Cheapo Dad's Trip Report on the Navigator of the Seas (Maybe with few pictures added)...

[Coralc]

33 minutes ago, harryfat1 said:

Mind if I ask you how did you become so knowledgeable in bed bugs area?

 

On step #2 - when you say around the bed - as in on top of the bed/underneath the bed?  Which part of the bed am I supposed to look at?  

 

At the risk of sounding dumb (easy for me to do), isn't it counter-intuitive to turn down the lights to see?  How can I see if it's all dark with no lights on and the carpet is dark colored?  How do I find the dark brown trail on a dark carpet in the dark?

Put your luggage in the bathtub or bathroom while you check out the room. Don't turn off the lights unless you are using a black light. Don't use a black light, because there will be things you don't want to see anyway.🙄

 

Bedbugs have sort of a sickly, sweet smell from the decaying blood. Check behind the headboard if you can. Pull the mattress up slightly and check the box spring. Pull the mattress sheet up slightly and check the piping. You are looking for dark spotting or striping, little bug shell remains or anything that just looks "wrong" about cleanliness of the bedding. 

 

Bedbugs are out there. Media reports them as increasingly common. I don't spend a lot of time checking or worrying about it. I have been in a lot of houses and apartments that were being treated for them, and the first thing I always notice is the odor.  Probably TMI. ☺️ But *I* didn't bring it up. Sorry.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Coralc

[harryfat1]

On one cruise many years ago, the boys were in the kids' camp and my wife shopping at the ship’s store I was bored and attended the art auction nearby. As I recall, they used to serve champagne to the people attending hoping to make them drunk and stupid and overpay for “art”.

 

Do they still have free booze at art auctions?  After that one time attending, for the rest of the cruise, I kept getting “special invitations” to attend more auctions as they must think I’m an art connoisseur or sucker.

 

Not that I know diddley about art – my favorite picture of all time

is the one with the dogs playing poker. 

 

 

If I really try to impress someone, I will say I like Escher's art but that’s the extent of my art knowledge.

 

 

 

Nevertheless, I think I will enjoy 1 hour of art auction to see how some crazy idiot would spend that much money for “art” than one hour of sitting at the solarium alternating at staring at the ocean and my belly button…

 

[Coralc]

29 minutes ago, harryfat1 said:

On one cruise many years ago, the boys were in the kids' camp and my wife shopping at the ship’s store I was bored and attended the art auction nearby. As I recall, they used to serve champagne to the people attending hoping to make them drunk and stupid and overpay for “art”.

 

Do they still have free booze at art auctions?  After that one time attending, for the rest of the cruise, I kept getting “special invitations” to attend more auctions as they must think I’m an art connoisseur or sucker.

 

Not that I know diddley about art – my favorite picture of all time

is the one with the dogs playing poker. 

 

 

If I really try to impress someone, I will say I like Escher's art but that’s the extent of my art knowledge.

 

 

 

Nevertheless, I think I will enjoy 1 hour of art auction to see how some crazy idiot would spend that much money for “art” than one hour of sitting at the solarium alternating at staring at the ocean and my belly button…

 

 

We attended one, many, many years ago and purchased Jim Davis signed Lithograph for $65. It is actually worth quite a bit today.  We really like cats. ☺️

We were drinking with the auctioneer at the bar on Song of America and asked him how much it usually went for? He said $65. It was the last item out and the bidding started and ended at $65 ☺️

Edited August 30, 2023 by Coralc

[JamesEM]

Hi from Myrtle Beach, spent the afternoon doing my storm preparations, gassed up the cars and gas for the generator, ATM, hardware and grocery stores.  Back to cruising, this past May I did a 3-b-3 on the Harmony in a cabin that over looked Central Park and thought the cabin was very nice, good price and best of all I had the same cabin for all 3 cruises. The only problem was the selection of food since the menu option has been cut back, so I wound up eating in the Diamond Club before going to dinner.  Well I'm off to batten the hatches, 

[harryfat1]

After the Solarium, there’s the miniature golf area.  We always made a point to play at every cruise ship that had one. 

 

 

 

 

You asked, what you mean, by “every cruise that had one” – Doesn’t most major cruise ships have them?  Not Majestic Princess. 

 

What they had was just an artificial grass area and called a golf-putting area. They didn’t even TRY to make it fun and appealing as Princess has no inclination to attract the family crowd.

 

Yes, no joke.  This is their version of golf. WOW. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give it a negative 1 if I could.

 

 

 

It was nice to come back to RCI which has the family appeal and has the Navigator of the Seas Dunes.  We were hoping to play at boarding time but the area was overwhelmed with people by then and there weren’t any golf clubs so we continued on with the ship tour.

 

[perfect match]

No hurricane here yet even though the current TV reports show one of the outer bands directly over us. We did get some wind this afternoon so we had to move from the lakefront edge of the outdoor patio where we were having dinner with friends to the back of the patio so our food wouldn’t blow away. We did get some very light rain 🌧️ on our way home for about 5 minutes but it barely got the windshield clean! Seems like Idalia will stay to the west until she passes us by and then will make her turn to the east. That’s fine with me but I feel for the people in the Big Bend area who hay get hit with a cat 3 or 4 storm 🌀.

 

Since we like the Oasis class ships so much, and there’s so much to see and do on them we’re going back on Allure for a second time in April. We wanted to try Wonder but couldn’t justify paying almost double for what our 3/4 day B2B on Allure will cost us. Besides, I like the fact that Allure hasn’t been amped yet. Our first leg is the 3 day to Coco Cay and Nassau, then back to PC for turnaround. Our second leg is Cozumel with two sea days to play on Allure. Our first cruise on Allure was shortly after cruising resumes post shutdown and there were just over 2,200 pax on board. We felt like we were sailing on our own private yacht. 😎 I’m well aware that this sailing will be totally different! We’re still looking forward to it. 
 

Our last cruise was on Odyssey. Lots of fun things to do on that ship too. We loved the views and the photo ops from the North Star, and I liked iFly so much I’ll be visiting the one in the FLL area when we’re in that area next month. There’s one in Orlando, too, and I may find my way to that one as well. Since your taste in shows seems to be similar to ours,be sure you see the shows on Odyssey, too.

[harryfat1]

2 hours ago, Coralc said:

Put your luggage in the bathtub or bathroom while you check out the room. Don't turn off the lights unless you are using a black light. Don't use a black light, because there will be things you don't want to see anyway.🙄

 

Bedbugs have sort of a sickly, sweet smell from the decaying blood. Check behind the headboard if you can. Pull the mattress up slightly and check the box spring. Pull the mattress sheet up slightly and check the piping. You are looking for dark spotting or striping, little bug shell remains or anything that just looks "wrong" about cleanliness of the bedding. 

 

Bedbugs are out there. Media reports them as increasingly common. I don't spend a lot of time checking or worrying about it. I have been in a lot of houses and apartments that were being treated for them, and the first thing I always notice is the odor.  Probably TMI. ☺️ But *I* didn't bring it up. Sorry.

Thanks for the useful info.

 

Will keep an eye on the rooms going forward.  Never thought about looking for bed bugs.

 

Has there been any reports of cruise ships having bed bug attacks?

[harryfat1]

2 hours ago, Coralc said:

 

We attended one, many, many years ago and purchased Jim Davis signed Lithograph for $65. It is actually worth quite a bit today.  We really like cats. ☺️

We were drinking with the auctioneer at the bar on Song of America and asked him how much it usually went for? He said $65. It was the last item out and the bidding started and ended at $65 ☺️

Maybe you can be a spokesperson for the auction people in buying some piece of art years ago and the value increased.

 

I want to go for the free cheap booze and slight hope of education on what I am looking at as they describe each painting and the high entertainment value of seeing some spending big bucks on artwork.

