DukeASUGirl

Ain't no way I'd spend $200/person for tickets to a waterpark when there is literally an entire island and beaches for free. Even if there wasn't a beach, ain't no way I'd ever spend $200/person for waterpark tickets. I won't even spend that much for a season pass.

On 5/30/2023 at 7:32 PM, DukeASUGirl said:

We figure it's probably still coming, but have no idea. We do need that paperwork so we can submit to insurance.

We have been off the ship for a week and a half now, and still no bill for the medical center. Very odd.

On 6/3/2023 at 3:43 PM, Mum2Mercury said:

The library, really?  In my experience, that's always empty.  If I've ever been in the card room, I've forgotten.    

On Nav, it's a combined library/card room, and it was surprisingly full on sea days, but then again it was chilly for 2 out of 3 sea days so while the pool deck was always full, so were the indoor spaces.

5 hours ago, Tree_skier said:

I'm glad everything worked out ok and your daughter was fine.  How much did they charge for the medical visit?

No clue! I signed paperwork acknowledging that there would be charges (although it never said what), and the nurse said that the invoice would be sent to our cabin (and we assumed added to our onboard account), but nothing ever arrived before we disembarked. We've received the "final statement" via email and it didn't include it, either.

We figure it's probably still coming, but have no idea. We do need that paperwork so we can submit to insurance.

My dad brought his own, but after the first night, the waiter just started opening it for us and we never got the corkage fee.

On 5/17/2023 at 8:35 AM, feeloftheocean said:

Thank you all for the feedback. In our previous cruises, we have always prioritized being punctual for our assigned dining time, typically around 6 PM, and we truly appreciate the unique experience of enjoying the Main Dining room service that distinguishes cruises from other types of vacations.

We did My Time Dining this past week, with a standing 6:45 pm reservation - got our same waiter/assistant and table every night. It worked for us - Early was just too early for us (5 pm on Deck 3, or 5:30 on Decks 4 and 5) and Late would be too late (8 pm).

Since we had the standing reservations, we never waited to be seated. Actually, I stand corrected - the only time we waited was when we took a chance and arrived at 6 pm (to see if it would be possible to get in early), and we waited for like 2 minutes for them to find a table for 6 that the Early Dining folks had no-showed.

29 minutes ago, DukeASUGirl said:

 

Okay, that is really good to hear! My husband hated San Pedro so much he doesn't want to sail Royal out of CA anymore and would rather do Carnival out of Long Beach, but if there are improvements in the works that could change things. I liked Carnival - don't get me wrong. I just liked Royal better, and he agreed on all points but San Pedro. Haha

But maybe this is a moot point, because the kids have requested "can we please do somewhere else besides Mexico?" (Both cruises they've been on have been Mexico, as well as a couple of beach vacations.)

2 hours ago, Tntt said:

 

7. Compares to caribbean cruises are Alaskan cruises worth the cost?

 

My Alaska cruises have been on Princess and NCL so I can't speak to RCL, but there is absolutely no comparison. You really can't compare. They are two completely different itineraries.

I will say that I've done Eastern Caribbean once, Western Caribbean once, and Alaska twice. And want to go back and take the kids. So...there you go. Obviously I think it's worth it, and prefer it to Caribbean, despite the cost.

2 minutes ago, Mum2Mercury said:

It's good to hear that someone else had the same experience I did.  We ARE pool people, but we go up and stay a while, so I don't mind having to go up in the elevator.

Being from Arizona, we found it quite chilly sailing out of LA, thus my parents never venturing to the pools. I did the waterslides and Flowrider a few times, but mostly stayed in the hot tub if I was up on deck. Never laid out because, well, I'm from Arizona. LOL

On 5/27/2023 at 12:14 PM, NJoynCruisin said:

\Different opinions if they will have any passengers on board.  The crew members we talked to were pretty excited about the journey.

That would be pretty fantastic if they offered it as a Transpacific on either end.

On 5/15/2023 at 11:08 PM, Ashland said:

Any idea what they'll be doing? She looked great the last time we were on her.

We just disembarked on Friday and thought she looked great.

On 5/26/2023 at 4:04 PM, Mum2Mercury said:

 

- The worst part about guarantees is waiting for your room to be assigned!  Once we've done our online check-in, I get antsy about not knowing my room number, and I start checking   

- We always seem to be placed mid-ship 6th floor.  6th isn't a popular floor, but we have decided it's our favorite!  We love being one floor up from the Promenade and close to the MDR; in fact, we chose our cabin for an upcoming cruise, and we chose 6th floor.  

- We have a theory that we keep ending up mid-ship because it often costs a few dollars more than the two ends ... and people don't want to pay it, so those rooms end up being "left over" for guarantees.  

