My review of the Explorer of the Seas, 6/15 sailing from Ravenna.

[nogard13]

I’m posting this review in case there are other families like mine who are considering a trip on the Explorer of the Seas.  I enjoyed my cruise but I’m not quite sure I can recommend the Royal Caribbean brand anymore.  Overall, I give the trip a 10/10 but the ship and the experiences on her only get a 6/10 overall.  Here are the reasons why.

 

Cruise Details:

Explorer of the Seas (6/15/24 – 6/22/24) from Ravenna.  Ports of call: Santorini, Mykonos, Athens, Dubrovnik, Croatia (port change, originally Olympia but weather did not permit tenders).  Cruise Cabins: 9676 and 9681 (connecting balcony and interior, AFT, Port side).

 

About Us:

We are a family of 4: Outdoorsy 40-somethings with two girls (10/7).

 

The Good

 

Ravenna:

We loved the city.  We thought it would just be this tiny little port town but it was so much more.  Walking around was really easy, the sights and mossaics were amazing to see, and the people were really warm and friendly.  The food was also excellent and almost everything we had was made in-house and delicious!

 

Promenade Cafe:

The pizza and sandwiches offered on this sailing were delicious!  Promenade/Sorrento's pizza has always been good, but I think they snuck in a Michelin Star pizza chef for this cruise.  We found ourselves craving their food constantly.  My wife even joked that they were sprinkling the food there with some kind of addicting substance.

 

Itinerary:

We were really looking forward to seeing some of the Greek Islands that are only accessible via boat or plane.  In fact, we booked this specific date/sailing because it went to four Greek ports and most other sailings in the summer included the same first three ports, but skipped Olympia for Dubrovnik, Croatia. The joke was on us because high winds prevented tendering at Katakolon (Olympia) so the Captain chose to change the itinerary and do Dubrovnik instead.  We were fine with the change and discovered that Dubrovnik is an amazingly beautiful destination and thoroughly enjoyed walking the old, walled city.

 

Excursions:

We are big fans of using excursions for large, crowded sites because they usually “skip the line” and you are able to see so much more during your short time there.  We booked one of these in Santorini and in Athens so that we would be bused around, taken to the good locations and also taught many of the historical facts by experts.  These did not disappoint and our tour guides were excellent, professional, and very, very knowledgeable.  We skipped booking tours in Dubrovnik due to the sudden change in itinerary, but those that did were rewarded as the heat wave there knocked out power to most of the country and created huge traffic jams and delays.  The ship waited an extra hour for all tours to return and nobody who booked a cruise ship excursion was left behind.  There were rumors of some passengers that did not make it back to the ship, but I did not hear this from any official source.

 

Activities:

There were always fun things to do on the ship.  The kids had tons of fun at the pool, the slides, the flow rider, and the various competitions at the pool.  The parades in the Promenade were also fun.

 

The Bad

 

Windjammer (buffet):

Most of the food was just your standard buffet food, which was expected.  My biggest complaint was the amount of people they had clearing the tables (clearly short-staffed) and the fact that they would always open the port side first, then wait for the line to be almost out the door before they opened the starboard side (usually about 45 minutes after the Windjammer opened).

     - Food Quality/Taste: The food was good, and better than what we experienced on our last two cruises (Freedom of the Seas and Celebrity Eclipse).  The quality of the raw food (salads/fruits) was very good, and everything was crisp and fresh. They had a great selection of nice cheeses instead of the boring cheddar/swiss we normally see.  None of the food we had was lacking in flavor, either.  Overall, the Windjammer had the best buffet food I can remember on a ship in a long time.

     - Buffet Logistics/Design: This is where my big complaints lie.  Tables would often go 15+ minutes before being cleared and tons of people kept walking around with full plates of food trying to find a place to sit.  They would eventually have to stack up the plates themselves and set them to the side in order to sit and eat.  Instead, they had several wait staff walking around with carts full of water and tea (coffee at breakfast) so that people wouldn’t need to get up and get their own drinks.  These 3-4 people would have been better off clearing tables during the busy times and handing out drinks after the rush.  

 

Main Dining:

What is up with all the waiters, including the head water, asking for a 10 on the survey every night.  Seriously, EVERY NIGHT!  We got tired of hearing the spiel for 10-15 minutes of our dinner each night.  Mention it once, maybe twice, for 30 seconds and leave me be!  I would like to enjoy my dinner time, chat with my family, talk about our day, and not have to make small talk with the wait staff.  We mentioned it three times, were nice about it, but they still tried to continue to make small talk with us while we were trying to enjoy our family meal time together.  Due to this, the service in the MDR got a 5 on the survey (and I explained why).  The wait staff was generally nice, and they did a good job bringing out the food quickly and remembering preferences, but they ruined the experience by constantly begging for a good survey review.

