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

[harryfat1]

1 hour ago, Biker19 said:

No trick, when you open a browser on the device and go to the Voom login page there’s a link for both Play and App stores. Click on the appropriate one for your device and the timer starts on the free Wi-Fi. It won’t work on a laptop - only a device which would normally get the app from the store (I think the redirect to the store is what triggers the free Wi-Fi session). 

Thanks.  Good to know.  Will give it a try in December on the Odyssey on a Sea Day to see how it works out.

 

Didn't really need Internet access on this cruise as we had the Internet up to sail away in LA.  Day 2 was the only Sea Day.  Day 3 was Catalina Island - which is a US port so all cell phone coverages apply.  Day 4 was Mexico but my unlimited Verizon plan applies in Mexico so had coverage there as well.

 

The December cruise in the Caribbean will be a different story. so will give that a shot in gaining my 15 minutes of "fame" or even better - 15 minutes of free internet...

 

On a side note - did you move to Virginia?  My fuzzy old man memory had you in Florida from the old days?  

[harryfat1]

11 minutes ago, CTCruiser76 said:

Not a scientific answer, but rather my observation .... It's because the RCCL ports are super easy. For the most part, you drop off your luggage right in the parking garage where you park....no shuttles like in Fort Lauderdale. They also use facial recognition....no need to have your passport out, if you did all the pre arrival stuff. Just walk down the hallway and they monitors give you the green light. 

Very cool.  That makes boarding a very fast process.

 

But to be the number 1 cruise port in beating out FLL and Miami, you must have enough ships that carry numerous passengers through to get you to the top.

 

Maybe this is where "numbers" can lie - does Port Canaveral have a disproportionate number of short cruises versus the FLL and Miami cruises that are longer cruises?

 

For example, if a ship does the 3 and 4-night cruise weekly and each ship carries 4,000 people, that's technically 8,000 people "through the gates" in a week's time.

 

Whereas FLL and Miami have the longer 7-day cruise and they might have the big 6,500 people on each of the mega ships but since the cruise duration is longer and hence less "turn over", by definition they have "fewer" people going through as each ship is only bringing in 6,500 passengers instead of the 8,000 passenger example from above?

 

Orlando is its own destination by itself with WDW and Universal there.  People probably prefer short 3 o4 4 day cruises on top of their theme park visits as their vacation time is limited so the short cruises will sell well there instead of the longer cruises.

 

A 4-day WDW visit + short cruise is shorter PTO usage for those of us who work and have limited vacation time...

 

 

[Biker19]

21 minutes ago, harryfat1 said:

On a side note - did you move to Virginia? 

Yea. 

[harryfat1]

Onward and forward on day 1 of the trip report. 

 

Where were we?  Oh, yeah, Bib still dancing with the ladies to the song "Baby Got Back..."

 

++++++++++

OK.  Enough singing and dancing as Bib sit down to cool off, we move onto the boarding process.

 

Picture of the ship workers talking to us as we took pictures of the ship from the pier.  San Pedro has an interesting view where you walk alongside the ship for a few hundred feet and you can take pictures of the ship prior to boarding. 

 

 

 

I’m not the only dude taking pictures of the ship.  You can see it’s a long walk to the gangway along the pier.

 

 

This picture had a time stamp of 10:48 so it took us less than 20 minutes to go through tent city/security/check-in. That is super fast so even though San Pedro check-in doesn’t look fancy, they are very efficient.

 

Throughout the report, I try not to sound too jaded in the “been there, done that” attitude on this cruise but at this point of my cruise experience, seeing the older ship no longer has the “wow” butterfly in the stomach feel.  But if you are new to cruising (or to Royal), the site of seeing a massive ship up close for the first time is a truly amazing experience that too many veteran cruisers take for granted.

 

As you walk down the pier, you will see the shipboard photographers setting up shop along the way. Unlike the Fort Lauderdale piers where the onboard pictures are taken inside the terminal, San Pedro does it from the outside. Different perspective.

