FionaMG

It was an excellent view for a supposedly obstructed balcony. Ours was a 2-berth on the starboard side, while the corresponding one on the port side is a 3-berth. The obstruction was the davit, which is a huge pillar-type structure that holds up one end of a lifeboat, so it completely blocks the view towards the aft; but looking straight out or towards the front of the ship we had excellent views. One thing I meant to mention about it is that the entrance to the cabin is slightly narrower than normal because part of the structure of the ship juts out right by the door, maybe about 3 inches. It might make it a bit awkward for someone who is mobility challenged and has difficulty manoeuvring. I would have no hesitation in booking this cabin again. I saw The Gift and enjoyed it but I knew from the boards beforehand to expect a very tenuous storyline. I'll be sharing some pics later on. It wasn't performed until almost the end of the cruise. DH did not see it; he fell asleep before it started and only wakened up as it was finishing . We are booked on Anthem again next spring but out of NJ this time, as we recuperate a trip to New York that got covidated early in the pandemic. It's the 23rd of April, an 8-nighter immediately prior to her return to this side of pond. If that's a date that might work for you, check it out; the prices right now are VERY good!

To round off our evening on this first night of the cruise, DH made his first nightly contribution to the casino, which he found to be more tight-fisted than on any of our previous sailings, although that didn't stop him having fun while his money lasted, after which we headed to Two70 for Spectra's Cabaret. I am utterly divided about Two70. As a lounge it's lovely but as a show venue it's awful. It's virtually impossible to get a decent seat unless you're prepared to turn up at least an hour before showtime, which we were not. That said, what we were actually able to see of the show was excellent. It was very dynamic and even DH, who falls asleep at 90% of the shows on board, stayed awake the entire time and enthused about it afterwards. And with that, we headed off to Café Promenade for our nightly pre-bed tea and cookies.

We ate all our dinners in the MDR on this cruise. We had My Time Dining and I had booked us a set time of 8 pm each evening. Although this kind of defeats the purpose of MTD it means we can count on having a table just for ourselves. It's not that we don't like to be social but we talk to each other in Portuguese so it can be a bit awkward if you're sharing a table with others who don't speak the language. With the My Time set-up, we can still chat with the people at the tables next to us but that awkwardness is eliminated simply by the fact of being at a different table. Our waiters always brought us a printed menu and I can confirm that the menus in the app were accurate. Day 1 menu: Maryland-style crab cake. I used to really love these (even though I have been told on numerous occasions that they are nothing like the real thing). However, since the restart they have not tasted the same and I was a bit disappointed not to have chosen the mushroom soup instead. One of the things I really like about European sailings are the pie and curry options on the menu. These were previously only offered on sailings out of Southampton but now appear to be available on other European sailings. They certainly were on our Odyssey sailing back in May. Chicken Saag: Prime rib, which DH asked for with fries: Blueberry and pear cobbler. It was nice enough but nothing really special. And the Royal cheesecake, which DH said was a bit disappointing in that it came without any strawberry sauce. Later on in the cruise, it would occur to us to ask for some strawberry sauce to go along with it.

While we were finishing up our lunch, they announced that the cabins were open so we headed off there. Our luggage had already arrived (earliest ever!), which was great as it meant we were able to unpack straight away. There was a copy of the Day 1 Compass on the bed, which pleased us greatly as there had been none at Guest Services. Instead, where they would usually be, there were QR codes to scan for a digital copy. After our cabin steward came to introduce himself I made sure to ask him to get us a paper copy every day. Our cabin was an obstructed balcony, 6560, which had I had seen recommended by various previous cruisers due to having very little obstruction. As you can see from the pics, they were correct. Really the only obstruction is the davit to the right that blocks your view aft. Views of and from our obstructed balcony cabin: These two were taken on arrival in Vigo and you can see how little obstruction there is: And these two show that there's plenty of water visible! With everything unpacked, we headed out to explore the ship a bit more before sailaway. Luckily the weather was cooperating and although it was cloudy it wasn't raining. A few brave souls using the pool (too cold for us): The North Star bar was consistently packed solid for the entire cruise: The brand new Norwegian Prima was also in Southampton but we left first! Bye bye Southampton and Prima!

