Anthem of the seas - may 2016 - trip report

ANTHEM OF THE SEAS - MAY 2016 - TRIP REPORT

 

 

Anthem of the seas is Royal Caribbean's newest ship having launched about a year ago. It is by far the largest ship that we've ever been on displacing 168,000 tons. Maximum number of passengers is approximately 4,200 with 1,700 crew members. This was a nine night cruise leaving on May 5 and returning on May 14th. The first stop was Bermuda followed by St. Martin, San Juan and last the Royal Caribbean private resort called Labadee located on the north coast of Haiti. During this itinerary there were 4 at sea days, two going down and 2 returning to Bayonne, Cape Liberty, NJ.

 

My brother and sister in law plus her sister and husband were all together on this cruise with us. For the six of us the only thing we did together was dinner every evening. Everybody got along great with no arguing or fighting and it was a pleasure. Our stateroom was a D1 balcony which is the highest rated balcony and it had a very large balcony of around 90 to 100 square feet and we were on deck 7. There was only one negative with the location. We just assumed that there were 3 banks of elevators, forward, mid ship and aft. There were no aft elevators and our walk to the elevators was 100 steps. This also meant that most of the days the elevators were crowded and you usually had to wait some minutes for one.

 

This ship had some new and unique features:

 

1st - Bionic bar - This was 2 robots who mixed your drink order and then placed it on a conveyor belt to bring it to you.

2nd - Rip Cord - This is a sky diving simulator. You are in a cylinder with air rushing up from below which supports you in the air.

3rd - North Star - This is a passenger carrying globe on the end of a crane which lifts you 300 feet above sea level and extends out over the ocean.

4th - Bumper cars - These were located on the sports deck, #15, and were open maybe 4 to 6 hours per day. When not in use the floor was a basketball court. At night a dance floor.

5th - club Two 70 - This was a dual purpose room on the back of the ship on deck 5. In the daytime it was an all window view of the ocean in comfortable chairs and love seats. In the evening the windows were electronically controlled to be a high definition video screen which they used as a backdrop for some shows.

 

Dining on the ship was also different. There were 4 main complimentary restaurants; Grande, American Icon Grill, Chic and Silk. What was different was that you had to make a reservation for the restaurant, the day and the time. We did this over the internet about 8 weeks before the cruise and my wife did all the arrangements linking 6 people from 3 staterooms together.

 

We all found the food to be mediocre to good some nights, never excellent. Silk was an Asian restaurant so the menu was different there. For the other three the menus were 95% the same night after night. We ate at Jaime's Italian Restaurant 2 out of the last 3 nights. This was an extra cost restaurant, $30 each I think, but the food here was excellent with all the pasta being made fresh every day. I'm not a foodie but my brother is and he loved this place. Just for information, my brother and his wife bought the ultimate drink package. The cost of each one was close to $500 and it entitled you to as many drinks be it wine, liquor, specialty coffee, soda absolutely anything and unlimited for the whole cruise. Since most of the glasses of wine were $14 each, I'm guessing that they got their money's worth. Our sister in law actually got both myself and my wife drinks using her card. I don't really drink very much and for the 9 days I recall consuming 2 mixed drinks and 1 beer.

 

All of us went to some of the shows on the ship. The first one was Spectra Cabaret in the Two 70 room. This show was very weird with singing dancing and some trapeze action. None of us were able to figure out any theme to this show and were somewhat disappointed. The electronic visual displays in the background were amazing. The second show was We will rock you. This was basically 2 hours of Queen songs and it at least had a story line, although somewhat lame it was a story that you could follow. All of the good songs that the whole audience was waiting for such as "we will rock you" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" were performed in the final 20 minutes of the show. Overall this was a good show that the whole audience enjoyed.

