Explorer 9 night 6/16/06 Royal Suite Review DCL Comparisons VERY LONG

[Sweetspot]

I loved reading reviews to get excited about the cruise and was constantly looking for what to expect from the Royal Suite. It’s only fair that I write my own review of our experience last week on the Explorer. First we are a family of 5 and have cruised 4 times prior on the Disney Magic in cat 4, cat 3 and cat 1 which is the equivalent to the Royal Suite. We love DCL and tried hard not to compare RCL to DCL but at was hard at times.

 

Embarkation: Getting to the ship was rather painless, getting off would not be as easy. Bayonne’s port isn’t exactly a pretty site but it was really convenient living in NJ.

 

The Royal Suite: This is a beautiful, very large room but for a family it isn’t a good pick. The room is about 1,100 sq feet and is broken down into a living area with table for 4 and wet bar, piano area, 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom and in a separate room butler’s pantry. On DCL the same amount of space (Roy Suite) gives you 2 bedrooms, a study (which can be a 3rd bedroom), butler’s pantry, 2 ½ baths, large living area and dining room. While the RS is very impressive it’s not very functional for what we needed.

 

The balcony is amazing and the hot tub on the balcony was fun for the kids although they only had time to use it once. The bathroom is beautiful with a shower large enough to hold the entire family. Another ½ bath would have been wonderful.

 

The room is a technical nightmare. The tv in the living room needed to be turned on and volume controlled with one remote control and the channels changed with another touch screen remote control. The touch screen’s battery needs to be charged and the battery wasn’t able to hold a charge and continued to die. Also, they would stop working all together and would have to be reset. For 4 nights we needed to call someone to either turn the tv on or off. We would have left the thing on but it glowed and would keep the kids awake. Also, the hand held remote is huge (needed 2 hands to hold it and was plugged in most of the time across the room), glows and beeps so if you are laying awake watching tv and changing the channels you can’t do it without disturbing anyone trying to sleep. The tv in the bedroom goes up and down but the sound is so loud that we started turning the power off and then turning the sound off through the sound system. I never could get the sound system sounding right. They did get the living room tv working on one remote by the 5th day,. Didn’t make sense to me why they hadn’t done that before.

 

There are still lights we aren’t sure how to get on and off. One plate is behind the tv which is stuck in an upright position and it’s hard to read what button goes to what light. Again, all really nice touches by RCL and it is impressive but in the end we didn’t feel it was functional.

 

Sleeping was interesting. We had the bedroom be which wasn’t really comfortable but not the worst I’ve slept on. (DCL’s suites bedding is amazing!!) My kids were to sleep on the queen pullout and a rollaway in the bedroom. The pullout mattress was like springs with a sheet on it so one kid slept on one end of the sofa and another on the other end. Our steward was great at making the couch up for them every night. The rollaway was sagging terribly in the middle and the steward propped up the middle with a pillow.

 

The doorbell… I never want to hear a doorbell again! Since we were so close to the elevators I think every kid walking by hit the bell, all hours of the night. I heard others in suites saying the same thing so it wasn’t just us.

 

We wouldn’t cruise in the RS again with my family, had it booked for Nov and next June and cancelled them. For a couple it would be wonderful but for us it didn’t work.

 

Food: I loved Windjammers, way better than DCL’s Topsiders. We ate most every meal there and only went to the dining room 3 times (yes I fully tipped anyway). We didn’t click with our servers, they never broke a smile and weren’t very good the 3 nights we were there. It might have been that we didn’t go long enough to give them a decent chance but we were happy with Windjammers so didn’t miss the dining room. I really enjoyed being able to sample tiny amounts of all that was offered without having to ask for and waste most of a second appetizer, etc. Not going to the dining room made for a much more relaxed trip.

 

My son liked Johnny Rockets late night take out but I thought it seemed the same as you could get at Windjammers. It might be different during dinner hours and eating in but I didn’t think it was worth the extra money. The Promenade Café had great little sandwiches on croissants but unfortunately I didn’t try them until the end of the trip. Loved the frozen yogurt and ate our weight in chocolate chip cookies. We really never went hungry and enjoyed most everything we had other than in the dining room.

