WAAAYTOOO

Be careful lifting the bed though. Once on Grandeur, Dan lifted the bed to slide the suitcases beneath and somehow uncoupled the beds. We had a sinkhole between the beds until we figured out what had happened and asked the room attendant to rejoin them

Interesting that you mention this. We have been playing poker nightly with a man who visited the ship’s barber earlier this week. The seas coming out of Bayonne were a little rough but not horrible. He laughed and asked the barber to please NOT use a straight razor. We all laughed.

I suspect this is true.

Hmmm....I thought this might happen. I love seafood so at least the swap was a good one, IMO. TBH, without queso fundido, Sabor was not that interesting to me anymore.

We have been very successful in getting items in one specialty restaurant that is offered elsewhere. For instance, I often order the cream of mushroom soup when I’m in the Coastal Kitchen or Jamies and they always accommodate my requests. The French onion soup is readily available on the ship in different venues so I would not hesitate to ask for it if you want it. Recently, we were very disappointed that queso fundido had been removed from the menu at Sabor on Navigator. I asked if they serve it even though it was not on the menu and he said that, unfortunately, they could not. We were so disappointed. Then to our great surprise, the next evening, when we were at dinner at Chops, here comes a beautiful serving of queso fundido. I guess they had “found” some and brought it to us. What a wonderful surprise. So it is possible to get items that are not on the menu -even if they have been removed from the menu. You just have to ask !

I hope the lasagna at Giovanni’s on Brilliance is better than the lasagna at Jamies on Anthem. Dan said his tasted like meat loaf wrapped in lasagna noodles !

The <unique> space that we have really enjoyed on Anthem is the Music Hall. I find it to be a very versatile and comfortable area and think something along these lines on the older class ships would be welcome. I am not a night-clubber but it seems like they have removed all night life venues in most of the ships so it was nice to see a lively and well-utilized venue on Anthem. They use this space all day and night for various events (from bingo during the day to concerts at night). Interestingly, our Genie was very hesitant to provide reserved seats for us in the Music Hall. When we told her we wanted to go to see the Bon Jovi tribute band at the Music Hall her first answer was “no” she could not reserve seats for us. I pushed back b/c honestly, I don’t understand why she couldn’t or wouldn’t reserve seats for...but she finally relented...but even when she did save seats for us, she did not use the regular red Star Class drapes, she just sat down and saved 2 seats in the upper deck for us until we showed up. I still don’t understand what the difference is for this venue but we got to see our concert so we were happy. Perhaps it is b/c the Music Hall does not accept reservations for anyone and they don’t like reserving seats in an otherwise non-reserved venue.

Which ship ?

The C&A and suites perks get kind of mixed up in my head so I can not really recall whether the tours are a function of being in a suite or being D+ BUT I can report that we were offered 3 tour options on our Anthem cruises. The tours were galley, entertainment and bridge. We could choose 1, 2 or all (or none) of these options. We only took the bridge tour since this was our first time on the Q class. Truly, I think that tour (and maybe all of them) were private Star Class tours as all 3 of the Genies were there and they served us champagne. But we also had these same 3 options on our last cruise (Grandeur in Dec) so being SC did not get us the invitations, it just got us a private tour. Honestly, I think these are suite functions and not C&A status perks but I could be wrong.

I have read of much variety on this subject. Some have reported that the Key folks board at the same time as the suites and some have reported that they board after the suites. To be honest, there’s no more than a few minutes difference either way. So far, with my very limited experience with The Key, I can only report one area where I believe that The Key impacted our Star Class cruises these past 2 weeks. That area is lunch on embarkation day. On embarkation day for our first cruise, Chops was really super busy for lunch. It did not really impact us other than the atmosphere was much more manic than it has been in the past. I guess service was impacted slightly as our server was very preoccupied. On embarkation day of our second half of the B2B we decided to try Jamie’s vs Chops but to our disappointment, by the time the second cruise rolled around, they had started using both Chops and Jamies for The Key So our result at Jamie’s was very similar to what we had experienced at Chops. What used to be a very quiet and laid back embarkation perk for Star Class has now become a busy and noisy event. It was predictable and inevitable. Other than lunch on embarkation day, we have not been negatively impacted by The Key at all. It seems to be very popular and working well.

The new program began in full last year. The “casino year” runs from April 1-March 31 every year. The points you accumulated from your Dec, Jan and Feb cruises are the basis for your status beginning 1 Apr 2019 - 31 Mar 2020. So, if you accumulated at least 2400 points on those 3 cruises, you will be Prime tier until 31 Mar 2020. Whatever points you accumulate from 1 Apr 2019-31 Mar 2020 will determine your tier level for the Apr 2020-31 Mar 2021 year. You do not have to accumulate 1000 points per cruise.