[harryfat1]

19 minutes ago, JamesEM said:

Hi from Myrtle Beach, spent the afternoon doing my storm preparations, gassed up the cars and gas for the generator, ATM, hardware and grocery stores.  Back to cruising, this past May I did a 3-b-3 on the Harmony in a cabin that over looked Central Park and thought the cabin was very nice, good price and best of all I had the same cabin for all 3 cruises. The only problem was the selection of food since the menu option has been cut back, so I wound up eating in the Diamond Club before going to dinner.  Well I'm off to batten the hatches, 

Thanks for checking in late at night on the East Coast you guys are supposed to be in the path of the hurricane. 

 

Hope all is well.  Let us know after the storm blows through on how you fared.

 

At least the East Coast people are prepared.  The folks here on the West Coast don't really know how to deal with hurricanes.

 

As for Harmony cabin, I assumed you meant the central park view cabins similar to this one I found on the internet.

 

 

Originally that was to be our type of cabin for the Allure as that was what I paid because it was similar to the Royal Promenade view cabins we had from the Mariner.  Then just prior to sailing, we were given the option to upgrade to the Boardwalk balcony and we switched.  So we never stayed in this type of room before but it seems to be comfortable seating by the window (at least softer on the butt to sit on compared to the Voyager class sofas).

 

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the new MDR dining menu either and I'm that picky of an eater as I eat hot dogs and pizzas from Costco food court regularly but the new menu from RCI is not good from what we have eaten so far.

[harryfat1]

20 minutes ago, perfect match said:

No hurricane here yet even though the current TV reports show one of the outer bands directly over us. We did get some wind this afternoon so we had to move from the lakefront edge of the outdoor patio where we were having dinner with friends to the back of the patio so our food wouldn’t blow away. We did get some very light rain 🌧️ on our way home for about 5 minutes but it barely got the windshield clean! Seems like Idalia will stay to the west until she passes us by and then will make her turn to the east. That’s fine with me but I feel for the people in the Big Bend area who hay get hit with a cat 3 or 4 storm 🌀.

 

Since we like the Oasis class ships so much, and there’s so much to see and do on them we’re going back on Allure for a second time in April. We wanted to try Wonder but couldn’t justify paying almost double for what our 3/4 day B2B on Allure will cost us. Besides, I like the fact that Allure hasn’t been amped yet. Our first leg is the 3 day to Coco Cay and Nassau, then back to PC for turnaround. Our second leg is Cozumel with two sea days to play on Allure. Our first cruise on Allure was shortly after cruising resumes post shutdown and there were just over 2,200 pax on board. We felt like we were sailing on our own private yacht. 😎 I’m well aware that this sailing will be totally different! We’re still looking forward to it. 
 

Our last cruise was on Odyssey. Lots of fun things to do on that ship too. We loved the views and the photo ops from the North Star, and I liked iFly so much I’ll be visiting the one in the FLL area when we’re in that area next month. There’s one in Orlando, too, and I may find my way to that one as well. Since your taste in shows seems to be similar to ours,be sure you see the shows on Odyssey, too.

Good to hear the hurricane will miss your area but like you said, it will make landfall somewhere.  Hopefully, the damage from the hurricane will be minimal in its path over the next several days.

 

Yeah, I saw comments on YouTube on the Odyssey on their show.  I know there's a drone display as part of the act on the show in 270.

 

Is there a cost to participate in the iFly?  I thought when Quantum first came out, that activity was free but like many things RCI is doing nowadays, there's extra charges tacked on.

 

We will be the Northstar on a port day as I read there's a charge to be on it during Sea Days.  Personally, I would think Port Days at the best for North Star as you get the pictures of the port area instead of the ocean that I can see from the ship.

