This month, I sailed onboard Anthem of the Seas in the cheapest cabin possible.
It turned out to be an interior virtual balcony room, with a high-definition screen.
Anthem of the Seas is a newer Quantum Class ship, originally launched in 2015.
She has 2,090 staterooms in total, able to hold over 4,000 passengers at double occupancy.
With 16 guest decks, Anthem is a large, comfortable ship great for families and cruisers looking for multiple activities.
Anthem of the Seas provided a high-tech, comfortable cruise experience beyond my expectations.
For my cruise on Anthem, I booked the cheapest possible room through the guarantee cabin process.
The total for this 7-night cruise (including pre-paid gratuities) was $1914.38, which breaks down to about $137 per night, per person.
Royal Caribbean assigned me the cabin for a lower overall price.
However, this meant I wasn’t assigned the room until a few weeks before the cruise.
When I arrived onboard, I realized that I had been assigned a virtual balcony stateroom—my first time seeing this type of cabin.
A virtual balcony is a method cruise ships have introduced to bring an ocean view to windowless inside cabins.
A high-definition, 80-inch screen replaces a window in the cabin, instead playing a live feed of the view outside. The screen shows you a real-time look at what is going on outside, almost as if you did have a balcony room.
Royal Caribbean first pioneered these cabins on Quantum of the Seas, Anthem’s sister in the Quantum Class.
Read more: 10 Awesome things to do on Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas
I was excited to see the strong points of this stateroom category that I've never tried.
My stateroom was located on Deck 8 towards the front of the ship, a great middle location. This made it easy for me to walk down to the Royal Esplanade on Deck 5, or to take a quick elevator ride up to the Windjammer and pool area on Deck 14.
Because Anthem's middle decks are all dedicated to guest cabins, my travel companion and I had a very quiet area to sleep in.
We didn’t suffer from the banging noises of the anchor below or stomping feet above.
When we first walked in, I immediately noticed the large, glowing screen on the far wall. The virtual screen stretched from the floor to the ceiling, projecting a live feed of the outside area.
Although having a live feed in the room felt eerie at first, I found that it was actually very nice to get a peek at what was going on around me.
When it was raining, I could take a look at the screen and see the wet weather right away.
When the ship arrived at Perfect Day at CocoCay, I saw the blue waters from the comfort of my stateroom.
In a regular interior cabin, you are more cut off from the ship’s surroundings, clueless to what’s going on unless you leave the room and head to another deck.
The feed stayed on 24/7, and although Royal Caribbean’s website says you can switch the screen off, I never found a way to do so.
Unfortunately, the bright screen kept glowing into the night, even though the view was nothing but black.
We could cover it with the white and blue curtains, but they didn’t serve to completely block the blue light.
This was one disadvantage of staying in a virtual balcony cabin because I usually love the deep darkness of a windowless inside cabin.
If the curtains weren’t adjusted perfectly in front of the screen, the light still shone into the room, keeping me up at night.
To the left of the screen, I saw a quality dresser with drawers and a lamp on top. Inside the dresser was the cabin’s mini-fridge, which I didn’t use enough to tell if it kept food cold. I just stored fruit or desserts inside.
Beside the dresser, I found the cabin’s vanity/desk.
The white chair in front was stylish and had a useful handle on the back. I could easily grab the handle to pull the chair out from the desk.
Above the table space sat a few cubbies for storage, and various ports for charging. From American to European to USB ports, this area provided several options.
The only downside here was that we left all our devices to charge on the desk, cluttering up the area.
I liked the sleek, modern look and feel of this wood furniture, but the ring light seemed dimmer than in other cabins I’ve stayed in.
Opposite the dresser and vanity sat a long, blue couch. It was large enough for both myself and my friend to sit on it, and also leave bags and clothes there when we needed them.
The cushions and pillows matched the dark blue shade of the stateroom.
The cabin's design felt very modern, and everything was clean and tidy. However, I had one major gripe with the cabin’s layout: storage.
Typically, Royal Caribbean staterooms have one large closet in the front of the room, and various drawers and shelves throughout.
This cabin split the closet into two parts instead: one on either side of the beds.
The left side held a closet with more shelf space and a safe for security. The right side had a more traditional closet, with space and hangers for tall clothes and jackets.
My travel companion and I had to decide if we would split our clothes into both sides, leaving us to walk around the beds and each other every time it was time to put together an outfit.
Or, we could compromise and one of us could have all the shelf space, while the other got to hang all her clothes.
We went with the second option, but I still felt annoyed that the closet was split into two separate areas.
I did love the extra shelf space above the beds—these cabinets were deep and wide, and there was one above each bed.
One design problem I noticed with my cabinet was that it opened from the top, and the corner would hit the closet door each time.
The only way I could solve this was by leaving the closet door open whenever I opened up the cabinet.
Between the beds, there were two nightstands with large shelf space. As I am now used to, there were no USB ports or outlets in these nightstands by the beds.
And above each bed was a warm, golden lamp.
Past these beds, I found the cabin’s bathroom.
Although it was small, I thought that it was one of the most modern-looking and clean bathrooms I’ve seen.
The shower had a wide, curved door, giving us just a little more space inside.
The bathroom counter was long, with a large sink. Strangely enough, the counter beside the sink was thinner than the sink itself.
However, there was still enough shelf space above and below the sink where I could store toiletries.
The bathroom had several hooks for items, but the size and shape seemed ill-suited to hang towels on. When I tried to hang towels on the hooks, they would slide right off.
All-in-all, the room was clean and modern, with some design changes compared to the cabin layout I’m used to.
While I enjoyed the cabin overall, some of these design changes were less efficient than others.
