Navigator review/Dec 14-19th/long/pics

[Sandienyc]

We are taking our first RC cruise on February 13th- love your review. You mentioned that you had 'rum runners' in your bag- I assume you are alluding to sneaking booze on ship. Did you put this in your carry on or checked luggage. I would like to take some gin on the sly. And like you I am sure we will have quite a bar bill even if I do get some liquid on board. You also mentioned the cooler and pepsi- did you bring that your self or buy it on the ship? I would like to have some tonic and I'm not sure if it would be included in the soda package- they do no mention specifics. I assume that I will not be able to bring any wine on as that will be too obvious.

[bigkid27]

Great review, I am an Atlanta Native, but moved to Jacksonville, FL a few years ago...closer to the cruise PORTS.

 

I am cruising on the 4-night NOS on 1/7.

 

Does anyone know if the 4 night cruise has Lobster night??

 

Thanks,

[dolfandude]

We are taking our first RC cruise on February 13th- love your review. You mentioned that you had 'rum runners' in your bag- I assume you are alluding to sneaking booze on ship. Did you put this in your carry on or checked luggage. I would like to take some gin on the sly. And like you I am sure we will have quite a bar bill even if I do get some liquid on board. You also mentioned the cooler and pepsi- did you bring that your self or buy it on the ship? I would like to have some tonic and I'm not sure if it would be included in the soda package- they do no mention specifics. I assume that I will not be able to bring any wine on as that will be too obvious.

I purchased a collapsible soft sided cooler this summer from K Mart of all places for $15! It expands to hold about 8 cans with ice easily. I have a wheeled duffle type bag with all my cruise necessities and it goes in there. I always put my Rum Runners in my checked suitcase. The last three cruises we've taken a medium size suitcase (24" maybe) and put our Pepsi and other beverages in and checked it. That way we'll have an empty suitcase for whatever we buy or just to have a little more space. The clothes tend to "grow" after you wear them:eek: so this helps also!

[dolfandude]

DAY FOUR – BELIZE

 

One important point I forgot to mention was the morning of our arrival in Cozumel we were instructed to move our clocks back one hour (to CST) at 2am. This synced the ships time with the local time. FYI.

We had decided not to do an excursion in Belize and just go ashore for an hour or so and spend the day onboard the ship, something we’d never done before. I had read how the ship seems empty with everyone going on excursions in Belize. It’s a port where either you take a bus an hour or two away to see the Mayan ruins or do cave tubing or take a boat excursion for snorkeling or diving. A few short years ago the government built a tourist village that is fenced in and separated from the actual town of Belize City. This was done to protect the tourists from some suspect individuals that frequent this poor town. EVERYONE advises you not to go outside the gates unless you’re in a large group! Typically, we like to “see how the locals live” and explore. So much for that in Belize!

We set anchor at 7am. You had to go to the Ixtapa lounge on deck 5 to get your tender tickets. Then an announcement will tell you when your ticket number boards. It’s typically no more than 20 minutes or so. Before going ashore I called the MTD guy and changed our reservation back to 7pm as we’d be back onboard early afternoon. We didn’t leave the ship until 10:30 and by that time you didn’t need a ticket. No ticket is needed for your return trip. Most folks are long gone by 9am to meet their excursion leaders.

 

It was a very windy day so as we waited for the tender boat to fill we wondered how bumpy the ride would be. It takes about 20 minutes to get to Belize City from where the ship anchors. We had five ships anchored around us. The ride was fine. As we moved further away from our ship it looked like an armada was anchored offshore!

 

Belize has no cruise ship dock and has very shallow waters just offshore and that’s why the cruise ships have to anchor so far away.

 

The tourist village has some interesting shops and the usual Diamonds International (Is there a cruise ship port that doesn’t have this store?).

 

There’s an area with about six flea market style booths with tee shirts and such. We bought a pirated version of the new Twilight New Moon movie for $5! We did the same thing in Nassau over the summer with the Harry Potter movie. Both turned out to be exact copies like what you’d buy in our stores except you cannot get them because they weren’t for sale yet when we bought them!! There’s a couple of knock off purse stores also. Good fakes if you’re into that. Please don’t flame me for this. If you do you might get a very spirited comment back!

