Super Navigator 3 nighter 8/16/19

[big al]

My wife & I decided to break up the late summer blues & went on the newly refurbished Navigator Of The Seas 8/16-8/19 out of Miami.  We had a super weekend, and I will break down the 7 elements of a cruise review that I usually do: cabins, dining & food, service, entertainment, public rooms & areas, and overall rating. As a former educator, I tend to give grades to everything, so I will continue that trend here .

 

 

 

First, a little backround..this was our 37th cruise, 17th on RCI and we are Diamond, close to Diamond Plus ( after next moth's 9 night Anthem of The Seas to CA/ NE). Also I have been a cruise agent for 21 years, and have cruised also on NCL ( 6X), Carnival ( 6x), Princess ( 4x), Disney ( 2x), Celebrity and HAL once each. Therefore I have a pretty good base for comparisons to other cruise lines & ships.

 

Cabin

 

We had a balcony cabin # 9312 on the hump, about 5 doors down from the elevator on the port side. Cabin attendant Miguel from Columbia was excellent. The cabin had a new 36 inch Samsung TV with the usual channels..no CNN..I STILL can't understand in 2019 why cruise lines STILL cannot get U.S. sports channels, and we are often have to watch cricket, soccer ( both men's & women's ), and other sports that clearly are from Europe or somewhere else. I understood this when we started cruising in the mid 90's, but cruise lines, it's time to get better sports channels in the cabin! The bed was waaayyy too hard, and after a sleepless Friday night, we asked Miguel to get us an "upper"  to make the mattress a little softer. It worked! Also the shower was awesome- hot water & nice pressure 100% of the time. A/C worked fine. Cabin gets a B+, cabin attendant gets an A.

 

 

 

Dining & food

 

We took the 3 night specialty dining package and it was a great decision! ALL 3 dining venues were superb- Hooked Seafood ( new), Chops Grille, and Jamie's Italian ( new on this ship). At Hooked we ate there Friday night and I had the Drunken Mussels  to start, followed by surf & turf. Both were delicious.Service was great by our server, Sevilla. Had a table for 2 over looking the sea..perfect!! Saturday night we ate at Chops Grille, which we've eaten at before at least 20x. We both had the NY Strip and sides of mashed potatoes,  and green beans. I had the shrimp cocktail for starters, my wife had the caesar salad. Dessert for me was a terrific Key Lime Pie. Atilla, our waiter was super. Third night we had Jamie's Italian and again, fantastic meal..we had the "board" appetizers and I had the braised rib, my wife, lamb chops, both killer..Ionut, from Turkey, was simply wonderful as our waiter. His wife works in Chops ( only female in there), so after dinner we walked across the hall to Chops, met her, congratulated her on their upcoming wedding, and told her BF was fabulous & good luck in the future. Food all 2 venues gets an A. BTW, we ate in the Windjammer twice for breakfast, and the dining room once ( so I could get my Eggs Benedict  ), and both were fine. Buffet food is buffet food.

 

 

 

Service

 

We found everybody very friendly, and as usual service was not an issue..grade A

 

 

 

Entertainment

 

Here is where we were also VERY impressed..the ice skating show, “i Skate” I thought was maybe THEE best ice show I’ve ever seen on RCI- and I’ve seen like 15 shows on different ships. Skaters were marvelous, music could’ve been better ( a little too modern for me), but they all were remarkable!! Saturday night, we saw “Showgirls” in the Royal Theater, and that was surprisingly also awesome..great singing & dancing. We missed the headliner Sunday night because was had a 5:45 wake up call to deboard & also had to pack. There were also numerous live bands in the Royal Promenade that were very good.Band at the pool very good. Entertainment gets an A.

 

Embarkation & debarkation

 

Kuddos to RCI, both the fastest in my 37 cruises..we were in the new & beautiful RCI Miami terminal at 10:40 am, and ON THE SHIP by 10:55!! NO WAITING  like usual to get on the ship..Debarkation was also so fast! NO passports looked at, no declaration of what you bought at customs..wow! We did the self deboarding and were off in 5 minutes!! Grade A+ !!

