My wife and I recently sailed on the RCL Explorer of the Seas. We enjoy cruising and have tried several lines and a variety of itineraries. The following are personal observations using our previous cruise vacations as a baseline. Everyone has a unique opinion; if you have booked this ship then do not second-guess your decision, you will do doubt enjoy it. If you are contemplating this ship, then recognize that you should not let other people's opinion make up your mind. I will forego comments on the ports of San Juan, St. Martin, St. Thomas (a great port) and Nassau since this has been covered many times; if you have a specific question however, feel free to E-mail me and I will do my best to answer it. We always book our own excursions in ports where safety is not a concern and usually save about 50% off the ship's excursion prices.

Embarkation: We arrived at 11:30 AM and were onboard and in our cabin within 45 minutes. RCL states 1PM for cabin availability but seems very flexible on this point. We brought liquor onboard without any problem. A TSA approved lock was broken off and I do not believe that the cruise ships have the master key to this type of lock.

Cabin and attendant: The balcony cabin interior is similar to most of the ships we have sailed on, but our cabin was showing it's age and was pretty worn. The accommodations offer great utilization of space and there were a few storage areas we never even noticed until we were packing to depart. The balconies on the Voyager class ships seem too enclosed and lack the openness of some other ships. The new Princess vessels for example have great balconies and do not feel like a white iron capsule overlooking the ocean. The cabin attendant is luck of the draw and this time we were assigned one that did a fairly poor job. He did the bare minimum despite an extra $25 tip upfront. Read more