Navigator of the Seas 12.8.2012 Pictoral Review

[The Flying Pirate]

There was only free wine and champagne, anything else you get a 25% discount.

 

Navigator won't get a full diamond lunge until 2014.

 

I have always thought that was a bit odd that on the ships with the Diamond lounge you get a much better deal as far as what is provided than the ships that just have the nightly event.

[cruiseclues]

Thank you for your excellent photo review...great photos. We really appreciate your posting of the Navigator Cruise Compass. :)

[Meredith9880]

Just wanted to say thanks for the wonderful review and pictures! We are sailing on the Navigator this Saturday and this got me so excited for our trip!

[JayinAZ]

Fabulous review and pics! Thank you for taking the time to do this. I will be on NOTS in 55 more days and am also staying at the Hilton Riverside. Time seems to move very slow when you're waiting for the next cruise!

[papaflamingo]

I have always thought that was a bit odd that on the ships with the Diamond lounge you get a much better deal as far as what is provided than the ships that just have the nightly event.

 

First what a great review... thanks. I believe (don't hold me to this) that all ships are getting a Diamond Lounge in re-fit. That will certainly make the happy hour more consistent. Since the nightly event is held in a bar (generally the Viking Crown Lounge, there seems no reason that they can't offer full bar on every ship. Oh well, the re-fit will take care of that.

 

Oh....again... thanks for the great review and:

 

WAR DAMN EAGLE!

[Elcruzer]

After spending some relaxing time on the balcony, we took our time getting ready and went to dinner and the show.

 

I purposefully waited until now to mention the main dining room. For the first time in years, we decided to do traditional dining instead of MTD. We picked the 8PM dining since we haven't tried that in a while. If I had remembered that it gets dark early in the winter time when we booked the cruise, I would have chosen the early dining. Usually cruising in the summer, we usually dine between 7PM and 9PM, so that we can stay out in the sun as long as possible and not miss the sunset at dinner. However, the sun went down between 5 and 6PM every night on the trip. It was a lack of planning on my part, but between eating in Chops and Portofino and a couple of nights in the Windjammer, it made little difference.

 

Back to the topic. This is going to be my only complaint of this cruise :o. I hate to bring it up because we had such a great time overall. The dining room was a big disappointment. I have learned to take cruise dining room food with a grain of salt over the years, accepting that the quality seems to go down every year, but this was worse than anticipated. Every night of the cruise it took over two hours, excluding dessert and coffee, and the food was well below par. The food was never cooked to order, was cold for the most part, and the service was terrible, which honestly wasn't the wait staff's fault. They had far too many tables to keep track of. I actually felt bad for them. We never did know who our assistant waiter was because we had different waiters deliver our bread and drinks almost every night (actually our water, we were never offered wine or any other drinks...)

 

Anyways, I won't harp on that because it was a small part of our vacation.

 

 

We enjoyed two nights in Portofino, one night in Chops, and two nights in the Windjammer because we were less than satisfied with the MDR.

 

On a positive note, as I said before, Chops and Portofino were wonderful. The Windjammer was also above average. After a lot of cruises on Royal Caribbean, we don't feel like we are missing out if we spend a couple of nights in the WJ. It was a quiet atmosphere, with an wide variety of better quality food than we found in the MDR.

 

 

The shows were decent throughout the week, but due to our dining times, we only made it to a few of them.

 

 

 

 

Was it because of late dining that you missed shows?

[kruzerci]

Was it because of late dining that you missed shows?

 

No, we just didn't go to many of them.

[sand on my feet]

Love your review, we are leaving from New Orleans 1-26-13, it will be our first time to leaving from there, your pictures and comments are great, now I am even more excited.:)

[drewmo]

Thank you for this review. We leave in about 40 days and I cannot wait to get on this ship!

[luvscruising2007]

Friday (Pre-Cruise):

We drove down from Birmingham on Friday morning with reservations at the Hilton- New Orleans Riverside. We left a little behind schedule, but arrived in New Orleans at around 4 PM. We checked into the Hilton and got settled into our room shortly after.

The Hilton- New Orleans Riverside is perfect for a pre-cruise stay. It is literally within walking distance from the cruise terminal and has plenty of venues (bars, restaurants, and shops) within the hotel for those who aren’t familiar or aren't looking to venture around New Orleans the night before a cruise. We received a 2 queen bed nonsmoking room, which was fine for the night. One note about this hotel--- It is huge! Three buildings and over 1300 rooms. It was a long, long, long walk from the parking garage to our room in building three. Our room was plenty big enough for two and seemed relatively modern, but the big plus was that it looked directly over the Mississippi River.

Thank you so much for this review. I have been researching a cruise leaving from NO and I am intrigued by the Hilton. Is it really within walking distance of the pier? We generally have 2 rolling duffels and a rolling garment bag, plus a carryon. Also, how far is Bourbon Street?

I am very excited about booking this cruise now. Thanks again.

[mtsublueraider]

Thank you so much for this review. I have been researching a cruise leaving from NO and I am intrigued by the Hilton. Is it really within walking distance of the pier? We generally have 2 rolling duffels and a rolling garment bag, plus a carryon. Also, how far is Bourbon Street?

I am very excited about booking this cruise now. Thanks again.

