My Explorer Review, 12/13 – 12/23/2012 sailing

[bythehex]

I may have to split this into two parts because it’s so long, but here goes. My husband and I returned from this sailing, and this is our experiences and opinions.

 

We’d been on Explorer twice before, once in 2001 and again in 2004. In the interim we sailed on Princess and Carnival Cruise lines, and were looking forward to revisiting Royal Caribbean.

 

 

My brother in law drove us to the port at Bayonne. Unfortunately he didn’t bring his GPS and used printed directions from MapQuest, so we made a wrong turn and went down a truck lane by mistake, and had to turn around and find Pulaski Street. Once we did, we just waited in line with all the other cars and finally were able to pull in to a spot in front of the tented area where they gather the luggage, said our goodbyes, and then went into the building to get our Set Sail cards. After you get your cards you go outside where there is a shuttle to take you the two blocks to the ship’s entrance. Unfortunately they don’t let you just walk to the ship, but really the shuttle only takes 2 minutes to get there.

 

Once onboard, we went directly to the Windjammer. We thought the food at the buffet was really good. There were a lot of choices, from the burgers and hot dogs, chili, spaghetti, beef stew, vegetarian choices, to a few oriental and Indian dishes. The water, iced tea, lemonade and sugar free flavored water were all free, as was coffee, tea and hot chocolate. The ship was nicely decorated for the holidays, a huge Xmas tree in the Promenade (AND a Menorah), and they played Xmas music. Everything was spotless, very clean and well maintained, and the crew was exceptionally friendly.

 

At 1:30 they opened the cabins. We had a Promenade view cabin, 8263. Normally we would have booked a balcony but we had been on a Carnival cruise in September and wanted to save some money to fit in an extra cruise. The cabin was smaller than we were used to, but I loved having the two sofas. The one in the window that looked down on the Promenade was a great place for me to stretch out and read my Kindle. Had a great view of the parades, yet it was not as noisy from below as we anticipated. However, this was an adjoining cabin and the walls between the two cabins paper thin. Meaning we could hear every sound from next door, and I’m sure they heard us too. And yes, we heard things they may not have wanted anyone to hear.

 

 

The first 3 days were at sea days. I thought the air temperature the first day was too cool to go swimming, but there were a lot of people in the pools and hot tubs. The pool water was freezing, so they must have iron constitutions or something. And then there were other folks walking around in sweatshirts and jackets, so it was quite a contrast. The next day was much warmer, but the entire cruise we thought the pool water was way too cold for us. The hot tubs were fine though. As much as I dislike hot tubs on principle (i.e. people soup), it did feel good to soak in the heat.

 

 

Our first port was St. Maarten on Monday. We’ve been there before so we knew we could walk into Phillipsburg and go to the beach there, and that’s exactly what we did. Plenty of chairs for rent, we got two chairs with an umbrella and a bucket of 5 drinks for $20 total. My husband got two beers and the rest were soda. We actually ended up bringing most of the cans home with us. The water was cool when we first got in but it quickly felt good and we really enjoyed ourselves for a few hours, then went back to the ship, had a late lunch and lazed by the pool for another few hours. Monday was also the first formal night, so we took a nap and took our time to get dressed as we had late seating.

 

 

To be continued.....

[bythehex]

Part 2 -

 

Tuesday we went to St. Thomas. We’ve been there many times before so we just walked around the port area for a while and then went back to the ship.

 

Wednesday we stopped at San Juan. Again, we’ve been there many, many times before. It was raining and the ship was only there from 7am to 1pm, so we opted to stay onboard, sleep late, and enjoy the inside of the ship. The sun literally came out just as we were sailing away from San Juan, and we spent the afternoon out on deck.

 

Thursday we went to Labadee. The last time we were there, you had to tender from the ship. They have a nice pier now so that’s no longer an issue, and it makes it much simpler to disembark and walk to whatever beach area you want. They’ve sure built it up since we were there last, there’s a tremendous zip line that goes over the ocean and there are lots of eating areas and bar areas, and an area for kids. We stayed there for a few hours, ate lunch on the island, and then after lunch returned to the ship to nap near the pool.

 

Friday and Saturday were at sea days. The captain had said that the weather would be changing, and he was correct almost to the minute. He told us about a cold front moving towards the US from Norway, with strong westerly winds and large waves. He told us by 1pm we would feel the winds get stronger and the temperature drop, and sure enough by 1pm the wind picked up drastically. The worst of the seas was during the night, but by evening the winds were so strong that they started to close the outside decks. All day Saturday all the outside doors were firmly shut and there were barf bags located everywhere. We don’t get seasick so it was fun to see the waves through the windows, waves which were 20 feet high and during the night there had been 70mph winds. During the day the winds were down to in the 50’s but still what the captain said were gale force winds. By the end of the day the waves were down to 10-15 foot waves.

 

Sunday we docked two hours late due to the storm and the ship going slower than anticipated. It was a madhouse getting off the ship. Everyone had a waiting area and a time their tag numbers would be called, but then getting off the ship there were long lines and you had to wait for those stupid shuttles to take you back to the terminal to get your luggage. People were pushing and shoving to get on the shuttles and to get off. I’ll get back to that in a bit. We finally got our luggage and had to wait quite a while for my brother in law to get to us, as the traffic wasn’t just people picking up, but those dropping off for the NEXT cruise.

 

I want to share our impression of the food. Remember I said the food at the Windjammer was good? It was better than the food in the dining room. We had not just one bad meal, but multiple meals during the week for dinner that were just plain bad, or were only fair at best. For example, we were at a table for six and one night five out of the six ordered filet mignon which came with garlic shrimp. The shrimps were split in the shell, and they were so overcooked it was almost impossible to get it out of the shell without using your hands to rip and tear. The maitre d told us that there were a lot of complaints about it. Another night I ordered pasta with ragout of rib over it. Well, we all had a good laugh at the teaspoon full of meat that was over the pasta. I mean, literally, I picked through the pasta and sauce and could hold the entire amount of meat on two tines of my fork. It was ridiculous. I also one night ordered the NY Strip steak medium rare, and it was so tough that you practically needed a chainsaw to cut through it. It was too tough to eat, almost inedible. These are just a very few examples of the poor quality of the food, too much more to mention. We were NOT the only ones who said they were disappointed with the food in the dining room, both the choices and the quality of the food. In frustration, the last night my husband ordered spaghetti and meat sauce from the kid’s menu. It was the best dinner he had all week.

 

Our wait staff was Martin and Wissem at table 314 in the Magellan dining room. They were GREAT. Our cabin steward was Miguel, he did a great job too. We can’t say enough about the service we received and how wonderful the entire staff was. As a matter of fact, I witnessed a great act of kindness from one of the crew members, his name I believe was Marvin Brown from Jamaica. He was in the Windjammer clearing tables, and across the room there was an elderly woman with a walker struggling to get out of her chair. He ran over, assisted her in standing and arranged her walker, making sure she was steady on her feet before she left. I thought this was above and beyond the call of duty, he was so kind to her. I witnessed a similar act by a crew member on the pool deck as well. They couldn’t do enough for their guests and it was evident by their actions.

 

Now, remember I said I would get back to the pushing and shoving part? Well as you may have seen on a different thread, there were a lot of Russians on our cruise. I’m of Russian descent on my paternal side, and I was embarrassed by the behavior of these people. Rude and obnoxious, they annoyed many, many people on the ship. If there was an inch of space in the elevator, three people would push their way in without saying excuse me, and if you said something to them they would look at you blankly as if they didn’t understand and then speak Russian to each other. I witnessed this personally many times and heard horror stories from other passengers on the ship. We were on Labadee standing on line to get food. There were two Russian woman (I do recognize the language so I know they were Russian) getting fruit from large bowls. One of the woman picked up a piece of pineapple, bit into it and then made a face and put it back into the bowl! There was a young woman on line ahead of me who started yelling at her saying “That’s disgusting! You can’t do that! You can’t take it from your mouth and then put it back in the bowl!” The Russian woman actually waved her hand at her like she was pushing her away and went right back to filling her plate. It truly was disgusting behavior.

 

There are many other people from this cruise who can attest to these stories. Normally I wouldn’t bash one particular ethnic group, but the behaviors were so pronounced it was evident. Sorry, but it’s true.

