Review Lite: New Year's on Navigator.... sorta.

[RCCL Fan]

This review will be structured a little differently from my previous ones, and won't be day to day.... you'll understand as we move forward through it.

 

 

 

 

After years of sailing RCI to every corner of the Caribbean, we decided to explore other areas this year.   When I saw a great price on a New Year's Eve cruise on Navigator I snatched it up. What a great post Christmas trip.

 

I call this the Love Boat route, all the destinations I remember hearing about on Aaron Spelling's weekly show when I was a kid.   Sure I've flown to Cabo before, stay at an all inclusive and never left the resort, but sailing the coast and seeing this side of Mexico would be new, fun, and exciting.

 

 

My wife's brother and his family live in LA, so we planned to fly out to LAX the day after Christmas and spend the week, before boarding Navigator on Friday. 

 

 

This was right after the big winter storm, the southwest airlines meltdown, and travel was on the struggle bus. We were on another airline and  our flight was delayed more than 4 hours. Our evening flight turned into a middle of the night flight 

 

 

 Our bags didn't make the flight, and we didn't get out of LAX until 3:39am which was like sunrise Dallas time and my kids were troopers they hung tough, I was so impressed.

 

 

We spent the next few days enjoying family time and touring all things LA  from the beach to Hollywood to Universal, it was a wonderful trip that quite honestly would have been a great vacation in and of itself, despite the fact it was unusually cold and rainy in Southern California.

 

 

We woke up cruise day to FOG, lots of FOG, but it didn't matter it was cruise day.  My brother in law loaded us all up to head to the cruise terminal,  we made a brief stop in Long Beach as my Travel Agent of 25 years or so was there, sailing out of Long Beach on Carnival.    We cruise a lot so we talk to her on the phone often, but we live on opposite sides of the country so when we get the rare chance to say hi, we cash it in.

 

 

 

Hugs and then off to the port. 

 

Checkin was a little rough, there's not a lot of signage, and we were dropped off further away from the door so we had a decent walk in the rain, with a bit of choas on where to drop the bags,  but we finally found a porter and get everything handed over before heading into a big tent to get on the ship.   We were in and out of the tent in no time ---super fast boarding and walking onboard ship.

 

 

I hadn't been on Navigator in a very long time.... since her inaugural!  So I was excited to see an old friend and see what her improvements looked like.

 

 

 

[NCGrammyCruiser]

Anxiously awaiting to hear about the rest of the cruise. 

[renza]

Great job so far. Thank you

[crzndeb]

I looked around for you, since I’ve seen your pics on here, but no luck. That whole luggage drop off was crazy. I have never had to wait in a line to drop off luggage. I saw porters going past us, so I think some were passing them extra bills to load their luggage. After waiting in line for close to an hour, we had finally got close to the front where drop off was and finally got a porter. Since this was my first time out of San Pedro, I don’t know if this is the norm.

[nanseev]

9 hours ago, crzndeb said:

I looked around for you, since I’ve seen your pics on here, but no luck. That whole luggage drop off was crazy. I have never had to wait in a line to drop off luggage. I saw porters going past us, so I think some were passing them extra bills to load their luggage. After waiting in line for close to an hour, we had finally got close to the front where drop off was and finally got a porter. Since this was my first time out of San Pedro, I don’t know if this is the norm.

 @crzndeb Absolutely not normal!  I’ve cruised Nav out of San Pedro 4 or 5 times…each time there were multiple porters waiting for us to drop the luggage.  Wonder if it was a combination of the weather and the holiday?

[RCCL Fan]

Part 2

 

 

 

Our very good friends from our time living in Tennessee had agreed to meet up with us for this trip.   They were already onboard, and so we went off to find them. 

 

 

If you're a regular reader of my reviews.  They're the friends who are Carnival regulars who have been begging us to try Carnival for years, and us begging them to try Royal.   They finally caved and joined us on Adventure out of Nassau on one of the first cruises of the Royal Comeback.   That sailing only had 800 people on board and they LOVED it, but were eager to see Royal under more traditional circumstances.