 

This is exactly where my parents were placed with their Balcony GTY on Navigator! 6th floor, midship. And they actually loved it. Quiet, easy to get to MDR, and they aren't pool people.

Since it isn't an Oasis-class, there is no such thing as a non-Oceanview Balcony on Nav, so that was never a concern. And it turns out that none of the balconies have obstructed views, either. So it worked out well for them. 

48 minutes ago, dman1 said:

We are a group of 20 boarding on Ovation this Friday. We have overlapping boarding times from 11-2:30pm.  If we all show up at the 11 time slot is it possible they will board our whole group together??

It's possible. It's also possible they'll send the rest of them to the waiting area marked for their own timeslots.

3 hours ago, Linsifer said:

Embarkation was a cinch for us, as well.  And we’re Gold.  Disembarking for self-assist was a bit chaotic, though. That was more the ship’s problem though.  Once we got off the ship, it was easy peasy in the terminal. 

If it was just me and DH (or even maybe with the kids), we would have done self-assist, but that really wasn't an option with my parents.

The disembarkation was so chaotic, both on and off the ship for us.

5 hours ago, jcc1025 said:

I understand that a new terminal out at the end of port area is in the works so that they can support bigger ships...So I think the port experience will get better, especially as the new San Pedro warf project finishes next year. 

Okay, that is really good to hear! My husband hated San Pedro so much he doesn't want to sail Royal out of CA anymore and would rather do Carnival out of Long Beach, but if there are improvements in the works that could change things. I liked Carnival - don't get me wrong. I just liked Royal better, and he agreed on all points but San Pedro. Haha

1 hour ago, AZSwissGal said:

We had the same waiter / assistant (Meckinson and Clive) on our April 28 seven night cruise and I agree they were wonderful, including greeting us by name after the first night.

They would even greet us by name when they spotted us in Windjammer for breakfast. One night, it was busy when I was placing my allergy pre-order for the next day, so they had us circle it on a photocopy of the menu, and then we left it on the table. The next morning, Meckinson saw us in the Windjammer and told me that the moussaka wouldn't be his choice (he finds it a bit dry), so he took the liberty of placing a special order for the salmon and the steak for later that night, and would bring all of them just in case.

He was so attentive!

45 minutes ago, AZSwissGal said:

We had the same waiter / assistant (Meckinson and Clive) on our April 28 seven night cruise and I agree they were wonderful, including greeting us by name after the first night.

 

In Mazatlan we did a non ship excursion and actually enjoyed that.  We were driven out into the countryside to some of the villages out there and got see some of the arts and crafts, like making tiles, adobe bricks for building houses and stopped at a bakery where we bought some yummy pastry fresh out of the wood oven for dirt cheap.  We did spend a little bit of time driving through the city and ate at a beach front restaurant.  There were only four of us on this excursion, another mother /daughter duo.  I was surprised they didn't cancel the tour.

 

In Puerto Vallarta we did a ship's tour.  My daughter had wanted to do the horseback riding tour you guys did.  Unfortunately for her, I was over the age limit:(  We were very disappointed in the first part of the excursion (too much selling). Also there were too many people.  Two buses full and what really irked us, the mixed Royal and Carnival passengers on this tour.  It improved with a lunch at a beachside restaurant and got better with a tequila tasting and a show depicting some of the history.  The show was actually pretty good.

 

Sorry I kind of hijacked your review.

Hijack away! I'm glad to read it. 

Wish we'd planned something like you did for Mazatlan. That sounds really nice!

11 minutes ago, edrussell said:

Just off Grandeur for 7 days, with 3 sea days.  ZERO issues with finding loungers any time of the day.  Some obvious chair hogs, but not too bad.

 

I never had trouble finding a lounger at any time of day on Navigator last week. It might not have been in the exact spot I wanted, but I always got something, and usually could even find an empty clam shell as well.

The Solarium was usually packed, but the upper pool deck generally always had empty loungers and was still far enough away from the main pool to be relaxing, in my opinion. I don't want to be right in front of the pool.

On 5/26/2023 at 2:39 PM, vjmatty said:

That being said, the bigger problem was people parking at tables all day near the cafe even if they weren’t eating. If you wanted to run up to the solarium for a drink and a slice of pizza or sandwich you had to either stand or go back to your room. 

Same thing on Navigator last week, as well as in the library/card room. People would plop down for hours, so nobody else could get a chance.

Puerto Vallarta:

We thought this stop was great!

Split up this day - husband and I took the teenager on a horseback riding excursion while my parents took the 11-yr-old to a Fiesta because minimum age for horses was 12 and max age 70.

I only have personal experience with the horseback excursion, so I won't talk about the Fiesta excursion, although they said it was fun and the food was good.

