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Royal Caribbean International

MV Explorer of the Seas

Your Rating:
Reviewed by:David Wallis
# previous cruises: 0
Date of Trip: January 7, 2001
Itinerary: Caribbean - Eastern

The ship is a marvel of engineering. The features, public areas, theatres', dining rooms, exercise facilities, and multi recreational facilities are marvelous. With no previous cruise experience I cannot compare but as long as "huge" is not a problem you would have to enjoy this ship.

Everything is on a world class level. Especially interesting is the three or four story interior promenade. Lined with shops, a great pub with excellent beer choices, a 24 hour cafe with pizza, sandwiches, cookies and desserts, entertainment and much more. Many different lounges, a walk around prom, running track, inline skating, ice skating, rock climbing, and much more. My fouvorite daytime reading spot was in a Roman theme area with a pool. It was quieter than the main pool area.

There was always several dining options. The main dining room is a three story restaurant. The food was always good and sometimes exceptional. Once I had tomatoes that were not ripe in my salad but otherwise consistently good. The service in the main dining room was good although at the first sitting you were aware of how quickly the food appeared suggesting the need to get you out for the later sitting. However we were never actually rushed and always ate at our own pace. The Waverly cafe was always buffet with an ever changing wide variety of choices. This was open for all meals and throughout the day. An excellent choice if you wanted to stay in shorts. We tried the Portofina restaurant including the $20 surcharge per person and were very pleased. The food was excellent and the service befitted a top class restaurant. The only food that was disappointing was at Johnny Rockets. My experience, once or twice in the Washington DC area, with this chain left me thinking of them as an up market fast food hamburger chain. On ship the hamburgers were obviously pre-cooked, cool, and a little soggy.

We had an excellent cabin at the back of the ship on the 10th deck. Closet space was more than adequate and they had made storage areas in every available nook and corner. My wife commented that she had never had as much storage space in many a larger deluxe hotel room. The room was spacious with a couch, coffee table and chair. There is a dressing table with extra lighting for makeup etc. We had a wonderful deck with appropriate furniture and complete privacy. The bathroom was small but very adequate and well designed. The shower was cylindrical in shape and very user friendly. I suspect a 300lb or above person would find it snug but I also appreciated this fact when we ran into to some rough seas. With the cylindrical walls close at hand it was much easier to balance as the ship swayed some.

This was probably my biggest surprise. The entertainment was varied and excellent. I found it hard to believe the quality of the shows. The entertainers were top notch with some truly excellent singers. The shows were well choreographed and each very distinctive. The show on ice was excellent although there was a hammy contest where members of the audience acted as judges to score the "competition". One night we watched Gary Pucket and the Union Gap. He had six number one hits back in my teens days and he was great. Another night a group that imitated the Beetles. I was fully prepared to believe this would be sub par, I am a great fan of the Beetles, but it was great.

I must get in my complaints. My wife talked me into playing bingo something I had never done before. To begin with we were a bit surprised to find it was $30 per game for the cheap tickets and $50 per game if you wanted an increased chance to win the $500 jackpot. I'm cheap and went for the $30 game, or $60 including my wife. After several smaller games we come to the jackpot game. After 15 minutes or so the cheery cruise lady announces "well no one has won the jackpot so we will continue on for the consolation price of $100! Who said we were not going to play until the jackpot was won! They said the jackpot would be rolled over to the next game. Several days later I heard they were still rolling it over. But he worst of all is the spa. Please understand the facilities were excellent, as was the exercise facility, but the claims being made for the miracle pills and creams they were selling were outrageous. A treatment that would take off 40% of your waistline fat in one go! These creams and pills would flush out the toxins in your system, they go down to the fifth layer in your skin....what rubbish. They were, surprise, very expensive, and as one passenger found out the next day, after realizing she had been conned, non-refundable! This was the worst type of snake oil scheme I have ever seen. I gather the product manufacturer must pay the cruise lines an enormous fee for them to turn a blind eye to what would clearly be illegal and closed down if it were tried on the mainland (US).

Fellow passengers were generally fun and pleasant to be with and many I would enjoy seeing again.