 

I purchased a bottle of a local rum crème and tried the local beer Belikin. Not bad! It’s a pilsner with a nice hoppy flavor. I think I’ll have another! There’s a tasting station for the liquors right on the dock outside where the liquor shop is. The liquor shop is just a very small corner with a limited selection. Prices were a little higher than on the ship for brand names.

I purchased a couple bottles of Marie Sharps hot sauce from one of the shops. I actually tried it a couple nights ago and both the green habanero and hot red habanero sauce are excellent! I’ll be ordering more online in the future. It’s made in Belize and is very tasty.

 

We stayed about 2 hours and caught the tender back to the ship.

This is the tender boat that took us back to the ship.

 

Once back, we headed to Johnny Rockets again! Cheeseburger in Paradise! The ship being my paradise! It was 1:30 and they didn’t open until 2pm! We headed around the corner to the empty pool deck and relaxed on the lounge chairs for 20 minutes.

The service at Johnny Rockets was great. Same waitress as before. Gail from Martinique.

The manager also came over and talked with us. We used our Crown and Anchor 2 for 1 milkshake coupon for the girls. I just love watching them dance. Some of them are really bad but they try sooo hard! Gotta love that!

I thought you might like to see the "extras" menu.

 

Yesterday I forgot to mention that right outside the WJ was a table with a masseuse from the ships spa. She was giving “sample” massages! Oh yeah! That’s me! I actually planned on purchasing spa treatments for my daughters for today. I had heard that the spa offered specials while the ship was in port. What we got was a one hour combination massage and facial for both daughters for $99 each. I also used a 10% off Crown and Anchor coupon. I wasn’t sure that they’d accept it since it was a “special” but they did! The girls scheduled their time for 5pm today.

While in port the shops onboard are closed. We headed down to the Royal Promenade anyway. We sat in the Two Poets English Pub for a while sipping a cold adult beverage!

It was very relaxing.

The girls headed out to the pool deck to catch some rays.

 

 

Being on deck 8 makes it really convenient for getting on the internet. So much so that I didn’t take my laptop out of the room. I wrote the first two days of this review while in the room! Anyway, DW went back to the room and I caught up on email and Facebook!

One thing about the ship’s internet……… you have to scan your card every time when you get on the internet. YOUR card being the card you initially used to set up the account. Even though DW was in the same room as me, when she scanned her card it prompted her to set up a new account! All three girls had to use my card to access the internet. Not a big deal but you’d think that at least DW’s card was tied into mine being the same cabin. FYI….

 

I was back in the cabin by 5:30. Because we didn’t eat lunch until 2pm I decided to change our MTD to 7:30. I called and was told to call back after 6pm. I waited until 6pm and called again. The guy was rather abrupt and said they were booked solid and wouldn’t change our 7pm reservation to 7:30pm! Come on dude! 30 minutes? He wasn’t budging! Finally I just said they we’d be a little late and to please hold our table. He then said that they hold it for 20 minutes with all reservations!! So now we’re down to 10 minutes difference!

The girls came by our cabin around 6pm straight from their spa treatments. They were very pleased and relaxed! I told them they had to be ready for dinner within the hour! They were no longer relaxed! Haha! But they were ready and in our cabin at 6:50pm and we made our 7pm reservation on time after all!

 

So, for the fourth night they put us back with the first nights waiters! Earl and James.

There were many empty tables around us and all around the dining room. So much for being booked solid. In fact, though out dinner barely any tables became full. We were at a 6 top for the 4 of us. Louis, the assistant waiter on night 2 came over and did a couple magic tricks! He is very good.

Dinner was average tonight. Good but nothing over the top.

