the passageway.

 

If the price was right, we would try the ship again, but it was really not worth the premium we paid. We have sailed on many of the different classes of ships and had wanted to give this class a try. We are glad we tried but will move on to something else. We loved our Oasis cruise and have Allure booked for our next one.

[Tracy Po]

Thank you for this great review -- I simply can't read enough about this ship! :D

[HLR]

We had reservations for dinner each night and we typically arrived on time or within 15 minutes of our reservation time.

 

On the last evening, when we noticed the menu did not change in American Icon, we walked over to Silk (an hour after our reservation time), and they were able to accommodate us. As a group of 2, I'm sure it is easy to find a table in most restaurants, but I imagine larger groups would be tougher to accommodate without notice.

 

As others have mentioned on the boards, even if you don't care for the reservation time or restaurant, book what you can get and change it later. With the Royal IQ app, you can check available dining times throughout the cruise, or you can walk up to the hostess stand outside of the restaurants. Sometimes there was a short line leading up to the hostess station, but it always went really fast.

 

Have a wonderful trip!

 

Thanks for the response! You seem to "clinch the deal" so to speak agreeing that a dinner reservation at "any" time can be changed easier than making a new one. Good!

 

HLR

[HLR]

BUT WAIT!

 

A new thread has appeared! "Supposedly" Dynamic Dining will be "no more" starting with the Anthem's sailing on November 27th! [No details were provided]

HLR

[Amagamma]

Thanks for the great review. So happy to see good reviews. We are sailing in November and kept hearing such negative things. Have cruised over 50 sailings, and know that everyone has a different opinion. Just glad to see a nice review.

[mirp]

Nice review. Thank you.

 

 

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[Tracy Po]

BUT WAIT!

 

A new thread has appeared!

 

Lol! SURPRISE TWIST!!! :D

[hansolosmom]

Thanks for the review - sounds like it was a good time!

 

2 questions for you -

1) how much is parking at the garage?

2) were the beers at Michael's pretty much covered by the drink package (we also have premium), do they actually make their own or is it just "different" beer there, i.e. not bud light, bud, coronas

[Guest maddycat]

Thanks for the review - sounds like it was a good time!

 

2 questions for you -

1) how much is parking at the garage?

2) were the beers at Michael's pretty much covered by the drink package (we also have premium), do they actually make their own or is it just "different" beer there, i.e. not bud light, bud, coronas

 

Parking is $20 a day. They take cash or credit cards. You pay before you park.

[reallyitsmema]

Parking is $20 a day. They take cash or credit cards. You pay before you park.

 

We just got off Anthem yesterday, paid $20 per day, but did not pay before we parked. They gave us a ticket as we entered the garage and you used the pay stations to pay after your cruise. I did like that you pay for the number of days your cruise is, 5 days for a 5 day cruise, unlike Port Canaveral where you pay 8 days parking for a 7 day cruise.

 

The other big plus we liked was the porter area on the first level. We used a porter and they load your luggage on their cart, bypass the huge customs line and bring you to the front, and then bring your bags to the street level of the parking garage. The porter waited for my DH to bring the car down and he then loaded the car. It was great not to be out at the craziness at the street. We then just went to the exit of the garage, gave the ticket to the guy standing there and off we went. Whoever set up this did a great job. There was someone working at the port, directing cars at every turn. Was great for us as this was the first time we sailed from this port.

[Iluvmypuggle]

Thanks for the review - sounds like it was a good time!

 

2 questions for you -

1) how much is parking at the garage?

2) were the beers at Michael's pretty much covered by the drink package (we also have premium), do they actually make their own or is it just "different" beer there, i.e. not bud light, bud, coronas

 

Hello - I see the parking question was answered. It's great that there is a very new parking garage that is mostly covered, but we got there around noon and had to park on the fifth floor which is uncovered. We got one of the last spots, so something to know if you're sailing in cold weather or during potential snowstorms.

 

All but one beer was included in the drink package at Michael's pub. One of the beers was $14.50 so that was not included. Now that there is a new drink package coming out, which I read that it includes drinks up to $12 so I'm wondering if any of the beers will be limited with that package. Only one bartender told us that beers over nine dollars were not included which we thought was odd given that any drinks up to $14 were included. I tried to include a photo of the pub menu here, so if it doesn't appear in this post I'll try again later.. My husband loved that there were some good beers on the ship, and sometimes he would grab a beer from the pub and walk over to another location LOL.

[Iluvmypuggle]

Thanks for the great review. So happy to see good reviews. We are sailing in November and kept hearing such negative things. Have cruised over 50 sailings, and know that everyone has a different opinion. Just glad to see a nice review.

 

Hello and thanks for your comments. After I wrote the review, I wasn't sure if it was positive, negative or neutral in tone. I tried to be honest about the things that were annoying and where there could be improvement, but none of those things ruined my trip, and were all minor in the scheme of things. We were on vacation and were going to have a blast no matter what.. Combine that with good food & drinks and entertainment, and this equals a great time for us.

 

I think it's about expectations too; i'm never going to wake up early enough to get a front row seat at the pool, so I was fine with the upper deck. If anyone is going on a five day sailing, as other people pointed out the ship just cannot accommodate everyone with every activity in that short time frame, so that's a the right expectation to go in with..

