Starting from Cape Liberty, the embarkation process was a nightmare. We spent over 2 hours in an Uber less than a mile from the ship trying to get to the terminal. There were 2 college-aged "Traffic Enforcers" who did not but let the traffic back up for miles. Once we got to the terminal everything finally began flowing smoothly with the exception of the overcrowded security lines.
During the lifeboat drill, we were shown 2 videos which were difficult to watch due to the number of people crowded into the muster stations. Shortly after we were stuck wondering through large crowds of people in order to get from the rear of the ship back towards the front.
We have sailed on many other Royal Caribbean cruises such as Freedom, Oasis, and Allure of the Seas several times with fantastic results. However, the Anthem of the Seas was a huge letdown. The service and food were subpar at best. The menu selection was poor and the buffet repeated itself nightly. The windjammer marketplace was consistently full for lunch, and the staff did a poor job of cleaning off the dirty tables for new people to sit down. The main dining room service was slow and left us waiting 30 minutes before anyone asked if we wanted drinks.
Our cabin was very clean, and our attendant was wonderful. Everything was always done and we didn't have any major complaints. We noticed that the towel animals weren't being done nightly anymore and had to ask for a couple extra towels and soap. Everything else was good.