In just about a month, Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas will be arriving at her new homeport of Cape Liberty, New Jersey, and it will mark her debut in the United States.

Photo by Royal Caribbean

Anthem of the Seas' arrival stateside is a big deal because there will be a brand new cruise ship for guests to try out in one of the most populous parts of the country.

In anticipation for Anthem of the Seas' arrival, we are counting down the top reasons you ought to be excited to welcome Anthem of the Seas "home".

5. The biggest ship to call New York home

With Anthem of the Seas arrival in the New York City metro area, Anthem of the Seas will be the largest and most innovative ship ever to homeport in the New York region.

Folks living in the North East definitely hold themselves in high regard and having a significantly larger Royal Caribbean ship than ever before means there is a lot to enjoy about her.

4. Lots of WOWs

​Of course, this massive ship contains lots of WOWs onboard and there ought to be enough to enjoy on Anthem of the Seas to satisfy the Big Apple's appetite.

Onboard Anthem of the Seas, guests will find quite a variety of onboard activities, dining options and places to relax.

There is no way to fit them all into one post but here are the ones not to miss:

• We Will Rock You, the Olivier Award-winning musical
• Bionic Bar
• Bumper cars
• Two70 theater
• Music Hall
• iFly skydiving simulator

3. Seeing the New York City skyline from North Star

Few skylines are as easily recongizable and beloved as the New York City skyline, but you have to see it from over 300 feet above sea level!

North Star is Royal Caribbean's amazing observation capsule, that takes guests smoothly into the air to provide breathtaking views of New York City, the Statue of Liberty and the surrounding areas.

Once you see New York from North Star, it will give you a view of the area that you have never experienced before.

2. The arrival of Dynamic Dining Classic

Dynamic Dining is not new to the United States but Royal Caribbean has introduced a new option to Dynamic Dining for those that want a more traditional dining experience.

Onboard Anthem of the Seas, guests can choose Dynamic Dining Classic if they prefer the traditional main dining style with the same dining time each night, with the same wait staff and dining companions throughout the cruise. 

Guests will rotate through restaurants onboard the ship, giving them the Dynamic Dining experience coupled with the traditional dining memories they have enjoyed on past cruises.

Dynamic Dining Classic is available on a first come, first serve basis. 

1. Longer itineraries

Photo by Miguelángel

Royal Caribbean designed Anthem of the Seas for longer itineraries and that means this new ship will take New Yorkers, New Jerseyians and Connecticitians to more exotic and beautiful destinations than ever before.

Anthem of the Seas will offer cruises to 

• The Caribbean
• The Bahamas
• Canada & New England
• Bermuda

Anthem of the Seas offers sailings that are 7-, 8-, 10- and 12-nights that are sure to meet the needs of all Royal Caribbean fans looking to get away.

Sailing from the northeast means no plane rides south required and more time onboard, enjoying the ambiance and views only a cruise ship can provide.

What are you most excited about to experience on Anthem of the Seas? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Royal Caribbean is famous for the onboard innovations it offers its guests, including ice skating at sea!

Being in the middle of the Caribbean or Mediterranean does not mean you can't put on a pair of skates and go ice skating like it's December in Minnesota.  

If you want to enjoy ice skating as part of your Royal Caribbean cruise (it's complimentary), here are some important things to know.

Ships offering ice skating

Select Royal Caribbean ships offer ice skating, so be sure you are booked on one of these ships in order to enjoy it

• Voyager of the Seas
• Mariner of the Seas
• Adventure of the Seas
• Navigator of the Seas
• Explorer of the Seas
• Freedom of the Seas
• Liberty of the Seas
• Independence of the Seas
• Oasis of the Seas
• Allure of the Seas
• Harmony of the Seas
• Sympohony of the Seas

Long pants are required to skate

Regardless of how good or bad you are at ice skating, all guests must wear long pants to skate.

Be sure to pack accordingly, especially during summer months when you may not be thinking about packing pants.

You also should pack a pair of socks to wear with the skates.

Helmets are provided for you

Royal Caribbean requires all ice skaters to wear a helmet while skating.

This is for your safety because with ice skating, you have to not only worry about what you are doing but what others are doing as well.

Falls happen a lot during the course of an ice skating session, so there is no excuse for not being safe.

Have you ice skated on a Royal Caribbean cruise before? Tell us about it in the comments!