 

The next to last night on the ship we went to 2 different comedy shows. The first one was a standup act in Two 70. The comedian, a woman who has been on Comedy Central and is appearing in a Robert DiNero film later this year was just OK. A few laughs but nothing great. The second show was a Chinese comedian performing singing, piano playing and audience participation. A half hour of this show was all my wife and I could take.

 

Now I'll discuss our island stops. The first stop was Bermuda on day #3. This was a disaster. It was pouring rain with 40 to 50 mph winds the whole day. Eva, myself and my brother and his wife all ventured off the ship to wander around some of the shops in the dock area. Well one hour was all we could take and went back to the ship soaking wet and miserable despite having rain gear on.

 

Two days later we were in St. Martin. The 4 of us went to Orient beach and went to Kakao resort. $20 was the rental of 2 beach loungers and an umbrella for the day. The weather was beautiful, sunny warm with a slight breeze. The water temperature had to be somewhere in the low 80's because you could just walk right into it with no hesitation. We stayed on the beach for 3 1/2 hours and then went to the capital city Philipsburg and did some shopping. After that it was the water taxi back to the cruise dock. Overall a great day

 

Next day was San Juan from 7 am until 1 pm. We wandered around Old San Juan for a few hours and then went to Senor Frogs which is right near the cruise dock. I remember having a frozen margherita which was delicious after the heat in San Juan. We were then back on the ship around noon.

 

The final stop was Labadee, a private resort owned by Royal Caribbean on a peninsula on the north coast of Haiti. I was there 9 years ago and the improvements are spectacular. For example they have a zip line with a run of at least a half mile over the ocean. On the ocean side of the peninsula the beach and the water have a ton of rocks and is not that great. We were here until after lunch when we shipped over to the harbor side which was totally clear of all rocks. The day was sunny warm and the water was warm enough to go in. St. Martin was at 18 degrees north latitude and Labadee was at 20 degrees north latitude which is why the ocean water temperature was 2 to 3 degrees colder than in St. Martin.

 

Now for casino time. The casino was fairly large as befitting a ship this size. There were maybe 16 table games including 1 craps table, 3 roulette, 2 ultimate texas hold em, 2 three card poker, 1 let it ride and maybe 6 blackjack. I have no idea as to how many machines there were but I would venture a guess that it was at least 250. The biggest disappointment was the $10 minimum bet at every game including craps. Now this was my 40th cruise and I've never seen this kind of minimum. Every ship I've been on I could play craps with a $5 minimum. I questioned one of the pit bosses about this and he said because it's a new ship. Despite the high minimums most of the table games had action all week long except for the $100 minimum blackjack where there was nobody all 9 days.

 

The craps table was 12 feet long with a textured micro fiber layout. The straight wall section was very wide and the table bounce was excellent. I rate the bounce on this table as 10 out of 10. I questioned one of the pit bosses about their dice change policy. His response was that they never use a set of dice more than 2 days before they are destroyed. I believe him because in 9 days I didn't see anything resembling marbles like I have seen on Carnival ships. What was weird was that on the last night they brought out a used set of dice which was first used on 12/22/15, almost 6 months ago.

 

Now their dice change policy appeared to be perfectly acceptable but I did find a problem with their dice. They had 2 different types of dice and one type performed great for us and the other type were horrible. All the dice sets were a dark blue color. For days 1 - 4 and day 9 the dice had standard filled in circle pips and we won money every day with these dice. For days 5 - 8 the dice had the two concentric circle style pips and they were horrible. Later when I compile the throwing results you will see a significant difference between the different types on the different days.

 

Both my wife and myself each had a bankroll of $900 or $100 per day each for gambling. It should have been more than this but the cruise was very expensive costing us somewhere around $3500. This is more than twice what we usually pay for a cruise. Eva tried some roulette, Texas hold em, blackjack and the poker table. With the $10 minimums if you didn't get a good hand quickly your money disappeared too fast. She did not really play any of these other games much at all and concentrated on craps. Because of the $10 minimums we came up with a plan to share our bankroll. We would each buy in with $100 and split the cost of any bets we were making. I let her handle the betting particularly when I was throwing the dice. This allowed me to concentrate on the throw itself. Due to this we were OK at the $10 minimum.

