Navigator of the Seas 1/6-1/15 Review

[Biker19]

What night is lobster night?

 

Night 8.

[Syracruisin]

Sorry for the delay, work and life have been hectic since we got back. Makes me want to take another cruise! Ok, back to my recap...

 

Day 6 Continued

 

While walking around Kralendijk, we found a very nice shop (it was along the boulevard, I think on Kaya JNE Craane) that had handpainted wooden fish outside. Inside were many other locally made gifts. We asked if they had Christmas ornaments, and the woman told us she had just put all of the Christmas stuff away but went and found for us some handpainted driftwood Santa Claus ornaments. They were exactly what I was looking for! I also ended up buying a bottle of locally made hot sauce too.

 

We also stopped into Cariloha/Del Sol to look around. The bamboo sheets were nice. Made me wish I needed new sheets!

 

Back onboard, the ship entertainer that night was Brad Cummings, a comedy ventriloquist. He started out a little slow but by the end had everyone laughing hysterically. Studio B had the ice dancing show. After a quick stop in the Schooner Bar (and more butchered showtunes by the piano man), it was bedtime before an early day in Aruba!

Edited January 29, 2017 by Syracruisin

[Syracruisin]

Day 7 - Aruba

 

We had an early day scheduled with ABC Tours, so we grabbed a quick breakfast in the Windjammer before heading off the ship at 8:15. ABC Tours and a number of other tour operators were waiting right on the other side of the port stall shops. After a brief wait, they walked us out to a van, which took us on a short ride to their company. After signing our lives away, the guides separated us by what tours we were scheduled to take. We were on the UTV Tour, and our guide gave us a brief overview of the vehicles and where we would be going. The UTV Tour is a little pricey at about $100/pp, but if you book it a week or more in advance they give you a 10% discount.

 

I have mixed feelings about the tour. While driving off-road was awesome, the company was a little "different". Not sketchy, per se, but just seemed different from the other tours we passed or met with at the stops. For example, in my correspondence with them pre-cruise, they described it as a four hour tour with stops at Breathing Rocks, Blackstone Beach, Andicurri Beach, Natural Bridge, California Lighthouse and Natural Pool at Boca. Well, we went to the lighthouse and natural bridge, but there was no mention of "breathing rocks" and I still don't know where that is. We also stopped at the Gold Mill ruins, the Chapel and Andicurri Beach (I think we drove by Blackstone Beach but we didn't stop there). As far as the natural pool, our guide said the conditions were too rough for swimming so we didn't stop. I saw another tour group stopped there while we drove by and wish we had stopped to at least look at and photograph it like that group did. On the other hand, ABC's tour took us much further "off-road" than any other tour I saw. While the others confined themselves to the dirt roads and coastline, we went up and down the hillsides, which made for a much more exciting drive.

 

The other complaint I had was shared by the rest of our tour - the guide was a bit pushy about his tip. We were not even at the two-hour mark when we stopped at the natural bridge and he brought up his tip. He asked us if we wanted the tour to go longer, and we all kind of nodded (of course we wanted to keep going. We weren't even halfway through and were having a lot of fun). He said he would take us up and around the other hillsides if we all agree to give him a good tip, and then proceed to tell us what he considers a good tip to be! The guy was more than a little forward about that, and it just made it awkward for everyone. Other than that, he was a good guide with a lot of energy who would have earned his tip without the sales pitch. Besides, I'm pretty sure what he described was the regular tour, because we didn't go to any other parts of the island, just drove around up and down the coastline past the natural bridge and we returned to the ABC HQ at the regular time.

 

Anyway, the sights themselves were great. The Natural Bridge was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan ten years ago, but there is still a "baby bridge" standing right next to it that's pretty impressive in its own right. They also have the only bathrooms available on that side of the island. It has a $1 charge for maintenance. I went in, and it was very clean, but most of the group did not want to pay. The gold mill ruins were ok, there's nothing inside but rubble, but climbing them gave an impressive view of the coastline.

 

California Lighthouse:

 

 

Chapel:

 

 

The UTVs:

 

 

Baby Natural Bridge:

 

[Syracruisin]

As we were driving back to the ABC Tours HQ, it really started raining. It made it a little more adventurous off-roading in the rain but by the time we got back to their office we were pretty wet and muddy. For those not wanting to drive themselves or go as off-road, they also offer Land Rover jeep tours that stick to the dirt roads and go to many of those spots, minus the rocky hillsides. Overall, we had a blast on the tour. I just don't know if we hit all of the stops we were supposed to and wish the guide hadn't been so forward about his tip. (P.S. what he ended up getting seemed to average about half of what he suggested but in line with an appropriate tip).