 

[harryfat1]

More pictures of the ship as we make our way to see the rest of the ship:

 

 

 

 

 

Time to check out the gym area.  Same theory as the bar.  Just walked by and took a few pictures.  Not a gym rat…

 

 

 

 

[Stefani13]

On 8/23/2023 at 5:12 PM, harryfat1 said:

Thinking about it, my first ever RCI cruise was this same itinerary back in 1996 on the Viking Serenade.  You get double and quadruple points if you know that the Viking Serenade was part of the RCI fleet years ago and actually sailed on her back in the old days.  I think the lifeboats on the new Icon of the Seas might be bigger than the Viking Serenade…

 

I checked my Crown & Anchor cruise history, and I had gone on (what I think is my first cruise ever) a 3-night Ensenada cruise on Viking Serenade with my younger sister and parents in December 1994!  Almost 30 years later, and now I'm going with my own kids on the same itinerary on Navigator in October. I think I felt like that ship was huge when I was younger. These kids don't know how good they have it these days!

[harryfat1]

Going back down to deck 5 for the Promenade deck walk around with the workers just standing around chillin' waiting for the straggler cruisers to check in for the Muster Drill

 

 

As much as I love the bigger Oasis-class ships, their lack of a wide Promenade deck is a big disappointment. 

 

 

Yeah, yeah, I know I sound like an old dude again in my complaints but I like the wide Promenade deck area.  As much as I said I don’t spend much time looking at the ocean during the cruise, I still occasionally like to go outside to see the waters as I walk past on my way to do something...

 

Deck 11 is too crowded and noisy for my liking and Deck 5 is much more tranquil if you ever want to sit and look at the ocean and think about the meaning of Life or at least think about the Talking Heads song on how you got here....

 

 

 

More pictures of the tanker ship and Star Wars Walking Tanks:

 

 

[Coralc]

1 hour ago, harryfat1 said:

Thanks for the useful info.

 

Will keep an eye on the rooms going forward.  Never thought about looking for bed bugs.

 

Has there been any reports of cruise ships having bed bug attacks?

 

Not recently. And just maybe one or two, quite a few years ago. They are pretty on top of pest control on the ships. (on all cruise lines) 

 

The only time I was ever concerned about it was when I first encountered no-see-ums in the Outer Banks in North Carolina, and I didn't know what had bitten me so badly. We put the suitcases in the garage and put all the clothes directly into the wash and left the luggage out there for a few days. But it was needless worrying. ☺️

Edited August 30, 2023 by Coralc

[harryfat1]

13 minutes ago, Stefani13 said:

 

I checked my Crown & Anchor cruise history, and I had gone on (what I think is my first cruise ever) a 3-night Ensenada cruise on Viking Serenade with my younger sister and parents in December 1994!  Almost 30 years later, and now I'm going with my own kids on the same itinerary on Navigator in October. I think I felt like that ship was huge when I was younger. These kids don't know how good they have it these days!

December 1994 was 2 years before my first cruise on RCI. 

 

In many ways, the "hardware" of cruising has improved by leaps and bounds in having so many gadgets and fun things to do while on the ships.

 

In other ways, the old timer cruisers like yours truly will look fondly at the old cruise days and think the "software" (as in food/glamours atmosphere) was better in the old days.

[Badatz2]

IFly is like the Northstar.  Free on port days and for money on sea days

[HappyTexan44]

10 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

Mind if I ask you how did you become so knowledgeable in bed bugs area?

 

On step #2 - when you say around the bed - as in on top of the bed/underneath the bed?  Which part of the bed am I supposed to look at?  

 

At the risk of sounding dumb (easy for me to do), isn't it counter-intuitive to turn down the lights to see?  How can I see if it's all dark with no lights on and the carpet is dark colored?  How do I find the dark brown trail on a dark carpet in the dark?

 

When my friend brought them home from Disney, I was spending 50% of my nights in hotel rooms for work.  There are internet instructions on how to find bed bugs.  They bite people sleeping in the bed, and then go hide during the day.  Headboard as mentioned earlier and near there are prime spots.   Also, on the edges of the mattress and box springs are those ... I don't remember what they're called, but move those around and look on the underside.   

