This Ultra-Luxury Cruise Was Almost Completely All-Inclusive (Explora Journeys)

When cruise lines describe themselves as “all-inclusive”, I’m always slightly suspicious.

There’s usually an asterisk somewhere.

The drinks might be included, but not those drinks. The restaurants might be included, except for the ones you actually want to eat in.

Wi-Fi costs extra. Gratuities appear at the end. Before you know it, your all-inclusive cruise has developed a very impressive onboard account.

Recently, my colleague Matt from The Cruise Globe sailed onboard Explora III, one of Explora Journeys’ newest ships.

It was his first-ever ultra-luxury cruise, so afterwards I sat down with him and one of our Cruise Globe travel agents who has sailed with Explora before.

I wanted to know one thing in particular:

Does an Explora Journeys cruise genuinely feel all-inclusive?

According to Matt, the answer was pretty close to yes.

Matt Barely Thought About Money Onboard

Matt said the biggest difference between Explora and many of the cruises he’d taken before was simply that he stopped thinking about prices.

There wasn’t an onboard account slowly creeping upwards during the week.

Food was included. Drinks were included. Wi-Fi was included. Gratuities weren’t added.

There were things he could spend money on, of course.

There are shops onboard, spa treatments cost extra, and there is one restaurant called Anthology which has an additional charge.

But you certainly don’t need to spend extra money to eat very well.

In fact, Matt didn’t bother with Anthology at all because he was so impressed with the included restaurants.

That’s the bit that interests me.

I’ve managed to leave mainstream cruises with a £0 onboard spend before, but sometimes that requires actual effort.

You find yourself walking to the buffet because that’s where the free tea is rather than ordering one from the café.

On Explora, that calculation seemed to disappear.

There weren’t prices constantly staring at you from menus, and Matt said the whole experience simply felt much more inclusive.

Almost All Of The Restaurants Are Included

Food is a huge part of the Explora Journeys experience.

There are multiple included dining venues onboard, and they aren’t treated as upgrades or speciality restaurants that you have to pay extra to visit.

They are simply where you eat.

Matt spent plenty of time in the Emporium Marketplace.

Explora probably wouldn’t be delighted if I called it a buffet, because you don’t really serve yourself in the traditional sense.

There are lots of different live cooking stations and the food is prepared for you.

Matt said there was sushi, freshly made pizza, pasta, grilled lobster tails, prawns and an enormous dessert area.

He also somehow managed to get a window seat pretty much every time he went.

There isn’t really a traditional main dining room onboard, so Emporium acts as one of the central casual dining spaces.

Beyond that, there are proper restaurants including Fil Rouge, which has a French influence, Mediterranean Yacht Club, the Asian-inspired Sakura and the Marble & Co. Grill.

Anthology is the exception and costs extra. But with so many other restaurants included, Matt didn’t feel any need to pay for it.

Room Service

There is also complimentary 24-hour room service.

That’s already good.

But Explora also has something called “in-suite dining”, which takes things considerably further.

During the evening, you can order dishes from restaurants around the ship and have dinner served in your suite.

The crew will set up your dining area with a tablecloth, proper place settings and cutlery, and then serve the meal course by course. This is all included.

Matt told me about ordering a filet mignon at around 3:30 in the afternoon because he was feeling a “little peckish” – as you do. Apparently nobody found this remotely unusual.

He also heard of passengers requesting specific dishes from restaurants onboard even when those dishes weren’t officially listed on the in-suite menu.

If the kitchen could make it happen, they generally would.

Explora’s whole approach seems to be to say yes to requests wherever possible.

The Drinks Are Much More Than A Basic Package

Drinks are included too, but this isn’t just house wine and a couple of basic spirits.

Our agent described the included selection as enormous.

There were around 50 wines available without paying anything extra, alongside a very extensive selection of spirits.

There are premium bottles you can pay more for if you really want to, but it doesn’t sound particularly necessary.

One example that stuck with me was a Japanese whisky onboard, which would apparently cost around $50 a shot elsewhere. It’s Included.

Matt doesn’t drink alcohol, so he worked his way through the mocktail options instead.

He grew up in Hong Kong and remembered a particular drink from his childhood, so he explained it to one of the bartenders. They made it for him, and then they remembered it.

After that, whenever Matt appeared at that particular bar, they would start preparing the drink for him before he’d even ordered it.

He joked that sometimes he didn’t actually want another one, but they’d gone to so much effort that he felt he probably should drink it.

That’s luxury problems for you!

The Bartenders Will Basically Invent Drinks For You

Explora also has mixologists onboard.

Rather than simply choosing something from a fixed cocktail list, you can tell them the sorts of flavours you like, whether you prefer something sweet or salty and what sort of spirit you normally drink.

They’ll then create something specifically for you. Matt said they were genuinely very good at it.

That sounds very different to some mainstream cruise bars where the answer to “could you make this slightly differently?” can occasionally feel like you’ve requested a structural alteration to the ship.

Explora III Was Full, But It Didn’t Feel Full

Explora III carries around 922 passengers.

Matt was onboard one of the ship’s earliest sailings and was told that almost every suite was occupied.

You wouldn’t necessarily have known that from walking around. He said he hardly queued for anything.

The lifts would arrive within seconds, and public spaces rarely felt crowded.

After a few days, he actually started noticing the absence of queues.

That’s particularly interesting because this isn’t an ultra-small ship carrying 200 or 300 passengers. There are still around 900 people onboard. The difference is the amount of space they have.

Every cabin is a suite, and even the entry-level accommodation comes with a terrace.

