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

[Madsofa]

I love your review and your pictures! Interesting to see other ships and ports that I have yet to visit. Subscribing...:D

[mikepaul]

Thanks for the review Hoopster. Doing a 7 day w. Caribbean next week on Navigator and was wondering if you think I'll have any problem making specialty rest. reservations onboard? I know I may have to be flexible with the time and/or day.

[cjdixon4]

Wonderful review and photos. I'll be sailing on her Sunday, 5/18, and your pics have made me even more excited!

[windham depot]

Hoopster95, thank you so much for your great review. I am waiting anxiously for your next post. I am enjoying your writing very much. You are very good at this. Please keep it coming.

 

Rhonda

[Aquahound]

Wow, a lot has changed at Dzibanche since I was there in 2005. This pyramid was mostly unexcavated and that entire staircase was filled with trees.

 

 

And this pyramid was open for climbing and didn't have any growth on it:

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Thanks for all your wonderful photos. The ship looks great and your pics are excellent. :)

[delacruz]

I'm loving your photos of the ruins at Costa Maya, and will consider that tour the next time we visit there.

 

We had a wonderful excursion also, and I'm enjoying seeing the differences between them. We did the Native Choice tour - the Mayan Experience. We usually gravitate towards beaches when we visit the Caribbean, but are glad we had this experience.

 

Comparing our tour with yours: The Chacchoben ruins on our tour were a shorter drive (1 hr), giving us time to enjoy a visit to a Chacchoben Mayan Village where we made tortillas with the women, and shared a delicious lunch with them. However, from your photos, the ruins you saw were more spectacular than the Chacchoben ruins.

 

At the ruins you visited were there still areas that were unexcavated, as Aquahound mentioned? It was amazing to see how the forest had grown over the pyramids and structures, there was quite a lot of unexcavated sections at Chacchoben.

 

I hope you don't mind me popping in here to add my two cents. Obviously there is a nice variety of things to do in Costa Maya; others we chatted with also enjoyed the beaches or just hanging around the pier area.

[delacruz]

No big deal, but I didn't see the Fisherman's platter listed on second formal night on our in suite dinner menu. Was there a Fisherman's platter in the MDR?

 

I don't think Hoopster95 dined in the MDR on formal night, so I can answer that - yes, the Fisherman's Platter (a lobster tail and some scrawny shrimp:p) were on the menu of the 2nd formal night.

 

Thanks for the review Hoopster. Doing a 7 day w. Caribbean next week on Navigator and was wondering if you think I'll have any problem making specialty rest. reservations onboard? I know I may have to be flexible with the time and/or day.

 

We made all of our reservations the day of, never any issue. As amazing as Sabors and Giovanni's Table were, they weren't as filled as I'd expect.

[hanna04]

Happy I came across this thread and your great pics but I have a long way to go before I sail on this ship for my first RC cruise in March of 2016. Looking forward to the rest of your posts!

[crpbmp2011]

Really enjoying this review... Thanks for taking the time to write it!

 

 

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[Cindy]

 

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.

 

I wonder if something happened? I didn't pay close attention, because we spend very little time at any of the pools, but I did see quite a bit of greenery in the Solarium on our April 6th cruise. Whenever we passed through, it seemed like there was someone out there working on the plants.

 

 

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.

 

I agree! I actually thought that was being used as storage for broken old loungers until they could off-load them!:eek:

 

My other disappointment was the condition of the Schooner Bar. As you mentioned, it remained unchanged, so it looked a little tired next to all the newness. OK, the décor fits the theme -- I get that, but I think they should have at least repaired the badly torn upholstery and broken furniture.:rolleyes:

[sharse]

Happy I came across this thread and your great pics but I have a long way to go before I sail on this ship for my first RC cruise in March of 2016. Looking forward to the rest of your posts!

 

Hanna, I'll be on this ship March 19, 2016 … are you on that sailing?

Edited May 13, 2014 by sharse

[Hoopster95]

Thx for all the kind words everyone and your thoughts. By all means post what you wish... delacruz no worries with posting and answering questions for me, I don't mind at all you're right with regard to MDR formals as that was part of my "1st's" on this cruise.... it was my first time travelling only with a carry-on and thus we purposely missed formal nights to go to specialty dining.

 

Great to hear from you kwbound. You really scored with that corner aft with the last minute pricing, that's for sure. Thank you for sharing that cabin with us on the crawl. Looking forward to seeing your review as well!

 

Roatan coming right up shortly :D

[hanna04]

Hanna, I'll be on this ship March 19, 2016 … are you on that sailing?

