Navigator review – probably too long – 4 night Mediterranean

[pauljsgreen]

For a while we have wanted to give something back to the forums because of all the great advice received and the time and money it has saved us over the last three years or so.

 

We just returned from Navigator of the Seas having completed a 4 night cruise round trip from Barcelona calling at Villefranch and Ibiza.

 

Also, there doesn’t seem to have been a lot of comment on Navigator in Europe recently, so we thought this may help update things for anyone considering the ship in the near future.

 

In brief, we had a fabulous time, so if you get bored with self indulgent detail that comment might be enough to help you look forward to a break on Navigator……. Otherwise, we'll be delighted if you read as far as you like.

 

We are a couple in our early forties with no children and have only cruised twice prior to this, once on Celebrity Constellation (Caribbean) and once on Norwegian Jewel (Western Med, mainly Italy).

 

RCCI was a last minute impulse purchase, and a true bargain we think. No problem telling anyone what we paid, but it may be inappropriate to post it publicly on the board. If anyone is interested in knowing what we paid, please PM me. We booked it on 23 May and sailed 12 June. We prepaid gratuities and the cabin was a Balcony Guarantee. We were assigned a D1 on deck 7 starboard, just behind the hump – great location for getting around the ship.

 

All of the pre-cruise communication from RCL was efficient, if a little confusing, notifying us of our cabin number by postal mail three times indicating it as a change to our booking (which I suppose it was once it was allocated).

 

We were allocated early dining. We prefer to eat pretty late, so I called RCCI and requested later dining. They said it was full and so was the waitlist so we needed to inquire onboard. Fair enough, we did book at the last minute after all.

 

I also emailed them and asked for a table for two since that is how we prefer to dine. I was emailed back a few days later saying a request had been added to our reservation, but no guarantees and to check onboard. Again, fair enough, I understand this is standard policy and expected that this was how it would be handled.

 

We live in SW Scotland so booked Globespan out to Barcelona at 0900 on the day of the cruise. We started to get a bit nervous about that as we approached departure day, but it all went smoothly. Our return flight was with Ryanair from Gerona at 1800 on the embarkation day to avoid us waiting in Barcelona until 2100 – more on that later.

 

We had about $150 cash (more than adequate for extra tips, etc) from a previous trip to the US and the rest of our liquid funds in euros for everything off the ship.

 

I’ll talk you through the first day in detail then, if members are interested, I’ll post a summary of the following days so you’re not bored with superfluous information and detail.

 

On arrival at Barcelona city airport, we collected our luggage and jumped in a taxi to the port. That cost 30 Euros including tip and took about 15 minutes. The driver adds various surcharges for the airport and port at the end which significantly inflated the fare already on the meter. Externally, the ship looked huge and really nice as we approached.

 

We gave our bags to the baggage handler, tipped him and were through security and in the queue for boarding in a few minutes. We had completed the online registration, but the embarkation hall was really really busy. We had no special credentials like high level loyalty, suite privileges or a young child in a pushchair, so we had to use the main queues and it took just over an hour to get our Seapasses.

 

If we had come in the day before and reached the port earlier I’m sure that wait would have been a good bit shorter.

 

Once on the ship the good impressions continued. Everything gleamed – we went to our stateroom to dump our carry on bags.

 

The D1 cabin was absolutely fine. Very little to comment on. There was a cigarette burn on the vanity top, but the ship is a few years old. There was plenty of room in the shower, although it was little poor on flow and pressure. The balcony was fine in size for the two of us.

 

The safe didn’t work. There was a note on the FAQ we were issued with that gave a number to call. The girl said an engineer would be there in 20 minutes but we would need to be in the room. We had better things to do with that 20 minutes so said we’d call back later.

 

We had decided in the couple of days before leaving that we would not use the main dining room and attempt to dine in Chops Thursday and Sunday, Portofino Friday and we would be in Ibiza on Saturday night so probably eat there. These extra cost options weren’t considered lightly, but factors which contributed were the short duration of the cruise and the fact that there were only two in our party.

