Anthem of the Seas Review
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We love Royal Carribean and have loved every cruise, but WOW was this uncharacteristically awful. They can't control the weather, but there are things they CAN control and it was one fail after another. Heat lamp lobster, rotten & even some moldy food at the windjammer, 1 good waiter in 8 whole nights, tiny little kids area rooms where 8 year olds are smacking each other with pool noodles...dead serious! What happened, Royal Carribean?
The ship is nice, but they were terribly overbooked, horribly understaffed and so unorganized. It was a joke. We waited in line for 1.25 hours for 20 min of roller skating, and another 1.25 hours for 3 minutes of bumper cars. They don't tell you that in an 8 night cruise you will only get 2 or 4 small windows of opportunity (typically at dinner or in port) to stand in line with 4,000 other people in order to ride bumper cars for 3 minutes. Why the 2 teens only bumper car sessions? What about the rest of us and younger kids? Why does the SeaPlex spend 80% of it's daylight hours as a basketball or dodgeball court? Such a waste.
We went on the Oasis a couple years ago and it was amazing...awesome ship and fantastic staff. If you are on the fence, choose the Oasis class. The Anthem has way too many kinks to work out before this would be a good vacation. Customer service was poor, staff was not helpful, lines were long, phones down a lot, wifi didn't work half the time. We were really excited to see this ship and it is a nice ship. It's a shame that Royal Carribean made 6 of our 8 days a miserable experience.
Cabin Review
Deluxe Obstructed Ocean View Stateroom with Balcony
Bathroom is a bit larger than some, so that was nice, but the room feels small and lots of feet sounds of kids running overhead. This room has a rock hard pull out sofa thing (no bunk for kids), and in order for the kids to see the TV you have to tilt it away from the wall towards them, blocking any ability to walk between the main bed and the TV without stabbing yourself with the corner of the tv. There is no curtain for privacy between the parents bed and the kids bed, and the TV is on our side, so the kids can't watch tv after we go to sleep. Poor design with that for sure. The vanity is way small and there is no vanity storage like other ships. Vanity light is so dim, I had to get ready in the bathroom and I have no eyesight issues. The good thing about this room was it's relatively mid ship, so not as much movement in rough seas compared to other parts of the ship. It's also very convenient to the kids Adventure Ocean areas.
Port Reviews
Bayonne (Cape Liberty)
If wifi goes down, Royal Carribean has no other way to check people in, so hundreds of us waited 1 hr and 45 min just to get onto the ship. They tried to organize people but it was a free for all and if you were patiently waiting your turn, they skip over you and let you wait longer. They only checked in the people that were too impatient and vocal about waiting so all the rude people got on about an hour before the rest of us. Such a disappointment. They need a real back up plan for when their wifi goes down for 2hours.
Port Canaveral (Orlando)
The Ron Jon surf shop was great and we spent 2 hours there. Found a CVS across the street. Otherwise there is nothing there. An adult bookstore? Pizza Hut? That's it. Ugh. Total miss, save your money and grab a cab.