JLMoran

We just settled into our hotel room.

Kids: “Where is the cutlery in this room so that we can have a snack?” 

Me: Um, this is not star class. Remember in regular hotels there usually is not cutlery waiting for you. Lol

Goodnight all!
📸Hubby

Tomorrow we are going to push disembarkation as late as we can (eye roll here, yes, we are going to be “those people” this one time) because we are spending one extra day in the UK before flying home on Saturday. The rationale here was that we did not want to face a long flight home on debarkation day. Staying an extra day gives us a chance to rest and reset before flying home. 
 
As we were packing up today, Hubby said to me, “We aren’t staying in some fancy hotel tomorrow, are we?” Well, I wonder if after almost 20 years of marriage he really knows me lol. I am also willing to bet he doesn’t know we had 5 Accor Suite Night upgrades and not 4. 😉
 

Final thoughts of Star Class on Anthem:
- SC definitely paid off for activities. We had zero stress getting to the bumper cars, North Star, iFly. 
 
- Specialty food options are lacking a bit on Quantum class, compared to Oasis. We repeated most of the specialty restaurants, they were all good, but compared to our other star sailings, this one lacked variety a bit. 
- At the end of our 3rd cruise now on Anthem, I can definitely say that they have the best CK staff. On all our sailings on this ship, from March 2018-now, this CK remains beyond excellent compared to other CK crews. There is just something extra about them. 
 
- Leroy, our Genie is fantastic! He is so well organized, kind, great with little kids, and pay attention to small little details. Every day he sends an overview of the day, reminders along the way, follows up on orders to the room, he is beyond thorough. Every dinner he showed up to walk us in (they don’t all do that), and no request was too much for him to handle. He is very dedicated to this job and it shows in his actions each day. He is headed back home soon for vacation but if anyone gets him in the future, they are lucky and in good hands. 
 

Final thoughts on our Grand Loft Suite. 
 
I will admit, I did not set many expectations for this suite only because I am #teamDeck17 at heart. Several things did not surprise me about this room:
- It is most definitely a long walk to/from the suite. 
- There is quite a bit of motion back here. 
- The missing vanity downstairs (compared to the star loft) was missed by the two teenage girls. It made getting ready a tad slower. 
 
A few things that did surprise me about this suite:
- Aside from the long trek to/from the room, I liked the room a lot. It is not as “open” as the star loft but I did not mind it. 
 
- The master bathroom layout in this room is way better than the star loft on the older OA/AL, and the newer HM. It is more open and there is more counter space. This one wins for sure. 
 
- The view from this suite is the best. Hands down. No contest. On OA class ships, with all your Deck 17 rooms, there is either some obstruction from the back deck (flow rider, basketball court, mini golf, etc.) in your line of sight. The ocean facing ones are one sided. The ATS has the Aqua Theater in the line of sight. This room gives you a totally central view of the wake with nothing but the wake in your line of sight. No other room can do that. We have taken so many balcony pics this cruise compared to other cruises.
Would I hesitate to book this room again? Definitely not. 

A gorgeous sunset to cap off a beautiful vacation.
📸Hubby



We feel incredibly blessed. There were a lot of hurdles to clear to take this trip and everything went so smoothly, right down to perfect weather even on days that we forecasted to be not great. Someone was definitely watching over us.
 
Over the last two weeks, we have experienced so much as a family, it’s going to take us a few days to get home and really digest and soak in what we saw. 
 
Meeting @GregD and his family has been a real treat! It is always great to meet and sail with people you have gotten to know over the years. Our cruising community is small, goodbyes are just a “so long for now”. 😊

@WAAAYTOOO, Lydia got the apple pie….sorry to report………
it had raisins……
 

Dinner at Chops tonight and Leroy had some nice things for us. It was a great way to end this cruise. What The Boss didn’t know was that Leroy reached out to me and asked for pictures of the two of us together and this was the result.

