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Final thoughts: I’ve been trying to gather my thoughts on this cruise for a few days now. This is probably going to come across as scattered because I haven’t quite figured it all out myself yet. Going into this cruise, and being biased to Oasis class ships, I already knew that I wouldn’t be comparing apples to apples. Also, keep in mind that we are all different types of cruisers. So, read on and take my opinions with a grain of salt, as they are my own, and based on the type of cruiser that I personally am. To wrap up this cruise, I tried to ask myself, and hubby, several questions: Did this cruise meet all my/our expectations? The answer here would be yes. Everything was excellent. Food was consistently good, in all venues. Lots of activities to choose from for the whole family. Staff across the ship has been excellent. There have been a few stand out crew members and one not so pleasant one but overall, a good experience. What did we love? Our kids loved the SeaPlex. Hubby enjoyed his share of it too. I did not lol (too much like work). The overall consensus from the kids was that Anthem is equivalent to and maybe even slightly better than DCL. Wonder what they will think of Oasis class next March? The shows were great on Anthem. Same level of quality to match Oasis class. I do miss not having the Aqua Theater and the shows that come with that. Coastal Kitchen was also consistent with the level of service and quality on Harmony. The one stand out thing here was the Coastal Kitchen restaurant manager, Bojan. He was amazing! And that isn’t even a good enough adjective to describe him. I have never, in my cruising history, come across a head waiter/manager like him. Some head waiters are quite “stand-offish”. Each and every encounter with Bojan was personable and friendly. Even if he was busy, and he was, he never showed it. D2 is very soft spoken and each night he would bend down to eye level with her, lean in close, and have a conversation with her about her day. On top of that, Bojan did everything. Every single night, we witnessed him chat with each table, bus tables, serve drinks, fill water glasses, set tables, and sweep the floors. How many of you have seen head waiters and restaurant managers do that?? I don’t even know where he found the time to supervise his crew! What did we not love so much? Our biggest dislike of Anthem is that she cannot seem to handle crowds well and traffic does not flow well in public spaces. I have been trying to figure out all week why that is. This ship is sailing at full capacity and it feels like it all the time, everywhere! We’ve sailed Oasis class at full capacity too, in the height of summer, and it never felt as crowded as Anthem. The conclusion I came to was that perhaps it has to do how Anthem is more narrow, compared to Oasis class? Or perhaps there are more public venues on Oasis for crowds to disperse to? I’m not sure I know the answer yet. The WJ falls victim to poor traffic flow. There was nothing wrong with the food here but the flow of traffic, the constant bumping into people, made for a very unpleasant dining experience on most days. I wonder if it’s the way the WJ here is set up? There are food stations in the middle as well as around the perimeter and maybe that’s why traffic doesn’t flow as smoothly? I have been thinking the same as @twangster, in that this is a March break cruise, and hence the constant crowds. But then I think back to all our other cruises, also during peak seasons, and traffic flow was never as bad as it was this time. D1 also missed being able to see major “theater style” shows (not counting special guests and comedians) more often. On DCL, there was one almost every night. On Oasis class, you have 2 theater shows, 2 aqua theater shows, 2 ice shows. Here, there is only We Will Rock You, The Gift, and Spectra’s Cabaret. So again, I wonder what the kids will think of Oasis class next March? Would I/we sail Anthem again? Yes. But…not under the same conditions. One of our biggest disappointments this cruise was the weather. This has nothing to do with RCI at all. I already had reservations about this aspect prior to booking, and sailing this week, in mid-March, confirmed it. We are not “sail out of cold weather” cruisers, even on a cold weather ship like Anthem. Lesson learned. We found that we did very little swimming this cruise compared to our other ones and we did not utilized our balcony as much as we normally do. If we were to sail anything out of Cape Liberty again, it would be in the summer. Am I still an Oasis class girl? A definite yes here! They say that your first cruise ship is always your first love. This is not the case for Hubby and I. Oasis ships are what we love most and that continues. Anthem is great for families and a beautiful ship but there were things missing here that just could not be replaced. For example, the stunning, panoramic views in the Suite Lounge/Coastal Kitchen area on Oasis class, Central Park (270 and La Patisserie while great venues in themselves cannot replace Central Park), and the smoothie bar in the Vitality spa isn’t here. Should everyone give Anthem a try? Most definitely yes! But know what you are signing up for and then you won’t be disappointed. Do your research, book things ahead of time, especially if you are sailing at peak seasons. In closing this out, I want to thank all of you for taking this journey with me. It was so much fun to do a live blog and part of the fun was sharing it with you! Thank you for that. I also have to put a big shout here to Hubby and kids (because they are following this lol) and thank them for taking pics and putting up with my constant “stopping to update the live blog”. That’s all, feel free to ask more questions, I’ll try to answer what I can. Closing out now…Next live blog…Harmony March 2019…first time in Star Class!

