Review: Disney cruisers sail without kids on Navigator of the Seas!

[ummgood]

Thanks for the review. I've been considering Navigator with some girlfriends in the fall.

We've been on Disney several times and I always say no one does service like Disney. The cruises we've done with them have always been impeccable. We've tried several different RC ships. We loved Freedom of the Seas, my boys were 8 & 10 when we did the ship. It has the Flowrider and the water park for the kids. I think it's a nice balance of activities and size of ship.

 

Navigator has a flowrider. We had lots of fun watching people try it out. We also met several people have significant injuries from it. The guy behind us getting off the ship had his arm inside his shirt so I asked him if he was ok and he said he tore his shoulder up on the flowrider on the last sea day. He said they told him he would need surgery! OUCH.

 

We were on the same cruise and had a great time. We did notice the decking on our balcony was cracked and coming up but didn't notice any other problems with maintenance or cleaning.

We thought the staff we ran into was always friendly. We ate in Giovanni's one night and it was excellent. Our server saw us several times after that and greeted us by name.

Loved all the soups at dinner and had great service. Pizza is pretty lame but glad it was there for a quick snack. Used room service once for breakfast and it came on time.

Room steward was not the best and we only had one bath towel in cabin when we got back from shore excursion in Jamaica. Called the desk and had more towels in five minutes.

Not surprised that the OP didn't have hot water because that's all we had. The coldest water was on the hot end of lukewarm.

Great cruise and love the convenience of going out of Galveston.

 

I actually heard several people comment that they only had hot water. We had that one day when they forgot to turn on our cold water haha. I am wondering if they turned up the boiler for us so we could have hot water. Was it like that the entire cruise?

[ummgood]

Fantastic detailed review, I like that ! I am booked on Navigator in December, I am looking forward to it.

 

I am sure you'll have a great time!

 

You should try freedom class or oasis with the kids!

 

That is probably what we'll do. Liberty is sailing out of Galveston next year so we might do that. The other option is to drive to FL and cruise out of there but I need to be convinced of that. We have one more itinerary we could do out of Galveston without repeating. We might try the Liberty for that first.

[FloatMe]

That is comforting. I am not letting it keep me away it was just an observation. I know the people can make it fun too without all the fancy theming.

 

One thing I forgot to mention in my review is that I was slightly annoyed by the location of the arcade on the ship. We want our kids to enjoy the cruise and the clubs but are not interested in letting them play games while on the cruise. The location of the arcade is annoying in that you have to walk through it to get to the clubs. This reminds me of why they put candy in the check out aisles in the grocery store and why the more expensive candy is lower to the ground. On Disney you can literally avoid the arcade all week and your kids never know it is there. My kids still don't know there is an arcade on the Wonder.

 

 

 

Yeah my problem is I like to book week cruises with a family of 5 so I would kill to pay $1160. I honestly think it is worth $500 if you don't look at the percentage in your case. My problem is for me and the cruises I take it can be 3 or 4 thousand more.

I think you are right in that it may be worth the extra $500pp. And we will someday. We are 4 (2 booked) cruises away from diamond. So it will be a while. The other problem is we want to try HAL and Celebrity some day also. First class problems for certain! Blessed!

[BillOh]

Nicely done.

 

I've never had a problem with hot water on my Royal ship old or new. That was sure a lame response by the Maintenance guy.

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

Thank you for the review! I'm a DCL girl who's going to Alaska on the Radiance of the Seas on Friday, so I'm definitely interested in the comparisons. I know there will be differences, and that different does not have to equal bad. It's just cool to see comparisons.

 

I'm really hoping I like RCCL as there's a cruise to Italy next summer that I really want to take. As long as there's more positive than negative, I'm booking. :)

[ummgood]

I think you are right in that it may be worth the extra $500pp. And we will someday. We are 4 (2 booked) cruises away from diamond. So it will be a while. The other problem is we want to try HAL and Celebrity some day also. First class problems for certain! Blessed!

 

haha Yep definitely first class issues. I don't have such a long list. I am just trying to find a cruise line we can afford but is nice as well. RCCL seems to fit the bill. The next step is to see how it works for the kids. Now that I have a discount I need to figure out the cost. I was quoted onboard but it was pretty steep >5k for the family on the Liberty in the summer. I'm going to have to move dates around and go right after they go out of school to get the price down. My kids go to private school so they get out a couple weeks before the public schools so the prices are more reasonable.

 

Nicely done.

