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Live from Navigator of the Seas B2b to the Western Caribbean and ABCs!


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Good evening everyone. As the title indicates, I will be departing with my wife on Navigator of the Seas on Sunday for b2b sailings on the first two since coming back stateside. I’m going to try and use Periscope (@codyh21) if VOOM allows, but also plan on running a live blog here with photos and reviews of both the ship and our port stops. Please feel free to ask questions throughout and I will do my best to answer or find out. FYI, we are not staying in a suite and are currently Gold C&A so won’t be visiting/reviewing any of the DL/CL venues or perks. I do have the Deluxe Beverage/1 Device VOOM combo for both legs as well. A little background and summary is below.

 

My first cruise with Royal was back in 2007 on Navigator of the Seas. My wife and I were searching for new ports and a longer cruise back in January and I came upon the 9 night ABC cruise. When I saw that and the Navigator we knew it was perfect. We initially booked a Promenade room and was happy with it. However, I saw a balcony guarantee pop up for the same price we had already paid. A quick call to my TA and we were all set. Got assigned a D2 balcony on Deck 10 aft, perfect! Fast forward to a couple months ago and I noticed pricing dropping heavily on the 5 night sailing. I convinced my wife, and was able to get the time off of work, so we jumped on an inside guarantee. I really wanted to do a balcony, but we got this sailing for under $1100 with tax and gratuities all factored in. Ended up in a deck 6 room slightly aft of the aft elevators. We’ve stayed in this spot on Freedom and had no issues.

 

Was looking at transport, parking, hotels, the works. My wife has a commitment tomorrow night so we’re relegated to heading down Sunday morning. Thankfully we live 3 hours straight north of Miami on I-95 so this is an easy drive. With parking at the port being $20 per day we were looking at $300. I did a little research and I managed to snag a pair of one way rentals from Melbourne Airport to Miami Airport and vice versa with Alamo. They offer a shuttle to/from the cruise port so that works out well. Gas is a wash since we would’ve been driving anyways, and with a little research I ended up paying $113 total for both rentals w/tax. Even if we didn’t feel like the shuttle and wanted to Uber from the airport it would still be less than half the cost of parking.

 

Leg 1 (5 Night Western):

 

Day 1- Depart Miami 5pm

Day 2- At Sea

Day 3- Costa Maya 8am-5pm. We were just here at Maya Chan in December but love the port and were able to snag return visit to Maya Chan last minute so we’ll definitely enjoy that.

Day 4- Cozumel 7am-5pm. My wife has booked a dolphin encounter excursion as it’s always been on her bucket list. I will be taking a taxi to the Money Bar to snorkel and enjoy breakfast as soon as we dock. Spend a couple hours there, then taxi to downtown to have lunch at our favorite place Casa Denis. A little exploring and then I usually enjoy making the long 3 mile walk back to the ship.

Day 5- At Sea. Did Thanksgiving away a few years ago while on deployment, but this will be my first onboard a ship.

Day 6- Turnaround Day Miami. For those interested, I will try and document the b2b experience.

 

Leg 2 (9 Night Southern to the ABCs):

 

Day 1- Depart Miami 5pm

Day 2- At Sea

Day 3- Labadee: Nothing planned, just a relaxing beach day for us.

Day 4- At Sea

Day 5- Willemstad, Curacao 9am-8pm. My wife really wants to visit the aquarium so we will take a taxi there. My plan is to drop her off and walk next door to Lion’s Dive to grab a beach chair/umbrella and a cold drink and just relax for a few hours. Afterwards, we’ll head back and explore downtown Willemstad.

Day 6- Kralendijk, Bonaire 7am-5pm. We are booked on the morning Woodwind snorkeling tour, absolutely looking forward to this. Afternoon will bring more exploring of downtown.

Day 7- Oranjestad, Aruba 7am-6pm. Plan is to take the local bus to Eagle Beach and grab chairs in the area around either La Cabana or Amsterdam Manor which have been mentioned as good spots. Found a local dutch pancake house we’re going to try for lunch and then, yes, you guessed it more exploring around town.

Day 8/9- At Sea

 

Apologies for the long winded post, but I’m a planner/detail person at heart. Again, hope you follow along and ask any questions you may have and I’ll do my best to respond!

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:DHey Cody,

 

Oh yea... really looking forward to following along. I have the same 5-day - followed by 9-day sailing in December departing from Miami. Especially looking forward to hearing about the turn around day. We too are stuck changing staterooms on or B2B.

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Made it onboard around 1145, rooms are available at 130. Took 2 minutes to square away our Bogo reservations and in the WJ. No issues with receiving VOOM info and Deluxe package is printed on my seapass.

 

 

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eb50296fe42f4dbe88c76a2683c35ae9.jpg

 

For those interested, the CD this week is Clo and not Cuddy as some were wondering. Will post more photos later this evening after dinner which is at Giovanni’s

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Love Giovanni's will have at least 2 dinners there, had 6 on my 12 day cruise last year

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If you are able to post the Cruise Compasses for the 5 day cruise, it would be much appreciated. I am interested in the times of the flowrider and the show times. Also curious which menus they use on the 5 day cruise since we usually do a 7 day one and they will obviously choose 2 menus to skip on the shorter voyage. Hope you have a great B2B

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Hey Cody

 

Will be sailing with you on the second leg of your b2b. Just watched you guys sailaway on the Miami webcam. Hope you guys have alot of fun. See you at the Sky bar on Friday.

 

 

Me too! See you Friday!! [emoji846]

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Dinner tonight was in Giovanni’s as part of our BOGO. Started with a salad and the pork belly appetizer. Main course was the veal Ossobucco, followed by a mini cannoli and a very small serving of tiramisu. All was good but the ossobuco was fork tender and the best part hands down.

 

Will post more photos and first days thoughts later but the welcome aboard show is about to start and then I’m going to see if there’s any life at the Cosmopolitan Club later.

 

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Day 1 Cruise Compass

 

Really enjoyed the opening act juggler Mike Price. High energy, engaging, and extremely talented.

 

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This is a list of the classes offered this week in the gym. They were running a special where for $29 you can attend any and all fitness classes offered the whole week. I had to double check if that included ones like the boot camp (which are $69 for two or $120 for all) and he ensured me they do. Couldn’t pass it up. Port days limit my attendance to only a couple but that’s a great savings and I might mix in a spin class for fun as well. Really wish I could go on vacation and not work out....

 

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Day 1 random notes and a couple last photos:

 

-Couldn’t spit without hitting someone selling beverage or dining packages anywhere on the ship. However, was never hounded about it which was nice.

-Ordered several drinks, bottled waters, and coffees today and never once was handed a receipt except for dinner tonight at Giovanni’s. Café Promenade even has a credit card machine you swipe with and do the tip/sign stuff yourself. Makes the process a bit easier.

-A lot of kids/families but to be expected this week.

-No safe in our room. Apparently our steward says they are replacing them, but I would still much rather have one with cash, passports, iPads, etc here. He says he’s working on getting us one but we shall see.

-The elevators are creepy high tech now and actually have a display on the button panel that notifies everyone if the door tries to shut and there’s too much weight on the elevator. It will not close until someone gets off. Had this happen at least three times today. Not really anything, just hadn’t seen that before.

-We didn’t eat in the MDR and I never really headed near there so didn’t get the menu tonight, but I know it was Mojo. Sea day tomorrow, with more to come!

 

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