Exactly, which is why they seek the warmth of the Caribbean, not the snow of New Jersey.

We made it to Baltimore yesterday evening and checked into our hotel at the inner harbor. Found a crab cake and a cold brew for dinner. I forgot to change my shoes to my sneakers this morning and really wanted to have them in the trip so we found a marshall’s close by and then proceeded to the world trade building to the Top of the World observation deck that we purchased on groupon. It was a pretty day and nice view. Some thoughts: - it is much colder than expected with the wind! I am not used to having to wear a coat for boarding day despite the fact that I have been on 4 alaska cruises :). We are packed up and heading to the port now! Looking forward to some much needed sunshine this week!

A true beauty. PS: Yes it’s perfectly legal for me to fly my drone right over her & take pictures to my hearts content.

It may be too early to wager a guess at this point. Literally, all we know is these ships are getting upgrades. If it puts your mind at ease, around 2011 or so, Royal started its Royal Revitalization program, which was aimed at bringing Oasis class innovations to other ships in the fleet. That's when they started adding specialty restaurants to ships like Rhapsody, Splendour and Serenade... along with many others. Those upgrades did not necessarily facilitate a change in plans for the ship, as we can now see.

Travel router worked great! Thanks to @twangster. Royal wifi network is named "royal-wifi" or something like that and then there's royal-crew so we called ours something similar to blend in ? Edit- we set it up at home first and then just connected after we got on board. If you need details, I'll have to ask Hubby cause he did it all. But we used @twangster's instructions in the other thread.

I thought your blog was fantastic!! Trying to relax and at the same time keeping us all posted was amazing! Have a safe trip home! and thank you again!!

first night was Thursday and first sea day was yesterday. We are waking up to a beautiful sunrise in Charleston today! So far we are having a fabulous time and our sea day yesterday was nearly perfect! I love the quaintness of the grandeur and the feeling of always being connected with the sea. I had gotten the BOGO dining package when it was still $30 per person. Night 1 we ate a CHOPs and last night we ate at Giovanni’s. We went earlier than our reservation and were able to get a great window seat at both locations. At CHOPs, I ordered the lamb and DH got the filet, but we split them. The filet was my favorite, but both were good. I also got the crab cake, lobster bisque, and the red velvet cake. At Giovanni’s, we got the filet and veal to split and then the crab ravioli for the table. Again, the filet was my favorite. I may have even liked it better than the one at CHOPs. We loved our waiter at Giovanni’s, and realized it was our favorite waiter Kicki that we had when we sailed on Grandeur in 2016. We also loved the baked mozzarella appetizer, and the kalamata bread and dipping sauce. I had purchased the sushi class and it was originally scheduled for later in the week, but it was moved to yesterday at 11:45. We started off in the MDR for check in and then proceeded on a tour through the galley. I had not toured the galley in a while, so this was a fun experience. We then went up to the Viking crown lounge and had the class in Izumi. It was a lot of fun. We made two full rolls, a hand roll and a sushimi. We then got to eat hat we made. I would recommend the class and recommend pre-booking in the cruise planner. While, it is not discounted in the planner, you do save the added 18% gratuity that is added if you purchase the class on the ship.

