Anthem of the Seas out of Cape Liberty, New Jersey

[LoverDisney]

Hello Everyone,

We went on our first Disney Cruise this August and I am hooked on cruising. I am open to trying Royal for their Merrytime Cruise in December 2017 on Anthem of the Seas out of Cape Liberty, New Jersey. We live in Pa so driving to the port would be very convenient. Can anyone tell me about this cruise and the port? Any hotel recommendations? There is a stop at Port Canaveral so we would like to go to Disney on that day. Any suggestions or advice would be helpful. TIA!

 

[Denise W]

Hello Everyone,

We went on our first Disney Cruise this August and I am hooked on cruising. I am open to trying Royal for their Merrytime Cruise in December 2017 on Anthem of the Seas out of Cape Liberty, New Jersey. We live in Pa so driving to the port would be very convenient. Can anyone tell me about this cruise and the port? Any hotel recommendations? There is a stop at Port Canaveral so we would like to go to Disney on that day. Any suggestions or advice would be helpful. TIA!

We took Anthem on a 12 night cruise a few weeks ago. We live in MA and drove down to the port that morning and parked in the garage next door. The only issue with driving was sitting in line for an hour approaching the port to drop off luggage and passengers. From what we heard this happens all the time at this port, so be prepared. We didn't see any hotels near by, but I am sure a search will come up with some. Our cruise was a western caribbean so did not involve Port Canaveral. We loved the ship and loved the cruise and will sail them again over Disney (and we have taken 7 Disney cruises).
Denise

 

[Orsino]

We were on Anthem last week for a 7 day cruise, largely for the convenience of the port. (My mom lives in PA too and the transport there was super quick).

Ours was a 7 day with embarkation and debarkation on Sunday. We had little to no difficultly on either day, which I think was because it was Sunday. Things got a little backed up driving at the port, but the weird thing was, very little wait after dropping bags and parking the car. We flew though checkin and security and were directed onto the ship. We were on by 11AM! In a sense, the 'line' was the line of cars. Not the most efficient or environmental, but not too bad since we arrived early. I would warn against arriving after 11:30AM.

Bayonne and Cape Liberty themselves are kind of barren and uninteresting. But getting on the ship was oddly fast (after the parking/drop-off slowness). If you are coming from eastern PA, then you probably don't need a hotel. We stayed at the Renaissance Hotel by Newark airport and didn't love it -- largely due to loud guests in the hallway, so your experience might be different. We were there on a Saturday night, so that might have contributed to the noise.

We arrived at Port Canveral on time at 12PM, which is rather late for a bus ride to Disney. We skipped Disney and went to Kennedy Space Center... along with hundreds of others from our ship and the 2 others in port that day. We were going Thanksgiving week, so that is a busy time at Disney so getting there after 1PM didn't appeal to us. If your cruise is around Christmas or New Years, you may want to reconsider going to Disney from Port Canaveral.

The cruise itself is great. The weather will be cold going down to FL and back, but there are many many indoor activities on this ship including an indoor pool.

Advice really depends on your family ages and likes. We enjoyed stuff like the North Star, iFly, Flowrider and Seaplex (rollerskating and bumper cars). I hear good things about the kids club, but we didn't have any kids.

 

[Brocktoon]

We were on the Nov 10th 10-day eastern Caribbean. We really enjoyed the Anthem, but a lot of experienced cruisers do not seem to be fans of the Quantum class due to the reservation booking and technology integration. Basically if you're used to traveling to WDW, then an Anthem trip is easy. You just need to make sure to book your entertainment reservations well in advance via the Royal Cruise Planner site. They even have the Royal IQ smart phone app similar to the Disney MDE app, and Royal has WOW bands similar to Magic Bands. Royal's stuff doesn't work as well, but you can see who they were trying to copy.

Royal just dropped the dynamic dining on the Anthem last week, so dining reservations may not be much of an issue anymore. But you'd still want to reserve North Star, iFly, We Will Rock You etc in advance ... think of it like reserving fast passes. Without reservations you may get bad stand-by seats for the shows and no be able to other stuff that's reservation only.

As far as embarking, the magic sweet spot seems to be arriving by ~ 10 to 10:30 AM. By ~ 10 AM most of the previous passengers are off, and there isn't a long line of cars yet. Anytime after 11AM and you will start to get the 45 minute+ car line. Even if you get a later boarding time, I'd recomment showing up by 10:30 - 11 AM at the latest.

 

[Fuzzywuzzy]

Having sailed out of Port Canaveral and Vancouver it was fantastic to drive an hour and a half from eastern Pa on I-78 to Cape Liberty. No planes. No hotels. We will be doing it again sooner than later.