 

Anyone who has read my previous trip reports knows I have a name for the shipboard photographers – crazy aunt in the basement.  If one reads the typical cruise report here on CC, seldom do the cruise reports talk about the shipboard photographers.  Yet, shipboard photography is a big part of the cruise experience as they are there before you even board the ship.  They are there as soon as you walk off the ship at any port and in front of every major shipboard activity and nightly dinner outside of the main dining room (MDR).

 

Maybe the CC cruisers are too cool to partake in the cheesy money-grabbing event like the photographers or they are not cruising with large families or big groups so they don’t utilize the shipboard photographers but we will use them as we always cruise as a family and we like to capture the special memory of every cruise we have been on. 

 

Anyway, my analogy is that it’s like a big family that has a crazy aunt that they locked in the basement, so she doesn’t injure herself/others.  Everyone knows she exists, but nobody talks about her at the dinner table.

 

That’s how I feel about shipboard photography.  It’s there as a big part of the cruise experience but seldom discussed like a crazy aunt in the basement.  So I will refer to each photo opt as “crazy aunt in basement” for the rest of the report.

 

[harryfat1]

Luggage is being loaded onto the ship as well as the power cord.  I didn’t know about the power thing until after I got home.  More on the power cord thing on day 5 of the report.

 

 

Anyway, let’s talk about luggage as that was the reason for this picture.  Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be a luggage?  I mean if Toys can have feelings like in the movie series, Toy Story, why can luggage be alive and have feelings as well?

 

Luggage is probably one of the most underappreciated travel accessories. Most of the time, they are hidden in the closet/garage somewhere. Only to be used during travel times.  They hold probably 90%+ of the travel clothes/necessities but everyone takes the suitcases for granted.  The only time we care about the luggage is when they are stolen/misplaced by someone.

 

If unlucky, the luggage can be at the bottom of 5 layers of luggage as the workers pile on the suitcase to make sure they fit inside each cargo load.

 

At the end of the cruise, we all just throw a whole bunch of smelly clothes inside the suitcase as most people don’t bring laundry bags to sort of their clothes while on vacation.  Bad enough to have to carry all the stuff for the owner and at the end of the vacation, you have to carry the smelly socks and underwear home?

 

Yeah, I wouldn't want to be a piece of luggage either…

[harryfat1]

After visiting the crazy aunt in the basement, you are stopped once more at the edge of the gangway as the staff scans the Set Sail Sea pass once more on the phone or hard copy.

 

 

So close and yet so far…

 

 

They scanned the pass and they were unhappy with how my wife’s pictures turned out from downstairs so they took ANOTHER picture from the tablet.  I guess eventually they will get it right…

 

OK.  Here’s the happiest walk for the cruise – gangway to the ship.  Nobody in front of us…

 

 

Not exactly Stairway to Heaven - more like Gangway to Happiness but I can't find that song on YouTube so this will have to do...

 

 

[harryfat1]

But before you get too comfortable, the workers are trying hard to get you to check in at your assigned muster station while you are still on the Promenade deck.  You were supposed to have watched the video on your App on how to put on the lifevest and know the sounds of the emergency drill and so on. 

 

This is one of those “things are better now” compared to pre-covid.  In the old days, you had to stand outside the Promenade deck about 30 minutes prior to the ship’s sail away with thousands of your fellow cruisers in the heat to listen to the long announcements and watch the workers put on the life vests in front of you.

 

If you really go back even further, in the really old days, everyone had to take the vests from their cabins and put them on while standing on the deck.  They stopped that after a while and for a while it was no vest, but just showed up.

 

Now it’s easier as you just go to your muster station, let the workers at that station scan your phone to signify you were there and you understood the rules and you are done.

 

On paper, I applaud the idea as it’s fast and efficient since nobody likes to stand outside.  But the 9.2 anal/paranoia person in me always wonders how many first-time cruisers really paid attention to the app on this and really know what to do in an emergency?  Do they even know where the life vests are in their cabins?