 

Public Rooms & areas

 

New spaces included The Bamboo Room on deck 5, Players Sports Bar, also deck 5..I will say that once again, draft beer on RCI is the worst in the entire cruise industry. NO DRAFT beers in the Copper & Clover British Pub!! NO draft beers in a British Pub? That’s like NO PIZZA in a pizza place….hence, that venue, usually with a nice crowd, was virtually EMPTY every time I walked by..very sad! On all other RCI ships that had a pub, I was in there 4-5x during a cruise..not this time. Players is the ONLY bar to get draft beers and their selection was not great ( there were 6 on draft)..compare this to the newer NCL ships, which has “The District”, a beer brewery that has 26 beers on draft & another 50 in bottles!! A beer drinker’s heaven!! I also want to say the only crowded place was the Royal Promenade on deck 5..I think after our last cruise on the Harmony Of The Seas, one gets used to the 60 ft wide promenade VS. the 30 ft wide on Voyager/ Freedom class ships..it is a HUGE difference..pool areas were nicely decorated and lots of additions in terms of trees, kid’s stuff, etc, were evident. For a 17 yr. old ship, the NOS looked great.

 

A word on Coco Cay- this place we thought was fantastic! The Pool is like the size of Texas, with a swim up bar and lots of young chairs..music a little loud, and maybe not exactly my kinda music ( I am old- prefer 60’s-70’s-80’s music), but I am used to pretty awful music at pools. The beach area we were at ( Chill Island) was super..lots of shade and loungers..it was about 200 degrees F both days, but typical for this time of year. The crowd is fairly young, and while we were in the pool, my wife noticing shall we say, “all the young pretty girls in bikinis’, said to me..”wow, how would like to be about 25 and single and be here?” ..of course, I answered diplomatically and said, ‘IF I was 25 ( even 18 ,lol..), sure, but I’m here with you having a great time”..LOL..LOL…

 

Overall

 

Overall we thought this 3 night cruise was sensational..we hope to do this again, but this time in the winter when it’s not sooooo hot..overall grade gets an A-..along with the Disney Dream , this was the best 3-4 night cruise we ever took..well done RCI!!

 

Big Al

Edited August 23, 2019 by big al
spelling

[Cruisegirl6]

Thank you Al and so glad you had a wonderful time.  I myself, been on tons of cruises (91 and three more booked), we will be on the Navigator this October.  We live in northern Florida now and are tossing up taking the 10:35am flight or the 1:42pm flight, but hearing how easy you got off the ship, I think I may just take the early flight.  I am also diamond, was there a designated area to meet for diamond/priority disembarkation?  What time did you get off the ship?

 

 

[lovelife]

Thanks for the thorough review. Will be on next month for B2B2B and appreciate your taking the time to evaluate all aspects of your sailing.

[Cruiser_1977]

@big al Thank you for this! I am on this itinerary in 28 days! My first RCCL cruise. Was going to stick to the MDR and other included restaurants in order to compare to CCL and NCL. Do you think it's better to eat at the specialties?

[Cruisegirl6]

Jenny, I been on tons of cruises...it includes Carnival.  We went on three Carnival cruises the past 9 months, honestly, each one got worse and worse....with the Breeze being the last and our most hated cruise ship on Carnival, but Carnival is cutting back even more and the lunch buffets are really not good any longer...they even took away the meat carving after the first day.  With this being said, you will find RC lunch buffets to blow away Carnivals...its been a few years since our last NCL cruise, we were on the Breakaway and I gather they cut back things also but when I went on it the food was better than on Carnival...what I do recall is that RC always was on top over those two cruise lines.  

 

We ALWAYS dine nightly at RC specialty restaurants, after doing so over 10 cruises, it got old, same old menu and stuff...but the past four Oasis class ships that we went on in the past 2 years, we found a decline in the specialty restaurants except for 150 Central Park.  

 

 

Carnivals steakhouse is my most favorite specialty restaurant.  150 Central Park is our favorite specialty on RC but the Navigator does not have one.

I haven't been on a RC ship yet that has Playmakers, I believe its all new, it will be bar like food, chicken wings and such but hey, we can get wings!  We also haven't tried Hooked Seafood, that is also new...I don't think I go for dinner but maybe a snack for some oysters.

 

Chops Grill hummmm, ok, being honest here, we always found problems with dining here on all our cruises, in fact, we stopped going there for a few cruises, then decided to try it again figuring it be better and again a disappoint to all 7 of us.  We won't go there again, people rave about it but to me, Longhorn Steakhouse is better!  

 

Jaimie's Italian, we tried twice and cancelled our third reservation there due to the food not up to par for us.  It is similar to Olive Garden...its not authentic Italian at all and the only thing I would say is very good is the meat plank platter.  Do not order a steak here its horrible and basically I wouldn't even consider eating here again.