 

The one thing I didn’t like was that they ran out of food. They ran out of ice tea day 3. They picked some up in San Juan but it was sweetened so if you didn’t want soda you had sweetened ice tea, lemonade, fruit punch or water. They also ran out of melon, pineapple, butter, chips from room service, chocolate ice cream at Ben and Jerry’s, among other things. I don’t really like diet coke so really missed the ice tea.

 

Concierge Lounge: Very nice, something DCL doesn’t have. Ricky is wonderful and would do anything to make your trip great!! We really enjoyed going there for a drink every night. We met some nice people and found this to be a great perk. I had read that it gets really crowded and never found it to be standing room only so we were lucky.

 

Entertainment: When compared to DCL not nearly the same. DCL has a family show, your main show and then an adult show every night. There was only one show on RCL which left more open time which is both good and bad. Much less rushing and more time to just relax but at times not much else to do but sit in a bar.

 

The entertainment was Las Vegas type that must cater to older people. We had an impersonation of Red Foxx, someone singing Tom Jones and another Wayne Newton. The Knoweson (I think that’s it) Brothers were amazing and Love and Marriage and Quest were great but I kinda missed what I had gotten use to at DCL. Something more to do at night would have been great. I thought Allan Brookes was great.

 

Kids Clubs: Walkie talkies are a life saver. My 10 year old loved the clubs and thought the counselors were nicer than on DCL. I like the hours at DCL better and like that they don’t charge after 10:00 since she loved taking advantage of bent rules and stayed up late. Without beepers and walkie talkies they can’t get you so bring them. She fell at the end of the cruise and fractured her arm and she called me to get her. Otherwise since we weren’t in the room we wouldn’t have knows.

 

My 14 year old found friends and was with them most of the cruise. They weren’t thrilled with the club activities and spent a good deal of time in the Promenade café eating pizza and talking. My 16 year old is high functioning AS and has does well on DCL but didn’t do well with RCL because they have no supervision in the teen area until later in the evening. Older teens (over 18 because I saw them drinking elsewhere) took it upon themselves to make his life miserable. We spoke with the counselor and Ricky and think RCL dealt very well with the situation.

 

Ports: We’ve been to St. Thomas before so decided with the weird time (1:00) we would book an excursion to St. John to say we had been there. Trunk Bay is very nice but it was such a short time on the beach it was a waste of travel time. Also, Trunk Bay didn’t seem much different than beaches on St. Thomas so I wouldn’t waste the travel time again but I’m very happy we were able to get there.

 

We’ve also been to St. Maarten before and after our first time there we never bothered getting off the ship again until this year. We decided to take an excursion to Orient Beach and loved it! The beach is beautiful, the bus is very comfortable, the tour guide very informative and the lunch very nice. There was nudity but you needed to look for it. It wasn’t everywhere on the beach they took us to.

 

San Juan: Great day to stay onboard and enjoy less crowds. We were going to walk around but decided against it.

 

Labadee is absolutely beautiful but the tendering process is horrible. We got in line at 11:00, heeding the early crowd warnings, yet it still took an hour of line to get there. I didn’t love it there. I know I am in the minority but I would have been happier around an empty pool.

 

Disembarkation: I’m so happy that I read here that it was going to be horrible so that I could knew what to expect. We had white tags, first called, and we weren’t called until almost 11:00 and then getting off and on to a bus and into the warehouse and madness was horrible. There has to be a better way.

 

All in all is was a very nice, relaxing week. I didn’t encounter many rude people, kids seemed well behaved and staff were very nice. We won’t go in the RS again but have booked connecting JS on another 9 night including Bermuda instead of Labadee. Hopefully, those rooms will work better for our family. Sorry this is so long. If you have any questions I’ll do my best to answer them.

[GMoney]

Your review is very interesting.

 

What's "high functioning AS?"

[masonpips]

Great review (from someone who has cruised both lines, but not in the big suite). I think the JS will work better for you - they are much wider than the DCL rooms (Cat 4-9) and with pulling the beds apart and one child using the sofa, they can all sleep in there. And the bathrooms are very nice and big too

[just4kixx]

Your review is very interesting.

 

What's "high functioning AS?"