 

Have a great trip. I absolutely love traveling in November because I think the Caribbean weather is perfect during that time and the later you go, the less hurricanes to worry about.

[Iluvmypuggle]

Yes, we had a good time, despite the weather, but it was not my favorite ship or cruise. We found it very crowded and the ship just didn't have a great flow. I have never had as many issues navigating a ship as I did on this one. You would come out of the elevator and there we signs pointing in both directions sending you to 270. The passageways around the music hall were weird and difficult to get by at times since there are couches in the passageway.

 

If the price was right, we would try the ship again, but it was really not worth the premium we paid. We have sailed on many of the different classes of ships and had wanted to give this class a try. We are glad we tried but will move on to something else. We loved our Oasis cruise and have Allure booked for our next one.

 

I had to laugh at your comment about the signs pointing in different directions, because that is totally true and totally odd!!! However, once you've been on a few ships, I feel like they're all similar to navigate. We figured this ship out after about 10 hours. We just had to learn which Two70 sign to trust.. lol

[Iluvmypuggle]

Thanks for the review - sounds like it was a good time!

 

2 questions for you -

1) how much is parking at the garage?

2) were the beers at Michael's pretty much covered by the drink package (we also have premium), do they actually make their own or is it just "different" beer there, i.e. not bud light, bud, coronas

 

Hope this image is more clear.. Trying to post from my phone.

 

As you can see, it's not their own beer. If you are going to Bermuda, they brew their own beer at the frog & onion right in the royal dockyard & we went there for a flight. They had live music too & it was fun.

Edited September 9, 2016 by Iluvmypuggle

[hansolosmom]

Thanks for the answers to the questions and posting the beer menu, that was very kind of you

 

My dh was wondering the price since he's considering a car service so we don't have to do the driving. I hate having to deal with the NJ turnpike :eek: of course after the drive I will be looking forward to using the drink package :)

 

In answer to something else you said, I thought it was a nice balanced review - very honest.

 

And lastly forgot to say I love your name, we have a beagle and I would love to get a puggle

[Guest maddycat]

We just got off Anthem yesterday, paid $20 per day, but did not pay before we parked. They gave us a ticket as we entered the garage and you used the pay stations to pay after your cruise.

 

That's changed since our April cruise. In April we paid before we parked.

[Iluvmypuggle]

Thanks for the answers to the questions and posting the beer menu, that was very kind of you

 

My dh was wondering the price since he's considering a car service so we don't have to do the driving. I hate having to deal with the NJ turnpike :eek: of course after the drive I will be looking forward to using the drink package :)

 

In answer to something else you said, I thought it was a nice balanced review - very honest.

 

And lastly forgot to say I love your name, we have a beagle and I would love to get a puggle

 

Happy to post the beer menu! Hope it gets your DH excited.

 

We met a couple from PA on the anthem & they told us they found a shared van service to the terminal so that might be something worth looking into.

 

I had 1 puggle when I joined CC but then my fam & I adopted a second one. They are like human dogs, but with endless energy!!! lol I love beagles too.

 

Happy sailing!

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[Finabear]

We were on this sailing. We were kept well informed and never felt like we were in any danger.

We have sailed out of Bayonne three times now. I drive. Traffic gets worse every time. Now with the 14A construction it is really bad. Not so much on the weekend but during the week -we returned on Thursday - it took over an hour to get out of Bayonne. We left the ship about 9:30 thinking to miss the rush hour traffic. Wrong. Completely backed up. Narrows to one lane around the tolls. GPS was totally confused.

We will sail out of Bayonne again, but only for weekend arrivals and departures. I won't drive on 95/NJT. We take the Garden State to 78. Still challenging at times but do-able.

[reallyitsmema]

We pulled out of the parking garage at 9:15 and were on the GW at 10:15. We got home to just outside of Boston in 5 hours. We made decent time considering we had to stop twice, including an extended stop for lunch.

 

The construction does make it confusing at the tolls but I got lucky and a tractor trailer driver actually waved me over in front of him.

[lor74]

We had walked off the ship at 8am. It took 1hr for us to get to Edgewater. The big hold up was an accident with a car and an 18 wheeler on the ramp to the highway just outside of the terminal.

 

 

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[easyboy]

All but one beer was included in the drink package at Michael's pub. One of the beers was $14.50 so that was not included. Now that there is a new drink package coming out, which I read that it includes drinks up to $12 so I'm wondering if any of the beers will be limited with that package. Only one bartender told us that beers over nine dollars were not included which we thought was odd given that any drinks up to $14 were included. I tried to include a photo of the pub menu here, so if it doesn't appear in this post I'll try again later.. My husband loved that there were some good beers on the ship, and sometimes he would grab a beer from the pub and walk over to another location LOL.

Thanks for sharing.

[arb3]

I pretty much have the same feelings you do. I booked the cruise pretty last minute (about 40 days before) so by the time I was able to make reservations everything was pretty booked. I did manage to make North Star Reservations for 9 AM on Tuesday in the Theatre. Unfortunately there was a severe storm warning in effect that morning and it got cancelled. I got lucky and was able to sneak on standby at 2:00 since my wife does not like heights and there was one open spot. Overall, it was a good trip. As with any short cruise, there really isn't enough time to re-arrange things when something happens. I assume one of the longer cruises would not have had this problem. Unfortunately, many activities are dependent on good weather.