Explora II Cruise - February, 2026

Day 7 – Montserrat (scheduled) / Antigua (actual)

Tuesday, February 10

          We arrived at Monserrat around 8:00AM.  Our excursion was cancelled, but this is one of the islands we'd never been to before, so we were at the very least planning to take the tender over to the port and walk around.

          At about 8:15, then lowered one of the life-boats used as tenders and took a test run from the ship to the port.  After it came back, the captain announced that the weather was not going to allow for safe transfers from the tenders to the dock, so we would be skipping Monserrat and moving on to St. John--or at least that's what I thought he said.  Our scheduled port for the next day was St. John, US Virgin Islands.  

          Imagine my surprise when we started docking procedures about 2 hours later.  What the captain had actually said was that we were heading to St. John's, Antigua & Barbuda.  In all of my cruises, I've never had a cruise line cancel a port stop and be able to schedule a replacement for the same day, let alone 2 hours later.  Also impressively, they were able to create, print and distribute a new activities sheet before we had even finished docking.  Nice work, Explora Journeys!

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          We had been to Antigua/Barbuda previously, but I didn't remember this port area.  It was a refreshing change to see an original, historic port with mom & pop type shops as opposed to many ports these days with a "shopping mall" vibe, and corporate establishments like Diamonds International and Senior Frogs.

          We were in port today with the Norwegian Epic and AIDA Perla, but the port area was not crowded.

          Here's an interesting fact I learned about the bars on Explora:  On cruise ships, bars usually have a metal cage or grate that covers the bottles of alcohol when the bar is closed.  The designers of the Explora ships didn't think the cage fit the 5-star resort hotel aesthetic they were going for, so the bar-tenders must take down and put away every bottle at every bar when they close for the evening.  And there is a specific order the bottles need to go in when they put them back the next day! 

Final step count for Day 7: