Just off Navigator 8 nighter, my thoughts

[JimLahey]

I thought I would provide my thoughts/review on my recent 8 night cruise on Navigator of the Seas.

 

Background: this is my second cruise, the first being on Radiance of the Seas in 2008. Unfortunately, that cruise was pretty much ruined on the 2nd day when I learned of the death of a close family member. Spoiler alert: no family member died on the Navigator cruise, so it is already a winner!

 

Here are some random thoughts on a few different areas:

 

Embarkation/disembarkation: Very smooth, no complaints at all. We have a 10:25am flight home from FLL. Although we thought it was a little too close to comfort, the alternate flights had terrible schedules. Turns out, we arrived at FLL by 7:45am, plenty of time to spare.

 

Ports of call:

Haiti: Loved the resort itself. Did the hour at Arawak aqua park thing. Not a big fan, my kids (and many others I noticed) found it very hard to climb on the equipment from the water. Some kids were reckless, almost jumping on top of others. They wanted to go back to the regular beach within 20 minutes.

San Juan: Wife went on a tour, I stayed on board with kids as they wanted more FlowRider time. More on that later.

St Kitts: Did the train tour. Nice tour, but the train was too loud and could barely make out what the tour guide was saying. Also, if they ever think of building another route, I recommend they skip the sewage lagoon and automobile junkyard.

St Maarten: Did some window browsing in Philipsburg. I did not find the bargains that I had been expecting…maybe it was just the types of items I was looking for though. Went to Orient beach in the afternoon. Nice beach but being pestered by vendors every 2 minutes became tiresome quickly.

 

Ship food: We ate at Windjammer every breakfast and every lunch. For supper, ate in MDR 5 nights, Sabor twice, and Windjammer once. Windjammer lunch was ok, but eating there 8 days, grew tired as it was almost the same things every day. MDR was fair, but I was disappointed with just being “fair” as I recall the MDR food being much better last cruise. Sabor was awesome, would strongly recommend.

 

Drink package: I had been debating for several weeks, and decided to take the plunge with the Premium Package on day 2. It was nice to try all kids of different cocktails, but I don’t think I will do it again. Some days, I did get my “money’s worth”, but most days I would have been better off buying a bucket of beer for $25.

 

Service: Excellent all around. State room attendant and MDR wait staff did a great job. Staff all around the ship were friendly and made us feel very welcome. Special shout out to Washy Washy lady in Windjammer. My kids really looked forward to seeing her every day.

 

Internet: For $30 per day, it was horribly slow and often did not work. Disappointed.

 

Entertainment: I really enjoyed the acts I did see…the comedians, juggler, Ice Show, and Bon Jovi tribute. My only complaint is more thought could have been given to scheduling as shows did not mesh with set dining times and Adventure Ocean times very well.

 

Flow Rider: The favorite activity of the trip for my 9 and 11 year old. We were disappointed that it was not up and running as much as we had been expecting though. The kids wanted to skip San Juan just to have more Flow Rider time with most people off the ship. Unfortunately it ended up only being open for 45 minutes that day. The sea days, it was open for like 4 hours boogie boarding, but the lines and waits got very long (a big reason we avoided WDW this year).

 

Anyway, overall, despite the few negatives I mentioned, I did have a good vacation. I think I would recommend the Navigator, but personally, would like to try one of the bigger ships next time.

[Clarea]

Thanks for the feedback.

 

Curious how you felt about the difference in ship design between Radiance and Navigator?

[Ourusualbeach]

I thought I would provide my thoughts/review on my recent 8 night cruise on Navigator of the Seas.

 

Background: this is my second cruise, the first being on Radiance of the Seas in 2008. Unfortunately, that cruise was pretty much ruined on the 2nd day when I learned of the death of a close family member. Spoiler alert: no family member died on the Navigator cruise, so it is already a winner!

