Live! Anthem of the Seas March 24-31, 2023 with Dragon of the Seas

[crzndeb]

3 hours ago, DragonOfTheSeas said:

I appreciated the talent. Especially the gymnastic ability of the dancers. They were phenomenal.

 

just not my cup of tea

Spectra is definitely one of those “ yay or nay” shows. I personally love it, and have seen it many times on the Ovation. I like some songs better than others. I would love to be able to see Terry Lavell as Spectra. I’m on the Anthem in April/2025, but just not sure he will still be doing contracts then. 

[DragonOfTheSeas]

I was hot and sweaty when I came back from walking around Nassau. So I hopped on the little tram. Someone asked about the yacht that is docked, right near liberty of the seas. The tram driver said that belongs to Steven Spielberg.
 

it is a beauty.  😊(the larger ship, of course)

 

 

 

[DragonOfTheSeas]

That’s all it’s not usually one of my favorite parts but I did enjoy getting off and looking at the Newport area. 
 

This is the new visitor center. Right outside.

 

 

 

I was also pleased to see that the vendors weren’t too pushy

 

 

I did not go in. But I saw that the Junkanoo museum was $11 for adults.

 

 

 

I said by the lagoon and had my latte from Starbucks. And watch the various excursions drop off these docks. That’s so much better than the arrangement they used to have.

 

[DaniDanielle]

19 hours ago, Merion_Mom said:

It's a CABARET, not a story.  Just enjoy the performances.  🙂 

Spectras was designed to showcase 270.  Terry is phenomenal!

[DragonOfTheSeas]

I enjoy seeing different places in the world. But on a cruise ship sea days are my favorite. Here is today’s sunrise. Or as close to sunrise as I got up.ha ha ha!

 

Edited March 29 by DragonOfTheSeas

[DragonOfTheSeas]

Here are some random shots from around the beautiful anthem of the sea. 
 

we have been eating breakfast and dinner, mostly in the American icon dining room. 

 

 

Here is the art installation outside that dining room

 

 

And here is the silk dining room. I think it has the most unusual decor.

 

 

 

And of course, here is the gym. It has been a very popular place. It is a very large and has impressive equipment.

 

 

here is the sky bar. I wasn’t sure if I posted this or not but here it is.😝

 

Edited March 29 by DragonOfTheSeas

[DragonOfTheSeas]

The SeaPlex on deck 15 is probably the most versatile space on the ship.

 

They use it for basketball, rollerskating, and bumper, cars, etc.

 

 

 

on the second layer are all the ping-pong tables. 

 

And there is a hotdog stand, at the back. I found that yesterday and had a great snack.

 

Edited March 29 by DragonOfTheSeas

[LuCruise]

Oh wow...That is the first I've seen of them bringing back rollerblading since covid.  Excited to see!  (It wasn't on Odyssey when we went in dec).

 

Really enjoying your review.  We were on Anthem two years ago and really enjoyed.  Looks like you are having a great time.

[Biker19]

Just now, LuCruise said:

(It wasn't on Odyssey when we went in dec)

Availability of activities may be ship/sailing specific.

[LuCruise]

Just now, Biker19 said:

Availability of activities may be ship/sailing specific.

Yeah...just nice to see it back on any Quantum ship.

[DragonOfTheSeas]

4 hours ago, LuCruise said:

Oh wow...That is the first I've seen of them bringing back rollerblading since covid.  Excited to see!  (It wasn't on Odyssey when we went in dec).

 

I have not been on the anthem before, so I can’t speak to this ship specifically, but it certainly seems like everything is pretty much like it was pre-Covid. All the activities seem to be back. The only things that have been canceled have been canceled because it was too windy or cold.

 

The elevators are stuffed full of people all the time there’s no social distancing going on. 

 

The first time or two that happened it felt very weird but now it just seems normal.

 

We have so many children on board. I think they need to have all those activities to keep them busy.

[DragonOfTheSeas]

We just finished a great meal and Jamie‘s Italian restaurant. I got the reservation on Black Friday for a really good price. So we decided to give it a try.
 

it was all delicious, but the garlic bread and the lasagna were the two standouts. We also had an antipasto plank. But I didn’t get any pictures of the bread or the plank.

 

Pasta carbonara

 

 

Shrimp, linguine

 

Lasagna

 

And tiramisu

 

 

The reviews have been hit or miss. With most of them being misses. there were plenty of negative comments regarding the hostess. But we felt it was an excellent lunch. The service was good and the hostess was businesslike but she was fine.

[Neosophy]

Please bring my ship back now.  I have to get on it Sunday morning.  You have had it long enough now! <grin>

[DragonOfTheSeas]

6 minutes ago, Neosophy said:

Please bring my ship back now.  I have to get on it Sunday morning.  You have had it long enough now! <grin>

Hahaha 😂. We have decided we will check out other cruises 🚢 on Anthem in the future. We are just now really finding our way around.
 

luggage tags were put on our beds this morning. It’s never a happy site.

[LATTELOVE]

Wow this has been a wonderful review.

Just finished catching up with all the reading. 

Thank you for taking of your time to do so.

We have really enjoyed it.

 

Question for you.  

How far was the taxi ride from the Double Tree hotel

to the cruise port?

We will be going on a cruise from Cape Liberty

in June and would like to stay around that area too.

Thank you!