 

 

It was COLD.  Cold, wet, foggy, rainy,  not what I associate with a cruise.  This was also my first "winter cruise"  and I was understanding why all my Caribbean cruises happened.  This kinda blew, the sound would peek out but then the clouds and fog return.

 

 

I was trying to enjoy the Lime & Coconut but man it was a little chilly.  Lets talk about Navigator.  I have to admit.  I kept hearing about all the money spent to AMP her and shine her up and well, I just wasn't seeing it.   I'm sure they spent the money adding new ventures, rooms and waterslides, putting in El Loco Fresh and what not.  But I really think that money had to be spent simply adding new venues, and not so much tidying up the ship.   She looked and felt no better than Adventure, which we had sailed the year before, and had not been amped.

 

 

 

We had a aft corner balcony 1388 and I mean these rooms are always great for the extra space.  Junior suite size for the price of a regular balcony.  My daughter loves this room for the "fireman's pole"  in the middle of the room which she loves to climb every time we choose one of these rooms. But that room was showing it's 20 plus year age. 

 

 

 From the medicine cabinet that looked like it was rotting away from the walls, to the very hard to open balcony door, and worn furniture this felt like a 20 year old ship.

 

 

  She just really needed some TLC and love on her existing structure, rather than adding a bamboo room. 

 

 

Anyway 5pm rolled around and finally we got a peek of sunshine as we inched away from the Port of Los Angeles, and made our way out to Sea.  It was cold, so much so my wife and youngest who are usually the sail away champs gave up and went inside.   My oldest and I aren't usually that into sail away, but after years of sailing from FLL, MIA, and HOU  we were excited to see the different way out.

 

 

We passed a great little seafood restaurant and thought next time we should get on late and treat our family to dinner there,  so we could wave goodbye to them as we sail out.    Yes, I said next time, we were doubling down on the cruise from the jump. 🙂

 

We headed up to Viking Crown to have a good birds eye view on the way out.    We definitely noticed the ship rocking more than usual.  I guess it was the weather but the horizon was like a see saw and in my dozens of cruises I only remember one other ship rocking that much while we were still in the shipping channel headed out to sea.

 

Anyway...  we decided to head back to the room and get ready for dinner.... our bags were there and we started to unpack and that's when we found it.   

 

 

My little one opened her bookbag, her favorite American girl doll was a casualty of the baggage handling process to get on the ship. It’s head smashed in pieces.

 

 

It hasn’t been her day. We also found out her teacher died suddenly and unexpectedly.   She was super fond of her teacher.  

 

She was angry at the world, and we all gave lots of hugs and love to try to help. 

 

 

 

 

I have to admit shattered head of the doll was kinda amusing to me; I mean it was a blinking eye and a nose!

 

Had to ask our cabin steward to dispose of the body for us.  

 

 

 

Her sister broke out the make up and offered to give her a complete makeover and then we got a smile!

 

We went off to Chops that night, for dinner to take advantage of our diamond plus BOGO offer. 

 

Food was great, service solid,  it was a very nice experience.  I got caught up in paperwork hell while there.   I had pre-purchased our reservations at Chops to get the dining time I wanted for our party of seven.   No dining package or crazy Black Friday sale, just pre-purchased.  But apparently you can't use your BOGO coupon if you pre-purchase.   You have to book and pay onboard.  So I had to refund my reservations and rebook them again.  There were receipts and credits and I have no idea what the head waiter did,  I just smiled and nodded and signed them all lol.

 

I really hate how you kinda have to book things like spa reservations and dinner reservations ahead of time if you want to eat or get a massage in peak hours,  but then you can't use any of your coupons because you booked at home.  Royal really needs to fix this.

 

 

Anyway, we left Chops, did the welcome aboard show, a comedy act, Etta May, kinda an updated version of Vicki Lawrence in Mama's Family.   We got some good laughs in, and met the cruise director, Thiago, who had good energy, I had a good feeling about him.     We wrapped the night up with a cocktail and headed to bed.  After all Tomorrow is New Year's Eve!!