 

The food itself was not all that good, and I'd give it a 6/10. My 10 year old ordered the NY Strip twice in the first three days and both times it was severely undercooked (ordered medium, got rare).  My wife ordered the NY steak on our last night and it came out black and blue (she ordered medium rare, came out raw inside). Also, the quality of the steaks themselves was terrible.  I think maybe they have different grades of beef in Europe because I would say these wouldn’t have even met the USDA Select Grade here at home.  Very thin cuts (about half as thick as you would expect, maybe 3/8-inch thick vs the expected 1/2 to 5/8-inch you would normally see) that were tough and had tons of silver skin and connective tissue.  They were basically inedible.  I think the steak portion sizes were reduced from around 8-10 ounces to about 4-5 ounce portions (shrinkflation?).  The shrimp dishes were the other side of the spectrum, and were overcooked and rubbery.  The fried calamari tasted like breaded and fried rubber bands.  The salads and soups were excellent, tho, as were the Indian dishes offered on the menu.

 

Entertainment/Shows:

These were the worst shows we’ve ever seen on any cruise ship.  I mean, we went every night and walked out of the shows early on 3 occasions.  They were “family friendly” in that they weren’t offensive, but they were not entertaining for anyone in our family.  We saw plenty of people vote with their feet and leave early, too.  One of the shows included a quartet of singers who were clearly very good vocalists, but even though they had amazing voices you just couldn’t understand the lyrics they sang.  One of the songs, Bohemian Rhapsody, was performed Opera-style.  This was amazing to show off the versatility and timelessness of the song (and the genius of Freddy Mercury), but I couldn’t make out the lyrics even though I know them all.  They also interpreted Sinatra’s New York, NY and I felt the same way.  The acrobats were good at what they did, but good lord were they terrible performers and entertainers!  This was one of the shows we watched all the way thru because they were very good, but their choice of music, costumes, and excessive arm waiving when just standing around were dumbfounding.  We normally love going to the early show right after dinner but we began to not look forward to it and to try to find different things to do with our time.

 

Final Thoughts

 

The cut backs in the MDR were evident this cruise.  This is our third RCCL sailing in 13 months and the other two were just vastly superior when it came to this aspect of the cruise.  I kept hearing and reading reviews about this here and on other social media sites, but I hadn’t experienced it until now.  I don’t know if this is due to inflation, the cruise line focusing on the newer, mega ships, or if it just had to do with the crew and captain of this specific sailing, but it was a severe turn-off for us.  We have a sailing booked for December on a different line and I’m anxious to see and compare the two.  I also feel that the value proposition on this ship wasn’t as good as others we have sailed.  The ports were amazing, and made the trip worth it in the end, but our on-ship experience was sub-par.  I never thought I would find myself feeling bored on sea days, but I was proven wrong on this sailing.  One big reason that I give the ship an overall 6/10 score is because the two things most people look forward to on a cruise are the MDR food and the shows, and these were the low points of our trip.  But since our main objective for booking the trip was to experience the history and culture of Greece and not the small amount of time we spent on the ship on port days, I have to say that we would book this itinerary again.  Just maybe on a different ship.

 

[The Sunset Glow]

I have to agree with you. We did similar itineries Back-2-Back on Explorer last fall. We found the MDR food to be poor quality and the entertainment was mostly unmemorable (we left many shows as well).

[juanrod]

We are doing this similar cruise next year. For your excursion on Santorini , which one did you do ? How was the lines to the cable car? 

[Oceansaway17]

I have for the most part limited my eating in MDR as I do feel I can eat just as well in WJ and other places.  

Last time I was in MDR, and they started the crap about 10's, I looked them in the eye and told them if you keep mentioning it, you will get a 5. So STOP IT.  boy did they back off quickly.

[nogard13]

2 hours ago, juanrod said:

We are doing this similar cruise next year. For your excursion on Santorini , which one did you do ? How was the lines to the cable car? 

Don't know the specific name off hand, but it was one of those tours where they show you Fira, then drive you to Oia and show you that town, too.  They took a scenic route, not the most direct one, so we could see the tallest mountain on the island and the back side of the island.  It was really cool.

 

The thing about the cable car on our trip is that we got lucky.  There were 4 cruises that came into the Caldera in the early morning, and two departed around 5pm, with the other two leaving around 9pm.  We pulled in at 2:30pm and I was on the very first tender off the ship, so we got to the cable car window and there was absolutely nobody there.  However, the top was effing nuts!  The line to come down was probably 2,000 people deep and only 36 people can ride the cable cars in any single direction at any given time (they have 6 cars that fit 6 people each, and when 6 go down, the other 6 come up, and they pass on the mid-way point).  I can definitely see how you could wait for hours to go up or come down.

[nogard13]

29 minutes ago, Oceansaway17 said:

I have for the most part limited my eating in MDR as I do feel I can eat just as well in WJ and other places.  

Last time I was in MDR, and they started the crap about 10's, I looked them in the eye and told them if you keep mentioning it, you will get a 5. So STOP IT.  boy did they back off quickly.

