Navigator April 18th Review with Pictures!

Just returned from the Navigator on the April 18th sailing. This was a 5 Night Western Caribbean cruise with stops in Labadee and Falmouth. I have TONS (870) pictures that I need to upload, so it will take me some time to get my act together, but I will try to upload some of them now and hope to start my review in the morning! I'm sitting on my couch and rocking back and forth.

I will be waiting and looking forward to your review and your photo's!

I can't wait to see them! I leave on Navigator in 9 days!

Just returned from the Navigator on the April 18th sailing. This was a 5 Night Western Caribbean cruise with stops in Labadee and Falmouth. I have TONS (870) pictures that I need to upload, so it will take me some time to get my act together, but I will try to upload some of them now and hope to start my review in the morning! I'm sitting on my couch and rocking back and forth.

I am sailing on the Navigator into the Caribbean next Spring and would love to chat with you. I have a ton of questions, first time with RCCL, and questions about some of the ports. Please email me, cjcamom at gmail dot com. Thank you.

Looking forward to it!

will773, what was the condition of the ship? We did Grandeur a couple yrs ago and she was looking really tired! Had several issues with broken machines, leaking rooms etc. Just wondering! We are seriously considering an 8 day next yr.

ok, all ready for review.

Ready and waiting for photos and info! I board her on Thursday, final 4-day before her TA.

:)

Sorry everyone! It took much longer to upload the pictures than I bought it would. Right now there are lots of people at my house for Easter, so tonight I hope to start on my review! Thanks for your patience! :)

We too will be sailing on the Navigator next spring & can't wait for the photos & reveiw!

Ok, here we go. I'm not sure how everyone likes to read reviews, so I'll do it two ways. I'll do it day by day one as well as by categories.

Some Background:

This whole trip started back in the middle of March. I was down in Florida visiting my grandparents. They go down there for three months every winter, and I go and see them. We were in the pool and my grandmom says, "I would love to go back to Key West on a cruise ship!" We all love to cruise, so when we got back to their condo, we looked some up.

They wanted to travel around April 17th-ish, as that is when they had to be out of their condo. We found the Majesty out of Miami which would have gone to Nassau (been there twice already), Coco Cay, and Key West. On the RCCL website, it was sold out, but on some travel sites, it was around $600 pp for an oceanview cabin. I told her that there was a cruise on the Navigator that was one day longer and was much cheaper. We thought about it some while I was down there, but no decisions were made.

When I got home, we got a little more serious about it. We quickly ran into some trouble. There were no cabins left for three people! :eek: I did a live chat with an RCCL representative, and she said that it was not the weird lifeboat capacity issue that was preventing us from being able to book a triple cabin, but that all of them were already taken. Every once in a while, a triple occupancy cabin would show up, but when I pressed the refresh button, it would already be gone.

Finally, my grandmom (I call her Mimi) said that if I could find a cabin for three, to put a hold on it. One Saturday, I was on the RCCL website all day long, and low and behold, at last a triple occupancy cabins appeared. It was a Category G oceanview cabin on deck 2. Well, the next 24 hours came and went, and we lost the cabin. :mad: Right around this time was when Royal Caribbean came out with their buy an inside get a balcony promotion. My grandparents are balcony snobs, so they like their balcony. The problem we had with this was that you had to book a Z category guarantee room, which is not valid for 3 people. We were not sure who else would be able to go with us. My cousin was not off that whole week for Easter, and my grandpop (Poppy), would have felt uncomfortable it I had brought a female friend with me. Well, we lost the hold on our triple cabin, but I was lucky enough to get it again.

Mimi called me one day and told me that the cruise was booked! YAY :D. We were able to take advantage of the promotion, paying only $409 pp for a balcony cabin, and my aunt was going to travel with me in my cabin. They had tons of Delta Skymiles, so there was no airfare costs for me and my aunt to fly down from Philadelphia. We got two cabins next to each other on deck 7, but Mimi likes to be up high, so we were changed to cabins 9644 (Mimi and Pop), and 9646 (Me and Rosie).

Next up: Getting Down to Florida!

Getting Down to Florida:

My aunt and I flew down to Ft. Meyers on Saturday, April 16. Our flight left PHL at 7:45 am, and we had to stop in Atlanta. I went to my aunts house on Friday night to sleep over, so that my mom wouldn't have to drive us to the airport.

My aunt uses Pacifico parking. You take your car there, they drive you to the airport in your car, and then they park it in their lot. When you come home, they come and get you in your car, and you drive home.