So, finally... As I said back in the first post on the thread, this was a 12-night cruise on Anthem of the Seas, departing from Southampton, England, and calling at Vigo, Lisbon, Lanzarote, Gran Canária, Tenerife, Funchal and La Coruña. I won't go into a huge amount of detail about our travels to Southampton since that part won't be of much use to most peeps on the board here, but suffice to say we flew non-stop from our local airport (Faro, Portugal) into Bournemouth, England. This is a tiny airport about a 30-40 minute drive from Southampton and which essentially serves a couple of European low-costs. It was a good way to avoid the big London airports and could conceivably be made to work for people coming from across the pond if you fancied a stop on the way to/from your cruise somewhere that has flights to Bournemouth. In the past we could probably have flown straight to Southampton but the airline that served that route from Faro went bust and there is currently only one flight a week on a Saturday, which didn't work for this cruise. Again, however, Southampton could be an option if you can connect in Amsterdam, as KLM operate a twice-daily flight between the two. We pre-booked our airport-hotel-airport transfers with Westquay Cars for £65 each way. A credit card was required to guarantee the booking but we paid cash to the driver on the day. Booking was not as easy as it could have been since I couldn't get their online booking to work for me. Instead I emailed them and then had to call to give them my CC details. We stayed two nights pre-cruise in the Premier Inn Westquay in Southampton. Premier Inn is a well-known slightly upscale budget brand in the UK and this particular hotel is popular with cruisers because of its proximity to the port. It's nothing fancy but was perfectly fine for 2 nights. We added on the breakfast option, which is a bit limited but what there was was nice, and we also had dinner there on our first night. Service was a bit slow but the food was fine (we both had steak) and reasonably priced. The location is great because there are plenty of shops and restaurants in the immediate vicinity including a large mall if the weather decides to be unfriendly. It is usually possible to walk from here to the port, although that depends on how comfortable you are dragging your luggage. We would have done it but our dates coincided with the Southampton International Boat Show which meant the walking route to the port was blocked off and we would have had to go a very long way around. Instead we got a taxi. I used Radio Taxis Southampton, having downloaded their app the evening before. We only had to wait a few minutes and the very short ride cost £6. Boarding for this cruise was the fastest and easiest we have ever encountered. It took us about 10 minutes from getting out of the taxi to setting foot on the ship. Our check-in slot was 11.30 am and I had booked us into Jamie's for lunch at 1.30 pm, so we had time to settle with a coffee in Two70 and then go for a bit of a wander before lunch. This was our first specialty restaurant lunch ever and I really only booked it because we had some OBC to use up. However, I think I might make this a standard practice as it was really nice to avoid the pandemonium in the WJ for that first lunch on board. One of the main reasons we tend not to book specialty dining is that we have very small appetites so we never feel like we're getting our money's worth. However, with lunch costing less than half the price of dinner and having an almost identical menu, I thought it was a reasonable deal. Even so, there was way too much food for us and we didn't even order very much. It was very good and we enjoyed it very much. Lunch menu: Meat plank: Garlic bread: Prawn linguine: Tagliatelle Bolognese: Epic brownie: Amalfi lemon cheesecake:

Congrats on your 50th! Would love to hear about your experience. My brother and his wife did pretty much the same trip a few years ago for their 25th and loved it. Have an amazing time!

This is us exactly. We spend a lot of time just enjoying the sea air while watching people on the flowrider.

According to Matt's article on the home page, it appears Southampton is not happening.

I forgot about Halloween

Nice! I'm guessing you didn't win the freebie though or you'd have said?

There was one at the start of the month (columbus day?), so I guess we should be due another one fairly soon to keep us entertained between now and black Friday.

Someone who's blogging from Oasis just now said the same. I wonder if every current sailing is offering a freebie on Icon...

Even that's too much for us. The last packages we bought were pre pandemic and worked out at under $20 per person per meal. No chance of ever seeing those prices again. I actually wish they would offer a la carte options at the specialty restaurants because our main gripe is that we eat too little to get our money's worth on the cost of a full meal. I'd happily pay a cheaper price just for a main course.

So, is this the ONE upcoming cruise that you're not listing because you don't want to jinx it? Seriously, though, that's crazy money. I noticed the prices had gone up on my next cruises as well. There are several MDR menus we really don't care for and we'd be up for booking packages if they were more reasonably priced.

To be honest, I wasn't thinking of Icon when I bought it. It was more to have the lower deposit locked in if and when something caught my eye, but this is great because it means I'll still be within the qualifying time frame for the little bit of OBC too.

I bought an open booking on our recent Anthem cruise... I think it may not be "open" for very long.

Perhaps you could email Royal's special needs department. I don't know the address off the top of my head but I've seen it mentioned on the boards from time to time. As far as recent personal knowledge is concerned, I can tell you that Anthem has a pool lift in the indoor pool: And Odyssey has at one of the outdoor pools: I don't know if they are of a type that is suitable for your wife. You can see them in the above images. Hope this helps.

On our recent Anthem cruise, Guest Services had sheets with the QR codes on the shelves where the paper compasses would normally be. I downloaded the first day's one but didn't bother after that because there was a paper one in our room on arrival and I asked our stateroom attendant to provide us with one every day. It occurred to me, however, that I could conceivably have printed a copy myself using the printers in the onboard Internet cafe. I reckon you'd need to have Internet to do it though, as I think I would have had to email it to myself and print it out from there. It would have been a faff, for sure, but if they hadn't given me the paper ones I was up for trying it.

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans... It's been a week since we disembarked from our wonderful Canaries cruise and I had expected to have my recap completed by now. Except on the very next morning, as he was leaving the house to go to work, my DH had a stupid accident that landed him in hospital overnight and he is now convalescing at home. It will likely be another couple of weeks before he's anywhere near back to normal. He was lucky; nothing was broken (except for the car and gate at the end of the drive, but they're replaceable, so who cares?). With the emotional rollercoaster ride finally slowing down a bit I'm almost ready to revisit our trip. Thanks for your patience and for indulging me.

We're considering this same tour for next April. If you go ahead with it we would love to hear how it went for you, if you don't mind sharing. Thanks a lot and have a great time on your cruise.

It's a very nice itinerary. Very easy DIY ports that don't really need excursions. The only one we booked was the bus transfer to Puerto del Carmen beach in Lanzarote because it's a pain to get to on public transport. However there are plenty of taxis on the pier if you prefer to go on your own schedule and for two the round trip cost of the taxi is about the same as the bus transfer if you book it during a sale. Otherwise we're just doing our own thing. There are "free" walking tours available in some of the ports, the ones where you pay what you want at the end of the tour. We've used a company called Guru Walks for these in the past and they can be useful for a brief overview and to get your bearings. The weather has been very pleasant, perfect for sightseeing in non-beach ports and nice and sunny and warm for the beaches too. The really good thing is that if this were your standard 7-night cruise, we'd be on our way to the airport now, but instead we have another 5 days!

Haha, what a numpty. Thanks for pointing that out. How did I not notice that? Corrected now.

Boarded Anthem this morning for a 12-night cruise to Vigo, Lisbon, Lanzarote, Gran Canária, Tenerife, Funchal and La Coruña. I will be doing a full recap when we get back but will be happy to try and find the answers to any questions anyone might have as we go along.

You don't but it can actually be faster at check in to have all of the printed documents in hand rather than having to swipe through your phone. Plus it means you have a back up if the technology decides to have a tantrum precisely when you need it to be on its best behaviour.

New slots often open up so keep checking back in the app.