Anthem with kids 4/18/16 trip report

Hi! I hope this is the correct place to post this, if not I'm sure someone will let me know lol.

I am the obsessive trip researcher in my family (me, DH, DS 8, DS6) and had tons of questions while planning this trip. While I found a lot of very helpful information on these boards there was still a lot of questions I couldn't find the answers to. Especially related to kids. I really loved reading the trip reports of other families and found them extremely helpful. I hope to do a briefer, not quite so live, version of those reports to help others.

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We are from upstate NY so the first question was how to get to the port?

There were many options but we narrowed it down to three. 1. Drive in the day of the cruise and park in the parking garage, $20/day for 12 nights. 2. Take a bus through a local company that has basically a park and ride from Albany. We originally did book this for $360, we would have had to get on the bus at 7am and then would be delivered to the pier and then picked up and brought back to Albany after the cruise. 3. Book a room at the Newark Ramada through Trinity Reservations for around $200 which includes free shuttles to and from port and free parking.

We ended up going with option 3 and so far I am really glad we did. We knew it wouldn't be much of a cost savings after factoring in gas, tolls and the extra food from coming in a day early. But it was a TOTAL stress savings.

I will be breaking this up since I am doing this on my iPad and it gets weird if I try to put too much into one post.

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We ended up leaving the house around noon. Our tentative plan was to drive to Liberty Park in NJ and take the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty. That plan failed when we took the wrong turn off the Parkway and missed the last ferry by five minutes. A little disappointing but no big deal. It was an absolutely gorgeous day and the view of the NYC skyline from Liberty Park was just amazing. And the kids could still see the Statue.

We took a walk around the park and saw a sign for a ferry into the city. $7 per adult each way, they didn't charge us for the kids. The ferry was really quick and like I said it was a gorgeous day so totally worth it. It dropped us in Battery Park, literally a couple blocks from ground zero. In fact while DH and I were checking our phones to figure out how to get there Tyler (8) pointed up and said "Mom it's right there". We walked over stopping to grab hot dogs for the bottomless pits, I took a bite - yum!

We went to the memorials, looked at the footprints and saw the names. This was hard. We don't shelter our kids but how can you explain something you don't understand yourself? We answered the questions the best we could then found a pretzel stand and all was right with their world. Walked back down towards the pier, stopping at the Irish hunger memorial and a really cool park on the way.

Took the ferry back, drove to hotel, got checked in, ate dinner here (mehh-should have ate in the city) and tucked in for the night. The hotel is fine for what it is, clean, quite. We would never stay here for more than a night though as there is no pool and nothing really close by to do.

Can't wait to get onboard tomorrow! Hopefully I can get back to sleep - insomnia sucks lol.

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Thanks for the review! I hope you have a wonderful trip!

What deck is the royal babies and tots on?

Subscribing. We just returned from the Allure with our kids 10.5 and 6.5 years. (I have a trip report link...in progress... on my signature) So am really interested in your experience on the Anthem. Thanks for reporting since as you say, it's different with kids. Looking forward to hearing more.

We are now home after a great trip! I didn't end up taking notes so will post a few things that pop into my head. Feel free to ask any specific questions - I'll answer if I can.

We were in balcony cabin 6266. We had plenty of storage space and would have even if we didn't accidentally leave one suitcase at the hotel lol. Thankfully it was the one with the extra bathing suits, extra kids clothes and my "fancy" shoes. Any of the other bags missing would have been disastrous so not that big a deal. For anyone who was offended by my flip flops in the dining rooms - sorry [emoji12].

The kids club was fantastic. They were open 9-12, 1 (or 2?)-5, 7-10 sea days, and virtually all day port days. On port days they would take them to lunch if they there at 12, on all days they would take them to dinner if they were there at 5. We always let the kids decide if they wanted to go to the club or hang out with us. I would say more then half the time they chose to go hang out with their friends. There were 199 kids on board which seemed about perfect to me. They always had kids to play with but the ship was not overrun by any means.

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They loved loved loved the seaplex. We had no problems with lines for any of the activities in there. They both did the trapeze, bumper stars multiple times, roller skating and various soccer, kickball games. Just make sure you limit their sea cards. Fortunately my 8 yr old promptly informed us that his 6 yr old brother was sponsoring air hockey for anybody who wanted to play. They had been warned about the arcade but I didn't think about the air hockey. I went to guest services and shut that down with no problem and less than $5 in damages.

They also loved the hotdogs and really loved that they could get them themselves.

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Make sure you have socks tucked into your bag at all times. They need them for rock climbing, roller skating and any ball games. I had to run to the room a couple of times because I didn't have socks with me and they had sandals on.

We had my youngest measures for flow rider early on (I knew it would be close for him) it looked like he was going to make it but then the girl behind the counter asked if he had shoes on. He had flip flops on but when she made him take them off he was literally a hair short. She said the top of his head had to hit the bar with no shoes so it was a no go for him. He was fine because we had warned him that might happen.

I brought him back at the end of the cruise just in case he grew a hair. The guys behind the counter took one look at him said "dude you are totally fine", fist bumps all around, no question about shoes and off we went.

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What deck is the royal babies and tots on?

We saw very few babies and none when we were dropping off or picking up our kids so I would guess they were on deck 11. 6-8's were on 12.

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Thank you.

Hi! Glad you wrote about the kids' portion of the trip. I hope you are still around because I have questions ;-)

What did your boys think of the kids pool area?

Do you have any pictures of the kids club area? My 8 year old will be in the same section.

Hi! Glad you wrote about the kids' portion of the trip. I hope you are still around because I have questions ;-)

 

What did your boys think of the kids pool area?

 

Do you have any pictures of the kids club area? My 8 year old will be in the same section.

Hi!

They LOVED the whirlpooly thing that was in the kids pool area. It's literally a circle pool with jets that push you around in circles, over and over. I did not get the attraction but they both would have stayed in there for hours. Other than that they didn't do too much on the kids pool section but they are both good swimmers so they spent a lot of time in the regular pools.

They also loved the hot tubs and beg for one at home now.

No pictures of the kids club but it was pretty big I thought. There was a section with Xbox games, a section with tables for craft type stuff and a large area in between for dodgeball type games and such. There was also a bathroom and a water fountain. They also took them to the seaplex a couple of nights.

Nice. That "whirlpooly" (love the name you called it btw) was Brandon's favorite on Independence too so I know exactly what your talking about. Thanks!

What did you do with the Seapass cards? I've been wondering if the kids need land yards to hold them or do I carry theirs around?

We'll be taking our 8 & 5 year on Anthem for their 1st cruise in October! And we're also from Upstate. I'd love to hear any recommendations for port days.