Let's do Dining next, this will probably be long, hope you don't fall asleep
BREAKFAST and LUNCH
First of all let me say there are a LOT more options and places to eat on Royal Caribbean, especially on their newer bigger ships. Anthem is not an exception.
Disney Cruise Line has the "Cabanas" buffet and Royal Caribbean has the "Windjammer Marketplace"
Windjammer is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner all served buffet style. On embarkation day I had no intention of going there for lunch as I heard it was crazy, but DS wanted to and foolishly we gave in.
When you walk in, there is a hand washing station with soap and water.
Windjammer was a mad house to say the least. Ok yes I know Cabanas is busy too on embarkation but the Windjammer was really something else. I didn't really take pictures in there because it was hard to move around. We finally found a table and then went to get some food. Windjammer at least on Anthem has a different layout than Cabanas. There are several food stations all over the place. One had salads and condiments, one was breads and pastries, international flavours, world kettle, pasta station, American etc.
So I start walking around trying to read the signs above and bumping into people every few seconds because the stations were spread out sort of like pepperoni is on pizza
There was no flow and this created traffic jams all over. But ok, I wasn't super bothered by this. Cabanas has a better flow.
Then I noticed that most and I do mean most dishes were near empty or empty. Pizza dish? Empty. Mashed potatoes? Empty. I do understand this was crazy embarkation day lunch (around 2 pm at this point) but come on. It took us 20 min to load up our plates. All I can think of is that they must have way less people working there than on
DCL. Cabanas while also very busy on the first day, everything was replanished quickly.
Food variety was very good overall in the Windjammer. Taste was ok, nothing amazing, good variety, but I did not find shrimp like in the cabanas or sushi. Two items I really like. It's ok, slightly annoyed at this point (and it takes a lot to annoy me
)I looked at DS and said: we are not coming here again for lunch. DH pointed out it's probably better after the first day.. well it wasn't. We tried it again for one of the breakfasts and another lunch. Slightly less busy and the dishes were at least half-full but overall the Windjammer was a place I avoided.
I would imagine dinner isn't busy and I should have gone in there to check it out then, but we didn't eat any of the dinners in there.
There was an outdoor seating area in the buffet , but it was maybe 69 that first day and cloudy so it wasn't a great option. Oh and no utensils on the tables, had to go back again and search for them, they were in bins near the food stations.
In addition to the Windjammer, just like on DCL they had one main dining room restaurant open for breakfast and lunch, but with more limited hours. We had breakfast in the Grande restaurant one morning and it was very good, tasty and fast service.
Then there is Cafe @Two70, my fav spot to have breakfast and lunch. It was next to a venue called Two70 which was an incredible space. It served many purposes but during breakfast and lunch you could sit in there and eat while enjoying the wall-to-wall ocean view from the very back of the ship.
Breakfast in Two70 had such items as egg on an English muffin, breakfast burrito, hot and cold cereals, yogurt parfaits, bagel bar with various fixings including smoked salmon and capers.
For lunch there was a variety of grilled sandwiches such as Rueben, Royal's famous roast beef sandwich with horseradish on a cumin roll, panini, wraps, soups and a salad bar. It was rarely busy in there and the food was tasty. Cafe at Two70 is another included option.
I believe the closest option to cafe Two70 on the Oasis class is Park Cafe.
There is also Sorrentos Pizza - it was on deck 4 of the Royal Esplanade.
Also included and I believe Sorrentos is on most Royal ships.
Cafe Promenade also in the Royal Esplanade is also included and you could get cold sandwiches and cookies there. I didn't have a craving for pizza once so I didn't try Sorrentos. It should be located on the pool deck in my opinion. Also included is a Dog House with various saussages, hot dogs and warm sauerkraut, grilled peppers and fried onions. Dog House is located inside the Seaplex centre, Oasis class has it too on the Boardwalk. I'm not a big hot-dog person but everything was actually very good there.
The options to eat seemed endless, as in addition to what I already mentioned, there were several specialty restaurants serving lunch and dinner.
DINNER - You had a choice of traditional, early or late dining and also MY TIME which we had and prior to sailing I was confused about because you still made reservations in the cruise planner for MY TIME, except you could eat a different time each night from 5:30-9:30 pm. I reserved some nights around 7 and some at 8 depending if we had other plans. In reality, we just showed up whenever we felt like it and we were seated within 5 min, but keep in mind we were a party of 2 or 3 when DS came with us, so if you are a party of 8, the wait may possibly be longer. If you were on traditional set times, you dined on deck 3 in either Grande or Chic dining room, your restaurant and table # would be printed on your Sea Pass, and each day you would have the same servers and table mates, but also same restaurant. No rotation here like on DCL.