Unfortunately, my aunt missed a turn. She was thinking that we were going directly to the airport. Because of this, we had to go to the airport, and then about ten minutes to the parking place, just to be taken back to the airport. By the time we got back to the airport, it was 7:00. We had to wait in line for about ten minutes to get our bags checked. We got to the front of the line and the lady said that our bags were going to be free because my grandmom used their Delta Amex to book the tickets. She was all ready to put our tags on when the problems started! :eek:

She said "We are unable to check in your bags, you are too late!" WHAT!? Apparently, there is a 45 minute cutoff when they will no longer check in any bags. She told us that we had to go over the the baggage service line and they would do something about this. The lady in that line put the tags on our bags and said that we had just signed for involuntary separation of our bags. We were told that they would try to get them on our flight, but we both knew that they wouldn't be there when we got to RSW. By this point, it was about 7:20, and we had to run through security and to our gate. At least we made our flight!

When we got to Florida, our bags were not there, but we didn't really think that they were going to be anyway. We were told that we had to go to baggage services with our slips.

Delta Baggage Servies at Southwest Florida International Airport

We went over to the desk and the lady tracked our bags. She told us that they were both currently on their way to Atlanta. We gave a description of the bags, one flowery looking large suitcase, and a similar looking garment bag. She wrote everything down and told us that she would call when the bags arrived. When we got to the condo, we got a call from my mom saying that Delta had called them saying that we had a lost bag. Apparently, one bag was sitting somewhere, and no one knew where it was supposed to be going. Meanwhile, they were able to track our other bag, but weren't sure exactly when it would arrive in RSW. They were finally able to tell us that one bag would arrive around 6:00 pm, but we still had no idea where the other bag was. We went back to the airport, and YAY!!!!!!!! Both our bags were right there, sitting in the baggage area. What happened was that the garment bag was missing a barcode, so was therefore unscanable, which was why they didn't know where it was. Wow, what a relief!

Yay, we got our bags!!!! :D

Next up: A day in Florida

A Day in Florida:

We got to spend the day by the pool in Naples, which was very nice and relaxing. Here are a couple pictures.

View from their porch

I love palm trees

The pool in their community was large and very nice

Next up: Boarding the Navigator!!!!!!

Boarding the Navigator:

I woke up on Sunday morning around 8:30. It was foggy, but that is normal. We left Naples around 10:30 to make our way to Ft. Lauderdale.

Woohoo! We're almost there!

There was a LONG line at the gate to enter the terminal area. There were two big ships there that day, Navigator of the Seas, and Jewel of the Seas. I can't imagine how long the line would be with 6, 7, or even 8 megaships in port on the same day!

Waiting to enter the terminal area.

We finally got through and got our first glimpses of the ship! It was just as big as we remembered it!

My aunt and I waited for my grandparents to park the car in the terminal parking lot, and we were checked in and on the ship by 1:30.

Yay! We're finally onboard!

Next up: First (half day) onboard, and departure!

Our First Day Onboard:

I was so happy to be onboard! we went right up to the Windjammer for some lunch. There was the Crown and Anchor ice carving and some nice watermelon carvings as well.

Lunch is served.

We had a very nice lunch and then went out to explore the ship. My aunt was saying that it felt like yesterday that we were onboard the Navigator as a family. She kept laughing because the Navigator was her last cruise, and now she was back on the same ship!

Here were my first looks around:

Promenade

Pool deck

It took a while for me to find Studio B. It was confusing because from the elevator lobbies, you couldn't tell which side the entrance to Studio B was, and if you went on the wrong side, you couldn't cut through. You had to go back up, over, and then down again. For all those wondering, the entrance to Studio B is the the aft end of the boat.

View from our balcony

The Jewel of the Seas was at Terminal 18 that day as well

I was on the same cruise, april 18-23. I have a few pictures and will post a link soon!

First Day and Departure (Cont.)

I was very excited to be able to go out to the very front of the ship. This quickly became one of my favorite places on the ship. It was so great go be able to go out there and stand at the front of the ship, especially when the ship is moving, because you are the only one out there, and there is nothing there but water rushing past.

Front of the ship. It looks like it's smiling, doesn't it? :)

I called my dad, and he said that he was able to find a webcam website where he was able to control the webcam. He was able to zoom in and I stood on my balcony waving my bright red Phillies shirt. He saw me! He was laughing really hard but that was so cool! I will have to find a good place to stand when I am on the Allure in June!

We had the muster drill at 4:30. We had to go to D22, which is the Nutcracker Dining room on deck 5. Our table was also on deck 5, so when the drill was over, I went to go check out the location. It was in a great location, right inside one of the little bump outs, and right next to the railing.

Our table.

After that, I explored the ship some more. I really missed having the FloRider, which I LOVED on the Oasis. If there is one thing that Royal Caribbean to retrofit onto the Voyager class ships, it would have to be a FloRider!

I was on deck 12, port side, front of the ship for sail away. I was on the phone with my mom and she swears that she also saw me, but this time was on Portfever.com.

Truly the best feeling! We are going out to sea!

Our first sunset!

