Just off Explorer 8-2 cruise

[green eyed lady]

Room 7644. Great location just don't look at the sofa. LOL.

 

LOL...Hopefully mine will be better...I'm in 7324 I think :D

[crisndeefromde]

Next time when you have these issues in your stateroom, contact the hotel director...That is the person that is responsible for your accommodations.

[jerseybeachmom]

Wow, I was also on this cruise with my family, and we had a terrific time. We went as a multi-generational group (16 - 81), and everyone was happy. This was our first time on RCCL and it won't be our last.

The only complaint of yours that was echoed by anyone in our group was the aggressiveness in Labadee, but because of this the rest of us chose not to go to the market and enjoyed our day.

Hope you enjoy your next vacation more!

 

I was on the July 19th cruise with the same itinerary with myfamily. The only point I agree with is the agressivenss of the Labadee vendors, and I am suprised RCCL allows that. One of the vendors asked my 19 yr. old neice to "go to the back of the booth" so he could carve a name in what she was buying. My sister was there and put a stop to that. They were pushy to the point of it being uncomfortable. I probably would have stayed and bought more if they weren't so agressive.

 

Otherwise, our cruise was fabulous!

[PathfinderEss]

Thanks for posting a review of your cruise, glad you had a good time inspite of some misses.

[happycruiser90]

Oh no I don't like reading this when I am going in less than 2 weeks!! I am so looking forward to this cruise. We are celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary (we honeymooned in Bermuda) and taking our 2 teens (15 & 19) and 22 yr old. They are all pickey eaters so this doesn't sound good. Just want to relax and enjoy myself, hope I don't have to listen to my kids complain about the food everyday. We are staying on deck 7 also, sounds like we will have to cover the sofa with towels. Oh well hoping for the best!!

 

Sorry you had to deal with this on your vacation. We all work hard all year to save up for a nice vacation and we should expect good food and clean accomodations at the least!! I'd rather they skimp on shows. A few years ago we went to an all inclusive land resort. Great food and beautiful accomodations, shows not to great, but we had a great time. You can make your own great time, but food and accomodations you can't change.

[JohnGaltny]

I on the other hand, think you did a very fair, very balanced review of your experience as it happened to you.

 

RCI is our cruise line of choice and Explorer is our favorite ship to date BUT that does not mean everything is perfect (see my review of EOS in my sig) or that we should attack any dissenting voice. The Royal Carribots seem to take any adverse observation as an attack and that's unfortunate.

 

As to the food, our last cruise on Jewel was the first time that we found a few MDR meals to be inedible (with the lobster foremost among them) so that may have hit EX also.

 

OP you did a great job. Thanks.

[johneeo]

Just got back from the Explorer 9 night cruise.

Food = D- All I can say is it was pretty awful at times. Other times it was average to better than average but I wouldn’t call it good or anywhere near great.

 

Here are my observations on the food.

 

First, I am an early person, so for breakfast I am at the WJ when it opens up. Typical breakfast is the scrambled eggs (sometimes with green peppers or salmon), hash browns, corn beef hash, bacon, sausage, cantelope, melon, and pineapple. Sometimes biscuits and gravy. Sometimes the bacon was iffy, but, for the most part, I found the breakfast to be very good. However, I could see going later might be somewhat different. If I were to want breakfast after 9, I might consider the MDR.

 

Because of the big breakfast, I rarely had lunch, maybe a snack during the day.

 

For dinner, I always ordered the chef’s recommendation whatever it was, along with a second entre.

 

Having been on the EOS twice (the 9 day cruise) and RCI 2 other times, I never had any complaints about the food.

 

I have also had late snacks in the Promenade late at night, and was pleasantly surprised with some of the small turkey or roast beef sandwiches. OTOH, I found Sorrento’s pizza the worst pizza I have ever eaten, very bland, but, somewhat edible.

[jeffreyg63]

I on the other hand, think you did a very fair, very balanced review of your experience as it happened to you.