 

Here are some random thoughts on a few different areas:

 

Embarkation/disembarkation: Very smooth, no complaints at all. We have a 10:25am flight home from FLL. Although we thought it was a little too close to comfort, the alternate flights had terrible schedules. Turns out, we arrived at FLL by 7:45am, plenty of time to spare.

 

Ports of call:

Haiti: Loved the resort itself. Did the hour at Arawak aqua park thing. Not a big fan, my kids (and many others I noticed) found it very hard to climb on the equipment from the water. Some kids were reckless, almost jumping on top of others. They wanted to go back to the regular beach within 20 minutes.

San Juan: Wife went on a tour, I stayed on board with kids as they wanted more FlowRider time. More on that later.

St Kitts: Did the train tour. Nice tour, but the train was too loud and could barely make out what the tour guide was saying. Also, if they ever think of building another route, I recommend they skip the sewage lagoon and automobile junkyard.

St Maarten: Did some window browsing in Philipsburg. I did not find the bargains that I had been expecting…maybe it was just the types of items I was looking for though. Went to Orient beach in the afternoon. Nice beach but being pestered by vendors every 2 minutes became tiresome quickly.

 

Ship food: We ate at Windjammer every breakfast and every lunch. For supper, ate in MDR 5 nights, Sabor twice, and Windjammer once. Windjammer lunch was ok, but eating there 8 days, grew tired as it was almost the same things every day. MDR was fair, but I was disappointed with just being “fair” as I recall the MDR food being much better last cruise. Sabor was awesome, would strongly recommend.

 

Drink package: I had been debating for several weeks, and decided to take the plunge with the Premium Package on day 2. It was nice to try all kids of different cocktails, but I don’t think I will do it again. Some days, I did get my “money’s worth”, but most days I would have been better off buying a bucket of beer for $25.

 

Service: Excellent all around. State room attendant and MDR wait staff did a great job. Staff all around the ship were friendly and made us feel very welcome. Special shout out to Washy Washy lady in Windjammer. My kids really looked forward to seeing her every day.

 

Internet: For $30 per day, it was horribly slow and often did not work. Disappointed.

 

Entertainment: I really enjoyed the acts I did see…the comedians, juggler, Ice Show, and Bon Jovi tribute. My only complaint is more thought could have been given to scheduling as shows did not mesh with set dining times and Adventure Ocean times very well.

 

Flow Rider: The favorite activity of the trip for my 9 and 11 year old. We were disappointed that it was not up and running as much as we had been expecting though. The kids wanted to skip San Juan just to have more Flow Rider time with most people off the ship. Unfortunately it ended up only being open for 45 minutes that day. The sea days, it was open for like 4 hours boogie boarding, but the lines and waits got very long (a big reason we avoided WDW this year).

 

Anyway, overall, despite the few negatives I mentioned, I did have a good vacation. I think I would recommend the Navigator, but personally, would like to try one of the bigger ships next time.

 

If your kids are into the flowriding and bogey boarding the definitely give Oasis/Allure/Harmony a try. With 2 flowrider's there is one dedicated for flowriding and 1 for bogey boarding which was usually split in half so it went fairly quick.

 

Internet is also blazing fast on Oasis class.

 

We sailed on Freedom class for about 2 years and then switched to Oasis class. Most likely we will stick with Oasis class other than Adventure for a southern Caribbean cruise.

[lovelife]

Thanks for taking time to share your thoughts.

[cincicruisers]

Thanks for posting your review

[SPacificbound]

Thank you for posting your review! We will definitely try Sabor. :)

 

We will be on Navigator in a little over five weeks. Our largest RC ship so far is Radiance, so this will be a big change for us. :D

[APDMOM]

Thanks for posting your experience! We were on the same cruise :) I just started my review... I would definitely recommend an Oasis class ship too. We liked it much better than Navigator. Surprisingly, Navigator felt quite a bit more crowded than Oasis... that could be due to the "sold out" status over spring break. We still had a great cruise, bit will only take another voyager class cruise if we can have "our" balcony (7388 or 7688) again.