 

Our first port of call was Chops. We got 2115 on Thursday night and 2100 on Sunday. We crossed the corridor to Portofino and the latest we could get was 2000 on Friday. No problem – took that.

 

I then went alone to the main dining room to tell anyone I could find that we would not be using our dining table or need the special requests we had made, so:

• If we had a table for two, please allocate it to someone else who would make use of it,
  
• We would not be needing late sitting, in case he had somehow been informed of our request,
  
• He would know we prepaid gratuities and they would come to him through that channel.

I could not find a soul on any of the floors of the dining room who looked like waiting or management staff – maybe we were too late at this point in the afternoon.

 

I felt strongly that we should not be letting the table for two or a late dining slot go to waste on the off chance they had been allocated to us so I called reception and asked to be put through to the dining room. She asked the reason for my call, I told her and she told me not to bother, the dining room would take care of it whether it turned up or not. We did not have an information pack / guest services directory in the room (don’t know if there should be one), so could not call directly.

 

I visited the dining room twice more – once I could not find anyone again and the second time a waiter gave me the same message as reception. You can only spend so long on these things when you’re on vacation / holiday, so at that point I gave up. I only noticed on the last day of the cruise that the dining table was on my Seapass, so I could maybe have done a bit more.

 

Anyway – more exploring – we took a walk along the promenade and out round the decks. All very impressive.

 

A late afternoon snack in the Windjammer was fine. We liked the free thirst quench stations and we could have paid for anything special if we wanted.

 

Muster drill took place at 1630. We were held up for quite a bit waiting on guests who seemed to think this was optional. They arrived 20 minutes late and under duress. Muster was then over a few minutes later.

 

Back at the room, 1700, the bags were waiting at the door. I had taken onboard a 3 litre box of wine. This was the first time I had taken alcohol onboard a cruise and it was specifically for the purpose of a convenient pre dinner balcony drink and the odd nightcap on the balcony. It was not about saving money, it was convenience – we still spent what we would have done at the bars anyway. If the wine had been confiscated, I would not even have bothered collecting it at the end of the cruise.

 

That said, the wine tasting sessions in the preceding weeks were interesting, trying to find a drinkable boxed wine which did not have a foil bladder. The money spent on that far outweighed any potential onboard savings J

 

Our stateroom attendant appeared and introduced herself. I let her know we would not need the minibar contents and she advised us to put them in the cupboard above it – no problem. We tipped her a fair amount in dollars and she left. That was the chilling of the wine taken care of for the cruise.

 

I called again re the safe and the engineer was at the room in a few minutes. He had it sorted quickly.

 

The stateroom attendant appeared again with ice and asked if there was “anything more we needed tonight”? I said “no, and thanks very much”. More on that later.

 

So, showered and dressed for dinner; me in smart jeans, dress shirt and cufflinks; DW in capris and dress blouse and nice shoes.

 

Glass of wine on the balcony and off to explore the bars before dinner. We found all of the bars suggested to us by the CC members previously (didn’t drink in any of them that night, but mentally bookmarked them for future reference).

 

We settled in the Two Poets for one drink before dinner. It was fine and off we went to Chops.

 

The welcome was warm and professional. Our dress standard was pretty much the norm there that night. The food and service were very good. I had Portabella Caps and T-bone. DW had Caesar Salad and Chicken. We don’t really each much dessert and were too full anyway so skipped that (they would have been happy to deliver it to our room later).

 

With the cover charge, two glasses of wine each (an ok white with starter and a very nice red with main), a bottle of water and an extra tip we easily ran up $110 in additional charges and couldn’t see how it would be much different in Portofino. Oh well, it’s a short cruise and we did specifically choose speciality restaurants.