 

RCI is our cruise line of choice and Explorer is our favorite ship to date BUT that does not mean everything is perfect (see my review of EOS in my sig) or that we should attack any dissenting voice. The Royal Carribots seem to take any adverse observation as an attack and that's unfortunate.

 

As to the food, our last cruise on Jewel was the first time that we found a few MDR meals to be inedible (with the lobster foremost among them) so that may have hit EX also.

 

OP you did a great job. Thanks.

 

Thanks for your comments. I just reported what we saw. Some people seem to have an emotional attachment to the port, the ship and/or the company. We still had a great time. I just hope the company hears the mounting complaints about the food. We wanted to like it, we really did but as they say it is what it is....

[jeffreyg63]

Oh no I don't like reading this when I am going in less than 2 weeks!! I am so looking forward to this cruise. We are celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary (we honeymooned in Bermuda) and taking our 2 teens (15 & 19) and 22 yr old. They are all pickey eaters so this doesn't sound good. Just want to relax and enjoy myself, hope I don't have to listen to my kids complain about the food everyday. We are staying on deck 7 also, sounds like we will have to cover the sofa with towels. Oh well hoping for the best!!

 

Sorry you had to deal with this on your vacation. We all work hard all year to save up for a nice vacation and we should expect good food and clean accomodations at the least!! I'd rather they skimp on shows. A few years ago we went to an all inclusive land resort. Great food and beautiful accomodations, shows not to great, but we had a great time. You can make your own great time, but food and accomodations you can't change.

 

We still had a great time. Tons of activities. You just have to find something you like food wise and stick to it. You will have a great relaxing vacation.

[nicwithcandy]

I'm going on Explorer for the fourth time next month. The first time the food was excellent, second time not as good, and third time very good. I asked about this on the ship and I was told it depends on the Chef. You don't always get the same chef. I made the mistake and went on NCL last September and the food was AWFUL, just plain AWFUL. I will never make that mistake again.

[Maraprince]

Room 7644. Great location just don't look at the sofa. LOL.

 

 

 

Hotel Manager is the one to contact with complaints regarding your cabin, not the Capt.

 

Just call Guest Services and keep checking with them until someone shows up and shampoos the sofa.

 

They cannot correct a problem they are not aware of via passenger complaints.

 

 

MARAPRINCE

[Maraprince]

This will be our 6th time on the EOS>

 

We had one sailing with problems with the safe as did many other passengers. They ended up replacing the main part of the safe 4 times during the voyage!

 

The repairman had a list of at least 20 cabins with the same complaints.

 

Safe would go dead and refused to open. Had to be replaced with a new one.

 

Point is, if you have a problem, call Guest Services and report it and keep reporting it until it is corrected.

 

MARAPRINCE

[nicwithcandy]

Funny, that happened with us with the safe too a few years ago

[fjb3cpa]

I just returned from the same cruise and have included my observations - your results may vary.

 

Just got back from the Explorer 9 night cruise. We had a great time however there are some problems with this particular ship that really need addressed. Sadly with this particular cruise ship being almost sold out continuously I doubt anyone will do anything. Why should they when people seem to continuously make excuses for the management of this ship. This cruise left on August 2nd with over 3600 people (600 plus were kids…ugh). Sounds bad until I heard from the cruise director that the next cruise had over 1000 kids. Good luck with that. The teenagers are like packs of wild animals. They are in certain places doing nothing but causing trouble which is what teenagers these days do.

 

Hundreds of teenagers onboard - good thing it took them the first 6 or 7 days to get organized, because for the last couple of days, they roamed the vessel in unruly packs night and day, clogging stairwells, elevators, and hallways throughout the ship, and especially late night on the sports deck swatting golf balls off the ship.

 

 

 

 

Captain = C Nice guy, good looking, visible, approachable and funny but he is not on top of things. This ship supposedly has 100 people dedicated to maintenance. I’m sorry but I don’t think using duct tape to hold up lights and placed over elevator buttons which are missing plus the tape appeared in our state room at various places is acceptable. Nor do I think windows that have blown gaskets that cause the window to be completely clouded should be left in that state. The stains on our sofa in our room on deck 7 (balcony) were so bad nobody would sit on it. If I stayed at a hotel and saw such things I wouldn’t be very happy and I don’t think it should be acceptable for a ship. I don’t want to hear “but she is 10 years old”. Last time I checked RCCL doesn’t lower the prices based on the age of the ship so why do so many people find this acceptable based on the ships age? Ultimately the captain is responsible. If these kinds of things are acceptable to him what else are they not keeping up on? In my experience it’s not one or the other it’s all things that are dealt with the same way whether its maintenance or safety or food. RCCL is just trying to save money by not fixing these things or the captain doesn’t care. This ship isn’t supposed to be dry docked for 2 more years. Are they going to wait that long?

 

Captain was accessible and visible, no problems at all with my accomodations.

 

 

 

Ports = A The only thing that should be addressed somehow is the amount of time spent in Puerto Rico. Lot’s to see for history buffs but not enough time to do much. Bermuda is great. One piece of advice..take a cab to any beach you want to go to. Any other way takes too long. A cab ride to Elbow or Horseshoe beach is about $30 and takes about 20 to 30 mins. The ferry at the terminal where the ship docks only goes every 30 minutes so if you miss one it takes too much of the limited time you have on the island. We usually go to elbow beach to avoid the crowds at horseshoe. Rental for lounge chairs and umbrellas are available for $10 for each item. There is a beach restaurant with a shower, bathrooms and a bar nearby. Great beach. Don’t wear anything shiny into the water or risk the fish going after it. Nothing dangerous but unnerving for some. St. Marrten was very nice. Got off the ship and instead of taking a cab to orient beach which is very nice and interesting since it’s clothing optional we opted for going to great bay beach which is in front of the town where the shopping is. We rented four lounge chairs and two umbrellas for $15. Yes $15 total. Get a massage from the women on the beach instead of the ship. You can get a full massage for $50 right on the beach. Just as good as the ship and over $100 less. Labadee was nice but be careful. If you decide to go to the market to do some shopping and help out the starving Haitian’s be ready to be mobbed. They are very aggressive. My advice is push back hard and you will be fine. I don’t know why RCCL allows them to be so aggressive. We didn’t really want anything but when you have these poor people begging for money to eat we just bought stuff so they could have the money. We rented a cabana which was worth it but skip the “upgraded buffet” as we waited at least 40 minutes for food and the “upgraded” food which was shrimp and steak was all gone. Ridiculous set up by RCCL. No management to be seen anywhere to fix the bottleneck which was only two cooks, two grills and they only cooked two diff things at a time. Poorly executed. For those of you not in a suite or renting a cabana the regular buffet was fine. No lines.

 

Port stays in Bermuda and Puerto Rico were too short, especially with a 7 AM arrival in PR, with many things not open yet. No need to take a cab in Bermuda, public transportation is just fine, had a great bus ride back from Elbow Beach mingling with the Bermuda natives, ferry to Hamilton is the way to go. No idea why anyone feels the need to rent a cabana in Labadee, beach accomodations are just fine, take the tram to Columbus Cove to avoid the markets.

 

 

