This is my first time doing one of these reviews so please bear with me! My husband and I sailed on Explorer of the Seas from November 12 through 19, 2006, with three other couples (no kids - we left them at home for this one!). My husband and I had previously sailed with Royal Caribbean three times: 1999 - Majesty; 2001 - Enchantment (our honeymoon); and 2002 - Bermuda. We were looking forward to our first cruise on a Voyager-class ship.
Embarkation Day (Sunday): We flew to Miami from New York and only waited about 15 minutes for the Royal Caribbean transportation to take us to the pier. Once there, we made it through the embarkation process fairly quickly - the whole thing took us about 30 minutes at most. Once onboard, we found our staterooms and then headed up to the Windjammer for lunch. We have always found the food in the Windjammer to be good, and this time was no exception - there was pasta, sliced ham, chicken, sandwiches, hamburgers, hot dogs - all the usual things you would expect at a buffet. After lunch, we went to the mandatory muster drill, which was handled quickly and efficiently, and then spent the next hour exploring the ship. I found the ship to be huge (I kept getting mixed up all during the cruise!) and can't imagine what it would be like to sail on Freedom!! We went up to the pool deck for the sail away party, which ended up being delayed. An announcement was made that we were waiting for some passengers' luggage, but no one seemed to mind much at all. The dinner seatings were delayed slightly (30 minutes) as they were trying to get everyone's luggage delivered to their cabins. We went to the Welcome Aboard Show, which featured a comedian, Majestic (a pair of dancers), and the Royal Caribbean Singers and Dancers. It was a very nice show. Our dinner was great - our waiter, Tenzing, and her assistant, Oktay, were wonderful. Tenzing was extremely attentive and was on top of everything throughout the entire cruise. We couldn't have asked for a better waiter! Oh, one other thought - our dining room bartender, Ian, was a lot of fun and was always quick to get us whatever we needed.
Cabin: This was our first time in a cabin with a balcony and we were very happy. It was great to go out on the balcony as we were pulling into port and not have to worry about being crowded up on the pool deck. (We'll probably will never be able to sail without a balcony ever again!) The cabin was definitely big enough for the two of us and had plenty of storage for all our things. Our cabin steward really took care of us and we had the towel animals we've come to expect each night of our cruise. I was much happier with our shower this time around, being that it had curved doors instead of the usual shower curtain.