 

No, we're on the March 5 sailing...have a great cruise!

[Hoopster95]

 

I woke up to beautiful Roatan as the ship was maneuvering into position, so by the time I had got my camera out to take my morning ritual photo, we had turned away from the pier somewhat. Here's the photo I snapped in the early morning light out my porthole

 

We needed to be on the pier before 9am as explained by tour company Victor Bodden on confirmation emails, so up to the WJ we went for a substantial breakfast before getting out for a full day

 

For this day I had studied and planned to take "Victor Bodden's Fun & Sun Tour"... google him or check out TripAdvisor, plus the many rave reviews from fellow CC'ers on this board. Truthfully, I have no clue why it was rated so high... the superb facilities are accessible without a tour (ie. take a taxi, rent a car, etc), but the guide and the so-called "tour" itself was well below average imho. Please allow me to explain....

 

Once we were done with breakfast, we were early getting out to the pier so we didn't really rush. The kiosks were very easy to find, Victor Bodden's being

kiosk #1, first booth on the left.

 

We got there at 8:40am but no one was there, not even a representative. We waited for a couple of minutes and a rep finally came back from the bus/taxi area to tell us the bus had left. I was not impressed, but he mentioned that many people don't show up even when booked (you don't have to pay until you show up) so they just leave if the bus is full... just great! NOT!! We were 20 minutes early.

 

After a few minutes, he directed us with another couple out to the waiting area whereby we got into a private vehicle... I guess one of Victor Bodden's other workers was told to drive us in his personal vehicle while they call ahead to the bus to wait for us. Nice... NOT!

 

So 10 minutes through the town not really being told much and the "bus" is waiting for us at a street corner... now the bus really isn't a "bus". It's one of those approx 20 seater airport shuttle type of busses and it was already packed. If any of you have ever been to Jamaica , Bahamas (jitney's) or other Caribbean port with these transports you'll know that the miniscule isle seats fold down and block the entire isle in order to cram even more passengers... that's where we had to sit. Ugh!

 

So off we went making the best of it. Driving off down the street, we in the bus all had a good time meeting each other and talking about stuff. I realized about 5 minutes in that the tour guide nor driver had said a word. So asking the other passengers nothing was said yet, we're just driving along. They didn't have a microphone, nothing. She mentioned a couple of things as we drive by certain sites in short 5-6 word statements (ie. "and that's the mayor's house"), no narrative, nothing.

 

After driving 1/2 hour many of us didn't know what was going on or where we were going, one of the gents up front was laughing with the driver as we had doubled back and we were passing the same sites... well that was on purpose as the driver I guess reached the point he needed to go and now we were going back the same route driving again by the Mayor's House, Mahoganny Bay, etc, but no explanation of where we were, what we were doing or where we're going. After people started questioning what was going on the guide did mention finally (this is about 45min in) that we're going to the tallest peak in Roatan for a nice view and a few pictures, and 15 min of shopping. And thus the pictures below of the ship in the distance.

 

Look at the towers to the right... you can see these from the ship looking back up the hill when I have sailaway pictures coming up in a few posts.

Here's a zoomed pic of the Navigator

[Hoopster95]

I could've ... and would've ... spent hours here!! But we only had about an hour. This was waaaay too short of time and one of the funnest things about this entire cruise vacation

 

Pictures say a thousand words.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's delacruz & hubby in this last photo behind my gf :D

The young guides within the park take you into the cages, give you some food (sunflower seeds) and let the monkeys jump on to whoever they want and do whatever they want! They swing and jump all over the place, hanging & swinging from the fencing & roofing, and then jumping onto your shoulder all of a sudden! One of these little guys was playing with one of the cruiser's hats, jumping up and down inside of it, hilarious!! The other little guy was looking inside any pocket he can get his little hands into. There were several cages, and also a section with the smaller baby & teen monkeys. Awesome fun!!

[nicwoodard]

Thanks for posting! We will be on the Navigator in 55 days!

 

 

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[Hoopster95]

There were plenty of other native animals to see, pet & feed.

 

This guy quickly paced back and forth and back and forth and back and forth... never coming close to us. I could not get a good pic. And we were whisked away quickly from this area so I didn't get the name of this animal. I do remember the guide quickly saying something about the racoon family. Anyone know?

 

These guys were beautiful & friendly

 

And we went by this guy very quickly as well. Anyone know who he is?

 

[pspercy]

We did the same VB tour a couple of years ago and had a much better guide. Our problem was the weather, it pelted down rain most of the time but at least it wasn't cold:)

[Candycane_76053]

Loving your review!! Hubby and I will be on her next week.

Thank you!

[Hoopster95]

Now these guys were simply gorgeous! And really smart. The guides would motion for them and they were somewhat trained... especially when it came to available food of course. But even the simple intention of petting them, or turning towards them, or dipping your shoulder letting them know they can jump off. Again, like the monkeys, really fun with these guys to see how they'd interact when you called them. This guy was scratching my chin, and gently, nothing rough.

 

After my turn with the guide helping me get a parrot on me, I was able to coerce one of the other parrots to get on me for a while longer.

 

My gf didn't need any coercing with this one... he flew to the fence, checked her out from above and walked on down. Had to have been a male bird;)

 

[Hoopster95]

Well that was it for Victor Bodden's Monkey Business... as The Terminator once said: "I'll be back!"

 

And within about 20 minutes of cramming into the bus we arrived at the Bananarama Beach Club at West Bay Beach. This was part of the package as we got to use their private facilities (loungers on the beach, restrooms, access to their bar and restaurant)

 

This beach was simply beautiful. The water was crystal clear. We had gorgeous blue sky and excellent 80+ degree (30+ for us Canucks) sunshine. This is a world class beach for view, sand & water

 

 

My "front row" view with my lounger for the day only about 10 feet from the water line

 

These went down soooooo nice! The SalvaVida is totally worth trying, really good brew

[Jdsmom]

Thank you so much for this review! We are sailing on the Navigator on June 1st and have the Fun-n-Sun tour booked with Victor also. We can't wait!:D

[Hoopster95]

So we had a pre-arranged meeting time with the guide to pick us up at 3:45pm... island time was 1 hour behind so 2:45 and ample time to get back to the ship. Paul, delacruz's hubby decided he was hungry and ordered some pulled pork sliders and we had beers....

 

But the guide came storming to the beach to claim that the ship called them to say they'll be late getting back to the ship, and we had to leave right away! The ship called her? Really?? So we looked at each other and told her we're still 1 1/2 hours from all aboard time, and nothing has changed. She re-iterated we had to go, because now we were 1/2 late (no longer an hour) and the port called their office (not her directly).... what??? Ok, so now we were getting a little peeved as she was cutting our time short. delacruz and especially hubby weren't too impressed either. Funny thing is by the time we called her on her lie and she finally found everyone, we left the beach at 3:40, only 5 minutes different than originally planned and still about 1 hour before all aboard. What a joke. Anyways, still a funny story dealing with this character, even though we had to scoff down the sliders lol.

 

So back to port, gf and I hung out at the shops a bit. I tried on new swim trunks which were priced really well and bought (surprising cause I totally hate shopping when on vacay), and then got ready to get back on the ship almost right at all aboard time

 

We went up to deck 12 to watch sailaway

 

Of course, another excursion was 1/2 late getting back to port so we just enjoyed the sun, the views until we were finally ready to go

 

Pulling away from Roatan port... I'll defintely love to visit here again someday

[Addictedtocruising]

 

For this day I had studied and planned to take "Victor Bodden's Fun & Sun Tour"... google him or check out TripAdvisor, plus the many rave reviews from fellow CC'ers on this board. Truthfully, I have no clue why it was rated so high... the superb facilities are accessible without a tour (ie. take a taxi, rent a car, etc), but the guide and the so-called "tour" itself was well below average imho.

 

I was afraid of the overcrowding with Bodden tours and opted to do the Best of Roatan private tour the same day. I read on the ports of call board to ask for Big Al and he was phenomenal! We told him what we wanted to do and he took us to do it off the beaten path without crowds. We told him we wanted a lobster lunch and he recommended a great little place where we got 4 tails and sides for $17.00!

For anyone going to Roatan in the future do yourself a favor and pay $10 more a person or even less if you have your own small group:D

[kwbound]

That is funny about your driver trying to get you to leave early. A similar thing happened to us with our Island Marketing driver. She came and told us we were going to have to leave early because the ship was going to leave an hour earlier because it got in early. We were also at Bananarama. We called her on that and told her they announced the back on board time before we left. They wouldn't change after everyone was off the ship. She called someone and then told us we had to leave no later than 2pm. We had been there all day so we said ok. It turned out that the real reason we needed to leave early was because instead of going straight back to the ship, we had to go to Anthony Key on the other side if the island and pick up two other passengers who were having a spa day over there. We had enjoyed enough of the beach that day and we were enjoying the company of the other people in our group so we found the situation more amusing than annoying. Luckily they caught me on a good day. [emoji39]