twangster

Somewhere around 5:30pm in the lounge I was talking with the couple I had met on Anthem in December. We had both then promised to forget each other's name and we both held true to our word. As we were catching up we both stopped when we felt the ship shudder. It was subtle but we both knew something was up. We were turning back. Sure enough the Captain came on to inform us of a medical situation and announcing our return to an anchorage point for one of our guests. I had a 6pm reservation for Jamie's so off to dinner I went. It was fantastic. Dinner started with some garlic bread. I wanted to try several items but was concerned about too much food. My waiter assured me he would adjust the size of the meat plank for one person. The Peperonata Bruschetta was incredible. Tonight I would have the Lamb Chops Scottadito as my main entré with a side of Funky Chips. It was delicious and my mouth is watering as I write this remembering the flavors. I thought about ordering more but knew it would be too much so I opted to move forward and have dessert. A Lemon Meringue Cheesecake. It was an incredible meal. Just wow! On Harmony I was left with a "just okay" experience in Jamie's and based on that I wasn't going to visit Jamie's on Anthem. I am so glad I did and now am thinking about lunch one day. Maybe in warmer waters in the outdoor Jamie's area on deck 5.

Cabin tour! Standard balcony room, deck 6 forward. Cabin 6122. Most deck 6 balconies have an obstructed view due to the position of the life boats. The exception are the forward cabins that are ahead of the life boats. At we started our sail away we moved out of our slip and into New Your harbor. You know its cold when the bouys have ice on one side of them. On my previous Anthem cruises we had delayed embarkation which pushed us behind schedule just a bit. On this cruise we were right on schedule and the Captain informed us we would have a New York city harbor tour to start our cruise. This amounts to turning North and heading towards the city rather than simply heading South and straight towards the Verrazano-Narrows bridge . We sailed right past the Statue of Liberty. We continued North towards the city. Next we sailed past Ellis Island. There were many boats in the harbor with tourists enjoying the views but our vessel was the largest. We then turned 180° and started South. NorthStar was operating. We had amazing view of both sides of the Hudson river but most eyes were on lower Manhattan. With NYC behind us we sailed past Lady Liberty on our way towards the ocean. This was a pretty great way to start a cruise. It was 37° F outside and with the sun going down it was getting colder. Time to warm up.

Unless I meet the girl of my dreams AND she is a Pinnacle, this is not going to happen anytime soon.

Depends on carrier and your texting habits. TMobile doesn't support data over Cellular@Sea so no risk of unexpected data charges. Text are free to receive, $0.50 to send. Voice is $5.99 per minute. If you just need a few texts or want to be reachable in case of emergency back home and you are disciplined in choosing when to send a text it's an option for many. For teens who text constantly throughout the day it would become costly.

New personal best: Arrived at the terminal at 10:12am by Lyft, $16 from my hotel near EWR airport. Security had a short line mostly due to some guests in front of me who apparently had never seen or heard of a metal detector before. Boarding started at 10:30am. Specialty dining (BOGO2) reservations booked, reservation for Ripcord by iFly booked and KummelWeck in hand (along with a B&B) by 11am. For some reason my SetSail pass needed to be re-printed at check in. I made a "Wines of the World" booking just before the Cruise Planner closed a few days ago. The check in agent made reference to "a last minute change" making my SetSail pass invalid. Oh the mysteries of Royal IT. Jamie's for dinner tonight, Chops on day 2. No time to take pictures in the terminal, it went that fast. In the waiting area there are around six rows for Diamond/Diamond Plus guests. Our one row hadn't filled up yet when boarding commenced.

IT'S CRUISE DAY!!! Departing Cape Liberty (Bayonne, NJ) I have two sea days, Port Canaveral, Miami, Nassau, CocoCay then two sea days back to Cape Liberty. I haven't booked excursions and plan to work some days. Some of these ports are places I've visited many times. As always I'm hoping we make CocoCay but since it's currently a tender port that is always a game day decision for the Captain. Finger's crossed. I flew in last night and stayed at a hotel near the Newark airport. On the plane I checked Anthem's position on a ship tracking site and was surprised to see she was beating me into NJ. Apparently there was a medical incident that precluded helicopter evacuation so they sped up to make port. This is my 3rd cruise on Anthem after a back to back in December. That seems so long ago but then again it was last year. I'm in a balcony cabin on deck 6 forward this time. Most deck 6 balconies are obstructed view due to the position of the life boats however I'm far forward enough to be away from them. I'm planning to purchase Voom on board as it never went on sale in the cruise planner. Since we are in port much of today I'll wait until day 2 to buy Voom to save some money since the on board plans are pro-rated based on how many days are remaining. Yesterday I changed planes in Atlanta. It was very odd looking out the window of the plane and seeing some snow on the ground. My favorite airline lounge has an outside deck which was closed yesterday because of the snow. Where I come from this isn't considered a lot of snow but for this part of the country the recent storm was snowmageddon. Here in Newark it is 28° F this morning. There is something about boarding a ship when it's below freezing that just seems weird. I think I'll skip the sail away and Verrazano-Narrows Bridge event on deck 15 this time. With that it's time to finish re-packing my bags and hail a Lyft.