Loved reading your blog and sorry it's over for you!!! I took my first cruise years ago out of there in June. As much as I loved the convenience (I'm on Long Island - about an hour and change from port) I'm not a fan of leaving from the Northeast. I would do it for cost reasons again to avoid flights and hotel but it's not my favorite. It's the only time I've ever been sea sick - and I grew up on the water. Just a heads up, it's really cold this morning. It'll get to mid forties (7c?) later today.

The NY/NJ harbor is pretty busy and most times a harbor tour isn't authorized by the port authority. It isn't that Royal wouldn't love to make this a standard part of the cruise, but it's out of their hands and in the hands of local officials. Of 3 Anthem cruises It happened once for me. I documented it in this live blog: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/boards/index.php?/topic/5387-anthem-11919-9-night-bahamas/&do=findComment&comment=54519

Hello all! Id like to go ahead and get the thread started for those sailing on Serenade of the Seas between 30 MAR and 09 APR. This will be our third cruise (2xdisney, 1xRCL) with this being our first on RCL. We are stoked!! Will be flying in from Asheville NC to Ft Lauderdale, and will spend a night on the 28th. From there on the 29th, we will embark! The Wife and I hope to meet new friends! Bon Voyage, Shipmates!

This is so cool! Jane

It's way warmer in Colorado today than Bayonne. Running errands in a t-shirt around town.

Do you also like getting caught in the rain? ?

Welcome home, Sabrina. Glad you all arrived safely. Thanks again for your well written, informative and just terrific live review. We loved it all, even mysterious hubby, who certainly knows his way with the camera! Good luck with the rest of the school year--I am sure your students love you.

What? Sabrina's from Canada.....it's not cold up there?

I think they are testing the waters to see how bringing OS elements to the smaller ships will react. They will notice the difference quicker on cheaper shorter trips. In all honesty for us a quick 4 day cruise may be better so we can go for a long weekend and have a great getaway. I also know that when I was on Mariner it never felt crowded or too big (although I preferred freedom), my parents who went on Oasis said after Mariner it felt way too big and it wasn't as fun for them. That being said yes I do want to try both. I like the idea of a more modern ship doing the short routes. I have done an old ship (NCL Star) where it's lacking the fun and you have nothing extra to look forward to. Seeing how they are moving the Freedom around I don't think it's going anywhere different for a long while (we have at least until mid 2020). As Matt said, Royal will not jump the gun unless it really works but at the same time these other itineraries will still need ships and they only have so many OS class ships scheduled. I think Freedom up will be safe for now.

This itinerary is much better Day 1 FLL or MIA Day 2 Sea Day 3 Honduras Day 4 Sea Day 5 Sea Day 6 Aruba Day 7 Curacao Day 8 Greneda Day 9 Sea Day 10 Havana overnight Day 11 Havana Day 12 FLL or MIA

Thanks for a great live blog, @Sabrinaklai! Sorry that you found NJ too cold for your liking this time around, but maybe another cruise at a warmer time will change your mind. ?

I really enjoyed following along. Your summary was also a great read!

It's just you...it's a conspiracy plot to keep you from getting in on all those great sales and discount package deals

Royal Caribbean has 'suggestions' but not a strict dress code. Depending on cruise length there is often 1 or 2 formal nights, sometimes a smart casual night and the rest are casual nights. Here are some blogs @Matt wrote on the subject: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2017/01/02/5-questions-about-what-wear-royal-caribbean-cruise https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2018/01/01/everything-you-need-know-about-formal-night-royal-caribbean-cruise https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2017/04/06/royal-caribbean-updates-dining-room-dress-code-again-and-removes-shorts This is a heated topic on many cruise forums with some people taking the suggestions and becoming highly opinionated about people who don't follow them versus many people who view a cruise as a vacation away from suits or business wear and they intentionally do not bring anything 'formal'.

Did you get a chance to try the robot bar? We found it to be a cool experience but the quality of the drinks were poor imo (really syrupy). Also, we weren’t happy with the pool area for the kids. Not much to do for them so we didn’t do much swimming either. Great blog, I really enjoyed following

Did Hubby set up the travel router? Work ok? Did you set it up at home first or do it all on the ship? Any tips on what to name your network? Setting this up is my DH's job today. Great job on the blog. I really enjoyed reading it and you've inspired me to try my own next week. Have a safe trip home!

