donnapg

Returned yesterday from a weel on the Explorer of The Reas to PR, St Maarten, St Thomas and Nassau.

Overall a positve trip with a couple of glaring negatives.

NEVER EVER EVER take their charter airline flight. We flew on World Airlines and had awful experiences in airports on both ends. Took 3 hrs to get our bags once we arrived in Miami and returning home we had a 6hr delay in the Miami airport becasue of a problem with our plane - on a "normal" airline they would most likely have add'l planes around - World had to fly one in from Wisconsin. Very poorly handled all around

Childrens Program on board - What a disappointment. It is such a hyped program - my 12 year old was very excited. Unfortunately if you are over 8 (and not in the all day camp) you are virtually ignored. There were activities sent out daily but not one of them ever happened. Every time he went - they coordinators were there but they would say - not enuf kids, sorry bye. No effort was made to go poolside or into the video arcade to engage kids, just a waste of a program - I was extremely disappointed as were other parents on board that I spoke with. The program for older teems was basically opening a closet size room at night and calling it a teen disco. Basically kids spent most of the time onboard aimlessly wandering or playing the ridiculously priced ($ 1.50 per game) arcade games.

Deck Chairs - you want one on a day at sea - get ther by 9am or you won;t have one. Once you get one - guard it or someone will throw your stuff off and take it from you.

Positives

There were positives. The food was much better than expected, I did not have a bad meal. Even the buffet lunches and breakfasts were excellent.

The service was excellent as well. Our cabin steward was terrific as was our dining room staff. Everyone we encountered on board was very helpful.

On a 1-10 scale I would rate the trip a 7. Mainly due to the lack of a kids program. Would I do it again? Possibly but I would fly in on my own the day before, and would bring a friend for each of my kids.

If you go to St Thomas I higly recommend doing the BOB Shore Excursion, I am not a shore excursion type of person but am so glad I did this one. It was phenomenal!

If you have any questions let me know and I will do my best to answer them

Thanks.

Donna

ajcolorado

Thank you for the report. We're going on Explorer - Eastern Caribbean in June. It'll be our first cruise so it's good to hear an unsolicited report.

rhodyzoo

1) Tell me about the dress at diner. Was it more casual than I was lead to expect. 2) Did you visit the rain forest in San Juan 3) Any advice on things to bring to avoide cruise-line over charges?

andy

Any neat shopping deals in St Thomas or St Martin as I will be there next month.???


Thanks-

By the way, I would write RCL and tell them about the kid program and what happened...Those counselors are being paid to do that job and they really slacked off...

leeshiebean

In response to the post about the Eastern Caribbean cruise on Explorer - I took that cruise in August and it was great. We were a group of 6 - my parents, my brother and his girlfriend (19) and me and my boyfriend (21 & 22). We found there was plenty to do on the ship on the at sea days, so we were never bored. In PR my boyfriend and I did the rainforest tour which was pretty cool, and we had some time to come back and explore old San Juan, though I did wish we had more time to walk around there. The rest did the horseback riding and they said that was the best part of the cruise. In St. Thomas we did Snuba, however watch our with your valuebles, a family got camcorders, cameras, and lots of cash stolen off of the beach by some locals. Snuba was awesome though, I recommend it! In Labadee it is your stereotypical Caribbean beach, with hammocks on the beach, people selling frozen drinks, etc. We rented snorkel gear and floating mats (you can sign up for the water park, wave runners, snorkeling, etc when you're there if you can't decide before handon on the excursions page) and snorkeled around, floated, swam and relaxed all day. Although there were a lot of jellyfish there... it was still amazing.
And I found dinners on the Explorer of the Seas to be really good. Most people (including us) tended to dress nicely for the dinners, however there was a family next to us whose children wore gym shorts and tshirts with cutoff sleeves to the dinner one night... not nice. Even the buffet breakfasts and lunches were good food.
I just realized this thead is almost 2 years old, haha. Well hopefully this will help somebody!