"Italy’s ark" or My review of Navigator of the Seas(pics;NOS Eastern Med sail Sep 23)

[Verfai]

 

 

 

 

[Verfai]

And one last stop at the original Olympic stadion after a visist to a real tourist trap by the tour company...What a joke btw :D

 

 

 

[Verfai]

Calling it a night, more to come tomorrow, and happy to awnser any Q's later on :D

See ya!

[jimbri]

Great pictures! Thanks for sharing.

[Verfai]

After returning to the ship, we had a very large diesel smell in our room, and apparently (maybe due to the economic crisis) NOS was being refueled in Athens.

 

 

This is such a large harbor, yet there are still a massive amount of ships present outside the harbor, amongst them one massive super tanker in the background.

 

 

 

It was a little busy at the pool decks, so we decided to stay on our balcony and catch some rays, later on Costa Pacifica passed by

 

 

[Verfai]

Day06: Chania Crete

 

Woke up and noticed we had a slippy visitor in the water, these pictures are taken from deck 09 so that jellyfish is huge! Would not want to run into him when swimming. One of the reasons I absolutely never ever swim in sea water…Strange huh, love to cruise but is terrified of the sea life.

 

 

 

 

[Verfai]

There were shuttle busses available that would drive you into the town center, but as we woke up pretty late and as the ship was due to depart at 2pm, we decided to look for the best possible sun bed and stay put for the rest of the day.

 

When we got to the open decks, we noticed a smell of smoke and when looking up, the welcome to Chania sign at the dock had a strange meaning to it now.

 

This was a controlled forest fire (at least that is was we hoped) as there was not really a lot of action going on around it...Otherwise it was one hell of the BBQ.

 

 

 

 

[Verfai]

At 1pm, just before the all aboard there was a pool side BBQ, it was really well organized and by dividing the queue over two BBQ’s there was not really a long wait…Again here the spices were better on the meat, the food was really better on this ship.

 

 

 

 

Later on we were off to return back to Rome…Big BOOOOOOO there.

 

 

[Sinppu]

Otherwise it was one hell of the BBQ.

 

Come come now, you can tell us. Did you throw a cigarette butt into the forest? :p

[Verfai]

The captain had announced that we would be hitting some high gale winds and 2.5m waves, and how right he was, once in open sea the ship really starting rocking A LOT….So much fun. Luckily, or at least I did not see any, sea sick passengers…The rocking went on till the next morning.

 

 

 

 

 

[Verfai]

Come come now, you can tell us. Did you throw a cigarette butt into the forest? :p

 

I don’t believe so, might have left my underwear in the forest doh!? That is very flammable and red hot (hot hot hot)!!!

[Verfai]

That’s it for now, later on the second formal night were the food went wrong and the final day :(

[Sinppu]

I don’t believe so, might have left my underwear in the forest doh!? That is very flammable and red hot (hot hot hot)!!!

 

That just cracked me up (pun intended...)

[Verfai]

That just cracked me up (pun intended...)

 

As long as you’re cracked, its aaaaaal good for me :p

 

This is going to turn into a completion who will get banned first pretty soon me thinks…You can always continue the pun on social media that I not allowed to mention here, my face is pretty easy to find.

[Sinppu]

As long as you’re cracked, its aaaaaal good for me :p

 

This is going to turn into a completion who will get banned first pretty soon me thinks…You can always continue the pun on social media that I not allowed to mention here, my face is pretty easy to find.

 

OK, I'm taking our relationship to the next level :D

[Verfai]

That night (second formal night) we went to Vintages for a pre-dinner wine and tappas (had to use up the coupons from the gold value booklet).

The tappas were very good…The opposite if things to come.

 

 

 

It was this night where I can say that something was really off in the kitchen. We saw a lot of unhappy faces in the MDR.

I had something called the rolay cut beef (strip steak)...It was sooooo tough that I could just not eat it, we were looking around and we saw the same problem on every table that had the steak.

My girl had some fish, here to it stated fillet on the menu however it was FULL of bones.

When the waiter collected the plates, in typical RCI style he immediately offered something else from the menu, we decided to not let more food go to waste and shared a plate of some pasta which was better, but not of the quality we had the rest of the week.

 

I guess the chef or one of his many assistants had an off day, because overall the food was good.

[Verfai]

Final day at sea…

 

We got up pretty early and had ordered room service breakfast, this time just by filling in the paper to hang on the door. I had hoped that marking 10:30 as deliver time they would bring it a little later (the final time you can check is 10-10:30am)…But no, prompt at 10am they called that the breakfast was on route…Anyhow, had breakfast and went up to see if there was still some free sunbeds…That would have been a no, we found two free but it was soooo windy that we decided to call it a day at noon, went for lunch in the windjammer and did some ping pong and mini golf.