Too many maybe and what if stuff for me. While we know that Mariner and Navigator will spend some time in the short cruise market we don't know for how long. Royal is very good at watching and understanding sales trends. If the desired effect doesn't happen they'll be moved again. It will be interesting to see if they can fill these ships cruise after cruise or if they'll just be filled by local FL top tier C&A scoring cheap fares which I doubt is the goal. The long term plans for the smallest and oldest ships has always been in question. Old ships aren't fuel efficient. They lack space to add newer activities and venues many cruisers seek. Regardless if they can continue to operate them making a profit they likely will. If they begin losing money, they'll likely go. Royal is a business not a museum for old ships. As far as Freedom class speculating about their future is fun but just that - speculation. We could all throw out wild guesses and predictions most of which will be wrong. They can go places OA class cannot. Fleet upgrades and modernization has always been and will continue to be part of cruising. A couple of years ago (2013ish) Carnival announced Fun Ship 2.0. They are still rolling that out to the fleet through upgrades and modernizations. Only time will tell what happens to Freedom class but they too will be reimagined just like voyager and radiance class. Like an airline, they need to right size the ship on each itinerary otherwise ships will sail too empty to maximize revenue. The airlines stopped using 747 on domestic routes a long time ago. An all-Oasis class fleet is highly unlikely.

From Coastal Kitchen, Anthem, March 2018

And those J1 cabins are connected to a standard balcony and studio room from a very small hallway. Not a great setup if you are not travelling with others in the neighbouring cabins. I will try to get a pic before I leave tomorrow.

When we left last Friday we actually left an hour behind schedule. There was no time to detour. I think @twangster had a special experience that time. We had a port side balcony and we could see the manhattan skyline and Statue of Liberty, but not up close.

Great summary and live blog @Sabrinaklai. Felt the same way with the crowd situation as well on Anthem. Never really ran in to any Windjammer flow/crowd issues. Then again that might have been a timing thing. One thing that never helps the crowd situation are the darn sales booths right on the Esplanade. One major plus I see with Coastal Kitchen on Anthem is you don't have to "beg" to get in if staying in a Junior Suite. Nice not having the host behind a locked door. Only thing that I do regret is missing out watching are the short robot shows in 270. Don't think I ever made it to one.

Thanks so much @monorailmedic The blog you posted is great! Looks like I will be booking for Cuba.

Don't rub it in...not nice ??

Not a problem if you're on a B2B.....

From Oasis in Feb 2018

I flew Virgin Atlantic a ton, never had anything but the best experience. I have deposits in on Virgin Voyages and hoping for the best on that front ... we shall see.

Given the website issues of late... who wants to be the first person down the waterslides and up in the balloon that's coming soon to CocoCay?

I'd also recommend a Spa JS (J4 category) on decks 7 through 9. All of them are mid-ship, and a good number are on the center of the hump on these decks, so you can get the best views; the rest of them are clustered forward of the hump, around a third of the way to the bow / front-most part of "mid-ship". I have one of these reserved for our own 5-nighter to Bermuda this October, on deck 7. Really looking forward to it, since it includes the jacuzzi tub as well as a larger walk-in shower than you get on a standard balcony. I would say to avoid the J1 cabins, called Junior Suite with Large Balcony. They have a much larger balcony than the J4 (over 2x the size), but they are all located at the very front of the hump where it starts jutting out, and have an angled wall where they meet the neighboring Grand Suite room on the main part of the hump; the net effect is that your view aft is basically non-existent unless you lean way the heck out. You can see what I mean more clearly by checking the plans on cruisedeckplans.com.

Great back and forth discussion here. I agree with all of you in some way I think. I'm excited for the additions, but I also love the nothingness of Coco Cay. If they can do both then I'll be uber happy and impressed.