 

Here are our throwing results:

 

5/5 DAY 1

 

PLAYER # THROWS # POINTS # CO WINS

 

EVA 6 2

BOB 9

EVA 6 1

BOB 45 5 1

 

5/6 DAY 2

 

BOB 10

EVA 6 1

BOB 7 3

EVA 27 3 4

EVA 10

BOB 2 PSO

EVA 11 1 2

 

5/7 DAY 3

 

BOB 8 1 3

EVA 2 PSO

BOB 11 2

EVA 15 1 1

BOB 10 1

 

5/8 DAY 4

 

EVA 32 5

BOB 7 1

EVA 37 5

BOB 12 1 2

EVA 6 1

EVA 6 3

BOB 25 2 4

 

5/9 DAY 5

 

EVA 12 2

BOB 9 1

EVA 5 2

BOB 12 2 2

EVA 3

BOB 14

BOB 14 1 2

 

5/10 DAY 6

 

EVA 5 1

BOB 6

EVA 4 1

BOB 12 1

BOB 12 1

EVA 9 1 1

BOB 4 1

EVA 4 1

BOB 6

 

5/11 DAY 7

 

EVA 8 1

BOB 30 3 3

EVA 6 1

BOB 8 1

 

5/12 DAY 8

 

BOB 14 2

EVA 5

BOB 9

EVA 6

BOB 6 1

EVA 10 1

BOB 9 1

BOB 13 1 3

 

 

5/13 DAY 9

 

EVA 7

BOB 34 5 1

EVA 15 1 2

BOB 9 1

BOB 8 1

EVA 23 2 2

BOB 3

EVA 9 1

BOB 11 1 3

 

 

Between both of us we played a total of 60 hands and we made 59 points for a average of .983 points per hand. In addition we made 55 come out wins for an average of .917 per hand.

 

Back to my analysis of what I consider good dice vs questionable dice. For days 1 - 4 plus 9 we made 429 throws in 32 hands for an average roll length of 13.41 throws per hand. We also made 40 out of our total of 59 points during these same 32 hands.

 

With the double concentric circle pips on the dice we made 255 throws in 28 hands for an average roll length of 9.11 throws per hand. With these dice we made 19 points in 28 hands. A significant decrease in performance compared to the 40 points in 32 hands with the good dice.

 

We were up for the cruise winning approximately $650 at the craps table. 90% of this was accomplished on days 1-4 and 9. On days 5 - 8 we lost on 3 out of the 4 days. When we noticed the dice change on day 5 we played cautiously and minimized our losses. If you look at the numbers above you will see that day 6 was a disaster and the next day 7 we only played 4 hands between us.

 

Bob had the following great hands during the cruise: 45 throws, 25 throws, 30 throws and 34 throws.

Eva was no slouch in the good hands having the following: 27 throws, 32 throws, 37 throws and 23 throws. On the days with good dice our performance was pretty equivalent but with the questionable dice my throwing was much better.

 

The playing conditions were pretty good. On the at sea days the craps table would open at 1 pm in the afternoon and then in the evening around 7:30 to 8:00. On port days the casino would open 30 minutes after departure and craps would open around 7:30. We were always there when the table opened and most of the time we could get in a few hands each before other players showed up. I'm guessing that there were no more than 6 regular players every day. There were two players who would only buy in and play if Eva and I were there. The dealers were very good but it took maybe 4 or 5 days for them to warm up to the regulars at the table.

 

So would we ever sail on this ship again. I would have to say no due to the negatives outweighing the positives significantly. The major negatives were #1, the mediocre food, #2, everywhere you went the ship just seemed crowded with hordes of people everywhere, #3, the $10 minimum bet levels in the casino and #4, the use of questionable dice at the craps table.

