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EXPLORER IS BACK! May 16-20, 2016 REVIEW w/lots of photos


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Hello CC family,

 

I arrived home from a very short (WAAAAAAY too short) cruise on Explorer this morning... really nice little cruise, great staff, great food in specialty venues, superb entertainment led by Graham Seymour, just a great little getaway for us West Coasters I totally recommend in the future.

 

I'll try to put together a short report for all of you with a ton of photos of the ship, plus this itinerary will be available next year so there may be some questions on formal night (is there even a formal night?), is there a Quest or not, Nanaimo as a destination, etc. I'll put together the report much in the same way as my last reviews, but having only 4 days on board I just couldn't possibly do/know everything that went on, so any of you that sailed with me please do chime in to say hello and maybe add something that I missed if you wish when we're on a specific topic.

 

But for tonight, here's a couple of teaser images until I can get more photos loaded....

 

Explorer for the very 1st time docked at Nanaimo

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Explorer of in the distance in Victoria (taken from the beach at the base of Beacon Hill Park)

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Thank you for doing this! DD will be on Explorer in Sept. And I have an Alaska cruise booked on her next year. So glad to have her out here on the West Coast! Looking foreword to your review, especially the pictures!

Thanks Again!

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Hello everybody,

 

For anyone who sailed on this cruise and can help, please post the Day 1 Compass. I thought I had kept it, but I can't find it. Also Day 3 Nanaimo was a day that I ripped the planner out for the evening to put in my pocket and forgot to replace it with a full compass. For now I will post what I have. I had again a full day of work today with very little time to work on this review but will be doing so over the next few days... still going through photos and need to upload to Photobucket and resize before posting. Thx for your patience everyone and hang in there

 

Day 1 Cruise Compass --- missing! Someone go ahead and post it if you wish

 

Day 2 Cruise Compass:

 

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Day 3 Cruise Compass --- if someone has pages 3 & 4 please post:

 

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I was soooooo ready for this break, albeit only 4 days. Almost 2 yrs ago I had the May 5th 9-day Anthem sailing booked, then had to change that and ended up booking a bucket list Med sailing on Jewel for May 23 also for 9 days.... then due to unforseen issues had to cancel that too. Very tough year for me personally and the busiest year ever on record for me business wise so likely things were meant to be. This 4 day sailing was the perfect short getaway mid-week with no flights:

 

Monday, May 16 - Seattle embarkation

Tuesday, May 17 - Victoria

Wednesday, May 18 - Nanaimo

Thursday, May 19 - at sea

Friday, May 20 - Disembarkation

 

I booked this cruise surprisingly on the Going, Going, Gone sail as a solo at an extremely great deal in a M interior. Turns out my new gf was able to get time off and join me, and only 6 days prior was able to add her to my booking with no change of price whatsoever (only port taxes).

 

It's always an extremely rare treat when I'm not flying a red eye to Fort Lauderdale, Houston, San Juan or New York to get to a ship. How super nice was it to leave my house around 8am, stop for 2 bottles of wine, bathroom break and little breakfast, and be parking down at Seattle's Pier 91 parking lot at approx 11:15am with no 10 hour flights (with connections), hotels, etc. That was the easy part....

 

Embarkation was not the smoothest. Firstly Pier 91 cruise parking is outrageously expensive at $26 per day (now add a 20-25% exchange for the Canadian buck!). But heck, it was only a 4 day cruise and I wanted the convenience to be right there closest to the pier. The price has gone up big time since I did Alaska on Rhapsody back in 2013. I had thought it may be easy to walk to the pier rather than wait for the shuttle, but 3 yrs ago I couldn't remember if there was ability to walk from the parking to the ship either. Here's my first glimpse of Explorer in the near distance from the parking area

 

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Looks close yes? But it's quite industrial there so doesn't look convenient nor well marked for walking (I was wrong as I'll explain later), so we waited under the tent for the parking shuttle with about 100 others

or so. And we waited... and we waited... and we waited... and the lines grew larger and larger. The parking lot only had two 15 seat small buses staffed. How stupid when they've known since this itinerary was established there would be a 3000+ passenger ship docked here on this day! After a good long almost 1 hour wait we finally were able to get onto one of the shuttles and I payed close attention to any possible walking paths. There definitely is one! I followed it all the way to the pier the best I could so that I would not get caught in any ridiculous waiting lines upon our return. Ill have pictures and some instructions at the end of this review. Seriously, if not raining and you are mobile without mega luggage, the walk was at most 15min (I should have timed it as I feel it was more like 10min but I do walk quickly). Here's one pic I snapped from the bus with the large lined walking area leading into the entry of the pier.

 

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Once dropped off, porters were right there by the shuttle/bus area and we handed our luggage in. Arriving at the Pier I noticed the lines right away outside, snaking at the front of the building and going all the way in and this is when I first thought to myself we will have embarkation issues with the USGH inspections as Explorer has just arrived from a 24 night overseas sailing from Sydney and has not been in the US for a few years, and the likelyhood of change of staff, immigration issues for "zero-count", etc would delay boarding. Moving across the roadway to actually get into the pier building, another long line emerged from within the building to the outside, with another 15-20min wait or so as it slowly moved through.

 

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Thankfully once inside the D+ and up priority line was shorter than the regular line, and then the priority-line after the security check to get up the escalator to check-in was also much MUCH shorter than the regular line. All in all, the priority lines from line-up outside to the check-in desk was likely about 1/2 hour. Those in the regular line were easily over 1 hour (likely the 1.5-2 hour range in my estomation). Soon we were heading up the escalator with our first close-up view of the Explorer. I was hungry and ready for lunch... WJ here we come!! .... hmmmm, maybe not. Stay tuned

 

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Edited by Hoopster95
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Thankfully once inside the D+ and up priority line was shorter than the regular line, and then the priority-line after the security check to get up the escalator to check-in was also much MUCH shorter than the regular line.

 

 

 

We were on the same cruise and found check in a bit different.

 

One line was for Suite and Pinnacle

 

One Line was for:

Diamond+

Diamond

Emerald

Platinum

 

Yes, all bunched together. The line was so long that we jumped to the line reserved for Gold and were checked in much quicker. Is something wrong here?

 

I do appreciate your report and look forward to seeing your evaluation of the Windjammer fiasco on the first day, not to mention the MTD major problems.

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Your estimate of 1.5 to 2 hours for the non-Diamonds at noonish is right on. Doing this with a 3 year old in tow was not an enjoyable start to the trip. Glad that I had packed toddler friendly foods and that by the time we boarded (after 2 o'clock) our cabin was ready and we picnic'd on the balcony and avoided the mess in the Windjammer.

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I miss this ship. We sailed her so many times from Bayonne. It was home away from home. It's a wonderful ship with a wonderful staff.

 

I heartily agree! Sorry she left Bayonne. I love the smaller ships.

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I was on this short cruise and have to say I was pretty disappointed. I was on the Explorer Bayonne to Bermuda/E Caribbean in June of 2012 and had a good time. The activities on this cruise were good: entertainers were pretty good, Royal Promenade is fun (disco party on first night), rock climbing wall, ice show, and the recently added Flowrider were great. But the food was pretty poor. First night's prime rib was skimpy, overcooked, and oversalted au jus, the crème brulee was atrocious (clumpy, and it's NOT difficult to make), carrot cake more solid than cake-like, and the melon at breakfast had been frozen. Perhaps they're trying to steer us to the specialty restaurants, or perhaps they just didn't care as this was a pre-season sampler cruise. This was my 3rd RC cruise, and I'm not sure I'd return. Princess does it better (sailed on the Royal Princess in December).

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