Navigator OTS Review, 9 amazing nights, March 15-24, 2019!!!

The Fun Researcher · March 26, 2019

Hi all,

Before I forget what we just did this past week+, I want report back about our cruise on the Navigator. As most are aware, the ship was just “Amped” last month with major renovations. We were on the ship in 2016 and loved it then, but this felt like a brand new ship!

Our party: Me, my wife, our kids 17, 14, 11, and my wife’s parents.

Rooms:

We had Deck 8 forward inside connecting rooms. My in-laws were next door in their own inside room. Carpet was new, with a new TV as well I believe. The rooms were pretty much the same as we remembered which means clean and well laid out. Love the connecting rooms, which means two full bathrooms and lots of storage space.

Embarkation/Disembarkation

Miami Terminal G – Arrived at 1:30pm to ZERO wait at security or check-in. Walked straight to our rooms and dropped off the bags and started exploring.

We self-disembarked around 9:30 am with no issues. Finished packing our bags in the morning, grabbed some breakfast and headed out with all of our luggage. No issues. Waited about 1 minute in line for customs.

The ship and activities

The Voyager and Freedom classes are our favorites already so that was a step forward, but the ship has been SOOO renovated that it felt completely new. The pool deck is amazing! Love the Lime and Coconut area and all the colorful variety of loungers, chairs, tables, etc… also love the solid loungers in the shallows of the main pools. There is a huge variety of loungers, hammocks, chairs, clam shells, you name it. Sure, there were chair hogs but we always found places to chill, with our favorite being above the Lime and Coconut. We never had a problem finding a spot in a hot tub either. The lighting throughout the pool deck at night is beautiful and provides a nice ambiance in the evening.

Both water slides were working, and both were fun. We all liked the face first version better, where you lay on the mat. It was just a little more thrilling for us. We also played Mini golf a few times and the course is nicely laid out, new, and with interesting obstacles.

The promenade is fantastic. We love the promenade on these ships. It provides that big central hub of activity, and makes getting around the ship super easy. LOVE the new Playmakers. There is a back room/ alcove area that has one of those large Jenga sets on one of the tables. We camped out there a couple of evenings and had a blast. The wings are great by the way. We felt that the shops are better laid out as well. Everything has a much more modern look to it. A little brighter, including the pub.

We did the Escape room on our second sea day with another very nice couple. We had a blast! It was challenging but not impossible. We got done with about 11:30 left on the clock. Even though our son wasn’t 12 (he’s 2 months away), they let him join us and he was helpful to have there. Can’t say that they would allow this every time, but they let him join us.

Our daughters both did the sushi making class on the third sea day and the rest of us sat down and ate the results for lunch. We’ve done the class before and always enjoy it. So, we had two plates like this:

Entertainment

This cruise really impressed us. The Journey band “Absolute Journey” was excellent. The comedian, Rondell Sheridan was excellent. The standout was the solo performer, Stephani Parker, who covered Whitney Houston songs and was the best voice we’ve heard at sea. Wow, is all I can say. The ice skating show, i-skate was a new rendition for us and it was our favorite version so far. The beginning opens with choreographed drones, which is just mesmerizing. The RCCL singers and dancers were good as well. I liked the energy of our cruise director Hugo. The RCCL live music in the promenade was very good, and the pub singer was very good. I think my daughter has a crush on him now. J This was the first cruise we didn’t go to the Schooner bar but it was full every night (as usual) and the singer sounded good as we’d pass by.

Food

We ate in the main dining room every dinner (my time dining). It was consistently excellent. We didn’t make use of the Windjammer all that much for lunch. The hand washing stations at the entrance are a nice addition, as is the new décor and seating. The Windjammer food was good, which is what I’ve come to expect. A lot of variety, and not impossible to find a place to sit, even for 7. We mainly used it for breakfast. We tended to have light lunches such as a small plate from El Loco fresh (which was so nice to have right at the pool deck), or a burger from Johnny Rockets (we much prefer the ala carte version like on this ship)

Drink cards were offered at least the last two sea days. They may have offered been earlier but I didn’t notice. We made use of them. The bar staff everywhere we went was friendly and made some good strong islands, I mean, Long Islands.