Food = D- All I can say is it was pretty awful at times. Other times it was average to better than average but I wouldn’t call it good or anywhere near great. I’m not counting my thoughts about requesting a private table for four since our family hasn’t been on vacation for years together and we are diamond members but we were not given what we requested. It was later resolved so when I tell you about the food I’m not counting that whole episode as part of the evaluation. We read all the reviews and took all of the really bad ones as well as the really good ones with a grain of salt but I must say we are not picky eaters and we found ourselves playing a game we called “guess what this food is supposed to be”. You could actually see people with multiple plates of food on their table continuously leaving the plates full in search of something they could eat. You want specifics? Okay this is what we found with no exaggeration. Keep in mind some days it was fine for the same food I’m about to call out and other days not so good. We found….pancakes so hard a fork would not penetrate them, crust on the French toast that was so hard it could break your teeth, eggs benedict with the egg yolks solid, steak that was grisly and not tasty, green stuff coming out of chicken that was neither tasty or identifiable, chocolate cake (we think) served on Caribbean night that I’m not sure was cake, sherbet that was without a doubt freezer burned, spaghetti sauce that we think was actually a cross between tomato sauce and salsa, the Danish were not fresh, desserts not thawed properly, no vegetables in windjammer except broccoli the entire time and they should just stop making the non-sugar desserts and leave it at that. Someone please explain why they have to put corn in just about everything. Portofino’s was disappointing as well. The selection sucked quite frankly and it wasn’t up to par with past visits to this restaurant. I don’t know what the story is but the management of this ship and the cruise line should be ashamed. What was good/acceptable food wise? The so called Asian night was a good dinner with the rice, ravioli in the MDR, breads (rolls in MDR and raisin bread in windjammer), mashed potatoes in MDR, turkey, ribs, surprisingly the pizza (even the make your own at the windjammer) and lobster night was okay. Forget about the sushi at Jade in the windjammer unless you want salmon and nothing but salmon. No tuna…ever or anything else unless you call California type rolls sushi. And don’t tell me “well they are making food for 3,000 people”. There are no excuses for what we experienced except using cheap ingredients and/or using bad chefs or they just don’t care. If they really cared about the quality of the food or had proper procedures in place that food would not have made it to the passengers.

 

Food absolutely fine for all meals, there is no way, no way, that one could not find something to your liking to eat each and every evening.

 

 

Johnny Rockets was great. Nothing bad about it. A great shout out to Mr. Rick Frampton. Always smiling and eager to please. You gotta go see them dance. Nice bunch of people.

 

Johnny Rockets fine, Patrick Frampton goes out of his way to accomodate everybody both in the main dining room and the Windjammer.

 

 

 

The service in the MDR was great except for one thing. The wait for iced tea or a soda or anything other than water was at times way too long. My advice if you want anything other than water, order it before anything else and ask for two. For those soda lovers out there the Coke machines were installed and tested by the passengers on this cruise. It was free during the testing but will only be part of the soda packages going forward.

 

Beverage service at dinner was lacking. Took to grabbing a beer at the pub on my way into dinner, had a wine package that worked out well thanks to Patrick Frampton.

 

Crew = A+ I found no fault with the crew even though their leadership is questionable at best. They were always eager to please, trying to help and doing their jobs with a smile. Special shout out to “No Wasi, No foody, No happy”. You’ll have to go on the cruise to figure that out. Also, Raphael in the Windjammer and Nicklas our room steward. I’d hire all of you in a minute.

 

Crew was great.

 

 

Cruise Director Richard Spacey. A+++ Easily the best one I’ve seen in my limited number of 8 cruises. Always smiling, friendly, very approachable and quite visible during the cruise. If they have a better director than him I’d be surprised.

 

CD Spacey was great along with his sidekick, a great team.

 

 

Entertainment = B+ Didn’t go to all the shows but the onboard staff are good singers. I think they pay them extra for every song they use the words New York cause you’ll hear it quite a few times. I thought the magician was a good twist on an old trade. Didn’t see the comedians show at midnight but he was okay in the main show one night. The game shows are worth the price of admission. You have to go to the quest game show if you don’t go to any others. Just leave the little kiddies with the baby sitter. Other cruise lines have top entertainment coming onto the ships like the blue man group or Cirque du Soleil but RCCL is lagging here.

 

Comedians were great, not into the production shows so no opinion, ice show and game shows were just fine.

 

 

Pools = B. The bingo crowd was very efficient at saving chairs in the adult only area. By 9am forget about getting a spot. There are only limited sun areas there anyway. We found it much less stuffy and not as loud next to the pools by going to the level above the pool on the sides and getting lounges. Plenty of them and the view of the ocean is unmatched. The pool water several days into the cruise was getting ugly. They should change it more often. We did love the fact that they leave some of the pools and hot tubs open 24/7.