 

 

 

We passed by the Stromboli volcano, also known as the light tower of the Med, there was some smoke coming out of her, no other activity to be noticed.

 

 

 

 

Went up to the cosmopolitan bar for two mango lava flows...How fitting with a volcano in the background :-) (love that drink)

 

[Verfai]

That night we were able to watch an amazing sunset from our balcony…A fitting good bye to the cruise.

 

 

 

 

 

[Verfai]

So this is the final night of the cruise, so you get the envelopes in your room for the tips (if you prepaid, there are no longer vouchers that come along with it).

 

I have to honest, we found that except for our assistant waiter, we had no reason to tip extra…I would say even more, we did NOT see our head waiter during the entire cruise and there were some troubles with the staff at MTD, his job to notice things like that.

If I would not have prepaid he would not have gotten one cent from me…

 

And now here comes the amazing thing, we were surrounded by Americans that night at dinner, all ending dinner when we started…NOT ONE of them had envelopes with them or gave one Dollar extra to the staff. I already laughed a lot with reactions on these boards when it comes to tipping (especially when it comes to tipping something extra)…Apparently the prepaid tips are sufficient enough for people that I see on a cruise…In contradictory to what I mostly read on these boards…

 

Not intended as flame, how it sounds I am aware of it…But this is what we saw on the ship.

Service was far from excellent, but when a waiter takes a picture of you (when he even asked himself to do so), I up the bill by a dollar…I really did see people asking for 10 pictures and not tipping the waiter anything extra.

 

The same actually went on for drinks, I never ever saw the extra tip part filled in on the receipt ever...This might just be the main reason why we did not see to many smiles on the staffs faces.

 

We gave our waiter an extra 5, the assistant waiter an extra 10 (together with the C&A wow card) as she was the only one we saw on the entire cruise with a smile on her face.

 

The second wow card we handed to the bar tender at the champagne bar, he to always had a smile and he took loads of pictures of us, even when we had not ordered a drink…I think this was his first wow card that he received, his smile went through the roof when we gave it to him (later on we learned that these are used for performance and promotion evaluations of the crew).

[Verfai]

Woke up next morning, the end of the cruise....boooooooo

 

We first had number 1 to disembark (numbers 1 & 2 are assigned to C&A members, I have no clue what the point is of that, I would give C&A members the last numbers so they can relax to get off the ship).

 

The day before we went to guest relations and asked for a later number, we got the very last one, so excellent service.

 

We were docked next to Celebrity X Solstice and Costa Fabiloza (I believe the sister ship of the crashed Concordia)

 

 

 

[Verfai]

Disembarking went like a charm, the tent of the pier is divided into 53 numbers (all the numbers for disembarking) your suitcases are just waiting for you there.

 

If you had a transfer, the number of your disembarking it the same as on the bus you need to go to…

 

All worked very well and were an hour later in the airport ready to go home…First a very decent slice of freshly mad pizza to end the Italian visit.

 

[poncho1973]

And now here comes the amazing thing, we were surrounded by Americans that night at dinner, all ending dinner when we started…NOT ONE of them had envelopes with them or gave one Dollar extra to the staff. I already laughed a lot with reactions on these boards when it comes to tipping (especially when it comes to tipping something extra)…Apparently the prepaid tips are sufficient enough for people that I see on a cruise…In contradictory to what I mostly read on these boards…

 

Did you watch each and every one of them the entire dinner? Did you poll them before/after? Did you check their pockets?

 

I don't stand up, yell "EVERYONE, MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? I AM GIVING THIS PERSON AN EXTRA TIP!"

 

I casually and quietly hand it to them. I would bet money that unless you kept your eyes on me the entire dinner and never paid attention to anything else, you would never see me do it. I would also bet money that I'm not the only person in the history of cruising who does this.

 

In fact, generally speaking, most Americans are so used to tipping that it is no different that putting your napkin down or using a fork. It's just part of the meal, so no special or outstanding action on the part of the tipper is required. No fanfare or pomp & circumstance.

 

I'm not saying they did or didn't. I'm just saying it is unlikely that you can make a factual statement on whether they did or didn't. Of course, it may have been that everyone's service was mediocre and no additional tip was needed.

 

:)

[Verfai]

Conclusion:

 

Great vacation and ship but defiantly with some issues…Issues that would ruin a vacation, NO!

 

However I doubt I would have said the same if there would have been more Italians onboard.

Now they were with just 500, what if they were with 2000+!? This would have been a disaster as everything on the ship is so tuned on to them.

 

Also this stuck in the 80s theme that the ship, cruise director staff and disco use is over doing it…At 0:00am in the dungeon it has been enough, play some good music so other people can also have a party (except for those same 20 people that you saw at every latin dance hour), or keep the latin stuff in Boleros like on all other ships.