 

After being dropped off back at the port, we boarded the ship to change out of our wet clothes before heading back out. There were a number of employees performing cleaning tasks, and that night the ship looked even better than on Day 1. I was impressed with the upkeep on the Navigator.

 

Back off the ship, we walked through the port "stalls" and out into town. If you're souvenir shopping, the prices in that little port area are pretty close to those in town. Oranjestad had a much more impressive shopping area than the other ports, with both a row of straw market type stalls and streets lined with souvenir and jewelry stores. If you're souvenir hunting, Aruba t-shirt and hat combos were as low as $15. Unfortunately, when we were halfway down the strip, the skies opened up and it started pouring. Waiting out the shower, we stopped into Del Sol/Cariloha and bought a bamboo clothing special. The clothes are as soft as they advertise.

 

Because of the on/off rain showers, we opted to head back onboard. Played some more Schooner Bar trivia (damn you again, Chile!) and Party Time in the casino. Hanging out with the bartenders after not eating all day made for an interesting evening!

 

The dinner theme was "Casual/Caribbean", encouraging guests to wear colorful shirts. The show was "Now & Forever", a song and dance performance. I was pretty beat from the UTV tour and Schooner Bar pre-dinner festivities, so I was fighting sleep. The ship was also pretty rocky that night due to the weather, and staff was putting out bags on the stairwells just in case people got sick. Fortunately, I didn't see anyone needing to use them.

[SailingSal]

Thank you so much for your detailed review. Love reading it - we leave March 31st and it will be our first time in the ABC islands.

Question - we booked Irie's Surf and Turf tour, also. My husband has 2 knee replacements and wasn't sure about the caves. Were they hard to navigate?

We are definitely taking this tour as he decided he would just not do the caves - but perhaps he can.

 

Thanks again:)

[Syracruisin]

Thank you so much for your detailed review. Love reading it - we leave March 31st and it will be our first time in the ABC islands.

Question - we booked Irie's Surf and Turf tour, also. My husband has 2 knee replacements and wasn't sure about the caves. Were they hard to navigate?

We are definitely taking this tour as he decided he would just not do the caves - but perhaps he can.

 

Thanks again:)

 

Thanks for reading. The issue with the caves isn't the caves themselves. Once you're inside, it's pretty much a clear paved path with just a few steps. But getting to them requires climbing a set of stairs that might be challenging to someone who had knee replacements. They're a bit steep and narrow. I would suggest that since the admission price to the caves is already included, he get off the bus at the caves and walk to the steps to see. He should be able to determine when he sees them whether he can make it. If not, there's a turtle cage, small cafe and walkway to Arawak drawings (we didn't have time to walk that path after the cave tour). I hope he'll enjoy the stop and tour either way. I thought the beach was very nice and the tour a good value overall.

[easyboy]

Enjoying your review. Nice photos too!

[Syracruisin]

Day 8 - Sea Day

 

Big treat for us at breakfast. We got to sit in the "big booth"! I noticed service got better too at breakfast as the cruise went on. It seemed like servers were coming around more to offer coffee and juice.

 

We headed out to our spot at the 12th floor pool area for awhile. The ship hosted a 2 for $20 super sale on RCI T-shirts, and 50% off other items. It was a bit of a mob scene with people scrambling over each other for old shirts. They had a couple decent ones but some (Cozumel) that they clearly were just trying to get rid of but had nothing to do with our cruise. The golf shirts were a decent price at about $22.

 

We went to check out the art auction at 12:45. Again, people (one French woman in particular) were pushy in line to get in. There were some really rude cruisers on our ship. The auction itself? Slooowwwwwww. The auctioneer was a bit weird and couldn't speak too well either, and we didn't see anything that interested us. I was shocked at what people were paying for some of those things. Someone bought a small pig statue for like $3,000! We left at 2:00 to go to trivia at Schooner Bar, and the auction was maybe half over at that point. I've been to them before and was disappointed overall with the quality and execution of that one.

 

The "winner family" (we dubbed them that because they were way too into ship trivia - and themselves - to the point that earlier in the week Superdad was arguing when the trivia master gave another team an extra half point for an extra answer) ended up winning, although they had about 10 people playing with them. They got a water bottle.

 

Went to the casino to play Party Time and won a little bit that time and then to the Promenade cafe for sandwiches and Starbucks.

 

5:15 - NFL trivia at Schooner. More like Jim Thorpe and Fran Tarkenton trivia. We came close this time, but one of our teammates insisted "Joe Kapp" was the answer to a Vikings QB question (Joe Kapp is never going to be the answer to cruise ship trivia questions about the NFL)!

