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

[Sea Dog]

Great work! Really enjoying your review.

[Happy Cruiser Girl]

Was Aysy your Cruise Director? She was the CD on the Jewel when we sailed last March. I really liked her style.

[harryfat1]

10 hours ago, HappyTexan44 said:

Thank you for doing the numbers calc on the food costs.   I wish my food at home went down by as much.   

Yeah, in the past 12 months, I would think everyone, including mega corporations like RCCL, was adversely impacted by inflation.  Seeing the cost going down instead of up in the era of high inflation food prices leads to many questions on how that was achieved.

 

I noticed on the RCI board here there are other threads of people unhappy with MDR’s new menu so I’m not the only one feeling this way.

 

As per my calculation previously, people are now paying on average $183/day of cruising instead of $161/day a year ago. People won’t mind paying for more if they feel like they are getting more.  But it’s hard to argue that they are getting more when food cost has gone down from $19.86 to $16.91.

 

 

Out of that extra $22/per day people are now paying ($183 less $161), if RCI just adds $5/day on getting better quality food and a few dollars more here and there on entertainment and other venues, then people won’t be as upset. It's OK for a company to make a profit from the extra revenue but they need to give some back as a cost-benefit to the customers.

 

It’s a bad business model when people are paying more and they feel like they are getting less in return.

[harryfat1]

4 hours ago, Fishfan0073 said:

@harryfat1 I can not thank you enough for making the last two weeks feel less miserable.  Vacation starts on Friday and we leave for our Mariner of the Seas cruise on Saturday.  With me starting vacation mode two weeks ago your trip report has made the time go by.  Now all we need is Tropical Storm Lee soon to be Hurricane Lee to go north and stay away from the US.  Hoping this happens by this weekend.  Thanks again for the report enjoyed every minute of it so far.

Wow.  Thanks for the compliment.  Glad the trip report has been entertaining in getting you ready for your upcoming cruise. Yeah, I would be “checked out” of work a few days prior to sailing as well.

 

We were on the Mariner years ago for a 7-night Mexico cruise when she was out on the west coast – the same San Pedro port I discussed ad nauseam many posts ago.

 

As it’s effectively the same ship as the Navigator with some cosmetic changes, hopefully, the day 1 pictures I have posted so far have gotten you excited for your cruise.

 

Maybe you can take pictures of all the areas I failed to take pictures of and you can upload them here after you get back since the two ships are identical inside such as drawers and electrical plugs and bathroom tiles - Yeah, I know, you are not THAT bored...

 

I saw the news on Hurricane Lee which is forecasted to grow even bigger by early next week.  Does your cruise to the Eastern Caribbean that might need an itinerary change to avoid the Hurricane? Hope everything turns out well.

[harryfat1]

3 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

Great work! Really enjoying your review.

Thanks for following along and contributing to this report.

 

Too bad I couldn’t get any good Line pictures from this cruise.  You might have better luck next year or just ignore the dock workers like Patti did and squeeze through the barricades. Maybe the sea lions will be back on your cruise

[harryfat1]

2 hours ago, Happy Cruiser Girl said:

Was Aysy your Cruise Director? She was the CD on the Jewel when we sailed last March. I really liked her style.

No.  Our cruise director was a guy.  The assistant cruise director was the gal.

 

Sorry, I didn't recall their names.  Here are a couple of pictures from the cruise:

 

The cruise director is the dude with the sailor hat and a good body

 

 

The assistant cruise director is in blue

 

[harryfat1]

August 8, (Tuesday) Day 2 - Sea Day

 

 

In my previous trip reports, I like to post the daily compass at the start of every day as it serves as a guide on what we are doing for the day.  In the old days, these were always on your bed the night before as part of the “turn down” service but nowadays you have to request the compass separately from the cabin steward.

 

In addition, since we requested daily cleaning to be done during the day, the cruise compasses were not part of the nightly routine.  So now we get the daily compasses prior to leaving for shows/dinner nightly.

