Now It's Cruise Time!

 

With our 4 days in Portugal a resounding success, it was time to board Royal Caribbean's Explorer of the Seas on Sunday morning.  Considered a mid-sized ship, it was the largest I've sailed on thus far in my limited couple of years of cruising.  As a Voyager class ship in their fleet, she can accommodate roughly 4,200 guests.  All the other ships I've cruised on up to this point handle 2,400-2,800 passengers . . . so this was a sizable increase to what I'd previously experienced.

While I was initially concerned about sizing up for this cruise, once on the ship, it really didn't feel that much larger than the others.  The dining areas (primarily the Main Dining Room and Windjammer Buffet) seemed to be able to reasonably accommodate folks during the key dining times.  The ship's layout, however, is unique with its Royal Promenade which is located on deck #5 and runs through the center of the ship.  It was set up like a mall type walk with places to shop and eat, and at night dance.

This is also where several of the activities were hosted . . . things like parades, parties and celebrations.  It was my least favorite area of the ship!  Way too crowded and during events like the ship's 25th Anniversary Party or the Halloween Parade, it was asses to elbows with few spots to sit down to comfortably enjoy the activities.  So I avoided this area any time there was an event going on.

 

 

 

As with most cruises, there were plenty of activities to keep folks busy.  This was especially important given this was a 13 night cruise, with 8 sea days . . . 7 were consecutive as we crossed the Atlantic Ocean.  In addition to the usual daytime trivia contests and bingo, there were 3 guest speaker series or "enrichment talks" that took place on each of the 7 crossing days.  I found each of them to be very interesting and engaging.

Of course all of the cruise ships these days have swimming pools, although on our trip, the seas were too rough a couple of the days, so the pools sat empty.  (More about that on another blog post!)

One of the more unique features of the Explorer OTS is their Studio B . . . a multiple purpose venue featuring an ice skating rink where shows were performed several times throughout our cruise.  There were even times when guests could reserve free skate time.

On one of the sea days, Pam & I did the Sip*Tour*Brunch on-ship behind the scenes tour of the ship's food galley areas.  It was interesting to see all that goes into feeding over 4,000 guests and a crew of nearly 1,200.  While there are some ship tours that are provided free of charge to the higher tier Crown & Anchor members, this one had a $40pp fee.

Since I was on a casino comp for this cruise, I was obligated to play at least some time in their Casino Royale.  I'll be doing a blog post specifically on my time in the casino later, but for now suffice to say I was happy with the outcome of my gambling time and the casino certificate I earned for my next big adventure next October!

For now, I think that's a wrap for this entry.  Next up . . . I will share how we spent our time in Spain, including the Canary Islands.  As much as we both loved Portugal, we also enjoyed the places we visited while in port in Cadiz/Seville, Lanzarote, Gran Canaria and Tenerife.  I feel so blessed to have been able to explore an area of Europe I had never really considered before booking this cruise a year ago.

Thanks Royal Caribbean . . . and thank you Pam for joining me and making it a very special adventure!