Explorer of the Seas review 29th June 15, 13 nights Western Med cruise.

[cymru cruiser]

 

 

 

[gaechann]

I'd love to come to Oz, I have family in Newcastle, NSW. My hubby won't fly so itll have to be a pipe dream until we can do a world cruise one day.

 

 

 

Is it true you guys down there don't have to pay grats, or is that a rumour?

 

 

Thank you for the feast of photos of a very nice looking ship! We have been on the Voyager pre makeover & enjoyed her so I'm sure we'll love Explorer too!

Regarding the grats question - we have some ships here full time - P&O Australia, Carnival & Princess who abandoned the grats as Australia is a tip-free country & the passengers were revolting but their higher prices compared to RCI for instance where we have the option to pay grats or not reflects that the grats are now just built into the price!

Personally I usually only book with them if there's a "too good to miss" special though some special itineraries have tempted me also I must admit!

[cymru cruiser]

Thank you for the feast of photos of a very nice looking ship! We have been on the Voyager pre makeover & enjoyed her so I'm sure we'll love Explorer too!

Regarding the grats question - we have some ships here full time - P&O Australia, Carnival & Princess who abandoned the grats as Australia is a tip-free country & the passengers were revolting but their higher prices compared to RCI for instance where we have the option to pay grats or not reflects that the grats are now just built into the price!

Personally I usually only book with them if there's a "too good to miss" special though some special itineraries have tempted me also I must admit!

 

In the U.K we as a nation don't tip. I always do and have never removed them on a cruise. So I was interested when I read about the revolt down under. Thanks for explaining that you guys have just ended up paying higher fares so they could build the cost of the grats in - crafty lol

[EvertonCJ]

Hi CC

Some great photos.

Are there kettles in the staterooms?

If so, do you have to bring your own coffee or is it provided?

Many Thanks

Chris

[cymru cruiser]

9th July; Cadiz

 

The alarm was set for 0645am so that we had plenty of time to get up and ready and get breakfast. We were docking at 8am and we were meeting our guide Patricia outside the terminal at 0850am.

 

Having horses and doing dressage with some of them, docking in Cadiz gave us a fantastic opportunity to visit the Royal Spanish Riding School at Jerez de la Frontera.

 

I’d done a lot of research beforehand and pre booked the tickets for the show “How the horses Dance”. I tried to get an organised excursion going on our roll call a few months before but there was very little interest. So we resigned ourselves to getting the train there and back and booked our tickets directly with the school.

A couple of weeks before both J and C on our roll call showed an interest in going also. So I got back in touch with Cadiz and Beyond dot com to see if they could do us transfers for the 10 of us (8 adults and 2 children). I explained that we had already booked our Riding school tickets so J and C would do the same and could they simply do us a transfer there and back?

The research I’d done beforehand lead me to be slightly concerned about getting the train back from Jerez to Cadiz. The station in Jerez is apparently a 30 minute walk from the Riding School and taxi’s aren’t easy to find. We would have really had to push it to get the train back in time for boarding.

 

Stephen at Cadiz and beyond dot com was extremely helpful and “too’d and throwed” with me over numerous emails over several days. In the end we agreed on times and a price.

 

An air conditioned mini bus with child seats for the kids would meet us at Cadiz at 9am to get us to Jerez for 10am and return from Jerez at 2pm to get us back to Cadiz by 3pm. We hoped this would give us some time to explore Cadiz before returning to the ship.

Our guide was called Patricia and she would be waiting for us with a sign with my CC user name on. We were able to pay individually, so that no one had to pre book for anyone else. After all despite the fun we’d had chatting on our roll call we were strangers to each other.

 

We met in the terminal at 0850am and walked out together to find Patricia. We couldn’t find anyone with a sign initially but we were a bit early. There were several taxi drivers offering tours and one lady stood looking for someone. As I approached her to see if she was Patricia she took a sign out of her bag with my CC user name on. Perfect!

Patricia explained the bus would be with us in 5 minutes. We then walked out of the port to meet the bus. We were all surprised to see that instead of a mini bus we had a 35 seater coach!

 

Patricia introduced us to our driver Jose who was from Cadiz. Patricia explained that she was from Jerez and she chatted to us all like we’d known her for ages.

 

On the way out of the port area, Jose took us the long way around, as we had plenty of time until the Riding School opened. Along the way he would tell Patricia things in Spanish that she would then translate to us in English.