 

 

I am loyal to Hilton because of work travel, but we settled on the Embassy Suites. We are a family traveling and it's MUCH cheaper than the Hilton was in our opinion.... and we have just one room booked but because it's an ES we are able to shut the door and have two seperate sleeping areas. That on top of the free happy hour and nice free breakfast is a winner in our book. It is also within walking distance of the port, but not as close at the Hilton is.

[kruzerci]

Luvscruising2007-

 

Are you driving or flying? It is definitely within walking distance, we saw people doing it, but with a lot of luggage, I wouldn't recommend it. If you don't have your car, I'd pay a few bucks for a cab (or they may have shuttles?) I would guess it would be a 5 or 6 minute walk, but there's no really good way to walk there from the Hilton, you'll see what I mean when you get there, because the hotel is so big and the roads are so awkward right there.

 

It was maybe a ten minute walk from Bourbon Street, but it was so dark and foggy that night, we got a little lost and it probably took us twenty minutes... Not a place you want to get lost in the dark foggy weather :eek:!

 

The Hilton is perfect for a pre cruise stay, though! We would do it again.

[bryant323]

kruzerci,

 

Many thanks for the time you put forth uploading pictures and giving us a day by day review...it took some time and is appreciated!

 

We're taking our first cruise on NOS Feb 6th, driving over from Mobile.

 

Thanks again and remember ROLL TIDE!

49-0 and SEC and National Champions.....Built By Bama!;)

[mtgman1]

First off "WAR EAGLE"!!!!

What a great review and pictures. Would love to see you in some of the shots. I am leaving on the Navigator Feb 2nd. All cruisers are concerned about parking and getting to the ship since it is Super Bowl Sunday the next day. A lot going on around the terminal. I have read their will be a new menu introduced on Feb 2nd so I am hoping the food in the dining room will be extra good.

With 3,420 posts you should be paid by RCCL for your reviews.

I see you have 2 more cruises already booked. Looking forward to hearing about your future cruises.

[gambee]

 

 

Those are my favorite pictures, thanks for doing this. That picture brings me good memories from our Allure trip.

 

It also seems like more and more people are starting to do the Chukka beach break, it seems like nice and safe alternative to staying in port.

[debbs0723]

I am just now starting to read your review and loving it so far. we are on the NOS on March 9th sailing from NOLA and we are driving from Houston. I'm usually one of those people that thinks of everything and YET... it never occured to me to use a steam room on a ship and I've been on 4 cruises. I typically eat low sodium and lower carb and work out regularly. However when I'm on vacation I seem to go on some self destructive binge and rarely work out. By the time I get off a ship I feel like a stuffed sausage in my clothes. It never even occured to me to go to the steam room. Thanks so much for that. :D

[debbs0723]

We didnt eat at Johnny Rockets this trip but have before. There's a $4.95 cover charge per person (includes tip), but can order whatever or as much as you would like. The only thing that costs extra is milkshakes.

 

We didn't attempt to carry on water, but we carried on three 1L bottles of diet coke and two bottles of wine in a carryon and nobody batted an eye. They say 2 bottles of wine per cabin, but we could have each brought 2 and nobody would have noticed.

 

This is music to my ears. We were discussing trying to take on 4 bottles. I really only like one kind of wine and honestly they are $10 bottles so i guess the most we would lose would be $20 if they took them. would you suggest putting two bottles in a carry on with one of us and 2 in a different carry on with the other?

[mrsmoku]

I'm enjoying your review! Thanks for posting!

We live in Mobile, AL so we're thinking of booking something on the Navigator for a quick and easy get away!

[kruzerci]

This is music to my ears. We were discussing trying to take on 4 bottles. I really only like one kind of wine and honestly they are $10 bottles so i guess the most we would lose would be $20 if they took them. would you suggest putting two bottles in a carry on with one of us and 2 in a different carry on with the other?

 

I would just put two bottles in each of your carry ons to be safe. Plus, if they confiscate two of them, you will get them back the last night.

[PrincessJen]

Great review. I'm cruising on the Navigator of the Seas out of Rome in September. You gave me a couple of places to check out on the boat.

[CSICK_KY]

Going on the NOS 3/9/13

 

Heard there is 2 formal nights in the MDR (men dark suit/women cocktail dresses.)

 

Country club dress code other nights....what is that? polo's, nice shorts(not cargos.) trying to get a rundown on this dress code stuff.

 

My question is when you dined in the MDR on these country club nights..did you see the male genders have nice shirts and shorts? Seen anyone removed from the MDR because of not dressed correctly?

[kruzerci]

Going on the NOS 3/9/13

 

Heard there is 2 formal nights in the MDR (men dark suit/women cocktail dresses.)

 

Country club dress code other nights....what is that? polo's, nice shorts(not cargos.) trying to get a rundown on this dress code stuff.

 

My question is when you dined in the MDR on these country club nights..did you see the male genders have nice shirts and shorts? Seen anyone removed from the MDR because of not dressed correctly?

 

There's so many disagreements on how to dress in non-formal nights, I can just tell you what I do and what passengers typically wear.

 

I wear a suit on formal nights. Non formal nights I wear khakis and a polo or a button down. People do wear shorts and jeans to the MDR occasionally, but that's frowned upon around here. The first night is basically anything goes since some people don't have their luggage yet.

[MikeBayAreaCa]

Just book the Navigator for next June out of Galveston. It will be our fourth RCI cruise,