How About a Positive Review (mostly) - Explorer 6/25-7/3

[PatsFanBrian]

Hi folks,

There has been a lot of negative reviewing lately.  An old adage in customer relations is that people are more likely to review when they're unhappy.  So as a counter balance, here's a review of my recent sail on Explorer out of Miami.

First, I know everyone's experiences are different and there are many factors that make a trip good or not.  We went on this sail for our 40th Anniversary with our good friends, my expectations were tempered and I was determined to enjoy it no matter the issues.

Our trip from Boston to Miami was dicey.  We flew on the 24th.  Our flight got rescheduled twice during the day from 2:00 -> 4:30 -> 6:45.  When a flight gets rescheduled that many times, the worry sets in.  But we made it off the ground, landed 5 hours late, had a fiasco with the hotel shuttle, but made it to the hotel a bit after midnight.  As long as we were in Miami, all was good.

Boarding in Saturday morning was a breeze.  We were making dining reservations by 11:30, eat before it got busy, then got a lay of the land for the afternoon.  When we were boarding, we noticed a group of employees waiting to get on which made me feel better.  On that note, at Captain's Corner, we were told that the ship was fully staffed except for shop clerks and spa workers.  The biggest issue was inexperience.  They were training more staff than normal.  The inexperience showed at times, but the staff worked hard to make everyone's time enjoyable.

So let's get the negative out of the way, mixed with some positive.....The two main complaints are the dining experience (we had a special situation) and the overall entertainment.

• One of our friends has severe Celiac.  That led to some issues mostly because the team we had for the 1st half of the trip had trouble coordinating her diet needs.
• We had assigned MTD times, the first night was perfect, our friend was assured her needs would be handled, more on that later.
• We had 3 nights of specialty dining.  We went straight to Chops to schedule everything, particularly eating at Chops on the 26th, our anniversary.  All seemed well until we arrived there on that day and were told our reservation was for the next night.  In fact, all our reservations were off by one day.  After giving them some sad puppy eyes, they accommodated us, rescheduled the other 2 nights, but now the MTD slots were all messed up.  While we were eating, the head waiter came over to apologize for the mixup, 3 other people were also booked for the wrong day.  I'm assuming inexperience on the part of the person who booked our times.
• That first night in Chops was rough.  We clearly had an inexperienced server and the meal dragged on for close to 3 hours.  At one point, we could see the head waiter gesturing to our waiter to pick up the pace.  Eventually, the head waiter took over our table and moved things along.  The other 2 nights of specialty were great.
• The MTD got worse over the next few days.  The staff kept losing our friend's order for gluten free and scrambled to find food for her.  Also, the table was always occupied.  Turns out that the people at our table were always showing up for their time late and holding up the table.  They initially got us another table quickly, but the next night, they told us to come back in 20-30.  When we went back, they were still there, so they put us at another nearby table.  Next night, rinse and repeat, they were just finishing that main course at 7PM.  So we insisted on any table, they sat us in a different section.  The experience suddenly became great.  The head waiter made sure our friend got everything she needed, kept checking on us, the waiter and assistant were great.  When we left, we asked to have the same table for the last night which they did.
• Entertainment was "meh".  Really not the fault of the performers, the shows were just not well designed.  The singers were not up to the usual RC standards, but we made the most of it, the performers gave it what they had, but they couldn't overcome the material they had to work with.  I really enjoyed the Ice Show.  The headliner was a bit of a  painful experience, excellent voice, but tried to hard to be a Vegas entertainer and it just didn't work.

All the above being said, it was a more positive experience than it seems.  First, the bars were fully staffed, the servers were always to be found.  They were always friendly and helpful, we got to know a few of them and made sure to tip extra to show our appreciation.  The ship was full, but it never felt full.  There were many families, lots of teens, but they were never an intrusion and most were very polite and well behaved.  The pool area was busy, but we tend to do the pool early and do other things later, so we never had a problem getting chairs.  Our room steward was on top of things, quickly got me my CPAP supplies (even though I had filled out the form ahead of time), kept our room clean and always had clean towels for us.  When we scrambled to reschedule excursions due to the itinerary change, the desk was helpful.  It helped that we took advantage of the app and our time at the desk was to resolve a couple of small issues.

