Anthem of the Seas to Bermuda Trip Report

That's so weird about the sofa bed for your daughter! We had a sofa bed for our DS too, but it folded out to a double bed. When it was set up for the night it almost touched the desk area.
I know that some staterooms on Anthem have the same looking sofa but it doesn't fold out, and those rooms are meant for 2 people. I wonder if you were in one of those?
 
That's so weird about the sofa bed for your daughter! We had a sofa bed for our DS too, but it folded out to a double bed. When it was set up for the night it almost touched the desk area.
I know that some staterooms on Anthem have the same looking sofa but it doesn't fold out, and those rooms are meant for 2 people. I wonder if you were in one of those?


Do you happen to have a picture of it? I doubt that it was meant for just 2 people because you can't book 3 people into a room meant for 2. We actually tried to do the Disney trick where I was in a room with my mom but she would be the only one to stay in it and I would sleep in the other room with the hubs and daughter and it wouldn't work because RCL would only show the rooms that held 2, not 3. So ours was meant for 3. So that tells me that either our stateroom attendant didn't want to do the work each day or ours for some reason didn't do it.......now I wish I'd known the difference!
 
Do you happen to have a picture of it? I doubt that it was meant for just 2 people because you can't book 3 people into a room meant for 2. We actually tried to do the Disney trick where I was in a room with my mom but she would be the only one to stay in it and I would sleep in the other room with the hubs and daughter and it wouldn't work because RCL would only show the rooms that held 2, not 3. So ours was meant for 3. So that tells me that either our stateroom attendant didn't want to do the work each day or ours for some reason didn't do it.......now I wish I'd known the difference!

I don't think I took any pics of the stateroom with the sofa folded out but it looked exactly like this
 
Spectra's Cabaret......was different.

We got there at 8:15 for our 8:30 reservations. At this point we started to feel the ship start to rock a little more than it had and the kid and I are prone to seasickness. I take Bonine a couple of days before we get on the ship and it typically helps me and she takes children's Dramamine (because she can't take bonine yet) and it seems to help her. But SC is in the aft of the ship in 270 so we started to feel the rocking a bit more back there. We always get a midship cabin because of this and so sometimes walking to either end can get to us if the ship is rocky at all.

Anyway, we got there at 8:15 to see quite the line outside 270. I was surprised because I figured we would just go in. Then I heard the CM say if you have reservations see me. So all those waiting in line were trying to see it without a ressie. So walked right up and went in with no problems. It was packed. I don't know what time you should get there to get a seat more middle of the theater but its before 8:15. We were off the side a bit on the lower level at a table instead of a couch type setup. It worked fine for us but unlike everything else we had experienced this trip, people actually got to this one early and waited.

So I ordered a drink and some water. (we had got popcorn on the pool deck for the show.....hubs said it was equally as good as DCL, I said DCL is better. They pop un-buttered popcorn then just pour butter on top. Makes some of them soggy and others not buttered. DCL is more like movie theater and I thought it was better. 3.95 plus tax and tip on RCL and I think its 6.95 for the big tub plus $3 refills on DCL...I can't remember on DCL anymore).

The best way I can describe it is a 90s cover band concert. They started out with Rhythm Nation by Janet Jackson, then moved into some Gloria Estefen, some "push it, push it real good" some Lion King songs, a little Madonna with voguing and some 90's gaming graphics on the rotating screens above our host. The hubs said it was very Max Headroom of the 90's. I am a child of the 90's but this was just strange. It was constant singing unless it was just music while the acrobatics came down from the ceiling on fabric or ropes(that part was impressive since the ship was rocking and they were spinning and doing tricks). About 30 min in, DH and I looked at each other debating on if we should leave. It was just kind of boring and not all that great. I mean my church has those screens and we use them during service along with lasers and strobe lights, this wasn't some technology marvel to me. (Yes I go to a church that has an average of about 10,000 people a week). We ended up staying for the whole thing and lots of people must of liked it since they got a standing ovation and all. Just wasn't my cup of tea. I much prefer the Disney shows (point DCL...but that's total preference).

We went back to the room to escape the rocking and went to bed.

