aururab

Question - is the retractable roof over the main pool fixed?

Thanks Uktog! 

Is it weird that the burger bar not being open in the afternoon is one of my main concerns in taking my elementary school aged kiddos on this cruise! 🙂 On those two sea days they will in all likelihood be eating breeatfast at 9-10am, and be ready for lunch at 2pm! 

And of course, as for the kids, there are no doubt, vacations with waterslides in their future! 

You might have all missed where families are one of the demographics Explora is targeting.

My kids didn’t ask to go on vacation to Paris, Rome, Barcelona, or Stockholm either, but we have travelled across Europe with them from the time they were infants, and been on many vacations where there were not any water slides or organized kids activities and we all had a great vacation. 
 

It is also a school holiday sailing, so I expect we won’t be the only ones with kids on board. With two sea days you’ll see us swimming, playing pool, basketball, tennis and card games! They will eat dinner in the refined restaurants (well… not Sakura!), maybe with a book or some coloring. 

We are also looking at European cruises for next year, our first one there as all of our previous trips there have been land based, and we will likely book a luxury line that doesn’t market to kids at all, and doesn’t offer anything like the nautilus club. We are not going for the cruise ship’s activities, we are going for the ports and the kids will be just fine.

On 9/25/2023 at 1:32 AM, uktog said:

That will not be sustainable when there are children onboard 

I'll have children onboard for Nov 17 out of Miami... I am following this closely.

They are quite well behaved, as long as they kept well fed. 🙂

On 6/27/2023 at 11:24 AM, dulcemariamar said:

I am looking for advice to find the next new cruise line for my family. Currently my favorite cruise line is Princess but of the most popular brands I have never tried Celebrity. (Carnival, Princess, Holland America, NCL and Disney we have been on). 
 

I have one preteen and they are chill and can take or leave a kid club so I don’t need to do a typical kid friendly cruise 
 

I want to be able to explore smaller ports.

 

I want good quality food.

 

I like live music and trivia and the option of seeing a show or two.

 

I don’t want to be nickeled or dimed.

 

I havent sailed since the pandemic because of being more high risk but I promised my partner to give a cruise a try next year. A mega ship doesn’t appeal to me now and I have followed these boards and it seems the quality of things have gone down a lot the last few years on the major cruise ship lines. 
 

is this true for Azamara ? Any suggestions from experienced cruisers

Did you end up deciding to book Azamara? 

We have done several cruises with our kids on the typical lines, the last was Royal Caribbean out of San Juan, and while we fit in a few hours of family type activities, overall we were some of the first on and off the ship at each port (no sea days) and were just too worn out to worry about such things. 

We have found a summer 2024 itinerary that matches exactly with what we are looking for, it is a port intensive itinerary, with no sea days. We will be off after breakfast, and back for a late dinner and then we all be too tired to do much of anything I expect. 

Our other option wouldn't be a cruise, it would be to do pick two islands and cart our stuff around, so Azamara is looking quite appealing... 🙂
 

Question - Since it looks to be warming up in the coming days, any ideas of the Solarium roof is working again to retract it? This has been making me uneasy about my Nov cruise. 

On 9/27/2023 at 9:55 PM, johng75370 said:

I’ll plan to bring several cases of S. Pellegrino with me in December; helps pay for Anthology if I can sell at $10/bottle. 

This seems quite odd for a European brand...

On 9/26/2023 at 8:16 AM, happy cruzin said:

I think our 14-day Caribbean sailing on November 3rd might just be the test case for that concern!

I look forward to your report, I am just after you on November 17. I'm a bit worried about having booked it with my kids, but we only have two sea days (unfortunately back to back). 

22 hours ago, Detroit Donna said:

We have never been to Antigua so I can’t speak on that but we’ve been to St. Kitts several times. It is our favorite place to zip line. It’s the kind with the spring stop so you don’t have to brake and you never have to climb a hill or go up a lot of stairs.  And although we don’t often book excursions through the ship, we did for this.  

Thanks! We didn't really love the beach on St. Kitts, and while we could go over to Nevis, it seems like the best spot to skip the beach do do something like this! 

5 hours ago, Kissing Seahorses said:

the only (epic) fail was Anthology and I understand they are already considering a change of concept for that venue.

Do you mind if i ask, what happened with your Anthology meal? We were just debating whether to book that ourselves for our Nov 17 sailing. 

No worries. 

If you had to pick one or the other for the best day out on the water which would it be?

Thanks - but that leaves us without zip lines in either location, and the kids are really wanting to do that for at least one port! 🙂 

Will be stopping in both St. Kitts and Antigua on an upcoming Cruise in November and I need help deciding what to do where...

My kids want to go zip lining and I want to go out on a catamaran sail and we can't decide which island would be best for either. 

We did an island tour of St Kitts on our last cruise (but haven't been to Nevis). 

Thanks for that! 

We did the drive around St Kitts last time, going to the fort etc then the beach, and it was nice, but it didn't wow us, so we were torn on how to spend the day this time around.

Will be stopping in both St. Kitts and Antigua on an upcoming Cruise in November and I need help deciding what to do where...

My kids want to go Zip Lining at least once on the cruise, and it seems our best choices are these two islands. 

We were also thinking of doing a Catamaran excurions on one of these two stops. 

Which do you think would be best for either?

We did an island tour of St Kitts on our last cruise, and it was honeslty our least favorite port...

November 21, we will be on Explora 1, which will be the only ship in port in Virgin Gorda, and in Tortola it will just be Crystal Serenity - so it should be a reasonable day all around i would think?

We are arriving in Spanish Town on a cruse at 10am, departing 6am. 

Should we just take a taxi to The Baths, or should we do a boat excursion that stops in multple places? Was thinking we might save the boat excursion for an island where it is hard to get to where we want to go, but I'm all for suggestions!

Sorry, with Crystal being gone, and then back again I forget about their options! 🙂

Sorry, I meant to type a bit more! 🙂 ha 

Explora is the only ship in this space actively marketing itself to families by including a kids club onboard, it seems silly to be on here complaining about that, when every other luxury brand, while maybe not expressly prohibits children, discourages them but not offering any real amenities or services for them. 

On 5/30/2023 at 6:56 AM, RICHARD@SEA said:

I wish EXPLORA would make their ships or a t least on ADULTS ONLY.

I like children but believe there is a time & place for them.

 

Perhaps a cruise line could have  a CHILDREN ONLY ship or 2!!!

Explora is the only ship in this space actively marketing itself to families by including a kids club onboard. 

I can't seem a couple her posts, and asked about the room set up and haven't heard back. 

She said something about them brining in a bed though, so I am curious to see the set up. 

Has anyone on this board been on the cruise already with a child, and if so, do you have a photo of the room set up with a child bed?

Hello all!

Has anyone seen the daily itineraries for sea days?

That is fantastic advice! thanks so much!

15 minutes ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

Unfortunately for those who don't care about open bar, the food reviews on Cruise Critic seem to mimic the other amenities – so a rough guide is that the lines with open bar have the best food [Scenic, Tauck, Uniworld].  One exception would be AmaWaterways, which the Berlitz guide has consistently stated spends more per passenger on food than any other river cruise line and which is the only line that is a member of the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs gourmet society.  

 

My personal experience is that AMA has very good food, and that Scenic was just as good if not better [but I haven't cruised the Douro yet, so I don't know if the experience on this river is different from the more central European itineraries]

Well, given that they are not that far apart on pricing, and we don't need drinks included all day, which would offer the best service and food?