Explora I packs its public spaces onto a handful of decks. Decks 6 through 10 are nothing but suites. Everything social sits below them on Decks 3, 4, and 5, or above them on Decks 11, 12, and 14, and the ship skips a numbered 13 the way most do. The single most useful thing to read off the deck plan: the dining and the show lounge sit low, on Decks 4 and 5, with the spa and the aft social cluster on 5, while the four pools are spread bow to stern and low to high, so you can chase sun, shade, quiet, or company just by changing your elevation.
That spread does more for how the ship feels than almost anything on the deck plan. I sailed Explora I with my family across more than one Mediterranean voyage, embarked from Venice, and the layout is the part you stop noticing because it works. This post is the anatomy: what is on each deck, which decks run busy, which run quiet, and how I would position a suite against all of it. The deck-to-venue assignments come from Explora’s own published deck plan and a venue-by-venue cross-check; the read on how each deck actually feels is mine.
How is Explora I laid out, deck by deck?
The short version is a sandwich. Suites in the middle, public life above and below.
The numbered decks run 3, 4, 5, then the suite block 6 to 10, then 11, 12, and 14. There is no Deck 13 by name, the old maritime superstition, so the published count differs depending on how you tally it. What matters is the pattern, not the total: roughly eleven decks you can walk, five of them suites.
Here is the spine. Deck 3 is the working deck, low and out of sight. Deck 4 is arrival, shopping, the lobby, and the main show lounge, and it also holds two of the restaurants. Deck 5 is the rest of the dining, the spa, and the aft lounge. Decks 6 to 10 are your suite. Deck 11 is the indoor-leisure crown, the food hall and the glass-roofed pool. Deck 12 is the adults-only sun deck up forward. Deck 14 is the sports deck at the very top.
Read it that way and the ship stops being a maze. You sleep in the middle and travel down for dinner or up for sun.
What is on the lower decks: Deck 3 and Deck 4?
Deck 3 is the deck you will barely touch, and that is by design.
It holds the Medical Centre, the crew areas, and the Marina, the water-sports and tender platform where you board the small boats in ports without a pier. It is the lowest guest-accessible level, and on a calm day it is also, for what it is worth, the steadiest place on the ship to be. More on that below.
Deck 4 is busier than its arrival-deck label suggests. The Lobby and Lobby Bar are here, along with The Journey, the atrium feature that gives the space its center. So is Guest Services, the Destination Experiences desk where you sort out your shore plans, the Future Journeys desk if you want to book your next sailing while you are still on this one, and a small Casino. The boutiques sit here too: Piaget, Rolex, Cartier, Panerai. Crema Café is on this deck for a coffee on the way through.
Deck 4 also carries the ship’s evening stage and two of its restaurants. The Journeys Lounge, a 210-seat room with a central stage, runs the nightly entertainment. Med Yacht Club, the marquee Mediterranean room, is here, and so is Fil Rouge, the French-inspired all-day anchor. Anthology, the rotating guest-chef venue and the one dinner room that carries an extra fee, sits on this deck as well, apart from the other dining rooms so it reads as a separate occasion, which it does.
What is on Deck 5, and the aft social cluster?
Deck 5 carries the rest of the dining, the spa, and the back-of-the-ship lounge.
Two more restaurants are here: Marble & Co. Grill, the steakhouse with its own wine cellar, and Sakura, the Pan-Asian room running Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, and Malaysian. With Med Yacht Club and Fil Rouge one flight down on Deck 4, that is four main rooms across two adjacent decks, close enough that walking the stairs to compare what is open that night, rather than riding elevators across the ship, is a small luxury you feel by the third evening. I went to Sakura more than once.
The spa is on Deck 5 too. Ocean Wellness runs a thermal area, treatment rooms, and a salon here, reported at over 700 square meters. So is the Galleria d’Arte, the art gallery, and the MSC Foundation space.
And all the way aft is Astern: the Astern Lounge and the Astern Pool and Bar, the back-of-the-ship cluster that runs live music by day. Some sailings program a DJ there at night, though my own Astern evenings stayed quiet. Astern at dusk became the seat I came back to every night, with the wake unspooling behind the ship and the light going over the water. I wrote that evening up on its own (/journal/explora-journeys-at-night/), but the deck-plan point is this: the aft end of Deck 5 is where the ship’s evening energy concentrates. Worth knowing, both for finding it and for sleeping away from it.
Where are the pools on Explora I?
Four pools, and not one of them is next to another. That spread is a big part of why a 922-guest ship reads calm rather than crowded.
The Astern Pool and Bar sits aft on Deck 5, social and in the thick of things. The Atoll Pool and Bar is aft on Deck 10, higher and quieter, tucked at the back of the suite block. The Conservatory Pool and Bar is indoors on Deck 11 under a retractable glass roof, big enough to swim laps, which on a gray Mediterranean afternoon is the pool that saves the day. And the Helios Pool and Bar is forward on Deck 12, adults-only, with bow views.
I sailed this in real Mediterranean weather, and the spread is not a gimmick. When the wind came up forward, the aft pools were sheltered. When the sun went thin, the Conservatory’s roof closed and the swimming kept going. You move to the conditions instead of waiting them out. Four pools on a ship this size also means none of them feels like a fight for a lounger, which is a different experience from the single crowded pool most lines give you.
What is on the top decks: 11, 12, and 14?
Above the suites, the ship opens up.
Deck 11 is the indoor-leisure crown and the busiest deck up top. It holds the Conservatory Pool under its glass roof; the Emporium Marketplace, the food hall that runs indoor and outdoor seating across the deck; and a row of lounges and bars: the Explora Lounge with its forward observation views and outdoor area, the Malt Whisky Bar for a slow nightcap, the Nautilus Club, a Crema Café with a gelateria and creperie, indoor whirlpools, the Chef’s Kitchen cooking studio, and a Private Dining Room. It is the most-trafficked deck above the suites, day and night, because the food hall pulls people through it.
