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Just off Navigator of the Seas 9 Day Southern Caribbean Jan 5th


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Very good cruise. Will try to answer any questions anyone has.

 

Good:

Drink package was worth it. Service at the bars and on the pool deck were very good.

Photography package. Buy first 3 days at sea to save money. Was $225. Lot's of options for photos. Most photographers were very helpful and patient. They link the photos taken to room number that they enter manually on their camera system. This is very helpful for families across multiple staterooms. Can download photos manually using wifi onto your phone (nice option).

Food. Lobster/Lamb were good

Guest services was pretty good and never had to wait in line long

Big Band in the Star Lounge was excellent

Latin Band was excellent

Rock Band pretty much played whatever they wanted, don't trust the title in the cruise compass.

Kids Club - Surprised at how many kids were on cruise. Was nice for our 5 year old. Kids club was well attended.

 

 

Ok/Bad:

Food in general was just "ok". However the desserts were mostly bland and tasteless.

Ship still looks OK but it is probably a good thing that it is going into dry dock next January.

Signing up for Kid's Club "Adventure Dining" was a challenge. Only able to sign up "same day" between 9am-3pm. How are you supposed to do that when you are on shore all day? We actually had to have our stateroom attendant sign up our daughter for us. Seems rediculous.

Daytime television on the pool movie screen was lame but since it was the same area they had the bands I guess they didn't really have any good options because you can't show a movie and have a band playing. If you like Princess movies during the day this is not a good cruise for you.

 

Ugly: I wanted to do Luggage Vallet from Port of Miami to FLL. They did support it but in the fine print it was only for flights after 2pm! Ugh....

They still aren't embracing Uber/Lyft as much as they could and want you to use taxis or take bus. Uber and Lyft appear to work great here but make sure you do not request one anywhere near the taxis. Request one straight out of the exit from customs or to the right. We requested an uber xl at about 10:15 am and had one within 5 minutes! $76 to FLL in a nice big Suburban. Terminal G was where Navigator was at.

FLL was a zoo. Weren't letting people dump luggage until 2:30 before flight.

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Hi! My hubby and I are on this cruise on February 2nd. Is there a magnifying mirror in the cabin for applying make-up?

 

We had interior staterooms. No magnifying mirror in ours. The lighting in the desk area where the blow dryer is had pretty good lighting. Bathroom had good lighting too.

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Hi did you happen to keep the departure flyer?[/quote

 

I think I did. The luggage valet one or departure day one? They were seperate.

 

I think we only had until day 5 of 9 to decide luggage valet. I had to pick it up manually at guest services. Did not get one delivered to stateroom that I recall.

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Hi did you happen to keep the departure flyer?[/quote

 

I think I did. The luggage valet one or departure day one? They were seperate.

 

I think we only had until day 5 of 9 to decide luggage valet. I had to pick it up manually at guest services. Did not get one delivered to stateroom that I recall.

 

The departure day one that usually is left the final night (waiting areas, color tags, breakfast, settling accounts, etc.) Thanks

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Is there a thermal spa on navigator like on oasis of the seas (sauna, steam, hot loungers, rain showers)? And if so is it included or an upcharge?

No thermal spa, but Navigator does have saunas and steam rooms in the fitness center changing areas, no extra charge.

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What about the ship wasnt in good appearence that made that category just "OK"?

curious as I have a cruise booked right before dry dock and a little worried

 

Mostly little things are what I noticed. Some rust starting in stateroom bathroom. We had a leak somewhere in the piping near our stateroom too that made a small portion of our stateroom floor wet. They didn't fix until the last day of cruise, didn't really bother us though. Also, crack in shower door, and common to see beat up wood work and corners throughout the ship. Actually, one of our closet doors fell off the hinges but they fixed it within a couple hours. I forgot about that LOL. :D

 

Overall, I think it was not enough wear and tear to be annoying but it wasn't hard to find dents and dings just about anywhere you went. I would say that the public areas of the ship seemed to be in better shape in general than the stateroom hallways and staterooms themselves.

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Thanks so much for the review and the departure flyers. This is our first time on RC. On Celebrity, we were out of the cabin by 8 but then went to the buffet, got our breakfast and drinks, then enjoyed a seat with a view and a leisurely meal until about 9:30-10 and time to leave. Will they require us to wait in the theater/dining room? Thanks!

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We were on the same cruise.