The excursions were mostly good.  In Labadee, we rented the beach lounger.  They were nice, but the beach area was rocky.  Luckily there was a clear path in one section to get past the rocks.  Next time in Labadee, we'll just take advantage of the free beach.  The Dominican was not good, no fault of Royal.  We went to Biyahibe Beach Break.  They took us to a resort for the afternoon.  The resort was a bit in need of repair.  But the worst issue was the beach was unusable.  The rocks and coral were unpassable.  Very few people went in the water.  We went to the pool which was just OK.  They were short staffed at the pool bar and all we had for food was a burger or hot dog.  I would strongly discourage anyone from booking that if they stop at the Dominican.

Our last 2 stops were changed due to TS Bonnie.  We were supposed to be in Curacao and Aruba, but the storm was passing those islands on the days we were supposed to be there.  Very disappointing, but we can't control the weather.  So we went to Jamaica and Coco Cay.  We decided to just to port shopping in Jamaica and then spent the day by the pool with almost no one else there.  In Coco Cay, we splurged and went to the Coco Beach Club.  We felt it was worth the price, best day of the trip.  The beach and pool are great, but the food and service is what really put it over the top.  Best meal of the week in any venue.  And the server was on top of our friend's dietary needs.

Our trip back to Boston could not have gone any better.  We were off the ship so quickly and at the airport so early, that we were able to get on a flight 4 hours earlier than what we had booked.  

So that's the review.  Overall another excellent cruise despite some of the issues.  I think each passing week will improve as the ships get their staff fully trained.  We're already looking at our next sail

[Matt]

So glad to hear you had a great time overall. Thanks for sharing this!

[smokeybandit]

I'm not sure we'd ever do MTD for that reason. Guaranteeing having the same waiter at the same time makes dietary accommodations much easier.

[Cruisin and Boozin]

Glad to hear the positives!

[PatsFanBrian]

13 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

I'm not sure we'd ever do MTD for that reason. Guaranteeing having the same waiter at the same time makes dietary accommodations much easier.

We had the same MTD every night, 6:45.  And the staff in that section assured us her needs would be taken care of.  But even though she ordered ahead of time, they never were ready for her.  The seating issue was the people at the table showing up late every night.  Truly inconsiderate not to think of the people coming behind them.  RC should have a policy about showing up late for your assigned time.  But they also should have been quicker to put us at an open table.

When we were assigned a new table for the last 2 nights, everything was great.  The head waiter could not have been more helpful and they had her order ready to go as soon as we sat down.

BTW, even the lines for those who were walking in seemed to move at a good pace.  I didn't here any complaints about it.

[SPS]

44 minutes ago, PatsFanBrian said:

One of our friends has severe Celiac.  That led to some issues mostly because the team we had for the 1st half of the trip had trouble coordinating her diet needs.

44 minutes ago, PatsFanBrian said:

The staff kept losing our friend's order for gluten free and scrambled to find food for her.

I'm really sorry to hear this. My wife needs to eat gluten free (not Celiac, but extremely gluten sensitive) and has, thankfully, never had any issues with the MDR staff providing gluten free options and losing her next evening's order. I'm going to guess this might be a new/inexperienced staff issue, possibly combined with the current problems of ships being understaffed and/or overwhelmed by increased guest capacities. (Understandable, but, still not acceptable for anyone with severe food allergies, obviously.)

[smokeybandit]

Staff losing gluten free orders was why we've never gone back to CK for dinner.

[ChessE4]

2 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

I'm not sure we'd ever do MTD for that reason. Guaranteeing having the same waiter at the same time makes dietary accommodations much easier.

We did MTD on our last cruise because of a TA mistake, and we were assigned the same wait staff each night.  Our reserved time varied from 7:45 to 8:15.  For us, it seemed like a traditional late dinner with excellent service.  This might not happen with MTD times that vary significantly from night to night.  We also observed that our food arrived very quickly due to our later seating.  Big difference from our usual early seating. 

[Brenna]

Glad to hear it! We sail on Explorer on a similar itinerary in September!