 

With this being said, our next two cruises, October on the Navigator and January on the Harmony of the seas we decided to only eat in the MDR.  We tried the MDR after having a not good dinner at Chops on our last cruise on the Oasis and it was pretty decent!  We also went last August on the Majesty of the Seas to Cuba which does not have a specialty restaurant and ate all 5 nights in the dining room and it was fine.  For some people that like to eat alot or lets say larger portions, just order a second entree.  We also tried the MDR for lunch on two days and it was pretty good too.

 

I am looking forward to dining the the MDR for dinner each night on the next two cruises, no need to do the specialty restaurants.  And by the way, they have the ultimate dining package, beware...people say that not all the entrees are offered with the package, just in case you consider doing that.  I think you like the MDR definitely well above Carnival and I also say above NCL.

 

If you want to try one specialty dining I can't give you any advice because I don't like Jaimie's and I hate Chops.  

[big al]

3 hours ago, Cruisegirl6 said:

Thank you Al and so glad you had a wonderful time.  I myself, been on tons of cruises (91 and three more booked), we will be on the Navigator this October.  We live in northern Florida now and are tossing up taking the 10:35am flight or the 1:42pm flight, but hearing how easy you got off the ship, I think I may just take the early flight.  I am also diamond, was there a designated area to meet for diamond/priority disembarkation?  What time did you get off the ship?

 

 

There was NO area for Diamond because it was SO FAST, it didn't matter!!

[big al]

57 minutes ago, JennyB1977 said:

@big al Thank you for this! I am on this itinerary in 28 days! My first RCCL cruise. Was going to stick to the MDR and other included restaurants in order to compare to CCL and NCL. Do you think it's better to eat at the specialties?

You are asking the wrong person..in over 150 nights in the MDR, I have found maybe 10 meals that were good- all the rest were just fair or mediocre..I am a huge fan of specialty dining, and yes, NCL does it the best IMO..we don't like dining with 1500 other people with 200 waiters running back & forth..and the food is SO MUCH better IMO in the specialty restaurants, but they SHOULD be...

[big al]

28 minutes ago, Cruisegirl6 said:

Jenny, I been on tons of cruises...it includes Carnival.  We went on three Carnival cruises the past 9 months, honestly, each one got worse and worse....with the Breeze being the last and our most hated cruise ship on Carnival, but Carnival is cutting back even more and the lunch buffets are really not good any longer...they even took away the meat carving after the first day.  With this being said, you will find RC lunch buffets to blow away Carnivals...its been a few years since our last NCL cruise, we were on the Breakaway and I gather they cut back things also but when I went on it the food was better than on Carnival...what I do recall is that RC always was on top over those two cruise lines.  

 

We ALWAYS dine nightly at RC specialty restaurants, after doing so over 10 cruises, it got old, same old menu and stuff...but the past four Oasis class ships that we went on in the past 2 years, we found a decline in the specialty restaurants except for 150 Central Park.  

 

 

Carnivals steakhouse is my most favorite specialty restaurant.  150 Central Park is our favorite specialty on RC but the Navigator does not have one.

I haven't been on a RC ship yet that has Playmakers, I believe its all new, it will be bar like food, chicken wings and such but hey, we can get wings!  We also haven't tried Hooked Seafood, that is also new...I don't think I go for dinner but maybe a snack for some oysters.

 

Chops Grill hummmm, ok, being honest here, we always found problems with dining here on all our cruises, in fact, we stopped going there for a few cruises, then decided to try it again figuring it be better and again a disappoint to all 7 of us.  We won't go there again, people rave about it but to me, Longhorn Steakhouse is better!  

 

Jaimie's Italian, we tried twice and cancelled our third reservation there due to the food not up to par for us.  It is similar to Olive Garden...its not authentic Italian at all and the only thing I would say is very good is the meat plank platter.  Do not order a steak here its horrible and basically I wouldn't even consider eating here again.

 

With this being said, our next two cruises, October on the Navigator and January on the Harmony of the seas we decided to only eat in the MDR.  We tried the MDR after having a not good dinner at Chops on our last cruise on the Oasis and it was pretty decent!  We also went last August on the Majesty of the Seas to Cuba which does not have a specialty restaurant and ate all 5 nights in the dining room and it was fine.  For some people that like to eat alot or lets say larger portions, just order a second entree.  We also tried the MDR for lunch on two days and it was pretty good too.

