Background - This is only the second cruise for my wife and I ( first was 2 years ago on norweigan epic) - this time we travelled with my wifes parents. We are in our 40's and they are in their 70's (but young at heart!!). I booked this cruise about a year ago and have been following the progress of anthem until her launch and since she started cruising with interest. The ports (canary islands , madeira ,lisbon , la coruna and vigo ) appealed to us and the lure of a brand new ship sealed the deal!

Embarkation - We flew from Belfast the morning of the cruise (this was flights arranged with royal as a package - normally I would prefer to fly the day before to allow for any delays ) and all was on time. Waited about 3/4 of an hour for the coach to the docks and finally arrived at the pier at about 10.45am. Embarkation was super easy - checked in by lady with an ipad in 2 minutes. My credit card information which I had registered prior to going had not shown up so I had to go to a desk to get that registered but only took an additional 5 minutes and then it was straight on board! Probably about 15 minutes from entering the terminal to onboard and would have been 10 mins had the credit card info been ok.

First Impressions - We entered on deck 5 and were greeted with a glass of champagne and canapes - my first impression was how beautiful and classy the ship felt and this was reinforced every day as we explored her more. Had the feel of a 5 star hotel. We went to the windjammer for lunch and cabins were ready just before 1pm and luggage was already there. We had a fun experience when one of the glass elevators stuck between floors when we were in it - felt like animals in a zoo! Took about 15mins for engineers to fix the elevator and release us! Read more