We just got back from the 9 nite Explorer Aug 25 sailing! My traveling party included my wife, DD (13) and my two in-laws. My in-laws were in cabin #7680 and we were in cabin #7688. Parking was $135 for the nine days at the dock and was well organized. We found the embarkation was quick and well organized. We arrived at the dock at 10:45 am and were aboard the ship by 11:30 am.

We were able to go to our room by 1 pm and our luggage arrived ~2 pm. We had packed a ton of stuff and we were able to find places to put everything away. The cabin itself was fine but the aft baloney was huge. We had read that this baloney was one of the largest on the ship and we were not disappointed. We were a little disappointed that our room had not received new bedding and after talking to fellow cruisers at the meet and mingle no one had the new bedding yet. New bedding was being loaded on the ship as we disembarked. 300 beds were to be replaced. Each time the Explorer returns home they will replace 300 beds until the entire ship receives new bedding. Our cabin attendant was aloof but did a very good job with the cabin. No complaints.

Our first problem of the trip arose when being seated for dinner in the main dining room the first evening. We had previously requested to be seated with another family we knew who were also traveling on this sailing. We had a total of nine in our group and we were shown a table for eight and were told we would have to squeeze together to make the table fit our party. The table #310 was also so close to another table that we could not have anybody at the end of one side of the table. We tried to find a Head waiter but they were not around the first night. The only one in the dining room had a line of at least 30 minutes. We gave up and were seated at the table. We tried after dinner and the next day to move to a more appropriately sized table but to no avail. Every night we were not very comfortable dining at this table but we made the best of it. The service in the dining by our waiter and asst. waiter was excellent and they truly made us feel like we were the only table they were waiting on. The food quality in the main dining room varied from good to excellent and we ate way too much. We were somewhat disappointed with the desserts but they were OK, just not over the top desserts you get at fine restaurants here in New Jersey. Several evenings the kitchen got backed up and we had to wait over an hour after our salad course for our entrEe to arrive. We were told by some of the staff that Royal Caribbean had just made some staffing cut backs in the kitchen and they were having some problems keeping up. We did make a comment on our feedback card about this issue and hope that others who have this problem will let Royal Caribbean know that staffing cutbacks are not the way to make cruising more profitable. It only drives us to make other choices. We went to the windjammer for breakfast and lunch and all of us agreed that the food was adequate but the service was not great. Also the selections did not vary a great deal and after a week we were tried of the choices. They ran out of fresh fruit by the last three days. The salad bar was one of the bright spots and they had a good selection of items. We only went to a few shows. The Ice Show was very good. We saw the juggling show and it was OK but not really a headliner show. Two musical review shows we saw were not very good. Read more