Trying out Anthems Innovations a second time

Last weekend me and my partner boarded the Anthem of the Seas (2nd time this year for me) and set sail on our mini cruise for 3 nights. This time embarkation was so quick and easy – we arrived at 10:40 (our appointment time was 11:15 for check in and we had tried to slow the journey down by stopping for car coffee etc en route) and we handed our bag to the porter and headed towards the terminal building, inside we were greeted by a lady with a tablet who scanned our sea passes, stamped them and told us to go to security. Despite stopping for a photo, the whole time it took t check in and board –  from arriving at the port to stepping inside the ship took 7 minutes !!! Makes you wonder why P&O make such a mess of it and takes ages to board.

We had booked to do the IFly (indoor sky diving at 12:20) so we had plenty of time to walk round the ship and show my partner the sights. We stopped to have a go on the heart beat monitor which then pulsed the lights above you to your heart beat, we found the changing pictures outside the Two70 cafe (which i had missed last time).  The robot bar wasn’t working so thought we would go back another time.

We had pre-booked the iFly online and made our way up, a large queue had already formed for those who hadn’t booked and we did hear after an hour off opening all the spaces for that weekend were filled. We had to sign some disclaimer forms and then went into a room to watch the safety briefing video, where you learn what the different signals mean and how to fly in the wind tunnel. Afterwards you were then kitted out with the equipment and then taken to the tunnel. We got really lucky as there was only 4 in the group (normally its 10-12) so we were able to have two go’s each.

After sky diving our cabins were then ready and this time we had got a virtual balcony cabin – which is where view from the outside camera is projected on to the wall.

We got lucky with being able to go on the North Star, as after muster drill we made our way upstairs for the sail away and they were just opening so, quickly got in the queue and we were the second pod to go up that evening. Because of the traffic lanes and the ports we were going to, the North Star was only allowed to go up and down, and not over the sides.

We also went on the bumper cars this time and had a couple of go’s. the queue did seem long but only took about half an hour before it became our go. You got about 3 minutes zooming round, and as this is bumper cars we were actively encouraged to bump into other people.

The one disappointment was the Robotic bar was not working for nearly the whole weekend and seemed to be constantly recharging, refuelling etc.

So although there was all these great innovations and makes it one of the high tech ships on the seas, realistically if I was on a 14 night cruise I think i would get bored of them once I had been on them. I might do the Ifly again, however the north star – if it was only going up and down for 14 nights then how many times would you go on it, there are only so many times you want to look at the top of the ship. Had the robot bar been working I would probably only want one drink to see it in action and then wouldn’t go back again.