Ports of Call

Labadee was relaxing as usual. My son and I did the zipline (classic sit down version) and had a blast. Each of our kids have done it as they’ve “graduated” into being large enough for it. Our son was the last one.

We tend to chill out at Columbus beach for the day. Great beach with that great side view of the ship, and close to the restrooms and food. I am getting a little ho-hum about the basic BBQ offered for lunch. It gets the job done, but really doesn’t “wow” in any way.

ABC islands. This was our first visit to the ABC’s and we have a new set of favorite islands!!!!! Here’s what we did:

Bonaire:

Rented two small SUV’s from Hertz at the Divi Flamingo resort. This is a short 5 minute walk from the ship. This was our first time renting a vehicle on an island and driving on our own so I was a little nervous. It turned out to be great. There are a lot of one-way streets, and narrow streets, but as long as you take your time and pay attention it’s just fine. We drove up the coast for some snorkeling sites, and went past 1000 steps (very crowded) to Karpata and snorkeled there. Water was rough so we didn’t stay long but the snorkeling was excellent. Then we drove through the national park and the scenic overlook and then through the city of Rincon all the way back to near the airport where we ate at Kite City, a food truck on the beach that serves up AMAZING fresh fish, burgers and chicken (on real porcelain plates). My FIL said it was the best burger he’s even eaten, and he’s been around a while so that’s saying something. J After eating, we snorkeled at the beach out front of the food truck, which was a surprisingly good snorkeling spot, and the beach is beautiful. After that we made our way to the salt pans and the slave huts, then returned the vehicles and wandered back to the ship while grabbing some souvenirs.

Curacao

We took a tour with Irie tours, the “All West beach hopping tour”. Highly recommend it. The tour is in open air buses, which are painted very colorful. The open air was a wonderful way to travel. Unlimited beer, soda, and water is provided in a cooler in the back of the bus. This was an excellent tour with a good amount of time at each stop: A flamingo reserve, the Shete Boka national park, optional cliff jumping (40 ft), swimming with sea turtles (WOW!!), another nice beach (forgot the name) and a nice long break at Playa PortoMari beach, which is beautiful with great snorkeling.

The cliff jumping was a highlight, even though my wife’s butt is still paying the price. We all did it (except my FIL). It’s extreme, let me tell ya, but worth it IMO!

The sea turtles were the other major highlight for us. In all of the snorkeling we’ve done around the Caribbean, this was the first time we saw Sea Turtles, and lots of them. Love it!

PortoMari Beach

Aruba

We went with Jolly Pirates for snorkeling, drinks, lunch and the rope swing (which was a blast). The crew is excellent. The snorkeling was a letdown after being spoiled at Bonaire and Curacao, but the ship, the food, the rope swing and the drinks more than made up for it.

In summary, this was our best cruise to date!!!.

Fantastic ship, gorgeous weather, beautiful islands, great food and entertainment, and excellent service. I truly can’t say enough. Thanks for reading! Feel free to throw out some questions…

Dan

P.S. Sorry about the low quality of some of the photos, I had to screen grab them from videos :)

CRUISEFAN0001 · March 26, 2019

Great report!

Clearly you enjoyed the updated Navigator ship itself, as well as your cruise destinations.

Nice.

The Fun Researcher · March 26, 2019

19 minutes ago, CRUISEFAN0001 said:

Great report!

Clearly you enjoyed the updated Navigator ship itself, as well as your cruise destinations.

Nice.

Thank you CRUISEFAN0001.

Yeah, it's a real struggle to find anything for us to complain about this cruise. I mean, I could mention that two of the three port side forward elevators weren't working all week, or that my wife's mushroom risotto wasn't that great, but that's about all I can come up with LOL.

It was one of those cruises where everything just lined up!

Dan

GalwayGirl03 · March 26, 2019

Awesome! So glad to hear your trip was great...17 more days for ours..can't come soon enough! Thanks for the pics!

cot427 · March 26, 2019

So awesome to hear...glad you had a great time! I just came back from a weekend trip and am now in full on cruise mode...17 days as well! 15 if you count 2 days early in SoBe!