Once we got to Jerez Patricia went it to full on proud of her city mode and gave us loads of information as we drove through the city. She pointed out loads of interesting buildings etc.

She told us about the festivals in her town and showed us photos on her phone of her all dressed up in traditional dress with a pretty clip in her hair for a recent festival.

Finally we pulled up outside of the Riding School and Patricia arranged with Jose to phone him later.

We went inside the gates and collected our tickets from the online booking booth. You had to show your passport or the card you had used to pay as proof of I.D.

Once we had these we stood waiting for the doors to open. Patricia thought it would be a nice idea whilst we were waiting for the show to start at 12pm to go for a wander around Jerez and go and find a nice café for a coffee. C and J’s families were up for this. We politely declined, explaining that this was one of the highlights of our trip and we wanted the free time from 10am when the riding school opened until 12pm when the show started to really explore the whole riding school. So we said our good byes for a while and went our separate ways.

When collecting our online tickets I also paid E6.50pp for the 4 of us to visit the carriage house.

 

Once the doors opened we headed straight for the toilets and then the café to get a quick drink. We then went into the gift shop in case we ran out of time later. E200 later lol we came out of the gift shop loaded with presents for ourselves and our horsey friends (house sitter, best friend, friend and vet looking after our horse).

We then went for a wander around the gardens. You can go and walk into the manor house which is situated in the centre. It’s empty of furniture but you can still appreciate what an impressive building it is. Apparently it was designed by the same man who designed Monte Carlo’s Casino and another famous building but I can’t recall which.

 

We left the house via the rear entrance and walked directly out towards two very impressive sand maneges. Riders were exercising the most beautiful stallions. One horse was being lunged by two men and had tyres dragging behind him. We assumed he was in training for carriage driving?

Behind the maneges were rows upon rows on stables. We also saw horses being exercised on a horse walker.

We entered a small building which was a working saddlery. The saddlers sat stitching and re flocking the saddles whilst we watched them. In a far room there was a display of leather work to include a very impressive pair of full chaps hung on the wall.

 

We then set off to look for the carriage house but we couldn’t find it. So we returned to the entrance and asked the lady on the gate. She explained that we had to leave the school turn right and walk along the road, turn right again and then we would come to the carriage house.

 

We did this and found it on the opposite side of the road to the Sandeman Bodega.

On handing over our tickets in the small reception the lady told us “no photos, no videos no touching” and pointed us in the direction of a courtyard.

The first building off the courtyard was hugely impressive inside. They’ve clearly refurbished several internal barns for their varying purpose. In this first building with high vaulted ceilings and polished wooden floors was a museum. 3 walls had glass cabinets that displayed hundreds and hundreds of leather work; bridles and harnesses. The last wall had numerous carriages set against it. Each carriage had a plaque that gave a description of the carriage, its purpose and how many horses were needed to pull it.

 

We walked on from here into an internal stable block. There were 4 rows on internal stables with each row having approximately a dozen stables. We got to say a close up hello to several friendly faces whilst they munched on good quality hay and stood on beds of ample straw. From the stables we walked through another arch way into a tack room which had rows upon rows of grooming kits, lead ropes, lunge reigns etc. We were able to watch two horses having a bath. Our horses love warm water for their showers but I bet these horses appreciated the cool water.

From there we walked back into the courtyard and popped to the toilets before heading into a smaller room which displayed a collection of riding attire for all of the different occasions; training, riding, showing, driving etc. The jackets were thick over long shirts, I have no idea how they cope, and they must roast. Standing in your showing gear on a hot summers day in the U.K is one thing but in the unforgiving heat of a Spanish summer is another.

 

As we were leaving we walked passed a very sleepy, clearly coming round from sedation stallion. He was being escorted back to his stable by 3 vets.

 

We then left the carriage house and headed back to the main riding school via a mini market for drinks and ice cream.

As we were walking back we saw the rest of the group just entering so we said hi and made our way to the main arena for the show. We had good seats block A, section 3, row 4; on a curve to the side of the royal box with views of most of the arena. If you know your dressage the only part of the arena we could not clearly see was B – F.

You were allowed to take photos of the arena before the horses entered but as soon as the show started photos and videos were not allowed. This was policed by the staff and we saw a few people being told to stop photographing.