For dinner, The Boss had shrimp cocktail and the goat cheese salad. The camera forgot it’s bite there. I had the wild mushroom soup that everyone apparently loves. For me it was just okay. We both had the petit fillet, and I added the lobster. I was informed that they didn’t have the full lobsters and just had the tails. No big deal for me!

Rock climbing, and now pool time.


Tonight is our anniversary dinner at chops, followed with Spectras Cabaret. At some point we have to pack too. Lame…….
 

Izumi lunch today after we finished bumper cars and North Star with @GregDand family. 

Now at Harry Potter trivia in 270. This one is a whole lot more difficult than the one we did on Oasis. Good thing we have a major fan here because I have no clue about the answers to any of these. 

Bumper cars were also on the menu today. There was another friendly neighbour (neighbor?) battle. Johnny was out for blood!

 

Just did the North Star again. Today it went off the side of the ship! Many people know that for many years that wasn’t a thing with the response being “it was a privacy thing” From our vantage point, you can see their point! I talked with Leroy about this and he wasn’t aware of when or why there was a change.
We also have some albatrosses escorting us home.

Just to keep the streak alive for @twangster, good morning everyone on our final sea day!

 

Yes.  I have a question.  
How is it that @GregD always seems to be up early and able to post first as you enter a port?  🤣

Here are a few photos of the day that aren’t duplicates. 
 
This guy wore proper gear for a waterfall, unlike some kids I know🤣

Tucking in for some waffles!

Sometimes we take a nice picture 

There may have been a comment made by The Boss regarding Lydia and Trolls or something? Regardless, add another embarrassing photo to the collection.


Old watch tower for the city.

Regent cruises, Seven Seas Splendor was here too. This ship has a suite with a $200,000 bed that costs 11k a night, but needed to be helped out of port with tugs.

Now that we have everyone back, here is where the night got really interesting. After the show, the kids headed back to the room. The Boss and I headed down to the music hall to watch “The Perfect Couple” game show. 
 
The intention was to watch, but we ended up as contestants! This was well outside the normal comfort zone but we went with it. 
 
The game consists of four challenges that aren’t exactly PG.
The first was The Boss had to move a ping pong ball from the bottom of one pant leg, to the bottom of the other, with just her hands. Sounds easy enough, except the ball was inside the pant legs. As you can imagine, this conger interesting. We had the lowest time! One point in the bag!
Challenge 2, was we stood next to each other with our arms around each other, so my left, and her right arm were free. We then had to blow up a balloon and tie a knot. We were only allowed to use our free arms, and couldn’t talk to each other. Of course, to make it interesting, was the balloon was a prophylactic…..We again had the lowest time! Two points! Things are looking up!
Challenge 3, were the men were seated in a chair blindfolded. Then your arm was stroked by three people, one being your partner, and you had to guess which one was your partner. I managed to guess correctly here too!! 3 points! On a roll!  
 
Challenge 4……I knew I was doomed on this one. The Ladies were sat in a chair, and the men had to dance for them, and the audience would be the judge. Well this white boy can’t dance, and now was being told to give a lap dance to The Boss that was being judged by the audience. I knew that I would fail miserably here, and even the pity applause was pretty pathetic, but that’s okay because winning the first three challenges was enough and we won!
Our prize was two RC gold medals and a RC aluminum (aluminum?) water bottle, plus the embarrassment of having to give an admittedly horrible lap dance in front of hundreds of people 🤣
Well, I can cross that off the bucket list…..not that I even knew it was on there 🤦🏻‍♂️

Once back of board, dinner was in CK. It was lobster night and our server took care of me🤣 five lobster tails later, I was stuffed! 
 
After dinner we also went to WWRY. I second everything about this show that @Lovetocruise2002 said. If you have not sailed on Anthem and seen this show, stop reading here, go book a cruise on Anthem then return to keep reading this blog, don’t worry, I’ll wait…………

As was eluded our day was exciting for a few reasons, good and bad. 
 
Our day started as per the usual, with our early AM North Star appointment. I really like getting the birds eye views of the port. 
 