 

I've never had a problem with hot water on my Royal ship old or new. That was sure a lame response by the Maintenance guy.

 

Yeah he really wasn't making an effort until management got involved.

 

Thank you for the review! I'm a DCL girl who's going to Alaska on the Radiance of the Seas on Friday, so I'm definitely interested in the comparisons. I know there will be differences, and that different does not have to equal bad. It's just cool to see comparisons.

 

I'm really hoping I like RCCL as there's a cruise to Italy next summer that I really want to take. As long as there's more positive than negative, I'm booking. :)

 

I am excited for you Alaska should be awesome! I would love to cruise Europe. I got to Europe 2 times a year for work and love it but I am always working so it would be nice to have vacation time there. Keep in mind the Radiance is a smaller ship than the one I went on. Maybe that is better? I don't know. I did like all the cool features on the larger ship though like the ice rink and flowrider.

Edited July 27, 2015 by ummgood

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

I am excited for you Alaska should be awesome! I would love to cruise Europe. I got to Europe 2 times a year for work and love it but I am always working so it would be nice to have vacation time there. Keep in mind the Radiance is a smaller ship than the one I went on. Maybe that is better? I don't know. I did like all the cool features on the larger ship though like the ice rink and flowrider.

 

I have no problems with smaller ships - I like to feel like I'm on a ship when I'm on a cruise, which is a big part of why I love DCL. The "floating resort" thing doesn't appeal to me. I don't need flowriders, ice shows, etc. to have a good time. :) For those that want them, it's great they have options. I just hope that those of us who don't will still have a few choices without them as ships age out.

[138east]

Not trying to minimize your hot water issues, but there are showers in the fitness center that are available in case you experience another hot or cold water emergency. These showers can also be useful just to alleviate demand on the one cabin bathroom.

[ummgood]

Not trying to minimize your hot water issues, but there are showers in the fitness center that are available in case you experience another hot or cold water emergency. These showers can also be useful just to alleviate demand on the one cabin bathroom.

 

Actually that crossed my mind. We had worked out there on the first sea day. I wasn't sure if they charged for them or not. I know Disney has some fancy showers that cost extra so I wasn't sure if it was like that or not. My plan was if they couldn't fix it when the managers got involved then I would have probably asked for that access for free. Turns out it was already free. It is a pain to lug up all your clothes and stuff. And to be honest when I was in Jr. High and High School I was overweight and was picked on relentlessly in the locker room so I still have a phobia of showering in public like places. So I probably would have showered with cold water vs. in the fitness center but my wife probably would have used it.

[TBone2K]

Thanks for writing such a thorough review. I noticed the same problem with room service, but at least they called first so I could tell them to wait. Problem was then the food came cold. Probably left it sitting until the requested time.

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

Actually that crossed my mind. We had worked out there on the first sea day. I wasn't sure if they charged for them or not. I know Disney has some fancy showers that cost extra so I wasn't sure if it was like that or not. My plan was if they couldn't fix it when the managers got involved then I would have probably asked for that access for free. Turns out it was already free. It is a pain to lug up all your clothes and stuff. And to be honest when I was in Jr. High and High School I was overweight and was picked on relentlessly in the locker room so I still have a phobia of showering in public like places. So I probably would have showered with cold water vs. in the fitness center but my wife probably would have used it.

 

The "extra fee showers" on DCL are part of the Rainforest Room and are NOT for showering, shampooing, etc. There ARE showers in the locker rooms on DCL that anyone can use as the locker rooms are shared by the fitness center and the spa. You can't accidentally find yourself in the Rainforest Room showers.

[ummgood]

The "extra fee showers" on DCL are part of the Rainforest Room and are NOT for showering, shampooing, etc. There ARE showers in the locker rooms on DCL that anyone can use as the locker rooms are shared by the fitness center and the spa. You can't accidentally find yourself in the Rainforest Room showers.

 

Thanks for that info! You wouldn't find me in there anyway because of what I said above. That is just what I was thinking was if they charge I would have probably asked if my wife could have used them for free considering we had no hot water. The first day was pretty bad because it was really cold when I showered. Then we realized it would get luke warm if we let it run for a long time. So what we did was I would let it run for say 10 minutes and then would shower and then leave it on as I dried myself. Then my wife would get in and it would be slightly warmer and tolerable but definitely not a decent warm shower. I showed the manager this and he even timed it for about 10 minutes on his watch and gave up. The temp did go up over time but even with the faucet turned to max heat it never got hot enough to feel not cold if that means anything. We tolerated it until it was fixed.