Explorer of the Seas Entertainment, Decoded

Spirits of the Seasons — the Studio B production, staged on a refrigerated rink at sea. It is built around the imagery of the four seasons.

Per Cruise Critic’s editor review, it uses theatrical snow effects in the room.

Royal Caribbean names it currently for this ship on its own things-to-do listing. This page treats that as evidence of a title still running, not one that once did.

An independent onboard reviewer who saw it described skaters of Olympic standard in the cast. They rated it above ice shows they had seen on other sailings.

Wild, Cool & Swingin’ — the swing-era musical revue in the Palace Theatre, drawing on mid-century American songbook material. Named by Royal Caribbean for this ship, and named independently by a ship-specific guide written after her 2023 drydock.

Invitation to Dance — the second theatre production, a ballroom-and-Latin dance piece that fuses competitive dancesport with theatrical staging. Same two sources.

Fast Forward — the third theatre production, a decades revue leaning heavily on the 1980s. Royal Caribbean bills it as a flashback show.

One independent listing describes the same slot in the schedule as an eighties revue with period costume — consistent, not contradictory.

Why four productions matters, and what it does not mean. The Production category is written around distinct productions staged in purpose-built venues.

Four across two rooms is one more than Voyager, Mariner or Navigator currently carries.

That is the whole of the half-point. It is emphatically not a claim that her shows are better.

The same independent guide that confirms the three theatre titles also calls them dated, and Cruise Critic’s editor rates the ship well while noting she is visibly aging.

This framework has not yet ruled on whether critical reception should move this category. Until it does, reception moves it in neither direction — which cuts against her here as often as it cuts for her.

Two things we could not stand up, stated as gaps. Royal Caribbean makes no live-orchestra claim on Explorer’s pages.

On a sister ship the line states outright that the theatre never plays to a backing track. The absence of the same statement here is a difference in the record — but an absent claim is not evidence of an absent orchestra.

This page does not assert either way.

There is no licensed Broadway book musical aboard, and no evidence she ever carried one. That makes it a format never fitted, not one lost — a different kind of negative than a removal, in this project’s scoring.

Alongside the productions, the theatre carries a rotating guest-entertainer bill — comedians, vocalists and variety acts — plus the welcome-aboard and farewell shows. An independent account of her daily programme records comedy in the Palace Theatre specifically.

Show times run in the region of 7pm and 9pm on most evenings.

Reserve the ice show first. Studio B seats 904 against the theatre’s 1,362, and it runs on fewer nights.

Demand and capacity work against each other there in a way they do not in the main house.

Counting outward from the promenade: Schooner Bar on Deck 4 is Royal Caribbean’s signature piano bar, running request sets, sing-alongs and trivia. Royal Caribbean’s own listing for this ship describes it as a late-night spot. The Tavern, also on Deck 4, is her lobby bar in blue and red.

It carries live background music that deck-plan sourcing describes as ranging from piano to Latin bands. Up on Deck 5, the Star Lounge is a second show lounge at around 350 seats, opening off the Royal Promenade.

It carries live music, dancing, karaoke and the game-show slate.

The Crown & Kettle pub is hers by name, not by fleet convention — Royal Caribbean lists live musicians there specifically. The Connoisseur Club, a 34-seat cigar lounge, is still trading on the current deck plan. R Bar is the retro cocktail room.

Street performers work the promenade, and the pool deck has a permanent stage for live bands.

Dizzy’s is the room worth planning an evening around. It sits on Deck 14 inside the Viking Crown complex.

Two independent deck-plan sources describe the same thing: a ninety-six-seat jazz club with its own bar, its own bandstand and its own dance floor, running live jazz and Latin sets.

An onboard reviewer found it by name and called it an excellent spot with the best view on the ship. At ninety-six seats it is the largest of the four crown music rooms in this class.

Voyager’s High Notes is credited with sixty seats, and Mariner’s Ellington’s and Navigator’s Cosmopolitan Club with around forty each.

A purpose-built jazz room is a format the industry has largely stopped building. Hers is the biggest one left in this hull.

On the comedy question, specifically: Explorer of the Seas has no dedicated comedy club, and she never had one. Royal Caribbean builds a standalone comedy room only on Oasis Class and Icon Class ships; Voyager Class was never fitted with one.

That makes this a never-built format, and emphatically not part of the casino-expansion removal story. That story has cost several newer Royal Caribbean ships an existing club.

Comedy still runs here — comedians work the guest-entertainer rotation in the Palace Theatre.

An independent account of her daily programme records comedy in the theatre alongside the productions. The later showtime carries the adult material.

No confirmed loss. Nothing in the record says a live venue on Explorer was given up to a casino expansion or converted to anything else.

Her three drydocks since 2015 are documented. The 2015 refit swapped the in-line skating track for the FlowRider; the July 2020 call was a limited technical refit after the amplification was cancelled.

The 2023 and 2025 calls at Cádiz added slides and paint the first time and routine maintenance the second.

Additions and upkeep, not subtractions.

Two sourcing findings worth stating plainly, because they shape everything above. First: two large ship directories describe Explorer’s cancelled 2020 amplification as if it had happened.

They list Playmakers, Giovanni’s Italian Kitchen, a rebuilt pool deck and, in one case, a $110 million refurbishment dated 2020–2021.

It did not happen; Royal Caribbean Blog, Cruise Critic and Wikipedia all record the cancellation. Second: one of those directories.

A third listing site still publishes her configuration as it stood before 2015 — an in-line skating track that has been a FlowRider for a decade, a Weekend Warrior sports bar and a Champagne Bar. This page follows Royal Caribbean’s own current pages, Cruise Critic’s editor review or an onboard account wherever they disagree with a directory.

Open ice skating is the thing most guests never realise is available to them. Studio B opens the rink for complimentary guest sessions with skates provided.

Cruise Critic’s editor review names public skating alongside the ice show as a standing feature of the room.

The same room also carries cooking demonstrations and The Quest, the ship’s late-night adult scavenger game, per deck-plan sourcing.

Beyond it, Royal Caribbean’s own things-to-do listing for Explorer is unusually long: dance classes and salsa instruction, language courses, a sushi-making class, wine tastings, jewellery making and scrapbooking. It also lists towel-folding artistry, interactive game shows, guest lectures, art auctions, theme nights, the Silent Party, Royal Promenade parades, pool parties and outdoor movie nights on a 220-square-foot poolside screen.

Add the FlowRider, the 40-foot rock climbing wall, Explorer Dunes mini golf, a golf simulator and pickleball. Round it out with a sports court for three-on-three basketball and volleyball, table tennis, a two-lane jogging track, Challenger’s arcade, trivia through the day and bingo.

None of that list is unique to Explorer. On an absolute scale, that is precisely the point.

Royal Caribbean’s standard big-ship daily programme is the deepest participation product at sea. It is measured against the whole industry, not against her own fleet.

A ship running it at full strength sits in the top band. That holds regardless of when her keel was laid or which refits she missed.

The two honest subtractions, recorded here and scored below. She has no laser tag arena and no escape room.

Both are confirmed, not inferred. Royal Caribbean’s own things-to-do pages name no laser tag arena for her, and none for Adventure of the Seas either — the two ships in this class whose amplifications were cancelled.

Mariner, Navigator and Voyager all carry one. The arena was in her cancelled plan under the name Clash for the Crystal City.

The escape room was never planned for her at all.

Both are physical attractions, not programme depth. This project scores a missing venue once, in the category it actually belongs to.

So they are counted in Recreation & Attractions, not a second time here.

A reader planning a sea-day afternoon still deserves to know. That is why they are named in this section, not buried.

What is here. The Perfect Storm on Explorer is a twin racing pair, Typhoon and Cyclone, three storeys of drop each. It was fitted during the January–March 2023 drydock at Navantia in Cádiz, onto deck space that had been sun loungers.

The FlowRider went on in the 2015 refit, into the space the ship’s original in-line skating track occupied.

The rock climbing wall is 40 feet, bolted to the funnel. It is the direct descendant of the first climbing wall ever fitted to a cruise ship — this hull’s design. Explorer Dunes mini golf, a golf simulator, a sports court, pickleball, table tennis and a two-lane jogging track fill out the deck sports.

On the water side: two main pools with four whirlpools.

The adults-only Solarium has its own pool under three decks of glass and two covered whirlpools. Studio B also opens its ice to guests between shows — an attraction class in its own right that a great many ships twice her age-adjusted price do not carry.

What is confirmed absent, and why it is scoreable. This category is scored on execution and depth, never on a hardware count.

Two racing slides instead of three is a difference of degree, and this page does not score it.

What it does score is a difference of kind: a whole attraction class simply not aboard. Four of them are.

There is no dry drop-slide attraction. There is no harnessed aerial course — no zip line, no skydiving simulator, no plank walk.

There is no water play provision for small children. There is no arena game — the one that separates her from the rest of her class.

On laser tag, the sourcing is unusually clean. Royal Caribbean’s own things-to-do pages name no laser tag arena for Explorer, and none for Adventure of the Seas either.

Those are the two ships in this class whose amplifications were cancelled.

Mariner, Navigator and Voyager all carry one. Some secondary round-ups of this class disagree with each other about which sisters have an arena.

So the line’s own current listings are what this rests on.

Royal Caribbean’s own things-to-do and free-things-to-do pages for Explorer name neither laser tag nor an escape room anywhere. The historical record explains why.

The arena was a line item in her cancelled 2020 amplification, branded Clash for the Crystal City and sited in Studio B.

It was never installed. A directory that claims Studio B was upgraded with laser tag is repeating that cancelled plan.

It is the same directory that dates a $110 million amplification to 2020–2021 for a ship that did not receive one.

On children’s water play, four sources point the same way. Cruise Critic’s Voyager Class article names Adventure of the Seas as the only ship in this class carrying Splashaway Bay.

Cruise Critic’s editor review of Explorer counts three pools, six whirlpools and one adults-only Solarium pool. It describes no children’s area.

The deck-by-deck listing for Deck 11 gives two pools, four whirlpools, the Solarium pool and two covered whirlpools, and nothing else. The Deck 12 listing gives Adventure Ocean, Optix, the arcade and the jogging track, and nothing else.

A splash park was never in her amplification plan to begin with. Two things are worth flagging rather than smoothing over.

Royal Caribbean’s own free-things-to-do guide for Explorer mentions a kids’ pool in a single line no deck plan corroborates. Also, two large directories list a Splashaway Bay for her outright — the same two directories that publish her cancelled refit as completed.

The scoreable finding is the absence of a water-play attraction class, and that is firm. Whether some small shallow pool exists beside the main deck is not something this page will assert in either direction.

Recorded, not scored: the Sky Pad. Royal Caribbean fitted its caged bungee-trampoline sphere to only four ships.

It retired the ride from all of them on 31 March 2023.

Explorer was never one of the four — within her own class only Mariner had one. There is nothing here to record as a loss.

That is worth saying explicitly, because it is the kind of fleet-wide change readers reasonably assume applied everywhere.

Dizzy’s, Deck 14, is the room. Ninety-six seats, its own bar, a bandstand and a dance floor, running live jazz and Latin sets — confirmed by two independent deck-plan sources.

An onboard reviewer found it by name and rated the view.

It sits inside the Viking Crown Lounge complex. The 335-seat observation lounge around it is described as turning over after dark to a DJ and dance lighting.

It runs to about 1am.

Between them, the crown does the job a purpose-built nightclub does on a newer ship. The best view aboard comes thrown in.

Below it the ship stays awake. The Star Lounge on the promenade takes themed parties and dancing once the game shows and karaoke finish. Schooner Bar is named by Royal Caribbean itself as a late-night sing-along room.

The Crown & Kettle pub runs live music into the evening and The Tavern stays open on sport. The pool deck takes DJ parties under a 220-square-foot outdoor screen. Casino Royale, with around 300 slot machines and a full table game floor, runs past midnight and closes only in port.

What is unusually firm here is the source, not just the schedule. Royal Caribbean’s own pages for this ship name three separate late-night items: a Silent Party, Theme Nights, and Club Twenty, a South Beach-styled club night.

The line describes the Silent Party in its own words — put your headphones on and dance like nobody is listening.

Elsewhere in this class this project has had to lean on a single aggregator for the theme-night rotation. On Explorer the line lists it.

What holds this at 8, stated precisely. Two things, and neither is a complaint about how the nights actually go.

The rooms that carry the late hours are a jazz club and an observation lounge that become the club, not a room built for that single purpose. That is the same finding this project has now recorded on every ship in this class.

Her original purpose-built disco, The Chamber, is credited at 240 seats in this class’s historical record. It appears on two directories we independently caught publishing out-of-date material for this ship, and on no current review or deck-by-deck listing.

We could confirm neither that it survives nor that it was removed. An evidence gap holds a band rather than lifting or lowering one.

This is also the single category on this scorecard where Royal Caribbean genuinely does not lead the industry.

Lines that design an entire ship around adult nightlife go further than any Royal Caribbean ship does. The 10 here is not Royal Caribbean’s to hold.

One practical note for this ship in particular. She splits her year between a Mediterranean summer out of Ravenna and a Caribbean winter out of Port Canaveral, and those two crowds keep different hours.

A seven-night Greek Isles sailing with a 7am tender call is a quieter night than a four-night Bahamas run.

That is atmosphere, not provision, and it is written here as colour, not as the reason for the number.

The parade is the finding. Royal Caribbean names Royal Promenade parades for Explorer on its own things-to-do listing, describing the promenade filling with dancing, confetti and junkanoo drums.

Two independent listings describe the same event, one of them adding aerial performers.

That matters more than it looks. This project has repeatedly had to record a promenade parade as unconfirmed on other ships in this class — not absent, but unsourced.

This category’s upper band is explicitly written around scheduled spectacle.

On Explorer the spectacle is on the record.

What else is confirmed for mixed ages. Spirits of the Seasons works as an all-ages evening — skating spectacle is about as broadly pitched as a production gets. Studio B is also small enough that nobody is watching from the back of a 1,362-seat house. Open skating with skates provided is the rare thing a whole family can do at the same time.

The Silent Party, Theme Nights and the game-show slate are all named by Royal Caribbean for this ship.

Outdoor movie nights run on the poolside screen and the line’s own free-things guide names poolside belly-flop competitions and water volleyball. The four-deck Royal Promenade functions as a shared indoor street with performers working along it.

The arcade, Explorer Dunes, table tennis and the sports court are all straightforwardly cross-generational.

The confirmed absence. There is no water-play attraction for small children on this ship — no Splashaway Bay, no sprayground, no aqua park.

Cruise Critic names Adventure of the Seas as the only ship in this class that has one. Cruise Critic’s editor review of Explorer describes no children’s water area.

The Deck 11 and Deck 12 listings show none, and a splash park was never part of the refit she was promised. On the ships that score above this band, that space is the single most-used family area aboard.

If your family’s shared time is built around one, that is the thing to know before booking. Adventure is the ship in this class that has it.

Flagged, not smoothed: Royal Caribbean’s own free-things guide for her does mention a kids’ pool in one line. Nothing else we found corroborates it.

Two gaps and one plain fact. We could not confirm a standalone family festival or a character-meet programme for her specifically.

Those are written as gaps, not findings of absence.

They hold the score at its band rather than pushing it below. The plain fact is that she has no laser tag arena.

On three of her sisters, that arena is the best mixed-age thing aboard.

It is a difference, and it is stated here so a reader is not surprised. It is a physical attraction, and this project scores a missing attraction once, in Recreation — so it is not the stated reason for this number.

Where the arithmetic actually lands: a confirmed parade she has and her sisters do not, set against a confirmed arena game they have and she does not. That is an honest wash.

She prints the same 7 they do for a different set of reasons. Disney sets this category’s ceiling.

Adventure Ocean on Deck 12 runs complimentary from 9am to 10pm. It is split three ways by age, confirmed from ship-specific sourcing, not fleet-wide copy: Aquanauts for ages 3 to 5, Explorers for 6 to 8 and Voyagers for 9 to 11.

Each band runs its own programme of crafts, science, games, competitions and scavenger hunts. That granular sub-band split is worth stating explicitly.

This project has previously held ships a point back in this category for not being able to confirm it.

