Navigator mini review - 8/2/2015

[euphscott]

Just returned home from Navigator of the Seas 8/2/15 sailing. This trip was the Galveston, Cozumel, Belize, Roatan itinerary.

 

We've done Cozumel many times over, so this was a shopping and chill day.

Belize I'd visited briefly before, but this trip really liked it (short of the infamously long tender ride). We visited the Cave Tubing excursion through Dark Knight. Fantastic outside hike with dry caves and then the tubing through the wet caves was awe inspiring. Fantastic trip - worth the long drive for sure. Roatan was pretty as well - we did a Zip line excursion through RCL that was some of the best zips I've ever done.

 

The ship itself was supposedly recently renovated. I am guessing it was not a full renovation. Some areas on the ship look tired. But many areas look fresh and beautiful. The staff and crew were friendly, fantastic to work with, and happy to be of service - some going far above and beyond the call of duty when somethings were asked of them. Food was average in the main dining room and Windjammer. Specialty restaurants are fantastic (we did Sabor, Chops, and Giovannis) with the best servers onboard and of course, the best food.

 

The Flowrider staff was fantastic and I have the tan/burn to prove my time with them! The camaraderie formed with the cruisers that kept coming back was a lot of fun - most started out with no experience at all. By the end of the week however, the cheering for one another was loud and boisterous as varying degrees of new tricks were achieved.

 

The ship had little to no motion transporting us from port to port. Smooth seas and a skilled crew made our voyage quite comfortable. Getting on and off the ship was easy and pretty painless in port (except of course the infamous Belize tendering experience!).

 

Entertainment however...having been a cruising veteran of Disney, Carnival, Princess, and RCL aboard the Allure, this cruise left a lot to be desired at night. Granted, some of the cruises I have been on do set the bar exceedingly high, but this lineup was pretty brutal for us. The headliners that came onboard were the highlight of the evening offerings. The ship apparently only has two productions shows in the main theater plus an ice show. After the first production show and the ice production - we did not even bother on the last evening with the second show. The cast is reasonably capable, but the show design left much to be desired for us (we ARE musicians, we do enjoy theater and entertainment, this just was not good to our tastes). Further, the scheduling was a bit confusing. One night - no show of any kind. One night the show was only scheduled for 7:00 PM - difficult to get to if you eat early and impossible if you try to eat in between the earlier and later times.

 

There were plenty of bars with small live music acts. That's fine - unless you don't drink or have a 13 year old that does not want to hang with the teen crowd. And a few of the small bands were just, shall we say...not good. So, for our tastes, it was a swing and miss on Navigator. We found other ways to amuse ourselves, so it was not a total loss, but it sure seems RCL is wanting to push folks to the casino and bars at night. Financially I get it from their perspective - but neither of those were of any interest to me...

 

Stateroom host was fantastic - efficient and effective as well as friendly each morning and evening. One night it seemed the ship lost water pressure (right before early dinner - so showering was a little iffy!), but it was resolved quickly. Also, one evening when the ship was rocking a bit, the sewage smell that has been reported reared its ugly head down on deck 3. Move up and away from there and all is well - only one night was this noticed.

 

Photography is doing something I've wondered for years why cruise lines don't implement this: they have digital photo kiosks - you order what you want either digitally or tell them to print what you want. Great idea - but now I see the flaw...that last night of the cruise is miserable for the photo staff. Everyone orders late - and keeping up with demand must have meant a LONG night for the group printing and sorting the photos that were ordered.

 

Galveston has the turnaround day to a science (we also sailed Carnival Magic in May with the same results). We arrived at 10:30 AM - on the ship at 11:30. That time included unloading, parking and walking from the parking lot, getting through security, heading to the Gold line and then onto the ship. Very efficient and seamless. Debarkation was a little more of a nightmare, but my wife spent a little much in the stores, so we were escorted to the head of the line to have a chat with customs! :( But that saved us a LONG time waiting to clear customs (sorry all of you we passed right by - but we PAID for it! lol).

 

All in all - a good cruise.

We'd go again - but we'd bring more books or plan for a little more self entertaining in the evenings. We are returning to Carnival on the Breeze in May when she takes over for the Magic. Living only 4 hours away from Galveston makes it easy to cruise and saves a lot in flight costs.