Yum. I think the mushroom fettuccine is the best meal at Jaimie’s. We are super fans of Jamie’s to begin with but finding the mushroom fettuccine was a blessing.

Welcome, Brian !

Welcome to the friendly blog site. There is very little of the snark and incivility here that you find on the “other” site. Glad to have you here !

Slightly off topic but last Friday when we boarded Anthem we had a rather bizarre (but wonderful !) boarding. I had asked our Genie to please allow our luggage to remain with us throughout our boarding process for 2 reasons. 1) on all previous Star Class boardings, our luggage delivery had never gone well. It had always been somehow diverted and unacceptably delayed in arriving to our suite. 2). There was never anyone to help us get those heavy bags up the stairs to the bedroom of the loft style suites. So this time, I was going to be SURE to avoid both of those problems. The Genie took me QUITE literally and arranged for our luggage to go through security right along with us. I did not believe that those big pieces of luggage would make it through the normal security scanners but I’ll be damned if they didn’t ! They pushed them right through on the conveyer belt right along with our carry-ons ! On the other side of the security scanner, a porter took all of our luggage and put it on a hotel style luggage cart and away we all went, together. Our only delay was when we had to wait for a ship’s crew to take over for the terminal porter (who could not get onto the ship) but once we had a member of the ship’s crew to help us, we all went together, all the way up to the suite and the crew member/porter took the luggage upstairs for us and all was well. It was, without a doubt, the best boarding we’ve ever had and Yen remained with us every moment. So....my advice to anyone traveling in Star Class (attention, Sabrina !) and ESPECIALLY those sailing in a suite with an upstairs bedroom...make sure that someone is there to lug that heavy s**t up the stairs. In all 4 of my previous SC sailings, the luggage was never “handled” well. I finally figured out how to take care of that but you have to make a special request. The normal procedure leaves a LOT to be desired.

To me, the whole Key pricing scenario seems a bit like a pusher giving his users a discount until he gets them hooked and then jacks up the price to keep the supply coming. They wanted to charge $24.99 all along but they had to get the hype up so they sold it cheap for a while. Then, once the good word got out about how great it all was, they jacked up the price to an unreasonable level and then put it back “on sale” at the price they always targeted - $24.99. It was a great deal for the few who got it at $19.99 but that didn’t last long.

I agree with all of this. The ATS was great....not noisy when the doors were tightly shut but the walk and isolation from the other suite areas got old quick. We loved our times in the ATS but now choose to stick with Deck 17. I am reliving some of the location anxieties this week (and next) on Anthem since ALL of Anthem’s SC suites are all the way aft. Oh well...

I’ve found that if I go into my cruise planner for any reason then I am often blocked out of the reservation if I try to go back in. It’s truly a PITA.

Even for younger, older folks !

If you have the UDP but find that there is a dish that you want that is being served in the MDR just ask them to bring it to you in whatever specialty restaurant you happen to be visiting the night they are serving it. We do this all the time. If we are in Chops the night they are serving lobster in the MDR we just ask the waiter to bring us a MDR lobster tail. No problem !

It was, as of April of 2018. They no longer cover the tables and chairs or offer the Carnivale show. The food wasn’t terrible but it was uninspired. A real disappointment.

I have no doubt that he IS a Veteran. It was a specific claim he made that I know to be untrue. ...but I think he is a good CD.

We have been in a number of 1 and 2 BR ATS and I would say that more than 6 people would be REALLY uncomfortable. Officially they will accommodate 8 but unless there are many small children in that group, I would advise against it. Lovetocruise2002 is correct about pricing. Unless this is 1 family unit that has 1 set of adults and a variety of children, it would be difficult (IMO) to cost-share in a way that would be fair. The master suite is very nice but the second bedroom is tiny and would probably be cramped with more than 2 people and if anyone is sleeping out in the living area the accommodations would be very much inferior to the master suite.

Dennis (can’t remember his last name. I think maybe it’s Charles ?) is the CD on Anthem, currently. Ok except for a kind of “stolen valor” issue. One of his claims of being a Veteran is an absolute lie so he’s not sitting too well with Dan. But he’s an ok CD.

I realize that this is a “mind trick” but it’s so true that walking the exact SAME distance along the Promenade or Central Park seems so much shorter than through the narrow corridors of the cabin maze. Dan and I just made the same observation this week on Anthem.