DukeASUGirl

On 5/27/2023 at 12:14 PM, NJoynCruisin said:

\Different opinions if they will have any passengers on board.  The crew members we talked to were pretty excited about the journey.

That would be pretty fantastic if they offered it as a Transpacific on either end.

On 5/15/2023 at 11:08 PM, Ashland said:

Any idea what they'll be doing? She looked great the last time we were on her.

We just disembarked on Friday and thought she looked great.

On 5/26/2023 at 4:04 PM, Mum2Mercury said:

 

- The worst part about guarantees is waiting for your room to be assigned!  Once we've done our online check-in, I get antsy about not knowing my room number, and I start checking   

- We always seem to be placed mid-ship 6th floor.  6th isn't a popular floor, but we have decided it's our favorite!  We love being one floor up from the Promenade and close to the MDR; in fact, we chose our cabin for an upcoming cruise, and we chose 6th floor.  

- We have a theory that we keep ending up mid-ship because it often costs a few dollars more than the two ends ... and people don't want to pay it, so those rooms end up being "left over" for guarantees.  

 

This is exactly where my parents were placed with their Balcony GTY on Navigator! 6th floor, midship. And they actually loved it. Quiet, easy to get to MDR, and they aren't pool people.

Since it isn't an Oasis-class, there is no such thing as a non-Oceanview Balcony on Nav, so that was never a concern. And it turns out that none of the balconies have obstructed views, either. So it worked out well for them. 

48 minutes ago, dman1 said:

We are a group of 20 boarding on Ovation this Friday. We have overlapping boarding times from 11-2:30pm.  If we all show up at the 11 time slot is it possible they will board our whole group together??

It's possible. It's also possible they'll send the rest of them to the waiting area marked for their own timeslots.

3 hours ago, Linsifer said:

Embarkation was a cinch for us, as well.  And we’re Gold.  Disembarking for self-assist was a bit chaotic, though. That was more the ship’s problem though.  Once we got off the ship, it was easy peasy in the terminal. 

If it was just me and DH (or even maybe with the kids), we would have done self-assist, but that really wasn't an option with my parents.

The disembarkation was so chaotic, both on and off the ship for us.

5 hours ago, jcc1025 said:

I understand that a new terminal out at the end of port area is in the works so that they can support bigger ships...So I think the port experience will get better, especially as the new San Pedro warf project finishes next year. 

Okay, that is really good to hear! My husband hated San Pedro so much he doesn't want to sail Royal out of CA anymore and would rather do Carnival out of Long Beach, but if there are improvements in the works that could change things. I liked Carnival - don't get me wrong. I just liked Royal better, and he agreed on all points but San Pedro. Haha

1 hour ago, AZSwissGal said:

We had the same waiter / assistant (Meckinson and Clive) on our April 28 seven night cruise and I agree they were wonderful, including greeting us by name after the first night.

They would even greet us by name when they spotted us in Windjammer for breakfast. One night, it was busy when I was placing my allergy pre-order for the next day, so they had us circle it on a photocopy of the menu, and then we left it on the table. The next morning, Meckinson saw us in the Windjammer and told me that the moussaka wouldn't be his choice (he finds it a bit dry), so he took the liberty of placing a special order for the salmon and the steak for later that night, and would bring all of them just in case.

He was so attentive!

45 minutes ago, AZSwissGal said:

We had the same waiter / assistant (Meckinson and Clive) on our April 28 seven night cruise and I agree they were wonderful, including greeting us by name after the first night.

 

In Mazatlan we did a non ship excursion and actually enjoyed that.  We were driven out into the countryside to some of the villages out there and got see some of the arts and crafts, like making tiles, adobe bricks for building houses and stopped at a bakery where we bought some yummy pastry fresh out of the wood oven for dirt cheap.  We did spend a little bit of time driving through the city and ate at a beach front restaurant.  There were only four of us on this excursion, another mother /daughter duo.  I was surprised they didn't cancel the tour.