Royal Caribbean Blog contributor Michael Poole is on Majesty of the Seas this week.

Good Morning from Royal Caribbean’s beautiful private island called Coco Cay.  This is one of my favorite places to visit and has been for years. 

I wanted to get off as early as I could to take some pictures of the island before other guests were around.  I’d also recommend getting off early to just explore before it gets crowded. 

One thing that’s different about Coco Cay is you don’t actually dock at the island, because there is no pier.  In fact, you take a tender boat over to the island, which can me less than enjoyable at times if there are lines. 

However, when you go down early there were no lines and I enjoyed the short ride over to Coco Cay.  Also a great time to take pictures of the ship, so take your camera. 

Once I stepped onto the island I saw a table selling coolers/buckets of beer for $30 and buckets of water for $20. 

They did have a new all blue cooler with the Royal Caribbean logo on the bag, I wanted one but since I had the drink package it’s not worth it for me. 

Now it was time to explore the island and head over to barefoot beach.  Years ago you could sit on Barefoot Beach and be the only one there, now more people have discovered it.  If you still want to check it out you just go down to the shoreline and walk right, you can’t miss it. 

They also have hammocks near by to take an afternoon nap, now that’s what I call paradise. 

After exploring a bit I decided it was time to grab some of their island BBQ lunch.  They were serving hamburgers, hotdogs, ribs, and bbq chicken. 

I’m going to try to be as honest as I can about the meal, well I didn’t like it.  I’m sure if I got a burger you can’t really go wrong there or even a hotdog.  I took a couple of bites and just threw it out, I’m not a picky eater at all, but I decided I’d eat back on board. 

They did have some great looking pasta salads and fruit, just didn’t try any to give feedback on. 

Now that it’s in the afternoon hours I decided to head back to the ship and have lunch at Johnny Rockets. 

This restaurant has a cover charge of $6.95 per person and includes their tips in the cover charge.  I asked them about the price; because that’s a dollar more than I’ve seen on other ships and they said it’s been that price for a while on Majesty of the Seas. 

This surprises me because every time I saw the restaurant it was always empty. 

I enjoyed the smoked house burger that comes as a double but I just asked them to make it as a single. 

They also brought out endless French fries and onion rings; I had to tell them no more!

I also enjoyed the worlds famous apple pie with ice cream, this is a must have if you eat here trust me. 

After all the sun and food it was naptime for me. 

Evening Events

Tonight, I decided to explore some other things around the ship instead of going to the Viking lounge for the Diamond event. 

They had some really fun music in the centrum playing Bob Marley theme songs.  Sadly, there is really nowhere to sit and enjoy the music like on the Vision and Radiance class. 

I also spent some time in the Schooner Bar listening to the piano bar and it was for a great evening.  Someone even requested him to sing Rocky Top, and being a Vol myself I got really excited and started to sing along.   

Dinner was in the main dining room again and we had a new couple sit with us, but they also didn’t know English, at this point we could only laugh. That’s okay the solo group was there and we all enjoyed the meal. 

I ordered the French onion soup, (I kept thinking about the one Chops Grille serves!) the roasted duck, which was so tender it just fell off the bone. 

After our meal the servers started singing and dancing around the dining room, always a fun for them and the guest. 

To close out my evening, I attended the Quest adult game show at 11:15.  Sad to report I didn’t play, the lounge was so packed and when I arrived it was standing room only at that point. 

So the key to playing is go a little early, but it’s almost just as fun to watch. 

If you are not familiar with the show, I recommend you go next cruise, just leave the kids in the room.  To keep it a surprise for those who have never been, we will just leave it at that. 

That wraps up my full day in Coco Cay and back on board, tomorrow we head to Key West, Florida!  

Live Blog Index

• Live blog introduction
• Day 1 -  Embarkation Day
• Day 2 - Nassau
• Day 3 - Coco Cay
• Day 4 - Key West

Royal Caribbean has posted some new photos that showcase the construction progress being made on its third Quantum-class cruise ship, Ovation of the Ses.

Ovation of the Seas will be debuting in April 2016 and will be offering cruises in Asia and Australia.

These photos were taken at the Meyer Werft ship yard in Papenburg, Germany. All photos are copyright Royal Caribbean International

Royal Caribbean Blog contributor Michael Poole is on Majesty of the Seas this week.

Good morning from beautiful Nassau, Bahamas!