Beyond it, Navigators carries the 12-plus bracket. Sourcing splits on whether that runs 12 to 14 with a separate 15-to-17 teen group, or 12 to 17 as one — so if your child sits on a boundary, confirm it in the app for your sailing.

Teens use Optix, this class’s original teen disco and lounge on Deck 12. Two independent deck-plan sources list it for her.

The naming is worth stating precisely: it is not Icon Class’s Social020, and not the Social298, Social100 and Social033 rooms on Oasis and Freedom Class ships. It is also not Fuel, The Living Room or The Back Deck, the rebuilt teen spaces her amplified sisters received.

Explorer’s teen space is the room she was built with. There is an Adventure Ocean late-night session that runs past the club’s published hours on a separate per-hour charge.

The confirmed gap is the nursery, and it is stated by name in two places. Cruise Critic’s guide to Royal Babies & Tots is explicit.

Nursery drop-off is not available on Jewel of the Seas, Adventure of the Seas or Explorer of the Seas.

The Points Guy’s guide to Royal Caribbean kids clubs calls those same three the only ships in the fleet without a drop-off nursery. What Explorer runs instead is the parent-accompanied Royal Babies & Tots play sessions — free, banded roughly 6 to 18 months and 18 to 36 months.

An adult must stay for the whole session.

That is a good hour with a small child; it is not childcare. A couple hoping to book a dinner while a one-year-old is looked after cannot do it on this ship.

Every one of her three amplified sisters can. This is a stated fleet fact, not a gap in our research.

It is why this category sits a point below theirs.

One thing worth knowing about why. The cancelled 2020 amplification is the reason the shape here is what it is.

A redesigned Adventure Ocean with age-specific spaces, and a reimagined teen hangout with its own private outdoor deck, were both line items in the announced plan. Neither was built.

Her youth product is complete in structure and original in fitting.

On pricing. The after-hours Adventure Ocean session carries a per-hour charge; regular Adventure Ocean hours and the Royal Babies & Tots play sessions are complimentary.

Published figures for the late-night rate disagree across sources. Check Cruise Planner or the Royal Caribbean app for your sailing, rather than carrying a fleet-mate’s number across.

The Palace Theatre spans Decks 3 and 4 and seats 1,362 across its levels. It carries Wild, Cool & Swingin’, Invitation to Dance, Fast Forward, the guest-entertainer bill and the welcome and farewell shows, usually two productions a night. Studio B on Deck 3 is the 904-seat show lounge built around the refrigerated ice rink.

It is the hardest-working room aboard: Spirits of the Seasons by night, complimentary guest skating between shows. Cooking demonstrations and The Quest fill the daytime and late slots.

The Royal Promenade on Deck 5 is the four-deck-high indoor boulevard this class introduced to cruising, and it is a venue in its own right: parades, street performers and promenade parties run along it. The Star Lounge, the Crown & Kettle pub, R Bar, the 34-seat Connoisseur Club, Café Promenade and the shops all open off it.

A deck below, on 4, sit Schooner Bar, The Tavern, Casino Royale, the art and photo gallery, Giovanni’s Table and the three-level Sapphire Dining Room. The Centrum atrium sits midship.

Deck 11 is the pool deck: two main pools, four whirlpools, and the adults-only Solarium under three decks of glass with its own pool and two covered whirlpools. It also carries the 220-square-foot poolside screen, a stage for live bands, Chops Grille and the Windjammer.

Deck 12 carries the Sky Bar, Johnny Rockets, the jogging track, Challenger’s arcade, the Adventure Ocean complex and Optix. Deck 13 is the sports deck: the FlowRider, the two Perfect Storm slides, the rock wall on the funnel, Explorer Dunes and the sports court.

Deck 14 is the Viking Crown Lounge complex: the 335-seat observation lounge, the 83-seat Crow’s Nest, the 28-seat Cloud Nine function room and the Seven of Hearts card room. The same complex holds the Diamond Club, Izumi, and Dizzy’s at ninety-six seats with its bandstand and dance floor.

Deck 15 holds the Skylight Chapel. On Mariner, that is the room the escape room was dropped into; on Explorer, it is still a chapel.

Two things worth knowing about how the rooms behave. Studio B is the tightest ticket aboard.