 

Hope you get to try Oasis class!

[mrpayroll]

Thanks for the review. We will be on NOS in April..

[goneclear]

Thanks for taking the time to share your experience. We have sailed the navigator twice before but not since its latest dry dock with sabor and Izumi addition. We love Izumi.

Nav and freedom are our favorite ships.

[riclop]

Thanks for the feed back.

[desotogirl]

Thank you so much for your feedback. I'm going on the same cruise 4/16/16. We are booked for the train in St Kitts as well. Should we try to sit on a specific side? Closer to the guide? Just looking to make the best out of it since it wasn't your fave thing.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[Keith1010]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts from your cruise.

 

Keith

[KirkNC]

Thanks for your report.

[JimLahey]

Thank you so much for your feedback. I'm going on the same cruise 4/16/16. We are booked for the train in St Kitts as well. Should we try to sit on a specific side? Closer to the guide? Just looking to make the best out of it since it wasn't your fave thing.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

 

There are 5 cars on the train, the guide is on the first an they have PA system for the other cars. We were further back in the top (open air) level. The noise of the train couple with the guides very thick Caribbean accent made it hard to make out much. If I were to do it gain, I might try the inside lower section...maybe the noise of the train will be muffled somewhat. I might add that part of the tour was in a passenger van, we actually liked that part better as we could hear the guide and actually ask questions.

[Philly Steve]

Thanks for the review. :)

[The Fun Researcher]

5 days until we're on the Navigator!!! Re. the Flowrider... surprisingly we have found the lines shorter on all three of our Freedom class cruises than the Oasis (even though the Oasis had two Flowriders). They all have a pretty decent wait, but we found the Oasis longer.

 

We are really looking forward to our cruise. My biggest concern is that the crew is going to be completely spent by all the spring breakers the weeks prior. Hopefully they aren't too exhausted to provide us a great cruise too. Since ours is an 8 night itinerary, and in April, I'm hoping that knocks down the number of spring breakers. Honestly, I would like to have a few, just to keep things more lively in the bars/clubs at night, but don't want to be over run by any means.

 

Kindly,

Dan

[digger69]

Thanks for your thoughts. We were on the same cruise. This was our first time on Navigator. Our daughter also looked forward to Washy Washy lady each time we went to Windjammer. It's a wonder she didn't lose her voice.

 

We ate at Windjammer a lot, but quickly got tired of the same offerings. The main dining room was just too slow for me. My daughter liked the fancier idea of eating in the MD, but I just felt it took forever to finish dinner and the food just wasn't a WOW. Not that Windjammer would win any awards either, but at least there was variety.

 

Have to admit, I gave in to the siren call of the soft serve machines way too many times.

 

We enjoyed the beach time on Labadee and St. Maarten. Only spend about an hour off the ship in St. Kitts as we just didn't like it. No shore excursions here, just didn't like the vibe and the pushy locals chasing you around to put monkeys on your shoulder. :-)

 

It was a crowded sailing, being spring break and all. Bands of roaming teens everywhere, pushing all the buttons on the elevators, etc. Great fun. :-) My daughter struck up a friendship with some other girls here age and had a great time swimming and hanging out at the flow rider.

 

 

We had a great time in San Juan. Hiked to the forts and then quenched our thirst with a Cocoa Frio at Casa Cortes Chocobar. Mmmmm, well worth the long hot walk.

Edited March 28, 2016 by digger69

[cruiseapril]

Interesting review. Think Orient Beach has too many vendors!

[digger69]

Interesting review. Think Orient Beach has too many vendors!

 

Not sure what the beach was called in Phillipsburg, but we did not find the vendors to be a nuisance or too pushy. Yes there were plenty of them, but a simple 'no thank you' send them on their way.

