Pacific explorer looks tired

[dazadelaide]

Hi all, 

just an observation but i just watched a youtube video of the pacific explorer leaving a port in N.Z on 20th Nov.

As she sailed out i couldn't help but notice all the rust and dirt.

She just looks tired and unloved.

It made me a bit sad to see her in this condition from the outside and i do hope the inside is better when we cruise on her in March 2023

Daz

[razorp37]

My wife and I went to Lyttelton a few days after this video was shot and saw her in the "flesh" so to speak as we are booked for a cruise out of Auckland in August '23. She really did look unloved, so much so that my wife is having second thoughts. The appearance of ships can really influence people and P&O need to bear this in mind. 

Ray

[dazadelaide]

Hi Ray,

glad to see that I wasn't the only one to notice this.

With all the fanfare and news reports when the ship arrived back in Sydney for the cruise restart a few months ago and seeing how beautiful she looked and to see her now was quite shocking really.

I would like to know from anyone who has sailed on her in the last few months if the interior is as shabby as the outside looks.

Daz

[subaru94]

We just came back from a cruise on the Pacific Explorer, and whilst she looks a bit worse for wear outside, we found the entertainment areas, blue room, explorer lounge, black circus, pool areas and adult area lovely.  We would not hesitate to go on her again and going on her next March.  She has a lovely internal ambience and the crew are wonderful.

[dazadelaide]

great to hear that the inside is better than the outside looks. our cruise is in about 10 weeks away so it is good to hear that you wouldnt hesitate to go on her again 

thanks

Daz

[subaru94]

13 hours ago, dazadelaide said:

great to hear that the inside is better than the outside looks. our cruise is in about 10 weeks away so it is good to hear that you wouldnt hesitate to go on her again 

thanks

Daz

We are going on her again in March next year.

[dazadelaide]

We are doing an Adelaide- New Zealand- Adelaide in March

Daz

[Nang]

6 hours ago, dazadelaide said:

We are doing an Adelaide- New Zealand- Adelaide in March

Daz

Us too. First time on P&O for me but The Boss (AKA Trudi) did a 5 day cruise out of Adelaide about a month ago and was keen to go again. She did comment that while shabby on the outside the interior was in pretty good nick.

[dazadelaide]

we have done a few from adelaide now and have found it is very handy cruising from your home town. not having to fly in and out suits us 

see you on the ship! 

Daz

[subaru94]

On 12/22/2022 at 4:30 PM, dazadelaide said:

We are doing an Adelaide- New Zealand- Adelaide in March

Daz

We are going the 4 night one to Port Lincoln and Kangaroo Island, really lovely to be able to cruise out of your home town.

[Fredette]

On 12/20/2022 at 9:13 PM, subaru94 said:

We just came back from a cruise on the Pacific Explorer, and whilst she looks a bit worse for wear outside, we found the entertainment areas, blue room, explorer lounge, black circus, pool areas and adult area lovely.  We would not hesitate to go on her again and going on her next March.  She has a lovely internal ambience and the crew are wonderful.

Happy to hear this - I am going on a cruise on January 17th (just a short one).  This has probably already been asked and answered somewhere, but could you please tell me what power points are in the cabins?  I am wondering what sort of adaptors I should pack.  Are there USB ports for chargers also?  Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[subaru94]

22 hours ago, Fredette said:

Happy to hear this - I am going on a cruise on January 17th (just a short one).  This has probably already been asked and answered somewhere, but could you please tell me what power points are in the cabins?  I am wondering what sort of adaptors I should pack.  Are there USB ports for chargers also?  Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

Australian power points are in cabin.  

[Fredette]

On 1/5/2023 at 8:57 AM, subaru94 said:

Australian power points are in cabin.  

Woo hoo, thanks!

[Ondine]

On 1/4/2023 at 10:00 AM, Fredette said:

Happy to hear this - I am going on a cruise on January 17th (just a short one).  This has probably already been asked and answered somewhere, but could you please tell me what power points are in the cabins?  I am wondering what sort of adaptors I should pack.  Are there USB ports for chargers also?  Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

Just got off Explorer - balcony cabin.  Power point is behind the TV and also 4 USB ports.  Hard to get at so if you are going to use hair tongs or something similar it will be on wrong side of room to mirror.  Inconvenient.  Also Lukes and Gradi were take away only on our cruise.  No speciality dining.  Think they are short of staff.

[Fredette]

On 1/15/2023 at 2:10 PM, Ondine said:

Just got off Explorer - balcony cabin.  Power point is behind the TV and also 4 USB ports.  Hard to get at so if you are going to use hair tongs or something similar it will be on wrong side of room to mirror.  Inconvenient.  Also Lukes and Gradi were take away only on our cruise.  No speciality dining.  Think they are short of staff.

They were short of staff,  we couldn't even get a booking for a restaurant on the last night, and there were only two of us.  We took some converter plugs just in case - there was a US power point on the desk so we were able to use that as an additional one.

 

[Ondine]

20 hours ago, Fredette said:

They were short of staff,  we couldn't even get a booking for a restaurant on the last night, and there were only two of us.  We took some converter plugs just in case - there was a US power point on the desk so we were able to use that as an additional one.

 

Yes we were disappointed that Lukes was only open for take away burgers etc and 400 Gradi was take away only.  I think they are very short of staff and some of them are trainees.  Our cabin stewards didn't seem to have a clue.  Our New Year cruise was very very crowded.  I believe there were 2400 onboard and I reckon half were children.  Lots of problems with the forward lifts which seem to have a mind of their own as to where and when they would stop.  On the last day we were supposed to pick up our alcohol from Angelos from 6.00am but there was no one there at that time and some people stood in the queue for nearly 2 hours waiting to get their orders.  This was on debarkation day.  A total stuff up.