 

If you like latin style, you like 80s-to mid 90s music, don’t mind Italians and seeing hearing a lot of them, including your cruise director…Go on the cruise! If not, stay away…

On LOS we had a feeling all 3x, we want to go back to the ship, on NOS…Nope, that feeling is not present what so ever.

 

Also if you enjoy a chit chat with the staff, waiters and bartenders, avoid this ship (at least in Europe) …I hope that their smiles return when they do the Caribbean again, its just missing some of the charm of cruising when the staff in unhappy and show it.

 

Also the overall cleanliness of the ship can do a whole lot better, ether put more cleaning crew on or give the staff more time to clean the rooms and public areas.

 

Also the way of setting up the compass can use a little more thinking, the best example closing the dungeon for a teen night for 10:30pm to 12:30am for teen night, twice on this cruise…There hardly were any teen onboard and when all other venues are not really your style…You miss a place to to at night. I can honestly say we would have spent a whole lot more on drinks if they just haven’t made everything so dull.

 

Thank you for reading, happy to answer any questions..Now I need to find were the next cruise will take us, quick!

 

Greetzzzzzzz

[Verfai]

Did you watch each and every one of them the entire dinner? Did you poll them before/after? Did you check their pockets?

 

I don't stand up, yell "EVERYONE, MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? I AM GIVING THIS PERSON AN EXTRA TIP!"

 

I casually and quietly hand it to them. I would bet money that unless you kept your eyes on me the entire dinner and never paid attention to anything else, you would never see me do it. I would also bet money that I'm not the only person in the history of cruising who does this.

 

In fact, generally speaking, most Americans are so used to tipping that it is no different that putting your napkin down or using a fork. It's just part of the meal, so no special or outstanding action on the part of the tipper is required. No fanfare or pomp & circumstance.

 

I'm not saying they did or didn't. I'm just saying it is unlikely that you can make a factual statement on whether they did or didn't. Of course, it may have been that everyone's service was mediocre and no additional tip was needed.

 

:)

 

Could be, but I am very sure that there was not a lot of tipping going on the entire cruise…And I to stated for some people there was no reason the tip anything…The head waiter that we never saw for example, I do not know when I had to look at stressed out waiters the entire cruise, being told that our pre booked table time (months in advance) is not free (for 2 days) I should have to pay the guy…If I would not have prepaid tips, he would have gotten ZERO.

Room attendant, telling him that the room is not clean and not taking extra care the rest of the cruise, he did his job making up the room…But not enough, so for him the advised tip was more than sufficient imo.

Ordering a long island ice tea, one of the most expensive drinks and the waiter not even bothering to say the words please & thank you…Whilst we do to him…

This is what I meant by something wrong with the ship.

[peteukmcr]

Conclusion:

 

Great vacation and ship but defiantly with some issues…Issues that would ruin a vacation, NO!

 

However I doubt I would have said the same if there would have been more Italians onboard.

Now they were with just 500, what if they were with 2000+!? This would have been a disaster as everything on the ship is so tuned on to them.

 

Also this stuck in the 80s theme that the ship, cruise director staff and disco use is over doing it…At 0:00am in the dungeon it has been enough, play some good music so other people can also have a party (except for those same 20 people that you saw at every latin dance hour), or keep the latin stuff in Boleros like on all other ships.

 

If you like latin style, you like 80s-to mid 90s music, don’t mind Italians and seeing hearing a lot of them, including your cruise director…Go on the cruise! If not, stay away…

On LOS we had a feeling all 3x, we want to go back to the ship, on NOS…Nope, that feeling is not present what so ever.

 

Also if you enjoy a chit chat with the staff, waiters and bartenders, avoid this ship (at least in Europe) …I hope that their smiles return when they do the Caribbean again, its just missing some of the charm of cruising when the staff in unhappy and show it.

 

Also the overall cleanliness of the ship can do a whole lot better, ether put more cleaning crew on or give the staff more time to clean the rooms and public areas.

 

Also the way of setting up the compass can use a little more thinking, the best example closing the dungeon for a teen night for 10:30pm to 12:30am for teen night, twice on this cruise…There hardly were any teen onboard and when all other venues are not really your style…You miss a place to to at night. I can honestly say we would have spent a whole lot more on drinks if they just haven’t made everything so dull.

 

Thank you for reading, happy to answer any questions..Now I need to find were the next cruise will take us, quick!

 

Greetzzzzzzz

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, review, photos and summary of your cruise.

 

Sorry to hear there were issues, especially not resolved to your satisfaction with regard to the cleanliness of your stateroom.

 

I would suggest an email to RCI HQ in Miami. Doesn't hurt and they will be happy to hear from you, as they were when we had issues on our last of 3 cruises on Liberty.

 

As for tipping, I can't get into that conversation because I think you know my stance on that, but I'm not wearing a flameproof suit at the moment, only my normal business suit as I'm on my way back home from a customer site!:D