[Rocket3D]

So, what did you think of those small cabin safes?

 

Ipad air 2 just fit in there, problem is you need to

take cameras and evrything else out first so you

can lay it flat or the door won't close.

 

:cool:

[elaine5]

We were also on this cruise. We had a quad room on 2nd floor with pullman beds for a family of 4. It was fine--no privacy, but plenty of space, esp. with a sofa. Much more space if you leave the lower beds separate. I also booked about 2 years ago with a good sale. We thought MDR food was OK, Chops and Giovannis had very good appetizers/sides, but the main courses were what you used to get in the MDR 5-10 years ago. Good, but not fantastic. For ex, I got whole fish @ Chops. Should have been oiled and seared to make the skin crispy--it was not. Stuffed veal @ Giovannis was somewhat overcooked--still good, but not great. Izumi's was excellent. We did the 3 meals for $70, so I didn't care too much about any of the meals not being superb, just saw no reason to go back to Chops. DH said his rack of lamb in MDR was better prepared than @ Giovannis (which was still fine). Lobster on 2nd formal night was very good. Buffet had more offerings, esp. international dishes, than buffet on our 4 day Liberty 3 years ago. Fish on buffet was just as good (or better) than fish in MDR dinners.

Entertainment was good to very good.

ports:

DH and son did the all day pass on Dragon Coaster--rode 3X with no wait in the AM, much longer line after lunch. Got off the boat @ 8am--just b/c we woke up early. Got 2 clamshells over @ Adreniline beach--felt like royalty.

SJ--took free trolley to El Morro than again to San Cristol (?) then walked back to ship. hint-go to stop 14 to get on (google for a map).

StK-prebooked chairs-umbrella @ Carambola. Took my email confirmation--good, b/c they could not locate our reservation. It's an OK beach-nice beach club. snorkeling is just OK by the rocks. Stayed 3 hrs and then back to boat for lunch and then self walking tour. Both catholic and anglican churches are interesting to visit.

StM-took a cab to Divi on little bay and rented chairs/umbrella. Lovely beach, decent snorkeing over by the rocks to the left. Rental of kayaks available. We liked this a lot. But, the secret is out--at least 100+ cruisers there.

We did self-disembark. Left the room @ 6:55 am, off the ship by 7:10, through customs by 7:35, at airport by 7:45.

I thought the ship look great. We liked that they played an outside movie the 1st night, but then they repeated the same movie 3 nights later. No movies ever played during the day, either on outdoor screen or in the production theater.

Overall, very solid cruise. No major complaints. Staff very good. Elaine

Edited March 29, 2016 by elaine5

[PamJack]

Thanks for the reviews and comments. Our 8 night cruise on Navigator leaves on Saturday, so I was happy to read what you had to say.

[PamJack]

From elaine5: We did the 3 meals for $70...

 

Did you purchase this ahead of time or on the ship?

[elaine5]

pre-paid for 2 meals, then converted to the 3 meals package once onboard. But, it's easy to make/change reservations. so, no need to prepay/book ahead, IMHO, even on a sold out spring break cruise. you have to do the 1st meal on 1st or 2nd night. 2nd night is formal night, so we opted for the 1st night. also, it's really more than $70 b/c the bill says the staff only receives a small amount of the dinner fee, so we added an extra tip.

[PamJack]

pre-paid for 2 meals, then converted to the 3 meals package once onboard. But, it's easy to make/change reservations. so, no need to prepay/book ahead, IMHO, even on a sold out spring break cruise. you have to do the 1st meal on 1st or 2nd night. 2nd night is formal night, so we opted for the 1st night. also, it's really more than $70 b/c the bill says the staff only receives a small amount of the dinner fee, so we added an extra tip.

 

 

Thanks, Elaine! It's still a pretty good deal, if one is planning to eat at 3 of the restaurants. We were debating whether to do 2 or 3, so this offer makes the decision easy. I appreciate your input!