 

In Puerto Vallarta we did a ship's tour.  My daughter had wanted to do the horseback riding tour you guys did.  Unfortunately for her, I was over the age limit:(  We were very disappointed in the first part of the excursion (too much selling). Also there were too many people.  Two buses full and what really irked us, the mixed Royal and Carnival passengers on this tour.  It improved with a lunch at a beachside restaurant and got better with a tequila tasting and a show depicting some of the history.  The show was actually pretty good.

 

Sorry I kind of hijacked your review.

Hijack away! I'm glad to read it. 

Wish we'd planned something like you did for Mazatlan. That sounds really nice!

11 minutes ago, edrussell said:

Just off Grandeur for 7 days, with 3 sea days.  ZERO issues with finding loungers any time of the day.  Some obvious chair hogs, but not too bad.

 

I never had trouble finding a lounger at any time of day on Navigator last week. It might not have been in the exact spot I wanted, but I always got something, and usually could even find an empty clam shell as well.

The Solarium was usually packed, but the upper pool deck generally always had empty loungers and was still far enough away from the main pool to be relaxing, in my opinion. I don't want to be right in front of the pool.

On 5/26/2023 at 2:39 PM, vjmatty said:

That being said, the bigger problem was people parking at tables all day near the cafe even if they weren’t eating. If you wanted to run up to the solarium for a drink and a slice of pizza or sandwich you had to either stand or go back to your room. 

Same thing on Navigator last week, as well as in the library/card room. People would plop down for hours, so nobody else could get a chance.

Puerto Vallarta:

We thought this stop was great!

Split up this day - husband and I took the teenager on a horseback riding excursion while my parents took the 11-yr-old to a Fiesta because minimum age for horses was 12 and max age 70.

I only have personal experience with the horseback excursion, so I won't talk about the Fiesta excursion, although they said it was fun and the food was good.

Our tour guide was Gerry, who took us to Hacienda Dona Engracia, where we were geared up and met our horses. We rode through a country road to the rolling hills of the Sierra Madres and the jungle by the banks of the Rio Mascota. We crossed the river twice before arriving at La Dolce Vista, where we took a break to swim bareback on our horses one at a time. That was SO much fun, and the river was such a refreshing break. The water was nice and cool, but not freezing like we were thinking it would be. After swimming with the horses and then by ourselves, we saddled back up again and rode back to the hacienda, where we were treated to a lunch of homemade tortillas, tacos (choice of chicken, pork, or steak), and quesadillas, and an open bar with unlimited beer, margaritas, and soda.

After lunch it was time for the tequila tasting tour. I joined in, while my husband lagged back at the lunch table having another beer and more tacos, and my daughter shopped. The peach tequila was phenomenal and I'm kicking myself for not buying any. But my parents bought 2 bottles of mango tequila on their tour, so I'm sure I'll get to try that sometime.

After we returned to port around 1, my daughter begged to go shopping at the mall across the street, but was disappointed not to find any stores she liked. It really catered to middle-aged or older women. So we walked to the nearest beach for a little while (probably should have hailed a cab to go further away from cruise terminal, but it was already 2 by then and we needed to be back by about 5 so we didn't want to go too far), then went back to the ship to do waterslides and FlowRider while waiting for parents and son to return.

All in all, a great day!

Itinerary always for us, with the exception of this past fall when we were supposed to sail on Harmony (but had to cancel due to hurricane). Only reason we chose this ship was because our daughter's skating coach was in the show, but when we couldn't go, Royal gave us FCC.

Coach's contract was ending, and we wouldn't be able to make it there before she left, so we decided to just do a different itinerary/ship instead. We ended up picking Navigator because it was easy for us to get to (could drive instead of fly), and we'd never seen any of those Mexican Riviera ports, whereas half of our group had done those exact Eastern Caribbean ports before on Harmony. The entire point of sailing Harmony was to see the coach skate, but if she wasn't going to be there anymore, we did something else.

Navigator is technically a "smaller ship" (capacity 4000), and it doesn't have the aqua show or ziplining, but we really enjoyed it. iSkate show on Nav is the best of the entire fleet, and we also enjoyed their other activities and entertainment as well.

