Navigator of the Seas? Good experiences anyone??

[cruisechickie1999]

So I have never met a cruise ship that I don't like. But with all the negative reviews I am reading about the Navigator I'm starting to get paranoid that my upcoming trip is going to be dreadful! Can anyone who has recently sailed on her provide some positive feedback so I can stop worrying? If i am to take the reviews at face value apparently i can expect horrible food and a dirty ship that is falling apart. eeek!

[Clarea]

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

 

Here is a live review running now:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2429524

 

Here is a similar thread about Navigator:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2420289

[rt1092]

We did a B2B on it 11/27 and 12/4. The 12/4 sailing was better. But it still has a long way to go. With all the bad feedback I'm pretty sure Royal will send some problem solvers to straighten it out

[jonj]

There is current live review for the Navigator.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2429524&page=6

[maktiller]

So I have never met a cruise ship that I don't like. But with all the negative reviews I am reading about the Navigator I'm starting to get paranoid that my upcoming trip is going to be dreadful! Can anyone who has recently sailed on her provide some positive feedback so I can stop worrying? If i am to take the reviews at face value apparently i can expect horrible food and a dirty ship that is falling apart. eeek!

I was on navigator 11/27 for a 7 day cruise and she was a beautiful ship!!!! Clean and very large and pretty. There is a lot to do and the crew and staff is great. Don't listen to all of the bad...this is a very nice ship and you will have a great time. When is your cruise. The main dining room food wasn't terrific but the windjammer has a lot of variety . We did not try any specialty restaurants but we're told that chops was wonderful. We had the drink package and loved it. Again. This ship is awesome.

[goodml]

Currently on board and I'm not going to lie; it's definitely not one of our better cruises. Of course that may be skewed by the fact that the toilet in our balcony cabin is currently overflowing, however the maintenance people are there. The ship is beautiful. I have no idea why people would be complaining about that. Our bed is by far the most uncomfortable bed I have ever slept on. Our friends in the adjacent balconies feel the same and we are all disappointed as we've always looked forward to the beds. Our cabin steward has made ours tolerable by adding 4 thin pillow top like pads.

 

Chops was amazing which surprised us because we've only been twice before and found it just ok. Giovanni's was not as good and I expected to love it :). I had a stuffed veal dish that I didn't like at all. Risotto wasn't great but the scallops were lovely. Dining room last night was fine. No more steak on the classics menu so that can be an issue for my husband who uses that as his go-to when he can't find anything up his alley.

 

The line for the 2:00 ice show went all the way into the dining room. They are no longer passing out tickets and it appeared to be bedlam. I wanted to go but the line made me decide to pass. It all seems to be a bit fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants on this ship which is weird. The line at approx 7:35 last night for people WITH my time dining reservations stretched back over the little bridge between the elevator banks.

 

I don't know. It's not horrid. Just not loving it like past voyages. We went and did a next cruise booking today to try an Oasis class but not really sure whether or not we'll keep it.

Edited December 12, 2016 by goodml

[Firefighterhoop]

I was also on the 11/27 and 12/4 back to backs.

 

It was the small things that were missing, and I didn't feel the WOW I usually do on RCCL ships. Senior officers were noticeably absent.

 

Overall was it a bad experience, no - just not what I'm used to having on RCCL.

Edited December 13, 2016 by Firefighterhoop

[buzzard05]

We were on Navigator over Thanksgiving and had a pretty good time. I found the ship to be clean and in decent shape (didn't see any huge maintenance issues). The only issues I encountered were service related issues...and they weren't huge, just annoying and persistent.

 

Other than our first night (service) issues, we found the food (and service) in the main dining room to be good (If you do My Time dining, request to be seated at Apurv's table...he and his partner were great!) We had lunch at Sabor and it was very, very good.

 

I did find the service lacking in other areas of the ships (bars). The Schooner Bar and Casino Bar were two bars I was consistently able to go to and get served pretty fast.

 

The service at the Promenade Cafe was awesome. That place always had a line and the people making the drinks worked their tails off to get people served quickly.

 

Our cabin attendant was invisible...fortunately, we didn't have anything major that we needed him for. As for the beds, I requested a mattress topper (prior to sailing). I prefer a harder mattress than my wife does, and she didn't complain at all...so I guess the mattress topper helped.

 

We did the 4:00 ice show and got there about fifteen minutes early and had no issues (and the ship was completely full). Not sure if we were just lucky...or if that is the norm.

 

All in all, the cruise wasn't as "extravagent" and "wowing" as I had expected...but maybe I had an overly inflated expectation of what cruising would be like (this was our first "real" cruise). We had some issues that I had to work on repeatedly to get addressed, which was time consuming. However, with that said, I would absolutely book another trip on Navigator if the price was right.