 

The show ran for 90 minutes with a 10 minute break halfway through. There were in hand, ridden and driven displays all excellent. I’m sure it was enjoyable to a non horsey person, but having horses and therefore appreciating the time, training, effort and care taken to achieve such a display it was awesome! I actually found one part quite emotional and Patricia left to go outside because she felt it was emotional too. Watching the horses perform their flying changes, half passes and pirouettes was amazing. People clapped along in earnest to the display backed by dramatic music.

Once it had finished we met Patricia and the others back outside. Patricia’s phone battery had died and she asked if she could borrow someone’s phone to call the driver. One better M had her portable charger with her so we leant Patricia that so she could maker her phone call.

 

Everyone was ready to leave and keen to see Cadiz so we were back on the bus by 145pm. Our lovely driver Jose whisked us out of Jerez and back towards Cadiz. They had offered to give us a little tour of Cadiz on the way back and drop us away from the port so that we could walk back.

On the drive back Patricia pointed out hundreds of Flamingo’s on the salt plains. She also pointed a little church in the distance, miles from anywhere, were apparently a medieval King of Spain banished his wife when he tired of her! “How mean” laughed Patricia.

 

As soon as we crossed the bridge back onto Cadiz, Jose started chatting away again with Patricia translating. They pointed out an old prison reached by a causeway off the coast. Cadiz’s own Alcatraz in days gone by apparently. Jose then got quite animated pointing to the beach. Apparently the James Bond film starring Halle Berry had scenes filmed in Cadiz. The scene which is supposed to be set in Cuba (I think) where Halle comes out of the sea looking gorgeous in her bikini was filmed on a Cadiz beach. Jose was clearly a fan of Halle in her bikini lol.

One part of Cadiz sea front has lots of coloured houses and is known as Little Cuba. Apparently the influence of Cuba arrived with the tobacco all of those years ago. We passed the university hospital and some Roman ruins before approaching the Botanical gardens. At this point our youngest member of our group C’s 3 year old daughter announced that she needed the toilet.

Jose said it was a good place to stop as there were toilets in the Botanical Gardens. We all decided this was as good a place as any to get off the bus, so we said our thanks to Jose and Patricia and went our separate ways. We popped into the gardens to get ice creams from the café, we wandered around but to be honest we were not looking at the plants our eyes were taken to the tree tops to the parrots!

 

We continued along the clean pretty sea front before heading in land to cross the peninsula back to the port. We strolled through narrow side streets and eventually saw Explorer peering out above us so we knew we were heading in the right direction.

Near the port we found another public park/garden. Inside was the hugest statue/monument I have ever seen. Built in the early 1900’s in memory of the revolution in 1812 the monument is impressive and HUGE! It even has an eternal flame burning.

On entering the port we stopped at the shop to get my Nan a postcard. At the age of 91 she doesn’t need present or tourist tat so I send her a postcard from every port which she loves.

 

We bumped in to Mike and spent 10 minutes chatting to him about Explorer and Indy and asking him questions about how one must behave to find themselves removed from a cruise ship! He gave examples but obviously did not go in to specifics. He’s too professional but it was very interesting.

He is on Explorer until October. His replacement boards in Dubai but he stays on until Goa. He is then on vacation over the winter before heading to Ovation. He told us later in the holiday that he was asked if he wanted to stay in Europe and be based out of the U.K on Navigator next year, so he said yes as it gives him more time to see his family. He is a really lovely guy, clearly very good at his job and a credit to his company. I hope that they appreciate him.

 

We then intended to go walkabout up on deck to take some more photos of Cadiz before we left. But we didn’t get very far as we bumped into B in the Solarium. We chatted for a few moments but as we went to leave, the couple from Swansea who we’d met at the water taxi station in Toulon, offered us their beds as they were moving. Diolch yn fawr! (Thankyou very much)

 

We stayed in the solarium for a couple of hours, but I got up and took some photos of us leaving from the peak a boo bridge. I also got some good shots of the Pilot boat pulling alongside.

 

At 7pm ish we went back to the cabin to get ready for dinner. I watched the end of American Sniper that I’d missed last night. If you purchase a movie you can save it to re watch it for 24 hours. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it, but it was gritty and compelling. I can’t spoil it but it’s based on a true story and definitely worth the watch.

 

Dinner was lovely and plentiful. Olex came replacing M’s coke every time she finished one, but we’ve asked him to stop at 3 or she might as well drink it from a tap. (I don’t buy fizzy drinks at home so she was in her element). He put the third in front of her and told her, her ration was up before laughing and walking away.