Thanks for your thoughts and the beautiful pictures!

The Fun Researcher · March 26, 2019

13 minutes ago, GalwayGirl03 said:

Awesome! So glad to hear your trip was great...17 more days for ours..can't come soon enough! Thanks for the pics!

7 minutes ago, cot427 said:

So awesome to hear...glad you had a great time! I just came back from a weekend trip and am now in full on cruise mode...17 days as well! 15 if you count 2 days early in SoBe!

Thanks for your thoughts and the beautiful pictures!

Thank you.

Wishing you both a wonderful cruise as well!

Dan

Ralphinsc · March 26, 2019

Great review. Navigator has moved way WAY up the list of where I want to go on my next cruise and taking it to the ABC's might just be the clincher!

EmilyJay · March 26, 2019

Your sea turtle pictures are amazing!! We did snorkelling in Klein Bonaire and saw a baby turtle, but didn't catch a picture. Glad you had a wonderful time, we did the March 1st cruise and loved everything about the ship and itinerary, the ABC islands have now also become our favourite.

Was your Curacao tour a ship tour or one you found? I wish we'd done something like this for Curacao, you're pictures are great and it sounds like a lot of fun.

The Fun Researcher · March 26, 2019

17 minutes ago, EmilyJay said:

Your sea turtle pictures are amazing!! We did snorkelling in Klein Bonaire and saw a baby turtle, but didn't catch a picture. Glad you had a wonderful time, we did the March 1st cruise and loved everything about the ship and itinerary, the ABC islands have now also become our favourite.

Was your Curacao tour a ship tour or one you found? I wish we'd done something like this for Curacao, you're pictures are great and it sounds like a lot of fun.

Thank you! The turtles alone made our day in Curaçao.

The only excursion we did through the ship was the zip line. We’re getting more and more adventurous with our excursions and we were in Curaçao all of the way until 11pm I think so there was little risk of not getting back to the ship on time. I believe the tour with Irie was around $65 per person. It was a good 6-7 hours. Highly recommend.

Editing to say that I loved your review from a few weeks ago! It got us really excited for our cruise!

Dan

Edited March 26, 2019 by The Fun Researcher

EmilyJay · March 26, 2019

8 minutes ago, The Fun Researcher said:

Thank you! The turtles alone made our day in Curaçao.

The only excursion we did through the ship was the zip line. We’re getting more and more adventurous with our excursions and we were in Curaçao all of the way until 11pm I think so there was little risk of not getting back to the ship on time. I believe the tour with Irie was around $65 per person. It was a good 6-7 hours. Highly recommend.

Editing to say that I loved your review from a few weeks ago! It got us really excited for our cruise!

Dan

I will keep that excursion in mind if we ever go back to Curacao. I've read alot of positive things about the ABC islands and their tours, I'm pretty sure one company I was reading about was Irie, definitely worth looking into especially when the time on the island is so generous!

Thank you, doing a live review was harder than I thought, I'm glad it bought you excitement for your cruise! I've loved reading everyone else's experience on Navigator since I've got back, so thank you for your information it's good to know both water slides are now open!

3ITTravelers · March 26, 2019

Thanks for the great review! You mention your son is 11 going on 12. Did he go to Adventure Ocean? We’ll be on the 4/12 sailing and my son is almost 10. Was curious if your son went to AO and enjoyed it? Thanks in advance.

BrandFam4 · March 26, 2019

Great review! We were on this sailing too. A wonderful cruise and ship indeed. And those very same broken elevators you mentioned made us use the stairs a lot! Not a terrible thing on a cruise with lots of food. 🤣

We were also on the 8th deck. We probably passed each other other many times!

Edited March 26, 2019 by BrandFam4
Auto correct doesn’t know how to behave.