22 minutes ago, NJoynCruisin said:

 We sailed out of Tampa in Dec.  Ships couldn't get to port due to heavy fog.  Hours of delays with little to no communications from RCI.  Finally got to ship at 9, waited in line 90 min.  Boarded at 11 pm with a 11 am check in.  Imagine 2 ships embarking and disembarking simultaneously.  

That sounds horrendous.

20 minutes ago, crzndeb said:

Porters kept going up to cars pulling up, rather than getting luggage from the long line of people. I had never seen anything like it, and I have sailed from many ports, including international ones.

YES! That's exactly it! We unloaded our two cars at the curb, with a HUGE pile of luggage (5 checked bags for each of our two cabins, so a total of 10 checked bags) plus we were standing there with our carry-ons, and my dad and husband swung around to park the cars and we still couldn't find a porter by the time they'd finished parking and came back. They would walk right past us and help people who had just arrived.

I would call out to ask for assistance, and the porters would rush by "Sorry, I'm full" and would never return. I finally said something like "ARE YOU KIDDING ME? That car just got here, and we've been standing around for 20 minutes already!" so a porter helping a couple who'd just arrived told us to wait right there and he'd be back. And he kept his promise. 

But I was beginning to think we were invisible or something. It was crazy!

4 minutes ago, Husky1987 said:

We've always been underwhelmed by Mazatlan as well.

The 3-day on Navigator goes to Ensenada, and the 4-day goes to Ensenada and Catalina Island. Wish they'd do one of those instead of Mazatlan. Either would be better, in my opinion. 

Mazatlan:

It was 96 degrees and very humid. Quite a change from the 50s and 60s we had in LA on embarkation day, and from the dry 100s we currently have in Phoenix.

This was our least favorite port, and if we ever do this cruise again, I'll either research better or just stay on the ship. We went to the old historic center, which proved to be not much more than the cathedral (which admittedly was gorgeous) and a nice big plaza. 

We shopped in El Mercado for a bit, but everyone was hot and underwhelmed and just wanted to go back to the ship. Discussions with other passengers showed that this seemed to be #3 on everyone's list. All the ship's shore excursions that were of interest to us had been sold out for months, so I figured we would just explore on our own because all the blogs I'd read said it was such a charming old Spanish city, but we found it to be crowded, dirty, and hot.

So we did waterslides for the rest of the afternoon.

9 hours ago, Ashland said:

Sorry you had a bad experience at San Pedro. It's our home port (45 min drive) and we sail as often out of it as we can. Perhaps it makes a difference as we use the suite check in line and it couldn't be easier.

That's probably the difference.

We've sailed out of Long Beach a few times, and it's like night and day. Long Beach is a much better terminal - much more streamlined and organized. Almost to the point where my husband wants to sail on Carnival again next time, despite liking the food and entertainment better on Royal.

I wouldn't go that far, but it was noticeably more chaotic and disorganized.

Medical clinic:

Wish we didn't need to utilize this area of the ship, but we did. Daughter ended up having an allergic reaction to a package of cookies she bought at OXXO in Cabo. She bought 2 flavors, and of course the ingredients were in Spanish. One package clearly read safe, but for the other, it seems that the actual "contains" warning (the "may contain" read safe) was sort of hidden under the flap. You had to actually break the seal to be able to fully read it, which you can't do until you've bought it. So that's why I missed the "CONTIENE: nuez" portion of the label.

That was entirely my fault for not catching it in the store, but she still shouldn't have just ripped into the package in the cabin without rechecking the label. But she'd already consumed two packages of the orange flavor safely, so I guess she assumed the strawberry one was also safe.

Within moments of eating the first cookie, she complained that her lips and tongue felt weird, which is always an early warning sign. My husband just wanted to give Benadryl and watch, but I grabbed the package and then clearly saw "contiene nuez" and my heart sunk. So we epi'ed.

I dialed 911 on the house phone as he was injecting her, but he told me to hang up. Within 10 seconds, we got a call back from the bridge asking if everything was okay. They told me to bring her to the medical clinic and asked if we could walk her or if we needed a wheelchair. I didn't want to wait for the wheelchair, so we walked, but of course the elevators were the slowest they ever were the entire trip.