 

After dinner everyone was tired after a long day so we headed for our cabins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cymru cruiser]

 

 

 

[cymru cruiser]

 

 

 

old walled entrance to Cadiz

 

 

[cymru cruiser]

 

 

 

sorry its on its side

 

[cymru cruiser]

10th July, Sea Day

 

I was up and out on deck at the solarium by 8am to get sun beds for the morning. Despite it being overcast and chilly I got the last 4 beds. I’m sure people must set their alarms get up and then go back to sleep once up there lol. I had breakfast from Windjammer and ate in in the Solarium and G and the girls joined me just after.

 

At 10am I went down to the theatre on deck 3 for the Captain’s Corner. On stage were the Captain, Chief Engineer, Hotel Director and Cruise Director. Two of the entertainment team, walked amongst the audience holding microphones to those who had a question to ask.

 

I’m not going to write out each question and answer but here is a jist of the information gained from the Q&A:

 

 

Explorer has 4 stabilisers each 5.5m-6m long

She has 6 diesel electric engines

She uses an average of 250 tonnes of fuel per day

The bridge uses paper charts until September when they will not be used anymore

Docking to port or starboard is entirely the Captain’s decision.

They calculate food and drink consumption based on historic records.

UK – drinks more beer, US drinks more cocktails.

They used Adventure records from last year to calculate for Explorer this year.

They loaded 191 pallets of food and drink in Southampton

The Captain came to Explorer, 8 weeks ago, from Liberty so the layout was very familiar to him. He had a 5 day over lap with the previous Captain.

The ship has 1200 crew; 950 hotel, 140 deck and engine the rest marine tech and officers.

There were 3700 passengers on board.

There are rules of the road to regulate which ship gives way to which.

Ships can operate until they are 30 years old; RCI have changed their minds of the sale of Majesty?

The ship has a dead weight of 10,000 tonne. The ship itself actually weighs 55,000 tonne.

They can land a helicopter with a maximum weight of 3.8 tonne which is why most don’t actually land they just lower a winch.

Explorer sits 9.1 metres under the water.

There are 66 nationalities amongst the crew.

The Captain does not think ships will get bigger than the Oasis class, as it would severely limit the ports of call available.

The ship carries 2-3000 tonne of ballast, more towards the end of the cruise, when food and drink stocks have depleted.

 

The Q&A session lasted just under an hour and was well attended. Afterwards I headed up to Café Promenade to meet my daughter and then as we were walking back towards the stairs the Captain walked passed us and said a cheery hello. I said hello back and continued towards the lift before deciding really quickly to double back and call out to him as he went to get in a lift.

I said “Excuse me Captain have you a moment” he said yes of course and I went on to tell him about the incident with the teenage boy on the helipad as we were leaving Palma. I was curious to know if he had seen from the bridge and if he had sent the staff down to disperse the kids.

He said that he had not seen and would have reacted immediately if he had, but obviously they where concentrating on moving away from the dock. He said that teenagers congregating on the helipad was always a concern and that the following cruise and for the remainder of the summer holidays, the access to deck 4 forward would be blocked.

I made it clear that i was simply interested if he had seen. He thanked me for the info saying he was very grateful and that the boy was obviously showing off. Our conversation lasted less than 2 minutes, but he was happy to stop and chat and he certainly didn’t make me feel that I had inconvenienced him in any way.

On discussing this with Mike at a later date, he said the foolish boy would have ruined his whole family’s holiday as if it had been witnessed by staff, they would have been put of in the next port. His poor parents were probably oblivious to what had happened, maybe a good thing in a way as I’m sure most parents who have been absolutely mortified!

 

Whilst some folk are already packing, shopping or sat in the bars watching Wimbledon, because we are heading home and the weather is not as hot, we actually found it refreshing to still make the most of being out doors. The pool decks today where mainly empty.

 

In the afternoon we had our CC arranged cabin crawl. I’d offered to organise this and collate the cabins etc. Unfortunately due to one thing or another it wasn’t as good a turn out as planned.

To be honest that may have been my fault for organising it for one of the last sea days, it may have had a better turn out if done on the first sea day?

We were able to see a superior balcony, an aft balcony which was huge and bigger than the JS apparently. Also we saw a new inside and an inside with upper Pullman berth lowered. We showed our connecting promenade view cabins. One of the members knew that there where empty suites on her deck due to early leavers, shall we say. So we cheekily headed down to guest services to ask if we could see one.