Up Next...Last Sea Day
 


I don't think I took any pics of the stateroom with the sofa folded out but it looked exactly like this

That's crazy! Ours never looked like that. So that makes me wonder if ours had the ability or not. What's funny is our stateroom girl was the best crew member we encountered but she maybe didn't want to take the time to do the above with the bed......
 
That's crazy! Ours never looked like that. So that makes me wonder if ours had the ability or not. What's funny is our stateroom girl was the best crew member we encountered but she maybe didn't want to take the time to do the above with the bed......
Well I can tell you that these sofa beds are hard to set up apparently... The first night when my DS sat on it (once it was ready for the night) and he's like 68 lbs, and DH stood in the very little space beside the sofa bed/desk, the sofa bed part collapsed on my DH foot! We called guest services and they sent a maintenance guy right away who basically said that there is nothing wrong with the sofa bed, but our attendant didn't set it up properly. When my DH looked into it, it's kinda tricky and not saying that a woman can't do it, but I would have a hard time.
After this incident, we heard some crew members (stateroom attendants) discuss this in the hallway as we walked by, and one of them said these are very difficult to set up.
I don't know if this is why your girl didn't do it...
Royal was very apologetic about the whole thing, I urged DH to go see the doctor as his foot was really swollen but he was fine the next day. After that we didn't have a problem with the sofa bed, but DH checked it every night to make sure.
 
The last sea day was a rough one for us. We didn't do much because the ship was trying to avoid storms the whole time and it was quite rocky. For those that don't have a problem with sea sickness, it wouldn't have been an issue. My DH wouldn't have really noticed much of it if it hadn't been for us girls. We did walk down the hallway as if we were drunk and we have the occasional comment with a fellow passenger about how we all should have another since we can't walk in a straight line and I know that ours isn't nearly as bad as some of those that Anthem has had before us. I guess that open Atlantic just gets rocky at times.
So we went up to WJ for breakfast but didn't eat much since we felt a tiny nauseous and then the kid and DH went to bumper cars while I went back to pack. I actually don't mind packing to go on the trip....i kind of enjoy it. But I don't like packing to go home, but who does?! However, I do it because since I packed us up, I know just how everything goes in the suitcases. And we travel in all carry on's so it has to go just right back in or it won't fit! DH and the kid went to the indoor pool for a bit but didn't last long because she was starting to feel too sick. The ship was rocking enough that the pool water was splashing out of the pool with each rock and she just couldn't handle it anymore. So we ate lunch in WJ and brought dessert back to the room. I wanted to go to Friends Trivia so we all went to that (you can tell that RCL thinks that the ship is mainly 30-40 somethings with the Spectra's and Friends and Seinfeld trivia). That took about 30 min and we all wanted to just chill in the room. We packed some more, and rested some so we wouldn't get sick.

We had ifly reservations at 3:00 this day but they were cancelled because of the ship's motion.

We had dinner reservation in the main dining room tonight. But I knew that it was in the aft and how we were feeling wasn't going to make it. So alas, we canceled our ressie and the hubs went to WJ to bring food back for us. We ate dinner in the room to help ease our stomach. So I never went to a main dining room!

According the captain, we entered some kind of bay later than evening and the rocking stopped. So I went around to take a few more pictures....

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Music Hall to the left....shopping to the right.

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Sorrento's


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Cafe Promenade and Sorrento's were right next to each other.

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This is what the main dining rooms looked like at about 8pm. If you had a reservation, then you went in one line and if you didn't, then you went into another line to see if they had a spot open for you.

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After that, we were off to bed to get ready for our very early wake up call. We opted for self carry at 7:30am......
 


Well I can tell you that these sofa beds are hard to set up apparently... The first night when my DS sat on it (once it was ready for the night) and he's like 68 lbs, and DH stood in the very little space beside the sofa bed/desk, the sofa bed part collapsed on my DH foot! We called guest services and they sent a maintenance guy right away who basically said that there is nothing wrong with the sofa bed, but our attendant didn't set it up properly. When my DH looked into it, it's kinda tricky and not saying that a woman can't do it, but I would have a hard time.
After this incident, we heard some crew members (stateroom attendants) discuss this in the hallway as we walked by, and one of them said these are very difficult to set up.
I don't know if this is why your girl didn't do it...
Royal was very apologetic about the whole thing, I urged DH to go see the doctor as his foot was really swollen but he was fine the next day. After that we didn't have a problem with the sofa bed, but DH checked it every night to make sure.



