A Customer Review: Royal Caribbean’s Anthem of the Seas
By Tully Luxury Travel | 01-10-2020 |
Royal Caribbean Line’s Anthem of the Seas is an amazing ship offering an array of unique entertains for the whole family to experience, like: “North Star”, an awe-inspiring experience where a jewel-like glass capsule takes guests on a spectacular journey more than 300 feet in the air to deliver an unprecedented 360 degree view over the sea. Other favourites include: Ripcord by iFly, a skydiving simulator, bumper cars, flow riders, rock climbing, and roller skating.
Once the evening unfolds the Anthem of the Seas offers you ample choices for dining and entertainment, from Jamie’s Italian to Izumi Japanese Cuisine, followed by one of Broadway’s favourite Mama Mia or We Will Rock You, two famous musical hits.
My Client’s Review:
As I said before the cruise exceeded our expectations. I was anticipating long lines boarding and disembarking and waiting for tenders but this did not happen.
Somehow they managed to devise a system that worked. Getting onto the ship was organized and smooth. They had smiling people with iPads all over the cruise terminal checking in passengers and even retaking photos that needed to be done. FYI the security photos cannot have you wearing glasses. They didn’t say that in the pre-cruise instructions.
The ship is beautiful and new and clean and very high tech. We loved our Family Connected Junior suite. The two inside cabins that our group had were equipped with a TV screen (large) that looked like a big window showing the outside view in real time just like we saw from our real windows and balcony. Great idea. They have a wonderful venue at the back of the ship that is several stories high called 270. It’s 270 degrees around and includes a lovely bar, library, craft room and huge space for shows.
They use a new technology to show amazing videos, etc. on the huge windows. Much bigger than an IMAX theater but that’s the idea. One concert they had was a taped symphony orchestra and it felt and looked like a real concert hall. It was also used as a creative back drop for live performances. Their theater for live performances was also very high tech. A real crowd pleaser. Our adult children enjoyed the entertainment all over the ship. They did everything and Eric and I went to bed with the kids!
I think that RCCL took their best crew from all their other ships and put them on the Anthem. Everyone went above and beyond to provide courteous, pleasant service. It really made a difference.
The food was a notch above RCCL regular food as I remember it. They managed the large buffet Windjammer Cafe very well. They did a really smart thing by setting up the entrance to the cafe so that you had to go through a hand washing area. Loved it.
Fortunately we had dinner reservations for each night. People without reservations were wandering and had to eat at the buffet most nights.
We expected to be able to have breakfast in the sit down restaurant for suite occupants but apparently our suite didn’t qualify. We were only able to have dinner there. (Coastal Kitchen). It turned out to be much better than the other included restaurants. We tried one specialty restaurant….the Italian Jamie Oliver venue. It was very good.
The wifi was actually good. My son was the only one who purchased it (he needed it for work) and amazingly they are finally able to have good wifi on a ship.
Our kids would have liked more time with bumper cars and rollerskating but that’s one of the drawbacks of a huge ship. At the same time only the huge ships can accommodate those things. They got to try the simulated skydiving and loved it.
The kids pools were terrific. Exercise facilities top notch. Children’s drop off program was very good. We went on our own (in an rented 15 passenger van) to the Kennedy Space Center in Port Canaveral. It was fabulous. Enterprise car rental went very smoothly, just like the comments on Yelp predicted.
It was a great family vacation. The ship was full of families.
– Paula Book, USA