Anthem of the Seas Dissappointed 35 year anniversary cruise

We usually cruise out of New York. This was our first cruising out of New Jersey. We wanted a stress free vacation and did not know what traffic would be like leaving CT going to NJ in the morning. We booked ahead of time to stay over at the Best Western package deal ( stay the night before, leave car and got shuttled over to cruise ship 20 min away. That turned out was a great plan because what was suppose to be a 1hour and 1/2 drive - turned into 3 hours with traffic in NY George Washington Bridge . We arrived happy to know we would relax & get shuttled over to the ship in the morning. Stress Free!

My Time Dining was all complimentary and food was great! Lots of food choices and as much as you wanted! The Grand had great Breakfast & lunch sit down & buffet. You could enjoy both until 9:30 AM then you had Two 70 or Windjammer until 3PM - Main Dining was awesome! Rachel the hostess greeted us each evening 5:30! Our Waitstaff Anak & I Nehga all were very attentive and went above and beyond ! We enjoyed Two70 restaurant food when Main dining was closed and WindJammer when all other complimentary restaurants were closed and we were waiting for Main Dining to open. There was 1 self serve Ice cream station open on the pool deck for 4000 + guests opened until 6PM the line was always long. By the 4th day 1/2 of the ice cream station was out of order. We ended up only enjoying 1 ice cream cone out of the 5 days on ship.

There were many pools. We could not get near any of them. There was NOT an adult only pool. All the pools had hundreds of children in them. We were on this Bermuda cruise celebrating our 35 year anniversary. Our children had been on cruises with us in the past but not on this cruise. Other ships we had been on had adult only pools for the adults who were not traveling with their children. The pool loungers had towels on them saved with no bodies on them all day. We enjoyed the North Star ride above the ship. Bumper cars were fun!

Musical Shows were entertaining. Comedians were funny. Love and marriage show was very funny & entertaining.

We did not bring our children on this bermuda cruise.

We prepaid for our trip months ahead of time including gratuities. We spent so much time in lines each and every day in guest services because each day when we noticed we were being charged $13.50 pp a day. We brought our paperwork showing guest services what we prepaid. They could not find it on their paperwork? They said they would look into it. 2nd day they said they would take off the gratuities since we did not want to pay again. getting double charged) We asked if they would take the ship board credit and we would deal with BJ travel when we got home? We wanted a -0- balance on our account and did not want any surprises on our account.(talked to other passengers and they also had been charged for shore excursions on their account that they did not authorize or go on. And prepaid their gratuities and still getting charged again on board. Language was a barrier with each trip to guest services because no one spoke English clearly. By the 3rd day they said we had a credit showing ship board credit $50 and $75 from booking through BJ's ($125) and that had to be used before the day we leave ship. We asked what they were doing about the gratuities that were showing up on our account. There were a lot of -40 multiple times? Again we check in the last night and would like to make sure our account shows -0- before end of trip. We are told the only amount on their screen is credit of $125 to use or loose. So we use the credit for 2 ship board pics - 2 royal carribbean t-shirts and go to the casino 52.50 (played with and donated) this left $12.50 credit left on our account. Surprise!! Surprise!! we arrive home to find a $112.00 charge to our BJ MC charge card. Now this issue continues on with BJ Travel. Doland - Our room Steward was awesome! They still make the animals made out of towels!

The ship was clean and maintained!

Loved our room with a balcony! We enjoyed sitting out on our balony enjoying the ride! The only down fall was we had neighbors who were smoking on there balcony and we asked for a NO SMOKING ROOM with NO SMOKING BALCONY. Room 136 had drunk young females who would slam their doors, throw things against their walls (our wall and table with lamp would shake) and they would yell and scream drunk 1 AM -3:30 AM... Their cigarette butts would be on the floor on our balcony side in the mornings. We mentioned this issue to our room steward.

Disorganized. We were carrying off our luggage. So we head to the area 7-7:30 where we were suppose to wait. People are waiting in the Royal Theater, both enterances are filled with people and luggage, both hallways, people are sitting on stairs, people are in elevator hallway. Then we are herded into area with no personnel guidance. Then later herded like cattle to midship. Once we were off the ship it wqs more organized.