Ah, I wonder if that's why then. Maybe she'd had similar issues with it and since the kid is so small she thought this would be fine for her. Maybe she only does it if the 3rd person is more of an adult. Good to know! Glad his foot is ok!

Oh and when you do your report/comparison let me know!
 
Ah, I wonder if that's why then. Maybe she'd had similar issues with it and since the kid is so small she thought this would be fine for her. Maybe she only does it if the 3rd person is more of an adult. Good to know! Glad his foot is ok!

Oh and when you do your report/comparison let me know!

If the metal mechanism under the sofa bed was locked properly, it shouldn't happen. DH was fine the next day but he is a stubborn kind so I will never know for sure ;)
I already started the comparison - it's in the DCL forum as it's not really a day by day trip report, I'm more or less comparing and contrasting things between RC and DCL.
 
If the metal mechanism under the sofa bed was locked properly, it shouldn't happen. DH was fine the next day but he is a stubborn kind so I will never know for sure ;)
I already started the comparison - it's in the DCL forum as it's not really a day by day trip report, I'm more or less comparing and contrasting things between RC and DCL.

Do you have the link?
 
Time to leave!

Soooooo....this was kind of mess. We had an early flight, 11am. It was supposed to be a 12:30 flight but AA changed it to 11 and we just chose to try to make it work. Thanks AA. Because of the early flight, we did the self carry at 7:30. You had to choose self carry 3 days before you got off the ship and then you chose a time to get off. I found that a little strange but sure, whatever. We did as told and chose 270. We had grabbed a couple of things the day before in WJ to eat for breakfast in our room assuming we'd just eat a real breakfast at the airport.

Luxor Limo was to pick us at 7:45. We went down to get in line at 7:10 and the line was already quite long. Now we have done self carry on DCL several times and never have I experienced this mad house. On DCL we walk downstairs about the time we are suppose to and walk off. Yes, it can get crowded in the atrium but nothing like this. If we had known that you were suppose to line up earlier DH would have gone down sooner as he was ready at like 6:45. We found out the people at the front of the line had been there since 6:15. That's right, an hour and 15 BEFORE they were to get off the ship.

So we get in our line and its at a standstill until about 7:45. I get the text that our driver is there but we can't get off the ship. So instead of getting off at 7:30, it was about 7:50 before we actually were scanning our seapass card. It went pretty quickly after that. (We did walk fast and pass several people along the way). We got downstairs, thru customs and out to our driver by 8:05. So for those who want to hire a driver, tell them 8. No 7:45. Luckily our driver was efficient and got us to EWR by 8:35 and since we have TSA precheck we were to our gate with plenty of time.

So getting off the ship is a big point to DCL. We have had 11am flights out of Orlando before and been fine as well but it was a lot less crazy to get off the ship. The whole lining up was just insane. I don't know if more people do self carry because they can get on the road and home so much faster. I would venture to guess it was at least 75% New York and NJ and Pennsylvania residents. I really think I was in a huge minority being from the midwest. And I'm pretty sure the majority of people drove so I don't know if that's why the line was insane to get off at 7:30 or what? But I would guess there are a lot locals on DCL too but maybe its just more laid back and they don't feel like they have to get off as early. I don't know but the line went from the aft side elevators back to 270 then wrapped back around to the elevators and then past to the bionic bar. It was just crazy. We got in line around the cafe in 270. So for those of you who know where all that is, you can see why the line was crazy.

Next up...a summary.
 
Summary:

Please note that this is for the Anthem only. Each ship and each class of ships has different features. What we had on Anthem won't exist on the Serenade probably because its an older ship. Shows, food, restaurants, etc are all different on each class of ships.


