NAVIGATOR May 4-10,2014 REVIEW w/lots of photos

Hey CC family!! After reading countless great reviews from other respected posters, I'd thought I'd give back to CC with my own first review... of course with a ton of photos :D

I really hope you like it and would love to hear any feedback. Of course, any questions I may answer for you about the Navigator I will try... fire away! I'll try to make this as photo heavy as possible (pictures always speak a thousand words, yes?)

This cruise was a one-of-a-kind being a 6-dayer for the Navigator out of Galveston, including it's one and only stop ever in Costa Maya. It was also a first for me personally for many reasons: 1st cruise becoming D+, 1st cruise on Navigator, 1st not doing formal night, 1st in an ocean view facing the helipad, 1st time at Sabor specialty dining, 1st time in Costa Maya & Roatan.... a few more to add on this list.

So stay tuned as I load some photos into photobucket so that I may share with you. I also have a ton of business to catch up on so I'm pretty sure I won't be able to post my whole review all in one night.

I'd like to give a shout out and dedicate this review to the many folks I met and spoke with throughout the cruise... mostly American and heavy Texan influenced... you are all awesome people! I reallly enjoyed cruisin' with y'all!!!

(p.s. I didn't know that we Vancouverites had "accents"... eh??!! :rolleyes::p)

Welcome back from what I'm sure was another great cruise. Looking forward to reading your review and seeing your pictures.

Looking forward to your review Hoopster; we are going on Navigator in Feb.

Yep, we do have accents :).

Day 1 - GALVESTON

Due to business committments, I booked an overnight flight out of Seattle to Bush IAH non-stop.... great & easy flight but too little sleep. Nevertheless, relaxed a bit when we got off the plane & had some breakfast at the airport before being called by the driver and picked up by Onyx Limosine Service right on time. I guess they didn't have a simple towncar so we were "crammed" into a white stretch limo!! Talk about a great way to start the vacay and a nice comfy 1 hour ride to the cruise terminal.

My entire plan went perfectly... I wanted to get to the pier by about 10am in order to walk around the downtown historic "Strand" area before embarking. At 10:03am the driver dropped us off. There looked to be a few stragglers from the previous cruise waiting for rides and shuttles, but the porters were already in the process of taking bags in for my cruise... we handed the porters our bags and easily made our way walking out of the cruise pier area, super easy to do. You can hardly get any good pictures of the Navigator from the pier area as it's hidden by The Magic as well as the terminal building so I didn't bother. There'll be plenty of other great ship photo opportunities.

If you are "walkers", it is extremely easy to have a very nice morning visit in Galveston. Also note that only about 6-7 blocks away within 1 block of Moody's historic Mansion right at the main intersection with the large statue is a "CSV" drug/grocery store for toilettries, sun screen, etc etc... great place to stop to get those extra things you may need.

The Strand area itself is a really nice walk. We did not notice the tourist trolley running at all, nor did we inquire. I had been to Galveston 3 years ago

on the Voyager and also walked all the way across the island to the beach/boardwalk and back... lots to see and a great town to visit for a day for those of you interested. 3 years ago I stayed at the Harbour House Hotel right beside the Pier and walked to the terminal the next morning... super easy and great food at the various restaurants right at Pier 21. I truly recommend that for those of you who have not visited Galveston to arrive a day early and stay in Galveston (rather than Houston Airport).

We got back to the terminal at about 12:15pm thinking there'd be a ton of cruisers getting there at the same time, but that wasn't the case. We breezed through security and check-in, total probably less than 15 minutes. I just love that moment of going up the escalator and onto the gangway, looking at the ship and hearing the "bong", "bong", "bongs" ahead of me as sea-pass cards are read on the machine.

So it's on to the ship and my normal routine whenever I first get on, and that is to go check out and take pictures of almost everything I can that first afternoon before it gets busy during the week! What I'll do now is post a bunch of photos of the ship itself with short descriptions as needed. I'll have more ship pictures on several other days as well to share with you.

Let's get started.... Here you go!

