Four of us (me, wife, and two sons, ages 22 and 24) sailed on the Explorer for a nine day cruise out of Bayonne on May 16th. Here is a brief review:

Ship: Wow! This ship is not very new but it is in great shape. Clean and sparkling. Great artwork (we wished the art auction art was even half as good). The employees were all excellent. In the old days (the 90s?) it seemed the ratio was about 1:1. Now it is more like three passengers for every crew. It appears that this has allowed the employees to be better paid? Just speculation, but it had that feeling.

Cabins: My wife and I had a balcony cabin on the bump (7612). We had room service breakfast on our balcony every morning except the one where we slept past 10 and room service was no longer serving breakfast. Are the bump balconies bigger? Perhaps, since they are on an angle—so they are normal size at one end and a bit deeper at the other. We liked it, but then we have always liked our balconies, wherever they were. The cabin steward was perfect—honored all requests (e.g. robes), never bothered us but yet, took care of everything. Read more