This was my first time on the Explorer Cruise and I’m a fan! Here is my review of our ship, the Explora II.
Boarding Explorer II
After spending a day in Rome, we traveled to Italian port cities for a 7 night cruise! Explora is owned by MSC and is touted as an “exquisite, modern, luxurious cruise experience.” Explora II is the second boat and there are two more! They sail around the world, including the Caribbean and Europe.
Explora II has 461 suites, all with a marine terrace, 5 heating pools (+hot tubs), 6 restaurants, 12 bars/lounges, beautiful wellness/spa areas, sports decks, fitness centres and more.
This is definitely not a party boat with big music and a buffet. The dining room is restaurant style (or market station) and includes all the drinks! The drinks were also incredible.
The kids are welcome, but we didn’t see their tons. Most of the other guests were 45-65 years old, and I think most were bigger groups and family couples. I couldn’t tell you what percentage of our cruise was America vs. International, but if I had to guess, I would say 25% International.
Everything about the Explora II was done beautifully. I loved the furniture, tableware (how I judge a restaurant!), size, lounge chairs and pool, especially our room. It exceeded my expectations in terms of how wonderful it was.
Our room
We were on Ocean Grande Terrace. This is one step up from the baseroom as it has a larger balcony (do you think you took this step with the promotion?). Honestly, we didn’t use the terrace much, so the baseroom is totally lovely!
Our bathroom was perfect for cruise ship standards and we took a rain shower!
I also loved the dressing area with ample storage and a separate make-up mirror area.
The boat has two laundry rooms and did its own laundry twice. And in your last 48 hours, the ship will do your laundry for you!
Wellness
We absolutely loved the Finnish sauna (which was totally hot), a salt room, an experience shower, a salt water hot tub and a spa wellness area with a steam room. All of these were free to use at any time, and there were very few people there.
spa
I used some of the onboard credits to get a massage at the spa and it was amazing! Summary of the day, and more about it:)
Fitness
I also loved the fitness room and walking track! I walked the track every day and Thomas used the fitness room.
They also had several exercise bikes outdoors, along with row machines and several weight benches. I loved riding my bike outside when I could grab the shade!
Pool
Can you imagine a more beautiful infinity pool? ? It was like a dream! The pool chairs were plentiful, but finding shade can be difficult.
The interior pool had a roof that opens and closes in the event of bad weather.
The Infinity Hot Tubs was also amazing!! It was lovely and long so you didn’t feel like you were on top of other people.
food
Perhaps most importantly, the food! I thought it was very good. I’ll hand it out 9/10! We had a 1-2 dish that we thought was ok, but overall the food was great! Stay tuned for a summary of each restaurant in the future blog post.
I had lots of fruit, muesli, chiaphrine and green juice for breakfast most days.
The food was very healthy and fresh! I love the juice bar!
We took most of our lunch off the boat, but the market was great when we ate the first day and the day at sea. There were so many products, including tapas, pizza, ready-made salads, DIY salads, sushi, caviar and champagne, panini, all kinds of cheese, all-can-meal club legs.
Lunch snack plate!
cherry blossoms
Some restaurants you can enter, some have asked for reservations, but I think you could probably make them the same day. Sakura was our restaurant favorite. Because we were able to eat out on the deck, so the food was very tasty!
We had a sushi and tempura soft shell crab, pork dumplings and a delicious kale salad.
I also loved this chocolate matcha ice cream dessert!
There was one fee that offered a 7 course “trip to Italy” called anthology (look at the summary). I think it was more than 150 euros each for an exclusive wine pairing. I had about 1,000 euros of onboard credit my sister got to us, so we used it to pay for it, but I’m not sure if they’d left otherwise.
Nightlife
The boat had nightly shows and was usually accompanied by a song! There was also a house singer and a guest. The show was at 8:30 and 10:30 so if we finished dinner within the time period we usually went early.
After the show I raced to name that song every night!! I made a friend out of Virginia there. It was interesting and they went every night too! Explora doesn’t do it too much in the nightlife, but we’re not a huge party person so we didn’t need any more. But I could have used the night of a comedian! I love going to people on cruises. There was also regular trivia at 5pm, but I never did it because we were usually still in the harbor or shower.
Overall review of Explora II
If you love cruises, you love Explora II! I was really pleased with all the levels of service and luxury. It felt more like a floating hotel than a sticky, crowded boat.
Favorite parts:
The wellness centre was amazing, but there were plenty of great drinks with lots of healthy options, high quality wines and plenty of mocktails. All of this was because we drank so much, not because we didn’t have to take away all the cost arguments and ruin signing the tab, but because we loved it all included. Wifi was included and all the tips were included. The room was very nice and spacious, with a mini fridge in stock and easy towels on board the boat with fast robes and easy towels provided for the excursion
Room for improvement:
More shade/umbrella “Gelato Cafe” closed at 5pm (I wanted it for dessert!). The anthology was charged at the restaurant.
On October 10th, we’ll be doing another Explorer cruise! I want to do things that go through Greek islands and the Caribbean and stop at small islands that are difficult to fly.
Stay tuned for the Port City summary next!
