Overall, I really like Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. This was my first Alaskan cruise. We were in Seattle for 1.5 day before the cruise to tour Seattle. This was an amazing trip. When we boarded the Explorer, the boarding lines were VERY long. I have sailed w/ Royall Caribbean for quite a long time (33+ cruises). I have never seen such long lines. It took much too long to board the ship. When our luggage was delivered, we had a piece of someone else's luggage, in our cabin.

Long lines seemed to be a theme of this cruise. When ever I wanted a premium coffee, the line for coffee was too long, at least 5+ deep. Our cabin was clean and our cabin stewart, Mark T., was amazing. The food aboard the Explorer was OK, nothing great, but certainly acceptable, w/ great variety. For whatever reason, the wait on the elevators was always delayed. My husband sent in laundry on day 5, and it was barely delivered in time to leave the ship. We did the first off self assist disembarkation. It was great, except this was the one day when ALL of the ship's crew had to get checked by Immigration authorities, which we are told occurs quarterly. The staff didn't seem to be in a hurry to make this process happen, facilitating guest departure. Guests were not allowed to disembark until all 1200 employees had checke in w/ immigration, causing a 20 minute delay. This isn't important, unless you flight is leaving in 2 hours and you have to check baggage.

The staff overall was very polite and accommodating. I would not be writing this review if I had been able to include it in the Royal Caribbean survey. Royal Caribbean was only asking about everything that went well, nothing which asked for input regarding thing which could be improved. The lines at the excursion desk were also very long.