 

I will be the first one to admit I didn’t read EVERY single line of this while on board the ship as I had too many other things going on but now I’m reading the info, they wanted people to go to the App by day 3 at 11 AM to sign up for departure info.  Ooops.  Didn’t see that.  Oh, well…

 

I was talking about getting free booze at an art auction years ago.  It looks like that tradition has remained the same.  Check out the info on the top of page 1. Cynics would say there must be a HUGE profit in that area for them to give you free booze and be front and center on the daily compass to grab your attention…

 

As typical of most cruises, day 2 is “Formal Night” or that was what it used to be called.  Soon we will all be dating ourselves as we call day 2 formal night when the cruise line is calling it “Dress to Impress” – what MBA marketing genius came up with that phrase?

 

Who are you trying to impress? The captain?  Never saw him the entire cruise.  Maybe it's post-COVID protocols nowadays in not having come out to meet with passengers anymore.

 

 

[harryfat1]

Page 2

 

 

Besides being cheap, there's no real need to have Internet on this short cruise.  True, we had no internet from 5 PM of Day 1 until the morning of Day 3 but we had Internet access on both port days so unless you have some real urgent business back home, not having Internet access can be good for the soul as you disconnect.

 

I never saw that they had the Silent disco party until reading it now. But not like we could have made it anyway as we had 8 PM dinner and the thing is from 7:45 to 9:15.

 

But we did note on the calendar of the Belly Flop Contest at 2 PM.  That one is a MUST for us as we like to be entertained...

 

 

[harryfat1]

Page 3

 

 

I'll get into the odd dining room hours later at dinnertime

 

[harryfat1]

Page 4

 

For the most part, this is really the only page I read carefully.  On other pages, I sometimes bypass it as I just want to know what is happening and when.  This schedule tells me on one page.  

 

No scrolling the dang App up and down trying to find what I want. Yeah, old man and his ways...

 

Some old-school cruisers like to bring yellow highlighters or pens to circle/mark off important events they plan to participate in.

 

These jpeg files are hard to read because CC displays them at a lower resolution, I have also scanned them in PDF below so in case anyone wants to look at them at home in hard copies, you can download the PDF version and read them.  You are welcome...

 

 

 

Day 2.pdf

[harryfat1]

Alrighty, we have the daily schedule displayed above.  We know what we want to do as we looked at the schedule from last night in the cabin.  That's our ritual as we go back to the cabin at night with water/hot tea to drink and we ma[ out what we plan to do the next day as to set the alarm for the right time.

 

So Day 2 is a Sea Day for this itinerary.  I will be the first one to admit that I don't like Sea Days.  I know that goes against the popular opinion here on CC as many people love Sea Days because they relax in a lounger by the pool with a drink at the Solarium.  As I already mentioned, that's not my preference.

 

Here's my "perfect" cruise itinerary:

 

Day 1 - Boarding

Day 2 - Port Day

Day 3 - Port Day

Day 4 - Port Day

Day 5 - Sea Day to rest/sleep in

Day 6 - Port Day

Day 7 - Port Day

Day 8 - Sea Day to pack and buy whatever is needed on the ship

Day 9 - Disembark

 

So I typically don't look forward to sea days but since this short cruise only had 1 sea day, I'm OK with it although I prefer Carnival's itinerary for their 4-day Mexico cruise more as they have Catalina and Ensenada as the first 2 port days and last day is a sea day. 

 

I rather have the last day as the sea day as we need time to pack and it's easier if it's sea day.  However as I will show later for Catalina, they can't handle 2 ships in port the same day given their infrastructure so Carnival got first dibs on visiting Catalina as they never left this market like RCI did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Coralc]

2 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

Thanks for following along and contributing to this report.

 

Too bad I couldn’t get any good Line pictures from this cruise.  You might have better luck next year or just ignore the dock workers like Patti did and squeeze through the barricades. Maybe the sea lions will be back on your cruise

LOL. Unless he decides to tack on a 3, 4 or 5 night he is not going to Ensenada, though. I believe @Sea Dog is doing the Mexican Riviera cruise for the week. ☺️

 

We are trying to do that more often, so we only have one flight, and a longer cruise. 