Check in - Disney. It was a quick check in on RCL but the waiting and unfriendly staff put DCL ahead. I see fellow passenger had a different experience later in the day so maybe this was dependent on time of day.

Lunch/Buffet - tie. Both have banquet quality food. I don't think that either one was better than the other. Again, we aren't foodies but we found the food to be comparable.

Ice Cream - Disney. RCL had ice cream but it always seemed to need a refill and you only ever got 3 choices, chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. And some of the days, Vanilla wasn't even an option. But almost every time we went to the station, one of them needed to be refilled and it was beeping for at least 45 min. Its also not open for as long as Disney is either.

Shopping - Disney. This is personal preference but we don't care about the fancy shops. Some do probably. But I prefer more the regular people kind of shopping vs expensive Jewelry/watches, etc. It was also strange to walk into The Shop (RCL labeled items) and see an entire section, about the size of the clothes and merchandise, was alcohol and cigarettes. I know they sell both on DCL but its in a separate shop away from the regular merchandise and I prefer it that way. The two times I bought something in The Shop I was behind someone buying alcohol and pissed that they couldn't just open it right then and start drinking it. They didn't' realize they had to wait til they got off the ship to drink it. I've never had that problem on DCL or have to explain to my 8 yo why those men were so upset.

Shows - Disney. Again personal preference but when you are traveling with a kid, you want them to enjoy it too. Since the only show she could go to was Spectra's and it was based before her time, this ship was not kid friendly as far as shows were concerned. Now, we take note that some class ships might be better than others but this ship in particular was not our cup of tea.

Indoor Pool - Royal. Obviously because Disney doesn't have one. That was a huge point for us since the weather was so dreary.

Overall food choices - edge to Royal. This comes with a ** because you have to pay for those choices. BUT you paid less for the cruise overall so you can afford to throw in a couple of paid for food items.

Drink Choices - Royal. With the freestyle machines (again, I don't know if those are on all the ships or just Quantum class) that makes the drink choices much larger for soda drinkers. We both got the Coke cups and used them quite a bit. We did enjoy having more choices than coke, diet coke and sprite on DCL. But again, this was something you had to pay for. I had wondered if you could get water easily outside of the WJ and the answer is yes. They had a water machine with ice in the Cafe Promenade.

Information/Apps - Disney....just slightly. We found most crew members on RCL to be annoyed by our presence. They would give us information when asked or would help when needed but it was rarely done with a smile on their face and they most certainly didn't care if you existed or not. Many times the Compass didn't give the full picture of where something was or for how long it would take. And the app was nice in that you could make reservations and see your account balance, it didn't give locations on the app of where things were sometimes. So I feel like the DCL app was a hair better and the Navigator is better than the Compass.

Nightlight - Royal. Again this may be ship specific but the light in the bathroom had one small section that would stay on when you turned the light out to serve as a small nightlight when the bathroom was otherwise dark. I appreciated that for nighttime bathroom trips. :)

Storage in the room - Anthem. The layout of the room was more thought out than any Disney ship I've been on.

Room Key/Wowbands - Slight to Royal. You don't get your room key at check in, they are outside your room when you get on the ship. A part of me didn't like this because who's to say that some creeper wouldn't take one of the keys and was waiting in your room for you. Supposedly only one key was outside the room but in our case, all 3 were out there. So my advice is that if one of the keys is missing...be on guard walking in. BUT we really liked the wowbands. Similar to the magic bands but thinner and you couldn't choose a fancy color like magic bands, we still liked them. It was nice to have since we needed them for almost everything we did.

Room noise - Slight to DCL. Only because we could sometimes hear our above neighbor walking. Never had that problem on any of the 4 DCL ships.

Ship Decor - Anthem. I went specific to Anthem because again, other ships may not be this pretty. I still love the classic style of the Dream and Fantasy (the true comparison to Anthem) but Anthem was a very pretty ship.

Shower - Anthem. I enjoyed not having a shower curtain cling to me.

3rd bed - DCL. Now, I've read reports that our setup may not have been the norm (see Happilyeverafter's report above) but for us, the winner was DCL.

