WannaCruise

My kids loved the Sky Pad and Laser Tag. Have fun. Mariner is a great ship.

I'm in the process of doing a Lift & Sift of Anthem from this Dec to next Dec. A month or two ago, I had hope it would run. However now, my thoughts have changed as nothing has started up as of Sept, crew isn't there, no new procedures announced, covid cases are pretty high, borders are still closed (criteria for us), etc etc. My personal opinion, but it's not looking too good.

Maybe they'll turn the hammocks into cruise planner "purchases" to buy your slot for the week or day . Better not give them any ideas 🤪

Thanks so much. I remember following along at the time. 🙂 Just did a re-read. Great cruise! Seems like they had non-Christmas stuff too as you mentioned. This is the same 8 night we currently have booked for this December (except I see that your itinerary got changed). Next year's is a 7 night but still would be similar. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the great links. DH and I were on Adventure in December (before Christmas) and they also had a nice tree up in the Promenade. The indoor pool area looks really nice. Good size. And Anthem seems to have a great Solarium. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks. Love hearing of Christmas experiences and helps too hearing Anthem. Yes, we would pre-book whatever we can. I know my kids will love that SeaPlex area so can imagine that will be very busy. I think there is an indoor pool for the cooler days? We also love the scheduled activities (e.g. scavenger hunts, etc) so those can spread out crowds too. We have also been trying ot get to Kennedy Space Center, which can see having large crowds that week. And yeah, for us it would be balcony rooms, but that's still nice for us. 🙂

Yeah, I remember your post from last week. I'm 97% sure we are going to try to Lift and Sift this Anthem cruise to next Dec. Guess we have a few weeks to decide. Fingers crossed. Sorry that your husband can't join you.

Something to look forward to!

Really want to try Anthem so definitely good attitude. But it's my kids (long line ups) and DH (hates crowds) that i'm questioning. However, after losing 3 cruises this year (2 for sure..most likely this one), I think they'll get over any waits...ha ha.

Very true. Great way to remove the stress of the holidays. Also nice to get away from the snow (well, on Anthem...at least a day or two in the middle should be nice weather...lol)

That certainly is a nice tradition to start. Thanks for the feedback of your experience on Independence. Can definitely see everyone being more happy overall as it's that time of year.

Thanks for the reply. New Years would be amazing on a cruise! Can see the main promenade (or whatever they call it on Anthem) pretty busy. We try and book traditional dining if there's room so sounds like we should stick to that. Glad you had such a great cruise.

We lost our March cruise on Anthem so we rebooked for December of this year over first week of Christmas holidays. But now I have doubts that the cruise will be running by then. Canadian/US borders may be closed for awhile and covid numbers are going the wrong way. We're thinking of trying to Lift & Sift to next December if we can. With next year's dates, there is only one cruise over the school holidays (vs this year where new years cruise is also when schools are still closed). Thus, I'm wondering how crazy will the ship be? Anyone cruised at Christmas before, and on Anthem? Will lines up for Sea Plex be out the door and swimming pools overcrowded? We are coming with our kids who will be 15 and 11 but I imagine so will many others. Never traveled at Christmas time before. We are also double booked for the following March to have Anthem as a back up, but then we would have to give up our current Oasis cruise. Also I assume that not all events will be Christmas related? (Or maybe they are on the 24th and 25th). We aren't Christian so the holiday stuff isn't meaningful to us (but I still think it's a very nice time of year as people are very joyous and happy and its really pretty with the lights and decorations). Just wondering others experiences. Thanks.

The only time this gets complex is if you had OBC as part of the previous cruise promotion and you used that OBC to purchase cruise planner item. Then you get a price drop (without the OBC). From what I remember, you will owe money for that OBC that you lost but had already used (but you don't lose the purchase).

Exactly. For the one that we had applied, Royal simply adjusted the cruise price. So for any price drops, I was comparing the my cruise price with the current price on a mock booking. I didn't realize that I should have compared with the cruise cost from the previous invoice. Good to know going forward that I should be looking at the price before the FCC was applied and compare to the current price. So if its like a payment, then could switch a room category and not worry about losing the FCC. Thanks so much for the info.