Loved this ship!! Actually it was our 2nd time on the Explorer and she is even more amazing than I remember. We are a family of 4, 2 teens and my husband and I. I wish I could have given a better rating but Royal Caribbean is not what it used to be. The ship, the activities and ports were perfect. Not one single complaint. Our room was AMAZING! We had one of the new Panoramic ocean view rooms. If you can get one of these don't hesitate! Wall to wall, floor to ceiling window!! The view was incredible! The room was large. It fit the 4 of us very comfortably. Plenty of floor space even when 2 additional beds were made up for our kids. I would choose these rooms over a balcony any day.

What was not good was the food and some of the service. I did not take one single photo of any of the meals. They simply were not photo worthy. Some of the food that came out of the dining room never should have come out. Some simply tasted terrible. Most were way overcooked or held under a warmer for way long. We talked up the food to our kids for months leading up to this trip. Our previous trips were fantastic. This was not. In fact so bad that the last 3 nights of our trip we went to the buffet for every meal. The buffet was actually pretty good. A lot fresher for sure. We heard complaints from pretty much everyone we met. We also noticed service is not what it used to be. We had several nights in the main dining room that water glasses remained empty for the entire meal. Servers disappearing and never returning between courses. We felt rushed and neglected all at the same time.

I believe they cut staff in the dining rooms, resulting in unacceptable service. We saw this in our cabin steward also. He was very pleasant and delivered anything we asked for but would take short cuts. When making up the couch for the day he would leave the bedding on the couch! Actually turn the bed back in to the couch but leave the sheets on. There were 2 days he never made the couch up at all, made the beds up but left them set up for the evening. Over all the trip was amazing and these things did not ruin our vacation at all. We have been loyal cruisers with Royal but sadly we won't be back. I will be cruising with Norwegian next month and am anxious to compare the two. I'll let you know!