The Metropolis Theatre was closed so I did not get interior pictures today as I normally do of the theatre on day 1. I'll have some for you at a later day.

I found the Star Lounge to be very bland and lacking character with the new colour scheme and furniture

Looking back into the Royal Promenade from the Star Lounge

Sabor is located on deck 4 where the entrance to "The Dungeon" nightclub used to be... more on Sabor on day 6, but I should tell you it was by far and away my best dining experience in any specialty venue on any ship thus far (including better than both Chops and Giovanni's on Oasis)

The Schooner Bar did not change at all

The Casino

Boleros Lounge... they also had the Bubba Band play country music there on a couple of nights rather than the regular Latino Band

The Dining Room is simply exquisite

This is deck 3... the photo studio and entry through to Studio B

and here's Studio B (the ice rink)

This is Chops

and this is Giovanni's... had two excellent meals here.

Looking down the elevator area all the way to deck 3 from deck 12

Off to a good start...... Looking forward to the rest of your review.

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The view from the Cosmopolitan Club down onto the pool deck

"The Chapel"

I'm blessed in the Pacific Northwest to have a large Asian population, and therefore many excellent Asian dining opportunities. I never ate here so I can't comment on quality of food nor service, but the room is beautiful and has a great view

I've always loved the sports court area of the Voyager Class ships and was really interested to see first hand how they dealt with the FloRider... it looks great up there. They got rid if the in-line skating area as well as little used kiddie pool. I'll have more pictures of this area in later days also

The line-ups for the FloRider were always very long, so this is the first ship I never did get in line to wait my turn. I have heard from several that this particular FloRider may be the best in the fleet for power and the 'quality' of the wave it creates

Pool deck is a fantastic layout with ample loungers everywhere on decks 11 & 12, and lots of shaded areas for those who do not want direct sun. You'll see two hot tubs in the right pool... immediately to the left and inside the left pool, they have created a kiddie area separated with steel bars now that the back kiddie pool was taken away for the FloRider.

My two biggest disappointments are now coming up with this ship and re-vitalization... 1st imho the Solarium is very poor and RCL saved money by not doing anything here. It's been totally stripped of any character. There's no colour, statues, greenery... just nothing, very institutional. An extremely boring "trapped" space, but is you really crave that adult only peace then this is the place to be.

Deck 13 forward, above the new deck 12 cabins and Spa, is a highly open and extremely un-utilized space. I'll have pictures on a later date whereby the entire pool deck is packed and this whole area is totally empty with all deck chairs tied up! There is so much they could've done here. They've added hundreds of loungers but no one wants to be at this dead space where nothing is going on, no bar, no access to anything, nothing.

A great gym/spa area is on board with a spa/hot-tub, excellent equipment, steam/changing room etc.

Nice start!!! :)

Great review and pictures so far!!! Thank-you I am sailing in two weeks. I agree with you, the best solarium is on the Radiance class ships. As a D, did you have drink coupons loaded on your card? We are planning on chops because we love steak. You (and other people) have said Sabor is great, being from Texas, should we just step out of the box and try it? We are only doing one specialty restaurant.

We walked around the ship and various venues right through to the muster drill. Our muster station was in the Star Lounge... ok, that's just great... if the ship gets into trouble they want hundreds of people to "assemble" inside in a lounge? NOT!

Sailaway was typical fun, line dancing and so forth. Also Capt Claus Anderson announced that once we were out of the channel that a helicopter would be performing flybys as they were recording for a promo or movie of some sort, in fact the Navigator also stopped and spun in a 360 while being filmed. That was fun as everyone was out on deck screamming and waving as they copter flew back and forth.

We settled in for dinner at the MDR this evening... our one of only 2 visits to the MDR! (very rare for me as I normally like the MDR and make a point of eating there). LIke many of you long time RCL'ers I've noticed a somewhat of a decline in MDR quality, so this time we planned at least 2 specialty dinners (we ended up at 3) and one night for sure at the Windjammer. However, I still hold true to my cruising dinner rule: I call it the "222" rule... 2 appies, 2 dinners and 2 deserts! YES :))) Sorry everyone, while I love to eat I'm not a total foodie so I didn't take many pics of the dinners. Truthfully both MDR dinners we had were not memorable, so I can't remember what I had the first night at all.