Activities-Adult: Tie

Activities, Kid: Tie. Anthem had roller skating, bumper cars, indoor pool but DCL has characters, scavenger hunts, crafting activities,etc.

Pizza: Royal

Internet: DCL. Personal preference here. We get the smallest package on DCL. Just enough to make sure our house sitter/pet sitter to our 13 year old westie is doing ok. Not much surfing. So yes, Voom was faster but it was double the price. So I go with DCL because we don't need it to be exceptional.

Pool Towels: DCL. I didn't like checking the towels in and out...but the wowbands came in handy for that.

Smoking areas: DCL. See my rant above.

Bathroom cleaning: DCL. Although my bathroom was clean for the most part, the toilet bowl brush cleaner was left in the bathroom. I didn't like that. I have never seen the cleaning supplies on our 4 DCL cruises. We also had to ask for more toiletries and I've never had to do that on DCL. Even in the later cruises when they stopped giving you a new set each day, when they saw we were low, more was left. I had to ask for new ones this cruise.

Outlets: Slight to RCL. The Dream and Fantasy have a better outlet situation than the classics do but RCL had slightly more outlets and even USB ports which was a nice touch. Again, probably specific to the newer RCL ships.


So that's it for me! I hope someone finds this useful and be sure to ask questions if you have any!
 
Enjoyed reading this, I kept thinking what we were doing around the same time. We had ifly reservations too last sea day at 2! As you know it was cancelled, bummer.
 
I think its funny how many times our paths crossed and yet we had no idea! Do you have a DCL on the books?

We don't have a Disney cruise booked at this time, but we do have Disney world vacation coming up in August :cool1:

At this point as far as a Disney cruise, we'll either take a last-minute one if they have deals (usually Dec and Jan there are a few) or later in 2018. Another possible plan is Europe in 2018. We are planning a 2 week trip to visit family and if we can swing it, we may book a med cruise at the end of the visit.
With our family things change rapidly though ;) Today we don't have a cruise booked, but tomorrow may be a different story....
We do like to mix it up with land-based vacations too, we don't just cruise.
What about you? Did you book another cruise with Royal?
 
Thank you for that interesting review. No regrets so far in booking the Anthem for next year... :) I have a feeling this ship will score a very high note for us.
 
Great report, thanks for taking the time to do it! We are booked on the Anthem to Bermuda for October 2018, so your report had a lot of great information for us.

We actually started out intending to book the Magic to Bermuda, but the price was $1600 more than the Anthem. We've done one Disney cruise, on the Dream in 2011, and we loved it. But I just couldn't justify the extra expense for what is basically the same cruise.
 
Great report, thanks for taking the time to do it! We are booked on the Anthem to Bermuda for October 2018, so your report had a lot of great information for us.

We actually started out intending to book the Magic to Bermuda, but the price was $1600 more than the Anthem. We've done one Disney cruise, on the Dream in 2011, and we loved it. But I just couldn't justify the extra expense for what is basically the same cruise.

We just did this cruise as well and also priced out the exact same itinerary Disney Magic to Bermuda Oct 2018 and the difference was $1800 for same type of stateroom! There is 3 of us.
What I will tell you that while DCL still has a great product, Disney Magic (which we also cruised on before) is not worth that much extra money. Anthem is not Disney obviously but has so much to offer, their pool areas alone will blow Disney Magic out of the water, especially if the weather won't be very hot sailing out of NYC. I was too very surprised to see the Disney Bermuda cruises that much higher.
 
We don't have a Disney cruise booked at this time, but we do have Disney world vacation coming up in August :cool1:

At this point as far as a Disney cruise, we'll either take a last-minute one if they have deals (usually Dec and Jan there are a few) or later in 2018. Another possible plan is Europe in 2018. We are planning a 2 week trip to visit family and if we can swing it, we may book a med cruise at the end of the visit.
With our family things change rapidly though ;) Today we don't have a cruise booked, but tomorrow may be a different story....
We do like to mix it up with land-based vacations too, we don't just cruise.
What about you? Did you book another cruise with Royal?

We have the Merrytime Cruise this fall and plan to do a land trip to Hawaii so I'm with you...we like to mix up land and cruise!
 

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