7 Nights 7 Night Alaska Experience Cruise Cruise

Anthem of Seas

A very spectacular experience to cruise with Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas. Splendid service, smiling waiters, welcoming and helpful personnel onboard. Windjammer has a great spread and very good service. This was my 2nd time of the Singapore-Penang-Phuket cruise, first being Cruise to nowhere. However, I felt the shows onboard were better in terms of variety in the past than the current one. I missed that quality and spread this time. What I want to specifically mention is Patricia was an usher in Windjammer and it was an absolute pleasure to be welcomed with so much enthusiasm and vigour every time we visited the place. In the myriad group of people who work tirelessly to get this excellent experience to guests, she stands out in my mind this time around! Overall, a very value for money experience with a great service. I totalky look foward to my next now!

Amazing trip

Wonderful trip on anthem of the seas, all staff friendly and helpful. Cabin room was spotless and cleaned on a daily basis. Food was all really good, speciality dining in Izumi, Wonderland and Chops Grille were all wonderful. We loved the food and drinks on offer in the restaurants. Our main dining room experiences were all really good, we ate on level 3 which was quieter than level 4 was. The gym facilities were really good and clean. Cocktails were all really delicious and bartenders took care in making the drinks. We loved the entertainment on offer, particularly we will rock you and the friends/harry potter quizzes available. Boleros bar was a lovely space in which to play cards and listen to music. Also loved the silent discos on offer on the ship First ever cruise and we were really impressed. Staff could not have done more to help everyone to have a wonderful cruise.

Essentials Done Right, Something for EVERYONE

We very much enjoyed our 12-Night Canary Island sailing aboard the Anthem of the Seas. Our expectations were met or exceeded, and the majority of the CONs presented below were minor compared to the line/ship's ability to do the essentials reliably well and while all are opportunities for improvement, none were "deal breakers" that would prevent us from sailing the line or ship in the future. Of the competing "entry level" cruise brands that I have sailed (RCCL, Carnival, NCL) this cruise reaffirms my position that I will continue to be most likely to recommend RCCL to a friend or family member and look to them first for future sailings. I feel RCCL is most reliable in providing a positive cruising experience and making things right when expectations are not met. Specific PROs: - Great itinerary, unique ports of call and with NO tender ports. Generous scheduled time in all ports. - All the crew aboard were exceptionally kind and helpful. - Specialty and MDR food and service were reliably great. Our MDR wait staff were nothing short of amazing - especially in accommodating to the unique challenges of serving a multi-generational group. - The ship was kept amazingly clean and well maintained and had a sufficient number of attractions/dining to appeal to a wide range of cruisers. - Onboard communication was appropriate/adequate. - The line generally did a good job handling several "schedule challenges" ... port rearrangement due to planned strike and 2 helicopter medical evacuations. This opinion is made especially in compared to exceptionally poor handling of similar circumstances by NCL and Carnival on past cruises. These things are always non-ideal and are inevitably going to cause some frustration, but among all lines RCCL handled it the best BY FAR. - We very much enjoyed our Junior Suite and appreciate the diversity of cabin types offered by this ship/line. Our cabin experience was further enhanced by a GREAT steward. - Compared to other lines onboard Guest Services seems to actually be there to provide a service instead of being a blame denial mouth-piece. I found this exceptionally refreshing (looking at you NCL). - Sports deck offerings and staff were universally awesome. Specific CONS: - Frequent App issues/glitches - Not sure how much of this was due to the last-minute schedule change since I don't recall it being so much of an issue on prior RCCL cruises. - Shore excursion chaos/confusion/uncommunicated changes seemed the norm for this sailing ... again how much this was caused by schedule change is unknown. We haven't booked excursions to this extent through RCCL in the past so have no basis of comparison. In general, the quality of the shore excursions was also hit or miss. - It seemed to all members of our party like there was only really 7 nights "worth" of entertainment that they tried to "stretch" to 12 nights instead or bringing in more entertainment for this longer sailing (most of this season's sailings are only 7-8 nights). This was a disappointment given how much we enjoyed the vast array of RCCL entertainment on prior sailings. This would be a consideration before booking a longer sailing in the future. The quality of the entertainment they had was good. - Windjammer service was fantastic, but the diversity of the offerings was sometimes disappointing. - My children mostly enjoyed Adventure Ocean and I like how RCCL has planned activities each session. However, I feel there is an opportunity for improvement in discipline procedures - There was another camper who was repeatedly awful to my kids and others. It sounded like he was given far more than the communicated "three strikes" but also there is no long-term deterrent for behavior issues. It seems like if a child is kicked out on a particular cruise, they should be banned or have fewer "strikes" on subsequent sailings to prevent them from ruining the experiences of other cruisers repeatedly. As a Caveat to this score/review - no "budget" cruise/cruise line with thousands of passengers aboard is ever going to be perfect, nor would I expect them to be ... because why would luxury lines need to exist if all that perfection existed at a reasonable price point? I feel too many reviews are biased/based on unrealistic expectations.