 

I am looking forward to dining the the MDR for dinner each night on the next two cruises, no need to do the specialty restaurants.  And by the way, they have the ultimate dining package, beware...people say that not all the entrees are offered with the package, just in case you consider doing that.  I think you like the MDR definitely well above Carnival and I also say above NCL.

 

If you want to try one specialty dining I can't give you any advice because I don't like Jaimie's and I hate Chops.  

 

 

FYI- We have eaten in Chops at least 20, maybe 25 times and EVERY meal was terrific..our NY Strip was perfect..BUT to each their own..we thought Jamie's was 10x better than Olive Garden...it was amazing on the Harmony as well...

[Cruisegirl6]

I guess food is subjective....I don't eat any fast food or any place like Applebees and such, so maybe my standard of eating has my nose up in the air...on another note, let me tell you about our last two dining experience at Chops:

 

1)

We were 6 adults with reservations, we were waiting for my daughter to come and waited for 22 minutes to finally went to sit down at the table thinking she decided not to show up and there she was sitting by herself all that time!  Our second cocktail arrived after we finished our meals.  Appetizers the caesar was good can't go wrong with that but the grilled black pepper bacon....I get it, bacon has alot of fat, but it was all fat and when you chewed it. you couldn't;t chew it down to swallow, it was inedible!  The shrimp cocktail was fine and the crab cake was all filler.  Entree- my steak was not 12 ounces like they advertised, it was less than half inch thick and very small, I say it was 6 ounces and had hardly any pink in it and I ordered it medium rare....the branzino was way overcooked for my father in law to eat....my other half had the salmon and he said way over cooked....my sister had the filet mignon and it was totally black, not just charred but all black, totally burnt and hard to cut...my brother in law had the 

 

2)

We were 7 adults ages 53-79

We ordered the imperial seafood tower...the shrimp was way too soft not good...my father in law asked for a shucker to open the crab claws and such and the waiter told him "use your hands" and walked away, we were amazed but it gets worse...we waited forever for our first drinks in fact, the seafood tower came before the drinks.....then after eating what was ok to eat, we asked for a wet napkin to wipe our hands and were given one dry napkin and the waiter said "pass this around" really!!!!  We ordered to share our sides....the tator tots were only 4 small pieces for 7 adults!!!  Surely we could order more but really, to give a table of 7 adults 4 tater tots that only 4 people would get one piece blows me away!!  I think we had broccoli and there was only two stalks, well, you get the point.  

My brother in law order the NY Strip, and was not cooked the way he asked (medium) it, he wanted medium rare it was not pink and the same thing happened to both my sister/brother in law with their steaks.  My brother in law asked for a change to a medium rare and what he got back was not NY Strip but a flat iron steak!   My other half had the lamb and said that it was delicious but totally cold.  My father in law had the grilled branzino, well honestly, it was the smallest branzino he ever had but said it was good but was on the cool side.  I ordered the lobster and it was over cooked very hard.

 

Glad you were happy with the food...we are all Italian, so maybe we just have higher standards when it comes to Italian food, but honestly, Jaimie's is the worst specialty restaurant of all cruise lines, no wonder his restaurants are being shut down.

 

Maybe we just are too picky, but I don't think so???

Edited August 23, 2019 by Cruisegirl6

[big al]

2 hours ago, lovelife said:

Thanks for the thorough review. Will be on next month for B2B2B and appreciate your taking the time to evaluate all aspects of your sailing.

 

Kind words..you are welcome...You will have a great time!!

[vegas7df]

Hey Big Al, 

Thanks for the review.  We've sailed on Navigator before and an excited to see all  the new updates. 

Donna

[big al]

16 hours ago, vegas7df said:

Hey Big Al, 

Thanks for the review.  We've sailed on Navigator before and an excited to see all  the new updates. 

Donna

 

Thanks, Donna..it was a great weekend getaway...

[YlangYlangF9PB3E]

Thanks for the review, Al. We’ve sailed on Navigator 5 times - including 2 transatlantic trips, and our last cruise was right before her refurbishment. We’re  anxious to see the changes.  I understand the Diamond Lounge has been moved from Deck 14 to Deck 5, and is considerably smaller. Did you have a chance to see it, and can you tell us about it? Did they bring the cappuccino machine and is breakfast still served? Thanks!