Let me begin by saying we had a very good time on our cruise and there were may outstanding and memorable experiences on this cruise. The "problems" I will note in this review are most definitely "First World Problems" and even the world "problem" may be too extreme. And yet, for the price paid ($12,769.30 for two people), I feel there was a justifiable expectation of excellence.

Our previous cruise in Star Class on Anthem's sister ship Ovation was outstanding and so we ponied up the additional ~$8,000 to move up from a Grand Suite to a Grand Loft and Star Class. Star Class is where you get a Royal Genie and, since there are fewer than 10 Star Class suites on board, get outstanding, exclusive service. (See my review of that cruise, "Cruising with a Genie! - The Star Suite Experience")

Turns out that the Star Class experience on Anthem was world's away from the experience we enjoyed on Ovation. It is possible that we simply had a mundane Royal Genie or it is possible that Royal Caribbean has not established a consistent product or communicated the Star Class program effectively across the fleet. Regardless, the experience was very uneven and definitely less than what we expected based on our previous experience. Our Genie did everything we asked for but was really not proactive and we often felt we were bothering him with our requests. After a couple of days we stopped asked for many things. The general ship staff was excellent but many areas of the ship were unaware of and unprepared to provide that next level service one might expect of Star Class. As a small example; on Ovation when we wanted to partake in the bumper cars there was a clearly posted sign at the front of the line for Star Class. All we had to do was walk over and the staff operating the event immediately put as in first. We didn't even have to show our cards as virtually all of the staff knew who the Star Class passengers were (There can typically only be 20 - 30 Star Class on this class ship). On Anthem there was no such sign. When walked over the people who were waiting in line were giving us dirty looks - which I completely understand - because there was no signage to help explain the situation. Furthermore, the staff operating the event gave us a hard time on one occasion - even after we showed them our card. Turns out they were evidently unaware of Star Class. Read more