DrDani226 · March 26, 2019

I'm glad to hear they let your son join in the escape room. I had thought the age limit was 14, not 12. I really wanted to take my son, but he is also just shy of 12 (he'll turn 12 the day after we return). However, he looks much older, so I may just give it a try:) Thanks for the review! We're looking forward to our April 12th sailing as well! We did this itinerary on the Navigator a couple years ago, which was one of our favorites, but are looking forward to the amped up ship.

ShillyShally · March 26, 2019

2 hours ago, Ralphinsc said:

Great review. Navigator has moved way WAY up the list of where I want to go on my next cruise and taking it to the ABC's might just be the clincher!

Agree! Thank you The Fun Researcher for your great review, so glad it turned out to be such a great trip for you all - she was my first RCCL ship in 2005 so it would be fun to revisit her and discover all that's new and I have loved Aruba since I visited in 2003 and been back a few times for land based vacations but wouldn't pass up the ABC ports for sure!

The Fun Researcher · March 26, 2019

1 hour ago, 3ITTravelers said:

Thanks for the great review! You mention your son is 11 going on 12. Did he go to Adventure Ocean? We’ll be on the 4/12 sailing and my son is almost 10. Was curious if your son went to AO and enjoyed it? Thanks in advance.

My kids did not make use of the adventure ocean on this cruise, but they have on all of the others dating back to 2014. They have always loved adventure ocean and they have ranged in ages anywhere from 7 to 17. They are just starting to grow out of it now. Believe it or not, my daughters are nice enough to allow their little brother to hang out with them and they did that a decent amount. Not sure how much longer that is going to last. LOL

1 hour ago, BrandFam4 said:

Great review! We were on this sailing too. A wonderful cruise and ship indeed. And those very same broken elevators you mentioned made us use the stairs a lot! Not a terrible thing on a cruise with lots of food. 🤣

We were also on the 8th deck. We probably passed each other other many times!

Small world! Yeah I did not mind the elevators all that much either. I typically run every day at home but decided to take a break during the cruise, so the stairs were used a lot as a pseudo replacement. 🙂. . Also, it was very easy just to head over to the other bank of elevators. Attached is my son and I by the way getting ready for the zip line.

33 minutes ago, DrDani226 said:

I'm glad to hear they let your son join in the escape room. I had thought the age limit was 14, not 12. I really wanted to take my son, but he is also just shy of 12 (he'll turn 12 the day after we return). However, he looks much older, so I may just give it a try:) Thanks for the review! We're looking forward to our April 12th sailing as well! We did this itinerary on the Navigator a couple years ago, which was one of our favorites, but are looking forward to the amped up ship.

They changed the age limit to 12 now. It doesn’t hurt to ask. That’s what we did, and they called back later saying that he could join us. We had a large group ourselves, so adding one more I don’t think was a big deal. Hopefully it’s not an issue for you. I think you will enjoy the renovated ship. I know we did

6 minutes ago, ShillyShally said:

Agree! Thank you The Fun Researcher for your great review, so glad it turned out to be such a great trip for you all - she was my first RCCL ship in 2005 so it would be fun to revisit her and discover all that's new and I have loved Aruba since I visited in 2003 and been back a few times for land based vacations but wouldn't pass up the ABC ports for sure!

Thank you! Many happy returns!

👍🏼

Dan

Tljcruiser · March 27, 2019

Was onboard for same sailing could not agree more! Cruise was great, entertainment was great, we loved it! I was chatting with another mom at my daughter's after school pick up. Her family went on a cruise last week as well but with another popular cruise line. She said the one thing she noticed the most was that the cruise line staff seemed unhappy. She said very few smiles and just a general sense of feeling like they really did not want to be there. I immediately thought about washy washy fellow in the windjammer and most all staff we had any type of extended conversation with. Most all were well into multiple contracts with RCCL and seemed to be happy to be there. The only downside I could see with the trip was the inconsistency of the blaster waterslide. It seems to have issues that need to be corrected. One time we were in line over an hour because the mechanism that carries the floats up malfunctioned. Another day we were in line over an hour because people kept getting stuck and had to be manually removed! One would think we might have had enough sense to get out of line when the second one got stuck but no we waited and rode anyway 🤣 We did not have any problems, slowed down in a couple of spots but didn't get stuck! Glad you enjoyed your trip and I am envious of those of you that are going in the future!!

