Cheapo Dad's Trip Report on the Navigator of the Seas (Maybe with few pictures added)...

[harryfat1]

Done with lunch.  Back out to deck 12 again by 2 PM for the next big event – the Belly Flop Contest. This for us is a “NOT TO BE MISSED”. 

 

Always high entertainment value.  As I mentioned in post #2 at the start – we seek high entertainment value on our cruises and this event typically has that.

 

As with the previous event on deck, there were tons of people by the railings so the family split up into different sections and y’all get to see the event from more than one angle.

 

 

 

Here's my wife and son on the opposite side as I prefer to take the pictures of the people jumping TOWARDS me so I moved over to the other side

 

 

All the contestants sitting by the edge of the pool.  Of all the belly flop contests I have seen (not that many as I’m not a frequent cruiser), they were all performed by men. 

 

Has anyone seen female contestants for this event?

 

[h20skibum]

6 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

Very nice, Mark.  

 

Any pictures of the current legs to show off for the ladies/guys to admire?

The legs are a little older now, but I wouldn’t want to get the ladies too excited by posting them.  

 

5 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

My son was over at the other side by the ship’s video camera person. All these daily events get broadcasted to the TV back in the cabin the next day so if you missed any of the big events the previous day, turn on that channel to see it the next day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They use to market the video shot during the cruise in a Cruise In Review DVD. There may be some of those young legs in this, as well as some risqué shots of me in the Quest. 

 

Maybe those of us, who were in the DVD, were the only ones who bought these. 

 

[CntPAcruiser]

On 9/7/2023 at 10:24 PM, harryfat1 said:

Tip – If you like smoked salmon for breakfast like we do, you have to ASK FOR IT. As I learned from previous RCI sailing (as well as Princess sailing last year), the staff “hides the good stuff” in the back. 

 

You have to go to the staff person behind the “cold cuts” section to get the salmon.  Sometimes he gives it to you on a small plate   Sometimes he just plops it onto of your plate of other food so be prepared to make space for the salmon.

 

This is something of “tribal knowledge” as they don’t show the salmon early on in the cruise but by the end of the cruise, where they no longer need to “ration” it, they have the salmon out.

 

Here is where you ask for the salmon

 

 

 

As I mentioned already, RCI serves Lavaaza coffee and it’s pretty strong so you will wake up fast.

 

The last food picture to get some fruits and then we are done with breakfast

 

Thank you for this tip about the smoked salmon. This is my breakfast go-to, and it's been increasingly more difficult to find on board.

Edited September 11, 2023 by CntPAcruiser

[harryfat1]

23 hours ago, h20skibum said:

The legs are a little older now, but I wouldn’t want to get the ladies too excited by posting them.  

 

They use to market the video shot during the cruise in a Cruise In Review DVD. There may be some of those young legs in this, as well as some risqué shots of me in the Quest. 

 

Maybe those of us, who were in the DVD, were the only ones who bought these. 

 

Yeah, I remembered the cruise lines used to try to sell those “cruise highlight” DVDs. 

 

But how many young folks even have a DVD player? Your average computer sold nowadays doesn’t come with a built-in DVD player like in the past. 

 

You would need to go retro to buy an external DVD player to hook up to the PC via USB port or the big old DVD player to hook up to the TV.

 

Not sure anyone under the age of 10 would know what to do with a DVD.

 

Speaking of old technology, I still need to buy a “new/retro” looking record player to play all my old black vinyl record collection now sitting in the garage.

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NQL8Z16/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_3?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&th=1

 

I have to imagine there are enough of us “old folks” here on CC that still have the black vinyl records from the eons ago.

 

Yeah, yeah, I know there's Spotify and other streaming music services but it's just not the same...

[harryfat1]

23 hours ago, CntPAcruiser said:

Thank you for this tip about the smoked salmon. This is my breakfast go-to, and it's been increasingly more difficult to find on board.

 

You are welcome. I learned this salmon trick from 2016/2017 cruises.

 

At first, I thought it was just an RCI thing where you have to ask for the good stuff but when I went on the Princess cruise last year, I didn’t see any salmon in the breakfast area where they had other fish so I asked the worker on the other side if they had any salmon and he went behind him in the steel drawer and took some out.  BINGO!

 

This was the section on Princess where you need to ask for it

 

 

This was what we got

 

 

So it’s not cruise line specific.  They all seem to do that at the start of the cruise.  I noticed toward the end of each sailing, they would have salmon out without asking.

 

I assume they only have a limited supply for each sailing, and they need to ration it until the end when they can just open it up.