 

Despite all of that we ended up having a great cruise. DO NOT miss the ice shows, there are two and they’re both spectacular. I enjoyed the production shows as well. There’s plenty to do although I dislike the fact that having late dinner, the shows are at 7:15. Then after dinner unless you like to party and drink, there’s not much to do on the ship. Once we went to the screening room on deck 2 to see the Chimpanzee movie. Otherwise, we went to our cabin after dinner and watched TV or read.

[Ocean Dancer]

I totally agree about the rudness of the Russians and hope you feel that you are a better person to represent your culture!

 

Maitre'D............ What Maitre'D?:confused: We took that tip off so we had to pay tips in cach.

[bythehex]

We didn't take off the prepaid tips, but we didn't tip the maitre'd extra as we didn't feel as if he did anything special for us.

 

I thought it was a little presumptuous that they delivered tip envelopes to our cabin preprinted for the cabin steward, maitre'd, waiter, assistant waiter; as if we're EXPECTED to tip extra. Maybe we wanted to and maybe we didn't, but it should be up to us how many envelopes we want and for whom. Just my personal feeling.

 

Oh, here's another tidbit from how they do things on the ship. Unlike other cruise lines who deliver pool towels to your room, you have to go to the little pool hut on deck 11 to sign out towels. They're more than a little disorganized, as we got charged for towels we had already returned. They checked and we got a refund, however, if it was done in a better manner it wouldn't be an issue. It serves them right if people steal towels. Okay, they swiped my card and asked me how many towels I was taking, and I said two. Then I was expected to go to the fresh towel bin and take my own. How would they have known if I had taken 3? Or 4? Or 10? It wasn't as if they were counting them out for me. Poor procedure. Leaves them ripe for the picking.

[narrow56]

Thanks for the review! I'm sailing with my husband on the Explorer at the end of March. What were the production shows?

[Ocean Dancer]

We didn't take off the prepaid tips, but we didn't tip the maitre'd extra as we didn't feel as if he did anything special for us.

 

I thought it was a little presumptuous that they delivered tip envelopes to our cabin preprinted for the cabin steward, maitre'd, waiter, assistant waiter; as if we're EXPECTED to tip extra. Maybe we wanted to and maybe we didn't, but it should be up to us how many envelopes we want and for whom. Just my personal feeling.

 

Oh, here's another tidbit from how they do things on the ship. Unlike other cruise lines who deliver pool towels to your room, you have to go to the little pool hut on deck 11 to sign out towels. They're more than a little disorganized, as we got charged for towels we had already returned. They checked and we got a refund, however, if it was done in a better manner it wouldn't be an issue. It serves them right if people steal towels. Okay, they swiped my card and asked me how many towels I was taking, and I said two. Then I was expected to go to the fresh towel bin and take my own. How would they have known if I had taken 3? Or 4? Or 10? It wasn't as if they were counting them out for me. Poor procedure. Leaves them ripe for the picking.

 

Totally agree!!!!1 My BIL returned towels and had to go to Guest Relations 3 times to remove the charge!!

 

Also he was charged $2.50 for a glass of water in the theatre, never gave a card!!:confused:

[bythehex]

Thanks for the review! I'm sailing with my husband on the Explorer at the end of March. What were the production shows?

 

I only remember one name of a show, it was called Invitation To Dance and it was choreographed by Cheryl Burke and Louis Amstel from Dancing With the Stars. All the three production shows were very, very good. I think another show was called Fast Forward, someone can correct me if I'm wrong. I enjoyed them all very much.

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the review.

[abhb]

Thanks for the review. We will be on her on Sunday. I hope the food gets better:D

[PathfinderEss]

Thanks for your review, sounds like all in all you had a good time.

[bythehex]

All in all we had a great time. We don't really sweat the small stuff. Food could have been better, behavior by some could have been better. However, the ports were great, we loved the production shows and the ice shows, and...we weren't at work! No phones, no computers, no calls interrupting our dinners, and plenty of rest & relaxation.

 

Explorer is a beautiful ship, no doubt about that. It was a great value for our money and we'll sail her again. But, we'll be a trifle wary of the food. :(