She was quite pale when we arrived on Deck 1, but her color returned within the next 20 minutes. Her oxygen was always good, which doctor and nurses attribute to the quick injection of epi. They observed her for about 90 minutes, then discharged us with Benadryl and prednisone. 

They were all concerned that it had been the ship's food, but we assured them it was not. We made the mistake of buying packaged food in Mexico.

About an hour later we all went to see the final showing of iSkate: Reach for the Stars. Real fun final day at sea.

But the doctors and nurses were very nice and helpful. They didn't have a Spanish speaker in the clinic at the time to translate the package label, but a stop at Guest Services confirmed that "nuez" is walnut, which is actually the last nut she reacted to (again with the stupid cookies - she was SO much better about reading labels and avoiding baked goods when she was younger, but now that she's a teenager she seems to have lost her brain).

We went to lunch after the skating show, and when she sat down at the table in the Windjammer, she had a plate full of cookies. Seriously?! 

Not that I recommend doing this, but actually nobody was checking the tender tickets. We easily could have walked onto an earlier tender if we'd wanted. I thought maybe it was just the later groups that they didn't check, but folks who had early numbers said the same.

So in reality, we probably could have been ashore an hour earlier if we'd cheated.

Cabo:

We loved this port, and wish we'd had more time there. Ship arrives at 12:30 and by the time they were cleared by customs, began the tendering process about 12:50-ish.

Tickets were being distributed on Deck 4 dining room from 10-noon. I dined with my parents in Deck 3 dining room for breakfast and figured I'd just run upstairs at the time. Got to desk where they were handing out the tickets at 10:03 and was already up to Tender #23.

In retrospect, I realize now that the people lined up outside the dining room at 7:45 were lining up for tender tickets. I'd just assumed they were waiting for the breakfast to open (which would be weird since breakfast was on Deck 3, not 4). 

We got ashore about 2:15, and were supposed to check in for our private shore excursion (arch and snorkeling with Roger's Glass Bottom Boats) at 2:45, but we didn't get there until 3 because people (translation: dad, mom, kids) needed to use the restroom before we managed to get a pedicab. So we didn't get into the pedicab until 2:42. We should have gotten to the meeting spot about 8 minutes earlier than we did, except that the driver of the cab I was in with the kids (husband was with my parents in the other one) decided to take us to his friend's silver store instead. I kept telling him no, but he told us it wouldn't be an extra charge and he would wait for us to shop. I said no, we have a tour, and finally after much argument he agreed to bring us to where we'd asked. I'm fairly confident we circled back at least once, which means he brought us WAY out of our way, making us even later than we would have been.

We arrived at 3, only to discover that this was only one of 3 potential check-in kiosks, but that the tour folks who needed to check us in weren't there. So they walked us through the entire mall to find the actual one, outside the mall on the harbor side - not sure why the pedicab driver didn't just take us there in the first place. (I showed him the print-out with instructions.) My mom left the scooter on the ship, so she was walking with a cane through the mall and almost gave up several times.

We finally got to the correct kiosk at 3:15, and since it was a private tour booked just for us, they decided to use the time to refuel the boat and just begin at 3:30 instead. We still got 2 hours, which was really nice and unexpected. I really assumed we would just lose a portion of the time and would have been okay with that.

The tour itself was fantastic. Flat price for 6 passengers, and included snorkeling and then a sightseeing cruise. My parents stayed on the boat while the rest of us snorkeled, or at least tried to. 11-yr-old wimped out about 2 minutes in. 13-yr-old swam out to the rocks with me but was a little freaked out because when she adjusted her mask she got salt water in her eyes, so she mostly just swam and didn't actually snorkel.

Husband and I actually snorkeled. It wasn't as vibrant or colorful as snorkeling in the Caribbean, but there were a lot of fish over by the rocks. Water was surprisingly warm.

After about 30-45 minutes or so, we got back into the boat and dried off while the captain drove us over to El Arco. The interpreter explained what we were seeing, while he took over 80 photos of us and the rocks.