 

We explained to Rebecca that we were CC members doing a roll call and it would be a fabulous opportunity to be able to see a suite to share with our other members online and also for us to potentially book one of future cruises. Both myself and H really laid it on, very nicely. Rebecca stance was that the ship was full. So H repeated that she knew that suites on deck 10 had been emptied the day before. As we were having this conversation Mike walked passed and said Hi to us. Rebecca disappeared in to the back office to look into it further. She eventually came back out to say that there was one suite free and the head of housekeeping would be down in 10-15 minutes if we’d like to wait. We all chatted to Mike some more and eventually Denise, Head of Housekeeping arrived. She was very lovely and whisked us up to see a Grand Suite on deck 10.

It really was very nice, the bathroom bigger than mine at home! Although the balcony was smaller than I thought it would be; very narrow.

 

As we were doing our cabin crawl we were all sharing our opinion of Explorer. The general consensus was that Rob McNally the cruise director was hardly visible and the entertainment in general was quite poor. Some staff are uninterested but on the whole staff are fantastic and go the extra mile. Silly things have been missed after the refurb’, like the skirting in our girls cabin I mentioned earlier. Also the chrome strips edging the tiles in the solarium pool have never had the plastic wrapping taken off, so it’s starting to peel and looks tacky. It’s just poor attention to detail. Apparently someone posted photos of this on the first sailing after the refurb, onto FB and Twitter and CC, but the powers that be have clearly not seen nor acted. We can all appreciate what a huge job was undertaken but to still be missing little things 10 weeks later is a little poor.

The last negative we all agreed on was the inaccuracies and poor spelling in the cruise compass. Is it casual or formal night? Is the Activities Manager called Elizabeth? If so who is Tanya who had the role one day? Word’s spelt incorrectly and words missing in a sentence. All things that could be easily prevented by someone proof reading before hitting PRINT.

 

We enjoyed our cabin crawl. It was lovely to meet some roll call members whom we hadn’t previously met.

 

After the cabin crawl finished we went down to the Royal Promenade to exchange the watch G had bought, as the screen was cracked under the plastic. It was exchanged with no query which was fab.

 

Tonight was the last formal night. RCI advertise 2 formal nights on their website of cruises 9-13 nights in duration, so we only packed 2 formal outfits each. A lot of other guests did the same. So we had to repeat one of our outfits. I’m sure no one will notice so it doesn’t matter.

 

The ship is moving quite a lot this evening as we head in to the Bay of Biscay. Over 18 knots back comes the vibration and creaking in our cabin.

 

I told Joe and Aviv in café promenade that my friend is on Explorer on the 26th July sailing. She’s celebrating her 40th and her daughter will be 16 on board. My friend is very funny and quite bonkers so i know she will absolutely adore them. Aviv said to send my friend to meet him and he’d look after her very well.

 

This evening and tonight we’ve been moving the fastest we’ve done all cruise. Sitting at between 21.5 – 21.8 knotts. The Captain had said we only needed to do 19 knotts to arrive in Southampton on time, so we wondered if may be he was out running some bad weather?

 

There was a Brit Rock party on the Royal Promenade tonight. I’m sure the ship was dancing with us as she was swaying along too. It was good fun. Not G’s cup of tea, so he watched from the window of our cabin and the girls and I went down and joined in the party with D&H.

 

Two songs were played for each country of the U.K it was good fun and lots of singing. Two ladies from Belfast sung and danced their hearts out, looking splendid in their emerald green dresses to the Irish songs.

 

After the party finished, we said good bye to D&H and wished them a safe flight home.

We returned to our cabins and the girls took some selfies with the towel monkey haha.

 

 

 

 

 

[cymru cruiser]

11th July; Sea Day

 

Our final day! G and I got up and headed for breakfast in Windjammer. We saw more than a dozen dolphins swimming alongside the ship.

 

After breakfast I went to sit in the chapel on my own for 10 minutes. Today is a tricky day for me as it’s the anniversary of my mum’s death. I appreciated the time alone to reflect without wallowing in front of the others.

On a more cheery note I then joined G in the gym, followed by a soak in the Jacuzzi.

After going to the gym we decided to be cheeky and go for a nosey around the new cabins on deck 12 forward, on the off chance we may get a peep in one whilst they were being cleaned. A cabin steward saw us and chatted to us about how wonderful the new cabins on and how we should book one on our next cruise.