 

Never sat by the pool, have never seen the attraction of the claustrophobic set up of lounge chairs by the pools, left that for the Jersey Shore set and spent my time on the Promenade Deck and the Solarium.

 

 

If you’re a people watcher there is plenty to see. Watching the terribly morbid obese people on scooters run over people to get to a table only to get up and walk to the buffet is especially interesting oh and the ridiculously fat kids with two plates of food running over people to get to the Jell-O is quite a site. Watching the vultures at the 75% off on watches sale is an experience. People five or six deep buying two, three even four watches at a time for junk was a study in human behavior. By the way, the watches were on sale again the last two days. Someone has to explain to me how the shopping guy gets away with telling everyone that the reason the Caribbean is so cheap for diamonds is because they have very little mark up and then offering a 65% off coupons to everyone. I’m convinced that the company gets a kickback from the stores they so heavily push everyone to go to. I wouldn’t trust any of them.

 

Now this was crazy and absolutely true, do not know how many times I said to myself, hey didn't that person now tearing up the Windjammer buffet just about run my over in their scooter a minute ago? - The watch thing was just nuts, totally blocking the Promenade one night while I say people walking away with 5, 6, and one person with maybe 20 watches, 20 watches, really?

 

 

Someone please tell management to keep an attendant in the gym area at all times. I don’t think they would like seeing children climbing on all the machines or towels and god knows what thrown everywhere but we did witness this. Older people needed help with the operation of the machines and were left guessing.

 

Also very true, gym unattended for long stretches, saw a few elderly people confused as to how to use the machines, how hard would it be for someone to walk the gym during peak times to help them out and also to keep the teenage packs from abusing the equipment as they did the last few days.

 

 

The silent dance parties are strange to me but people seemed to like it. The chamber was great for dancing unless you have an issue with smokers. There are plenty there. Not sure if it’s allowed but nobody did anything about it so I assume it was okay to smoke. Watch your mixed drink orders. Unless you’re getting a martini or something on the rocks make sure they don’t use the best stuff. As an example a red bull with top of the shelf vodka….$11.

 

The silent parties were quite unusual, check them out for about 10 minutes and one will have had their fill, the Chamber was an absolute smoke stack on those nights. GET RID OF ALL INTERIOR SMOKING NOW - FORMAL NIGHTS IN THE CASINO WAS SMOKE FREE BUT UNENFORCED.

 

 

 

The casino people are fantastic even when they are taking your money. For those lottery fans the jackpot is up to over $535,000 and climbing. Numbers pulled every night at 11pm in the casino. Lots of slot, blackjack and Texas holdem tournaments. The only downer was that most of the slot machines are ancient.

 

Casino was fine, great people watching, but mostly the same guys playing hold 'em night after night, slot machines were just fine.

 

 

 

For those who want to access the web…Good luck. Fifty cents a minute if you buy a package and for that you get dial up speeds. They are using satellite technology which is all they have for the time being and as usual it’s very slow. It’s good for checking emails but don’t expect to do any big time surfing. Bandwidth is really limited for now. My beef is simply that if it’s this slow then don’t charge. One of the cruise lines is going to figure it out first and offer it for free to gain share. With today’s intensive web/cell phone connected generation they will get more customers.

 

Resolved to stay off line for all 9 days and made it, no experience with the on-line access.

 

 

Some news we found interesting was regarding the new sunshine class ship coming in a couple of years. Apparently RCCL wants to put it in Bayonne but there may be trouble on the horizon as the port authority is threatening to make it a cargo only port. I’m guessing that’s just a negotiating ploy but getting that new ship there would be very nice as long as they address the food situation and build a real cruise terminal instead of a warehouse that is not set up for such an operation. Taking busses to the ship is not very efficient for anyone. It works but I’m sure it’s not what they want for a new ship.

