My husband and I (both mid-40s) just returned from the 5-night, May 16 sailing of Explorer of the Seas to Bermuda. Weve been on over 10 cruises and this was one of our best ever. These are our impressions of the various components of our cruise:

Embarkation: This was a breeze. We arrived at the pier at about 11:30am, gave our luggage to the longshoreman  which is how they introduced themselves  and then walked right up to a registration station. We received our SeaPass cards and then proceeded to another area to wait for a bus to take us to the ship. This was a little strange since were used to boarding directly from the terminal but Cape Libertys set up a little differently. The ship is docked a pretty good distance from the terminal  you can see it and you could probably walk it but you wouldnt want to! Anyway, the wait for our bus was only about 5 minutes and it dropped us off right at the ship.

Ship: This was our first time on an Voyager-class ship and . . . WOW! I thought I had a pretty accurate idea of what the atrium would look like but I never imagined it would be so impressive. The entire ship was just beautiful, in excellent shape  no evidence of wear and tear at all as far as I could see. People were constantly cleaning and polishing and even painting (while we were docked in Bermuda, crews were putting a fresh coat of white paint on the exterior). Navigation was the easiest of any ship weve ever been on, with directional signs everywhere and all of the main areas/rooms indicated along with the floor numbers on the elevators. The only place we had trouble getting to was Studio B, the ice rink, which couldnt be reached from the forward elevators or stairs. Read more