 

 

 

 

 

[RCCL Fan]

On 2/5/2023 at 1:01 PM, crzndeb said:

I looked around for you, since I’ve seen your pics on here, but no luck. That whole luggage drop off was crazy. I have never had to wait in a line to drop off luggage. I saw porters going past us, so I think some were passing them extra bills to load their luggage. After waiting in line for close to an hour, we had finally got close to the front where drop off was and finally got a porter. Since this was my first time out of San Pedro, I don’t know if this is the norm.

 

 

It was quite the odd check in for sure,  it went quickly for us, it was just unorganized.

 

I'm so sorry we didn't get a chance to connect.

[loug1601]

@RCCL Fan…as usual, I just LOVE your trip reports and can’t wait for more 😊. 
 

Also wanted to add that you have a lovely family. 

Edited February 8, 2023 by loug1601

[RCCL Fan]

Day 2

 

 

It's our first sea day and chance to explore Navigator. I woke up super early and hightailed it up to the pool deck.  

 

I had reserved a cabana for our sea day but it was still quite cold and windy, totally not a pool day.  Of course even more disappointing was seeing my name on the prime spot cabana right by the pool.

 

Oh well ---   maybe next time I told the pool attendant.

 

Headed into windjammer for a bit.   Loved the renovations in this area.   The hand washing stations were great, except people were being people.... dropping piles of towels into the sink and on the floor.

 

Oddly enough the washy washy person wasn't cleaning them up.  So I did.   Just annoyed me that people were such jerks.  

 

 

Breakfast was standard as on most RCI ships.  The crispy bacon was overly crispy and not to my liking but everything else was great.   Popped back in for lunch with the mini-me. Did find quite a few people working the line in windjammer who struggled with English, and had to get help when I asked for something specific. But hey they had chocolate cake and pineapple, my daughter was happy.

 

I strolled the ship a bit and my absolute favorite atrium art in on Navigator, I love this sculpture so much and she looked just as great as when I first saw her years earlier. 

 

This was a low key day for us, we really spent a lot of time just catching up with friends and talking and exploring the ship a bit.  I was super excited for the bamboo room but found it to be tiny, crowded, and understaffed.  40 minutes in there and couldn't get a drink ordered. That was a disappointment for me so we left for the pig and whistle or whatever the pub is called on navigator.  Had some good drinks there. 

 

We noticed on our sea passes that the other family we were traveling with was assigned a different dining table than us.   Odd.  Our reservations were definitely linked, as I could book excursions and make reservations for them online.  If you logged into either account both family names and cabins numbers showed up.     So I went to has that out with the restaurant.   They insisted our reservations were not linked, and they had no tables together.   I pulled out my app and showed them how we were linked and after a lot of sighs and shrugging of shoulders he promised us a table together.

 

I headed back to the room where i found a letter with some bad news. The escape room we had booked was cancelled due to power issues.    That was an odd reason.  But ok...  I then remembered I had passed a bride headed up the stairs from the Viking Crown.... to what used to be the chapel and is now the escape room.  I wondered if they really had power issues or just needed to transform the space back to a chapel for the wedding.  I would have actually understood that excuse better than power issues but I digress.

 

 

So I don't know if this is navigator specific or not but I kept banging my legs on the bed in our cabin. It appeared the metal frame the mattress sat on was a different shape or size than the mattress. I kept rounding the bed and banging my leg into the metal.  Had a nasty scratch at one point.  I was tending to it when our cabin steward popped in to clean for the day.   Oh my goodness how I loved her.  Lindsey had been on the ship for 6 months and was on her last sailing before heading home to her three sons in the DR, I believe.    She was beaming from ear to ear at the excitement to see her boys and it was infectious to talk to her about them.  It made me smile.

 

 

 Now you would think she would have a case of "I'm outta here syndrome"  but oh no, she was on it above and beyond, true crown and anchor service.   From wrapping the deck chairs in beach towels since they were cold and wet, to organizing every bit of mess the girls made, she was on it and I loved sitting and talking to her.