We have young kids, so it's a difficult choice for us.  I would love to be able to do a Virgin trip, especially because the prices are very comparable for two people and they include so much more than the main lines.  But they are adult-only, so that will have to wait at least another 11 years, until my youngest turns 18.  Maybe if we splurged on specialty dining it would've been much more worth it.  There was a point where one of their sales included the all you can eat specialty dining package for $230 each (I think the kids were around $160 each).  But being that there are only 3 venues on the Explorer, we opted not to do it (kids don't eat sushi, we didn't want to eat Steak or Italian every night).

[little britain]

Very interesting your comments on 10s. We were also inundated every night on Anthem last week , I think one night we were interrupted 12 times during dinner… it is unnecessary, embarrassing and intrusive. It’s a joke that the survey still asks “ did anyone ask you for a 10”… to which I honestly replied “yes” and they didn’t get a 10. 
And I explained why!

 

@nogard13 please can you share the departure times of the shuttles from the ship to Bologna and Ravenna ? 

[Cruise a holic]

My comments are avoid the old rust bucket ships.  The newer ships, Oasis Class our favorite and even freedom class are so much better.  We were on the Adventure and the ship was very disappointing- never again.  We also went on the Icon, and found that much too crowded.  Will stick to Oasis Class ships- or Celebrity Solstice and Edge class ships.  

 

The windjammer set up on the newer ships is so much better on Royal.

[FamilyCruiserUK]

Glad you enjoy Europe. We do have some fantastic placs to visit full of culture and history.

 

The ship yes its old. Not been on her but did do the same itinerary on Brilliance, but we knew that and went for the itinerary.

 

As for the food. Europe is not blessed with the amount of red meat you have in the states and south america. The food standards on what you feed the cattle is totally different as well. So i tend to find steaks in Europe are smaller and not as good, unless you pay a premium. The buffet steaks on Arvia (p&o ship) were ok but the paid restaurant steaks were simply amazing. But food is totally dependent on supply.

[nogard13]

5 hours ago, little britain said:

Very interesting your comments on 10s. We were also inundated every night on Anthem last week , I think one night we were interrupted 12 times during dinner… it is unnecessary, embarrassing and intrusive. It’s a joke that the survey still asks “ did anyone ask you for a 10”… to which I honestly replied “yes” and they didn’t get a 10. 
And I explained why!

 

@nogard13 please can you share the departure times of the shuttles from the ship to Bologna and Ravenna ? 

We didn't do shuttles from either location.  We rode a train from Rome to Ravenna (via Bologna) and arrived the day before our departure, then called a cab from the hotel as this was the least expensive option (45€).  We did do the charter bus from the ship to Venice (Tronchetto) and that one had a meet time of 9am in Studio B.  The bus itself departed around 9:45am since everyone had to walk to get luggage, have it loaded on the bus, and get settled in.  We arrived in Venice around 12:45pm.

[MMOcruiser]

Thank you for this review, it has been very helpful.  I'll be going on this itinerary in a few weeks and I now know to avoid the steaks in MDR and promise 10s if people agree to go away and leave me alone 😁

[little britain]

On 6/26/2024 at 1:47 PM, nogard13 said:

We didn't do shuttles from either location.  We rode a train from Rome to Ravenna (via Bologna) and arrived the day before our departure, then called a cab from the hotel as this was the least expensive option (45€).  We did do the charter bus from the ship to Venice (Tronchetto) and that one had a meet time of 9am in Studio B.  The bus itself departed around 9:45am since everyone had to walk to get luggage, have it loaded on the bus, and get settled in.  We arrived in Venice around 12:45pm.

Do you recall the price and times of the transfer to VCE airport please? 

[elaine5]

Wow! Things must have really changed. We went on explorer Aug 2023 and did not find any issues discussed except possibly subpar steak. And, our pizza was meh. DH came away saying he loved this class of ship. Wonder what happened? 

[nogard13]

1 hour ago, little britain said:

Do you recall the price and times of the transfer to VCE airport please? 

We took the bus to Venice, not the airport. The bus was $45 per person to Venice but the airport is not much further. They had a bus to VCE but I don’t remember the exact price. If I had to guess, it would be $5-10 more per person. 

[jsydanma]

Great info. We are on the 17 Aug sailing on Explorer OTS and I was wondering what are the theme parties on this cruise? White night?

[cruiselvr04]

We almost never try the steak on any ship except in the speciality restaurants. It never compares with Nebraska and Texas beef. On the ships it’s as tough as shoe leather.  Part of that is probably because it has to be fried and baked rather than grilled and for hundreds of people at a time. 

[ajtaylor29]

We sailed on Explorer last fall and all had a great time! Similar itinerary, only one sea day.

We all had the UDP. Most days lunch was off the ship, then dinner back on board was one of the specialty restaurants. I rarely go in either the MDR or Windjammer, so i can't comment on that food, but it's usually just ok which is why we always dine in specialty restaurants (or Coastal Kitchen if the ship has one).

I would not hesitate to book this ship again!