 

For lunch today we had booked Giovanni’s Table. We have never eaten in a speciality restaurant on board before so we thought that the lunch time special of $15 pp was a good excuse to go and try.

The greeting we received as we walked in was fabulous, very attentive. The service and the food was superb, so full of flavour!!! I was very pleased to be able to have gluten free fried Calamari. I was a huge fan of Calamari back before my intolerance to gluten developed several years ago.

It was delicious and I made a point in asking for the Chef to be thanked.

I’m not one to normally take photos of food but I just had to.

 

At the end of our meal the girls got up to leave and we said we would stay and get the bill. The girls were stopped from leaving the restaurant by one of the waitresses and asked to return to the table. At the same time the Maitre D and two other waiting staff came out of the kitchen carrying a chocolate cake with a candle on it and proceeded to sing me happy birthday in Italian.

 

I hadn’t asked for this, neither had G or the girls, it must have been picked up off my sea pass card. I don’t celebrate my birthday, I find it difficult for the reason I’ve already mentioned about this day. But they obviously had no idea of this, so deep breath, smile and say thank you. It was very very lovely and the first birthday cake I’ve had in nearly 20 years.

 

The waitress apologised that it wasn’t gluten free but i said not to worry at all the girls could share it. Everyone was so full from our meal, that I asked if we could take it with us.

 

Once back in the cabin I cut it in half to see what it was like. There was a marzipan layer top and bottom with cake in the middle. I surgically and precisely removed the marzipan and ate it! It was worth the risk of pain later, but as there was not a crumb of cake on the marzipan I was actually fine. Phew; it would have been such a shame not to have a taste.

 

The meal and service in Giovanni’s was nothing short of perfect. I’d recommend anyone to give it a go. We will certainly go back on future RCI cruises.

 

After lunch we decided to do a bit of shopping in the gift shop. On purchasing over $40 of logo gifts I asked if I could have my C&A 10% discount off. The response of the lady serving was a little sharp “If you must” I have now idea why she felt the need to speak to me like that but I replied “Well yes it would be very kind of you, thank you” mmmmmmm

 

For the afternoon we split up. J went up to her favourite sun bathing spot forward on deck 13 above the new cabins, there were always plenty of sun beds available here and aft of deck 12. I think that when people comment that no sun beds can be found, they mean surrounding the pools.

G and M headed to play shuffleboard, before playing golf and watching the flow rider and I headed for the solarium, for one last afternoon of sunbathing and relaxing.

 

Apparently whilst they were watching the flow rider the Captain came by and watched for a short while also. He was also seen on the pool decks talking to guests that afternoon.

 

G came back to the solarium to get me and I’d dozed off, luckily I wasn’t snoring. We chatted for a while about what had been our favourite day etc, before heading back to the cabin to get ready for our last dinner.

 

At dinner tonight there were noticeable empty tables. Whether this was because people were packing, had booked a speciality restaurant or where avoiding their waiters after removing their grats who knows. Anyway for whatever reason they missed a good night because the waiting staff all sang a good bye song to us and paraded waving napkins.

 

At the start of the meal when Olex brought me my sea pass card back with the drinks he wished me Happy Birthday, oh buggar yes they noticed too!

Anyway my dessert came out with a candle and Michael, Olex and our head waiter sang me Happy Birthday and some kindly folk on neighbouring tables joined in. I said thank you whilst as red as a beetroot.

 

After dinner we wished Michael and Olex safe flights home to India and Ukraine and thanked them very much for looking after us. One of the other waiters took a photo of the 4 of us with Michael and Olex which was nice.

 

After dinner we went to watch the raffle draw for the $495 Invicta watch. The Jewellery store was heaving and spilling out into the Royal Promenade. It was one raffle ticket per $50 purchase, we had 3 tickets but unfortunately our luck was not in.

 

We went and said good bye to the guys in Café Promenade. I took a photo of a very smiley Aviv. He had loads of people giving him their email addresses and asking to keep in touch.

 

We saw a group from our roll call and headed over to have a final chat and say good bye. We then headed down to the photo gallery to purchase a few copies of a gorgeous formal photo of our two girls for their grandparents.

 

We then returned to our cabin to pack and some how managed to squeeze it all in.

 

In the morning after breakfast we self disembarked. Very easily done; out of the cabin and down to deck 4. We were in the car by 0830am and back home by 1pm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cymru cruiser]

 

 

sorry this is on its side

 

this is Aviv. The lads in the background refused to get out of the photo..

