My husband and I are Diamond level on Crown and Anchor for Royal Caribbean. We booked Anthem of the Seas a year in advance for Feb. 2016. We completed the Check In on line prior to the trip. We showed up at the port and there was a slight confusion as to who we speak with to get scanned in and proceed to the Xray machines and Scanners. That was resolved and we were on board the ship within 10 minutes, that was one of the most expedient boardings we have had since 2011!

Once aboard the ship we began to enjoy the sites, a new ship! We made reservations for IFly and North Star. We booked our dining before the trip. Our balcony stateroom 8656 was beautiful. We had to adjust to the new closet design, did not like that too much to be honest. The closet set up was awkward, the hangers on 1 side and small drawers on the other side of the bed. We also found the dresser drawer set up, near the balcony door, to be awkward. (minor setbacks but worth mentioning to seasoned RCI crusiers). Muster drill was at Vintages, we scanned in and the entire drill was over the PA and on tv screens - EXCELLENT! We truly enjoyed this method. We chose to stay inside the ship during sail away, was far too cold to be up top and we have been on cruises out of Bayonne before so, no biggie to see Verrazano Narrows bridge.

Monday night dinner was amazing. As an aside, we followed a bar tender, from Freedom of the Seas (Oct 2015) to the Anthem - his nick name is Cookie. He is a Mixologist and we made it a point to see him Saturday afternoon and evening. (also throughout the trip he is at Boleros) We met Cookie aboard Freedom in Oct 2015, he worked alongside Alok in the R Bar... needless to say our group of 6 visited R Bar frequently that cruise as these two bar tenders were amazing and entertaining. We knew, from the Captain, that Sunday would be a dreary day, spent traveling to Port Canaveral around a developing storm. Read more