The evening event schedule for night #1 was very sparse... after dinner we went to watch Karaoke, however it was one of the worst we had ever seen so we left early! We then visited the Schooner bar to listen to the pianoman start his set, but 15 minutes past when he was supposed to start he still seemed to be more concerned about his tip jar and what he was drinking so we left there also! Being a long day with a short overnight uncomfortable sleep on the plane, we decided to hit the sack.

But here's the last of the pictures from day 1:

Note our cabin was the third porthole from the left on the lowest row (deck 6... cabin pictures to come)

Yes!! They kept the dates embedded in the elevator carpets

Deck 6 forward elevator area

Deck 6 hallway down to the stateroom

Our stateroom... Cabin photos coming next

Thanks so much for starting a Navigator review. The boards have been quiet on this ship for that last little while. I have subscribed and am looking forward to it. You're off to a great start so far!

Love being able to relive our Feb. cruise. We love the Navigator. Thank you for taking the time to do this review! We will be back on her in November. Can't wait!!!!

Stateroom 6204 ... This cabin was a great surprise. It's in my top 5 cabins I've ever stayed in just for the notoriety... I absolutely loved the helipad front view. I took a picture out the window everyday and always looked out whenever I was in the room. I picked this room specifically from some photos taken several years ago on Liberty of cabins 6204 & 6406 due to bed placement and the usability of the window... thankfully all was the same for Navigator as there's very little info about these cabins. To me, they are larger than regular ocean view, with extra space by the window for luggage etc.

The downside on this room is for light sleepers as the outdoor crew area is directly below this cabin and I did hear the "bang" of the various steel doors as they close below at different times. Both my partner and I are good sleepers so that didn't bother us. Also you can easily hear motors during the release of the ropes (arriving and leaving port), and the shuddering when the azipods are being used during docking as well as when leaving. So if you are sleeping in when getting into port, you may be woken up. Both the above did not bother us at all, and I really loved this room... will book again if the opportunity arises.

This is a super bright and large oceanview room

Excellent storage, lots of walking space to maneuver around, and bathroom shower has sliding round doors rather than the sticky curtain

The view from the large porthole I found to be phenomenal and really interesting. And yes... I've got pictures of me out there within my partner taking them from within the cabin lol

Still very bright with the privacy curtain drawn. Note the posted sign at the top left of the window by the drapes... in the evening all these front cabins must have the blackout curtains closed in order to prevent shine of light affecting the bridge deck above

And lastly at this angle you can see the angle of the wall does not affect the space utilization of the cabin as I have my carry-on and backpack there by the night stand. You can have the curtain open while in bed also without anyone being able to see in

Thanks for this. My wife and I will be on the Navigator in three weeks, we can hardly wait.

Great review and pictures so far!!! Thank-you I am sailing in two weeks. I agree with you, the best solarium is on the Radiance class ships. As a D, did you have drink coupons loaded on your card? We are planning on chops because we love steak. You (and other people) have said Sabor is great, being from Texas, should we just step out of the box and try it? We are only doing one specialty restaurant.

Thanks for the kind words Gambler... yes, not a single problem with the coupons auto-loaded on my card on this cruise in any venue (drinks, photo, etc). Fyi you can have the Filet Mignon directly from Chops within Giovanni's for half the cover charge!!! :D;)

And regarding Sabor... Y E S !!! :p It's not Tex-mex. I wasn't the only frequent cruiser that raved about Sabor during the week. The best ever Guac made in front of you at the table, everything we ate was spectacular. You don't order desert... they bring you a tray with every desert on the menu... includes Churos with hot chocolate and vanilla dipping sauce and the most decadent "Café Latte" mousse I have ever had. No joke, we needed wheelchairs to be taken out of that place we were so full! Go very very hungry :p