 

Since we are talking about salmon on the cruise, let’s go back to the 2009 Celebrity Cruise where they had the special brunch on Hubbard Glacier visit day.

 

Do you like salmon?  Knock yourself out. No rationing here

 

 

Special seafood/sushi brunch at the MDR. 

 

And no, you don't have to pay extra for it.  Yeah, I barely remember those days anymore...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CntPAcruiser]

Thanks again, and for the interesting pictures. The smoked/cured fish section on Princess looks like a treat! And the plate of fish and sushi as well. I don't even remember if they still do "sushi" at dinner in the Windjammer on Royal like they used to when we first started cruising. There was never any raw fish there, just Krab, avocado, etc., but it was nice to have a piece or two as a snack to tide us over until late seating in the main dining room. 

 

I prefer to get my smoked salmon at breakfast in the Windjammer because I prefer to have it on brown bread rather than the bagels that are offered on Royal in the main dining room. Of course, it's often available in the diamond lounge as well without having to ask for it.

[harryfat1]

1 hour ago, CntPAcruiser said:

Thanks again, and for the interesting pictures. The smoked/cured fish section on Princess looks like a treat! And the plate of fish and sushi as well. I don't even remember if they still do "sushi" at dinner in the Windjammer on Royal like they used to when we first started cruising. There was never any raw fish there, just Krab, avocado, etc., but it was nice to have a piece or two as a snack to tide us over until late seating in the main dining room. 

 

I prefer to get my smoked salmon at breakfast in the Windjammer because I prefer to have it on brown bread rather than the bagels that are offered on Royal in the main dining room. Of course, it's often available in the diamond lounge as well without having to ask for it.

Just for clarification, the first 2 pictures you are referring to were from last year's Princess cruise. The other pictures were from the 2009 Celebrity Alaska where they had a one-day special seafood brunch prior to us visiting Hubbard Glacier.

 

Those pictures were from their MDR they transformed it into a buffet just for the occasion.

 

Celebrity cruises used to be more of a Foodie's cruise line.  I assume they still are but we haven't sailed with them since 2009.

[harryfat1]

OK.  Enough talk about the good old days.  Let's keep going on the Belly Flop Contest.

 

++++++++++++++

 

 

 

So we last left off at the Belly Flop Contest.

 

For those unfamiliar with the contest, the process is pretty simple.  Each contestant goes up to the box, does a little dance, and tries to do a belly flop into the pool. 

 

After each jump, the cruisers all vote on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the best.  The cruise director does a quick “tally” of a sample of hands and arrives at an average score for each person.  Highest score wins.

 

 

Hard to get a picture of them just prior to hitting the water with a slight shutter lag on the cell phone.  Miss not having a DSLR on times like this

 

 

 

Couple of short videos

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Here’s my son’s vote for one of the jump – dude is a hard grader in giving someone a “2” score…

 

 

 

I’m on the opposite end of my wife.  I’m the red shirt over here trying to see if I captured the jump or not...

 

 

Oh, yeah, a lot of people watching this event

 

 

Another dude jumping...

 

 

Splash

 

[harryfat1]

More jumps

 

The dude turned his head last second

 

 

Another one

 

 

This dude got some height to his jump as you can tell from airtime.  Either that or I just pressed the button earlier...

 

 

After each jump, you hear the CD trying to do his auctioneer impression in reading the numbers off real fast

 

 

 

 

The tattooed dude - wonder if he has practice from his younger days in having two hands behind his head with law enforcement...

 

 

After each jump, they showed the replay on the big screen.  As you can tell, this was a major failure. Just look at the disgusted look from the CD at the end

 

 

Saving the best for last

 

 

And here's the winner:

 

[harryfat1]

OK. All done with the International Belly Flop Contest.  Now is our turn to have some water fun.

 

We headed for the Blaster water slide – which is the two-person raft water slide I showed back on Day 1.  I didn’t have any pictures as I couldn’t bring the cell phone on the ride.  I can’t even wear my sunglasses on the ride. 

 

So y’all just have to imagine we were on the ride.

 

Here’s a YouTube video on the ride:

 

 

 

Tip:  Go and check out the blue pool towels at the towel section prior to the ride.  They scan your seapass card to see how many you checked out.  You need to return them before the cruise ends or else you get Charged for like $20 towel.

 

All right, the water slide thing was fun but the line was pretty long as it became warmer by the afternoon and people don’t mind getting wet now versus the morning when it was more overcast.

 

[JamesEM]

Nice to see the "Hurt Box" is back, speaking of hiding some food items, when you get enough Crown & Anchor points you can order food items that are not on the MDR dinner menu. 

