Thoughts on Sea Day Intensive Cruise?

[MightyQuinn]

We're considering the Explora 18-day Hawaii cruise next spring which has a whopping 10 sea days.  There are 5 consecutive sea days going to Hawaii from Vancouver and another 5 consecutive sea days on the return.  We've sailed this route before on another luxury line and there were enough shipboard activities that we never felt bored or restless.  We certainly don't need continuous programming but we'd like something more than lounging by the pool.  I appreciate the recent reviews by @uktogand @kool kruiserwhich suggest that enrichment and entertainment are still a work in progress.  I'd welcome any other comments or speculation (!!) about how Explora would handle a sea day intensive cruise. Thanks!

[Wheelhouse]

I booked the extended Hawaii cruise very early and after reading about the lack of entertainment/daily activities we decided to cancel and moved our booking to an extended Caribbean itinerary.  Even though we have been to the islands plenty of times before at least we can stop and go to a beach or just walk around. We did Hawaii R/T from LA a few years back and its definitely a good bunch of sea days. On that trip we were on Princess and they provided an adequate amount of things to keep busy.

 

Heike, the hotel manager from Azamara, will be away in the time running up to the Hawaii cruise so activities could still be lacking.  

[maggie.1008]

We are on the hnl to Yvr cruise. We love the sea days but the nine day cruise was enough for us. We have done this cruise many times with Celebrity.

[maggie.1008]

I think Heike will be on our cruise.

[joseph123]

17 hours ago, maggie.1008 said:

I think Heike will be on our cruise.

Just curious. Who is Heike and why would that make a difference? I have seen the name (or term if not a person) mentioned previously, and wondering what that is in reference to.

[gymfreak]

1 hour ago, joseph123 said:

Just curious. Who is Heike and why would that make a difference? I have seen the name (or term if not a person) mentioned previously, and wondering what that is in reference to.

Heike previously worked for Azamara as an extremely competent and approachable Hotel Director.

She is now one of the General Managers on Explora and currently onboard. Very favourable reports of both her interaction with guests and subsequent action taken to both address and resolve many of the guests concerns.

A very wise hire for Explora 

[MightyQuinn]

It would be wonderful to have Heike on board.  Back in the day, we sailed with her on Azamara and she ran a tight and happy ship!  I'm sure she would aim to provide the usual sea day activities on Explora but I wonder whether there would be enrichment lecturers or so-called luminaries on board.  We decided to go straight to the source and called the Explora Experience Centre.  An Ambassador said that most journeys do have luminaries on board but they can't guarantee 100% that any would be on the Hawaii voyage.  If there are, their names would not be released until 60 days before sailing.  So I guess that's something.  

[kool kruiser]

On 12/15/2023 at 5:13 PM, gymfreak said:

Heike previously worked for Azamara as an extremely competent and approachable Hotel Director.

She is now one of the General Managers on Explora and currently onboard. Very favourable reports of both her interaction with guests and subsequent action taken to both address and resolve many of the guests concerns.

A very wise hire for Explora 

FYI, General Manager is Explora speak for Hotel Director, the same role !

[kool kruiser]

On 12/15/2023 at 10:19 PM, MightyQuinn said:

It would be wonderful to have Heike on board.  Back in the day, we sailed with her on Azamara and she ran a tight and happy ship!  I'm sure she would aim to provide the usual sea day activities on Explora but I wonder whether there would be enrichment lecturers or so-called luminaries on board.  We decided to go straight to the source and called the Explora Experience Centre.  An Ambassador said that most journeys do have luminaries on board but they can't guarantee 100% that any would be on the Hawaii voyage.  If there are, their names would not be released until 60 days before sailing.  So I guess that's something.  

We had a guest speaker on each of our 7 day b2b legs. Notable that attendance was really tiny, even on sea days, which we found very surprising. No destination lecturers on our cruise.

[Hlitner]

24 minutes ago, kool kruiser said:

We had a guest speaker on each of our 7 day b2b legs. Notable that attendance was really tiny, even on sea days, which we found very surprising. No destination lecturers on our cruise.

There are guest speakers and then there are GUEST SPEAKERS.  In our 50 years of extensive cruising the really great speakers have been few and far between (and not on our recent 18 day EJ1 cruise).  Our most memorable speaker was on a long transpacific HAL cruise.  Dr. Alan Wright, a retired astronomist, packed-in standing room only crowds (at the large main theater) for most of his 9 amazing lectures.  He has now moved on to a small ship luxury line where I am sure he is still very popular.  Many other speakers hardly generate a ripple on most cruises.  The cruise lines generally get these speakers for the price of a free cabin.  We have listened to lectures on far more then 100 cruises and can only remember the names (and some of the lectures) of only 3 speakers!  