Edited September 7, 2023 by Coralc

[Sea Dog]

20 minutes ago, Coralc said:

LOL. Unless he decides to tack on a 3, 4 or 5 night he is not going to Ensenada, though. I believe @Sea Dog is doing the Mexican Riviera cruise for the week. ☺️

 

We are trying to do that more often, so we only have one flight, and a longer cruise. 

 

Yes since we have to fly from Kansas City we only take 7 nights or longer cruises.

[Coralc]

1 minute ago, Sea Dog said:

 

Yes since we have to fly from Kansas City we only take 7 nights or longer cruises.

We have done the 4- and 5-night cruises in So Cal, but if we have to fly to Galveston or Florida for 7 or 9 night cruises , we will be doing more B2B's, simply because of the cost of airfare. And we can do that now, as retirees. ☺️ (After Bobby is gone) 😒

[JamesEM]

I went to Customer Service to get a copy of the Daily Compass when the new policy just effect and this nice lady told me she could upload my cell phone, so I handed her my flip phone, LOL.  Then she said to check with the room attendant.

 

As for the food cut backs, on my b-3-b the first week I ate in the MDR, the second week I ate in the Windjammer making sure that I had my fill in the Diamond Club (which had good eats.)  The  third week my family joined me for my birthday cruise and we did a combination of both.  After three weeks of cruise food I felt like I was eating at an inexpensive all you can eat restaurant.

[harryfat1]

2 hours ago, Coralc said:

LOL. Unless he decides to tack on a 3, 4 or 5 night he is not going to Ensenada, though. I believe @Sea Dog is doing the Mexican Riviera cruise for the week. ☺️

 

We are trying to do that more often, so we only have one flight, and a longer cruise. 

 

2 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

 

Yes since we have to fly from Kansas City we only take 7 nights or longer cruises.

Yes, I know the Sea Dog is on a 7 day itinerary but per the RCI web site, there are only 2 sailings that month and both goes to Ensenada as RCI adjusted the classic 7 day Mexican itinerary that Princess Cruises made famous with the "Love Boat" TV series eons ago.

 

So unless there's another sailing not listed, I believe he's on the way to see the sea lions...

 

[harryfat1]

1 hour ago, JamesEM said:

I went to Customer Service to get a copy of the Daily Compass when the new policy just effect and this nice lady told me she could upload my cell phone, so I handed her my flip phone, LOL.  Then she said to check with the room attendant.

 

As for the food cut backs, on my b-3-b the first week I ate in the MDR, the second week I ate in the Windjammer making sure that I had my fill in the Diamond Club (which had good eats.)  The  third week my family joined me for my birthday cruise and we did a combination of both.  After three weeks of cruise food I felt like I was eating at an inexpensive all you can eat restaurant.

Oh, very nice.  So you bought a Samsung Flip 4 phone last year? Do you like it? Like this YouTube video...

 

Oh, silly me, I think you meant the OG flip phone... 🤣

 

 

Yeah, I admire your stomach to have B3B worth of cruise food, especially in the morning where it's pretty repetitive 

[harryfat1]

Let's start with some mellow rock music to start the morning as we hope everyone had good dreams the night before:

 

 

 

First picture of the morning as I wait for the family to wake up slowly so the room isn't as well-lit

 

Wanted to show the slant of deck 8 Promenade view cabin windows as you see the frame is slanted

 

 

Some pics of the Royal Promenade below while still early.

 

I never saw the ball thing open up like we had seen on other cruise ships.  Most likely it’s broken and they can’t fix it while the ship is moving. On other sailings, I had seen it open up at the nightly dance parties.

 

 

 

Few neighbors across the way are awake

 

[harryfat1]

In theory, if I was a diligent trip reviewer, I’d go down on deck 5 and take pictures of the RP while there were no people.  But since it’s a “been there, done that” cruise, didn’t feel the urgency to take more pictures. Maybe for the Odyssey in December…

 

Instead, you get up close pictures of the two sofas in the cabin.  But how often do you see that get posted on CC so maybe it was a good thing I stayed in today…

 

As discussed previously, the sofa by the window is harder than the wall sofa that has back support as well.

 

 

[scrapcreator]

I appreciate all that you have shared so far on your trip report. We board tomorrow for a quick weekend HS reunion cruise.

 

Thank you.

