Explorer of the Seas Review

4.5 / 5.0
2,038 reviews

RCCL cruise quality slipping ... VOOM is garbage

Review for the Southern Caribbean Cruise on Explorer of the Seas
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avid_cruiser7
6-10 Cruises • Age 30s

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Sail Date: Apr 2022
Cabin: Junior Suite Accessible

Explorer of the Seas 17 April 2022 sailing. Masks were optional ... YEAH ! This was our 8th cruise on RCCL. SJU-St. Maarten- Sea Day-Aruba-Curacao-Bonaire-Sea Day-SJU. My initial impression is that RCCL - Explorer of the Seas is saving money in the wrong places. RCCL post-COVID is not equal to RCCL pre-COVID. Staff seemed over-worked and stressed and the boat was only 75% full. Food in main dining room is blah except for a couple meals. The menu is good enough, but the quality of the food (cheap cuts of meat in particular) is not up to pre-COVID standards. The NY strip which is available in main dining room is pan cooked and of very low quality. In the cabin, they saved money by issuing us 1 bar of soap for our Junior Suite. Playing hide-and-seek with the iced tea. You have to order iced tea ... it is no longer out in the open in the Windjammer. Scrambled eggs in Windjammer were undercooked every time I saw them. Ugliest bacon I ever saw. We counted on VOOM in order to do some work at sea. What a waste. RCCL internet service is garbage. On the VOOM Streaming package the best internet connection time we had was max 5 minutes and then the connection disappeared. No way to do work or be part of a video conference with the office using the RCCL primitive internet service. Even doing a simple text or email was difficult waiting for connection access. We complained and Jesse (VOOM manager) quasi-apologized and said they over-subscribed the internet service. Jesse then went on to upsell the lady behind us. Their internet is trash ... don't count on it if you have to work a few hours on your cruise. On the Upside, the ports were great. We stopped at all of them. Saw a large sea turtle on the glass bottom boat excursion in Bonaire. The ice skating team is fantastic and is a must see.

Cabin Review

Junior Suite Accessible

Junior Suite on the bubble. Spacious. RCCL saving money by only issuing us 1 bar of soap at a time. Had to ask for a 2nd bar of soap. Not a good look for cruisers forking over the money for a junior suite. I asked cabin steward and he said it was a "regulation" which is code for saying it was a management decision.

Port Reviews

Aruba

Loved the itinerary.

Bonaire

Saw a sea turtle on the Glass bottom boat excursion. Awesome excursion.

St. Maarten

Did the Maho beach excursion. Awesome experience.

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