 

 

Dicenator

I did the Anthem 3 nighter and the food was the worst I've ever eaten. Thank god they had salads as that was the only thing I found edible.

I went with a bunch of other NCL CAS players and we all rated between 3000-4000 points each for the weekend and according to RCL that doesn't rate a comp. I will not sail them again. We will be sticking with NCL.

HHHHHEEEEELLLLLLLLLLOOOOO Dicenator: Glad that you found some time to write about your cruise. Don't think we would go on any of those new ships from RCCL or NCL. I have heard from others that they seem very crowded. Also food from mediocre to bad. Experienced that on RCCL and NCL. Also, some people mentioned that everything is a long walk away. A turnoff for my wife. When I was on the Voyager of the Seas we noticed that they didn't have any aft elevators either.

 

We try to stick to lines owned by the Carnival Corporation. Also, Celebrity Cruise Line despite being owned by RCCL is a pretty good line. Does RCCL still have single odds? Have noticed that many lines have upped the minimum wager in the casino on all table games.

 

Hope your next cruise goes better. Most of all better food. By the way, RCCL has launched the Harmony of the Seas which is now listed as the largest cruise ship in the world. It can carry more than, I hope you are sitting for this, 6,100 passengers.

Thanks for your report, not only for the casino, but for the ship as well. We have been leery of trying these humongous ships and you have confirmed many of the reasons why.

 

Thanks again for the post.

tompeter,

 

First I want to thank you for being one of the few who always responds to the trip reports that I post.

 

As far as the large ships go, I've been on the Anthem, Norwegian Breakaway and Getaway and the Regal Princess. They all seem to be more crowded than say the 110,000 ton class of ships like the Carnival Valor, Glory etc. The second thing I've noticed is that the casinos usually suck. I'm basically a craps man so I'll talk about craps. Anthem and the Breakaway and the Getaway all had $10 minimum bet levels. The Regal Princess although $5 had a trampoline like bounce on the table and I could not get my dice throwing to work. Since one of the main reasons I go on a cruise in the first place is to be able to play in a casino for 7 to 10 straight days with low $5 table limits. I have no intention of ever bringing $3000 to gamble with on a cruise to support a $10 minimum. Because of the lousy craps playing conditions you can make a 95% sure bet that I will not cruise on any of these ships again.

 

The quality of the dice used at craps on the ships is another major factor. As I reported above the Anthem used 2 different types of dice. One type was excellent and the other type was crap. On Carnival what I've learned over the last 2 years and this applies to Princess, Holland America, Costa and Cunard is that they start on the first day of the month with a given number of sets of dice. When they cycle through all the new sets they start repeating them. On the Emerald Princess back on Jan. 23rd all the dice sets were worn big time. They started the month with only 6 new sets of dice which means that I was playing craps with dice that had been used 3 times previously. So my new policy on any Carnival line ship is that I have to be sailing on it during the first 2 weeks of any month. On a cruise ship 2 days of usage with a pair of dice is equivalent to a full shift in a land based casino which is fair in my opinion.

 

Food on the big ships is another questionable factor. On the Anthem it was terrible. On the Regal Princess it was very good and the Norwegian ships it tends to be good to very good.

 

Dicenator

I don't post much but just wanted you to know I read all of your trip reports and thanks for reporting.

I did the Anthem 3 nighter and the food was the worst I've ever eaten. Thank god they had salads as that was the only thing I found edible.

I went with a bunch of other NCL CAS players and we all rated between 3000-4000 points each for the weekend and according to RCL that doesn't rate a comp. I will not sail them again. We will be sticking with NCL.

 

Thanks for these reviews. You always wonder about what other cruise lines are doing. I'm going to be happy & satisfied with my NCL CAS comps. We have always enjoyed the majority of the food & entertainment choices we have had on NCL. Thanks to CAS we have been able to cruise 4 or 5 times a year since we retired....life is good! :D

Thanks for the additional feedback. We are going on the Regal Princess in Nov. for the Slot Tournament (the only reason), and am glad at least the food should be decent.

