Just got back from sailing 5 nights on the Royal Caribbean Explorer of the Seas. I'm not going to do a whole trip report, but just thought I'd share a few observations. We sailed from Bayonne, NJ and were originally scheduled to go to Bermuda. But because of the extensive damage from Hurricane Gonzalo, we sailed to Halifax, Nova Scotia and St. John, New Brunswick.
They didn't inform passengers of the change until 4 pm on the afternoon before departure, which didn't leave much time for repacking (76° in Bermuda, 40° with a wind chill of 33° in Halifax). And for people who flew into NYC the night before, they were likely already in the air when the notification went out. As compensation, they gave everyone an on-board credit (for our balcony category, we got $350) and gave you the cash if you didn't use all of the credit.
The port itself is not the easiest to get to. The signs showing where to go are small and not easily spotted. The terminal is basically a concrete holding pen; and it's so far from the ship itself that you have to board a bus to transfer from the terminal to the gangway.
Embarkation was a nightmare, but was not entirely RC's fault. The ship arrived back to port very late due to the weather and high winds from the remnants of Gonzalo. So there were people still disembarking when we arrived at the port at 11:30 a.m. (we drove from Western Mass.). This, of course, meant that they didn't start letting passengers on until after noon. They started around 12:20 and our group was called at 1:40. Cram on the bus, and then from there, it was pretty normal.
Disembarkation was even worse. They have what they call "self assist" departure, which just means you keep your luggage with you and disembark before the people who will need to find their bags in the terminal. They basically allowed EVERYONE who wanted to do this to go to the gangway at the same time; and remember we have to get on a bus to go back to the terminal. The line went up three flights of stairs and it took us an hour to get to a bus. What made this worse was that there were no crew members helping the process or giving information. Worst disembarkation procedure since the Titanic.
However, between embarkation and disembarkation, I was pretty pleased with most of our experience. The food in the main dining room was above average on the whole -- with two notable exceptions. The food at the buffet was below average and had a very limited selection. The service in the main dining room was excellent (with the exception of our souffle
). I was VERY pleased with our servers at all meals, not just dinner. We picked "My Time" dining, which I liked a lot; although I would've liked to pick my meal times ahead of time, rather than having to make a new reservation every morning for that night's dinner. (We tried to make the reservations ahead of time during our online check-in process, but when we arrived onboard, they couldn't find what we had done).
The service outside the dining room was only so-so, average to below average. Our room steward was average, the Guest Services desk was below average and understaffed. We got conflicting answers to several questions from different people. We generally found that we had to do something wrong in order to find out how to do it correctly. That was pretty annoying. The perks that my wife was entitled to as a returning guest were difficult to redeem.
Overall, it was fine. But that's all it was. There was very little "Wow" factor, either in the ship, the food, the service or the entertainment. I would do it again, but my expectations would be considerably lower than for any Disney cruise. But of course, my costs would be considerably lower than on a Disney cruise.
I can do a full trip report, but I haven't even started a report on my Hawaii cruise from LAST October! So I don't think that's going to happen soon.
They didn't inform passengers of the change until 4 pm on the afternoon before departure, which didn't leave much time for repacking (76° in Bermuda, 40° with a wind chill of 33° in Halifax). And for people who flew into NYC the night before, they were likely already in the air when the notification went out. As compensation, they gave everyone an on-board credit (for our balcony category, we got $350) and gave you the cash if you didn't use all of the credit.
The port itself is not the easiest to get to. The signs showing where to go are small and not easily spotted. The terminal is basically a concrete holding pen; and it's so far from the ship itself that you have to board a bus to transfer from the terminal to the gangway.
Embarkation was a nightmare, but was not entirely RC's fault. The ship arrived back to port very late due to the weather and high winds from the remnants of Gonzalo. So there were people still disembarking when we arrived at the port at 11:30 a.m. (we drove from Western Mass.). This, of course, meant that they didn't start letting passengers on until after noon. They started around 12:20 and our group was called at 1:40. Cram on the bus, and then from there, it was pretty normal.
Disembarkation was even worse. They have what they call "self assist" departure, which just means you keep your luggage with you and disembark before the people who will need to find their bags in the terminal. They basically allowed EVERYONE who wanted to do this to go to the gangway at the same time; and remember we have to get on a bus to go back to the terminal. The line went up three flights of stairs and it took us an hour to get to a bus. What made this worse was that there were no crew members helping the process or giving information. Worst disembarkation procedure since the Titanic.
However, between embarkation and disembarkation, I was pretty pleased with most of our experience. The food in the main dining room was above average on the whole -- with two notable exceptions. The food at the buffet was below average and had a very limited selection. The service in the main dining room was excellent (with the exception of our souffle
). I was VERY pleased with our servers at all meals, not just dinner. We picked "My Time" dining, which I liked a lot; although I would've liked to pick my meal times ahead of time, rather than having to make a new reservation every morning for that night's dinner. (We tried to make the reservations ahead of time during our online check-in process, but when we arrived onboard, they couldn't find what we had done).The service outside the dining room was only so-so, average to below average. Our room steward was average, the Guest Services desk was below average and understaffed. We got conflicting answers to several questions from different people. We generally found that we had to do something wrong in order to find out how to do it correctly. That was pretty annoying. The perks that my wife was entitled to as a returning guest were difficult to redeem.
Overall, it was fine. But that's all it was. There was very little "Wow" factor, either in the ship, the food, the service or the entertainment. I would do it again, but my expectations would be considerably lower than for any Disney cruise. But of course, my costs would be considerably lower than on a Disney cruise.
I can do a full trip report, but I haven't even started a report on my Hawaii cruise from LAST October!
So I don't think that's going to happen soon.