 

If anyone has any questions - I'd be happy to try to help. I don't see a lot of Navigator info on here - so I felt I was flying blind a bit. But reality was, I did not need too much. She's a good ship with a fantastic crew.

[rudeney]

Thanks for the review! We'll be on Navigator's Oct. 18th sailing. I'm glad to hear that you were pleased with the staff. I do hate to hear that the shows were a disappointment. Hopefully you just have high standards since you perform yourselves. :) Being a long-time Disney fanatic and their super-high quality entertainment, I really don't go onto a cruise ship with high expectations, and often I am surprised. We never do it at home, but my wife and I do enjoy a cocktail and some live music while on vacation, so the selection of bards sounds good.

 

Regarding photos, they really need to take a cue from Disney. Instead of making everyone go to a central location to choose photos, they should just sell a package and let you download them yourself. Or, connect it to the free local part of the wifi service so you can order from your own device and just collect the prints at the end of the cruise.

 

What stateroom were you in? How was it? What parking lot did you use? And how were crowds? I am hoping by October, there won't be many "school kids" and maybe it will be a bit more relaxed.

[miss meow]

Thanks for the review - we've only cruised on one other RCI - the Adventure and loved it. I'm hoping for the same here.

Rodney - we will be sailing on your cruise...so looking forward to it. Have you joined the roll call for our sailing?

 

Rita

[rudeney]

No I haven't joined the roll call yet. I need to do that!

[Susie51]

Thank you for your review. We were on Navigator in March. It is nice to read about other CC members experiences. We enjoyed the cruise very much. I would like to do it again sometime.

[Ladysilver]

Thanks for your review. We love the Navigator! :D

[euphscott]

I'm like you (rudeney) - I don't expect a lot from the production shows on cruise ships (except Disney), but I do hope for decent entertainment. Half baked themes with mediocre singing and dancing - ugh...

 

However, the headliners...that was great - use them more!

America's Got Talent is littered with acts that could fill the ships - but what RCL was throwing out there (if they scheduled anything at all).... The one exception - the orchestra was great - but they got thrown out on the promenade to play some charts most every night. Such a shame.

 

The photo scene was similar to what you suggest. But that last night is a mad dash to order, so then printing backs up, digital copying was slowed, and getting the hard copies was a nightmare for the crew.

 

All my picked nits aside - it was a good cruise and I enjoyed my vacation.

[sabyphoto]

Thanks for the review! I love reading others reports on what they felt about the cruise. I am going on this ship on Oct 18th as a few others who have responded on here.

[JimAOk1945]

Glad to hear you enjoyed your cruise. We were on the Navigator in April and had a great experience.

 

The digital photo kiosks are a great idea as long as they are working properly. On our cruise, some of them were not working.

 

Happy cruising. It's a great way to travel.

[CCC3]

LOVED the Navigator. Sorry she's leaving Galveston...but looking forward to Liberty next June.

[JoeRum]

Thanks for the Review! We will be sailing on Navigator in a couple weeks and again in 2016. One question for you.

 

What stores are there on board? Thanks!

 

JoeRum

[aprilcruisers]

Thanks for the review! We'll be on Navigator's Oct. 18th sailing. I'm glad to hear that you were pleased with the staff. I do hate to hear that the shows were a disappointment. Hopefully you just have high standards since you perform yourselves. :) Being a long-time Disney fanatic and their super-high quality entertainment, I really don't go onto a cruise ship with high expectations, and often I am surprised. We never do it at home, but my wife and I do enjoy a cocktail and some live music while on vacation, so the selection of bards sounds good.

 

Regarding photos, they really need to take a cue from Disney. Instead of making everyone go to a central location to choose photos, they should just sell a package and let you download them yourself. Or, connect it to the free local part of the wifi service so you can order from your own device and just collect the prints at the end of the cruise

 

What stateroom were you in? How was it? What parking lot did you use? And how were crowds? I am hoping by October, there won't be many "school kids" and maybe it will be a bit more relaxed.

 

We use Galveston park and cruise. Right across the street from terminal. Husband drops me off, porters take luggage, he parks, then walks back.

[bonvoyagebites]

We are on our first RCI cruise in October, on the same itinerary. I am very much looking forward to it.

 

Thanks for writing up the mini review. I know even the short reviews can take a bit of time... especially if your memory is like mine :)

 

Thanks again

[rudeney]

We use Galveston park and cruise. Right across the street from terminal. Husband drops me off, porters take luggage, he parks, then walks back.