[DragonOfTheSeas]

I wanted to write a post about the main dining room for dinner. As I mentioned earlier, we originally signed up for my time dining with a reservation at 7 o’clock each night. So Royal Caribbean selected us to be part of their experiment for a 630 fixed dining time.
 

that has turned out to be quite the blessing. First of all our waiter and assistant waiter are excellent and we’ve had a great experience all week. Secondly, the lines to get into the dining room are simply outrageous every night. It’s such a crowd in front of the dining room, that we go in a side door to get to our table each night. 

 

This is a picture outside of the main dining room. the right hand side of the hall are people without Reservations the left-hand side are people with Reservations I don’t see that the people who made reservations are in any better shape than the people who didn’t. 
 

I would be really annoyed to have made reservations and have to wait in line like this every night to get seated. 

 

 

i’m not sure the 6:30pm fixing, will work on a large scale. Several evenings the early seating guests were still at the table at 6:30. The dining staff set up a series of chairs in a small ant room, near that side entrance, and we and other guests at 6:30 whose table was not yet empty would sit there until they were ready. It was never more than five or 10 minutes. So it was not a problem for us. but it was a stressful situation for the waiters who were really frantic to bus and reset the table. The headwaiter has been very attentive and helpful. I’m sure he’s also trying to facilitate this trial.

 

Our waiter told us that there were only nine waiters that are part of this 6:30 seating as a trial. And this is the second cruise that he has done that. 

 

 

[DragonOfTheSeas]

5 hours ago, LATTELOVE said:

Wow this has been a wonderful review.

Just finished catching up with all the reading. 

Thank you for taking of your time to do so.

We have really enjoyed it.

 

Question for you.  

How far was the taxi ride from the Double Tree hotel

to the cruise port?

We will be going on a cruise from Cape Liberty

in June and would like to stay around that area too.

Thank you!

It took us about a half an hour from the Doubletree last October. We took an Uber from the hotel.
 

I think the next time we leave from Bayonne we will go back to the Doubletree. The reason that we selected the Jersey City hotel this time was that we are Hilton HHonors members and so we like to stay at the Hilton Brand. And they had two room suites, and the Doubletree at the Penn station doesn’t have a suite like that. Our daughter was with us and we wanted to give her and us some privacy. 
 

edit: I reread my post. I’m not sure that you were asking me about the Doubletree at the Penn Station that we stayed in last time or the Doubletree that we stayed in Jersey City. So I’ll leave the above comment and add that it took us about 30 minutes from Jersey City as well. that was just to get to the port once we got to the port of course we were in all that traffic, so it took us more than an hour in total, but this wasn’t unusual situation with the anthem arriving late. 

 

 

Edited March 30 by DragonOfTheSeas

[Another_Critic]

9 hours ago, DragonOfTheSeas said:

Hahaha 😂. We have decided we will check out other cruises 🚢 on Anthem in the future. We are just now really finding our way around.

Note that Anthem is leaving Cape Liberty on Apr. 28 and will be replaced by Odyssey on Nov. 17.

[perfect match]

Thank you very much for sharing your experience with the 6:30 dining time experiment. I’m wondering what time you were usually done with dinner? I think the 6:30 time slot might work well for us, but that would depend on how well it coordinated with show times. 

[Merion_Mom]

2 hours ago, DragonOfTheSeas said:

It took us about a half an hour from the Doubletree last October. We took an Uber from the hotel.
 

I think the next time we leave from Bayonne we will go back to the Doubletree. The reason that we selected the Jersey City hotel this time was that we are Hilton HHonors members and so we like to stay at the Hilton Brand. And they had two room suites, and the Doubletree at the Penn station doesn’t have a suite like that. Our daughter was with us and we wanted to give her and us some privacy. 
 

edit: I reread my post. I’m not sure that you were asking me about the Doubletree at the Penn Station that we stayed in last time or the Doubletree that we stayed in Jersey City. So I’ll leave the above comment and add that it took us about 30 minutes from Jersey City as well. that was just to get to the port once we got to the port of course we were in all that traffic, so it took us more than an hour in total, but this wasn’t unusual situation with the anthem arriving late. 

 

 

 

 

Try the Embassy Suites on International Drive in Elizabeth, NJ

[DragonOfTheSeas]

6 hours ago, Another_Critic said:

Note that Anthem is leaving Cape Liberty on Apr. 28 and will be replaced by Odyssey on Nov. 17.

Thank you I hadn’t looked into it yet. 

[DragonOfTheSeas]

6 hours ago, perfect match said:

Thank you very much for sharing your experience with the 6:30 dining time experiment. I’m wondering what time you were usually done with dinner? I think the 6:30 time slot might work well for us, but that would depend on how well it coordinated with show times. 

We were usually done by about 7:45. Our waiter was very fast. If we ordered two appetizers, he always put them on the table at the same time. I’m not sure if that’s the new procedure or if I was just what he was doing too. Make sure dinner moved along quickly.

 

yes, that time works really well for us too
 

 

[DragonOfTheSeas]

6 hours ago, Merion_Mom said:

 

 

Try the Embassy Suites on International Drive in Elizabeth, NJ

Thank you we would need to do that when DD sails with us again. 

 

We usually cruise in the spring and the fall. Sometimes doing.B2Bs. we will have to see when we can make that work with her teaching schedule.

 

The Doubletree near the Penn station is not that great of a hotel but it’s very convenient and with DH mobility issues easiest is good. 

 

[DragonOfTheSeas]

Here is today’s sunrise picture. Look at that beautiful flat ocean. You can’t ask for better weather on the last day of a cruise. High today is supposed to be 70 but of course it’ll feel a lot cooler than that with the wind.

Edited March 30 by DragonOfTheSeas

[A&L_Ont]

Beautiful sunrise. Enjoy the day.