Explorer of the Seas
View Ship Itineraries

138,000 tons
1,020 feet long
157.5 feet wide
29 feet draft
3,114 passengers (double)
3,838 passengers (all berths)
1,185 crew
22 knots cruising speed
14 passenger decks
Norwegian officers and international crew Bahamas Registry Entered service: October, 2000

Best For People Who Want:
A fun and jam-packed cruise vacation without ever stepping off a ship.  This ship's extensive activities, amenities and entertainment options match those of any vessel afloat - and then surpasses them. Highly recommended for families with children or groups traveling in a wide range of ages. Good balcony cabins, non-stop nightlife.

Should Be Avoided By People Who Prefer:
A luxurious cruise experience with high levels of food and service, quiet and sedate or sumptuous surroundings; large inside/outside standard cabins; gourmet cuisine; a personal level of service; single, open seating or an intimate dining experience; a close-to-the-sea cruise experience.

Onboard Experience:
The 3,838-passenger Explorer of the Seas is a Voyager-class (Voyager, Adventure, Mariner, Navigator of the Seas) ship. She appeals to passengers of all ages -- from kids to seniors -- and with nearly every taste. Happily, even those who can't do all of what the Explorer offers enjoy watching those who do. This is a real people-watching ship, drawing such a wide range of passenger nationalities that you're as likely to be greeted with "buenos dias," "bonjour" or "guten tag" as you are by "hello." You'll also find a 40-foot-high rock-climbing walls that are busy all day; ice-skating rinks for recreational skating as well as for Ice Capades-type shows; in-line skating; a three-story dining room; and the biggest casino at sea. Explorer also boasts a 9-hole miniature golf course, full-court basketball, table tennis court and three pools.

However extensive her fitness and recreational facilities, we've seen many complaints about the diminished quality of food and service aboard this ship, especially in the Lido buffet and main dining room.

Add to this RCI eliminated the free self-service ice cream in the Royal Promenade, replacing it with $4.25 per scoop Ben & Jerry ice cream. Pay-per-view in-cabin movies are $11.95 and there's even an admission charge to Johnny Rockets (although burgers are free). The small alternative restaurant, Portofino, has a $20 surcharge and food is mediocre.

While ships this size lack intimacy, many of the dozen or so bars and lounges make for pleasantly private nooks and crannies during the day, when they're not busy. But by virtue of the ship's layout, the potential to feel overwhelmed is mitigated. Hallways are slightly "jiggered" so you don't get a sense of walking down a bowling alley, as you do on many megaships. And signage is excellent so we never got lost.

Sections of the ship even feel like a neighborhood. For instance, passengers can spend the day "downtown", along the ship's "heart", a 500-foot-long four-deck-high Royal Promenade that's modeled after a mall. It's like a real street including a Harley parked outside the faux English Pub! The promenades are dotted with cafes, a 24-hour eatery for pizza, pastries and sandwiches. Shops, including a millinery selling straw hats, display their wares outside. A mini-casino with the world's biggest roulette wheel contributes a bit of that Atlantic City Boardwalk feel.

Explorer of the Seas has a unique feature: the Atmospheric and Oceanographic Laboratory, the world's first scientific laboratory aboard a cruise ship. Co-sponsored by the University of Miami and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the facility will be permanently manned by oceanographic scientists. They will give lectures to passengers on each cruise and conduct tours of the facility. There are also some displays of interest to passengers, including a touchable iceberg and an infrared imaging system that displays heat areas in the body. These last two features are fun, but the rest may be a bit too technical for most folks.

Decor:
Despite a disparate decor overall, this is an eye-pleasing ship with warm decor and the most distinct art collection of this class of ship, much of it done by celebrities like Peter Falk and Anthony Quinn.
There are many whimsical touches - like the motorcycle on the Promenade and a mannequin permanently situated on the bridge that spans the atrium - hardly anything about the decor seems gratuitous or overdone. Cabin doors are sculpted, lending a softening effect.

Particular standouts include the dining rooms; a stunning tucked-away lounge for smokers -- the Connoisseur Cigar Club -- for which you'll have to ask directions to find (it looks like F. Scott Fitzgerald could enjoy a cognac there); and the snazzy Champagne Bar, with curvaceous champagne-colored leather banquettes lending a distinct touch of elegance. The Schooner piano bar boasts all manner of nautical touches, including ropes and ship replicas.

