Wonderful Ship - Difficult Dining

Item: Anthem of the Seas
Rating: 4
Author: kruzer1

Anthem of the Seas Cruise Review to Canada, New England, New York

kruzer1

Contributor Level: Second Mate

380 Days Till Next Cruise

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Reviews: 4

Helpful Votes: 231

Overall rating:

4 out of 5

Verified Review

9 Night Canada & New England (Cape Liberty Roundtrip)

Sail date: September 08, 2016

Ship: Anthem of the Seas

Cabin type: Suite

Cabin number: 9214

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 8 years ago

Review summary

We loved Anthem of the Seas, but hated its dining options. Reservations for dining were very difficult to arrange; especially, since only 3 of the entertainment options were able to be reserved ahead of time. We had to reconfigure every meal to meet entertainment times. Dynamic Dining Classic was not our cup of tea. The menus of the four required restaurants did not meet our needs. Only 2-3 of them were acceptable, so we went DYNAMIC instead of CLASSIC. We also opted to do specialty dining. One thing we noticed is that in every lounge and theater, the volume was exceptionally high. RipCord by iFly was terrific, so was NorthStar and Bumper Cars. Port Liberty was easy to park at and embark/disembark.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

3 out of 5

Onboard Activities

5 out of 5

Entertainment

3 out of 5

Service and Staff

5 out of 5

Ship Quality

5 out of 5

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5

This is the first time we've had a Junior Suite with 1.5 Baths and it was a dream. Our cabin was centrally located to both elevators and ship movement was minimal. The only thing that we didn't like is that Hallway speaker announcements were minimally heard in the cabin. It's far better to have no noise from announcements not meant to be directed to the in-cabin overhead speakers.

Ship tip

Reserve as much ahead of time as you can.

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Ports of call

Cape Liberty (Bayonne), New Jersey

5 out of 5

Boston, Massachusetts

5 out of 5

Portland, Maine

3 out of 5

Bar Harbor, Maine

5 out of 5

Saint John, New Brunswick

3 out of 5

Halifax, Nova Scotia

5 out of 5

7 Comments

carolgrimaneliswatt 8 years ago

We booked dinner and shows before the cruise and everything was perfect

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dellamaebead 8 years ago

Strange you should mention the volume of the music on board. My husband and I did not attend any shows, but our travelling companions did and had the same complaint - the volume was uncomfortably loud at each show.

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frizzbeecruiser 8 years ago

Just a note... In Canada you're a foreigner as well.. How about "some people" "fellow cruisers" how about some type of reference like that?

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bsg5698 8 years ago

Just got back Saturday. Enjoyed the ship and the excursions I setup before we left. Make sure you go to the TOP of Cadillac Mountain! Some tours buses don't go there. It is a breathtaking view not to be missed! In Portland we did the Discover Portland land and Sea. We had the best lobster rolls around the street from the tour pier at Bill's Pizza!! We were held up getting off at St. JOHN. some foreigners did not turn in Customs papers and ignored their names when they were being paged over the PA system for over an hour! Canada has much stricter customs requirements than the USA. Boston I got Groupon hop on Cityview bus and the Freedom trail. Bar Harbor atyourservicetaxi.com. St John Dave's Tours. Halifax -Best of Halifax and Peggy's Cove. (USED Discover card Cash back)

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frizzbeecruiser 8 years ago

We just got back last week from our Anthem cruise. We loved the dining choices. Our family had a dining time set at 530 each day. We had a couple days where we were on tours and missed.. So we just went to one of the other dining rooms and sat and ate. The menu's were terrific if your a person who enjoys interesting and world cuisines. If your a standard meat and potatoes type.. It won't appeal to you but there are simple meat and potato options at each meal. You can arrange your dining time online in advance and come Nov 2016 they are canceling the dynamic Dining and going back to main dining room options with all rooms serving the same menu. Terrible if you ask me.

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toodamfine 8 years ago

Any Anthem tips?

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damarie 8 years ago

Thank you for all your comments, 11 days to go 😎☀️🍷🍦🍹☕️

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Other reviews of this sailing

Anthem of the Seas sang to our hearts!

Overall we had a Nice Cruise Rating 3.79 rounded Up to 4

Great time away. Amazing ship and crew.