When it was over, they took us right back to the cruise port when we told them that's where were would ultimately be going. We had just enough time to wander around a little bit and shop before heading back to the tender line. One was right there, and we didn't have to wait at all.

In all, the ship was "in port" for 7 1/2 hours, but our group was only ashore for about 4 hours, of which a big part of that time was spent trying to get to where our tour left. I loved the service, but if we did it again, we would just book one right off the pier when we got off the tender. I thought I was being smart by booking ahead of time with a company I found online, but the hassle in getting to their launch spot wasn't worth it. It would have been fine if it was just me, husband, and the kids, but we couldn't exactly ask my almost 80-yr-old parents to walk that. Maybe my dad, but definitely not my mom, who had to leave her scooter on the ship.

El Arco rock formation was beautiful, and we loved the snorkeling/swimming. Definitely a fun afternoon. Just wish we had more time in port. 

About what time did this happen? We didn't even know about it until we got the letter on our door later that evening, but I guess the people who were onboard and heard the announcements were freaked out.

Teen Club:

After eating lunch at Windjammer on embarkation day, the kids started itching to meet other kids their age, and asked to head to the clubs, so I told them I'd take them over. We began at Adventure Ocean, where I assumed my 11-yr-old would have to stay.

It's a smaller ship, so Adventure Ocean is just one big facility, without separate areas by age group, so when the brand-new elementary school graduate went inside, he immediately said "This is for babies." He found the video game corner while I spoke with a counselor, and was disappointed to discover that there was no controller - apparently they take away the controllers most of the time except for the first 30 minutes of the morning. Oh, heck no. There was no way a kid who had just had his "clap out" the day before and who will be starting middle school in the fall was going to stand for that.

When I spoke to the counselor to sign him up, she asked how old the kids were. I explained that I was only there for my 11-yr-old because the 13-yr-old would be in Teen Club, and she then told me we had a choice - we could put our son in Adventure Ocean's 9-11 age group (which is actually in the same large room as the littles), or put him in the Teen Club. Apparently they let 11-yr-olds choose on ships that don't have a dedicated space for tweens. She recommended we start with Adventure Ocean and give it a try, and if he decided it was too babyish, then move him to The Living Room, but he wasn't having it. 

So off to the Living Room we go!

Got them both signed up with bracelets, and learned that this would be the one and only time I could come inside. LOL

Both kids went on the first night after dinner at 8 pm for the 411 session and to meet people. After the intro, all the girls left, so my daughter felt awkward. But that didn't last long when a 15-yr-old boy asked her to hang with him and his brother. He asked how old she was, and the 13-yr-old said "Yes!" and fist-pumped when she answered she was 13. I came across them later on the ship, and wondered where her brother was.

I guess I needn't have asked, because he quickly became one of the "video game kids" who literally would hang out in that same corner for hours at a time. When they weren't playing, they were watching other kids.

Son loved The Living Room. Daughter thought it was kinda boring.

I carried both bottles of wine in my beach bag - husband didn't have any. I was never questioned as to why I had 2, nor did anyone ask me who I was sailing with. To be honest, I probably could have had 2 in my beach bag and 2 in my backpack, and husband also have 2 and nobody would have questioned it.

This was San Pedro.

10 minutes ago, neverbeenhere said:

enjoying the review, 
 

Not to be a thorn in your side, but what your did on the night of Mazatlan was what folks are trying to do on embarkation day. Show up early-get in early. 

No, I definitely agree with you on that, and wasn't intending to go early but my parents/kids were all complaining that they were hungry so we decided to just swing by the dining room to see if there was any way to get in. And I flat out told the reservation desk I knew we were early so if it wasn't possible I totally understood, and we could just go sit on deck and listen to music for a little bit. But they said they had an empty table just sitting there, so we decided to take it. However, I'm not sure how much earlier we ended up eating anyway, due to the search for the special order ticket on the wrong deck.

So I let the complaining people (in my family) know the next day that we needed to stick to 6:45.

I have a bit of a headache, so will continue tomorrow.