 

OK, the 100 yard bus trip from terminal to ship is kind of ridiculous and could be avoided with a little organization - I am sure the reason it exists is to allow supply traffic to get to to the ship.

 

 

Getting on and off the ship is easy and well-orchestrated. If you want a cab there are plenty upon arrival. No need for a car service. Watch the van guys as they will wait and wait till the van is full before leaving. If I ever did this port again I would arrive around 2pm as you won’t wait at all.

 

Getting off was a zoo but not much that can be done about it.

 

 

As I said at the beginning we had a great time as a family despite several misses by RCCL. Would we go on that ship again? Probably not.

 

A great time overall, will be back again for sure.

[Mickeymouse22]

We were also on the Explorer in May (our 4th time on this ship) and have never encountered any of the items you mentioned. If you think this was terrible then don't bother going on Celebrity as it was horrible - especially the food.

 

Fred

[TBone2K]

Thanks for sharing your experiences. Sounds like most of the food issues were with the Windjammer, which we usually avoid anyway.

 

Will check back in and see if it was any different for us when we get back from EOS next week.

[sept10dsm]

Thanks for your review. We will be on the ship in a few weeks. I just hope our cabin is clean and the food fresh. We aren't picky at all so hopefully we will find something we like.

[sailorJo]

I was on the exact same cruise as the OP and I'm glad to report that I had a completely different experience. I’m baffled by the dismal picture he depicts, especially of the food. I didn’t find significant issues with the food, except for the fact that the portions in the MDR were a lot smaller than we remembered from past cruises, and that the choices in the Windjammer became repetitive. Breakfast wasn’t an issue for me as I normally eat a continental breakfast. The warm biscuits were delicious, especially slathered in jam (my personal twist on a continental style breakfast). I didn’t’ find anything stale or bad. To say that the selection in Portofinos’ stunk shocked me. I found the selection adequate and the quality on par with some of the best Italian restaurants I have been to. There may not have been a wide range of choices but there was something for every palate, IMHO.

As for the long waits for the drinks in the MDR, it may have depended on the waiters. On the first two nights we had the same waiters and dinner took almost two hours. For the remainder of the cruise we had different waiters almost every night and we were done in half the time.

I didn’t notice “wild packs of teenagers”, except for a couple of pranksters who were going up and down on an inside elevator so they could watch the parade on the Promenade. Nothing too disconcerting. We made them stop by playing a small prank of our own and holding the call button pressed :D. Most of the younger rowdier kids hung around the pool area, but that’s to be expected.

As for the maintenance – or lack thereof – it beats me how the OP could have had the time or even the inclination to notice all of those bad things he mentions. Yes, there were a couple of buttons missing in the elevators and our sofa wasn’t immaculate, but I didn’t let those things put me off. Most of the public areas were beautifully kept.

BTW, we took a local bus to Horseshoe Bay and it took only 20 minutes and cost $16 pp round trip. Of course, if you’re at least 4 people a cab might make more sense.

The people watching comments cracked me up. The OP’s spirit of observation is beyond amazing. To think that I missed seeing all of those things…. Maybe I should take another cruise on the Explorer and pay better attention this time :D;).

[jeffreyg63]

I was on the exact same cruise as the OP and I'm glad to report that I had a completely different experience. I’m baffled by the dismal picture he depicts, especially of the food. I didn’t find significant issues with the food, except for the fact that the portions in the MDR were a lot smaller than we remembered from past cruises, and that the choices in the Windjammer became repetitive. Breakfast wasn’t an issue for me as I normally eat a continental breakfast. The warm biscuits were delicious, especially slathered in jam (my personal twist on a continental style breakfast). I didn’t’ find anything stale or bad. To say that the selection in Portofinos’ stunk shocked me. I found the selection adequate and the quality on par with some of the best Italian restaurants I have been to. There may not have been a wide range of choices but there was something for every palate, IMHO.

