Just Back! Navigator of the Seas Review, 2/26 3/3/12 6 Night Western Caribbean, with

Just a quick background--I sailed on the Navigator from 2/26/12 - 3/3/12 with my parents--I am 31 and they are 60 and 67. We sailed to the Western Caribbean including the islands of Grand Cayman, Ocho Rios, Jamaica, and Labadee, Haiti from Port Everglades (Ft. Lauderdale). We are Diamond-Plus and have just under 40 cruises under our belts, but this was our first time on a Voyager-Class ship. Actually, our first time on anything bigger than a Radiance-Class. Our favorite is the Majesty of the Seas, with the Vision-Class coming in a close second. We've sailed on Majesty a ton of times, also the Enchantment, Grandeur, and Radiance as well. We've been leary to try a ship this big, just b/c we're more fond of the "good old days" of cruising and enjoy spending much of our time outside on deck, but we are very glad we finally caved. I think the Navigator is my new favorite ship.

Hopefully this review won't be too boring for you--we feel we have been there, done that, so we don't go to many shows or take part in many activities. We just like to go and relax for the most part. I'm an active, athletic person but have done most of activities in the Western Caribbean already--zip-lining, parasailing, etc., and my parents don't do any of that so I tend to just relax when I'm with them. We booked this cruise for 2 reasons--1) We love sailing from Ft. Lauderdale and 2) OUr two favorite ports are Grand Cayman and Labadee. Hopefully some things I include in my review will help others in their cruise plans, because I know I've gotten a tremendous amount of help from CC...since I was about 17 years old and my parents were taking my sister and I on our first cruise! Time flies. I tend to be a bit too detailed at times, so I apologize in advance for the length and the myriad of details.

Pre-Cruise, Ft. Lauderdale:

So here we go. We flew down to Ft. Lauderdale 2 days early, on 2/24/12, from Akron-Canton Airport (We live in a suburb of Cleveland but found a better deal on a connecting flight from Akron, through Atlanta, and on to FLL). The flights were uneventful, we rented a car from Advantage (via Travelocity) right at the airport, and soon we were on our way to the Hilton Ft. Lauderdale Airport (Via US 1 South) for our pre-cruise stay. I had booked the Hilton Airport via Last Minute Travel since all the hotels we usually stay at on the beach were either sold out, or way too expensive. This worked out well for us and we really liked the Hilton. I kept reading negative reviews, but it turned out to be a really nice place and we enjoyed our stay.

We ate lunch that first day in the hotel restaurant, for one reason and that is that we were starving and didn't feel like driving around after just arriving at the hotel. It was average, and very expensive of course. We used Valet parking which turned out to be a good chunk of change--they told us it was $15 Per Day for regular parking, and $20 Per Day for Valet. We opted for the valet, but in the end it was almost double that, but I didn't feel like arguing so I let it go. We had room 203 (I think) in the outside/poolside section of the hotel which had a beautiful view overlooking the pool. We upgraded to this room because when we checked in, of course they were booked solid and since we had booked through a 3rd party website (LMT), they were giving us a Smoking Room. I was very unhappy about that, yet I understood why, so when he offered us the upgrade to a poolside non-smoking room with a balcony, we jumped at it. The room was nice, the balcony our favorite part, and you can see the view from it below:

The Hotel grounds were beautiful, one of the nicest I've seen yet. Very lush, tropical, and green. The pool was really nice, but we didn't get a chance to enjoy it b/c we were sightseeing so much, and also b/c there was a real lack of lounge chairs. I tried twice, but could not get a seat so I gave up. The weather was gorgeous--mid to upper 80's and sunny for the most part. The room was a tad noisy, we were woken up twice, once each night, by drunk people outside our room (which was on the 2nd floor and near the parking area) being loud. It wasn't the quietest place but wasn't the noisiest either.

Friday night we headed to Ft. Lauderdale Beach to walk around and have a bite to eat. On our way we stopped at the Harbor Shops off of 17th Street on Cordova Road--we wanted to pick up some things for the cruise at Publix and this fit the bill. The Publix here is a really nice store and we made several visits to it during our stay for water, snacks, toiletries, etc. We ate at Gilbert's 17th Street Grill the following night, which is also at the Harbor Shops, and we really enjoyed it. Got the recommendation from someone here on CC and we thought it was great. Burgers were excellent and the Key Lime Pie was really, really good. I also saw Duffy's Sports Grille, Lauderdale Grille, Joe's Cafe, and Five Guys, to name a few. Not really any great shops or stores there that I could see.

After Publix we headed over to A1A and parked in an open lot next to Las Olas Blvd. right on the beach. We paid via a meter and went strolling along the beach. Stopped at Beach Place, got a quick bite at LuLu's Bait Shack, stopped at CVS there, had a drink at the Courtyard Marriott's pool deck, and headed back to the hotel.

Nice review!!! Cant wait for more!!!:D:D:D

The following morning I wanted to take my parents to Lauderdale By the Sea, more specifically, The Village Grille (Thanks Royalcruz), for breakfast. We got an early start, enjoyed the nice drive along A1A, and parked on the beach at Anglin's Fishing Pier. Put our name in to have a table outside overlooking the beach, and waited to be seated. This place was great and we really had a good time. The food was excellent, reasonably priced, and the weather was gorgeous. After eating we went to the end of the Pier ($2 PP entrance fee), then came back and did some shopping in the shops around the pier. We had a great morning. The rest of our time in FLL was spent similar to this, just kind of driving around, seeing different areas, etc. I love this area and hope to move here one day in the near future. We'll see!