It seats 458 fewer people than the theatre, and runs on fewer nights.

The theatre sits directly above forward cabins on Deck 3. That is a well-worn piece of advice on this class, not an Explorer quirk — if you are noise-sensitive, book away from it.

Included: Spirits of the Seasons, Wild, Cool & Swingin’, Invitation to Dance and Fast Forward; the guest-entertainer and comedy slots in the Palace Theatre; and the welcome-aboard and farewell shows. Also included: all live music in Schooner Bar, the Star Lounge, the Crown & Kettle, The Tavern, Dizzy’s, the Viking Crown Lounge and on the promenade, plus the Royal Promenade parades, the Silent Party, Theme Nights and Club Twenty.

Free too: guest ice skating in Studio B with skates provided, both Perfect Storm slides, the FlowRider during open sessions, the rock climbing wall, Explorer Dunes mini golf, pickleball, the sports court, table tennis and the jogging track. Rounding it out: trivia and quizzes, bingo, game shows and The Quest, karaoke, dance, salsa and fitness classes, art auctions and guest lectures.

Also complimentary: sushi-making, jewellery-making, scrapbooking and towel-folding sessions, the library and card room, pool parties and poolside competitions, outdoor movies, and Adventure Ocean during its regular published hours, along with the parent-accompanied Royal Babies & Tots play sessions.

Extra cost: the golf simulator, which Cruise Critic’s editor review specifically flags as carrying a fee on this ship; the after-hours Adventure Ocean late session, on a per-hour charge; and arcade games in Challenger’s, charged per play. Also extra: FlowRider private lessons, Izumi — specialty dining with a performance layer, and the Chef’s Table, a hosted multi-course wine dinner.

Those last two get their own cards below, and the dining guide owns their cost and value verdicts.

Casino Royale runs on its own pay structure. Pricing on every one of these varies by sailing and itinerary.

Check Cruise Planner or the Royal Caribbean app, rather than carrying a fleet-mate’s rate across.

Two items readers coming from a sister ship will look for and not find: there is no laser tag arena and no escape room on Explorer. So neither the disputed laser tag inclusion question nor the escape room’s per-person charge arises here at all.

Spirits of the Seasons and the Palace Theatre productions run through the reservation system in the Royal Caribbean app. Booking windows typically open once final payment is made.

Treat the ice show as the one to secure first: Studio B seats 904 against the theatre’s 1,362, and it runs on fewer nights. The same demand meets less room. Izumi requires a reservation, and Chef’s Table is booked and charged separately.

Both fill on shorter sailings, and Chef’s Table in particular is a single table, so it is gone early.

Open ice skating and the FlowRider run on published session times — check the daily programme, not the app, for those. Turn up at the start of a session, not the middle.

Everything else is walk-up: live music in every lounge, comedy sets and guest entertainers in the theatre, the promenade parade, the Silent Party and theme nights. Also walk-up: trivia, bingo, game shows, The Quest, karaoke, the slides, the rock wall, mini golf, table tennis, and Adventure Ocean during published hours.

The Royal Babies & Tots play sessions are complimentary, but they are parent-accompanied and capacity-limited. Check the daily programme for times on embarkation day.

One practical note that applies here as much as anywhere: the full entertainment schedule often does not populate in the app until close to sailing or after you board. So a thin-looking app three weeks out is not evidence of a thin week onboard.

Explorer suits the traveler who actually goes to things. Four named productions across two purpose-built rooms is the deepest show bill in her class.

The ice show is worth the reservation.

The evening spreads across eight parallel live formats rather than funnelling everyone into one room. Live-music travelers do better here than a 2000 hull suggests, and Dizzy’s is the specific reason.

A ninety-six-seat jazz club with a bandstand is a format that has largely been designed out of newer ships.

Families with school-age children and teenagers are the other clear match. Three separately-programmed Adventure Ocean age bands, a teen room and teen programming to seventeen, a confirmed promenade parade, an ice rink anyone can skate on, and a pair of racing waterslides make a workable week for a group spanning six to seventeen.

She is also inexpensive, consistently, in a way ships with the refit she never got are not.