And, yes, the black light does show you disgusting things.  Which is why the very first thing I do is to use two fingers to put the bedspread(s) in a corner and then wash my hands.    At least in hotel rooms, they aren't cleaned (I don't know about cruises).  Think about what happens in hotel rooms.  Stuff you see on the walls you can mostly forget,   

 

 

[KiwiGal117]

On 8/23/2023 at 7:32 PM, harryfat1 said:

 

At the risk of sounding paranoid, do you folks check/double-check each corner of the hotel room before checking out? Always worry I will forget something important in each hotel room. Yeah, yeah, 9.2 on the scale also includes being paranoid…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just to justify your paranoia, when we were at an AirBnb in Civitavecchia, I left my Kindle on the nightstand (black cover, black nightstand). We got a call from the owner right after we boarded Harmony, and I had to go back to the AirBnb to pick it up. I had plenty of time, but it totally wrecked the first day vibe!!  I guess if it's justified, it isn't paranoia right?

 

Anyway - nice to see you back!  I was late to the party here, but thrilled to see another Cheapo Dad review!

[harryfat1]

17 hours ago, Coralc said:

 

Not recently. And just maybe one or two, quite a few years ago. They are pretty on top of pest control on the ships. (on all cruise lines) 

 

The only time I was ever concerned about it was when I first encountered no-see-ums in the Outer Banks in North Carolina, and I didn't know what had bitten me so badly. We put the suitcases in the garage and put all the clothes directly into the wash and left the luggage out there for a few days. But it was needless worrying. ☺️

Thanks for the info.  Good to know that the cruise industry is vigilant on the pest issue. Especially problematic if a cruise is sold out and your cabin has bedbug issues.  Not like they can relocate you to another cabin if there are no vacancies and you can't switch ships last minute.

[HBE4]

18 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

Going back down to deck 5 for the Promenade deck walk around with the workers just standing around chillin' waiting for the straggler cruisers to check in for the Muster Drill

 

 

As much as I love the bigger Oasis-class ships, their lack of a wide Promenade deck is a big disappointment. 

 

 

Yeah, yeah, I know I sound like an old dude again in my complaints but I like the wide Promenade deck area.  As much as I said I don’t spend much time looking at the ocean during the cruise, I still occasionally like to go outside to see the waters as I walk past on my way to do something...

 

Deck 11 is too crowded and noisy for my liking and Deck 5 is much more tranquil if you ever want to sit and look at the ocean and think about the meaning of Life or at least think about the Talking Heads song on how you got here....

 

 

 

More pictures of the tanker ship and Star Wars Walking Tanks:

 

 

 

I like the wide Promenade deck as well. It's quiet, shaded, plenty of chairs and very few people.  Most important, it's as close to the open water as you can get so you really get the feeling of moving across the ocean. At night, love see the wake in the moon light.

 

The only down side is no drink service. But it's not a place to hang out all day, every day. But to go for an hour here and there, it's perfect. Plus it reminds me of ocean liners in old movies.

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

11 hours ago, HappyTexan44 said:

 

When my friend brought them home from Disney, I was spending 50% of my nights in hotel rooms for work.  There are internet instructions on how to find bed bugs.  They bite people sleeping in the bed, and then go hide during the day.  Headboard as mentioned earlier and near there are prime spots.   Also, on the edges of the mattress and box springs are those ... I don't remember what they're called, but move those around and look on the underside.   

And, yes, the black light does show you disgusting things.  Which is why the very first thing I do is to use two fingers to put the bedspread(s) in a corner and then wash my hands.    At least in hotel rooms, they aren't cleaned (I don't know about cruises).  Think about what happens in hotel rooms.  Stuff you see on the walls you can mostly forget,   

 

 

Will be more vigilant in inspecting the hotel rooms going forward.

 

This has never entered my mind as I only associate bed bugs with lower-quality one-star motels but it sounds like it's very common at all the hotels.

[harryfat1]

6 hours ago, KiwiGal117 said:

Just to justify your paranoia, when we were at an AirBnb in Civitavecchia, I left my Kindle on the nightstand (black cover, black nightstand). We got a call from the owner right after we boarded Harmony, and I had to go back to the AirBnb to pick it up. I had plenty of time, but it totally wrecked the first day vibe!!  I guess if it's justified, it isn't paranoia right?

