LETS TALK ABOUT THE EXPLORER OF THE SEAS

[RG306]

37 minutes ago, soccer2010 said:

I agree with spending extra time in San Juan if you can.  We are booked for March 22 with a Guaranteed Inside cabin.  There is a port everyday so there are no Sea Days.  Thoughts on upgrading to a Guaranteed Balcony ... are there bad Balcony cabins?

I will say I love having a balcony even on port intensive itineraries. We usually get room service for a light breakfast on port days (almost serves as a wake up alarm for the hubby) and have coffee on the balcony in the morning. It's nice to come back and have a drink on the balcony in the evening before dinner and I love the quiet of the ocean at night. 

 

in terms of bad locations, I generally like to be between decks of cabins so there's always a risk of getting an obstructed view or being somewhere noisy. However, depending on what you paid it might be worth the risk. We ended up booking a guarantee junior suite for our upcoming February Explorer sailing. 

[lenquixote66]

We were on this ship several times in the last decade.We loved the ship.

[Sea Dog]

Looking forward to sailing on Explorer this November 7th. I wish the ship was supported in the app. Hopefully they may get it done in time. Waiting now to check in. Curious as to when the test sailing might be. My guess around mid October.

[lenquixote66]

13 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

Looking forward to sailing on Explorer this November 7th. I wish the ship was supported in the app. Hopefully they may get it done in time. Waiting now to check in. Curious as to when the test sailing might be. My guess around mid October.

Hopefully you will be able to cruise,have a fantastic time and tell us all about it.😀

[Sea Dog]

30 minutes ago, lenquixote66 said:

Hopefully you will be able to cruise,have a fantastic time and tell us all about it.😀

Panning on doing a as-if live review. Got the title and theme. If I don't screw it up it should be good.

[lenquixote66]

9 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Panning on doing a as-if live review. Got the title and theme. If I don't screw it up it should be good.

Great

[Chauncey Picklepants]

14 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

Looking forward to sailing on Explorer this November 7th. I wish the ship was supported in the app. Hopefully they may get it done in time. Waiting now to check in. Curious as to when the test sailing might be. My guess around mid October.

Looks like our 11/14 EOS sail will be vaccinated only, except kids 12/under because we have a stop in St Thomas. That’s great news. Do you have a St Thomas stop? 

[Sea Dog]

4 minutes ago, Chauncey Picklepants said:

Do you have a St Thomas stop? 

Yes we do. Are ports are:

St Thomas

St. Croix

St Maarten

St. Lucia

Bridgetown

St. Kitts

 

[CruisinRoxy]

We are also boarding Explorer at the end of February! 6 months out now.  We originally booked Celebrity Summit but for some reason they canceled San Juan sailings, so we switched back to Royal, where we’ve cruised about 6 times on various ships.  We also love San Juan! And like staying at El Convento right in the old town.  Very historic and you can walk to any restaurant, there’s so many!  Can’t wait!  Hopefully all will go smoothly and things will not get worse.  

[Chauncey Picklepants]

2 hours ago, CruisinRoxy said:

We are also boarding Explorer at the end of February! 6 months out now.  We originally booked Celebrity Summit but for some reason they canceled San Juan sailings, so we switched back to Royal, where we’ve cruised about 6 times on various ships.  We also love San Juan! And like staying at El Convento right in the old town.  Very historic and you can walk to any restaurant, there’s so many!  Can’t wait!  Hopefully all will go smoothly and things will not get worse.  

Celebrity Summit stopped sailing out of SJ, as did Caribbean Princess. I thought I read it had to do with the high docking costs or local politics.  

[Chauncey Picklepants]

CDC updated testing requirements to 2-day/48 hours for vaccinated pax.  As Explorer leaves from San Juan, I see this posing a logistical problem for these sailings to proceed.

 

I don’t want to be a pessimist I but really don’t think these NOVEMBER cruises will be panning out with these accelerated testing timeframes.
 

We are flying into San Juan on a Friday which leaves no room for testing at home prior. So to cover our bases  just in case they do, it appears the only way to guarantee a 48-hour test result prior to sailing is by ordering the Abbott Binaxnow AG Card test that   is accepted by RCL and seems to guarantee a timely result. They are quickly selling out, we ordered ours today. 
 

