Explorer Of The Seas

Explorer Of The Seas Facilities / On Board Activities

Dining / Dinner	Entertainment / Recreation	Gratuity Policies
No. of Dinner Sittings: 2 Usual Dinner Hours: 6:15pm & 8:30pm Windjammer Cafe. 6:30pm-9:30pm Special Diet: Low-fat,Diabetic,Low-cholesterol,Vegitarian Dress Code: Varies Nightly	Art Gallery Bars/Lounges/ Night Clubs - 16 Casino Ice Rink Inline Skating Track Library - 2 Movie Theater/Cinema Photo Shop and Photo Gallery Pool Bar Pools - Outdoor - 4 Shuffleboard Courts Video Arcade Whirlpools - 6	Waiter $3.50 per person per day Asst. Waiter $2.00 per person per day Cabin steward $3.50 per person per day
Services	Health and Beauty	Athletic/Exercise Facilities
Barber Shop Beauty Salon Chapel Dry Cleaning Handicapped Accommodations - 22 Laundry/Ironing/Dry Cleaning Service Postal Service Shore Excursion Desk Wedding Chapel	Health Spa (with whirlpools) Medical Center Sauna/Steam Rooms - 2	9 Hole Golf Putting Course Fitness Center Golf Hitting Cage Golf Simulators Gymnasium Jogging Track Rock Climbing Wall Sports Court

Explorer Of The Seas Onboard Experience

Explorer of the Seas, second of the Voyager-class vessels, (Voyager, Explorer, Adventure and Navigator) quickly followed on the keel of Voyager of the Seas which entered service in 1999 as the largest cruise ship in the world. Explorer is a near identical twin also featuring an ice skating rink, rock-climbing wall, in-line skating track, horizontal atrium, and inside-facing cabins with a promenade view. Like Voyager, this 3,114-passenger ship appeals to people of all ages -- from kids to seniors -- and with nearly every taste. This is a real people-watching ship; even those who can't do all of what the Explorer offers seem to enjoy watching those who can. The 40-foot-high rock-climbing walls are busy all day. There is an ice-skating rink for recreational skating as well as for Ice Capades-type shows, and a curvaceous rollerblading track on the open decks. There's a three-story dining room, one of among the biggest casinos at sea, and a 9-hole miniature golf course. A "first" on Explorer is a dedicated lab space for the Atmospheric and Oceanographic Laboratories, providing experts with tools to monitor all kinds of important oceanic metrics. They also offer hands-on demonstrations, interaction with scientists and such displays as a touchable iceberg to passengers.

There are a full three miles of public corridors, but the hallways are occasionally "jiggered" so you don't get a sense of the full distance, plus excellent signage precludes anyone getting too grievously lost. However, after a simple "let's go see the ship!" comment leads you out the door, by the time you return to your cabin you will feel like Marco Polo. The 500-foot-long, over three-lanes-wide four-deck-high Royal Promenade is all too evocative of an onshore mall. The promenade is lined with the Cork & Kettle English Pub, a 24-hour cafe for pizza and pastries; a sports bar; and shops displaying their ship's logo items outside to designer merchandise by Versace, Bulgari, and Lladro inside.

There is a $4.25-per-scoop Ben & Jerry's. Pay-per-view in-cabin movies are $11.95, and there's actually an admission charge to Johnny Rockets (although the burgers are free, and worth every cent). There's a $20 surcharge for the small alternative restaurant Portofino which honestly has not earned as much praise as the alternative dining on other megaships. The Aquarium Bar boasts 56-ton salt water tanks holding hundreds of tropical fish; there is a clubby cigar lounge; the nautical-inspired Schooner Bar; a well-stocked library; the Card Room; the Champagne Bar; and the Skylight Wedding Chapel (at the highest point on the ship, on Deck 15). An Internet Center, royalcaribbeanonline, is open 24 hours. (basic charge is 50 cents a minute). There is no self-service launderette.

Explorer Of The Seas Things to Do

Entertainment:
The ship's "name" performers - take Charo (please!) for example - are likely to have peaked in popularity well before Johnny Carson left the Tonight show. The magicians and stand-up comedians in the lounges are generally "up and coming," possible future stars and are accordingly pleasingly diverting. A roving quartet of "Krooze Komics," performs elaborate acrobatics shows and impromptu physical comedy in the Royal Promenade. The Vegas-style production shows, especially clever in their special effects, rival Carnival's for the best at sea.
 
Fitness:
The ship's well-equipped gym still draws serious fitness buffs with its full range of state-of-the-art machines. The two-level Steiner Spa, with its winding staircase, looks more like the lobby of a boutique hotel, albeit with a Greek motif. It houses a small attractive thelassotherapy-like pool in an airy glass-enclosed but private semi-circular room. The Solarium's serene outdoor pool area nestles behind the spa; you're surrounded there by fountains, foliage, and statues, with a retractable glass ceiling overhead.
 
For Kids:
The "Adventure Ocean" youth program has age-specific facilities and programs supervised by youth counselors for Aquanauts (age 3-5, must be toilet trained), Explorers (age 6-8), Explorers (age 9-11), Navigators (age 12-14) and Teens (age 15-17). The program runs year-round in the Caribbean, Bermuda, Bahamas, Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska. Parents can leave their children at Adventure Ocean while they take shore excursions. For this purpose, the facilities open 30 minutes ahead of morning shore excursion departures. Otherwise, organized activities are offered from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., with group babysitting from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. for a fee. Teen centers are now open past 2 a.m. Teens will find their own private coffee house and disco.