 

I don’t want this to be a point by point comparison between RCCI, NCL and Celebrity, but throughout the whole cruise we noticed the absence of hand sanitizers – I looked and could not find any. On NCL last year they were chasing us along the corridors spraying our hands and they were ever prominent on Celebrity. I’m no scientist and maybe RCCI has discovered they’re not as effective as we were led to believe.

 

Also, we missed real “single use” towels in the public toilet facilities – that is a nice touch, but costs someone I suppose.

 

After dinner we went back to the Two Poets because we liked the atmosphere there before dinner and there was a live singer on. This was a nice night. The singer was enthusiastic but it seemed you could set your watch by him – he wasn’t giving away any more stage time than he was contracted for. There was a promenade parade which was lively and enjoyable.

 

The crowd was very mixed. Accents we heard and could identify were Spanish, Indian, French, German, British and Americans.

 

We quickly formed the view that this ship was much livelier than either if the others we had been on. No problem at all – there were quiet areas if you wanted them and you weren’t handcuffed to the bars in the busy areas.

 

The price of drinks was interesting for me. As previously mentioned, I don’t want this to be a point by point comparison between RCCI, NCL and Celebrity, but I found RCCI really very reasonably priced indeed for run of the mill drinks such as beer and wine by the glass, certainly in comparison to X and NCL. We don’t really drink spirits so can’t comment on that – one gin and tonic each the whole cruise and they were very reasonable too.

 

Throughout the cruise, we tipped a little in addition to the 15% on most rounds of drinks, especially if the bar staff served us at our table or even simply used our names.

 

When we returned to our cabin, about 0130, there was no change of towels and no turn down. The lack of turn down was no big deal but clean towels for the morning were very desirable. Then I remembered the stateroom attendant’s comment as she had left earlier “…..anything more we needed tonight”? and I had said “no, and thanks very much”. Oh well, she had taken it literally – my fault.

 

Housekeeping brought us clean towels. I pointed out the marks on the original towels that others have mentioned and got the same story, “laundry pipes problem”. I spoke to our stateroom attendant the next day about clean towels on her last visit each night and all was fine thereafter – clean towels and no marks.

 

All in all, a very good first day. The ship, atmosphere, staff attitude, etc were all very good.

 

A great night’s sleep was had and we were ready for Villefranch next morning,.

 

We would be delighted to answer any questions that we can and expand on any further details that anyone is interested in.

 

Please feel free to ask any questions and I’ll post a much briefer summary of each of the remaining 3 days over the next wee while.

 

 

Thanks

Paul & Sandra

[barbydaul]

Hi Paul & Sandra,

 

Enjoyed your review. My DH and I are booked for the 4-night and 5-night next May. My only question to you is what did you do in Ibiza? Were you there over night? You do not sound like you are "party people" and I understand that Ibiza is a party city. Glad you had a wonderful time.

 

Barb & Fred

[pauljsgreen]

Hi Paul & Sandra,

 

Enjoyed your review. My DH and I are booked for the 4-night and 5-night next May. My only question to you is what did you do in Ibiza? Were you there over night? You do not sound like you are "party people" and I understand that Ibiza is a party city. Glad you had a wonderful time.

 

Barb & Fred

 

Thanks Barb & Fred

 

The ship docked against a long breakwater in Ibiza Town about 5pm. it was a lovely sail in with the decks busy and Ibiza viewable from a long way off.

 

buses were available right away. the cruise director was touting shuttle tickets from the first afternoon aboard (total of $24 for 2 people roundtrip). easy purchase - just complete a form at reception, drop it in a box and they're in your stateroom that night / next day.

 

if you want to go to town that's your only option - or a taxi - didn't investigate that i'm afraid, but did see people using them.

 

people started to head in right away. we waited until about 2000. at that point lots of people were going out and coming back too.

 

the town is interesting - lots of old narrow streets. very pleasing on the eye. there are some small markets with local jewellery and trinkets. DW spent a fair bit on local craft jewellery.

 

after about 2100 it got a good bit busier - just starting to get dark. we had bar touts trying to convince us to try their "2 for 1"s, etc.

