Explorer of the Seas Cruise Reviews - Reviews

We really had a great time. The shows were great. Ports of call were great. No real complaints. The ship was almost too big.

We just returned from our 9 night cruise out of New Jersey to the Eastern Caribbean with our 2 kids, ages 9 and 7. Overall, it was a great time. A big challenge with the kids included there being little to NO water and pool activities at the Adventure Ocean club during the day. Therefore we opted to keep them with us on the pool deck during most days at sea. Also, the waterslide was not very impressive for them, more appropriates for ages 3 - 5, I would say. The ports of call were terrific, especially St. Thomas and the beach excursion in Dominican Republic. San Juan would have been great if we had more daylight hours, the fort was very impressive. The water park in Haiti is very challenging for adults that are not in GREAT shape. All inflatables require you to hoist your body up out of the water. My 9 year old LOVED it as did the older (ages 13 - 15) kids that we were travelling with. My 7 year old could not get used to the life jacket, which kept slipping up over his head, so he bailed out early. The food on the ship was GREAT, especially recommend the chops grille filet which you can get for an added $15.00 and all the appetizers and soups in the dining room are worth trying. I will say, however, if you are an eggs benedict fan, DO NOT waste your time with that in the dining room, the hollandaise was extremely lemony and my yolks were hard. The breakfast is pretty much the same every day, except a variation on the scrambled eggs, but there is alot to choose from including Belgian waffles, pancakes, omelets to order, scrambled and fried eggs, every different variation of breakfast potatoes and fruit, yogurt, granola, lox. My husband and I enjoyed a quiet breakfast before 8 to avoid the crowds, the kids came later. The pool deck and hot tubs were great. No real problem finding chairs unless we waited until after 11. The service was great and the shows were awesome. I would recommend every single one of them including the ice show which was just exhilarating and the Frank Vallee tribute. I would book again tomorrow if I could!!

We've cruised frequently with Royal Caribbean and I've always been impressed with the level of service offered by the lines and the cleaniness and friendliness of the staff. We've never been disappointed!

Our Grand children joined us and loved the climbing wall, pools, and ice rink. The ship is one of the easiest to navigate with the prominade as a central point. The ship was clean and the food was good.

Okay. First off, we have cruised Royal Caribbean 7 times, so we're not new at cruising. If you want to spend a full 3 days at sea in weather that is too cold to sit at the pool, and before you see land, this cruise is for you. We chose Bayonne thinking we would save on airfare, since we usually sail out of Florida...bad choice. The type of guests leaving out of New Jersey are much different than those leaving out of Florida for some reason. Their expectations seem to be lower, and the ship staff rose to those low expectations. And the "shows" that were to keep us occupied for the total of 5 days on the ship were more like high school musicals that professional productions. The very worst part was the disembarkation...we had seen bad reviews on this ship for this reason before, and were pleased to be told during the cruise that they had developed a new method for frequent Royal Caribbean cruisers. We were to meet in a special place and get off quicker...yeah right! They actually kept us longer than most of the others. I thought there was going to be a mutiny, people were so angry. Not a good experience. Believe what you may read in the reviews. We have always held Royal Carribean up as the standard that many other cruise lines should attempt to match. Not so any more. Our last 2 cruises with them have shown us that they are lowering their standards to become equal with most other lower class lines. That's a shame. The only good thing is that we have learned our lesson and will never sail out of Bayonne again. We will give Royal Caribbean another try on another ship.

Easy to navigate, spacious staterooms, beautifully decorated ship

The ship and staff were great. I was a little disappointed on the two ports that we could not go to. I thought that Royal could have given us something an on board credit or something to compensate. I did pay for a four island cruise.

The ship was very well maintained and had a lot of nice bars. We were disappointed in the TV selection, especially the lack of football on Sunday.

i thought the ship was in ship shape! evryone was very friendly, the food was great. the entertainment was wondiful. had such a good time i just booked a 10 day cruise. can;t wait!!!!

Mostly the friendly crew. I have eatn in fine restaurants. The Columbus room dinner exceeds them all. Such caring and politeness. We spent almost all of our land time on the ship. There is so much to do. Clean, clean clean.

I was disappointed in this cruise. We arrived from Chicago at 9;a.m. and did not board the ship until 1:30 we sat in a cold warehouse for 3-1/2 hrs . When boarding the ship there needs to be a person on each deck instructing people where to go. The dining are is OK but we had a screaming 6 month old baby crying for 2 hrs during dinner this was very annoying. We had to wait 1 hr for dinner to be served. We chose not to eat at the dining room we ate in the windjammer the rest of the trip. I had my bathing suit and coverup stolen from my suit case and my sister had medication taken. We left the ship at 8 a.m. and had to wait 2 hrs. for the bus to load 30 people. This was a joke. We got to the airport and had to wait another 3 hrs. for our flight.

All of the staff that we came in contact with were friendly and helpful. The ship was nicely decorated and the Promanade was a really nice touch. Unfortunately, the weather was very bad for 80% of the trip. First time in 18 years a hurricane hit Nova Scotia. The poor weather forced us to miss one port and most of the exected autumn views were obscured by fog or rain. We did have 2 days in Quebec instead of 1. The poor weather kept the passengers inside and the inside facilities and activities did not easily accommodate 3000+ passengers.