 

High functioning autistic spectrum, I believe

[Sweetspot]

Thank you Just4kixx I shouldn't have abreviated that. Masonpips, funny to see you over here. We cruised on the same Nov. cruise I think 1 years ago. I still envy your spreadsheets!

[teresapink]

What may also work well for your family is 2 connecting rooms. We have done this twice with a JS and a D1 and I think it would be less expensive than the RS...You would then have 2 full baths 2 BR and 2 sofa beds....

 

Of course none of that would change the fact that the entertainment and teen clubs were less than acceptable...and I guess it's all about the kids having a good time when you are a parent, isn't it?

 

Enjoy your next cruise!

T

[Sweetspot]

Can you do a JS and a D1 connecting? I don't feel right going on vacation and not at least being connecting. I need to go look into a JS and D1! We are in our room more than most with our son so for us space is important but it gets really expensive.

 

I do think our cruise was an entertainment fluke. I think they change it up and it is the luck of the draw.Again, with DCL as a comparison, we saw the same performer with the same act on 4 cruises. That gets old too if you're a repeat cruiser but they do try to offer more entertainment. Curious, the first couple night were the RCL dancers and then we didn't see them again. Do they go from ship to ship at ports or do they only work a couple nights a week?

[CruiseExplore06]

The report was very interesting. I don't believe the teens were thrilled with the activities that was hold @ Optix when I was on board because I was able to see them everywhere but the club on most nights.

[elleluv]

Can you do a JS and a D1 connecting? I don't feel right going on vacation and not at least being connecting. I need to go look into a JS and D1! We are in our room more than most with our son so for us space is important but it gets really expensive.

 

 

Take a look at the JS on the aft of Deck 10 that connects to a D1... :D There's only 2 of them, so you'd probably have to book early... I'll bet they go quick. But if I were looking for a JS with a connecting D1, I would definitely go with one of those! :D

[wrp96]

Can you do a JS and a D1 connecting? I don't feel right going on vacation and not at least being connecting. I need to go look into a JS and D1! We are in our room more than most with our son so for us space is important but it gets really expensive.

 

You might also look at the Royal Family Suite which has two bedrooms and two baths - plus access to the concierge lounge.

[Sweetspot]

We looked into the RFS but they go so fast they were booked on the day the dates opened up. The JS & D1 elleluv suggested must also be popular because they aren't available either. I checked the D1 price against the JS and the price difference would have been $1,200, that's a nice savings.

[just4kixx]

Thank you Just4kixx I shouldn't have abreviated that.

 

No problem. My 13yo son is in a very similar boat (or ship... so to speak ;)). Sorry you ran into problems with you DS and older teens. Some people can be so cruel. Glad the proper people were able to take care of the situation to your satisfaction.

 

Sounds like you have a plan for accomodations in the future. I just have 2 children, so any 2 connecting cabins works for us.

 

Glad you were able to enjoy your cruise given the circumstances you were dealing with. Thanks for your review. We will be sailing The Explorer NEXT August, and will be travelling with friends of the family who also have a Special Needs DS who is best buds with my son.

 

A~

[Sweetspot]

You're so lucky that your son has a friend that you can travel with. Be careful if you allow them in Optix. Although RCL were very concerned with the situation we ended up placing strong restrictions and dealing with this ourselves. The counselor did seem very concerned, not much else, but it was the Concierge who dealt with ship security. We were told that if we could give them her name or to just dial zero from ship phone when we saw them security would be waiting for our call and then they would deal with their parents. The Concierge followed up on this several times and we did receive a call from ship security. We saw them everywhere but decided to not ruin another families vacation and also not to take a chance that it would get worse for my son or his brother.

 

I hope your trip in August is amazing! Cruising has worked well for all of us to find something even if there are bumps along the way. I decided to call to see if even though the RFS wasn't available online if it was available and it is so I have it on hold. Any opinions about which is better, connecting JS or a RFS?

[DPurcell58]

Saw this post right before I was leaving for the long weekend. I too have a 12 yr old high functioning ASD. We're going on the Explorer this Aug. and the same trip next Aug, hoping to hook up with the 2 other boys that will be traveling. But still concerned about what will happen as my son gets older, the clubs just seem way too sophisticated for him, he likes structure. Thanks for sharing your experiences.