January 7 – Miami

Weather – 13º when we woke up – chilly, but sunny, eventually things warmed up to about º18

Steps – 7,990

We’re back in Miami for disembarkation and embarkation day - interesting. We saw our next ship from where we had breakfast on our last one…it’s an odd feeling.

The distance to the terminal where our new ship is is technically walkable (probably about 15 min) but the route didn’t seem too pedestrian friendly, especially with luggage, so we took a $10 Uber.

Of course, check in wasn’t available when we arrived at about 10, so we hung

good morning Miami!!

out in the terminal until check in started about 11:30. This was quite civilized – there was iced tea, water, and plenty of seats.

While we waited in the terminal, the Wi-Fi was BETTER from the ship than from the actual port. I expected the terminal’s Wi-Fi to be great…it wasn’t, but the ship’s was. We weren’t even ON the ship yet and the Wi-Fi was impressive. I never, ever expect ship Wi-Fi to be good - adequate, hopefully, good…no way. As long as I can upload pics to the blog relatively painlessly, I’m happy. Regent’s Wi-Fi was pretty good for this, and before we got to the new ship the Wi-Fi was impressive.

next ship, from the last ship 

Around 11:30 we were checked in and were soon wondering around the ship. On first glance this ship is very beautiful and modern. We’ve seen plenty of photos and videos while researching this trip, but it really is hip.

We have lunch as the Market Emporium. Every cruise ship seems to have its buffet. Explora’s Market Emporium is the closest thing this ship has to a buffet, but it is really more of a food hall rather than a buffet. There is no serve yourself. Everything is made to order and handed to you.

I sat while Chris checked out what he’d have – this took him a while because there are so many options. I settled on some octopus ceviche and a spicy squid stir-fry. Chris had some pasta, fish, and pizza. Dessert for me was a piece of cheesecake Chris had fruit and a cookie. All but Chris’s fish was really good.

room for the next week

Excursions are not included in Explora’s fare. Our booking promo was $1,000 shipboard credit. We thought this would cover any excursion we would want, so essentially excursions would be included. Explora doesn’t allow onboard credits to be used for excursion booking before you board, so we had to wait until we were on to book. This was our after-lunch activity. 

Laundry is also not included…we will definitely miss that!

Exploring our room and unpacking was our other after-lunch activity. The room is very similar to our last one on Regent. Both are about 300 square feet and include a balcony. This balcony and bathroom are both bigger, here, so that’s a plus. The actual room feels a bit tighter here, but when I check the specs, I found that this room is bigger – the total area is 377 sq ft, (room is 301, balcony 75), compared to Regent - total 300, (room 250, balcony 50).

Anyway…this will be lovely for the next week.

Other aspects of the room we like…bathroom has a heated floor. We were on a river cruise once with a heated bathroom floor – this is awesome.

sail away

There are also full-sized products in the bathroom. I can’t stand those tiny, what I consider old fashioned hotel sized products. Mostly I hate to use the tiny ones, but they are also use a ton of plastic and are terribly wasteful. I asked Regent about it once and was told large format isn’t lux enough

for them…BS, we’ve been in fancy-schmancy hotels with full sized products.

There’s also a Dyson hair dryer, an espresso maker and kettle.

The balcony has a day bed which depending on the weather we will make good use of.