Our tour guide was Gerry, who took us to Hacienda Dona Engracia, where we were geared up and met our horses. We rode through a country road to the rolling hills of the Sierra Madres and the jungle by the banks of the Rio Mascota. We crossed the river twice before arriving at La Dolce Vista, where we took a break to swim bareback on our horses one at a time. That was SO much fun, and the river was such a refreshing break. The water was nice and cool, but not freezing like we were thinking it would be. After swimming with the horses and then by ourselves, we saddled back up again and rode back to the hacienda, where we were treated to a lunch of homemade tortillas, tacos (choice of chicken, pork, or steak), and quesadillas, and an open bar with unlimited beer, margaritas, and soda.

After lunch it was time for the tequila tasting tour. I joined in, while my husband lagged back at the lunch table having another beer and more tacos, and my daughter shopped. The peach tequila was phenomenal and I'm kicking myself for not buying any. But my parents bought 2 bottles of mango tequila on their tour, so I'm sure I'll get to try that sometime.

After we returned to port around 1, my daughter begged to go shopping at the mall across the street, but was disappointed not to find any stores she liked. It really catered to middle-aged or older women. So we walked to the nearest beach for a little while (probably should have hailed a cab to go further away from cruise terminal, but it was already 2 by then and we needed to be back by about 5 so we didn't want to go too far), then went back to the ship to do waterslides and FlowRider while waiting for parents and son to return.

All in all, a great day!

Itinerary always for us, with the exception of this past fall when we were supposed to sail on Harmony (but had to cancel due to hurricane). Only reason we chose this ship was because our daughter's skating coach was in the show, but when we couldn't go, Royal gave us FCC.

Coach's contract was ending, and we wouldn't be able to make it there before she left, so we decided to just do a different itinerary/ship instead. We ended up picking Navigator because it was easy for us to get to (could drive instead of fly), and we'd never seen any of those Mexican Riviera ports, whereas half of our group had done those exact Eastern Caribbean ports before on Harmony. The entire point of sailing Harmony was to see the coach skate, but if she wasn't going to be there anymore, we did something else.

Navigator is technically a "smaller ship" (capacity 4000), and it doesn't have the aqua show or ziplining, but we really enjoyed it. iSkate show on Nav is the best of the entire fleet, and we also enjoyed their other activities and entertainment as well.

22 minutes ago, NJoynCruisin said:

 We sailed out of Tampa in Dec.  Ships couldn't get to port due to heavy fog.  Hours of delays with little to no communications from RCI.  Finally got to ship at 9, waited in line 90 min.  Boarded at 11 pm with a 11 am check in.  Imagine 2 ships embarking and disembarking simultaneously.  

That sounds horrendous.

20 minutes ago, crzndeb said:

Porters kept going up to cars pulling up, rather than getting luggage from the long line of people. I had never seen anything like it, and I have sailed from many ports, including international ones.

YES! That's exactly it! We unloaded our two cars at the curb, with a HUGE pile of luggage (5 checked bags for each of our two cabins, so a total of 10 checked bags) plus we were standing there with our carry-ons, and my dad and husband swung around to park the cars and we still couldn't find a porter by the time they'd finished parking and came back. They would walk right past us and help people who had just arrived.

I would call out to ask for assistance, and the porters would rush by "Sorry, I'm full" and would never return. I finally said something like "ARE YOU KIDDING ME? That car just got here, and we've been standing around for 20 minutes already!" so a porter helping a couple who'd just arrived told us to wait right there and he'd be back. And he kept his promise. 

But I was beginning to think we were invisible or something. It was crazy!

4 minutes ago, Husky1987 said:

We've always been underwhelmed by Mazatlan as well.

The 3-day on Navigator goes to Ensenada, and the 4-day goes to Ensenada and Catalina Island. Wish they'd do one of those instead of Mazatlan. Either would be better, in my opinion. 

Mazatlan:

It was 96 degrees and very humid. Quite a change from the 50s and 60s we had in LA on embarkation day, and from the dry 100s we currently have in Phoenix.

This was our least favorite port, and if we ever do this cruise again, I'll either research better or just stay on the ship. We went to the old historic center, which proved to be not much more than the cathedral (which admittedly was gorgeous) and a nice big plaza. 

We shopped in El Mercado for a bit, but everyone was hot and underwhelmed and just wanted to go back to the ship. Discussions with other passengers showed that this seemed to be #3 on everyone's list. All the ship's shore excursions that were of interest to us had been sold out for months, so I figured we would just explore on our own because all the blogs I'd read said it was such a charming old Spanish city, but we found it to be crowded, dirty, and hot.

So we did waterslides for the rest of the afternoon.