[bobmacliberty]

I've been gone for a few days Harry but I'm all caught up now.  Glad to see that this review is still going strong.  I really should find my cc posts per cruise day spreadsheet.  I assumed that this review wouldn't compete with your past reviews since it's only 4 days.  But we're 500+ posts in and still on day 2!  Impressive.

[NHProud]

22 minutes ago, bobmacliberty said:

I've been gone for a few days Harry but I'm all caught up now.  Glad to see that this review is still going strong.  I really should find my cc posts per cruise day spreadsheet.  I assumed that this review wouldn't compete with your past reviews since it's only 4 days.  But we're 500+ posts in and still on day 2!  Impressive.

Best wishes to the newly married couple. You pulled off that father daughter dance magnificently . 
 

Harry , as kids are known to ask : “ Are we there , yet ? “ I don’t want your review to end . 

[scrapcreator]

Reporting back from the 9/8 Navigator weekend cruise. I caught the sea lions just before we docked in Ensenada. We could hear them as we arrived. They made a quick get-away as the dock workers approached and did not reappear while we were docked. Photo from Deck 11.

 

[harryfat1]

18 hours ago, JamesEM said:

Nice to see the "Hurt Box" is back, speaking of hiding some food items, when you get enough Crown & Anchor points you can order food items that are not on the MDR dinner menu. 

Oh, I never heard of the special menu for higher-tier C&A folks.

 

So what type of special things you can get with the higher tier?  How do you order – by showing the waiter your special card or some secret handshake? 

 

Just more of a curiosity question as I’m not a frequent cruiser and am not even sure I will make it to the Diamond level in my lifetime since we average less than one RCI cruise annually

[harryfat1]

2 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

I've been gone for a few days Harry but I'm all caught up now.  Glad to see that this review is still going strong.  I really should find my cc posts per cruise day spreadsheet.  I assumed that this review wouldn't compete with your past reviews since it's only 4 days.  But we're 500+ posts in and still on day 2!  Impressive.

Bob,

 

Many thanks for reading along and catching up even though you were away.  In reading the next post, sounded like you had a family member that got married.  Congratulations!

 

Yeah, due to the space-time continuum thing, we all get caught in a time loop once we get into this thread and real-world time is different. 

 

As I meet more friends here on RCI via Dani’s monster thread of 2.9M view thread and conversations with other old friends, it’s been a lot of fun writing this trip report. 

 

The worst part of writing these monster reports is boredom/loneliness if there’s a lack of feedback.  That’s when you start to wonder if anyone is going to read all this gibberish as I type and upload pictures daily. 

 

With this active crowd, that’s not an issue and I thank everyone for contributing to the discussion.

 

As for looking for the old spreadsheet.  No need. I just clicked on my signature for the 2017 trip report.  I saw you posted on #1533.  So that is more or less the end of that trip report.  There was other stuff on the back end but that was to talking the Disneyworld pictures.

 

Although the 2017  report was for a 9-night cruise in comparison you are correct, we are going on a much slower pace.

 

I do need to “MOVE IT MOVE IT” on this report as I need to start planning for my December cruise sooner rather than later…

[harryfat1]

2 hours ago, NHProud said:

Best wishes to the newly married couple. You pulled off that father daughter dance magnificently . 
 

Harry , as kids are known to ask : “ Are we there , yet ? “ I don’t want your review to end . 

Thank you very much for the compliments.  I’m truly touched. 

 

These trip reports have always been fun to write as each group has a different set of readers and they contribute different topics and that’s what makes it entertaining.  Not much fun if I just talk to myself as that would be just like an online blog/article. 

 

Although Cheapo Dad might make a few dollars if I had my own travel blog and had sponsors as these cruises have been increasingly expensive…

 

As I just posted with Bob, I need to get moving to finish this trip report somewhere down the road.  Of course my version of “fast” is like saying "The snail has now shifted to 5^th gear” – all a matter of reference.

 

Need to finish this trip report so I can have enough time to research/plan for the December cruise. The old one has to end for the next one to begin.

 

The airfare for December’s flight is finally slowly coming down in price so I need to start looking to book the flights as well as calling Mr. K next week to make my final cruise payments for the December sailing.

 

Just made the hotel reservations today (yeah, I know it’s backward as I should get the flights first) but hotels are 100% cancelable so there are no risks to pre-booking before the flight.  I already seen some hotels are fully booked for December slots so I'm already behind schedule. 