With MY TIME, you dined on deck 4 in either Silk or American Icon Grill. Each restaurant had a different decor, we liked all of them but there was no elaborate theming and obviously no Disney music...
Unsure if we would do another Royal cruise before we went, I chose MY TIME to mainly try it out.
There was also MY TIME FAMILY dining where I think you dined at 5:45 with kids and 40 min into the dinner service kids got picked up by the adventure ocean staff. Similar to what DCL does at late dining only.
With MY TIME We ate in either Silk or American Grill and like I said we just ended up showing up whenever and being seated promptly. We were also asked which dining room we wanted to be in. The 2 restaurants are across from one another. Because we had MY TIME dining and dined in one of the 2 restaurants, and also had breakfast in the Grande dining room once as well as Chic, so we ended up eating in each dining room.
Now the 2 most important aspects: Food quality and service in the main dining rooms.
To my surprise, service was EXCELLENT. I was worried having different waiters each night thinking they wouldn't care but I have to say service was on par with DCL's in the main rotational restaurants. Not only were ALL our waiters super friendly, service was fast and efficient. We were always out of the restaurant within 1 hr 15 min. When I say "always" I mean 4 times, so again maybe we lucked out. Royal does say to allow up to 2 hours for dinner. Both DH and I commented that service in the main restaurants was top-notch and just as good as or maybe even better than DCL as we usually had really slow dinner service on DCL. Great but slow. Just no magic tricks or anything like they do on DCL on Anthem. We were ok with that.
Each night there was a different menu with some options that you could pay for, if you wanted. For example there was a NY strip steak and grilled shrimp entree on the regular menu, or there was a paid filet mignon and lobster option.
I will be honest, food itself was a bit of a let down in the main restaurants. I felt like everything was better on DCL. We tried some of the same appetizers like escargot or French onion soup, and it was just OK. There were a couple of things that were very good, like a crab cake appetizer. 90% of main dining room food was just OK. If I'm feeling generous and we are not a picky family nor are we foodies.
Steak I ordered was unedible.
My beloved crème brûlé desert that I love on DCL was not really good on Anthem. Looked the same, but didn't taste good.
Grand Marnière desert was better. Our waiters seemed genuinely interested in feedback and were always coming back and checking on us. We never left hungry, but no meal was a standout.
We ate at one specialty restaurant, Jamie's Italian. It was EXCELLENT. Food quality and taste and service. They make fresh pasta there on site everyday. Everything we ate at Jamie's was a definite step up from anything we had on DCL but again it's not an included option.
DH wanted to try one of the other specialty restaurants like Chops Grille but I wanted to experience the complimentary options first so the only specialty dinner we did was at Jamie's.
If it was a longer cruise we would have definitely tried Chops Grille which is a specialty steak house. Anthem also has a Wonderland specialty restaurant loosely themed after Alice in Wonderland, it's supposed to be an experience to eat there. I can't really explain it as we didn't but you can find info about it online. Izumi is a small sushi place ($).
There is also Johnny Rockets burger joint up on the pool deck where you could get burgers, fries and milkshakes for fairly nominal fees. We didn't try this either.
Overall Anthem of the Seas has more dining options than any DCL ship, and while the main dining rooms were pretty and service was great, food was nothing special. The Windjammer buffet food was OK but the layout and craziness of it was a turn-of. Loved Cafe Two70 in terms of food and ambiance of eating inside Two70. Beats anything on DCL.
One area which is also better on DCL in terms of convenience is the pool-side quick service. Other than Johnny Rockets which is a paid option on Anthem there was nothing like DCL has near the pools. I forgot to mention there is also a Solarium Bistro which was complimentary and open for lunch and dinner but it was in the adult only pool area. It's supposed to have healthier food options and it's a small buffet for lunch and salad buffet for dinner and a-la-carte entrees. Didn't get a chance to eat there, again there was only so many places we could try on a shorter cruise.
I apologize I didn't take many pics of the restaurants and the ones I did have people in it... but tnshsms has a nice trip report from the same cruise and she posted a lot of photos. Honestly though even if I had photos of the food, I can tell you everything looked great, but wasn't (in the main restaurants).
Below are a couple showing inside of the Two70 Cafe and Two70 where you ate, entrance to Jamie's Italian and Wonderland.
Doghouse was modeled after a NY street style hot dog cart.
Any specific dining questions, please ask.
I will write about the drinks and dreamworks character dining in a separate post.
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The main reason we're trying out Royal is because DH hated the Vegas vibe of NCL. I'm less picky, especially when the real point is the ports. He should be fine if we can find a quiet promenade deck somewhere. And the weather cooperates. It's when rain drives us inside that it's more difficult to avoid shops, no matter how upscale.
