Explora II Cruise - February, 2026

Day 9 – Sea Day

Thursday, February 12

          Okay, as promised, let's talk about the Emporium Marketplace.  It is not a buffet.  It's more of a food hall concept like we have seen on Virgin  Voyages.  All items are behind glass and are either served to you immediately or cooked fresh while you wait; some stations, such as the Burger Corner, issue a pager.  Others will tell you to just come back in 2-3 minutes.

          I found the variety to be impressive, the food quality to be outstanding, and the service to be great.  We had a full sailing, so it did get crowded here on embarkation day and sea days for lunch. 

          We wanted to try all of the restaurant as least once, but I honestly could have eaten here for every meal.  I realize it's mostly an American thing, but we don't want dinner to stretch out over a couple of hours.  Twenty minutes between courses is too much.  We did communicate with the wait staff and were able to get dinners at the other restaurants down to about an hour, but we found the Emporium Marketplace to just be a better fit with our dining preferences.

          For every meal, once we selected a table, someone would rush over and pull the chair out for my wife.  They took drink orders immediately, including bar service.  And they were relentless about plate clearing;  Once at breakfast, I picked up my avocado toast to take a bite and when I went to put it down, the plate was gone!  Ninjas! 

          Any time we ordered something that required a pager, within about 5 seconds of the pager going off, someone would appear and take it from us and then go get the plate and bring it to our table.  

          It should be noted that there is indoor seating and an outdoor section, although it is a bit of a trek to get there from the food counters.

Breakfast:

Lunch/Dinner:

          I really didn't do a very good job at capturing all that is on offer at the Emporium Marketplace.  For lunch and dinner, there was freshly baked pizza, sushi, grilled fish (lobster tail, shrimp and salmon were available every day), cooked to order home-made pasta, at least two carving stations, burgers, pre-made and made-to-order salads, about 20 different kinds of breads and a large dessert section.  There were also daily specials at most of the stations.

          Dinner tonight was at Sakura:

          Soft shell crab tempura:

          Miso soup and ? tacos:

          Lobster Pad Thai:

          Desserts:

Final step count for Day 9: