REVIEW - Navigator of the Seas, March 31 - April 8 (plenty of pictures)

[karen s]

I wondered about the helicopter in Labadee. Things must have been REALLY bad to call in a helicopter. I also wondered where they would take the person in that case.

 

I read about another helicopter evacuation from Labadee and that patient was flown to Miami and then transferred to a medical jet to take her to her hometown hospital. I've also heard of an evacuee that was flown to the Bahamas and a Coast Guard Falcon flew them to Miami. Guess it depends on the urgency of the medical crisis.

[mikeblum]

excellent review...we will be with Gayla on the NAVAGATOR OF THE SEA'S next march...very much looking forward to a relaxing week upon the old girl...wonderful pic's of you and the family...

[kycruiser72]

And now back to the action.

 

We slept in because we had no formal plans. We had been to San Juan several times and decided to pass on it this time. My informal plan was to take the kids swimming or something. Shortly after breakfast Terri decided she wanted to get off the ship and look around. The kids didn't want to. I don't like the idea of leaving the kids "alone" on the ship. I know they wouldn't be alone but neither of us would be there. Anyway, I stayed on the ship and let the kids go to Adventure Ocean. They didn't want to hang out with dear old dad. That was ok, I found a quiet place and watched Dexter.

 

After Terri got back we decided to go down to Ben and Jerrys down on the Royal Promenade. I wanted a milk shake. When we got there we found out they don't make shakes. Bummer. Ok, how about a Coke float. The guy working just looked at me. "You know, ice cream, then Coke on top. BOOM! Coke float." The guy had never heard of it. So with my Coke float in hand we walked over and got some pizza (fresh out of the oven) from Café Promenade. We sat and munched some lunch and people watched. After we ate we wondered around some and took more pictures.

 

After our wondering we went back to the room and chilled. The kids watched TV and we sat on the balcony and watched us leave San Juan. About that time Capt. Erik came on and gave his daily update. He mentioned that it would be windy on our way to Labadee and to make it by 9am tomorrow the ship would have to travel at 21 knots. That's moving. That night the ship was rockin' and rollin'. I felt like a pinball bouncing off of the walled in the hallways. BOING, BOING, BOING, TILT! On our way to dinner we walked through the main pool area and the water was just spilling out of the pools because of the motion of the boat. It was pretty funny.

 

That's all for this one. I'm trying to shorten the posts. I enjoy talking about our cruises because we have a great time. I tend to get a little wordy so I'm trying to do better.

 

Stand by for.....pictures.

[kycruiser72]

Acting silly for the camera

 

Me enjoying my Coke float and Julia eating her ice cream cone

 

Hey guys, look over here!

 

This would be Liam jumping in my picture. Crazy kid.

[kycruiser72]

A different perspective

 

That's where I was when I took the photo. The thing says so.

 

Liam took this one

 

And this one

 

And this one. This is the one where I'm saying "HEY! Give me that camera."

[kycruiser72]

Oh yeah, it was opening day for the Cincinnati Reds. I got to watch them win the game on the TV that night. What a great vacation.

[kycruiser72]

Being artsy. This is a reflection of Liam's face.

 

Waves crashing as we left San Juan

 

 

[will773]

 

Neat picture!

[kycruiser72]

I wrote a little journal on this cruise to remind me about what we had done on each day. I would write down funny things that the kids would say like Liam's girlfriend, and things like the ice cream girl. For this day here is what I wrote.

 

- ate breakfast in WJ

- left ship for Labadee

- Ahhhhhh!

 

There's more but you get the idea.

 

The kids played in the sand and surf and I relaxed with what else but a Labadoozie. Man those are good. The kids had one too. Yes it was a virgin one. At one point Terri took the kids over to the water play area and I tried to take a nap. We were a little bummed to see that they had taken down part of the pirate ship in the play area. When I asked one of the crew why they didn't really know. Julia and I explored the rocks and we found several hermit crabs. We also found a few larger ones. We thought it was pretty cool.

 

We did do one thing this time that we had never done before. I knew about the Dragon's breathe lookout but never took the time to check it out. Well we did this time. I thought it was really cool to hear the dragon. Liam wanted to know what was making that sound. I tried to explain it to him but I don't thing it really made sense to him.

 

Afterwards we went back to the ship and relaxed some more. I stood on the balcony as we left and wondered where the Royal Caribbean people that work at the resort stayed. I wondered if it was fun working there. Something tells me that Terri will not allow me to get a job there and be away for 6 months.

 

That's all for Labadee. Mmmmmm, Labadoozie.

[kycruiser72]

On the pier

 

 

 

The shells that Julia found. We ended up leaving one behind for someone else.

 

Labadoozie!

[kycruiser72]

 

Labadoozie!

 

 

[kycruiser72]

DOH! I just realized I left out the carnival parade on the ship that day. The kids loved it. Ok, so did we. At first Liam was a little scared of the clown on stilts. But he quickly warmed up to them.

 

 

 

 

People watching from their rooms

 

[fairweather]

KY, love the photo of your family posing "cruise happy" on the balcony. This is the reason we all go seafaring. There is nothing more relaxing and happy than a week at sea. Thanks for sharing your adventure and photos.

[Ander026]

Great review. I was on the Navigator back in December last year and enjoyed. Great pics as well.

 

I will be doing this same itinerary in December but on the Independance.

 

Cant wait for more of the review and pics

[kycruiser72]

We are down to the last day. A little sadness as our cruise vacation was coming to an end. At same time I was ready to head home. It was bitter sweet.

 

The kids went to camp for a little while then had a talent show in the Cosmopolitan Club. Julia was up first and hula hooped. She did so good they gave her first prize! Ok, they gave everyone first prize. She had fun. A little while later Liam was up with his Aquanaut class and they sang and danced. It was cute.

 

I had brought my tripod along in the hopes that I could get that one family photo that would be great. I think we got a few but that's just my opinion. I found the little gazebo thing at the rear of deck 13 and used it for a photo. Not a bad photo but I didn't notice the garbage cans in the background. Oh well. We also played some mini golf that afternoon. No rules mini golf. It was basically hit the ball and try for the hole. It was fun. The kids liked it.

 

After the golf extravaganza we watched part of the dodge ball tourney on the basketball court. That was fun.

 

After all of that we headed back to the room to finish packing.

[kycruiser72]

If you look closely you can see Terri in the room writing our guest satisfaction survey.

 

Ahhhh the blue water.

 

 

 

[kycruiser72]

The pool deck on the last day

 

 

 

The family again

[kycruiser72]

 

 

 

 

 

[kycruiser72]

He he, this made me laugh (the statue)

 

 

 

 

[kycruiser72]

So I don't know if a lot of people got to see this or not. On the last night Terri and I were sitting on the balcony before we had to go pick up the kids. It was very peaceful and quiet with a nice breeze. Terri went back inside to do something and that's when I noticed the moon rising. It was absolutely beautiful. I was never able to get a great picture but here are a few that turned out OK. Terri and I joked that we were going to Capt. Erik and have him stop the ship so I could get a good picture.

 

 

 

 

[kycruiser72]

I didn't sleep well the last night. Maybe it had to do with getting off the ship in the morning, or maybe it was because the ship was shaking and slamming into the water in the wee hours of the morning. Who knows. I do know that I was awake when we pulled into Port Everglades. I also got to see the Allure come in behind us. Those were the kind of high points for the last few hours.

 

We waited until about 9am before we left our room. We were scheduled to be called somewhere between 9:15am and 9:30am. Being Diamond members we had a special debarkation lounge. It was the dining room on deck 4. We sat there until about 9:30am and they told us we could go. We dinged out (sea pass station) for the last time. It didn't take too long to find our bags and make it through customs. The custom agent we had was more interested in his iPhone than our declaration form. After that we were out the front of terminal 29 and thrown into a disorganized mess.

 

We had rented a car from Hertz since we were staying over until the next morning. I hadn't given much thought to the port being busy as we've been to ports that were busy before. The catch was we were never at the last terminal before. Long story short, I stood in the parking lot for over two hours waiting for a shuttle. The first two were packed within moments of getting there. The third one Terri hoped on and said "I'll go get the car and come back and get you." I stood in the parking lot long enough that everyone had left the ship, and the next group of cruisers started boarding. I was steaming mad by the time the shuttle picked me up. And the only reason it picked me up was Terri told them that we (me, Julia, and Liam) were still at the terminal. By the time we got to the hotel I collapsed on the bed and fell asleep for 45 minutes. I felt MUCH better after that.

 

Later that afternoon we decided to take our rental car down to the beach and check it out. It just happened to be 5:30pm. While on the beach we were able to see the Navigator head back out for the next cruise. The kids were a little sad to see the Navigator go. We poked around a little on the beach and then drove for a while. We had to be at the airport the next morning at 6am. Our vacation was over.

[kycruiser72]

 

 

 

 

Good bye from the Conley's! See you next time!!!

[kycruiser72]

My thoughts. (insert crickets sound effect)

 

While we had a great time on vacation we didn't have the same welcome feeling like we had last year on the Jewel. We aren't sure what it was but something was different.

 

Our room steward Julieta did a great job keeping our rooms clean. We also had great service from Dominic in the Windjammer. Dominic and Terri had a long Indian dish discussion one night. We tried to make sure to sit in his area in the evening so we could chat.

 

I think that the Voyager class, while nice ships, is not as kid oriented as some of the other ships. It seems that ships built around 2004 and forward had kid water areas and things like that. For example, the Jewel had the kid swimming area and a water slide. The Liberty has the H2O zone.

 

The few times we went to the guest relations desk it felt like we were bothering them.

 

We were not able to enjoy the Crown and Anchor or Diamond events. This was our fault as we didn't bring any dress clothes. We were sad about this. :(

 

My take on two rooms connected instead of a suite. It wasn't too bad. We didn't get all of the suite perks which I did miss, but we still had a good time.

 

 

Thank you to everyone that stuck with me through my review. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask. Like I said, I love to talk cruise.

 

Habla cruise?:p

[kycruiser72]

KY, love the photo of your family posing "cruise happy" on the balcony. This is the reason we all go seafaring. There is nothing more relaxing and happy than a week at sea. Thanks for sharing your adventure and photos.

 

Thank you for taking the time to check out my review.

[ILoveScotland]

I always enjoy reading reviews, but I mostly thank you for the pictures especially (for me) the parade in the Promenade including the picture of people looking out their windows. I'll be in one of those Promenade cabins next November on the TA from Barcelona to New Orleans so was nice to see what I have to look forward to in six months.

 

Oh, and yes Maho is incredible - was there in 2011. I also have loved my two visits to St. Kitts.