Public Rooms:
That ice rink you hear so much about is, structurally, the core of the ship, which makes for some zigging and zagging in order to navigate around the ship's main public areas. But the Royal Promenade is indubitably the heart of this vessel. Much of the indoor activity takes place here. While nary an inch of the Promenade is sunlit, it hums with passengers all day long. For a sense of the sea, you'll have to head for the cluster of lounges on the upper decks or outside on the decks themselves. Amply decked out with recliners, the pool areas bustle with activity and also are the staging area for fashion shows and planned games. Outside, the real action takes place on sports deck, where fitness fans work up a sweat playing ping-pong, basketball or rock-climbing. Families flock to the open-air 9-hole miniature golf course.

The enormous casinos are so gilded they look like Fort Knox decorated by Ivana Trump. Passengers have to pass through this temple of temptation to get to the main show lounge. The disco pulses into the wee hours and is as likely to draw young-at-heart grandmothers as it is the Gen-X crowd. One of the more unique rooms, the Aquarium Bar, is book ended with floor-to-ceiling sea-water tanks teeming with Day-Glo tropical fish. The well-stocked two-deck library feels more like an urban bookshop and even thoughtfully provides seating at its glass wall for an overview of the Royal Promenade. Here, too, the Internet center draws the techies nearly 'round the clock. One of my favorite lounges is the Viking Crown Lounge, perched 14 decks above the ocean.
You can also get married in port in the ship's Wedding Chapel, bringing up to 60 of your friends and families. Las Vegas-style shows are scheduled in the enormous multi-level theater boasting excellent sight lines and comfortable seating.

Cuisine:
You could eat 15 times a day on Explorer, but you may not want to.  Unfortunately, the Achilles heel on this Olympian-sized vessel is the food. Despite the fancy descriptions on the menus, choices are limited and unimaginative -- unless you consider a "Titanic" salad with iceberg lettuce creative. Some meals do turn out above expectations.  But nearly ship wide, the food is lackluster.

Service:
The service on our sailing was above average. It's obvious that the multinational staff and crew get the biggest kick just seeing how much the passengers enjoy themselves on this ship. They all are cheerful, knowledgeable and eager to help, considering how often they have to help passengers keep from getting lost. The wait staff in every restaurant was noticeably solicitous and conscientious. Our dining room waiter even wrote our names down so that he would remember them.

On occasion, though, the wait staff at open-seating lunch was so busy being charming that they were slow in responding.

Cabin service staff was very efficient but unobtrusive, and were the bearers of such thoughtful gestures as beach towels that miraculously appeared in our cabin on the night before a port stop. The purser's desk was among the most responsive we've ever encountered, especially when you consider how much troubleshooting they must have to do on a ship this size. Room service on our sailing tended to be excruciatingly slow - due mainly, we were told, to the unexpected popularity of in-cabin breakfast orders that result from the large number of balcony cabins (757).

Restaurants:
After the gracious three-level dining room, the hands-down most popular venue is Johnny Rockets which now carries a $3.95 service charge. On our sailing, there was a permanent 30-minute wait for seating there. The vast Lido deck restaurant for casual buffet-style meals is cleverly designed to look like two individual eateries, minimizing the sense of size and crowds. Portofino, the alternative Italian restaurant, is a lovely intimately-lit venue, though tables are placed a bit too cheek-by-jowl to confer the kind of privacy you'd expect here. On the other hand, you're so close to other tables that you're just as likely to converse with the strangers around you and wind up making new friends. But RCI now levies a steep $20 per person surcharge for dining at Portofino.

Entertainment:
Explorer of the Seas enjoys the benefits of Royal Caribbean's fleet-wide high level of Las Vegas-meets-Broadway-style entertainment.

Though "name" performers are likely to be "I-thought-they-were-dead" variety. For example, Charo was the headliner on our cruise and even she joked that passengers ask her "Didn't I see you 276 years ago?"
  
Lounge performers may include magicians and stand-up comedians and are generally very entertaining, if not downright excellent. Personally, we found the production shows lavish, but lacking a central theme. I personally like the piano bar and Viking Crown Lounge, where a single performer provides background music. But this ship is so extensive in entertainment, you can be sure you'll find your personal favorites available (unless it's classical).

Cabins:
For the most part, cabins are, as one passenger defined them, "tie-knee". But no one on our cruise seemed to mind very much. "You shower, you dress and out you go," was how one older passenger summed it up. Hats off to Royal Caribbean for not stinting on balcony cabins:  there are steel walls between balconies instead of glass or flimsy partitions common on most new ships (they aren't really private).