 

 

 

 

[RCCL Fan]

 

Day 2  --- Part 2

 

 

It was New Year's Eve, Soon it was time to get ready for dinner.  We sent our clothes off for a pressing  special the night before and I kept waiting for them to arrive with no luck.  Finally I realized they were promised back by 5:30pm   same time we were due in the restaurant.  What a mess.   We got them at 5:15pm  and rushed downstairs for dinner.

 

 

The dining room did find us a table thankfully, all together, and we got there to find noise makers, hats, tiaras, and all the things you needed for a New Years Eve bash.  Our servers were wonderful, service was very impressive for night one, and the food was tasty too. 

 

 

 

 I'm a fan of the main dining room.  No it's not amazing food by any stretch but it's enjoyable and the service is usually just lovely. I had Tom, the roasted turkey, which is one of my favorite meals on Royal and cleaned my whole plate.

 

 

After dinner dressed in our best we went around for formal pictures on this New Year's Eve night.   This was exciting for me.  My wife and youngest daughter are usually sound asleep by 9pm and my oldest daughter and I stay up on the couch watching TV together waiting for the ball drop, before crashing.   Well this was going to be my first New Year's Eve at a party in a very very long time and I was ready to enjoy it. 

 

 

The ship had photo stations everywhere in an attempt to keep the wait minimal.  It was impressive.   Of course everyone was picking certain lines they wanted more than others so that drove up the lines in some spots.

 

 

 

That night after dinner was "Who wants to be a Royal Caribbeanaire?"   game in the lounge.   Now I have been to this Royal Caribbean version of the old Regis Philbin show on several other previous cruises, always wander in late, and always get every single question right that I hear.   The group convinced me I was going early, signing up, and going to go or the win.   

 

 

Well,   I needed to use my drink package to prepare!   But.....They drew names out of a hat so I didn't get picked but then, even more strangely, the questions were not about Royal Caribbean, like at all.  They were just generic trivia questions about mountain heights, science, history.  It was very weird and unusual and I had never seen the game played that way on a ship.  I was glad I wasn't chosen.

 

 

Unfortunately, this is about the time, it happened,  I got a call.   My father had a pulmonary embolism. Blood clot in his leg that went up his body, led to a heart attack and stroke.  My dad had not been sick, nothing was wrong with him physically, had just and a clean doctor's visit.  I was in shock.  

 

I left the lounge and went to the promenade deck to talk to doctors....   emergency surgeries, and amputating legs, and reduced heart movement, and strokes, and if we don't act now we will lose him were all words bring thrown about.

 

I was trying to grasp what was happening, but also trying to figure out how to tell my family who was inside clueless.  My youngest was dealing with emotions that her teacher had just had a pulmonary embolism and died,  and now her grandfather had the same thing.

 

I made some calls with the doctor's on treatment plans, went back to the room to let out a huge cry and compose myself, and went back to pull my wife aside and explain what was going on. I spent the rest of the night on the phone, talking to doctor's, and family.  Praying, and hoping for the best.

 

 

I managed to get myself together enough to join the group for "the moment"  midnight.  They were all on the promenade, which Royal did an amazing job decorating for the holiday.   There were balloons everywhere, it was beautifully done, and I was quite impressed with the celebration, complete with time clocks counting down to the New Year. 

 

 

The promenade was jam packed, and my youngest who was so excited to be there was overwhelmed as the clock struck twelve and everyone stomped on the balloons that fell from the ceiling  and made huge popping sounds.  I scooped her up to be protective daddy, but kinda stole some much needed hugs.

 

 

I checked back in with the doctors who were running tests prepping dad for surgery in the morning (it was hours later there)

 

 

We called it a night after midnight and went to the room for bed.   About 2am, I got another call from the surgeons.  To too much damage had been done and surgery wasn't an option.  He had "hours to days". 

