Royal Caribbean - Explorer of the Seas

After our first cruise on Symphony of the Seas, my parents asked if we wanted to join them on another trip six weeks later - for context one of them has recently retired so now cruising and playing golf is their thing ;).

This time Camille and I joined them on Explorer of the Seas, for a 7-night cruise around Montenegro and the Greek Islands. I was pretty excited for this one as I’d heard lots of great things about Montenegro and I felt like the only member of my Instagram community not to visit Mykonos.

Unfortunately for Explorer it had a lot to live up to, having been on its younger & quite frankly bigger and better relative Symphony the month prior. But with Explorer being almost 20 years older and Symphony currently the 2nd largest cruise ship in the world, it's a bit like comparing the Nokia 3310 with the iPhoneX.

For the most part I've tried to limit comparisons and instead focus on what might make travelling on Explorer with your baby / toddler that bit easier.

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Where to stay - decks & cabins

There are 15 decks on Explorer and we opted to stay on deck 9 – more or less in the middle of the ship. Camille and I were in room 9291, with relatives in 9289 and 9287. All were interior rooms without balconies, however they did have large TV screens which had a live link to an exterior camera on the boat so it was a bit like having a window. I actually found this quite bright but there are curtains around it so you can tune it out if you prefer to.

The room felt slightly smaller than on Symphony (sorry, I said I wouldn't do this, but this is one of only a few comparisons I promise) - there was a Queen size bed, a lounge chair and ample wardrobe and drawer space. Again we stored the suitcase and pram under the bed when we weren’t using it.

Only a small point but I found the drawer design quite annoying. Essentially instead of handles they had dips in the middle which meant Camille could really easily open them - it's not a huge deal her throwing things out of the drawers but I was worried about her trapping her fingers when shutting them.

Unfortunately I can’t recommend staying in these particular rooms. I can’t speak for all cabins on the boat but Explorer just felt like a noisy ship. In all three rooms my family occupied we felt there was a constant vibrating noise; I would guess this might be coming from the engine but it was particularly noticeable at night. Noise also travelled pretty noticeably from other cabins; I was convinced my neighbours above were doing continuous rounds of burpees.

I'd suggest ear plugs but obviously not ideal when keeping an ear out for your little one.

Sleeping arrangements, bottled water and sterilising

Because Camille didn't really sleep well in the travel cot (Pack-n-Play) on the last cruise, this time I just had her in the bed with me. On arrival there were two single beds but the room attendant was happy to make them into a Queen. I would suggest pushing them up against one side of the room so you don't need to worry about your toddler rolling out - the beds are slightly higher than our bed at home.

As on the last cruise, I was sterilising bottles etc. Again the sinks in the bathroom were adequate for this. I also ordered bottled water in advance, though not as much this time. There were a number of places on the ship including (Cafe Promenade on deck 5) and the Windjammer restaurant where you can get boiling, or cold water or buy bottled water if you need to. I think these were around $3.

Spaces for baby / toddler to play

By the time this cruise came around Camille was now walking which brought with it some new challenges! While on Symphony we felt fairly safe with her crawling around the deck, the railings around Explorer have quite large gaps. Personally I couldn't deal with the anxiety of letting her roam around outside too much but we did find a couple of spaces to play.

There's a mini golf course on one of the top decks. I think because of the time of year there were more adults on this boat than families - this meant it was usually pretty free up on the course. She enjoyed ambling around up there and the railings didn't have the large gaps.

We also discovered an indoor play area. There's the Adventure Ocean programme which is aimed at older children but in one of the rooms they put out toys for younger children to play with throughout the day, supervised by a parent. It's not a huge room but it had some toys, bikes and a slide which Camille loved so this was a good and most importantly safe place for her to blow off some steam!

Elsewhere on the boat is the "Star Lounge" - it's used for various bits of entertainment, primarily at night. This was carpeted so asides from the granite tables in there we found it pretty safe for Camille to practice walking around. Next door to the "Star Lounge" was the "Connoisseur Club" - apparently this is for guests to "enjoy a cigar and a cognac" but we found it empty every day (and smoke free) so we enjoyed some quite time with the iPad there.

Unlike Symphony there was no pool area for babies/toddlers - they need to be potty trained to enter the pools - so swimming on this trip wasn't possible. There may be beaches at some of the ports but we didn't investigate this because it was October anyway so not super warm.

Mealtimes

It's hard not to make a comparison here, but The Windjammer (buffet restaurant) was pretty poor in comparison to Symphony's Windjammer. Actually we only ate here once and instead preferred the main dining room.

For the main dinning room, "Sapphire", we selected a dining time when booking the cruise of 6pm - we found this time worked well. The meal choice for adults was great, with a different theme each evening, and there was also a children's menu with things like Spaghetti Bolognese. Camille has a diary allergy so I asked the staff if they would make her something plainer off of the adults menu - she enjoyed grilled chicken, broccoli and carrots most evenings! The veg is typically quite al denté just fyi. The waiters also brought her a fruit bowl and bread each night which she enjoyed.

I would say the meal lasted around 90 minutes - we found the iPad to be a godsend in enabling us all to enjoy this! Make sure you download stuff in advance as the wifi on the ship is around $30 per day (yes, per day!!) and even if you have an iPad which connects to cellular, you only get signal while in port.

Similarly we ate in the main dining room for breakfast. You can't reserve a slot for this but I would expect most people with babies/toddlers to be up before the rest of the ship so you shouldn't have any problem. Camille enjoyed watermelon, toast, bagels, eggs - and there's lots of other yummy things to chose from like cereals, oatmeal, waffles, cooked breakfasts.

Napping

On Symphony, we used the running track a fair bit for walking and pushing babe in her pram to sleep. However the running track on Explorer is around the deck where the sunbeds and pools are which feels like a poor design choice for guests wanting to run and suntan alike.

But it is generally a quieter boat than Symphony so we found rooms like the Star Lounge quite useful for sitting somewhere quiet to nod off.

Getting of the ship

Okay, we had a raaaange of experiences getting on and off the ship. Unlike the previous cruise, there were a couple of tenders. The logistics of the tender into Montenegro left a lot to be desired - which were largely circumstantial and down to weather so I won't go into that - but in terms of whether it's viable with a baby, then yes it is. She was actually asleep in the pram when we stepped onto the tender so there's no reason you couldn't do this. Kotor is also beautiful.

Corfu and Argostoli were straightforward - get off the ship and walk into town. Mykonos we arrived into the new port so had to get a water taxi across to the centre (don't try walking - it's on a main road with no pavement so just not possible with a buggy!).

As on all cruises, there's security getting on and off the boat so just be mindful that you may need to fold up your pram for this (i.e. don't go overboard stashing stuff underneath it!).

Transfer to Ravenna from Venice Marco Polo Airport

Final thing I thought it was worth mentioning, was that we opted for the RC transfer from the airport in Venice to the boat. This was around 2 hours (with an additional 15 minutes service stop for toilet break) so make sure you've got something to occupy your little one.

Any more questions, feel free to drop a comment!