 

we didn't find any particularly interesting restaurants, but that's probably because we eren't looking hard enough.

 

we had a beer, stayed in town until about 1030 then went back to the ship and ate at Johnny Rockets.

 

on return to the ship there were loads of younger people heading into town and probably a lot of crew members too. i gather there's a great club scene.

 

we're happy to sit in a bar till 2am drinking and enjoying music and conversation, but not into the club scene so a late night in Ibiza Town didn't appeal to us.

 

the ship was scheduled to leave Ibiza about 0500 and when we woke early the next morning we were sailing (albeit very slowly) with no land in sight so it must have gone according to plan more or less.

 

one thing to note is that this cruise was advertised in the original RCCI brochure as docking in Palma Majorca, so your itinerary may be subject to change.

 

 

thanks

P&S

[raffles]

Hi

Thanks for your review - we were on the same cruise and it was interesting to see someone else's opinion. We have sailed RCI (and other cruiselines) several times therefore I was able to make comparisons.

 

We flew from Edinburgh on Globespan the day before staying at the Continental Hotel which was fine for one night. We hoped to get to the pier by 10.30 but got carried away sightseeing and didn't get there until just after 12 noon where the lines stretched out to the door including a very long line for platinum & suites. I think the lines for non-setsail pass were probably shorter but it was difficult to tell as it was just a mass of people. We waited an hour or so and our cabin was ready by the time we got on board. Four of us had only just got back from a short cruise on the Independence but we also got a good deal which we couldn't resist so we left husbands at home and had an extra girls break. We booked a guarantee inside and were allocated a large oceanview stateroom on the bow of the ship which was very spacious and the long walk was good exercise!

 

Re the dining room - we had requested a table for 2 and were assigned a table for 12; over an hour later a Turkish couple with young son turned up so that made 5 sitting at this very large table. Conversation was difficult with much hand waving and face pulling then we all gave up as it was too much effort. On the way out the head waiter approached us and asked if we wanted to move to another table, I said I thought that would be rather rude but he said he would put us at a table with an American couple and 2 British girls. The next night (formal night) we turned up at our new table for 6 and were the only ones who did. Never mind, the food was ok. My friend prefers to eat in the Windjammer so we had agreed to 2 nights in each dining room. Despite what other cruisers have had to say re the food in the Windjammer we thought it was pretty poor. So very disappointing after the excellent food on the Indy. After a few small samples of a couple of dishes we usually managed to get something but it was a pretty miserable selection and the quality was not (in my opinion) anywhere near the standard we have experienced on other RCI cruises. I do believe that as there were so many different nationalities they were trying to cater for different tastes which must be difficult to judge.

 

We thought the Ibiza stop was silly - docking at 17.30 and departing at 6am and sailing at a snails pace the following day was such a waste. Some cynics said we were a captive audience and had to spend on board - my husband reckons it was more to do with port charges. Whatever the reason it was beautiful day and allowed us to completely relax, watch the line dancing & belly dancing lessons and get blisters where the suncream didn't reach :o

 

After the fabulous Indy I was prepared for the Navigator to look a bit jaded but I was pleasantly surprised. I thought it was in very good condition with beautiful public areas. We did think that the production shows were good with some very good female singers; the last night show was probably the best. We wished we hadn't bothered going to see Charlie Chaplin on the first night. The ice show was up to the usual standard if not better and it was nice to see one of the skaters was from Scotland.