We followed this up with breakfast at Cafe270. We lost track of time, and forgot CK breakfast ends at 9:30….lesson learned.
We headed off the ship for some shopping and got a few things before our excursion.
The excursion was really fun. I didn’t mind the not so great weather. I was also glad I didn’t do the hike to pulpit rock because it would have been pretty miserable today. The waffles were delicious today as well. We all sat at a nice big table and enjoyed each other’s company.
Following the excursion we also headed off to explore more of the area around the port. This is where our day went off the rails a bit.
 
My daughter suddenly realized she lost her seapass card. She was pretty sure she dropped it when taking off her sweatshirt while walking around. With this in mind we hurried back to the ship to get a new one. Thankfully, I’m sure she isn’t the first one to do this. At the first security stop the officer just asked our stateroom number and he called to verify she was a passenger, and to deactivate her current card. We also had her passport with us so he took a brief look at that. Once at the gangway, we told that officer our tale of woes. He was able to look her up on his console, and we were allowed on board. Two minutes later we had a new card at guest services. I had a message to Leroy ready to go in case there were any troubles but didn’t need to send it. Moral of the story, parents, hold onto your pre-teens seapass cards, and if lost, it’s easy to deal with.
With new card in hand we ventured back off the ship to continue exploring but didn’t get too far because we lost some time dealing with the lost card. 

I think @GregD and the Boss had a way more interesting and entertaining evening than we did. We are now back in the room. I am writing this up and Hubby and D13 are streaming Star Wars again. D15 is once again chatting with her friends back home because like typical teens, they are awake now back in EST lol. 
 
I was commenting to Greg today over waffles that I have not been able to maintain this blog as I normally do due to the itinerary. I realized last night that I have barely been around the ship, and I have barely discussed anything star class related.
Tomorrow is a sea day, if anyone has anything to ask that we have not covered, or if you want me to find out something for you around the ship, please let me know, this is assuming I can stay upright tomorrow. Sailing in the North Sea is no fun 😕

Dinner brought us back to Jamie’s again. And then a second showing of WWRY. I have now watched this Royal version of the musical 4 times and I could watch it many more. This is by far my most favourite musical of all the ones on Royal ships!
 

Back to why the kids were drenched after the boat ride…
This ride takes you not only to Pulpit Rock but also takes you right up to some of the rock formations and waterfalls. One waterfall in particular the boat was able to get really close to. So close that a crew member takes a bucket right up to it to fill, then they pass out cups so they you can have a sample drink if you wish.
 
My kids decided that they would sample the water too, in the form of a shower. They went to the front of the boat and pretty much got right under the water. Had this teacher been on supervision duty, she would have cared. But I am on vacation, so if they wanted to sit in wet clothes, well their problem, not mine lol.
 
D13 did manage to get some pretty cool pics before the shower though. 
 

Hubby went back out to walk around the port area after having some cake. We stayed behind as we like our afternoon chill time. Here are some photos he took while walking around. 
 

The cruise was about 3 hours long with a 30 min stop for waffles right before the boat enters the Lysefjord. The kids were drenched from the boat ride so we headed back to the room after the cruise so they could clean up. This is what we came back to. Leroy has been so thoughtful along the way. D15 almost 16 loved it and she wore the necklace to dinner already! 
 

Another whirlwind of a day, where do I start? Left off this morning with us getting ready to go on the Lysefjord cruise excursion. The weather was not on our side today. Had it been, it would have been even more impressive.
 
The walk from the ship to the boat (for the Lysefjord cruise) is a quick one. Less than 5 mins. If one ever does this excursion, try to sit on the left side of the boat, that is where most of the sights are. Or go up top.
 
Because it was wet and raining on and off, The Boss and I sat inside, @GregDand Hubby braved the elements and went up top, and the kids roamed around most of the time.
 
Some photos from the ride down Lysefjord. Somewhere in the mist/clouds is pulpit rock. 

📸Hubby
 

Good morning Stavanger!