 

We had our second formal night at dinner, and all six of us made it (a rarity)! We stopped at some of the ship photo opportunities on the way to dinner. I wish we had stopped a few times throughout the week, instead of blowing them off. Because later we went to look at our pictures, and although they were nice we only had a few to choose from. If you don't know, the ship photos are expensive (about $20 each) but they did have a deal - 5 for $80. My advice would be to stop and get some photos taken just to see if there are any you like as a souvenir later, particularly if you're with a group. You don't have to buy any, and the ship wasn't pushy at all about selling them.

 

Back to dinner. At the Schooner, one of the bartenders had "released the Kraken", so everyone was feeling pretty good. Second formal night was lobster night, but they limited everyone to one lobster tail. I don't particularly care for lobster, but I thought it was very well prepared, and the assistant waiter offered to pop them out of the shells for us. Prime rib looked good and the Thai chicken was very good as well. Our waitress apologized that dinner was slow that night due to the amount of lobster tails being prepared. During service, they introduced the chefs, and there are a ton of cooks on that ship! Overall, it was a good dining experience.

[mystifyny]

Wow that is the first time I head that. We were on the Oasis last March and we could get as many tails as we wanted. Is this something new? I have not been following the boards lately.

[Biker19]

Wow that is the first time I head that. We were on the Oasis last March and we could get as many tails as we wanted. Is this something new?

Probably depends on the sailing and perhaps a limitation of product on turn around day.

[SailingSal]

Day 5 - Curacao

 

As we were on the starboard side, we only saw the sea from our room this morning. I had scheduled a tour with Irie Tours that started at 10:00, so we were off the ship by about 9:15 to head out to meet them. This was the only port in which all six of us did an excursion together. Irie Tours was good about providing directions to meet them on the other side of the Rif Fort, and their bus was ready when we arrived. We booked the "Surf & Turf" Tour, which took us to the Hato Caves, a flamingo salt lake, the Nena Sanchez gallery, and Porto Marie beach.

 

Irie Tour

Our driver was Ariel. He provided a cooler in the back of the open-air school bus with bottled water, beer and sodas. As we drove through Otrobanda, he explained the historic buildings and some of the history of Curacao. There wasn't a ton of scenery on the drive to our first stop, Hato Caves. The tour price ($55) included the admission price to the cave. There were a lot of other people and tours when we arrived, but Ariel got us in with the next tour. There are several steps to ascend to reach the caves, which was both unexpected and unusual (you'd think you would have to descend to reach the caves, but not so here). Once inside, there's a maintained pathway that makes going through them an easy walk. The caves were small but interesting, with the guide explaining the various chambers. We had an opportunity to photograph one chamber (Please don't hog the backdrop with your selfies, as one girl in our tour did!). As we walked back to the bus after, I saw a trail that indicated there were Arawak drawings (there were none in the caves), but we didn't have time to explore what was down there.

 

Ariel was funny and narrated on the way to Hato, but he was pretty silent after that. We stopped briefly at the salt lake, where flamingos were lined up. It made for a good photo op. Then we headed to the Nena Sanchez gallery. The website described it as "Landhouse Jan Kok", being haunted by the spirit of a cruel plantation master. But none of this history or haunting was mentioned during the tour. It was simply "Nena Sanchez' gallery" and a stop to look at and buy her art. She was Miss Curacao 50 years ago and now an artist, and it was clearly just a shopping stop contracted with Irie Tours. Half the group stayed on the bus, and we were only there for 10 minutes.

 

The final stop was Porto Marie beach. It was a nice beach, with crystal clear water. The tour included beach entrance fees, and Ariel advised us to say that to anyone who approached us to pay. Sure enough, toward the end of our beach time a woman came up to some of our group demanding beach entrance and additional chair fees. Nobody forked over any money to her, and I'm not sure she was legitimate, as she had no identification indicating she was a beach employee. The beach offers snorkeling, and I could clearly see fish and brain coral just from where I was standing in the sand. The beach also has a bar/restaurant.

 

Overall, I thought Irie Tours was a great value. If you taxied to each of those places it would cost just as much if not more, in addition to entrance fees. They offer an "All West Beach Hopping Short Tour" for $75 that stops at three beaches and Shete Boka. I'd like to someday do that tour, but it seems to book first. They also have an East Side tour for only $25 that takes you around town and to a beach. All tours include drinks. If you don't book with Irie, I thought Porto Marie was still a good beach to go do during your stay in Curacao.

 

Another question about your Irie Tour. Did they have chairs and umbrellas at the beach and was there an additional cost and how much? Thank you, looking forward to this tour!

[Gaynors]

Your dinner time was 8 pm, was that late seating or did you reserve a time at the open seating?

 

We have late seating and right now it says 8 pm on the reservation planner but last year on the Navigator late seating was 8:30.

[Jan_In_Maine]

Thanks for taking us on your adventure --- looking forward to the rest of the story! Jan

[Teeara]

I'm enjoying your review! Looking forward to hearing all about disembarkation ;):D:eek: