wannabecruiseexpert

Just curious - have you felt at any point the service you're receiving has been too much? My star class experience wasn't anything like what you've had, but curious if you've felt bothered. Well bothered isn't such a great word but maybe overbearing?  Don't get me wrong , we loved all of the attention that we received.  For us, it was the right balance of spoiling us versus leaving us alone to let us enjoy ourselves. 

WHO:
Myself (mid-30s M)
Wife (mid-30s F)
Nanny (early 20s F)
Kids (5F, 3.5F, 2M)
 
WHAT:
Cruising on Anthem!
Two (2) connecting interior staterooms (2U and 4U)
One (1) Deluxe Beverage Package
Chef’s Table for two (2) (me and Wife)
No cabanas, no excursions
Other than Chef’s Table, no specialty dining (MDR and Windjammer all the way!)
 
WHERE: 
Day 1: Port Bayonne, NJ
Day 2: Sea Day
Day 3: Port Canaveral (not sure of gantry is 12pm or 2pm)
Day 4: Nassau, Bahamas
Day 5: Coco Cay
Day 6: Sea Day
Day 7: Sea Day
 
WHEN:
5 December (Sunday) through 12 December (Sunday)
 
HOW: 
Driving from Maryland the morning of embarkation (11:30am check-in)
 
WHY: 
I will try (and fail) to keep this brief. I’m a Disney Parks nut. I love planning, logistics, fast passes, dining, touring plans, and everything that goes into a Disney Parks trip. My first cruise was 2015 on Grandeur out of Baltimore, 7-night to Bermuda. I had never considered a cruise beforehand, but it was an invite from the Wife’s extended family. About 2 months out, I started researching cruising the same way I researched a Disney trip, and I was hooked on cruising. I started looking at cruise compasses to get an idea of activities, dining, etc. Fast forward to the cruise, and it completely changed my life. Looking back, I’m really glad my first experience was on Grandeur, because I’ll likely never sail on something that small/old again! 🙂
Not long after that cruise, we found out about another life-changing event: a baby! The next several years zoomed by: a blur of babies, jobs, houses, etc. 
When the Wife and I hit our 5-year anniversary (2020), we decided to do an adult Disney trip - just the two of us. Unfortunately, COVID hit and 2 months before our flights was when quarantine struck, parks shut down, and we’re dead in the water. 
This past summer (2021), we (Me, Wife, 3 kids) took a trip to Florida with the Wife’s extended family. It was hard. 3 kids, one condo, no car, limited things to do in walking distance. We had the beach and a pool, but during COVID times, there’s not much else. We cooked, we kept the kid entertained, but It’s not something we’d do again. 
When we got back, we needed a REAL vacation - what about our adults-only Disney trip? Perfect! I worked on a plan for flights, hotel, food…only to find out everything was at a premium price. None of my tricks were working. For everyone following Disney, you know they took advantage of COVID to restructure FastPasses (Genie+), Annual Passes, pretty much everything. Our 2-person 72-hour trip was becoming WAY more expensive than we wanted. Thus begins disillusionment with Disney, but now I need a new hobby…
Back to the drawing board: What’s something the whole family can do, that includes activities, but we don’t need a car, don’t have to cook, or don't have to worry about groceries? The Wife says, “What about a cruise?”. After some quick pricing, it turns out 6 people for 7 days on Anthem isn’t much more than 2 people for 3 days in Disney. We locked in a date (same date as our failed Disney trip), and I’ve been following everyone’s adventures here ever since!
This has been an incredible community to be a part of, and I can’t wait to give back! We’re already (loosely) planning another cruise in October 2022 - same route, but on Oasis, and having another family join us!

This makes me sad! Not something we experienced with our little one but for anyone - especially kids - to be ostracized makes me really sad!  

This makes me sad! Not something we experienced with our little one but for anyone - especially kids - to be ostracized makes me really sad!  

This makes me sad! Not something we experienced with our little one but for anyone - especially kids - to be ostracized makes me really sad!  

La Bamba looks delicious! That's on my to-do list for next time we sail from there. 
Happy cruise day!!!

I read that as the local law now says either vaccinated or negative test but this specific tour operator is complying with the local law by requiring all to be vaccinated (and not giving an option for negative test). Hopefully you can find something on board like @Atlantix2000mentions 

I completely agree. The rocking and swaying is one of the things I miss most when I get home

Congratulations! Everything has looked soooo amazing so far!

Glad you made it on quickly! Enjoy the rest of your trip!

I sure do LOVE a positive attitude! Enjoy your pedis tomorrow!

We have a A1 2 bedroom Aqua theater for my wife, twin boys (turning 7 on sailing) and 5 year old daughter. Also joining is my sister in law and her 18 month old son. There are 3 other families in Sky class suites and two sets of grandparents in Junior suites.
I booked this suite the day it released back in November 2019 while on board Navigator. 
We are flying direct to Miami from San Francisco. I splurged on first class seats since we had lots of American credits from cancelled cruise flights. 
Staying near Miami airport the night before cruise then using hotel shuttle to ship (if times are bad we will use other transportation)
Got an over water cabana for Coco Cay. With current protocols we are required to purchase Royal excursions to take kids off ship in other ports. Because of this rule I purchased a mainland excursion to ruins in Cozumel. (We usually do an island beach club on our own) In Roatan we will go to Sol y Mar for beach time. No plans currently for Costa Maya. The port pass apiary I have read others have done has not been available in cruise planner.
Received Genie email from Shane. Gave him a list for dining times and places for each night. I hope that there will be flexibility to make changes if necessary. 

Made beer and wine requests for our room. I travel with a Yeti bag which I prefer over the cowboy cold fridges in Royal Caribbean rooms. I asked for 2019 vintage Coors Light (high snowfall in Colorado Rockies that year provides a hint of pine) If this is unavailable I’ll settle for 2021 vintage. 
Also asked Shane for an in suite ice cream party the afternoon of my twins birthday for all the kids in group.
Doing COVID tests locally before heading to airport. Plan to do two in attempt to reduce potential sample problems.
Listing this post in “Live Blog” section. No promises on quantity or quality of posts during sailing. Will certainly post a reflection on experience and answer questions once back home.

Personally I'd probably choose 9694, just because I tend to like higher cabins. But I don't know that there would be much difference between these two. 

If you like looking down on people, select 9694. Floor plans are the same. I prefer Navigator layout over Freedom class 2 bedroom grand suites. 2nd bathroom is in hallway near large walk in closet. 

I was just thinking about this blog and hoping recovery is going great!

Oops the liveness has really fallen off on this leg! I will come back to add some recaps a little later, but interesting update for this sea day has been us waiting all day for a medical evac! 
Captain Thor came on around 9am and told us why we were hovering off the coast of Nassau again; waiting for a medical plane to arrive in Nassau for a passenger evacuation. I figured we’d be done with that soon enough but we have been tooling around off the coast all day! The cruisemapper route looks so crazy already and we’re not done circling yet. Update was that the plane should land around 4:30pm. 



We have a nice spot in a day bed on the port side and the sun has been coming and going all day as we turn back and forth. 
Giovanni’s Italian Kitchen tonight and Thrill Waterpark tomorrow! 
Here’s a rainbow pic as an offering for my poor live blogging. 

Oops, what’s $30 in loitering cocktails when you’re waiting for vacation to officially commence??

Day 7 (CocoCay) started really early. On day 4 or 5 we had a notice on our door that we needed to schedule DD6 for another covid test. We purposely picked 6:50-7:00 as our time because I thought I read on here that you had to have the results back before you could get off the ship. So I take her down to deck 3 and surprisingly there is no line. I scan her card and they handed me a piece of paper and then was directed to a different room where they had several nurses administering the test. It was, again, the short swab. Very simple and we were sent on our way.
I had previously told Smitha we wanted to get off at 9:00 (making sure to give plenty of time for the test to come back). At about 8:50 she messaged me to let her know when we were ready. I told her I didn’t have the results back yet and she said it doesn’t matter and that we should get an email by 6:00 that evening (I ended up getting it about 4). We met her at our elevators and she took us down (both this day and the day she took us to medical, we walked across I-95. I’ve never done a ship tour so found that interesting. She took us to the trams and we waited a few minutes to get on one going to the Beach Club. We booked an over the water cabana a while back and the price never dropped. 

When we first arrived at the Beach Club, we were given a tour and then taken to our cabana. Matt has a map here https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/perfect-day-cococay-map
From the maps I saw, it looked like there wasn’t a bathroom close, but there are 2 bathroom “trailers”, 1 on each side at the cabanas.

We had cabana #1 and I thought it was going to be perfect for us since I knew DD6 would want to play in the sand. I was wrong. More on that later.









We had 7 people and found there is plenty of room for everyone. I loved having the radio. We were able to use our phones to connect to it or you could choose from a few select “stations”. 
 
We had 2 very attentive attendants who made sure we always had a drink in our hand. And food. Lots and lots of food. We started with cold appetizers of hummus and tzatziki, ceviche, shrimp, veggies and pita bread


Not too long after, they brought hot appetizers consisting of chicken wings, cheese sticks, chicken fingers and fries

For lunch, they explained that with large groups they recommend bringing an assortment of all of the lunch foods instead of everyone ordering something specific. We could have ordered If we wanted to but we just took their recommendation. Please ignore all of the feet. I kept making everyone move so I could take pictures but apparently I wasn’t quick enough for this one. This was soooo much food! I tried a little of everything and other than the mac & cheese, everything was great (I’m a southern girl and we know how to make mac & cheese 😂)

 
Not too long after lunch, one of the many lifeguards told us that at high tide (around 1:00) we may see some stingrays and sharks but don’t be alarmed as they wouldn’t mess with us. We saw 3 different sharks and 2 stingrays. They were very close to us! If anyone was there that day, even on the ship, and heard screaming, that was my daughter 😱 

I could not believe how close they kept coming to us. They would stay in the Water between the cabanas and the beach and then it would occasionally swim under our cabana and then go back again. It was so neat watching them then watching other people on the beach see them and scatter. Speaking of other people, it got soooo crowded around our cabana. There were frequently people floating on mats right at our steps and at the slide. I got annoyed, but I mean the cabana was right in front of “their” beach. I just wish for the price we paid, we had a little more seclusion. We even had someone come up and ask us to slide down the slide. It just felt awkward.
One off my daughters was walking down the path on the way to get a funnel cake and apparently was asked by one of the attendants if she needed something. She told him where she was going and he said no, he’ll get it. I knew that we could ask them to get stuff from outside of the Beach Club but it was so close that we didn’t mind getting it ourselves. Regardless, a few minutes later we had dessert and 6 funnel cakes delivered.


All in all, we had an amazing time but I’m not sure I can justify spending what we did. The food was great, but I think all of the other food is really good too. Maybe if we had a different cabana I would have felt different. We never made it to the pool.

It is cruise month!!!!!!!!!!

Mission accomplished!

If you have a “party”, at least take pictures of the food! 😊

Day 5 was our last sea day and started with our usual breakfast and Starbucks. We didn’t really do much other than enjoy the pools and the most comfortable beds ever for much needed naps 😂 I seriously want to buy their mattress and bedding!
We went to the ice show, Ice Games (based on monopoly) and we all loved it! Very entertaining! Then we had Chops for dinner. I think I’m all steaked out by now. 







 
 

Random thoughts I left out -
Since we had an unvaccinated child, we had to meet at Studio B for all of our excursions, get a sticker to wear, then go meet on the pier. I understand the staff needs to make sure you’re on a ship sponsored excursion, but the card scanner thing alerts when you get off so I don’t understand the point.
DD6 loves to write notes to her teachers, friends, etc. Well she wrote one to Smitha and gave it to her at dinner that night. Later on, I get a message and it’s Smitha telling me she put it up on her board. Made my daughter’s day

As a first timer in star class, we really didn’t know what to expect. I was worried it was going to be too much. I’ve read about the phone constantly ringing and doorbell always going off. We didn’t experience that. Our laundry was usually delivered when we were getting ready for dinner, but other than that, most things happened when we were gone. I did expect to see the genie more often. We always went to the dinner she scheduled by ourselves and I think just the first 2 nights she came and checked on us while at dinner and that was it. We saw her at the shows when she walked us to our seats and she walked us outside on our excursion days. We didn’t see her at cococay like I see other genies doing. Didn’t bother me at all because we’re extremely low key but it wasn’t what I was expecting.
All in all, I do think star class was worth what we paid, if for nothing more than the great room (got a ton of steps in) and the laundry! 
 
Speaking of laundry, do they hide those little tags I’ve seen people talking about here on the blogs? I found 2. I specifically went looking for them on various clothing items but only found 2. There must be a trick to finding them 😊
 

Today I sent some photos of the room to a friend who hasn’t seen it. In case there’s anyone here who hasn’t seen it (which I doubt) here is Suite 1740. No pictures of the downstairs bedroom as Taylor was sleeping off a little motion of ocean feeling. 

I’m pretty sure I could have asked for a specific one, but looking at the map, I thought #1 would be perfect for us so that our little one could play in the sand easily. That part worked really good. But now, knowing what I know, I will ask for #10 or #11.
We have a sky class suite in April and I’m kind of excited to see how it compares. I’ve apparently done this in the wrong order