More Lauderdale By the Sea Pics...

Cruising Time:

Finally, Sunday morning is here...time to board the Navigator of the Seas. We had returned the car the night before, so we took a shuttle from the hotel over to the Pier ($9 PP). We first dropped a group off at the Allure (even after seeing the pictures and webcams, I was still in awe) and then headed over to the Navigator. Traffic was crazy, tons of people everywhere coming and going. We had heard about the issues at Terminal 29, so we wanted to get there early. We got there around 10:30, dropped off luggage with the porter, got through security, checked in (though they did not have our Sea Pass cards so we had to wait) and were ushered to the early-arrivals waiting area. There are 2 sections at Terminal 29, one for the early-arrivals and one for everyone else. The early-arrivals one had about....maybe 8 or 9 rows of chairs, not sure. There must've been a delay, because we sat there awhile. I think we boarded around 12:15, we were having lunch in the Windjammer by 12:30. Food temperature, selection, everything--was excellent in the Navigator's WJ. Enjoyed it all week long.

We booked Cabin # 9620, Port-Side, Hump Balcony Cabin. We LOVED this cabin. Great location, right behind the centrum elevators. Our cabin attendant was Charlie from Haiti. Well, his name isn't really Charlie, but a nickname since his name is difficult to pronounce. I asked him "Why Charlie?" and he said that his last name sort of sounds like "Charlie" so...we went with it. Super nice guy, kept our cabin sparkling clean and fresh-smelling. He was like magic, in and out of there and we rarely saw him. We gave him a WOW card.

The Muster Drill was one of the easiest we've experienced, super quick and painless, with Captain Tommy Nyseter ushering us out of there rather quickly, and no life-jackets needed. Nice. I love that feeling after the muster drill when you know you have an entire cruise ahead of you...great feeling. When we got back to our cabin, our luggage had arrived and we quickly unpacked and got settled. We spent Sail Away on our balcony watching for the Port Fever Web Cam and waving like crazy. There was a home here on the channel that had a Flowrider installed outside next to their pool, with a bunch of happy kids surfing in the sun. Looked like they were having a blast!

Finally, we were out to sea and getting ready for our first night's dinner. We had planned on eating in the Dining Room each night, but only made it on Night 1. After that, we did the Windjammer, Room Service, and Johnny Rockets a few times. It just worked for us this time, we were in relaxation mode and didn't feel like getting dressed up.

From this point on, I'll just do overviews of certain areas, and not go day by day (besides ports). I'm already getting long-winded. Thanks for staying with me if you're still reading:

More pics of Sailaway:

Around the ship...

Tuesday, February 28th, Grand Cayman:

My favorite place on Earth. I think there were 6 or 7 ships in this day, so instead of going to Grand Cayman Beach Suites as we normally do, we headed to Royal Palms (Seven Mile Beach) for the day. We were questioning our decision when, as soon as we got there, it started raining. We had no towels (poor planning on our part) so we had to buy $25 towels with maps of Grand Cayman on them, but what can ya do? The taxi to the beach was $4 PP and entrance fee into Royal Palms was $2 PP. Chairs and umbrellas were $10 EA. It's a really nice place, just a tad too crowded for my tastes. But we enjoyed our day there immensely. The skies soon cleared up, and we enjoyed the day in the ocean and in the pool, with the sun beaming down on us.

We all got massages poolside ($35 for 30 minutes) which were very good. They also have a nice restaurant/bar right on the beach where we enjoyed lunch and drinks:

Cayman Lemonade & a CayBrew:

Royal Palms, Grand Cayman:

More Cayman:

Heading back to the ship:

Wednesday, February 29th, Ocho Rios, Jamaica:

My least favorite place on Earth. We were docked with the Norwegian Pearl. I was not even going to get off the ship, but my dad talked me into going over to Island Village, near the port. Well, there was nothing there. I'd been there before, but when it had first openened. I was hoping it'd be more built up, but it was worse than last time. Nothing there except for Margaritaville, so we walked back to the ship, and were approached about 50 times each for God-knows-what, I just wanted to get back to the ship. Spent the rest of the day at the pool (I love tropical drinks, if you haven't already noticed):

Back on the ship:

The Guy outside our stateroom:

Solarium:

Thursday, March 1st, Labadee, Haiti:

Used to visit Labadee back when it was just an island with beaches to relax at. Haven't been there since 2001. I liked it better back then, but it's still one of my favorite places and I think it's gorgeous there. As we approached the island (peninsula), I made my way to the top deck to watch us pull in. As we got closer, I finally saw the Explorer docked and watched us pull in alongside her. I was particularly interested in this since I have a friend who works as a Crew member onboard the Explorer and I was going to meet up with him. I had not seen him in awhile and I was excited that both ships would be docked together in Labadee:

Great review so far. I'm loving all of your photos!

More arrival into Labadee...

Explorer's Info, I missed Navigator's this day...