 

Tonight was the 70’s disco party on the Royal Promenade at 10:15pm. We also planned to see the guitarist at the Two Poets Pub. We heard from others how good he was. His name is David Oates. He has played with several top name country stars and toured throughout the country. A very sparse group watched his first set and when he finished I asked him a question and he proceeded to come over and talk with us for 20 minutes! A very nice man. And extremely talented. Not your average lounge guitar player. This guy could really make the acoustic electric guitar sing! And he sang popular 70’s type songs but did it with his own arrangements. Awesome! I highly recommend hearing him. My youngest asked if he knew “Stairway to Heaven” and he proceeded to laugh and tell us how, back in the day, at every audition all guitar players would be asked to play that song! He played about 30 seconds and couldn’t bring himself to finish it!! He laughed too much!

 

At 10:15 he had to stop because he was being drowned out by the disco hits blaring from the Royal Promenade’s sound system. Then Simeon our cruise director shows up in his best John Travolta white 70’s suit and the party starts! Complete with an appearance from the Village People! Well, crew sized village people! There was dancing in the street! It went on for 35 minutes. DD18 had to go to the restroom and while trying to get back to us she encountered the Village People dancing their way through the crowd and was sandwiched between them dancing all around her. She made the Cruise in Review DVD!

It was great!

I was all hyped up about going to see the Quest show but after the disco stopped DW and DD18 said they didn’t want to go! We sat and listened to David play for another hour or so and called it a night. Did I say he was awesome!

 

More to come. Four days gone…. One to go! These cruises just go soooo fast!!

[dolfandude]

Leaving the Navigator on our way to Belize City.

 

David the guitarist at the Two Poets Pub on the Royal Promenade

 

Johnny Rockets waiter getting reading to dance!

 

Disco mania on the Royal Promenade!

A view down the front of the Belize tourist village.

[cruzy-sue]

I'm curious - did you ever step foot in the Carribbean waters? I am wondering how waqrm/cold it was since I am leaving tomorrow for the same itinerary.

 

 

Thanks! I hope you read and reply tonight!

[dolfandude]

I'm curious - did you ever step foot in the Carribbean waters? I am wondering how waqrm/cold it was since I am leaving tomorrow for the same itinerary.

 

 

Thanks! I hope you read and reply tonight!

Does getting sprayed by the tender tail count? :D

No, we didn't have any beach time this cruise but we've swam at a few islands in the Eastern Caribbean this time of year and it has always been fine. More so if you're from the north! The further north you live the warmer you'll think the water is!:D

[cruzy-sue]

LOL

 

UH-OH - we live in Fort Lauderdale, FL>>>>>>

[dolfandude]

LOL

 

UH-OH - we live in Fort Lauderdale, FL>>>>>>

Oh, you're gonna freeze!! :eek::D;)

[woody73]

Terrific review. We'll be on the Navigator in a few months.

 

Woody

[dolfandude]

Terrific review. We'll be on the Navigator in a few months.

 

Woody

Thanks! I'll post the last of this long review later today. Have a great cruise! ENJOY!

Steve

[Gator0178]

I saw where they served lobster??? I thought they stopped that on anything shorter than 7 days......:confused:

[linedancer]

Loving your review. We will be on the 1/7 sailing. Did you notice if they had a good house band in the Ixtapa Lounge? They use to have the best band, but they were moved to the Oasis.

 

Looking forward to the rest of the review

 

Irene

[RayJacki]

Great review, I am an Atlanta Native, but moved to Jacksonville, FL a few years ago...closer to the cruise PORTS.

 

I am cruising on the 4-night NOS on 1/7.

 

Does anyone know if the 4 night cruise has Lobster night??

 

Thanks,

 

No - no lobster on the 4-night (we did BTB 4-night on 12/10 and 5-night on 12/14 on the Navigator)

[lleydens]

I saw where they served lobster??? I thought they stopped that on anything shorter than 7 days......:confused:

 

They served it on night 4 of the 5 nighter. It was the fisherman's plate.

[dolfandude]

Loving your review. We will be on the 1/7 sailing. Did you notice if they had a good house band in the Ixtapa Lounge? They use to have the best band, but they were moved to the Oasis.

 

Looking forward to the rest of the review

 

Irene

Sorry but we never made it there during the evening! :mad:

It's tucked away on deck 5 at the opposite end of the Royal Promenade from our dining room and we simple forgot it was there!!

Steve

[webhacker]

We ended up on the 8th deck and they’re right across the hall from us. Sweet! On the very aft of the ship though and even though we’re 8 decks up, you can still feel the propulsion system all the time! More on that later.

 

Can you give some details about this? We are booked in January and this is our first cruise. We also selected Guaranteed Interior Stateroom, so I am interested to see what you mean by this.

 

Thanks!

[Gator0178]

They served it on night 4 of the 5 nighter. It was the fisherman's plate.

 

 

SWEET! We leave in 3 days on the Navigator on the 5 nighter!

[dolfandude]

Can you give some details about this? We are booked in January and this is our first cruise. We also selected Guaranteed Interior Stateroom, so I am interested to see what you mean by this.

 

Thanks!

If you're speaking of my comment about feeling the engines, well we felt the vibrations a lot. I even felt it in the Crown Lounge! I asked the waiter about it and he gave me an answer about the elevator shafts being so close and that's why we felt the vibration. That didn't hold for my stateroom. We ended up feeling it three days/nights out of five. It wasn't really bad.... you just knew it was there if you know what I mean. Other than the first night when my wife commented that the bed felt like one of those old hotel beds that would vibrate when you put a quarter in it!:eek:

[webhacker]

If you're speaking of my comment about feeling the engines, well we felt the vibrations a lot.

 

Thanks, that's exactly what I was referring to. Maybe RC thought that was an upgraded room because you didn't have to put the quarter in? :D

[dolfandude]

DAY FIVE AT SEA

 

 

We slept in and woke up around 9am. The WJ stops serving breakfast at 10am (actually they started breaking down about 9:45am a couple of mornings). We decided not to even try and headed down to the Café Promenade for coffee and Danish.

About this time the crew was setting up tables in the Royal Promenade for the weekly tee shirt sale. 2 for $20. We usually buy 2-4 shirts when we come across this but nothing struck our eye so we headed over to the general store to shop. Ended up getting a couple of shirts for $30 and DW bought me a model of the Navigator for me for Christmas!

 

Headed over to the perfume store and bought DD22 some Chanel Chance perfume for a Christmas present. Went to pay and ended up being in line behind a female officer who was purchasing some makeup. When she was done I asked how a woman becomes a cruise ship officer. She was very talkative and told me her life’s path. I noticed her name tag said Chief Safety Officer! How convenient as I have always wanted to see the swimming pool filtration systems (I’m in the business). I had previously emailed RCL a month before the sail date to see if I could get a tour. I never received a response and had forgotten about it until now. After telling her about it she said that RCL no longer did these types of tours post 911. She did give me some answers to pool related questions that I found very interesting. I doubt you would!

 

Had lunch today at the WJ. I wasn’t really impressed with the food there again. I actually made my own creation with Thai chicken soup and added white rice from the buffet. Just not many good choices IMO.

 

A little before 1pm we walked out to the pool deck to witness the ice carving demonstration. We’ve seen this before and it’s really cool (no pun intended!). It drew a pretty good crowd and we all tried to figure out what he was attempting to make.

 

I had read on CC about the bridge viewing windows in front of the fitness center on deck 11. From where the elevators are just go outside and walk forward. It’s so cool! You can actually see inside the bridge. I find this kind of stuff really interesting. We even received a wave and a smile from the officer on deck!

 

From there we made our way down to deck 4 and went outside on the port side and walked all the way forward to the staircase. Up and a little ways more and voila! You’re on the helipad and the very front of the ship. We didn’t have much time due to a little squall coming our way. Took some pics and then headed to the cabin to do some packing.

We headed over to the Studio B Center Ice for the Ice Dancin’ show at 5pm. We got there around 4:45pm and by 5pm it was packed. This surprised me because this was the third showing (the others being day 2 and day 4). We really enjoyed this. With the rink being a little small the performers really had to know their limitations. They did great. I highly recommend seeing this. The headliners Oleksander & Tettiana were outstanding.

Dinner tonight was at 7pm. We ended up being seated all the way on the other size of the dining room from our first couple nights. Before we were seated I asked the host why we were seated in so many different stations. He said it was because we made our reservations at 7pm and not 6:30pm when most do. They couldn’t hold a table for us. Even though I noticed tables open in our first nights station twice.

 

Once seated, I overheard a couple tables talking to each and they’d been seated there all week. I felt a little confused as to who I should give our prepaid tip envelopes to. After dinner I asked our waiter what to do. She advised me that all the prepaid tips go into a pool and are split evenly. Anything above and beyond is for that person to keep. I decided to find our first nights waiters (they served us twice) and give it to Earl.

 

We decided to go back to the cabin and pack. You have to have you luggage out in the hallway between 7pm and 11pm. It was around 9pm and we originally made plans to see David Oates in the Two Poets Pub again but needed to finish packing and decided to stay in. I turned on the TV and went over our weeks ship charges. You can access this at any time during the voyage on your stateroom TV. Again, we spent way too much money!!

 

Our luggage tags indicated we would be able to leave the ship at 8:15pm Saturday morning. We awoke at 7am, got ready and headed down to the Café Promenade for coffee and Danish and to wait until we were called. Saw some folks from our CC meet & greet and exchanged cruise stories. We headed down to deck four at 8:15 and got in line to disembark. For whatever reason the line was not moving! Finally around 8:45 we got off the Navigator and proceeded to get in a very long line to clear customs. It took another 20 minutes or so. It turns out that this was the reason the line to get off the ship wasn’t moving. The port agents were only letting so many folks get off so the line for customs wouldn’t be overly long.

Overall we had another great cruise. Our third of the year! 7 total and 7 fantastic cruises on 3 different cruise lines since 2004 and we’re just getting started. I just cannot imagine what it would take to make my cruise vacation bad! I simply will not let that happen and you shouldn’t either!

 

HAPPY CRUISING! Remember …. It’s a cruise…. ENJOY.

 

Until next year………..

 

Steve

[dolfandude]

Some shops and shots from the Royal Promenade.

 

 

 

 

 

Above is inside the Two Poets Pub.

[BillOh]

Great job so far. I share your sentiment of there be nothing better than finally getting your Seapass card and heading on board and feeling like a kid at Christmas. We took the same itinerary as you and had a great time. One silly question, when we were onboard one of the two basketball backboards was missing, have they replaced it? Its one of those silly things, that it would be good to know they are keeping things up. I like to just shoot around while others have a half court game going on. That was the only negative thing I had to say about my cruise on NOS.

[ucfknight07]

dolfandude, Thanks for the great review. I was hoping to try to hop on to one of these 4/5 night cruises aboard Navigator, but we just couldn't make it. Doesn't help that we're trying to save up for our wedding at the end of July (and our honeymoon!).

 

This is off-topic, but I wanted to see if you could give me your comparison of Carnvial vs. Royal Caribbean. We've cruised with RCL before, but have not with CCL. We're trying to decide between the two for our honeymoon (well, a cruise is obviously one of the options, there are more, but I'm a little biased to cruising). I'd love to cruise with RCL, but we can get a suite aboard CCL for around the same price as a balcony stateroom on RCL. It seems like an easy choice, I'm just nervous about cruising with CCL for the first time on such a special trip. So I'm stuck between going with what I know and knowing we'll have a great time, or trying something new and hoping everything goes well (but end up with a nicer room, which is what's important when you're on your honeymoon, right!?!).

 

Sorry to hijack the thread... but appreciate your feedback!

[dolfandude]

One silly question, when we were onboard one of the two basketball backboards was missing, have they replaced it?

 

Well, I can't remember but I did take this picture of the starboard side goal. So, if it was the one missing then you have your answer.