A new program for infants and toddlers 6 months to 3 years, in partnership with toy maker Fisher-Price, offers 45-minute playgroups for children accompanied by an adult, involving storytelling, creative arts, music and a variety of Fisher-Price learning toys and games.

Private babysitting is offered from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m., provided sitters are available, for children from one year old. The rate is usually between $8.00 and $10 per hour depending on the number of children in the family. Cash payment is made directly to the sitter. Arrange through Guest Services at least 24 hours in advance.

Explorer Of The Seas Dining / Dinner

Cuisine:
Mouthwatering descriptions on the menus notwithstanding, you just won't hear people raving about the food. Choices can feel somewhat limited and not very imaginative.
 
Service:
It's obvious that the multinational staff and crew enjoy watching their passengers enjoy themselves. They're uniformly cheerful, knowledgeable, and eager to help. The wait staff in every restaurant is noticeably solicitous and conscientious.

Cabin service staff is efficient but unobtrusive. The purser's desk is notably responsive, especially in view of how much troubleshooting they must have to do on a ship this size. Room service, though, can be pretty slow.

Tipping:
Royal Caribbean suggests a per person per day gratuity of $3.50 for the stateroom attendant ($5.75 if sailing in a suite); $3.50 for the waiter; $2.50 for the Assistant Waiter; .75 Head Waiter. These gratuities may be paid in cash or charged to your onboard account. For children sailing as third or fourth passenger in the stateroom, tipping is at the parents' discretion.

A 15 percent gratuity is automatically added to all beverage tabs. Gratuities for room service, spa, casino and other staff are at your discretion.
 
Attire:
There are two formal nights per cruise. Maybe it's this ship's particularly festive reputation that induced most men onboard our sailing to don actual tuxedos for formal nights. A dark suit is just as appropriate. In general, though, this ship offers so much to do onboard that passengers don't all dress alike.

Explorer Of The Seas Ambience

Decor:
Clean, simple and tasteful, featuring a lot of Art Nouveau influence, seems just right for a ship this size. The atrium boasts a beautiful fiber optic sculpture rising several stories. The ship's well-placed art is surprisingly sophisticated. Particularly notable are the Georgian-style dining rooms, a stunning tucked-away lounge for smokers called the Connoisseur Cigar Club (to which you'll have to ask directions); and the elegant Champagne Bar, with curvaceous champagne-colored leather banquettes.
 
Public Areas:
The breathtaking Royal Promenade -- four decks high, longer than a football field, wider than three lanes of traffic -- has no windows, but is always dazzlingly illuminated, as only befits a venue for Mardi Gras-style parades complete with stilt walkers, a swaying inflatable dancer, streamers and confetti.

The enormous Casino Royale, through which passengers must pass to get to the main show lounge, is gilded to within an inch of its life, with nearly 300 slots and tables for blackjack, craps, roulette and Caribbean Stud Poker. The disco pulses into the wee hours. Floor-to-ceiling seawater tanks teeming with Day-Glo tropical fish flank the Aquarium Bar. The well-stocked two-deck library, which feels like an urban bookshop, provides seating along its glass wall for an overview of the Royal Promenade. The Viking Crown Lounge is perched 14 decks above the ocean. You can get married in port in the ship's Wedding Chapel, bringing up to 60 of your closest friends and families.

The gorgeous La Scala Theater, a state-of-the-art 1,350-seat show lounge, features such decorative elements as a Murano glass chandelier and a jewel-bedecked velvet stage curtain.

That ice rink you hear so much about is a two decks below the atrium and right in the middle of the ship, which means some fancy footwork is sometimes required to get to other public areas. In fact, the great and spacious interior of the ship is almost completely surrounded by private cabins, so to get any look at the ocean at all you'll have to head for the cluster of lounges on the upper decks or outside on the decks themselves.

Amply decked out with recliners, the pool areas bustle with activity and also are the staging area for fashion shows and planned games. The real action takes place on the sports deck, where fitness fans work up a sweat playing ping-pong or basketball or rock-climbing. Families flock to the open-air 9-hole miniature golf course

The best spots for being alone with a book during days at sea are the sea view Seven of Hearts card room and Cloud Nine Lounge on Deck 14. Serious misanthropes can retreat all the way up the curving stairway to Deck 15's Skylight Chapel, where no one ever ventures, and where no music is piped in.
 
Cabins:
Royal Caribbean is known for small cabins, inside cabins are just about big enough to turn around in. Hats off to Royal Caribbean, though, for not skimping on balcony cabins. Actually, cabins are roomier than elsewhere in RCI's fleet. Inside cabins do measure a stingy 160 sq. ft; but outside cabins range from 180 to 265 sq. ft. and suites from 610 to 1188 sq. ft. Moreover, there's lots of storage, especially nice for a ship that essentially goes nowhere. Standard amenities include color TV with CNN and movies; a safe; individual temperature controls; and RCI's first hair dryers. There are tubs only in the highest category staterooms' bathrooms; most have just showers (though unexpectedly large ones) with medicine cabinets.