Dicenator, thanks for the review!

 

Regarding the blackjack tables, did you notice if they used shoes or continuous shuffle machines and I am assuming all of the blackjacks paid 3:2?

 

Finally, did you notice how many decks they used and how late the casino was open each night? Thanks for any insights :-)

As I remember all the blackjack games had continuous shufflers and they used 8 decks. Since I'm a craps player I really don't look at blackjack too closely. In fact on the ships I won't play because of the continuous shufflers. On Carnival ships they have a game called Fun 21 which is just their name for Spanish 21. This game is hand shuffled on all Carnival ships I've been on.

 

Dicenator

Dicenator, thanks for the review!

 

Regarding the blackjack tables, did you notice if they used shoes or continuous shuffle machines and I am assuming all of the blackjacks paid 3:2?

 

Finally, did you notice how many decks they used and how late the casino was open each night? Thanks for any insights :-)

 

BJ tables on Anthem are hand shuffled, 8 decks are used and there is only one table that uses a single deck. "Let it Ride" uses a shuffle machine. As far as what time Anthem's casino closes at night, anywhere from 2-4 am, been there quite a few times till closing :eek:

Hello My Brother (the Dicenator),

 

Yes the food was an overall disappointment, but I must compliment RCCL on offering the Ultimate Drink Package, and especially the 20% discount pre-cruise.

 

We would have been very, very disappointed without the package, because as you mentioned, the wine prices pretty much begin at $10 a glass and go straight up. The package discounts each glass of wine by $14 maximum; at this price point there were enough decent wines to keep us satisfied, so our additional cost was zero.

 

Martinis, Cosmos, and like drinks were prepared quite well, particularly in the Vintages bar, which we enjoyed almost every evening at cocktail hour. The Ultimate package also includes freshly squeezed juices (a definite plus), bottled water and full access to everything at the on-board Starbucks.

 

Here is my estimate (per person) on a per diem basis:

 

Breakfast:

Starbucks $5, fresh orange juice $5, Bloody Mary $8

Pool Time:

Water $3, beer $7

Lunch:

Wine $14

After Lunch:

OK just water, please. $3.

Cocktail Hour:

(2) Martinis (G Goose, Hendricks, etc.) $12 x 2 = $24

Dinner:

(2) Wine $14 x 2 = $28

Starbucks espresso/cappuccino $5

After Dinner / Shows

At least 3-4 Baileys, Kahlua, others. Say $40 total.

 

Total Per Day: approx. $140 per person.

 

As mentioned, the package price including the mandatory gratuity was just about $500 after the discount. So, for a 9 day cruise, we certainly got our money's worth.

 

Would I drink this much without the package? No.

Do I drink this much at home? No, because vacation is vacation, which means party.

Oradellian,

 

Thanks for filling in all the blanks on the drink package. I wasn't aware of things like the fresh squeezed juice and the star bucks. I tried my best to cover all aspects of the cruise from the food, the crowded conditions, the ports we stopped at and the entertainment.

 

See you soon,

 

Dicenator

Thanks for the report. We will be on the Anthem in September in New England and Canada. We have been on the Royal Princess and really enjoyed it. We never felt crowded. Food was OK, though not as good as what we had on the Diamond Princess in Alaska. That was extremly good. Casino, at least the slots, were very good to us on Royal Princess. The four of us all came back winners. Nothing big, but at least we didn't leave any money on the ship! Oh well, the worst day cruising is better than any other day. And I fully believe the trip is what you make it. Just smile, be happy and have fun!

