Voom Surf and Stream - don’t waste your money

Item: Explorer of the Seas
Rating: 4.4
Author: brianhope61

Explorer of the Seas Cruise Review

brianhope61

Contributor Level: Third Mate

Cruises: 4-6 cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 7

Overall rating:

4.4 out of 5

14 Night Scandinavia & Russia (Southampton Roundtrip)

Sail date: July 07, 2019

Ship: Explorer of the Seas

Cabin type: Suite

Cabin number: 9314

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 5 years ago

Review summary

Excellent time overall with some good port visits.

Embarkation

4 out of 5

Hectic as always but quicker to board a Key Programme purchased which gives priority boarding

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

5 out of 5

Crown & Kettle Pub

1 out of 5

Crown and Kettle English style pub service terrible, the only place we had poor service and stick to bottled drinks as they don’t appear to serve enough draught beer to keep it fresh Glad we had the drinks package and could leave the drinks and go to another venue otherwise I would have asked for a refund This review is for the Crown And Kettle English Pub ( which is not listed as a venue choice ) next to the Cafe Promenade and NOT the venue called The Pub which was fine

Main Dining Room

5 out of 5

Decent quality food in the Main dining room.We had the Ultimate Dining Package and only used it a few times as the food in the dining room was very nice

Schooner Bar

5 out of 5

Open plan and very popular so get here early if you want a decent seatGood entertainment

Café Promenade

4 out of 5

Even have English style Steak pies as well as the standard pizza and sandwiches

Windjammer Marketplace

5 out of 5

Decent selection if you don’t want to spend 2 hours on your evening meal

Onboard Activities

1 out of 5

Voom surf & stream supposedly the fastest internet at sea If that’s the case I would hate to see the worst Only download speed of 1 Meg and unable to stream without constant buffering even a simple YouTube video so don’t even think about any movies even though all the advertisements say you can “enjoy” TV or Netflix Save your money Really should be no stars

Art and Photo Gallery

1 out of 5

Art Auctions, who buys these paintings?Someone must spend otherwise why would the Cruise Companies give them the space but definitely not for me

Casino Royale

4 out of 5

Typical onboard Casino

Solarium

5 out of 5

Nice place to relax as over 16’s only but gets very busy

Perfume Shop

2 out of 5

Limited range of products and more expensive than the High Street shops in England

Entertainment

5 out of 5

Decent quality shows in the theatre

Service and Staff

5 out of 5

Excellent service from the Majority of Staff

Ship Quality

5 out of 5

Very clean but is starting to look a little tired in places A refurbishment is planned for early 2020

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5

Excellent Junior Suite with loads of storage space

Ship tip

Do not book the WiFi package. Max speed I could download was 0.9Mbps. Not even fast enough to stream a low resolution YouTube video without buffering.we even lost signal for almost 2 days when we were docked in St Petersburg

Thumbs up

Ports of call

Stavanger, Norway

4 out of 5

Avoid The Red Hop on Hop Off busses at this port Cost £60 for 2 tickets only to find it takes you away from the main Tourist type shopping area. We hopped off at stop 3 and took a slow walk back to the ship via the pedestrianised shopping streets

Thumbs Up 2

Southampton (London), England

4 out of 5

A bit disorganised at check in but still quicker to board than in Florida

Thumbs Up 2

Tallinn, Estonia

5 out of 5

Head for the Old Town and take the Road Train tour Bit bumpy but good way to spend 30 minutes and get an overview of the streets They even have a KGB museum

Thumbs Up 3

Stockholm, Sweden

5 out of 5

Skagen, Denmark

5 out of 5

Nice compact resort Just get the port shuttle only takes 5 minutes

Thumbs Up 2

St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

3 out of 5

Not a favourite port of call

Thumbs Up 1

Oslo, Norway