 

You all know full well that if something goes wrong on some future sailing and people don’t know enough about how to use/find the life vests, there will be tons of talking heads on National news shows asking why people are unaware of the life vest process because it was simplified/turned virtual back in the old days (current)...

[harryfat1]

Anyway, enough theoretical worrying.  Muster Station Check-In is out of the way, it’s time to eat.

 

By default, most cruisers will head for the Windjammer, which is the buffet place for RCI ships. If you don’t know where to go after your muster check-in, the workers will tell you the buffet is open upstairs on deck 11 on the Navigator of the Seas.

 

Off we go and greeting us at the opening of the elevator is the day of the week.  This is the signature RCI elevator sign to remind cruisers that the “real world” out there is still on regular days of the week.  But you don’t care as you are on vacation and as far as you are concerned, it’s Day 1.

 

 

As we were amongst the earlier group boarding the ship, there were still many empty tables at the back of the Windjammer. This picture had a time stamp of 11:13 so it was less than 45 minutes between arrival at Tent City and having a very early lunch at 11:15 – barely 3 hours after the hotel breakfast earlier.

 

But hey, this is a cruise, so time to open the belly and let’s eat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Coralc]

11 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

 

I only asked because I've never been there before. No need to be snarky.

Apologies! ☺️ No Snark was intended. Just bad writing and punctuation on my part. Two sentences. I am pretty sure Navigator always docks at the same pier, was in answer to your question. And even though they are temporary structures, I don't think they will be moved. 

[Sea Dog]

1 minute ago, Coralc said:

Apologies! ☺️ No Snark was intended. Just bad writing and punctuation on my part. Two sentences. I am pretty sure Navigator always docks at the same pier, was in answer to your question. And even though they are temporary structures, I don't think they will be moved. 

Got it thank you. That I can believe came from you. When I first read it I thought is Patti really implying I’m that stupid? No worries all is good.

[Etta1213]

On 8/20/2023 at 5:39 PM, harryfat1 said:

 

 

I also find reading things on paper is easier to absorb into the brain.  At work, I prefer to print things out and use a highlighter to mark key points like when I was in college.  Reading things on the computer screen just doesn't do it for me in terms of ideas "sticking to the brain" compared to highlighting the hard copies.

 

Anyone else feels the same?

I'm exactly like this. Can't seem to retain info otherwise. Maybe has to do with learning styles. One of my children couldn't learn the alphabet till we "traced" the letters in chocolate pudding, etc, on waxed paper. She's a tactile learner.

Edited August 26, 2023 by Etta1213

[mrstmaxx]

Haven’t sailed on RC (40+ on Princess) so my question is - can you bring your luggage on board or do you  have to give it to them.  They once left my luggage on the sidewalk so I now always take it onboard with us (luckily I saw it before we entered the terminal). Thanks 

[NHProud]

@Sea Dog  We took this cruise this past October and I’m no way as observant as Harry . I don’t remember the tent because as previously discussed elsewhere we bypassed all of that because of bum knee and the wheelchair assist.  We had no problems boarding at all . They were very helpful.  
 

We’ve been in Southern California long enough to have visited Howard Hughes’s Spruce Goose . We’ve stayed on the Queen Mary and sailed on the QM2 .  My husband and I have spent some time in Long Beach and can give recommendations for hotels there and in LA . We stayed at the Doubletree in San Pedro prior to this cruise and it was just okay. No dumps ! Only those in the know know what I’m referring to . 
 

No tiki bar recommendations , however.  

Edited August 26, 2023 by NHProud

[harryfat1]

3 hours ago, Etta1213 said:

I'm exactly like this. Can't seem to retain info otherwise. Maybe has to do with learning styles. One of my children couldn't learn the alphabet till we "traced" the letters in chocolate pudding, etc, on waxed paper. She's a tactile learner.