There aren’t inside cabins, ocean-view cabins , or traditional balcony cabins packed into the ship.

The whole thing has been designed around fewer passengers having considerably more space.

The largest accommodation onboard, the Owner’s Residence, is more than 3,300 square feet.

I wouldn’t know what to do with 3,300 square feet on a cruise ship. I’d probably lose my shoes…

The Food Was One Of Matt’s Biggest Highlights

Matt isn’t somebody who is easily impressed by cruise food, but he came back raving about it.

Every restaurant onboard has its own identity and importantly, many have their own kitchens too.

That means food isn’t simply being prepared in one giant central galley and distributed around the ship.

It also has advantages for passengers with dietary requirements because there’s less crossover between different restaurant kitchens.

At Emporium, much of the food is cooked directly in front of you. Matt said even the snacks and smaller dishes felt unusually high quality.

His personal highlight appeared to be a semifreddo dessert from Mediterranean Yacht Club ,which he described as being “a little like a frozen Ferrero Rocher”.

He was considering going back purely to order the dessert again. I respect that level of commitment.

The Spa Facilities Are Included — Treatments Aren’t

The wellness side of the ship is another area where quite a lot is included.

The gym is free to use, as you’d expect. So are parts of the spa, including the sauna, steam facilities, hydrotherapy areas and salt room.

Spa treatments such as massages cost extra.

Matt was particularly impressed with the sauna area because you can step outside afterwards onto the lower promenade deck and look straight out to sea.

There is also a running and walking track around the upper decks.

Explora III has a padel court too. Matt spent quite a lot of time there.

The court is available without an extra charge ,and games are organised so that passengers can rotate in and out.

You don’t need to arrive with three other people ready to play. There are staff there helping to organise everything.

This sounds considerably more luxurious than cruises I’ve taken where you want to play table tennis and first have to travel ten decks down stairs to reception to ask if they have a table tennis ball.

Wi-Fi Is Included And Matt Actually Worked From The Ship

This one impressed me.

The ship uses Starlink, and Wi-Fi is included.

Matt worked for a significant portion of the cruise, including Zoom calls and uploading large video files.

WiFi worked throughout the ship. Not just beside the cabin door. Not just if you stand in exactly the right corner, holding your laptop towards the ceiling – it works everywhere.

I’ve been on cruises where I’ve basically ended up lying on the floor beside the cabin door trying to persuade the Wi-Fi to connect, so the idea of doing proper video calls at sea without thinking about it sounds fantastic.

Standard suites include access for up to two devices, with more available in some of the higher suite categories.

Gratuities Aren’t Added Either

There are no gratuities added to your bill.

Our agent made an interesting distinction here.

It isn’t that the gratuities are charged and then included in the cruise fare – Explora simply doesn’t charge them.

That contributes to the feeling Matt had onboard that there wasn’t constantly another transaction waiting somewhere.

You can simply talk to the crew without wondering whether there is a tipping expectation attached to every interaction.

There Are A Surprising Number Of Pools

Explora’s ships also have several swimming pools and whirlpools.

Some are positioned at the back of the ship with views straight out over the wake, while others are infinity-style pools.

There is also a conservatory pool with a retractable roof.

In colder destinations, the roof can be closed, and the area kept warm, meaning you can still sit beside the pool even if the weather outside is doing its best impression of February in Southampton.

That makes the ships much more adaptable to different itineraries than I initially assumed.

So What DOES Cost Extra?

Explora isn’t literally all-inclusive.

There are definitely still things you can spend money on:

• Anthology, the high-end tasting-menu restaurant, costs extra.
• Spa treatments cost extra.
• Personal training sessions cost extra.
• There are premium wines and bottles available if you want something beyond the already extensive included list.
• Shopping obviously costs extra too.

Laundry service is another interesting one.

Passengers in the first two suite categories don’t receive complimentary laundry service, although self-service laundrettes are available onboard.

Some higher suite categories do include laundry benefits.

So there are extras you can pay for. The difference seems to be that none of them are particularly essential to enjoying your cruise.

It Sounds Much Closer To Truly All-Inclusive Than Most Cruises

After speaking to Matt, that was probably my biggest takeaway.

Lots of cruise lines use variations of the words premium, luxury and all-inclusive.

What made Explora different for Matt was that he simply stopped thinking about what things cost.

He didn’t have to decide whether a restaurant was worth the surcharge. He didn’t need to work out whether a drink was included in a package. He wasn’t watching an onboard account slowly increase throughout the week.

He could order a filet mignon in the middle of the afternoon, have somebody invent a mocktail for him and then go and use the sauna without any of those things appearing on the bill.

There are still ways to spend extra money if you want to. But crucially, it doesn’t sound as though you need to.

And I think that’s probably what all-inclusive luxury is supposed to feel like.

Thinking About An Explora Journeys Cruise?

If you’re considering an Explora Journeys cruise, my team at The Cruise Globe can help.

We have agents who have sailed with Explora themselves, alongside experience across mainstream cruising, river cruises, expedition cruises and other ultra-luxury lines.

That means we can help work out whether Explora is actually right for you rather than simply selling you whichever cruise you’ve already found.

Click the button at the bottom of the page to contact us.

Hear more about Matt’s cruise on Explora III here:

Before You Go

Find out what I thought of my most expensive cruise ever, with Windstar. It wasn’t right for me:

I Took My Most Expensive Cruise… It Wasn’t Right for Me (Windstar’s Star Pride)

I had my own butler when I was staying in the exclusive Yacht Club area of MSC Euribia. Find out what I thought of that experience here:

I Had A Butler On A Cruise… (What I Wish I Knew)