Just redeemed points for our 3/3/18 cruise. It all showed up in my cruise planner, not sure how long after I actually did the process on the BOA site. Keep that confirmation email with you when boarding in case the OBC doesn't show up.

Nope, you didn't miss it. We're a family of mystery ?

They wouldn't trick us, "Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. has been recognized by the Ethisphere Institute as one of the 2018 World's Most Ethical Companies for the third year in a row" Just look on this blog how many times a new sale is announced! Oh Well

We are here put to serve...

Ya know what....it IS in my Cruise Planner, not the dashboard. Sorry. This new website has me all verklempt (sp??)

Sad robot, made obsolete by a human blogger. Sigh...

Blue Lagoon Dolphin Excursion: RC Excursion This excursion is available in several forms. There is the Blue Lagoon Beach Break. This gives you access to beach only. Then there is the Blue Lagoon Dolphin Swim where you can actually swim with a dolphin. The one Hubby and D2 did was the Blue Lagoon Dolphin Encounter, which basically lets you play with a dolphin in waist high water. The excursion started at 7:45am with the meeting spot at Station 1 on the pier. Hubby reported that it took a long time to actually get on the ferry to Blue Lagoon Island. They waited pier side until about 9am. People were separated into two groups (beach people, animal encounters) and bands are given out before boarding the ferry. The ferry ride to Blue Lagoon Island took about 45min. Hubby and D2 reported a smooth, slow ride. There is a washroom available on the ferry. You can even purchase drinks and snacks on the ferry. After arriving on Blue Lagoon Island, there are a few dolphin locations and staff direct you where to go. There is slight confusion but no one got lost. Once arriving in your location, there is a consent to sign off on. Then your belongings are stored in a locker. Hubby reported that these lockers are small and difficult to lock. If you have a large backpack, it won't fit and you have to put it off to the side. The locker can fit approximately a mid-size handbag. Hubby says the locker is ancient looking and rusted. It locks with a key. After securing your belongings, everyone is provided with a life jacket. Then you are taken to the area for the Dolphin Encounter. Here the dolphin trainer gives instructions on how to interact with the dolphin and safety. There are about 16 people in each group. No personal cameras or recording equipment allowed. Interactions with the Dolphin includes hugging, kissing, dancing, rubbing, and touching its teeth. You are also given a fish to feed to the dolphin. Sometimes the dolphin squirts and splashes you. After, the dolphin does a few tricks and then you are given to have the opportunity to take a group photo with the dolphin. Change rooms and showering facilities are available to clean off. Kiosks are available in the gift shop for purchasing photos and videos. Single pics are about $14 Videos are about $58 4 pics + video is $97 All inclusive pics through email was $79 7.5% tax is charged on all purchases and if paying with a credit card, you have to show picture ID. Beach time is included with the excursion and you have the option to take selected ferry times back to the ship. Overall thoughts: Hubby felt this was worth the money. We paid $119.70 CDN (on sale during Black Friday). He reported that some parents had children who ended up being afraid and not wanting to go in. So, buyer beware. Know your children. Photo credit: all Hubby Excursion recap: Hubby and D2 ?

I prefer to manage it myself as no TA has ever given me nor matched any of the prices, cabin, obc, perks, etc. that I can get. I'm just one of those people who love the freedom to control their own reservations and also with good connections here and there!! ? ?

Totally agree with you , even now they could have send some email ...

Although I could login with the direct link (thanks @rjac and I I found a dissimilar that "even if you do not see same things between the site and apps do not worry it will be ok" I would wait with any updates until the site will be stable. My recommendations, if your cruise is not in the coming week wait with any updates transaction on the site (cruise planner changes for example) as RC did not finished the migration/upgrade process and things can be lost during this process. So unless anyone wants to spend hours with RC customer care trying to find were is the special restaurant your order and paid for , just wait for Monday or Tuesday . My next cruise is in one month from now and that is what I am planning to do. By the way , if anyone looking for a CIO job in a major cruise line , it seems to me that one going to be available soon

Dr. Strangecheese. Or, how I learned to relax and embrace the Sorrentos.

What are Voom prices on board?