 

I got up,  reacted in ways we would all react, and came to terms with everything and then made preps to leave the ship.  I went in the diamond lounge with my laptop and tried to find a flight.   This was all during the week Southwest Airlines had it's meltdown, and there were still lots of people stuck trying to get home, and the other airlines had limited seats as everyone was trying to get home after the holidays. 

We also didn't get to Cabo until noon, had to clear the ship, and drive an hour  to the airport on the other side of town.

It was looking like Cabo wasn't going to work, the magically I found one flight with two seats left that maybe just maybe I could catch.

 

 

I have to say the crew was wonderful, one poor soul came in the diamond lounge to empty the trash and saw my tear stained face and heard me on the phone with doctors and just starting making me coffee and bringing me snack it was so kind.

 

Except of course.... the next morning when I ran into even more bad news.

[Sunshine3601]

So very sorry to hear about your Dad.

[CruisinMama2003]

Oh my goodness, im so sorry to read about this awful news you had to deal with while you were on vacation 😪 

 

{{{ HUGS & PRAYERS}}} to you and your family ❤🙏

[ARandomTraveler]

Oh geeze this is terrible. I'm so sorry. 

[perfect match]

@RCCL Fan, I’m so sorry to hear about your father, and ll you’re having to deal with on what was supposed to be an enjoyable family vacation.

{{{Hugs to you and your family}}}

[sgmn]

I'm so very very sorry to hear about your Dad. How awful for you and your family, especially when you are so far away. It must of been an awful time.

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by sgmn

[TPCRUISER2]

Thoughts and Prayers

[soremekun]

I'm sorry to hear about your father.  My condolences.  Thanks for sharing that photo of him with us.  

[loug1601]

I’m so very sorry to hear of your father’s failing health. He, along with you and your family, are in my prayers. 

Edited February 10, 2023 by loug1601

[superduper123]

On 2/5/2023 at 2:01 PM, crzndeb said:

I looked around for you, since I’ve seen your pics on here, but no luck. That whole luggage drop off was crazy. I have never had to wait in a line to drop off luggage. I saw porters going past us, so I think some were passing them extra bills to load their luggage. After waiting in line for close to an hour, we had finally got close to the front where drop off was and finally got a porter. Since this was my first time out of San Pedro, I don’t know if this is the norm.

I had the same experience back in November. It was our first time cruising out of this port also. Luggage drop off process was a disaster!

[superduper123]

@RCCL Fan so sorry to hear about your father.😥

[Crazy planning mom]

Condolences on your Dad's passing.

[jenncren]

I’m so sorry about your father and everything your family had to go through during this trip. 

[Mom*3]

I am so sorry about your father. What a great picture of the two of you!

[sdteacher]

It sounds like this was a heartbreaking trip. First your daughter’s doll and teacher, and then the devastating news about your father. I am so sorry.  My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. 

[RCCL Fan]

Cabo

 

 

I did actually get about an hour and a half of sleep --- couple more hospital calls, as they moved him to a unit and every new set of nurses and doctors would call.

 

Anyway....  we woke up to a new day and WARM weather.  The clouds were gone, the sun was out, the temps decent, and the water blue.    

 

 

We were actually able to see both dolphins and whales as we sailing toward Cabo that morning and they were awesome to see

 

After all that I sat the girls down and explained what was happening, and then started packing to get off the ship. We decided that just I would go right now and we would reevaluate as things progress.

 

I headed down to guest services to tell them the situation and when the ship made it to Cabo at noon, I would be getting off permanently. 

 

Well, apparently, this was not as simple as I thought.

 

The ship had to call the port to "request & arrange" a departure.

 

I was like huh and apparently my request was immediately denied.

 

It was New Year's Day, and apparently there were no immigration folks working in Mexico for the Holiday.   

 

I said you expect me to stay on til Mazatlan, and I was then told, "we haven't gotten that approved yet either"

 

OK I told them I had already checked flights and flights out of PV were not available.   I couldn't wait until then, I wouldn't get t my dad.

