Bu222

Apex is worth the money! Shawna the Apex cruise director is absolutely fantastic and a Canadian!! The ship was rocking (15 foot swells) but still a great cruise. If you get sick go down to guest services for a magic pill (gravol).

Anthem of the Seas - March 31, 2018 (7 night Bahamas cruise). Cruise Port/Embarkation: Cape Liberty cruise port was super well organized. We drove to the cruise port and arrived around 10:30am. There was not the long car lines I had seen on YouTube. There was friendly cruise port workers directing the vehicles. We drove right to the port entrance, dropped off our luggage and then proceeded to the parking garage. We were on the Anthem of the seas within 30 min of parking. Cabin: We had a Spa Junior Suite (stateroom 9638). Our room was amazing. The extra room within our stateroom with closet and balcony space was excellent. The washroom had a full bath on one side and full shower on the other side. My favourite part of the room was the extra window (all the light coming in). Stateroom attended was excellent. He made it a point to clean all the glass (windows and balcony). Onboard experience: The Anthem has numerous activities going on at numerous venues. We made sure to download the Royal IQ app before boarding the ship and then onboard we purchased the communication package ($7.95/ person for the week). This allowed us to have access to the cruise compass on our iPhones so that we knew the activities happening throughout the ship at all times. It also allowed us to use iPhone messenger (text) will on the ship at no extra charge. My two favourite parts of the ship was the Two70 and adult Solarium. Two70 is at the back of the Anthem. During the day it serves as a beautiful relaxing hangout with food and a bar and at night it comes to life with its shows. The Solarium was my sanctuary. The Anthem added 3 cascading pools which are fantastic and refreshing. With a ship that had a lot of children, the Solarium was a nice quiet retreat. Dining: For the foodies out there, the Coastal Kitchen (for suite guests) was amazing. We were able to bring our friends (non suite guests) to dine with us. The Coastal Kitchen food was the best cruise food we ever had (out of our 7 cruises). We ended up eating there every night with the exception of our Chops night (to be honest the Coastal Kitchen food was even better then Chops Grille Steakhouse). Highlights: The North Star! Make sure you prebook your time slot before your cruise either online or day 1 on the ship. North Star reservations goes fast. Bionic bar is a must try at least once. Anthem Wow bands were very convenient (loved not having to walk around with ship cards and they are waterproof). Again I could have spent all my ship time at Two70 and the Solarium. Disembarkation: We used the self disembark (unassisted walk off with are luggage) at 6:30am. We don't mind carrying our own luggage off the ship. We were at our vehicle and ready for our trek back home at 7am. Overall the Anthem of the Seas is a great ship and we had a good week. Our only negative would be all the children (we blame that on ourselves for taking a cruise on Easter holiday/spring break) :)