 

Also need to think about booking the excursions for the ports of Aruba and Curacao as we have never been there  

 

Finally, there’s the brand new class of new ship of Odyssey of the Seas since we have never been on a Quantum class ship before so need to do lots of YouTube watching to make sure we don’t miss anything major.

 

So, yeah, lots of things to be done next few months on top of the usual Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas trifecta events coming up that will really make time fly once we get into October.

 

Speaking of Holidays – y’all ready for Christmas yet?  Costco is. 

 

Was there last weekend and they are in a full Holiday mood.

 

 

Only 103 shopping days until Christmas.  Ho-Ho-Ho…

[harryfat1]

2 hours ago, scrapcreator said:

Reporting back from the 9/8 Navigator weekend cruise. I caught the sea lions just before we docked in Ensenada. We could hear them as we arrived. They made a quick get-away as the dock workers approached and did not reappear while we were docked. Photo from Deck 11.

 

Ah, many thanks for reporting back on the Sea Lion situation. 

 

You woke up before me as by the time I got to the top deck, the ship was already next to the dock and they were just getting the lines ready and already chased most of the sea lions away.

 

So maybe the next policy is to chase them away from cruise ships on days they are docked to prevent future “Patti-Wannabes” from showing up and jumping over the railings.

 

Any Sea lion fans sailing on the Navigator will need to wake up early to get a glimpse of them (or at least hear them in the distance)…

[harryfat1]

Onward and forward with the trip report

 

+++++++++++++++++

 

After the water slides, we went back to the cabin to shower and change out of the wet bathing suit

 

Here’s a picture of the cabin as seen from the bed.

 

 

Oh, yeah, I want to mention the magnetic hooks on the wall.  We brought these along with us. 

 

 

We found them to be useful to clip the daily compass on the wall so we could find it easily.  Originally on day 1, we put the lanyard and sea pass there but we found it was more convenient to leave those by the door and hang them there instead.

 

I forgot to take a picture of it but we also had a magnet with a piece of paper at the top of our door on the outside.  That way when we come back to the cabin, it will be easy to find the door as the hallways are LONG and it’s easy to walk past your cabin unless you have something to distinguish from others.

 

For the Christmas sailing, I just ordered a pack of mini holiday theme magnets that we can stick to the outside of the door to make things more festive as well as serve the functional purpose of finding the cabin easier.

 

Typically the Holiday sailings bring out the festive decorations folks for the doors and windows.

[harryfat1]

After showering, I went downstairs to Café Promenade to get some hot tea.  They have a bigger selection of tea there than upstairs at the Windjammer so if you see some flavors down here you like, grab them and bring them to Windjammer and drink them there instead.

 

 

On a couple of nights, I was tempted to bring my own tea bags to the MDR as they have a limited selection up there as well.  Instead of making the assistant waiter hunt for some odd stuff like ginger or peach flavors that they may not have at the MDR, just take the bag from here and bring it to dinner with me ask for hot water, and steep my own tea.

[harryfat1]

Remember earlier that I mentioned they replay the top events from the previous day’s events on TV?  Well, they were showing last night’s 80s dance party on TV and as you remember, my son was selected to go to the top.  Here are a few pictures of him up there as captured by the ship’s video camera.

 

 

 

 

We can’t get this angle down on the bottom of the bridge.  Probably once in a lifetime event.

 

As they no longer sell the DVDs that Mark referenced previously, my wife recorded his time upstairs and saved the money we probably wouldn’t have spent anyway…

[Coralc]

2 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

For the Christmas sailing, I just ordered a pack of mini holiday theme magnets that we can stick to the outside of the door to make things more festive as well as serve the functional purpose of finding the cabin easier.

 

Typically the Holiday sailings bring out the festive decorations folks for the doors and windows.

 

Dollar ($1.25) Tree has great Christmas door size magnetic decorations. They are made for refrigerators but look great on stateroom doors for holiday sailings. ☺️

Edited September 13, 2023 by Coralc

[sanchoucsb]

3 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

These trip reports have always been fun to write as each group has a different set of readers and they contribute different topics and that’s what makes it entertaining.  Not much fun if I just talk to myself as that would be just like an online blog/article. 

Thanks for writing this awesome review. I’m a dad sailing with my family on Navigator in December. We will also be in two interior promenade connecting cabins so this review is perfect for me. It’s great how much detail you give!

[harryfat1]

4 hours ago, Coralc said:

 

Dollar ($1.25) Tree has great Christmas door size magnetic decorations. They are made for refrigerators but look great on stateroom doors for holiday sailings. ☺️

Thanks for the heads up.  I will look for them.  I also ordered a few of them online so hopefully we will have a good mix for the December cruise.