This was our second time on the Explorer of the Seas and once again she did not disappoint! We just got off of the 5 night to Bermuda that left 9/20/08. My first rave has to go to the incredible staff on this ship. These people go out of their way to anything and everything for you. They are friendly and polite and somehow still manage a smile after a 12 hour shift. I truly can't say enough about them. The ship itself is really beautiful. Although she is in need of a little TLC (chipping and rusting a bit, etc), she is kept very clean and unless you are really looking she looks pristine. It is also big enough that you never run out of a new place to explore or go and have a drink and there were plenty of places to get away from the crowd. The food on the ship was good, not great but good. The Windjammer was a bit crowded and the food their was very average. The dining room, however, had much better food and excellent service. The casino and bars were very fun and very active but I really hate all of the smoking. There is one teenie, tiny non-smoking area in the casino and there were 3 people smoking. I wish the staff would have enforced this. It is also horrible to be walking to lunch and have to walk by a line of people smoking. By the time you get to where you are going you smell like smoke. As a non-smoker this is an awful smell. I think there should definitely be a smoking area but definitely not the whole side of the ship and the casino is too small a space. We visited Bermuda on this trip and is was our third time there. We went to Snorkel Park which is within walking distance to the ship. There are jet ski rentals, snorkling and a small bar and grille. We paid $24 for two frozen drinks at the bar so needless to say, we won't be buying drinks there anymore. There was also a great glass blowing shop where I bought the most beautiful earrings. They also sell the famous rum cakes there so bonus! There were lots of scooter rentals and segway tours but we decided to walk about a mile from the ship to a secluded beach where we found sea glass by the pound, it was phenomenal. We had read about this beach and thanks to a few friendly locals we were able to find it. We even gave our favorite bartender Sujith a few pieces to bring home. Finally....the other passengers. First let me say that we met some of the nicest people ever on this cruise. It was fun to get to know people from all walks of life. I met a wacky millionaire from DC and a rapper from NYC, it was so much fun. I couldn't hep to notice, however, the lack of common courtesy that some people had when dealing with the staff. It was appalling and I was embarrassed. Even worse was that the adults also let their children treat the staff just as poorly. I found myself apologizing for their behavior! It was just really sad to see these great people being treated so poorly by some. All in all it was just a great cruise. We have one booked in December of next year but we can't wait that long to go back. 5 nights was way too short!!! The Explorer is simply magnificent and I can't wait to get back.

The Explorer of the Seas was a beautiful ship. We did not have a good experience, however, as we compared it to cruising on Celebrity where they do make you feel like a "celebrity". We got an Owner's Suite and were told that we could get dining room menu food in our room and we asked several times only to be told to look on the tv to order and the tv had no ordering. One night we spent 30 minutes on hold with room service only for them to tell us it would be another hour wait. No one on the ship could help us get food delivered to suite.

I have been on Explorer four times out of six cruises with Royal. This cruise was a good as any of the other three. The ship was in excellent shape - no rough edges were visible. The food was delicious, the shows were excellent and the crew was wonderful. I got sick on Sunday while in line in the Windjammer. The crew immediately took care of me, helping me, reassuring me and getting help. They helped an obviously difficult moment wonderfully and discreetly.

great cruise,very relaxing, wounderful ship, amazing food, shows,service is excellent but you better have some close friends or good company with you,otherwise you can fiind a lot of people in different age category with different interests/ most people in our cruise were more then 70- 80y/old.

Ship was beautiful, but crowded. Many of the tours were booked before the first day. I have never encountered this problem before. Canada is beautiful and very clean.

The service was great - waiter- Chris- always smiling and tried to give us as much information and descriptions as possible. Room steward was very friendly and extremely efficient. First time we had a balcony - I'm hooked. Wasn't large but loved it (2 chairs and small table.) Our biggest disappointment was the main selections in the dining room. We bellieve that the food was "spiced" - NOT - for the average age of the cruisers - seemed to be 80+. Food definately did not compare to other cruise lines we have been on. Food on WindJammer food was not bad but not very hot.

The ship and it's crew lacked genuine care for your time on board. This was my fourth cruise and found it to be the least enjoyed. The staff actually had attitudes! When I went to the desk for quick check out forms for departing the ship on the last day, I not only waited in line for 25 minutes, but when I got up to the desk I found staff indifferent and lacking simple personality. The last thing I want from a $7,000 cruise is staff looking down on me. We had a stateroom that had a pull out bed for our two kids, it was supposed to have had two twin beds. I thought I was getting a grand suite, got a stateroom. The shows no one on board liked. All agreed the entertainment was not good at all.

I had little to no expectations of what to do on the ship, because I was a first time cruiser. After only minutes, I was bombarded with dozens of events and activities. Live dancing performances, ice skating, rock climbing, humorous pool side activities such as belly flop contests, comedians, a night club, lively piano bars with talented musicians, and the best karaoke experience ever - the entire room was singing along! The dinner selection was spectacular! I've never been big on seafood, but the menu is designed so that I didn't have to pay for anything! I tried salmon, escargot, scallops, lobster, and other meats such as duck and lamb! Every dish was perfect and beautifully presented! By the end of our week, we were taking full advantage of the options by ordering three appetizers, three entres, and two deserts each. This alone makes the price of the cruise worth while. Boarding was also a breeze once we docked on the island. A quick swipe of your room card, and you're the boat. Briefly wait to go through the metal detector, and your on the boat! Lastly, the selection of artwork was beautiful. I regret not going to the auction to buy some of the limited pieces. Luckily, they were on display through the cruise to help inspire my imagination. If you are having any hesitations, I strongly assure you that they are unwarranted. The staff was sweet and hilarious, the events were well scheduled and worth attendance, and they even have a child care center, allowing the adults to play in the casinos or party at the bars.