[Fredette]

On 1/22/2023 at 5:41 PM, Ondine said:

Yes we were disappointed that Lukes was only open for take away burgers etc and 400 Gradi was take away only.  I think they are very short of staff and some of them are trainees.  Our cabin stewards didn't seem to have a clue.  Our New Year cruise was very very crowded.  I believe there were 2400 onboard and I reckon half were children.  Lots of problems with the forward lifts which seem to have a mind of their own as to where and when they would stop.  On the last day we were supposed to pick up our alcohol from Angelos from 6.00am but there was no one there at that time and some people stood in the queue for nearly 2 hours waiting to get their orders.  This was on debarkation day.  A total stuff up.

Sorry to hear that.  It sounds like your cruise was the training run for ours - I did notice that one of the lifts was out of action for the whole cruise so obviously they couldn't fix it.  I picked up my wine from Charlie's without a problem, but maybe that's because I had a late exit and they didn't have many bottles left to sort through.  I did notice there were a lot of kids though.  For most of the cruise they were obviously in kid's club (you generally only saw them of an evening with their parents having a meal, but not much during the day) but on the last day I wondered if kid's club had closed.  For some reason there seemed to be heaps of groups of tweenies roaming around unsupervised, getting underfoot when people were trying to get out of the lifts (and I have to say, adults are just as guilty of pushing in as soon as the lift doors open, without waiting for people to get out).

[dazadelaide]

as our cruise gets closer it is appearing that p & o are struggling to get everything on board back to full operations.

if some of the restaurants were not in full operation on a cruise during school holidays it may be worse when we go in march

Daz

[Fredette]

On 1/27/2023 at 10:28 PM, dazadelaide said:

as our cruise gets closer it is appearing that p & o are struggling to get everything on board back to full operations.

if some of the restaurants were not in full operation on a cruise during school holidays it may be worse when we go in march

Daz

I wouldn't worry too much - it was mostly the specialty restaurants that were affected, although I was astounded that we couldn't get a table in the Waterfront on the last night!  In March you will probably have less kids on board too, which might mean that some of the staff needed for kids club are free to be redeployed to other things, I don't know how that works though - just guessing.  But the overall cruise experience was very similar to pre-covid, which was heartening, I was worried that there might have been a lot of penny pinching going on.

 

[Oldlovers]

We just completed a 14 day Adelaide/NZ/Adelaide cruise on Pacific Explorer. 

It is nowhere close to the standard I have previously enjoyed on trips with Princess, Celebrity and Royal Caribbean cruise ships over the last 20 years.

Pacific Explorer looks lovely from a distance but is noticeably tired in so many ways once aboard. Rusty exterior superstructure with layers of crusty paint over corroded exterior and crud, dirty salt spray over external windows which don’t look like they have been cleaned in a long time , bent and dented external fittings, external timber rails need stripping and recoating. Internally generally ok other than occasional breakdowns of passenger elevators. Worn and grubby carpets in our cabin.

On board costs were ridiculously overpriced…Drinks of every description including alcohol, soda’s, tea, coffee and water, Photography, Specialty services (gym, beauty services), On board shopping prices exorbitant for all forms of merchandise and limited range of products, 

Charge for room service, ice cream parlour, alfresco bbq both chargeable, no stocked mini-bar in the cabin or tea/coffee making facilities.

The entertainment was very enjoyable, the food was generally quite good and plentiful, but outside dining area serving hours, there was nothing available anywhere for a snack and the only place to get a tea or coffee was on deck 14. A few vending machines here and there with packaged snackfoods, canned drinks, chocolate's, chips etc would do very well if prices were reasonable.

Overall, ‘you only get what you pay for’ and P&O know that. The lower cost fares catch the clients but once aboard, they milk your money unashamedly, so for potential cruisers, ‘caviat-emptor’.

I would class it as 3 1/2 star, so don’t have any great expectations.

[ceeceeDee]

I'm really not surprised to hear that she is tired. It's about time she was re-tired! She's pushing 28 years old. I know there are other ships still in service that are in excess of 30 years old in better condition than Explorer, but I suspect P&O only keep their fare prices down because they skimp elsewhere on these older vessels.

There was a rumour last year that Explorer was going to be replaced sometime in the near future, but who knows?

As for nickel and dimeing once on board................. that's happening on most cruise lines. Just read the Princess threads for a start. And at least on P&O you don't get slugged daily gratuities which, as you probably know, is the case with RCI, Celebrity, etc.

We don't mind P&O, we just keep our expectations fairly low and they are usually exceeded. Frankly, we just take a good time with us and that's precisely what we have. The upside of the cheaper initial fare is that we usually opt for a higher cabin category which does come with a few 'perks'.

[dazadelaide]

Just got off another 5 day cruise on the Explorer, yes she is tired but overall we still had a great time.

As for paying for everything like oldlovers said, you only pay for what you use.

So my fare on P&O is around 20% cheaper than other lines and I am able to go on a cruise, really enjoy myself and only have a small bill at the end is fine by me.

Drinks were not overpriced, just around the same or less than my local cafe.

If I wanted a coffee and cake in charlies bar it was about $9.

My local cafe charges $6.50 for a coffee and cakes around $7.

Just my opinion.

Daz