The mismatches are specific. Families with babies and toddlers are the clearest: there is no drop-off nursery on this ship and no water play for small children.

Both of those are confirmed, not assumed.

Anyone whose sea-day afternoon is built around booked thrill attractions should know she has neither laser tag nor an escape room. Three of her sisters have at least one, and two have both.

Anyone whose trip hinges on a dedicated comedy club or a purpose-built adult nightclub will not find either. On the nightclub, that is a mismatch on every Royal Caribbean ship scored in this project so far.

On the comedy club, it is a Voyager Class fact, not an Explorer one.

Against her Voyager Class sisters. Voyager, Explorer, Adventure, Navigator and Mariner are the same hull with sharply different refit histories.

That is where the real differences in this class live, not in the deck plan. Three of the five were amplified.

Mariner went in 2018 for a reported $120 million, Navigator in early 2019 for $115 million, and Voyager in October 2019 for $97 million.

Explorer’s was announced at $110 million for 2020 and cancelled. As of Royal Caribbean Blog’s September 2025 round-up, the line has still given no word on whether it returns.

The cancelled plan is worth reading, because it is the shape of the gap: laser tag in Studio B under the name Clash for the Crystal City, a resort-style pool deck with the three-level Lime & Coconut bar, and Playmakers. Also planned: Giovanni’s Italian Kitchen, a standalone Starbucks, a redesigned Adventure Ocean with age-specific spaces, and a reimagined teen hangout with its own private outdoor deck.

She received the Perfect Storm slides, three years late, and nothing else on that list.

What she has instead, and it is not nothing. Four productions where each amplified sister runs three.

A ninety-six-seat jazz club where Voyager has sixty seats and Mariner and Navigator around forty each. A Royal Promenade parade, which Royal Caribbean lists on her own page.

This project has had to write that same parade as unconfirmed on Voyager, Mariner and Navigator.

A Silent Party, Theme Nights and Club Twenty all named by the line, not inferred from an aggregator. Her show bill and her live-music room are, on the evidence, the strongest in this class.

Where the numbers actually part. Two categories move against her and one moves for her.

Recreation drops to 6 against her sisters’ 6.5 and 7.5. She is the only ship in this class with no arena game at all — four confirmed absent attraction classes, not three.

Kids Clubs drops to 8 against their 9. She is one of only three ships in the whole fleet without a drop-off nursery — exactly the depth the 9 is written around.

Production rises to 7.5 against their 7 on the fourth production. Net, she lands at 7.8 — where Voyager and Mariner land, and two-tenths below Navigator.

That is the same headline number as two of her sisters, on a card that differs from theirs in three of seven categories.

That is a coincidence of arithmetic — not a claim of equivalence. This page prints it rather than nudging a number to break it.

The categories are where the difference lives, and they show it plainly.

A note on sourcing, because it changes what you can trust about this ship in particular. Explorer is the hardest ship in this class to research accurately, and the reason is her cancelled refit.

Two large ship directories publish that $110 million amplification as though it were completed. One dates it 2020–2021, lists Playmakers and Giovanni’s Italian Kitchen as aboard, credits her with Navigator’s Tidal Wave raft slide, and lists a Splashaway Bay on her Deck 12.

A third listing site still publishes her pre-2015 configuration, complete with the in-line skating track that became the FlowRider a decade ago. If you are checking her against a directory before booking, that is what to watch for.

This page follows Royal Caribbean’s own current pages, Cruise Critic’s editor review, Royal Caribbean Blog, Cruise Industry News and onboard accounts wherever they conflict with a directory. It says so wherever that conflict was load-bearing.

Against the rest of the ships already scored. Against the Oasis and Icon Class ships she lands lower for a structural reason — not a generational one.

Those ships stage four to six productions across three or four purpose-built venues, and several run an aqua theater.

Their recreation complexes carry attraction classes she does not have. What survives the comparison intact is the middle of her card.

Her daily activity programme earns the same 9 those ships do, because Royal Caribbean runs it fleet-wide at the same depth. Her live-music breadth at 8.5 is within half a point of the biggest ships in the fleet.

Where she gives it back is Recreation at 6 and Kids Clubs at 8, both on confirmed absences — not on her age.