Overview
About
Passengers: 4,180 | Crew: 1,500
Passengers to crew: 2.79:1
Passengers to space: 40.3:1
Launched: 2015
Decks
- Deck 3
- Deck 4
- Deck 5
- Deck 6
- Deck 7
- Deck 8
Additional decks
Deck 3 layout
Cabins
Ocean View (2N)
Ocean View (1N)
Spacious Ocean View (1M)
Interior with Virtual Balcony (2U)
Cabins
Balcony
Cabin size: 119 - 272 sq. ft.
Connected rooms: 378
Accessible rooms: 12
Maximum passengers: 4
Number of cabins: 1436
Reviews
Traveller rating
- 98
- 47
- 29
- 25
- 49
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+1
Taking on a 7-night cruise from Southampton with Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas sailing to Haugesund, Gerainger, Olden and Stavanger was simply the best. The sites were stunning, it was a great opportunity to see these beautiful natural fjords from a different viewpoint and the towns were quiet and peaceful to visit. This is the perfect cruise if you're slightly older or want a blend of action and relaxation. There are the usual activities onboard the ship, but the destinations encourage you to disconnect and just take in the surroundings. Online check-in through the app, handling of the safety briefing and organising some of my bookings before departure made the whole arrival process so much simpler. The departure lounge experience was quick and efficient, meaning quick boarding and the opportunity to get my trip underway without stress. My balcony stateroom on deck 8 aft was comfortable, and simplistic, with loads of storage and the convenience of being able to stash my cases under the bed. Despite a couple of nights with heavy-ish waves, the cruise was plain sailing. Invest in Voom and a beverage package before you sail, and try to book some experiences as well, as it can save on costs. It also made sense to book shows before departure to ensure my seat was saved. If you prefer a cruise with less little people around, make sure to book out of season, that way you can enjoy a little more peace and quiet. Food and beverage was extensive, and there's no need to purchase speciality dining, unless there's something to celebrate or you want to experience different cuisines. The Windjammer and dining rooms offer great quality food and plenty of it. You will never go hungry. Another recommendation would be to pre-purchase water before you sail - this will be delivered to your room and makes sure you have plenty of it available, as there are limits on what you can bring on board. An alcohol package isn't really necessary, unless you plan to spend most of the trip drunk - there are great wine, beers and spirits available at reasonable rates.…
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This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.
1 Helpful vote
Helpful
I'll start with the positives, because there aren't many: + The cabin was nice (though it should be for the price) + The shower worked well + Good for teenagers - plenty of activities for them, kid's pool is open til 10pm and they'll love all the frozen pizza (which is all you'll be able to get after 8.30pm). On to the negatives: - Food. This was absolutely my biggest issue. The seated dining is just small plates of the food available from the upstairs buffet, so absolutely no reason to go there other than to be waited on. Now the Windjammer (buffet) food was fine - not great, but not disgusting, wide range available... when the place is open. Most notably, it shut at 3pm and doesn't open again til 6pm (which is ludicrous when most port days required you to be back on board for 4pm - you can't even get a snack until dinner?! Awfully poor planning/ very intelligent cost cutting). If you eat at 6pm, good luck to you, as it shuts again at 9pm, and your only other option is... The Promenade down on Deck 4. This only serves incredibly cheap, nasty, low quality frozen pizza, all week. There's also a small counter where you can ask a man to give you a cookie, a small wet messy desert, or a small dry wedge of a wrap (and I do mean small). This might be fine for teenagers, but is absolutely not a premium experience for adults paying a significant amount of money. If you haven't had your dinner by 8.30pm, your only option is the ridiculous frozen pizza or a tiny piece of manky bread. This is insane to me. - Gratuity. An oddly American concept for our EU trip. Most of us here will tip where necessary, but my partner and I paying $32 a day for absolutely NOTHING is insane. Include it in the overall price, sure. But for a $32 a day tip, I would expect exceptional service and there was nothing to justify such a steep price. I also found it insulting that you are again asked to tip with every extortionate thing you buy, and again are left yet another "tip jar" in your room to give your maid. - Cleaning. During our week long stay, the room was cleaned twice. This is ridiculous for a cruise ship (our room was often cleaned three times a DAY on MSC). Our cleaner was very unaccommodating and would not change the time or come back later at all, and we couldn't get a hold of him at all with any requests (when we tried to call, the line rang and rang, when my SIL tried to call, she was told the line was disconnected!). This is absolutely shocking service compared to other cruise lines (for $32 a day, need I remind you). My MIL paid nearly £4,000 for her room (plus the $32 a day...) and didn't even have the tea and spoons in her room replaced! - Activities. These will be fully booked before you even step foot on the cruise, so if you have already booked here and can't cancel, I'd advise you immediately book whichever overpriced activities you have in mind. There are kids running around EVERYWHERE and this ship is really great for teenagers. Meanwhile, the "adult section" Solarium shuts at random times; we tried to go at 9pm one night and it was already long shut, meanwhile there are kids outside in the kids' pool at 10pm. Go figure. - App. Simply doesn't work - I couldn't contact my family for entire days at some points. Sure, you could spend $30 a day on WiFi, but if it doesn't work, look forward to being told it's an issue with your phone and not their WiFi, as I witnessed at Guest Services. - Elevators/ lifts take an absolute age to come. We often took the stairs up/down 10 decks purely based on the wait time. My last cruise was with MSC Virtuosa, where they have an incredibly efficient intelligent lift design that plans where people are going and massively minimises wait times. On this ship, sometimes lifts would come to your floor and immediately leave again without the doors opening at all. Having to wait 5+ minutes for a lift to come, only to have it stop on every single floor, wasn't a fun experience and made moving around the ship a pain. Overall, the ship is very poorly organised, with a messy deck design... even on the "at seas" days, my minimum step count was over 11,000 each day just from walking to my room to the food places/ pool. Something as simple as getting a cup of tea is so inconvenient that we rarely bothered. There's only one place you can consistently get water/ tea/ coffee, so enjoy trying to go there all the time and hope your cabin is nearby. **My advice to anyone looking to book this cruise line is: don't do it. To anyone that's already booked it: try and get a refund and go elsewhere. I will never ever travel with RCC again, absolutely shocking, and an embarrassment of a first cruise experience for some members of our family.** [I've included a picture of a "Berry Sundae" from the seated dining... it looks like it's been sitting on the table for 20 minutes already, but this picture is as it arrived. If you enjoy food like this, crack on... it's the only picture I can face adding, and it sums up the experience perfectly for me].…
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This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.
Helpful
This cruise was sold as a taster cruise and we were so excited to experience our first cruise. It started off well then just got worse by the hour. We’d paid the key and had this wonderful lunch. Then tried to book activities as with the key you get private time and all were fully booked. Dinner was ok but we were in one restaurant some how someone else was able to put drinks on our account. After our tea we’d noticed these drinks had been added and had to queue up to customer services which was the busiest place on the ship. They refunded us but almost seemed upset with us that this has happened. The same happened on the second night by this time we’d had enough and ended up closing the account as spending an hour at customer services each night was getting tiring - that was at 7pm! Our night finished there as we couldn’t buy anymore drinks without our sea pass. We woke up at 5.30am so we could be off the ship at 6am.…
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This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.
1 Helpful vote
Helpful
Just back from a week on Anthem. Embarkation was slick and smooth and we were on in 10 minutes. Sun was out so we sunbathed til our cabin was ready at 1.30. The app is great for booking before and also booking shows when you get onboard. So get an early embarkation as you can. Stateroom was spotless and our attendant was lovely and we like the ‘once a day’ service. Food is good and/or fine. We don’t do restaurants where you have to pay so stick mainly to main dining room for breakfast and tea. We are not foodies so it’s all fine for us but if you are into your food you’ll probably need to pay for do say chops grille or Izumi. Lots to do or you can do nothing. Totally you’re choice and we did a mixture of both. We are courteous and low maintenance so we always have a great time on RCL. We give the staff our thanks and tip accordingly. We never found the ship overly busy or crowded. The demographic of our ship was European and American (there was a significant number of friendly Americans who had won the trip on anthem… they were crafters from the USA. We got free access to the North Star which was fab and I totally killed my husband on the dodgems!! Wonderful time. Wonderful staff. Jon Courtney was fantastic but the gift WASN’T lol!! Lucky with the weather on route back to Southampton and sunbathed all day! Hope to be back on RCL soon xx…
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This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.
3 Helpful votes
Helpful
Love cruising in that you can see so much - sometimes need more time but the cruise through the fiords of Norway were remarkable sights. The ship is pretty easy to navigate and food was better than our last royal cruise. If you like prime rib wait til the final night and go to the Windjammer and get one as big as you want. Very tasty spent allot of time and net new friends at the English pub. I played slots and absolutely nothing They seemed to be turned WAY down as I won on symphony. Shows were great all but one. The Gift. My gift to you would be avoid this at all costs. When someone explains in the beginning what this is about and you STILL can’t figure this out. Wow. It was bad. Good talent. Bad show. We Will Rock You however was great.…
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This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.
Helpful