 

The staff as always were excelent, couldn't fault anyone and they were suitability rewarded in addition to our pre-paid tips. One funny thing happened on our last morning: The last night after the show we went to the Viking Crown to have one last cocktail then went to guest relations to finalise our (cash) account and make sure the drink had been included. The next morning we got a phone call to say there was an outstanding balance on the account. We checked the statement and said we were paid up to date however the $5 tip on the last drink had not been included - it appears they calculate the tips separately from the bar slip and the $5 was outstanding - to our horror we discovered that we had been "named and shamed" over the public announcement system before they called our cabin!! :eek: We could not hear any announcements in the cabin so were not aware we were in debt. It was quickly sorted and we will be sure to make sure the final tip is in cash the next time :o

 

Apart from the disappointing food in Windjammer we had a great time and loved the ship. My husband and I have another 3 cruises booked including the Navigator for next year to keep a promise to take our young grandson on a cruise. We would have preferred the Indy again but the only short cruises on her is the Ireland one and we don't want to do that again (4 or 5 nights with a 3 year old is enough for us thank you very much) :D

 

I would certainly recommend the Navigator to anyone but will probably book the speciality restaurants next time.

[stringo]

Paul,

 

I just wanted to leave a note of thanks for your clear, concise and informative review. My DB and I have sailed a few times and I am always interested in fellow travellers views on the different cruiselines. I was particularly alarmed to note that there appeared to be no sanitizing available to passengers. Having sailed with RCI previously, I do not recall that this was an issue. However, given that cruise ships are susceptible to fast, widespread infection such as the Norovirus ( I can recount a first hand tale of DB's suffering) , I would suggest that this has been a serious error on the part of RCI.

On a more positive note, I was happy to read that you had managed to avoid the shameful experience of being sent to the " naughty room " - we fellow " alcohol smugglers " must remain steadfast to the cause ( of course I write with tongue in cheek, before I offend anyone who disapproves ). It has to be said - there is some joy to be found in the search for the wine with " no foil bladder"

I do have to disagree with one previous comment that you and your DW did not appear to be " party people " - I note that you enjoy partaking of the night until late on occasion - just because you do not carouse and sing in the karaoke until the wee small hours of the morning (as my dear DB & I are, occasionally partial to! ) - does not warrant the label. Each to their own!!

I look forward to reading your full review soon,

 

Stringo :)

 

" The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page "

[Boo Boo]

Hi

 

We (me and husband in one cabin, mother-in-law & father-in-law in another, sister-in-law & brother-in-law in another, and Grandma & uncle in another) were on the same cruise.

 

We flew in from Heathrow and spent 3 nights at the Hotel Arts before the cruise.

 

Embarrassingly, we didn't get off at the ports of call. I was too shattered at Villefrance and we are not "night birds" so didn't get off at Ibiza either.

 

To me the Windjammer lunch selection seemed to have a more "British" slant to it: I stuck to the pizza and salad for lunch which was hard to fault. Breakfast there was just fine and we enjoyed 3 nights in the Dining Room (all of us on a table for 8) and 1 night in Portifino.

 

It was a funny cruise: many of the activities were cancelled (we turned up to "towel folding" to find it not happening, same happened with a number of the sporting activities).

 

The ship was beautiful, although our cabin was showing a bit of age (compared with the Liberty last October and the Mariner the Autumn before). Nothing bad, just not as "sparklely new" as our previous cruises...

 

Our cabin attendant did something similar the first night: I think that he actually "turned the cabin down" (in a less rigourous way) during the Muster Drill... no big deal to us, but felt a bit rushed and not as careful as usual (i.e. no towel animal). Interesting that you noticed it too. I am guessing that the cabin stewards were trying to finish a bit earlier that night (maybe something going on).

 

My slight gripe was no champagne (by the glass) available in the dining-room OR Portifno (just the rather rough Korbel :( ). I drank the Korbel the first couple of nights ( :( ). Managed to get the server at Portifino's to get me a glass of Mumm from the Champagne Bar on the 3rd night. On the fourth night I went to the Champagne Bar before dinner and bought a glass of Moet to take into dinner with me... Wish that I had come up with that idea sooner!

 

Good short cruise (and free for us - in-laws paying for it for the mother-in-law's 60th :) ) and it has now encouraged us into booking another RCCL cruise for later this year... :) (am currently trying to work out which one!)

 

Boo