Go meet him in cafe promenade - he's fab

[goodycruising]

In the U.K we as a nation don't tip. I always do and have never removed them on a cruise. So I was interested when I read about the revolt down under. Thanks for explaining that you guys have just ended up paying higher fares so they could build the cost of the grats in - crafty lol

 

With Royal Caribbean, on the Aus site, it is an option to pay gratuities when booking, and it is required if doing "my time dining". Otherwise they will add gratuities to your daily charges on board, and they can be requested to be taken off, but I understand that is a black mark against the staff. Never spoken to anyone that has taken them off personally.

 

So our experience is just add the price of gratuities on when booking Royal and they are done. If we get good service we will tip extra, and most cruises we do (eg: diamond lounge). When we compare prices for similar cruises with the other brands they seem to come out about the same if you take the gratuities required or not into account. Some people feel that it is an extra cost that makes Royal too expensive, but you need to compare the totals for the other lines, and I haven't yet been convinced to go with one of the others due to it being a better price. :)

 

 

LOVING THE REVIEW! Thanks for taking the time with the great pictures :)

Edited July 20, 2015 by goodycruising

[jennywren46]

Loving your review. Bringing back memories we were on June 3rd loved every moment of it . Were you on deck 7 I'm sure we had fernando as our cabin steward . Thank you. 😀

[sky0000547]

He said that teenagers congregating on the helipad was always a concern and that the following cruise and for the remainder of the summer holidays, the access to deck 4 forward would be blocked.

 

 

I hope the helipad is not blocked for my cruise. It probably make sense to block access late at night or at least stop the congregation of teens on the helipad.

[cymru cruiser]

With Royal Caribbean, on the Aus site, it is an option to pay gratuities when booking, and it is required if doing "my time dining". Otherwise they will add gratuities to your daily charges on board, and they can be requested to be taken off, but I understand that is a black mark against the staff. Never spoken to anyone that has taken them off personally.

 

So our experience is just add the price of gratuities on when booking Royal and they are done. If we get good service we will tip extra, and most cruises we do (eg: diamond lounge). When we compare prices for similar cruises with the other brands they seem to come out about the same if you take the gratuities required or not into account. Some people feel that it is an extra cost that makes Royal too expensive, but you need to compare the totals for the other lines, and I haven't yet been convinced to go with one of the others due to it being a better price. :)

 

 

LOVING THE REVIEW! Thanks for taking the time with the great pictures :)

 

thank you for explaining, that's basically the same as here.

And thank you for following my review. Conclusion still to come.

[cymru cruiser]

Loving your review. Bringing back memories we were on June 3rd loved every moment of it . Were you on deck 7 I'm sure we had fernando as our cabin steward . Thank you. 😀

 

Hiya Yes we had connecting cabins 7587 and 7589, lovely man.

[cymru cruiser]

I hope the helipad is not blocked for my cruise. It probably make sense to block access late at night or at least stop the congregation of teens on the helipad.

 

omg sorry I never realised I hadn't finished the sentence!!

Would be blocked late at night!!!

 

The access was closed when we boarded in Southampton but had re opened by the time we sailed. So don't panic if you get on board and see the barriers closed.

[cymru cruiser]

Overview

 

Cabin

Our cabins were not at all claustrophobic as we had feared not having a balcony for the first time. I just got in to the habit of running down to deck 4 for some fresh air first thing in the morning. The weather was very kind to us all cruise so there were no times when we didn’t know what it would be like up on deck without being able to see for ourselves.

G surprised me by saying that he would have one again if it was a case of that or no cruise and I agreed.

There was noise from the Royal Promenade. It didn’t stop us from getting to sleep nor did it wake us up, but it was noticeable. The music was not turned off at night and could still be clearly heard in the middle of the night. I’m surprised it did not disturb me as I’m a light sleeper but I’m more surprised that it continued to be played right through the night.

Our cabin was next to a crew storage area. I was a little concerned about noise from there but there was none.

We had plenty of storage and the window sofa was a great feature and a great spot for people watching. Just don’t forget to close your curtains when you are getting changed or you’ll give everyone a show!

 

 

Staff

Staff as a whole were very very good. Other than one or two instances I have mentioned.

Stand out service has to go to Mike Cooke, Head of Security and Aviv and Joe in Café Promenade. They are true credits to their company and I hope they are appreciated. We also loved our waiter Michael and assistant waiter Olex.