Yeah, we all learned different ways.  I got used to highlighting things from college that I still print stuff out at work to highlight but most people in the office don't print hard copies of things. 

 

Everyone has their own preferences.

 

[harryfat1]

3 hours ago, mrstmaxx said:

Haven’t sailed on RC (40+ on Princess) so my question is - can you bring your luggage on board or do you  have to give it to them.  They once left my luggage on the sidewalk so I now always take it onboard with us (luckily I saw it before we entered the terminal). Thanks 

Wow.  I wonder what happened to your luggage that the porter wouldn't take to the ship.  Did you tip the guy? 

 

To answer your question, yes, you can self-assist in bringing the luggage onto the ship yourself.  Just know that you would need to drag it around the ship for a while to the lunch area as the cabins are not available until after 1 PM. Unlike Princess Cruises, RCI does not have free MDR lunches on boarding day so you have to deal with taking the luggage with you to lunch.

 

Another option is to time your arrival on the ship to be around 1 PM so you can drop off the luggage immediately upon boarding and then go to lunch.

[h20skibum]

10 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

This is one of those “things are better now” compared to pre-covid.  In the old days, you had to stand outside the Promenade deck about 30 minutes prior to the ship’s sail away with thousands of your fellow cruisers in the heat to listen to the long announcements and watch the workers put on the life vests in front of you.

 

I miss those good old days, as you watched people trying to navigate the stairs with their life vests, dragging a strap in one hand, and trying to not spill that drink in the other hand.

 

This is from an old Independence of the Seas sailing in 2009.

 

[mo&fran]

26 minutes ago, h20skibum said:

 

I miss those good old days, as you watched people trying to navigate the stairs with their life vests, dragging a strap in one hand, and trying to not spill that drink in the other hand.

 

This is from an old Independence of the Seas sailing in 2009.

 

Now, Imagine doing the same thing in Bayonne, on Explorer, in January, when the temperature is getting close to zero. Get it over with, I'm freezing.

  Although once, the deck was covered with snow and ice, it had to be moved into the Royal Promenade.  

[Jimbo]

12 hours ago, Biker19 said:

Yea. 

Curious where in Virginia you moved to, we are near Blacksburg. Southwest Virginia.

[bobmacliberty]

7 hours ago, NHProud said:

We’ve been in Southern California long enough to have visited Howard Hughes’s Spruce Goose . We’ve stayed on the Queen Mary and sailed on the QM2 .  My husband and I have spent some time in Long Beach and can give recommendations for hotels there and in LA . We stayed at the Doubletree in San Pedro prior to this cruise and it was just okay. No dumps ! Only those in the know know what I’m referring to . 

 

Another option Greg, that's a little different, is to drive down to Laguna Beach and stay there pre-cruise.  It's been a few years, but I like the Inn at Laguna Beach...right on a cliffside overlooking the ocean.  Laguna Beach is an artsy sort of town with lots of galleries, restaurants, shops, etc.  What would make it worthwhile is if you could go to the Pageant of the Masters while there.  The Pageant of the Masters is one of the most unique things I've ever done.  Even though I'm not a big art person, it's a brilliant way to introduce people to classical art by having real people recreate famous works of art on a stage.  I was blown away by what they could do, but it only happens during the summer, so your cruise timing would need to line up (I can't remember when you cruise).  It's also about an hour drive from there to the cruise port, but on route 1 with some beautiful views along the way.

[bobmacliberty]

15 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

My favorite method of making a billion dollars was to find a way to bottle the happy feeling you get when you walk out of the office prior to vacation. 

 

Unfortunately, Harry, this has already been invented.  It's called retirement. 😁

[Sea Dog]

8 hours ago, NHProud said:

@Sea Dog  We took this cruise this past October and I’m no way as observant as Harry . I don’t remember the tent because as previously discussed elsewhere we bypassed all of that because of bum knee and the wheelchair assist.  We had no problems boarding at all . They were very helpful.  
 