 

Finally I said to them, "I don't mean to be a jerk, but I am getting off this ship today and I'm not getting back on."

 

I was told if I attempted to leave the ship with luggage the authorities would stop me and not allow me.

 

I asked, "If I had an excursion booked, if I took the tour and was late getting back, the ship would leave me. How is this any different?"

 

Ultimately, that's what I had to do.   

 

I couldn't take any luggage or anything.  I had to get off for "a day trip" but my excursion was going to be an uber straight to the Cabo airport.  

 

I went back to the room, and picked a few things to cram in a backpack and we went downstairs to the 5th floor to meet at starbucks with the group before I left the ship.

 

 

This part was actually pretty hard.  I'm the planner for my family and usually when we have a group too.   Kinda all of us here on cruise critic are, I would imagine.   My wife broke into tears because even though she is 10+ cruises in, she's never done any of the planning, organizing,  she usually just shows up and follows me.  She didn't know what excursions were planned, anything about our flights home, nothing.  Lesson learned that maybe we should share the planning going forward.

 

So I had to go over everything with her and get her planned to take over tours and paperwork and what not.  I put a kid in charge of photos, my wife tours, one of our friends in charge of jokes and laughter, and another in charge of hugs, support.

 

 

 

We headed ashore.  The tender process in Cabo is slow because instead of 2-3 large boats like normal they had 6-7 small boats.  Fortunately we were getting off on the first one.  The ride in is a little bumpy, but nothing too bad.   After you get ashore, there were lots of folks trying to sell everything you could think of.

 

 

We pushed past did another set of hugs, and split up.    I'll tell you about the excursion in the next post. 

 

 

 

I headed out of the port, ordered an uber, and high tailed it to the airport,  it was about an hour's drive and I was cutting it super close to catch the flight, but I made it.

 

 

my first time on United Airlines in like 20 years but thankfully they had 2 seats left and I was able to grab one.  I caught a flight to Houston, and then New Orleans where my father lived.

 

I did say lived.

 

 

I made it to the hospital, was able to talk to him for about a half a day before the pain meds took over, he was transferred to hospice, and died the next day.

 

It was an ordeal getting off that ship and getting to him, but one I needed to make and thankfully I was able to do.

 

 

I'm super grateful for Royal's help in getting me off the ship and home to say goodbye, and while I only experienced one and a half days on Navigator, it looked like it had the shapings of a nice cruise.  

 

In the next posts I'll share what I had planned on the three islands and photos and what I was told by the girls about their experiences.

 

I do also think it says a lot about the companies i used, when I was able to email them from the plane and explain what happened, and they assured me not to worry they would take great care of my family and they did.

 

As depressing as all that was,  I share so you'll have some idea on how things will go if the unthinkable were to ever happen to you.

 

It wasn't so simple just getting off the ship.  Nothing like what I expected.

 

To answer a few questions.... nope I didn't have travel insurance.   30+ cruises  never bought it, never felt I needed it,  never worried.    Needing it this time for the first time, I still think I came out ahead on what I lost on this trip versus what I saved over the last 30 plus cruises.   As you get older and your parents age risk was certainly greater,  but again I never once worried about the money I lose.  we're talking a couple K, and I was fine with that.   But yes I did buy travel insurance for my upcoming cruise.... lol   even though both my parents and grandparents are all gone now.   I still said it would be my luck to have something happen back to back.

 

Yes I went alone,  left the kids behind.  Couple reasons. 

 1) there weren't seats for all of us, to get out of Cabo.   Not to mention the cost was extremely high

2) It was going to be a couple days before he died and I set up arrangements and what not, and having the kids stuck in the Hyatt in New Orleans that long didn't make sense

3)  it was all moot because our kids passports expired right before the trip. They have them, we always use them, but we didn't realize they were expiring. and while we ordered new ones, we just didn't get them in time.

 

So yes I followed all the rules, incorrectly.  No travel insurance, no passports for the whole family.   But my choices,  and honestly not sure I would do much differently. 

 

I'll tackle happier stuff from here on our in the review lite!