 

The Cruise director was in our opinion quite poor as I’ve already mentioned. I saw him once walking around the ship. Yes he was in the theatre at night and headed the Royal Promenade parties but he just wasn’t visible generally. I appreciate that we had Joff Heaton on Indy last year and he is such a huge personality, but I’m sorry Rob there was just something missing.

 

The Captain and his officers were often seen around the ship. Yes they belong on the bridge but it was nice to see them and the Captain happily interacting with guests.

 

 

Conclusion

 

Our overall opinion of Explorer is positive. G went into the booking joking that she was going to be a rowing boat in comparison to Indy. I went on without blinkers and prepared to give her a fresh unbiased opinion, despite lots of recent negative reviews.

She wasn’t a patch on Indy but whether that is simply because she isn’t or that RCI cost cutting is more obvious? I don’t know. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. The MDR food choice was good but not as good as previous, the quality remains excellent, there is just less choice. I was given the same gluten free dessert for 9 nights in a row! I had to ask for an alternative some nights by looking at G’s dessert menu, as I wasn’t offered one to look at. Don’t get me wrong it was a gorgeous chocolate brownie type dessert but it got a bit repetitive.

The food selection in Windjammer was limited.

We got the impression that the staff (and we were told this by staff) were having an adjustment getting used to the British and European guests after Explorer being based out of the U.S for so long.

We enjoyed her and had a fabulous holiday albeit for a couple of little annoyances. I wouldn’t be in a rush to sail on her again, in the same way that I couldn’t wait to get back on Indy after our first cruise, however we are not put off trying other Voyager class ships.

 

If you have cruised on her before you may agree, if she is your first cruise please don’t worry she is impressive and you will have a fabulous time.

 

We still love Royal Caribbean and have in fact booked Harmony out of Barcelona for next year and we cannot wait!

 

That’s all from me, thank you for following along and please do not hesitate to ask any questions and I’ll do my best to answer. Or simply say Hi so I know you’ve read it.

[jennywren46]

Lol. we had 7596, he was lovely but then they all are . Rob McNally was around a lot on our sailing as was the captain. Who was very friendly often in the windjammer and around the deck. Tanya the activities manager left the ship the same day as us,so maybe that was the reason things weren't up to scratch. I've loved reading your review Thanks for doing it.

[cymru cruiser]

Lol. we had 7596, he was lovely but then they all are . Rob McNally was around a lot on our sailing as was the captain. Who was very friendly often in the windjammer and around the deck. Tanya the activities manager left the ship the same day as us,so maybe that was the reason things weren't up to scratch. I've loved reading your review Thanks for doing it.

 

thats how Tanya appeared in the cruise compass one day then lol.

[moshek]

Thank you for a fantastic review. We sail on Sunday and your info on Monaco has been especially helpful as we are planning to go by train too.

 

Michelle x

[Borderbairn]

Thanks for your wonderful review. We were meant to be on this cruise but had to cancel a week prior to sailing due to illness. Reading this was such a pleasure and makes me all the more determined to one day make it on board:)

[cymru cruiser]

Thank you for a fantastic review. We sail on Sunday and your info on Monaco has been especially helpful as we are planning to go by train too.

 

Michelle x

 

Hiya

You are very welcome. Its well worth doing and was easy. Monaco is stunning but very hilly. It wasn't as hard to navigate as I'd expected. Looking down on the marina you have the palace up above one side and the casino up above the other. Pick yourself up a map in the train station or down load toms and you'll be fine. Leave yourself time to see Villefranche on the return. Also if you can, go upstairs on the train as you'll get better views of the coast as you zip along.

 

My friend who's on the same sailing as you, its her first cruise. I've been trying to get her to join in on your roll call but she hasn't liked to, but she is signed up to the meet and mingle!

 

Have a great time.

[cymru cruiser]

Thanks for your wonderful review. We were meant to be on this cruise but had to cancel a week prior to sailing due to illness. Reading this was such a pleasure and makes me all the more determined to one day make it on board:)

 

oh no bless you. I remember you from our roll call. I'm so sorry to hear that.

I hope that you are on the mend and are able to cruise in the not too distant future. Take care x

[Shelley61]

The World, if you've never heard of it google it

 

:eek: Googled it... Oh. My. Goodness!

 

(Though the thought of apartments each having their own kitchenette on a cruise ship throws me when we're not allowed to take an iron!)