[Coralc]

12 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

 

Yes, I know the Sea Dog is on a 7 day itinerary but per the RCI web site, there are only 2 sailings that month and both goes to Ensenada as RCI adjusted the classic 7 day Mexican itinerary that Princess Cruises made famous with the "Love Boat" TV series eons ago.

 

So unless there's another sailing not listed, I believe he's on the way to see the sea lions...

 

Thanks! I did not know that. It seems a shame. Mazatlan is a little nicer than Ensenada. 

[harryfat1]

7 hours ago, scrapcreator said:

I appreciate all that you have shared so far on your trip report. We board tomorrow for a quick weekend HS reunion cruise.

 

Thank you.

You are welcome.  Thanks for reading along.

 

We will still be on day 2 of my cruise report by the time you come back Monday morning from your cruise as the whole space/time warp continuum thing distorts real-time versus cruise report writing time.

 

Very nice to have a long weekend break for HS reunion.  This means you will be going to Ensenada as your only stop. 

 

If you see some sea lions early in the morning while the ship is docking, take a picture and report back here. 

 

If you appreciate mooring lines, just ignore the front gate barrier and do a “Patti Maneuver” to take some up-close pictures with or without the sea lion and then point at your cell phone when yelled at by the dock workers.  Just say, my friend Patti told me it's OK to do it...

[harryfat1]

5 hours ago, Coralc said:

Thanks! I did not know that. It seems a shame. Mazatlan is a little nicer than Ensenada. 

Yeah, both Carnival and RCI have been trying to mix things up from the classic 3 major ports of the Mexican Riviera itinerary. Unlike the Caribbean cruise of eastern/western/southern Caribbean options of various ports, there are a limited number of viable ports here on the west coast. 

 

To make it less of the “same old” Mexican cruise, Ensenada has been added as a swap port of late.  Carnival and Princess has some sailings that add La Paz as another port for the longer cruise.

 

Many years ago, we were on the Carnival cruise that went to Acapulco, Manzanillo, and Zihuatanejo from San Diego.  Those ports were special.  Too bad they no longer offer that itinerary as part of the drug cartel war casualty as I wouldn’t mind going back there again.

 

I agree that Mazatlán is a nice port to visit but many people dislike it as they think it’s an industrial port they just walked around the “golden zone” for the endless number of useless souvenirs and felt it was a wasted stop.

 

Of all the cruise excursions I have been on, the best value excursion was at Mazatlán.

 

https://www.mazatlantours.org/stone-island-tour.htm

 

In this tour, you get a cruise by the bay and then they take you to a beach restaurant of free unlimited booze on top of a free lunch. 

 

But wait, we are not done yet.  On top of that, you get 2 activities on the list that include horseback riding or banana boat from the list.

 

All this for $39/pp is dirt cheap compared to how much the other excursions charge you elsewhere.

 

If I ever go back to Mazatlán, I will do this again as it’s great value.  Did I mention I’m cheap?

[harryfat1]

OK. More on day 2 of the cruise:

 

+++++++++++

 

To the rest of the world, it’s Tuesday.  To you on the cruise vacation, it’s Day 2.  But the floor on every elevator reminds you of what the “real world” is experiencing. 

 

Maybe back at the office, on Tuesday morning, there’s a staff meeting but that’s not your concern now as you are heading for the buffet for your first breakfast on this cruise.

 

 

 

There’s always an RCI dude at the buffet entrance to remind people to wash their hands. I will introduce everyone to Mr. Washy Washy later on.  For today, we just had his substitute and the dude was busy playing with a little kid as we walked in.

 

 

As I haven't cruised with RCI since 2017, when did they install these wash basins in Windjammer? Is this related to Covid or prior to that?  I didn't see them on Freedom or Indenpence back then

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Found a big table near the back of the buffet – a good location as it’s central to where all the hot food is.

 

 

Lots of people at breakfast at 9 AM

 

 

My wife prefers a more Asian breakfast whereas the boys and I like the more western style. 

 

One of them likes the English-style breakfast with beans and tomatoes.

 

 

The other one likes the donut...

 

 

I like the Eggs Benedict

 

 

 

My wife’s preference for congee