We were very excited when we booked the holiday, it was the first time on a cruise for us and there was soo much hype surrounding the cruise, Anthem of the seas, we couldn't wait to get on-board. However, there were soo many negative reviews on its sister cruise, Quantum of the seas, actually negative reviews on cruises in general that it was surprising. People were complaining on everything form check-in times, luggage arrival to food, service, etc. it was really off-putting especially when we were travelling with a 2yr old.
But, thankfully, from he moment we stepped in, until the time we got off the Anthem, it was an experience like no other... It one word, it was Awesome!!! It was soo good that we didn't want to get off the cruise!! Ours was a 3 nighter, so maybe longer duration ships might have issues, but our cruise, everything was as smooth as butter!! (Apart from the British/EU weather)
Check-in was super fast, we already did it online so the whole process took like 5 mins. We made it to the cruise terminal in our selected time during the online check-in so as soon as we got there, we went straight through after an immigration check.
We live in the UK, so we did not need to take any shore excursions. However, we did visit Peppa Pig World as it was only 15 mins drive from the Cruise Terminal. Our little one had loads of fun there!
As ours was a short cruise, we decided to stay on-board and explore the ship. The Cruise did offer quite a lot of excursions, including Paris (which is like 3.5 hours away) but we decide to explore and enjoy our amazing Cruise instead.