As for the long waits for the drinks in the MDR, it may have depended on the waiters. On the first two nights we had the same waiters and dinner took almost two hours. For the remainder of the cruise we had different waiters almost every night and we were done in half the time.

I didn’t notice “wild packs of teenagers”, except for a couple of pranksters who were going up and down on an inside elevator so they could watch the parade on the Promenade. Nothing too disconcerting. We made them stop by playing a small prank of our own and holding the call button pressed :D. Most of the younger rowdier kids hung around the pool area, but that’s to be expected.

As for the maintenance – or lack thereof – it beats me how the OP could have had the time or even the inclination to notice all of those bad things he mentions. Yes, there were a couple of buttons missing in the elevators and our sofa wasn’t immaculate, but I didn’t let those things put me off. Most of the public areas were beautifully kept.

BTW, we took a local bus to Horseshoe Bay and it took only 20 minutes and cost $16 pp round trip. Of course, if you’re at least 4 people a cab might make more sense.

The people watching comments cracked me up. The OP’s spirit of observation is beyond amazing. To think that I missed seeing all of those things…. Maybe I should take another cruise on the Explorer and pay better attention this time :D;).

 

There were a lot more observations that I left out. I'm not sure the capacity to observe and recall more than others is good or bad. lol.

[sailorJo]

There were a lot more observations that I left out. I'm not sure the capacity to observe and recall more than others is good or bad. lol.

 

Thank you for not taking my comments the wrong way. After all, people see things differently :).

BTW, are you the one that asked the question about free internet during the Q&A with the captain? If yes, that was a great question and one I was tempted to ask myself.

[jeffreyg63]

Thank you for not taking my comments the wrong way. After all, people see things differently :).

BTW, are you the one that asked the question about free internet during the Q&A with the captain? If yes, that was a great question and one I was tempted to ask myself.

 

You're correct people see things differently unfortunately some of the people on here take stuff so personal. They see any criticism as an attack on "their" company, ship or port. I find that curious.

 

I didn't ask the captain any questions. I would have loved to have a private conversation with him but my guess is all I would get is the company answers to the tougher questions.

[Linda & John]

 

Also do you know when specifically the Explorer goes to dry dock? Maybe I'll wait till summer of 2015 to try her after some refurbishment -- would that timing work?

 

Thanks so much.

 

 

Complete Schedule of RC ships that are going to drydock:

 

When I read it, I noticed that Explorer of the Seas will not get new or updated state rooms, while other ships will.

 

http://www.creative.rccl.com/Sales/Royal/General_Info/Flyers/12028421_Revit_QuickReference_Guide.pdf

[rjrpar]

Been on the Explorer twice out of NJ; the last voyage was 2/12. I agree with most of your review, especially the beginning when you point out that as long as the ship sails full, there is no incentive to fix and clean it.

Some loyalists will defend its condition but it really does need a makeover. Would anyone let their house get to the condition of the cabins, bars, and other common areas?

[NordicPrince]

Next time when you have these issues in your stateroom, contact the hotel director...That is the person that is responsible for your accommodations.

 

Thank you pointing this out. The Captain has more important things to do.

Like watch out for rocks while passing islands.

 

I am surprised that since the OP says they are Diamond that they did not pick up on this during any of their cruises. I can't really say too many positive things about the Diamond members I have met in all of my RCI cruises. Most seem to think that the cruise line should assign staff to wipe their noses for them. Just my personal observation.

 

Been on Explorer twice in the last 2 years. Stayed on Deck 9. Perhaps the trick is stay on a deck which is not as heavily traveled as the lower decks. You also get the better stewards who keep things cleaner.

 

OP: Hope you have a better experience on a different RCI ship. Perhaps you try Serenade or another of the Radiance class. Absolutely beautiful. Or try another line such as Celebrity or HAL which caters to a different audience.

[tigger-ttfn]

Seems like it'd be hard to have a nice relaxing vacation, what with all the nit-picking and all...

Good come back.......