We’ve been in Southern California long enough to have visited Howard Hughes’s Spruce Goose . We’ve stayed on the Queen Mary and sailed on the QM2 .  My husband and I have spent some time in Long Beach and can give recommendations for hotels there and in LA . We stayed at the Doubletree in San Pedro prior to this cruise and it was just okay. No dumps ! Only those in the know know what I’m referring to . 
 

No tiki bar recommendations , however.  

 

Thanks Judy. I have looked into the Doubletree and Embassy Suites close to port. Unfortunately when I go to their sites and put in the dates both hotels say they are sold out. I’m hoping it’s just because they don’t book that far out.

 

 

30 minutes ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

Another option Greg, that's a little different, is to drive down to Laguna Beach and stay there pre-cruise.  It's been a few years, but I like the Inn at Laguna Beach...right on a cliffside overlooking the ocean.  Laguna Beach is an artsy sort of town with lots of galleries, restaurants, shops, etc.  What would make it worthwhile is if you could go to the Pageant of the Masters while there.  The Pageant of the Masters is one of the most unique things I've ever done.  Even though I'm not a big art person, it's a brilliant way to introduce people to classical art by having real people recreate famous works of art on a stage.  I was blown away by what they could do, but it only happens during the summer, so your cruise timing would need to line up (I can't remember when you cruise).  It's also about an hour drive from there to the cruise port, but on route 1 with some beautiful views along the way.

 

Thanks Bob! I have added this info to my notes. Sounds very interesting 

[Biker19]

51 minutes ago, Jimbo said:

Curious where in Virginia you moved to, we are near Blacksburg. Southwest Virginia.

About 250 miles NE of you.

[NHProud]

51 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

 

Thanks Judy. I have looked into the Doubletree and Embassy Suites close to port. Unfortunately when I go to their sites and put in the dates both hotels say they are sold out. I’m hoping it’s just because they don’t book that far out.

 

 

 

There is no Embassy Suites in San Pedro . The Doubletree though mediocre serves it purpose . There’s a restaurant, a bar and a shuttle to the port .  The better hotels are over the bridge in Long Beach .  You can stay near LAX and take Über to the port or you can fly to Long Beach instead of LAX . I hear , you have an expert TA  who can help with the logistics .  I find Travelweekly dot com a great help in selecting hotels .  
 

We dock in San Pedro this October and we’ll probably just take a look at the USS Iowa .  

[LobsterStalker]

12 hours ago, mrstmaxx said:

Haven’t sailed on RC (40+ on Princess) so my question is - can you bring your luggage on board or do you  have to give it to them.  They once left my luggage on the sidewalk so I now always take it onboard with us (luckily I saw it before we entered the terminal). Thanks 

Just curious ,What has you convinced that they would not have loaded it on the cart shortly after you had entered terminal . I understand the anxiety ,I have felt it too , but lots of times they are so busy that it is not loaded immediately. I'm pretty confident though , at worse case , that as the last passengers are clearing the area at final boarding , A couple of bags on the sidewalk would definitely stand out ... And get loaded !

JMHO

 

Cheers

 

 

[Sea Dog]

27 minutes ago, NHProud said:

There is no Embassy Suites in San Pedro . The Doubletree though mediocre serves it purpose . There’s a restaurant, a bar and a shuttle to the port .  The better hotels are over the bridge in Long Beach .  You can stay near LAX and take Über to the port or you can fly to Long Beach instead of LAX . I hear , you have an expert TA  who can help with the logistics .  I find Travelweekly dot com a great help in selecting hotels .  
 

We dock in San Pedro this October and we’ll probably just take a look at the USS Iowa .  

The Embassy Suites I looked at is near the Airport 16 miles from cruise terminal. Since I’m not familiar with the area I’ll do more research. I do like to stay fairly close to the cruise terminal.