Actually, cabins are more commodious than most in RCI's fleet. Inside cabins do measure a teensy 160 sq. ft; but outside cabins range from 180 to 265 sq. ft. and suites from 610 to 1188 sq. ft. Those vaunted atrium-view cabins overlooking the Royal Promenade can be mighty claustrophobic, as curtains need to remain drawn for privacy   your view is another cabin's picture window, with occupants staring back.
Personally, I don't think it's worth the extra charge -- it's better to have no view than to have someone peeking in and have to keep your drapes closed.

Cabins are superbly designed, including such thoughtful touches as beds with rounded corners and lighted vanity tables with mirrored cabinets. Storage is excellent, especially for a ship that essentially goes nowhere. Standard amenities include color TV with CNN and movies; a safe; individual temperature controls; and an RCI first -- hair dryers. Tubs are found only in the highest category staterooms; most bathrooms have just showers (though unexpectedly large ones) with medicine cabinets. There even was a full-length mirror in our "superior" category cabin.

A word of warning in cabins with minibars:  Don't touch anything in that fridge unless you plan to pay for it. The deal here is that the fridge/minibar is automatic. You will automatically be billed for anything you so much as touch for more than 30 seconds.

Fitness/Spa:
You can get more than enough fitness onboard Explorer just playing around on sports deck. But the ship's well-equipped gym still draws serious fitness buffs with its full range of the most state-of-the-art machines. The Steiner Spa is a two-level affair that, with its winding staircase, looks more like the lobby of a boutique hotel, albeit with a Greek motif. It also houses a small attractive thalassotherapy-like pool in an airy glass-enclosed but private semi-circular room. The Solarium's outdoor pool area nestles behind the spa. I could spend the entire voyage camped out in this serene area, surrounded by fountains, foliage, a retractable glass ceiling and huge whirlpools.

Children's Facilities:
With the diversions that abound, you may wonder what else kids could possibly need on this ship. But Royal Caribbean's "Adventure Ocean" youth programs offers plenty. The youth activities manager tells an assembled group of enthusiastic youngsters: "We're trained to party, stay up late and eat pizza with you." Yaaaaay!

The "Adventure Ocean" youth program has age-specific facilities and programs supervised by youth counselors for Aquanauts (age 3-5, must be toilet trained), Explorers (age 6-8), Voyagers (age 9-11), Navigators (age 12-14) and Teens (age 15-17). The program runs year-round in the Caribbean, Bermuda, Bahamas, Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska. Parents can leave their children at Adventure Ocean while they take shore excursions. For this purpose, the facilities open 30 minutes ahead of morning shore excursion departures. Otherwise, organized activities are offered from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., with group babysitting from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. for a fee. Teen centers are now open past 2 a.m.

A new program for infants and toddlers 6 months to 3 years, in partnership with toy maker Fisher-Price, will be rolled out fleetwide by the end of March 2005. The program offers 45-minute playgroups for children accompanied by an adult, involving storytelling, creative arts, music and a variety of Fisher-Price learning toys and games.  Aqua Babies are six months to 18 months old while Aqua Tots are 18 months to three years old.

Private babysitting is offered from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m., provided sitters are available, for children from one year old. The rate is usually between $8.00 and $10 per per hour depending on the number of children in the family. Cash payment is made directly to the sitter.
Arrange through Guest Services at least 24 hours in advance.

TIP: To save money on the soft drinks your kids will guzzle, we recommend purchasing RCI's all-you-can-drink soft drink package. The package includes fountain sodas and juices at all bars, lounges, dining rooms and private destinations. Kids 17 and younger pay $4.00 per person per day plus a 15% gratuity. For teens 17 and older, and adults, the charge is $6.00 per person per day plus the 15 % gratuity.

Attire:
There are two formal nights per cruise. Maybe it's this ship's particularly festive reputation that induced most men onboard our sailing to don tuxedoes for formal nights. But a dark suit is just as appropriate. In general, though, this ship offers so much to do onboard on any given evening that we noticed passengers didn't all dress alike.

Tipping:
Royal Caribbean suggests a per person per day gratuity of $3.50 for the stateroom attendant ($5.75 if sailing in a suite); $3.50 for the waiter; $2.50 for the Assistant Waiter; .75 Head Waiter. These gratuities may be paid in cash or charged to your onboard account. For children sailing as third or fourth passenger in the stateroom, tipping is at the parents' discretion.

A 15 percent gratuity is automatically added to all beverage tabs.  Gratuities for room service, spa, casino and other staff are at your discretion.

Copyright (c) 2008 , Anne Campbell. All rights reserved.