This morning I woke up at 6:55am to watch the sunrise on the top deck.  It’s kind of hard to believe after all these years I’ve been cruising I’ve never watched sunrise, who likes to wake up early on vacation?  Well I am so glad I did because the views at sunrise are absolutely breathtaking. 

Since I was already awake I decided to get ready for the day in Nassau, I walked off around 8:45am and might have been too early. 

None of the shops were even open at this hour, but I just explored for a bit.  That’s when I found Starbucks on Bay Street, so I stopped in for a coffee. 

They also have very high speed Internet for $3.25 for one hour on one device.  This was well worth the price if you ask me and the Internet on board is not so great. 

After my hour of Internet was up, I decided to try something different this time in Nassau.  I went to explore the John Watling’s rum factory, if you search their website it’s a little walk by not bad. 

I actually saw a few people getting dropped off in taxis while I was there, but the walk is less than a half hour. 

Once you arrive they greet you with a rum sample, yes please! 

They offer a free tour that’s around 10 minutes; learning about the history of John Watling’s himself, how the make/bottle the rum, and you get to smell all the different options. 

After the tour you end up in a gift shop where they sell their rum for around $30.  They also have a bar where you can try their rum; the special is 2 drinks for $18. 

I had a great experience here and would recommend this to anyone that’s looking for a different experience in Nassau.  Okay, now it’s time to walk back!

While I was walking back I thought about stopping into Senor Frogs for some drinks and lunch, but this is as close as I got. 

I decided to spend the afternoon on board and enjoy my drink package.  If you like a fun, kind of wild experience then you should stop into Senor Frogs, I just wasn’t in the wild mood today. 

For lunch I wanted to try Johnny Rockets, but they didn’t open until 1:00pm and it was noon, so I settled for the Windjammer.  The food in here is okay, nothing too special to talk about but always a lot of options. 

If you ever want a peaceful day on board a half empty ship, you could always stay on board while in port.  The ship was very empty and was quite relaxing poolside with very few people around. 

Not a whole lot to report for the afternoon other than, sleeping poolside and enjoying some cold Stella’s.  They did have a great live band that played music all afternoon and the guests were really getting into it, as was I. 

Evening Events

This evening, I decided to head back up to the Diamond event in the Viking Crown lounge.  One of the other solo cruises joined me for cocktail hour and watched another breathtaking sunset. 

I know I told you yesterday, but best seat in the house for sunset. 

Tonight’s dinner is always my favorite menu all week, I thought about trying something else, but didn’t want to miss this menu.  They have to lobster soup, shrimp cocktail, filet of beef, and strawberry cheesecake.  And yes, I had all of that for dinner! 

They also had duck that looked like a great option as well, but for me it was all about the filet of beer.  This cut of meat is so tender and once again she got me a special cut that was rare.

Might have been the best dining room meal I’ve had to date on any Royal Caribbean ship. I will note they put a family with us tonight that didn’t speak English, so that’s always entertaining to say the least. 

Since we didn’t leave Nassau until midnight they had a pool deck party for sailaway.  They did a great job getting the guest out there dancing with some team games and it slowly dragged more out there. 

Sadly, I decided not to take my big camera out there and just enjoy the evening so no pictures to share.  But I noticed they were playing mostly Latin/Hispanic music. 

There are a lot of Spanish speaking guest on board, in fact every announcement is spoke in English and followed by Spanish.  The dancing lasted into the morning hours, the compass said 3am, but I crashed the party at 1am. 

Hope you enjoyed my relaxing day in Nassau, stay tuned because Coco Cay is next up!  

Live Blog Index

• Live blog introduction
• Day 1 -  Embarkation Day
• Day 2 - Nassau
• Day 3 - Coco Cay
• Day 4 - Key West

We're still about 6 months away from the debut of Royal Caribbean's brand new cruise ship, Harmony of the Seas and like so many of our readers, I just can't wait to see everything this ship has to offer.

Royal Caribbean has been holding back some details about the ship to help build up the excitement so today we're going to list the top five things we're excited to finally hear about.

5. Who will be her Godmother?

It is part of maritime tradition for a cruise ship to have a celebratory Godmother, whose job it is to christen the ship officially.

The Godmother is present for a vessel's naming ceremony, where she officially proclaims the ship's name and wishes it safe journeys to all its passengers and crew.