Welcome to the message boards! The original remodel was postponed by Hurricane Matthew damage to the Freeport dockyard. The remodel is being competed in smaller phases with some already completed and the final bits being done now. It's more likely the timing of the work is based on availability of the dockyard where the work is being completed. They don't own the dockyard and they are used by all types of ships from cruise to cargo and tankers. Finding time and availability and then shipping all the components to that facility in advance takes a lot of planning. No cruise line likes to cancel cruises but they were left little choice based on when they could get time in the dockyards to get it all done.

On sister ship Anthem the smoking area is deck 5 starboard off The VIA and is a covered area with seating. Parts of the casino are smoking and there is a covered section of the pool deck on starboard as well for smokers.

RoyalIQ works on Quantum class and Harmony. The newer Royal app works on Allure, Oasis and Serenade with more ships coming soon. In the new app the texting feature has been promised as a future enchantment. It is available in the Google Play store as well. The app store name is "Royal Caribbean International".

Everything is measured against on board pricing, not a previous sale price you might have seen in the cruise planner.

Hot shower, hang clothes, close bathroom door. Works better with wrinkle release applied first. Oh and BTW, real men do it too.

Different app for Allure called 'Royal'. IQ doesn't work on Allure.

Welcome to the message boards! No need for wallet on CocoCay - it's a private island with only ship guests and RCI employees. You can bring some cash for the market there. I usually use a small backpack that I leave under my towel. I've never had an issue but there are ways to lock a backpack to a lounger or even vaults that lock to a chair. One such product is AquaVault: https://theaquavault.com/ I don't own one but I've seen reference to them on other forums.

By policy it's not allowed. I've never tried to bring one so can't comment on policy enforcement.

Morning are quite easy. Most ships have it marked one side for walkers, one for runners. Mid-day on sea days would be a tough run, better to jog in place. The early bird gets the worm, and the jogging track.

Anthem FWIW: All ships are different, even within a class of ships some are different. It depends. Just as @Gears offered.

Cafe Promenade is the closest thing on Freedom. No KummelWecks though. Some roast beef sandwiches on some days that were good but not the same.

Mr. Bayley also once said internet would be free on Enchantment. I'm not sure that's happened yet.

Welcome to the message boards! If you are using 'available cruises to book' as a measure, there will be only 12 ships left in the whole fleet by Nov. '19. I don't think so. They just haven't planned the itineraries that far out yet. No idea if they plan to swap ships around or out of Baltimore. Airlines 'right size' the planes that fly certain routes all the time. Over a longer time period Royal will do the same. Like Tampa though, those bridges in Baltimore limit how big they can go which causes ripple effects as they look at the "dance of the cruise ships" - moving the fleet around to keep things fresh.

My guess is a shipping container. They fall off cargo ships from time to time. Apparently one propellor blade was dinged. The imbalance and bent blade caused a lot of vibration and issues. They cut off some metal to make it more streamlined but now it wasn't balanced. The result was speed restrictions causing the high speed run to St Kitts to be impossible. This caused itinerary updates. Western Caribbean routes don't need the high speed leg so they were okay. This is based on some unconfirmed tidbits so who knows. Maybe they ran over a Carnival tug boat.

We call those people Canadian. A hearty bunch. Ever go to Florida in the winter when the water is chilly and there are only a handful of people in the water? Yup. Canadians.

I might just slink around and spread rumors... "I saw him in the pub!".

Good point but need to make sure your phone is unlocked and/or can take SIM cards. Not all US phones can. Many US cell providers have come out with affordable or free international plans for use in port as well. One carrier, TMobile includes data and text for free in many countries, voice calling is $0.20 per minute. Both AT&T and Verizon have international options that compared to a few years ago are pretty reasonable. As you have stated that doesn't help on the ship away from land but if it is a port intensive cruise it may be enough.

Maybe it's a strategy to strike fear in a competitor and get them to spend money on their own private islands... like the one next door.

Yeah when I first saw that video I learned a lot and to think it's just out there on YouTube for anyone to discover.