I am excited to share my latest cruise adventure with you. We sailed on Royal Caribbean’s Anthem of the Seas out of Port Liberty, New Jersey.
Anthem of the Seas one of the biggest ships I have ever sailed on. She began sailing in April 2015 as part of the Quantum Class of ships for Royal Caribbean. As of 2019 the Quantum Class is the third largest class of ships in the world. Royal Caribbean invested $940 million into making this ship one the most talked about ships in the industry. There are 16passenger decks, as well as 2 additional decks reserved for crew and supplies. I tis amazing that something this huge can actually travel at speeds of 22 knots, which is equivalent to about 25 mph. At a total length of 1,139 feet, Anthem of the Seas is over 3 football fields long, including the end zones.
There is so much to do on this ship, which is good news for the maximum occupancy of over 4900 passengers this ship can accommodate. It is a good thing that the 760 crew members are always ready to assist in making the passengers’ voyage a memorable one.
This massive ship is controlled from the bridge of the ship, which is located on deck 12. We were fortunate enough to be invited on a tour of the bridge during our cruise. We started our bridge tour with a brief overview of the bridge and how it is setup. The instrument panel that controls the ship is massive and at the time there were three officers on the bridge, plus a “special captain” as well. The views from the bridge are amazing. On each side of the ship there is a part of the bridge that hangs over the side of the ship with another set of controls, which are identical on each side. These controls will help the crew when docking the ship. There is a large window on the floor that allows the crew to look straight down and see the water and edge of the ship below. Then, using the controllers, they can control the pods that enable the ship to move sideways. By doing this, they maneuver the ship closer to dock. I had to control my urge to press my favorite button, the ship’s horn. In each corner of the of the front of the bridge is two high definition cameras. These cameras are streaming a live feed to the virtual balconies in the interior staterooms. On the bridge they also have access to security cameras all over the ship to keep passengers safe and keep an eye out for trouble.
When you first got on the ship there was so much to see, it is hard to know where to start. I would recommend putting away your carry-on bags in your cabin to free you up from lugging them around all over the ship. We got on early, so our cabin was not available yet for us to drop off our carry-on luggage, so we waited on the deckchairs up in the Solarium until it was available. We met with family members who were joining us for the cruise and had a quick buffet lunch, then it was off to our cabin to check it out and lighten our load.
There are a lot of cabin categories available. I have descriptions and images available for all of them on a separate post titled Cabins on the Anthem of the Seas.