 

Anyway - nice to see you back!  I was late to the party here, but thrilled to see another Cheapo Dad review!

Thanks.  It's good to be back sharing my travel pictures and spewing every topic under the sun like donuts, Cirque and bed bugs with some Mexico cruise pictures in between as filler material.

 

No worries about being late as there's a time warp within this thread since we are still on day 1 after various posts.

 

Yeah, I can imagine being upset about leaving an electronic device behind.  Good thing you were able to go back and get it as if you were on the plane back to the US, you would have to pay the shipping cost to get it back.

[harryfat1]

49 minutes ago, HBE4 said:

 

I like the wide Promenade deck as well. It's quiet, shaded, plenty of chairs and very few people.  Most important, it's as close to the open water as you can get so you really get the feeling of moving across the ocean. At night, love see the wake in the moon light.

The only down side is no drink service. But it's not a place to hang out all day, every day. But to go for an hour here and there, it's perfect. Plus it reminds me of ocean liners in old movies.

 

 

 

Yeah, we went to play shuffleboard down on deck 5 on day 2.  There were only a handful of people down there.

 

However, if you go to Alaska, the Promenade deck gets awfully crowded on Glacier viewing days.

 

 

These other 2 pictures are not from the Promenade but you can see on Alaska cruises, people look OUT a lot more than on other warm water cruises

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

OK.  Onward with the trip report:

++++++++++++

Catalina Ferry – This 4-day itinerary has us visiting Catalina Island on day 3 so I won’t get too far ahead of myself but since I have a picture of the ferry, just want to mention a couple of things. 

 

 

 

 

The island is about 25 miles from the coast of Southern California and people typically visit the island via the ferry from different ports in the region.

 

One of the ports is right in San Pedro near where the Navigator is docked.

 

See where the red arrow is for the ferry versus the purple arrow for where the Navigator & USS Iowa is located so you can see the Catalina ferry terminal is not that far from us

 

 

So this ferry is headed out of San Pedro for Catalina, where we will be in a couple of days.

 

Throughout the day, there were numerous announcements over the PA system telling people they needed to check in at their Muster Drill station or else the ship couldn’t sail.

 

Here’s more numbers discussion that most people won’t care about.  I think they said at the 3 PM mark, there were still over 200 people out of 3,700 that hadn’t done their Must Drill check-in.  As the official double capacity of the ship is at 3,386 (Per Wiki), our sailing of 3,700+ passengers puts us at 109% of capacity. 

 

Which makes for a very crowded ship as we saw people everywhere.  This is somewhat expected as the cruise industry has been having a banner year this year with people going on cruises in record numbers post the Covid lockdown/restrictions.

The theoretical max for the Navigator is at 4,000.  That’s achieved if they can fill every 3^rd and 4^th berth in every cabin.  Those typically are on big vacation periods where families pack the clan into triples and quad cabins.  As we typically only sail when the kids are out of school, we are used to having a ship full of people of over 100% double capacity.

 

The only cruise we have that’s less than 100% full was last year’s Alaska cruise on Princess where it was around 65% but that was still during the Covid era where you have to show proof of vaccination as well as doing an Online test 2 days prior to sailing.  Many hurdles prevented the average cruiser from wanting to be on a cruise.

 

Now there are fewer restrictions but we are all seeing the cruise prices skyrocket.  Only if my 401K holdings can go up as fast as my cruise fares…

 

 

[harryfat1]

The walk around deck 5 takes us to the front of the ship to the Helipad.  I miss being out here.  Many ships nowadays are not designed for access to the Helipad. 

 

Heck, the Majestic Princess ship doesn’t even have a total walk around the Promenade deck.  It just ends at both ends as a dead stop.

 

Oasis-class ship is only slightly better in that wraps around but is narrow at some parts and has no Helipad access

 

 

Front of the ship where you can do the famous movie Titanic impersonation as well as get a different perspective on the USS Iowa museum

 

 

 

Looking at the San Pedro port webcam which is probably in the middle of the picture at the small dark area