14 Oct

Day 3 – Embarkation and Wonderland!

 

We woke up and got ready!

I’ll take this time for a disclaimer. I am a Disney cruise lover. I have been on 25 Disney cruises and counting. I can tell you anything you ever wanted to know about a Disney cruise, I have extensive experience, and extensive love. Did I say that already? So this report is going to be full of comparisons! Some of them will seem unnecessarily harsh (like plastic silverware instead of real silverware on the private island), and I recognize that they are absolutely unnecessarily harsh.

I truly am just making comparisons, and pointing out things I liked and didn’t like. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Royal Caribbean, and it’s a great cruise product. I’d wholeheartedly recommend it. At the end I’ll sum up my feelings, but keep that in mind if I seem overly negative at times! I would never ever tell someone not to sail Royal Caribbean because of plastic silverware.

We took a Lyft to the port.

We dropped off our bags and went through the metal detectors. Other than concierge, you pretty much board in the order you arrive. So you sit in that order!

Here’s our Navigator! I mean Cruise Compass –

Boarding started:

We’re up!

And we’re on!! No announcement, no applause, but still exciting.

Anthem’s atrium is much more of a shopping mall than it is an atrium. Kind of cool, but I definitely missed the atrium feeling.

As we walked by a specialty restaurant called Wonderland, we stopped to see if they could change one of our dining times. We had pre-purchased a dining package to eat at two of the specialty restaurants onboard – Jamie’s and Chops Grille. We booked late enough that we had a horrible time for Chops – 9 pm at night. Ouch!

She looked and that was our only option. While she was looking, the dining manager asked if we were eating at Wonderland. We had looked, but it was kind of expensive and the food was cra-a-zy, so we decided not to.

The dining manager then turned into a used car salesman. “You can come for half price if you come tonight.”

But we have a Jamie’s reservation tonight that can’t be changed.

He could change it, but only to Tuesday night.

But we didn’t want it then because we would be very late at our excursion that day.

Well okay, he could change it to the night after.

He kept offering non-negotiable conditions and when we said it wouldn’t work, the conditions suddenly became flexible.

It was rather amusing!

But it worked for us, we would try Wonderland for half price!

Our next stop was the theater to get some show reservations and iFly reservations that we couldn’t get online.

After that was taken care of, we walked back towards lunch.

We ate lunch at Two70. It was a nice quiet place to eat. They had made to order salads and sandwiches.

Two70 was a great space where we would visit several times during the cruise. I loved it!

Next we wanted to clear up our port times for Port Canaveral. The excursion time was later than the posted port time. We had picked transfers to Walt Disney World of course, I mean we would be in Orlando! Of course we were going to Disney, we hadn’t lost all of our senses!

We were told that the excursion time was wrong, which is what we thought. We asked why we were leaving so early and she said it was because all the parks at Disney closed at 7 pm.

Oooookay. Lol

We explored some more after. Here’s the robot bar! Otherwise known as the Bionic Bar.

This was the Schooner Bar I believe.

This is Chops! It’s beautiful!

I did like these screens all over the ship.

And in the elevators, the floor told us what day it was!

We stopped by the kid’s clubs next.

Play hours:

Random stairwell:

The rooms were completely blocked off until they were ready.

The artwork on Anthem cracked us up. It was soooo random!  It was cool though, and it made us laugh and stop to look at it. That’s what it’s supposed to do I guess!

This was in the elevator.

Next we went up top.

I love love love the Solarium. It’s adults only, and Royal definitely got that right.

Great views from there!

Next to the Solarium, was a family pool:

Here’s the outdoor pool:

We stopped in the teen room:

Next we went in the SeaPlex. It was super cool, but I thought a ginormous waste of space! How many times can you ride bumper cars? Well I was wrong.

The space was used for a LOT more than bumper cars. And I ended up loving it!

We went outside and ran into a giant giraffe!

Rock climbing wall:

The stairs near our room had a great view:

And this see through floor was super cool!

Then our room was ready!

I liked it!

No bathtub! Sad face. But I knew it. You don’t get a bathtub on other cruise lines unless you are in a suite. So I mentally prepared and I was ready.

There was an upcharge for much of the Room service. Here’s a menu and costs –

Dry cleaning costs:

And here’s our view.

The side of the ship was not straight on the sides, if that makes sense, some rooms were on an angle.

I really really did not care for the lifeboat positioning. It obstructed our view down, which was not a big deal. What I really didn’t like was the walking deck on the side of the ship. The equivalent of deck 4 on Disney. The lifeboats completely obstruct that. Not the end of the world, and maybe my dislike is exaggerated by my love of deck 4 on Disney. I admit that!

Soon we were sailing! Here we are going under the bridge!

Bridge!

We went to explore some more. Here’s the casino. The casino was right under the main atrium area. I was worried the smell of smoke would be bad, but it really wasn’t! And it was tucked away such that you didn’t have to walk through it to get anywhere, which I also appreciated.

Here’s my coke cup! I bought the soda package (of course) and this was part of it. You needed the cup to use the Freestyle machines. A quick sum up of my thoughts there is that if I pay $70 to drink soda all week, there should be a LOT more Freestyle machines available. And carrying the cup around is a pain in the neck. The alternative is to wait in line at bars while people in front of you order cocktails that take 5 minutes to make. It should be easier than it was. Again, not the end of the world though.

We made a pizza pit stop:

Here’s some of the random artwork in halls:

Hidden Mickey donut?

Windjammer is the ship’s buffet. It was humongous.

It had a great view today!  I’m thinking some of my pictures are out of order!

Then we headed back to the room and passed more stair artwork.

We had to pay for movies?  Man!

Then it was time for dinner! There was some sale craziness happening:

We stopped to see Po first, but couldn’t use our own cameras, so we have no proof!

Then it was time for Wonderland!

This was the coolest menu ever! You had to paint it with water to make it show up.

First crazy course:

With sauce:

Crazy shots of something!

These were good!

This was smoking. Literally.

Nothing on this plate was calling my name. Lol

Dessert time!

Kelly had Key Lime Lollipops:

I had the most amazing Baked Alaska!

So that was fun! The food was a little crazy for us, but I’m glad we did it. It was definitely a cool experience.

We did get some Ice cream in Windjammers.

Then we went to see the adult comedian. I will say that the adult comedians were VERY adult. I like to say that Disney adult comedians can make me blush. The Royal Caribbean comedians on the other hand – they wanted to make me put fire pokers in my ears! I couldn’t believe some of the things they said! Just FYI. 

Next we stopped in The Music Hall to see the dance party. Man some kids were up late.

The Music Hall was another great space. We spent a lot of time in there as well.

We stopped by guest services to get some Magic Bands. I mean WOW Bands! They are essentially a Magic Band, but they cost $10. We wanted to try it, so that was okay!

And one other nice thing about Royal Caribbean when you are sailing with friends? Two beds!

 

7 Night Anthem of the Seas – A Royal Kind of Cruise March 3-12, 2017 
Day 1- Travel Day 
Day 2 – The Big Apple! 
Day 3 – Embarkation and Wonderland! 
Day 4 – Day at Sea 
Day 5 – Excursion to Disney 
Day 6 – Coco Cay 
Day 7 – Sandals in Nassau 
Day 8 – Sea Day Food and Bumper Cars 
Day 9 – A Beautiful Day at Sea 
Day 10 – Statue of Liberty and NYC Friend Meetup!