Review SOA Ex2 15-2nd May 2019 The Ship

[2BACRUISER]

Facilities, Fun and Food.

Explorer 2 – What can I say? Loved, loved, loved her to bits and neither of us wanted to come home. I can only tell you our experiences and about the parts of the ship we frequented.

Our favourite watering hole was Flutes, Prosecco for myself and G&T for DH, very well looked after by Karnal, Natassia and Flocer. Most evening the golden piano was played and it was a relaxing place to sit, have a drink and watch the world go by. We also used Aperitif as this was closest to the restaurants and was a far as the Vista pager range would stretch. We also used the bar in the nightclub Indigo and on the Verandah (deck 12). We upgraded to the Premium package which worked out at £7 per day and we reckon we had our monies worth.

We used the Coffee Port every day, the lovely Alexandra fetching us steaming Flat Whites of Lavazza coffee. There is a small library of books, biographies and autobiographies, odd travel book and some fiction. On the last day passengers were leaving books they had brought with them so it should soon build up. One of Ex2’s cows lives in the coffee port and there are UK sockets in some of the booths if you want to recharge or work using them for your electronics.

We weren’t able to book into any of the ‘pay’ extra eating venues as they were on reduced numbers due to staff having to be relocated to serve in the buffet and you just had to book them on the first day, whilst this was a bit disappointing we still had very good food elsewhere on the ship.  We dined in Latitude 53 (MDR) 3 times and 4 times in Vista (Italian next door) and at all times we had lovely waiting staff, who kept our drinks topped up, can highly recommend the Merlot and Pinot Grigio, the food was hot and tasty and there was plenty of variety. I have to say I had the 3 pot Tastes of Tiramisu twice! We dined between 8pm and 8.30pm mostly and sometimes had to have a pager for Vista from the very efficient Iona. We also had lunch at The Snack Shack (lovely fish & chips), used the Help yourself cabinet with all manner of goodies for a lighter lunch, The Beach Cove and of course the Buffet where Afternoon Tea was served which I can personally recommend…Red Velvet cup cakes to die for and Jam & cream scones…lush! (All deck 11 Pool)

We went to the 10.30 show in the Broadway lounge every night except one as we didn’t care to see a comedian. We loved Movies; a compilation of hits from the movies, Zuma; a Strictly Latin American extravaganza, Cogs; a lovely story about an inventor and Buds Diner;  Grease based but didn’t rate Lovestruck which we thought was poorly directed and had a very good cast of singers wasted singing and shouting over each other so much you couldn’t tell what song they were singing, the story wasn’t good either, way too messy.

The Broadway Shops are still building up but there was a god selection of goods for a price. I bought some perfume to use up the OBC and used the rest of it to buy some ship’s photographs.

Everywhere around the ship there were hand sanitizers and you were encouraged to use them frequently.

The Pool Deck when we were able to use it (3 days rain out of 7!!)had plenty of beds and places to eat as mentioned above. There were music quizzes and live music every day and all day there was music playing which at times was so loud you couldn’t speak to the person on the sun bed beside you. Marella its ok to have some quiet time at the pool, we don’t need entertaining all the time.

My only real complaint was not enough public toilets only one set per deck, 6,7,11,and 12. They were however immaculately clean and well provisioned at all times.

Sail aways weren’t particularly special but it was good to be on deck despite the rain in Venice but both Split and Dubrovnik were sunny. When Ex2 was putting in the knots to make up lost time it was windy on deck and quite a few people got burnt on sea day as they hadn’t counted for the strength of the sun due to the cooling wind. There were some very red legs and chests!

All in all Explorer 2 is a great ship we were only on a week and would liked to have more time to have tried more of the facilities, we never got to Nonna’s or the 19^th Hole or Champneys but gives us a good excuse to board her again later in the year!

Top Tip: Take large bull dog clips to secure your pool towel to your sunbed. Have a good explore round the ship and take a photo of the floor plan next to the lifts, then you know what’s on each deck.

[Hookedoncruising!]

Great review,thanks for sharing! Sounds like you had a ball.Hopefully we will be trying it too.

Can you tell me if Margaritas are still on the A.I. drinks menu? Cheers! 

[2BACRUISER]

Think so but cocktails not our thing so didnt really look at them. 

[ormy]

Another great review  - we will be on the ship two weeks today, can't wait