Deck 12 is the sun deck, and it is forward. Helios Pool and Bar is forward and adults-only with bow views, the sunniest spot on the ship, and there is a running track and whirlpools up here too.
Deck 14, at the very top, is the sports deck: a Sports Court, an open-air fitness area, the Sky Bar on 14, and a whirlpool. (Ocean Wellness also runs a Fitness Centre down on Deck 10, at the top of the suite block, if you would rather not climb to the roof for the gym.)
Does Explora I have a theater?
Not in the cruise-ship sense, and that tells you who the ship is for.
There is no big production-show theater, no multi-deck auditorium, no West-End-scale stage. What there is instead is the Journeys Lounge on Deck 4, a 210-seat room with a central stage that runs the nightly entertainment: cabaret-style sets, live music, the occasional guest performer. The shows are well-performed but the material runs dated, which is the honest knock I make on the evenings in full elsewhere. The rest of the night lives in the lounges and bars: live music in the Explora Lounge, the Malt Whisky Bar for a drink, the aft Astern lounge for the late view. There is no casino-and-late-club spine the way a bigger ship has, no nightly two-show production schedule. If a big stage show is part of why you take a cruise, weigh that carefully, and I will say so plainly. If the evening you want is dinner and a quiet drink, the scale of it is a feature, not a gap.
Where should you put your suite?
This is where the deck plan turns into a booking decision, and it is the part a generalist advisor will not walk you through.
The suite block runs Decks 6 to 10, lowest and most forward suites at the low numbers, the top Residences high and at the ends. As a hospitality operator who sailed her, here is how I think about placement.
Avoid the deck directly under a busy public space if quiet matters to you. A high suite on Deck 10 puts you right below the Deck 11 food hall and pool traffic, so the very top of the suite block is not automatically the calmest. By the same logic, an aft suite low in the block can sit above the Astern music on Deck 5, lovely for the view, livelier at night. Mid-ship, mid-deck is the quietest combination, away from the pool deck above and the lounge below.
Then there is motion, and this is the mariner in me talking, not the deck plan. A ship pivots around its middle, so the bow and stern move most in a seaway and the mid-ship low decks move least. Forward suites near Helios up on 12 ride livelier when the sea gets up; aft suites feel the engines and the music; mid-ship and lower is the steadiest sleep on the ship. If anyone in your party is motion-sensitive, that is the single most useful sentence in this post. The full suite-by-suite math, which categories earn their premium and which two are quietly oversold, lives on the suites breakdown (/suites/compare/). But the deck logic above is what I layer on top of it before I tell a client where to book.
If you want the rest of the picture, the deck plan is the bones; the worth-it verdict (/journal/is-explora-journeys-worth-it/) is what living inside it actually feels like, and the dining guide (/dining/) covers which of those four restaurants to book and which to skip. The per-ship specs and what is different on the newer hulls sit on the Explora I page (/ships/explora-i/).
Questions people ask
How many decks does Explora I have? Explora I has roughly eleven guest-accessible decks, numbered 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 14. There is no Deck 13 by name, the old maritime superstition, so the total you see quoted depends on how a given source counts the crew and technical levels. The five suite decks are 6 through 10, and the public spaces sit on 3, 4, 5, 11, 12, and 14.
What restaurants are on Deck 4 and Deck 5 of Explora I? The four main dining rooms split across two adjacent decks. Deck 4 holds Med Yacht Club, the Mediterranean room, and Fil Rouge, the French-inspired all-day anchor, alongside the lobby, the boutiques, the Casino, the extra-fee Anthology, and the Journeys Lounge stage. Deck 5 holds Marble & Co. Grill, the steakhouse, and Sakura, the Pan-Asian room, plus the Ocean Wellness spa, the Galleria d’Arte, and the aft Astern lounge and pool where the evening energy concentrates.
How many pools does Explora I have, and where are they? Four. The Astern Pool sits aft on Deck 5, the Atoll Pool aft on Deck 10, the Conservatory Pool indoors on Deck 11 under a retractable glass roof, and the Helios Pool forward on Deck 12, which is adults-only. They are spread bow to stern and low to high on purpose, so you can move to the sun, the shade, or the quiet rather than waiting for conditions to change.
Does Explora I have a theater or production shows? Not a big production-show theater. The main stage is the Journeys Lounge on Deck 4, a 210-seat room with a central stage that runs nightly cabaret-style entertainment, live music, and the occasional guest performer. The shows are well-performed but the material runs dated, and the rest of the evening lives in the lounges and bars rather than a two-show production schedule. It is a deliberate, calm-evening design choice that signals who the ship is for.
Which deck should I book my suite on? Mid-ship and mid-deck is the calmest and steadiest combination. Suites high on Deck 10 sit below the Deck 11 food hall and pool, and aft suites low in the block can sit above the Astern music on Deck 5, so the extremes are livelier. For anyone prone to motion, a lower mid-ship suite moves least, because a ship pivots around its middle and the bow and stern move most in a seaway. Tell me your voyage and I will tell you which suite.
Where is the spa and gym on Explora I? The spa, Ocean Wellness, is on Deck 5 with Marble & Co. Grill and Sakura, running a thermal area, treatment rooms, and a salon, reported at over 700 square meters. The main Fitness Centre is up on Deck 10, at the top of the suite block, and there is an additional open-air fitness area and a running track on the top sports decks, 12 and 14.
If you are weighing Explora I and want help reading the deck plan against a specific sailing, send me your dates and the suite tier you’re considering. I’ll have live pricing in your inbox within two hours, no call required.
— Justin