 

Thanks! I think I'll do the same thing - drop the ladies and luggage at the terminal, and I'll deal with the car.

[Sonnieb]

Thanks for sharing your experience. We'll be on the Oct. 18th sailing with some of the others.

[Carrie10026]

Thank you for your great review! Good to know we should bring extra cash for the casino! We are on the Sept. 20th sailing different ports but its nice to see she's clean with a good crew. This will be my first RCI cruise as I was a Carnival girl before I married my RCI fan hubby. What type of room were you in? So was main dining awful? It seems sad to me to think I have to spend even more on my cruise for food... I get the alcohol, soda packages those have cost me 611.00 (luckily the hubby doesn't drink alcohol) and add my JS costs and if I add all the upgraded dining its not such a great value anymore. Just my opinion but even so, I still love to cruise and relax. Glad you had a great time!

[rmurray847]

TSo was main dining awful? It seems sad to me to think I have to spend even more on my cruise for food.

 

I just got back this weekend from NOV (review is posted on this forum). It's tough to tell others about food, because we all have our thresholds. But for my wife and I the MDR is quite nice. The food is generally quite good. No, not everything is a home run...but even in Chops, some of the side items were only okay. I felt they had good variety (something like 6 or 7 entrees PLUS the 5 or 6 "classics" that they have every day). The starters, other than the shrimp cocktail, were all excellent. I like going to the specialty restaurants once or twice just for the change of pace (and yes, at Chops, you do get a higher level of service)...but if my budget just didn't allow for it, I would not have minded either.

[Hopalong60]

I posted a long review of our cabin 8350 and the cruise itself somewhere else on this board but will add something here.

 

We were on the NOTS 9/13-9/20/15. Dinner in the MDR was generally very delicious (and I'm something of a food snob living here in PDX) and a comfortable room. The bed itself needs to be replaced. There are no more egg crate mattress pads - a lawsuit has been filed over them. The steward down the hall said that last week (before our cruise) there were piles of them in the dumpsters as they all had to gone off the ship.

 

Our MDR table was next to the windows on deck 4 so we had a great view of the ocean every night. Ask for table 414. Room service wasn't very good - sour/unripe fruit unimaginatively plated, cold/rock hard toast, baked scrambled eggs, inconsistently cooked bacon, even warm yogurt cup one morning! It arrived up to 1/2 hour earlier than requested. It still beats going to the Windjammer and eating too much for breakfast!

 

There is a restroom at the entry of the Solarium so you can change into/out of your suit before going into the hot tub. There were always a great quantity of the blue beach towels for use. They are at the gangway to check out before going a shore as well.

 

The elevators were almost always full at deck 8 so we learned quickly to go up if you wanted to go down and visa versa if you didn't want to stand around in the elevator lobby for 15 minutes. One elevator was out of order the entire cruise which didn't help with the overload.

 

The photos are no longer printed and posted along the walls. Kind of sad to see that go since you can't see anyone else's pictures but yours in your account. There is a Caribbean scrapbook set for sale.

 

If you want to watch the game or a movie on the pool deck, get there early as the chairs fill up.

 

The flow rider offers boogie boarding and surfing at different times so you can go when the "conditions" are right. It's a lot of fun and there are very nice, helpful staff to give you the best ride possible.

 

There is a library/card room on deck 7 under the art gallery. They post a daily suduko puzzle and trivia quiz. I wish I had know about that on the first day, not the 6th. There are lots of board games and a whole wall of books to choose.

 

If you play the Nations game, go down to the Ship's Doctor who is one of your bonus crew to collect his signature. The assistant cruise director is the bonus Scotland member. Lots of them are also in the shops on the Promenade or the Spa. Prizes were NOTS hats, RC pens, shopping bags and medals. Best score was 112 so you have to be diligent in finding them.

 

We did the spa tour but they gave tickets to everyone who showed up for the drawing so don't waste your time on taking the tour unless you're interested in that. One of the late comers won the grand prize of $500....

 

Tender day we stood in line to get our ticket (boat 7) in the photo gallery on deck 3 (by the ice rink) and as we waited, a crew member in charge of boarding came along and asked if anyone was ready to go and took those who were directly to the boat. I lead our group down in the hallway at the end of the line hoping we'd get on an earlier boat and we did. The same crew member told us to get at the end and on we went.