Start Here: Anthem of the Seas: Canada and New England

Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas: Canada and New England

Anthem of the Seas

More than a year ago Grant and I made our reservations for a cruise to an area we'd never visited before: Canada and New England.  As the months have marched along, our anticipation has increased as we prepare to not only visit this part of the world, but also board a ship we'd never sailed before: Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas.

Our cruise is scheduled to depart Cape Liberty, New Jersey on the 12th of October and stop at the ports listed below. The cruise includes three sea days and, with luck, the seas will remain calm and the rain and fog will stay away.

The schedule is this:

• 12 Oct Depart from Cape Liberty
• 13 Oct Sea Day
• 14 Oct Boston 0700-1900
• 15 Oct Bar Harbor, ME 0700-1800
• 16 Oct Portland, ME 0700-1500
• 17 Oct Halifax 1030-1900
• 18 Oct Sea Day
• 19 Oct St. John 0900-1970
• 20 Oct Sea Day
• 21 Oct Arrive at Cape Liberty

With only 3 days until we fly to Newark, I have my packing list ready and clothes hung on my travel rack. I'll finish laundry today, Sunday, and start packing tomorrow.  Tuesday after work Grant and I will load up the car and travel to our pre-flight hotel, the Marriott Renaissance. 

If our room is in the right spot, we can look across Airport Road, pictured here, and into LAX's C-Lot, the long-term parking costing a mere $12 per night. Rather than tack $20 on to our room rate for hotel parking, we park in the C-Lot, then schlep our bags over to the hotel.  In the wee hours of the morning we'll take the hotel's shuttle to Terminal 7 and catch our United flight to Newark.

I always have to take a picture of where we parked so we won't have to circle the parking lot endlessly looking for the car.

Here we go!  After landing I called the hotel, the Springhill Suites at Newark Liberty,  and we made our way via the Air Train tram from the baggage claim area to the hotel shuttle area.

Not my photo...

Hey, look!  The NYC skyline!

The next morning we had the usual hotel lobby breakfast (with me trying to eat healthy, ha-ha), then sat around waiting for our check-in time of 12:00. We wanted to try Uber for the first time and it was SO easy. I'm a convert.  I have the app on my phone and simply followed the directions.  Our driver, Julian, was there within 10 minutes, loaded up our bags in his Civic and got us to the pier in record time. 

We had a nice dinner in the Main Dining Room and called it a night.  The next day was a sea day, meaning a lot of reading, some ship exploration, and way too much eating.