Royal Caribbean International, Anthem of the Seas Review

Anthem of the Seas

This was a first cruise for my daughter and I for a significant birthday treat.
We loved being on Anthem. The best part was the adult only solarium, which was exactly what we needed to relax. I would go early and watch the sun rise over the sea and then have breakfast in the solarium bistro. I thought this was bliss.
Our room was ergonomic, comfortable and quiet. We loved it. It was floor 10 and aft. Although we loved it, we were hardly in it and next time may just have a cheaper internal room (with a virtual balcony).
It was my 60th birthday and my daughter arranged for a (vegan) cake to be made and this happened and staff sang to me and it was all really lovely.
Despite this, the most negative experience of RCI was that the food was not up to scratch. My daughter is fully vegan and I mostly eat vegan but can accept vegetarian. We booked RCI because of you tube videos of their vegan foods ( we wer impressed by what we saw in Windjammer). However, when we arrived on the ship, we learned that they had scrapped this approach to vegan food (a directive from head office because there was too much waste, we wer told). This made it very difficult to find anything to eat in the Windjammer. In fact, it actually reduced my daughter to tears once. If we asked any server if a cake or other food was vegan, they would say no, because they just didn't know. The Maitre D and head chef tried to help us. Unfortunately, this stress was not the eating experience we signed up for. The best thing we could eat was veggie burger, salad and chips. Sure, it tasted good but that is NOT a cruise food experience you want to have every day!
This problem could have easily been solved by some discreet labelling. Food outlets off a ship can do this easily. It is just plain entitled or lazy that RCI does not provide inclusive discreetly labelled food. There would be no waste this way. An eight year old could work this out.
The main dining room vegan menu was unacceptable also. Some food was bland, simplistic and utterly disappointing. The waiters, who were lovely, desperately wanted to give us something to eat that we liked. Compared to what the omnivores got to eat, our food looked terrible, too. My daughter was convinced that they made vegan dinners out of leftovers. You can see how she came to this opinion because we had vegetable fritters for appetizers for around half on the meals. Also, cous cous wrapped up in a slice of eggplant is no one's idea of a delicious, nutritious meal. I almost wept when I saw that land on the table.
In short, the food was incredibly disappointing and frankly just not good enough for vegans. In the UK, veganism is now a protected characteristic which means it is upheld as a valid philosophy and lifestyle choice - it should be taken seriously. It felt to me that RCI was behind the times with their it-will-do attitude to vegan diners. They had taken our money and were trapped on a ship desperately trying to find food that was edible.
I understand that to omnivores, this might seem an incredible situation because the choice of food seemed extensive - but this was ours and many other began diners' experience, even though, part way through the cruise, the Maitre D told us that the curry station would always be vegan. Again it is about choice and the disparity of treatment between omnivore guests and vegans. Just one last comment about food, we did inform RCI that we were vegan on three separate occasions before we boarded the ship.
This leave me very conflicted about cruising with RCI.