 

Funny story about our recent EJ1 cruise.  During cocktail hour (which for us is more then an hour) a fellow passenger asked us if we had gone to that day's lecture.  When I responded in the negative I asked him about that lecture.  His response was "I really don't remember and fell asleep."  

 

Hank

 

 

[uktog]

3 hours ago, kool kruiser said:

We had a guest speaker on each of our 7 day b2b legs. Notable that attendance was really tiny, even on sea days, which we found very surprising. No destination lecturers on our cruise.

The cruise after yours had a lady who talked about leach port prior to arrival.  Very nice "chat" mainly google derivative material and certainly not an in depth destination talk but then she was only allocated 15 minutes!  (She may well have known a lot more to be fair) The week after this was changed to a 15 minute talk and 15 minute Q and A.

 

I was disappointed given that the titles were "luminary" how superficial the other talks the frist week were.  They were scheduled at a bad time (no idea what was in the Entertainment Managers thinking when she did this) - typically when most people are getting ready for dinner or having a pre dinner drink - and whilst there was catch up available on the TV I only discovered this by accident it was never communicated.   There was nothing innovative in the offering (e.g. the usual how to use your Iphone was the only offering week 2) 

 

This is an area EJ could really up their game on and "be different" but for that to work they have to recognise a goodly % of their paying guests are actually aged over 50 and have attention spans that are not restricted to "three clicks and I am off" and do not see Google as the fount of all knowledge.

[artbcpa]

6 hours ago, Hlitner said:

There are guest speakers and then there are GUEST SPEAKERS.  In our 50 years of extensive cruising the really great speakers have been few and far between (and not on our recent 18 day EJ1 cruise).  Our most memorable speaker was on a long transpacific HAL cruise.  Dr. Alan Wright, a retired astronomist, packed-in standing room only crowds (at the large main theater) for most of his 9 amazing lectures.  He has now moved on to a small ship luxury line where I am sure he is still very popular.  Many other speakers hardly generate a ripple on most cruises.  The cruise lines generally get these speakers for the price of a free cabin.  We have listened to lectures on far more then 100 cruises and can only remember the names (and some of the lectures) of only 3 speakers!  

 

Funny story about our recent EJ1 cruise.  During cocktail hour (which for us is more then an hour) a fellow passenger asked us if we had gone to that day's lecture.  When I responded in the negative I asked him about that lecture.  His response was "I really don't remember and fell asleep."  

 

Hank

 

 

Your comments about guest speakers reminded me of why we cruised on Crystal so many times. Crystal was best known for their sea days and guest speakers. I do remember many of their speakers including a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, famous actors from Hollywood and Broadway and even political experts which would probably be impossible in today's world. However, even Crystal's speakers declined after Eddie came on board.

 

I haven't yet sailed with the new Crystal, but I believe Abercrombie and Kent, the new owner of Crystal, is trying to maintain their specialties. They were the very best for sea days.

[Hlitner]

38 minutes ago, artbcpa said:

Your comments about guest speakers reminded me of why we cruised on Crystal so many times. Crystal was best known for their sea days and guest speakers. I do remember many of their speakers including a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, famous actors from Hollywood and Broadway and even political experts which would probably be impossible in today's world. However, even Crystal's speakers declined after Eddie came on board.

 

I haven't yet sailed with the new Crystal, but I believe Abercrombie and Kent, the new owner of Crystal, is trying to maintain their specialties. They were the very best for sea days.

We are also anxious to try the new Crystal since we also have lots of faith in the A&K folks.  Had only taken one previous Crystal cruise and were very satisfied.

 

Hank

[Stickman1990]

Everyone of the luxury lines do sea days differently - and each has its ups and downs 

 

In the last 12 months we’ve sailed Regent, Silversea, Viking and Explora and very soon we’ll sail Crystal - our schedule on a sea day on each of these lines is quite different but equally enjoyable - sometimes we do things on one line but don’t on another even though the same activity is on offer

 

Turning to the speakers in particular - some speak on multiple lines - Mr Ocean Liner Bill Miller or Commander Scott Kelly from the ISS come to mind there as examples while some repeat the same lectures time after time on the same line (best I don’t give examples for that!)

 

So I think that mileage varies on this across all lines. When we were on Explora they had several great speakers - a music historian, the navigators who guided us around Greenland and a more local speaker who described some of the history of the region and current day port briefings - she also happened to be a astro physicist who also did a lecture on that which went over the heads of most of us.

 

So at least during our time on Explora back in September we were very happy with the on board activities and the speakers 

 

Having said that I think we’d all pretty much agree that the onboard entertainment and activities on Explora are still a work in progress