The first night at dinner is always a little awkward until everyone gets talking. Luckily, our table mates were VERY good! We really hit it off. They were a family from North Carolina that were on their first cruise. Two parents, a daughter, Leah (17), and a son, Matt (16, same as me). They were very friendly and very talkative. We had to tell them that they were allowed to order as much as they wanted from the menu and they were amazed! After dinner the first night, I took Matt and Leah out for a tour of the boat. Leah wanted to go out to the front of the ship so that she could do the whole Titanic thing, and they both wanted to find the ice rink. While we were walking around, Leah found one of her really good friends from school. They had no clue that they were both even going on a cruise, let alone the same one!

Went to the welcome aboard show. Not really much to see there. Just an introduction to the cruise director staff and entertainers. Our cruise director was Mike Hunnerup (spelling?), and his activities manager was Rich, and there was also a woman named Calia (maybe Kahlia? Again with the spelling). They were all very good, and it was fun to get to the shows a little early as Mike and Rich always had a funny dance routine that they did.

Next up: First Day at Sea!

Some pix from the Navigator April 18-23 here

http://s897.photobucket.com/albums/ac179/stazerd/Navigator%20of%20the%20Seas/

Some pix from the Navigator April 18-23 here

http://s897.photobucket.com/albums/ac179/stazerd/Navigator%20of%20the%20Seas/

 

Nice pics! I laughed because I have a couple pictures of that same little boat that those guys were rowing next to us in Labadee. I'll get to that point! :)

will773, what was the condition of the ship? We did Grandeur a couple yrs ago and she was looking really tired! Had several issues with broken machines, leaking rooms etc. Just wondering! We are seriously considering an 8 day next yr.

The ship was in great shape if you ask me. Most people would have no clue that the ship is almost 10 years old. We told our table mates that and their chins almost hit the table. It really is a beautiful ship. I will say though, there were two ways to me that you could tell that the ship has some age.

1: There was some rust on the metal poles in between balconies. This is really unavoidable due to the moisture, but it's still there.

2: The televisions in the cabins are still the old tube kind. Again, not a deal breaker, just a detail that shows that this isn't the newest ship in the fleet.

The ship is still in great shape. I certainly wouldn't pass up another trip on her!

First Day at Sea:

I wanted to be up early. I wasn't really sure what time "early" was supposed to be, but I woke up around 8 - 8:30ish. That was fine by me. Everyday, I would have breakfast and dinner with my grandparents and my aunt, the rest of the time, I was pretty much on my own to do whatever I wanted, which was good for me.

Sea days are my absolute favorite! It is so great to open your curtain and see nothing but water. Not only is there water everywhere, but it is SO BLUE!!!!!!!

I spent some time in the pool and the hot tub. It was really hot, but in the shade it got a little chilly, plus it was VERY windy. That afternoon was the belly flop competition. This is always very fun to watch. The competition was won by Big, not his real name, I'm sure.

Big is the man in the redish shorts in the background. Mike, the cruise director, is the one with the mic. Behind him is Rich, and behind him is Calia.

Another one of my favorite spots on the ship was the walk-around outside deck located all around deck 4. I loved being able to go down there and be so close to the water.

Walking around on deck 4. I love sea days!

Interesting picture of the Jewel, taken from the back of the ship, deck 4

On the two sea days, the pool deck was very crowded. This is when you could really tell that there were thousands of people on the ship. While the deck itself was crowded, I was always able to find a chair, and the pools themselves were not overly crowded. What the ship could really use are some extra whirlpools. There was never any open space in any of the hot tubs until off peak hours, like after 6:00. I did notice though that around 6 o'clock every night, the pool deck would be virtually empty. I guess this was due to people who had early dinner seating that were getting ready. Also around this time were lots of indoor activities. Also noted is that save for the welcome aboard show, all other shows were pre dinner for second seating guests, so usually at 7:00pm.

Pool deck on our first sea day!

The was also the day that we signed up for our excursions. A tip to people sailing on the Navigator, if you have questions regarding excursions, DO NOT go to the excursion desk in the Royal Promenade. What you should do is go the Explorations desk on the pool deck, deck 11, right before the entrance to the Solarium on the starboard side of the boat. There were never many people there and they were very helpful. That is where we did our excursions. We signed up for the Chukka Beach Break in Falmouth, and I did the Dragon's Breath Flight Line in Labadee. We got signed up and they gave us our tickets right there.

I am enjoying your review. Thank you.

Great review looking forward to the remainder. Kimberley

Great review!

Can you tell me how to get to the front of the ship? I always say I'm going to go there and never do!

will773,thanks so much for the kind response. Those things are so minor, I can't see them making any difference to us. We don't watch much tv but since we are in an OS the tv is pretty big anyway and swivels so you can watch from bed or couch! Love your pix! Deb