 

We had a terrible time getting to Miami. 1:30 Flight out of Philly was on time Thursday...so we got to airport...flight on time, on time, on time, delayed, and then cancelled. American kindly rescheduled us for Sat and we told them no way, we needed to be in Miami by Fri afternoon. So, we got a 7pm flight out of DCA. Told us to go get our luggage at baggage claim. Guy there said it could take 2+ hrs to retrieve luggage due to all the cancellations. He advised us to go to DCA and our bags would be put on the next flight from Philly to MIA. Going to Philly we were headed into the storm, going to DCA, we were headed out of the storm so the 3 hr drive was not as tense. Got to DCA by 5:30. We had fortunately booked a hotel at the airport so we figured in the morning we could go back and ask about our bags. After we landed..we switched out of airplane mode and got a text that our bags were in Miami! While we could not get a seat on a later flight from Philly, our bags were able to fly. Fri morn we had to rearrange our return flights from Philly to DCA. Got it all done and headed to the ship and had 9 wonderful days/nights. We have never had a problem flying a day early...next time we might consider 2 days early!

 

One thing that was rather disappointing for us was breakfast in the Windjammer. At the aft station, They cooked the fried eggs and had them sitting on a hot table. The eggs were either too runny and/or cold. If we asked them to make us fresh eggs they pointed to the hot table.

 

The ship was well maintained but it is showing signs of wear. That makes sense since the ship will go into drydock next Jan.

 

The itinerary was fantastic. We did miss Labadee due to weather conditions but Curacao, Bonaire and Aruba were great! We got to Curacao early due to cancellation of Labadee and were able to dock overnight at the pier.

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Thanks so much for the review and the departure flyers. This is our first time on RC. On Celebrity, we were out of the cabin by 8 but then went to the buffet, got our breakfast and drinks, then enjoyed a seat with a view and a leisurely meal until about 9:30-10 and time to leave. Will they require us to wait in the theater/dining room? Thanks!

 

They do ask you to be out of the staterooms by 8am. They did have suggested waiting areas but I don't believe they are "required". They were running about 45 minutes behind schedule. We requested an earlier departure number right away when we received our luggage tags and it was granted. I think we went from 26 to 12.

 

I forgot to mention that as with most cruises I have been on the elevators are brutal gridlocked on disembark day so plan on using the stairs unless you have no other option.

Edited by zenworks911
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How busy was the pool deck? And was this an older demographic cruise as others have reported?

 

The pool deck was very quiet in the morning. We aimed to be out in the sun around 9am every sea day and had no problem finding chairs. It did get busier as the day went on.

 

I found that the cruise had an older demographic and not too many school-aged kids onboard, which makes sense as their studies should've started again. I usually go on the holiday and/or new years cruise so there was a big difference from that demographic.

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How busy was the pool deck? And was this an older demographic cruise as others have reported?

 

The pool deck (Deck 11) was quite busy from my point of view if you wanted to be around the movie screen or where the bands play. However if you didn't mind being on Deck 12, or above the Sky Bar there were usually some options.

 

The Front of the ship usually had plenty of space and was very quiet (Deck 14 I think).

 

One annoying thing for us (might be a benefit for you) was that the Sky Bar area was a smoking area. For whatever reason the wind seemed to be pretty swirly there and anywhere within 50 yards of it was too smoky for us. I think we setup 2 or 3 times at what we thought were good seats only to have to move again. Also, one side of Deck 4 outside was smoking too so make sure you are on the side that matches your preference. A number of times people light up on the wrong side. Most however did try to double-check if they were on the right side for their preference. RCI should probably put up some bigger signs.

 

I would say the crowd was younger than I expected (aka I expected an older crowd). It of course is going to be an older crowd than on a Disney Cruise or probably Carnival. I can't speak for all the Kid's clubs but the 3-5 year old kids club was very well attended and our daughter had a great time.

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I actually forgot to mention a major disappointment for us was the pizza. In my opinion it was terrible. If you have been on the Oasis of the Seas and liked Sorrentos pizza, prepare to be disappointed. This is honestly the 1st cruise I have ever taken where no matter how hard I tried I couldn't enjoy the pizza. It was that bad. No flavor and it actually made me sick to my stomach for some reason. I tried 3 times to like it (different types)!

 

To satisfy my late night cravings I started going with the sandwiches instead. While not great, they were pretty decent. I am not vegetarian but I do remember liking the vegetarian sandwich.

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