So a lot has happened in the last almost two weeks and I really thought I’d be in a headspace to write more than I have this trip. On the last trip, we found a really great spot to hang out with a computer, in the Observation lounge on the Norwegian Bliss. It was quiet enough with headphone cancellation, the chairs were comfy, and there was available power at the seat that I found relatively easy to get after my workout in the early morning (best time to get in the gym seems to be first thing).
This is our first Royal Caribbean cruise and the vast majority of the ship is Aussies on holiday. This is not a problem at all - everyone here loves to have a good time and is very friendly. I love the layout of the ship overall and things generally work the way I would expect. It hasn’t been without issue, but we are having a good time overall.
- Cruise Overall: we have had some atrocious weather and it caused the cruise to end up cancelling a number of ports we had expected to be able to visit. The south island was almost completely cancelled due to weather, and we had multiple extra sea days where we would have had sightseeing or stops in port. The captain told us at today’s Q&A that in something like 15 years he cannot remember another time where Royal cancelled ports in a sailing and gave refunds for weather, but we got them this time - all our port fees, and excusions, returned, plus a credit for a full day’s fare per person for a future cruise.
- Ports of Call: Where we did get to go was very cool - we did get to stop in Napiern (mostly destroyed by earthquate over 100 years back), Wellington (for two days), and Christchurch (damaged greatly by earthquate in 2010), and they added Picton on the way out of NZ a couple of days ago. That was it - the other stops and the sound sailings due at the end of the cruise were all cancelled for weather. I love how they are embracing the Maori names for things and updating signage and official names for stuff to respect the history. One guide did go to some trouble to point out that the Maori were not here first either…but yeah, par for the course sometimes I guess. Of note: Royal uses Abercrombie and Kent for the majority of shore experiences at least here and they are super-reputable globally.
- The Ship’s Vibe: This is something we needed to pay attention to as it was our first cruise on Royal. The vibe is high energy compared to anything else we’ve done - if there was music or activity with sound, it was LOUD. There is no space with tables, chairs, power, and relative quiet anywhere that we could find - mostly beacuse the power is super limited. There are cool spaces (we loved Two70 on 5 aft) but they are multi-purpose during the day and LOUD AF. We did get to play bingo though, always a blast. Staff is very friendly and accomodating. I liked it quite a lot.
- Our Room: The standard balcony room on Anthem is well sized and has a lot of storage, which is always appreciated. Since the weather generally sucked, a balcony was completely useless, but this particular ship has a VERY SMALL number of cabins without one. Some good features: great water pressure and temperature in the shower, the curtain between you and the balcony door is like nine inches away from the glass so you actually have room on that side of the room to get around the bed, little things like that make big differences - I appreciated the curved bottom of the mattress that makes clearing the corner easier too and didn’t miss the 5 square inches either. People complain that the room’s “fridge” is actually a “cooler” but it’s perfect for drinks which is our use-case (medicines, you can call them and they will help).
- Food: Most of the food is as expected. I will say Disney is onto something rotating you through Main Dining spaces and moving your servers with you as you rotate. Our main dining experience (it was borked up front and we weren’t sitting with my parents) is adequate if you avoid steaks (since they offer upsale steaks at main dining, the steak you order is awful and we tried it a couple times). Everything else was good/fine, nothing really great. We did a couple of specialty nights (Chops and Jamie’s Italian) and these were better of course. All the servers have been great, and the buffet is really well done and massive, with plenty of room and places to sit.
- Beverage: While we didn’t drink much this trip that wasn’t part of the Soda package, the selection of things to drink is outstanding and this is a strength of Royal’s offering from an availability point of view. Sadly, the bar in the cover photo was closed for the entire trip - what a huge space to have completely to waste for this long (it’s dead center on Deck 5 and the biggest midship public space available on the ship!). Soda package is interesting - we LOVE the Coke Freestyle machines and they were well-maintained and stocked the entire journey. There aren’t quite enough of them - two in Sorrento’s the pizza place (one is perma-down and the other is not making ice now, bummer), two in Windjammer buffet, and one on deck 15 in the hot dog place (a hike but always free). The trick here is: they have cans at every bar, but you have to (a) ask for them, and (b) hide your soda cup when you do or they will say no. We always had cans available once we learned this, including in our room’s cooler.
- The Laundry Bag: We read a lot about how laundry works on Royal; in particular that the all-you-can-wash bag for $35 is the best value. It is - the bag is about the size of a normal Marriott laundry bag, though it’s paper and you can get more in if you tightly fold everything you want washed (and various tier rewards get you one for free, we aren’t there yet but probably will be later). The clothes come back clean and folded just like you’d expect in a day plus…so it’s great for keeping your packing lighter.
- Casino: It wouldn’t be a review from me without some comments on the casino. There was very little info about whether or not the casino on Anthem was non-smoking (it was!), but other online info was pretty spot on - mostly blackjack, roulette, and craps, and a bunch of slots. Nothing super modern in the way of slots (roughly it was 2022 in there), standard table games, and the occasional 2/5 NL game tried to get going (but I never saw it without just players waiting). I played a relatively small-ball strategy and had some solid wins to get most of the way back to even near the end of the trip (I’m sure I’ll screw that up later today or tomorrow before we arrive back in Sydney).
We have the final day at sea tomorrow and will pull back into Sydney on Friday morning. We are staying Easter Weekend in Sydney and going to the Easter Show on Saturday afternoon/evening as our main activity plus visiting with friends that live locally before we fly home on Monday.