The Fun Researcher · March 27, 2019

8 minutes ago, Tljcruiser said:

She said very few smiles and just a general sense of feeling like they really did not want to be there. I immediately thought about washy washy fellow in the windjammer and most all staff we had any type of extended conversation with.

Yes, Washy Washy is like a mini celebrity!! My father-in-law kept asking him when his album was coming out.

Bummer about the waterslides. We lucked out and they were running good for us. We were on them the first or second sea day.

Dan

Loyal2Royal83 · March 27, 2019

We were also on this sailing and I agree with most of your sentiments. Journey band was terrific, I went to both of their shows. I loved the Windjammer setup and food. It was much better than the food on Serenade when we were on in November of 2018. I wasn't too fond of the Farewell show with Kivi Rogers. He used a lot of the same material the others already mentioned. We enjoyed the ventriloquist Kevin Johnson. I have pictures of all 9 days of the Cruise Compass if anyone is interested in them.

The Fun Researcher · March 27, 2019

49 minutes ago, Loyal2Royal83 said:

We enjoyed the ventriloquist Kevin Johnson. I have pictures of all 9 days of the Cruise Compass if anyone is interested in them.

How can I forget about Kevin Johnson! Can’t believe I forgot about him. Our whole family enjoyed that show. Thanks for the reminder.

Yes, please feel free to post the cruise compasses. I always like seeing those before an upcoming cruise on the ship we’re about to sail on

Dan

Edited March 27, 2019 by The Fun Researcher

cot427 · March 27, 2019

Yes again to the compasses, Please!!!! Interested to see if yours, as your itinerary is a replica of ours on April 12th, while the March 1st and March 29 are different port order.

Also, the shorter sailing on March 10 didn't have the Celebrity Scratch DJ. So interested to see if they still do all the party stuff, especially the Red Ultimate Nightclub Experience in Studio B.

Also, did they assign your ice show based on your muster station?

Edited March 27, 2019 by cot427

The Fun Researcher · March 27, 2019

22 minutes ago, cot427 said:

Yes again to the compasses, Please!!!! Interested to see if yours, as your itinerary is a replica of ours on April 12th, while the March 1st and March 29 are different port order.

Also, the shorter sailing on March 10 didn't have the Celebrity Scratch DJ. So interested to see if they still do all the party stuff, especially the Red Ultimate Nightclub Experience in Studio B.

Also, did they assign your ice show based on your muster station?

Ice show was first come first serve. We showed up 35 minutes early for the first showing and the line ran from the Studio B doors to the elevators both port and starboard sides. Doors opened 30 minutes before the show, and even with the long lines there were plenty of seats available after the folks in line found their spots. I would highly recommend showing up before the doors open though.

If the Cruise Compass photos don't show up today, I will load my own, as I kept them all.

Dan

Edited March 27, 2019 by The Fun Researcher

LBumb · March 27, 2019

Greatreview

Ronaldo807 · March 27, 2019

We were on that Curacao tour (and cruise) with you. For anyone reading, the tour was $65 PP, but they only charged us $45 for our daughter. She is 7 so I'm not sure what the cutoff is.

Was your daughter the one who lost and found her apple watch? That was quite impressive.

The Fun Researcher · March 27, 2019

49 minutes ago, Ronaldo807 said:

We were on that Curacao tour (and cruise) with you. For anyone reading, the tour was $65 PP, but they only charged us $45 for our daughter. She is 7 so I'm not sure what the cutoff is.

Was your daughter the one who lost and found her apple watch? That was quite impressive.

Ronaldo807, It was fun sharing the day with you! No, that was not my daughter but that was the family sitting right behind us. We were sitting at the very front of the bus. For those wondering, a girl lost her Apple Watch that she had gotten for Christmas when she did the cliff jump. She was able to swim the 30 m back out to where she landed in the water dive down and find her watch!. Everyone was very happy for her. She was really out of sorts and obviously upset, rightly so. So happy for her.

Dan