Dicenator,

 

I just got off Carnival Vista 2 weeks ago played craps all 8 days a lots of fun the table was good I don't know how to classify it, it's not bouncy at all may be you could call it natural? The whole time it's not crowded at all usually same players everyday lots of time only 2 or 3 were playing. there was hot and cold table I switched to the back side when it was cold, I was thinking of you how I would love to have you there playing you would have killed it big time the way the table bounce was So check on the Vista while it still sails the Med it will come to the US after Oct this year I don't know if it still be the same as far as the crowd (players) are concerned. Also they did change the dice set every day.

 

Teddy

Edited June 22, 2016 by Trnkk

Dicenator,

 

I just got off Carnival Vista 2 weeks ago played craps all 8 days a lots of fun the table was good I don't know how to classify it, it's not bouncy at all may be you could call it natural? The whole time it's not crowded at all usually same players everyday lots of time only 2 or 3 were playing. there was hot and cold table I switched to the back side when it was cold, I was thinking of you how I would love to have you there playing you would have killed it big time the way the table bounce was So check on the Vista while it still sails the Med it will come to the US after Oct this year I don't know if it still be the same as far as the crowd (players) are concerned. Also they did change the dice set every day.

 

Teddy

HHHHHEEEEELLLLLLLLLOOOOO Trnkk: Thanks for your observations of the craps table on the Carnival Vista. I play craps a lot in the casino. I hope that the Casino Management keeps the table not bouncy. Craps is not a popular game in Europe or in the rest of the world. However, when the ship comes here there will be more people playing at the craps table. Already booked on this ship.

HHHHHEEEEELLLLLLLLLOOOOO Trnkk: Thanks for your observations of the craps table on the Carnival Vista. I play craps a lot in the casino. I hope that the Casino Management keeps the table not bouncy. Craps is not a popular game in Europe or in the rest of the world. However, when the ship comes here there will be more people playing at the craps table. Already booked on this ship.

 

Hi CP, Would you mind telling which cruise you book? I already booked Oct 11-21.

Hi CP, Would you mind telling which cruise you book? I already booked Oct 11-21.

 

HHHHHEEEEELLLLLLLLLLOOOOO Trnkk: We will be on the only round trip scheduled out of NYC.

Dicenator, what were the odds on the craps table? I'm guessing single odds but hoping for better.

Sorry to say but only 1X odds the same as every other Royal Caribbean ship that I've been on.

 

Dicenator

Sorry to say but only 1X odds the same as every other Royal Caribbean ship that I've been on.

 

Dicenator

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

I figured it would only be 1x odds, but I was hoping for better. So weak.

 

I'm going to give it a shot anyway. We're going on the Oasis of the Seas and I'm definitely going to pay attention to the style of dice and probably steer clear on nights they are using the ones with the concentric circles you described.

 

Thanks again!

Thanks for the reply.

 

I figured it would only be 1x odds, but I was hoping for better. So weak.

 

I'm going to give it a shot anyway. We're going on the Oasis of the Seas and I'm definitely going to pay attention to the style of dice and probably steer clear on nights they are using the ones with the concentric circles you described.

 

Thanks again!

 

HHHHHEEEEELLLLLLLLLLOOOOO CycleDawg:In spite of the fact that RCCL has only single odds one night on a cruise with RCCL, yes, I have been on one cruise with them, had two monster rolls back to back. Of course, most others playing at the table left already. But, that is okay.

Sorry to say but only 1X odds the same as every other Royal Caribbean ship that I've been on.

 

Dicenator

 

Assuming a $5 pass line bet, do they at least let you put down $6 odds on the 5 & 9?

Assuming a $5 pass line bet, do they at least let you put down $6 odds on the 5 & 9?

 

HHHHHEEEEELLLLLLLLLLOOOOO CycleDawg: They have to allow a six dollar odds bet on a $5 pass line bet on the 5 and/or 9. Otherwise the payout could not be correct.

Dicenator - I followed you on Heavy's site, but just saw your post when I am following feeds for my cruise next week! Ever play on Carnival's Pride out of Baltimore? I'm excited for the empty tables as it usually is on cruises.