My husband and I sailed on the Aug. 19th Explorer of Seas cruise to Bermuda, St. Maarten, St. Thomas, and San Juan. This is our sixth cruise with RCI and we were not disappointed. We did have a "Tropical Heatwave" while we were there. The temperature in St. Thomas was 100 degrees. I don't want to complain because we did manage to get in between the two hurricanes, Danielle and Earl.

Embarkation was a snap. There was some kind of an incident on the cruise before ours and disembarkation of that cruise was a bit behind schedule. We arrived at the port at about 11:30 AM and the Platinum waiting lounge was very full of people. They started moving us on board about 12:15 and we were on the first bus load that left the waiting area. Once on board, we headed for lunch in the WJ. The crowd had not arrived yet so we enjoyed quite a nice lunch. This was the last Caribbean cruise before schools opened in New York and there were lots of kids on board but I have to say, they seemed to be kept busy most of the time with the Adventure Club. I saw a some cute "Pirate Faces" the day they painted the kids faces. After lunch, we started to wander around the ship and get our bearings. Both my husband and I were very please during the entire voyage, at how easy it was to get about the ship. Warning, watch out for the blind area on Decks two and three. Studio B cuts the path in half and you have to enter those two decks at the right end of the ship. Once we figured out which way the ship was moving, getting to our destination was easy. Our cabin was ready at 1:30 PM as promised. We dropped off our carry ons and continued exploring. The captain told us that there were 3633 passengers on board but we never felt cramped. We enjoyed our Balcony cabin on the eighth floor.

We have been to all four of the ports of call in prior cruises but where we go is not as important and just plain enjoying the cruising experience. We had wonderful but hot weather at each port, just a few tropical rain showers that passed quickly. We went to the Bermuda Museum at the Dockyard since in our other trips we had not done that. It was pretty interesting, certainly worth the $8 each, senior rate, we were charged. We watched the "Dolphin Experience",which was inside the walls of the fort, for a while before leaving the museum. We did a private company tour on St. Maarten that I booked online with Shore Adventures Tour Company. It was a really good tour and our driver did an excellent job. We again did a private company tour on St. Thomas. That tour was with Air Force One Tour company and we also enjoyed that tour. I would recommend either one. In San Juan, we went on a RCI tour to the Bacardi Rum Factory. We enjoyed some really good Rum Punch at 10 AM in the morning, but hey, we were on vacation. That was also a good tour. Read more