I find it curious that unvaccinated passengers get a 3-day window, even though supposedly any ship stopping in St Thomas must be 100% vaccinated. 
We are really regretting paying final deposit now. 

Edited August 30, 2021 by Chauncey Picklepants

[Sea Dog]

2 minutes ago, Chauncey Picklepants said:

CDC updated testing requirements to 2-day/48 hours for vaccinated pax.

So far Royal has not adopted this recommendation and I don't think they will. Royal has committed to a November 7th startup with Explorer out of San Juan. I think it will go.

[Chauncey Picklepants]

1 minute ago, Sea Dog said:

So far Royal has not adopted this recommendation and I don't think they will. Royal has committed to a November 7th startup with Explorer out of San Juan. I think it will go.

I hope you’re right.  At least I have confidence that we jumped the testing hurdle. Im curious, what is your take on why the CDC would recommend 48 hours for vaccinated but 72 for unvaccinated?  And why offer at the pier for unvaxed but not vaxed.  Is it just me or is this bass ackwards? I can not figure out why this would make sense.

 

 

[Sea Dog]

15 minutes ago, Chauncey Picklepants said:

Im curious, what is your take on why the CDC would recommend 48 hours for vaccinated but 72 for unvaccinated?  And why offer at the pier for unvaxed but not vaxed.  Is it just me or is this bass ackwards? I can not figure out why this would make sense.

It makes no sense to me either. The reason I think Royal will stay with 3 days as it would put an enormous strain on travelers to get it done in two. We will under the gun for our November 7th as we plan on arriving two days early. So we have to do our tests on Thursday before we leave on Friday morning. I think we will test locally but may buy the Abbott test as a backup.

 

I would hope that Royal would do as NCL and have testing at the pier for both vaxed and unvaxed. I wouldn't even care if we had to pay for it. They were doing it for the sailings on Adventure in the Bahamas. I have a feeling that they just don't want to deal with that.

[Ocean Boy]

1 hour ago, Chauncey Picklepants said:

I hope you’re right.  At least I have confidence that we jumped the testing hurdle. Im curious, what is your take on why the CDC would recommend 48 hours for vaccinated but 72 for unvaccinated?  And why offer at the pier for unvaxed but not vaxed.  Is it just me or is this bass ackwards? I can not figure out why this would make sense.

 

 

It doesn't so don't waste more time trying to figure it out.

[Chauncey Picklepants]

6 hours ago, Ocean Boy said:

It doesn't so don't waste more time trying to figure it out.

Heard that. ✔️

[Chauncey Picklepants]

7 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

It makes no sense to me either. The reason I think Royal will stay with 3 days as it would put an enormous strain on travelers to get it done in two. We will under the gun for our November 7th as we plan on arriving two days early. So we have to do our tests on Thursday before we leave on Friday morning. I think we will test locally but may buy the Abbott test as a backup.

 

I would hope that Royal would do as NCL and have testing at the pier for both vaxed and unvaxed. I wouldn't even care if we had to pay for it. They were doing it for the sailings on Adventure in the Bahamas. I have a feeling that they just don't want to deal with that.

I’ll be anxious to see how you make out, with good vibes sent - we’ll all be anxiously looking for that live video from you from the ship.

 

Called our TA today who called and as of now, they’re not requiring 48 hours. But who knows. They always seem to go the head-scratch route.  We will get our test package tomorrow, cost 270 for 8 tests.  We’re going down to SJ on Friday. So it’s a huge weight lifted off not having to worry about that. Until the next thing comes -

[beshears]

This is a good question, as there are 8 of us that plan to do the Explorer on the 9th of January, 2022, and the other 7 are "expecting" me to have ALL the details, so any information about the ship will be helpful.

[beshears]

Talking about San Juan, I had seen it more than once, but NEVER going inside until my 3 sons wanted to see inside.  At that time it was only $5 and I will say, just the VIEW alone from different areas was enough for me, as I'm a avid picture taker. 🙂