Sister ship Oasis of the Seas had seven godmothers, one for each neighborhood: Gloria Estefan, Michelle Kwan, Dara Torres, Keshia Knight Pulliam, Shawn Johnson, Jane Seymour and Daisy Fuentes.

Harmony of the Seas' other sister ship, Allure of the Seas, had Princess Fiona (from Shrek fame) as her godmother.

4. Abyss slide details

Royal Caribbean has been hinting at what we can expect with the 10-story slide coming to Harmony of the Seas but we do not know everything yet.

Specifically, we do not know what the new slide will look like or where exactly in the Boardwalk the slide will be.

We do know it is a "dry slide" (as opposed to a water slide) and it will begin in the Pool and Sports Zone at the aft of the ship down to the Boardwalk neighborhood below.

3. What will be the Broadway show?

It seems no new Royal Caribbean ship can be launched these days without a Broadway show and we have yet to find out which show from the Great White Way will debut on Harmony of the Seas.

Ever since Royal Caribbean started adding Broadway shows to its ships with Oasis of the Seas, fans have been clamoring for more great Broadway entertainment onboard.

Royal Caribbean has had these Broadway shows call a ship home over the last few years

• Hairspray (retired from all ships)
• Saturday Night Fever
• Chicago (retired from all ships)
• Mamma Mia
• We Will Rock You

2. Shows and other onboard entertainment

Broadway shows are not the only kind of entertainment we want to know more about.  Oasis class ships have a reputation for amazing entertainment and there's plenty more to learn about.

Ice skating shows, AquaTheater shows, shows in the Royal Theater and other kinds of entertainment are always at the top of Royal Caribbean fans priority list.

Looking back on the shows we have enjoyed on the other two Oasis class ships, there are definitely some questions about what we can expect to find listed in the Cruise Compass every day.

1. What will be the other cool surprises?

My gut feeling is that Royal Caribbean is far from done trying to WOW us with what to expect on Harmonyof the Seas.  

This is a company that is always looking to out do themselves, so I'm most excited to read about what amazing new innovations are also coming to Harmony of the Seas.

Perhaps some of these surprises will be covered in the questions asked earlier, but whatever surprises come our way will help shape the direction of Harmony of the Seas and help make this ship stand out in a very competitive market.

What are you most interested to still know about Harmony of the Seas? Tell us in the comments!

Our newest podcast episode is out to help give you a quick "audio escape" to a Royal Caribbean cruise!

Episode 114 is available for downloading and this week we are reviewing the beautiful island of St. Maarten.

Matt and Scott are talking about the island paradise of St. Thomas today, where they discuss the popular activities to do in St. Thomas.  Matt and Scott share their favorite excursions and tips for visiting St. Thomas.

Here’s the podcast page for Episode 114. And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast via RSS, Stitcher or on iTunes!

Take a listen and as always, let us know what you think! Please rate and review the podcast on iTunes and leave your comments below!

Royal Caribbean has provided a look at its Simulation Training Center at Resolve Maritime Academy in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

The 7,000 square foot training center launched in 2012 and cost $6.5 million, where the bridge facilities have been replicated for a safe place to train Royal Caribbean junior officers on how the real thing works.

The computer simulations displayed on high-definition screens include some 200 ports visited by Royal Caribbean ships, with all their landmarks, buildings and seaside facilities. As various conditions and perils are brought to bear, trainees respond using controls just as they exist on their actual ship’s bridge.

Officers here can practice and refine their skills onshore to handle any situation that may occur at sea.

“Most simulators in the world are generic,” says Captain Patrik Dahlgren, Royal Caribbean vice president for marine operations. “This simulator is made up to look and feel and work the same as a real bridge on board our specific vessels. You actually have the physical consoles and all the equipment looks exactly the same as it does on board the vessel.”

There is a new design for the souvenir Coca-Cola cups guests get with their unlimited drink packages that matches Coca-Cola's "Share A Coke" marketing campaign.

The new souvenir cups are available on Royal Caribbean ships when a guest purchases one of the unlimited drink packages.

It is not clear yet when these new souvenir cup designs began being sold, but it is likely to have changed somewhat recently.

These souvenir cups are compatible with the self-serve soda machines on the pool deck as well as the Coca-Cola Freestyle machines. The Coca-Cola souvenir cup has a special chip in it which activates the machine.

Do you like the design of these souvenir Coca-Cola cups? Tell us in the comments below!