[Tin can]

The line at approx 7:35 last night for people WITH my time dining reservations stretched back over the little bridge between the elevator banks.

 

We were on Navigator over here in the UK a couple of cruises before she went back to the States.

 

We had a fantastic time but that was one of the things that we noticed, MTD seemed to be a bit chaotic whether you had a reservation or not

[cruisechickie1999]

Thanks for all the replies so far. We cruise in November. Seems like maybe the ship is going through a bit of a rough patch but since we still have almost a year till sailing, hopefully things will continue to improve based on guest feedback! I've sailed RCL once before and Carnival twice and never had any problems.

Edited December 13, 2016 by cruisechickie1999

[Firefighterhoop]

We did a B2B on it 11/27 and 12/4. The 12/4 sailing was better. But it still has a long way to go. With all the bad feedback I'm pretty sure Royal will send some problem solvers to straighten it out

 

I do agree, there was some improvement on the 2nd cruise on some things....

[A2Mich]

I also noticed that most of the recent reviews were from UK sailings. Maybe it's a change in service levels or simply different expectations from a different variety of cruisers?

[monctonguy]

I was checking those out too..seems like a lot from the TA cruise and the first cruise or two out of Miami using the tent system are negative.

 

Hoping that's just a temp issue and will be fixed shortly.

 

Does anyone know about the tent situation.....does it depend on how many ships in port for that day I am guessing? If so, what is the magic # before NOS gets pushed to the tent I wonder?

[SilkySal]

So I have never met a cruise ship that I don't like. But with all the negative reviews I am reading about the Navigator I'm starting to get paranoid that my upcoming trip is going to be dreadful! Can anyone who has recently sailed on her provide some positive feedback so I can stop worrying? If i am to take the reviews at face value apparently i can expect horrible food and a dirty ship that is falling apart. eeek!

 

You may want to go to the thread below, find your cruise week, and chat with your fellow cruisers going the same week as you on the Navigator to get their feedback!!;) We'll be on the Navigator in March and can't wait!!:cool:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=268

[bogofman]

Have they fixed the Gents at the theatre end of the royal promanade

 

this was in and out of action for most of our TA

 

No lines for MTD at 8.30 for us almost had the dinning room to ourselves

 

problem was we felt the staff wanted to get us out as they were clearing up the tables around us

[Firefighterhoop]

I was checking those out too..seems like a lot from the TA cruise and the first cruise or two out of Miami using the tent system are negative.

 

Hoping that's just a temp issue and will be fixed shortly.

 

Does anyone know about the tent situation.....does it depend on how many ships in port for that day I am guessing? If so, what is the magic # before NOS gets pushed to the tent I wonder?

 

Miami has 5 actual terminals on the normal side of the port, and one smaller one that can hold a small ship on the other side (By the RCCL home office).

 

If there are more than 6 ships there (or more than 5 larger ships) someone will get pushed to the Tent. Hopefully it's not the 2nd largest ship in port again!

[poncho1973]

I'm still confused by all the hate for this ship. She's easily our favorite in the fleet along with Mariner. Unless something crazy has happened in the last 2 years????

[KuffMUp]

I too was on the 11/27 & 12/4 B2B. I have no complaints about the ship. It was in good shape. They were taking the wooden handrails off and re-varnishing them. There were some spots here and there on the carpet but nothing worse than I have encountered. I had a better time on the 11/27 cruise. Not so many kids.

 

We encountered the "tent". When they offered to bus us to the mall I told them I would wait. They pointed over to the orange barriers and there we stood from 1030 to noon. I'm glad we waited because the line was horrendous. I'm sure that getting the tent was the last thing RCCL expected. If the port tells you to park there, there isn't much they can do. Debarkation from the first week and second week were in a regular terminal.

 

One of the Diamonds on board said that they could only fit Diamonds and above in the terminal so others had to stand outside. She also said that there were a lot of first time RCCL cruisers. I noticed on the first trip, they did nothing about the chair hogs. There were towels and one personal item on two loungers next to us and no one ever sat there. On the second leg, the pool police were out in force. I don't know if it was because of all the newbies. If your stuff was out more than 30 min, they took it. I thought we were about to see a fist fight. The pool police took the stuff off two loungers. An older gentleman came along and sat down. He was there maybe an hour. That is when the couple came back and demanded the older man to get out of "their' loungers. There were angry words exchanged from some of the other people. Also, I guess we missed the fist fight in the line to embark on that second week. Children running rampant on the second week smashing their gum on the nose of one of the horses, running through the solarium, adults bringing their children to the solarium but with the pool police out, they were told the kids weren't supposed to be in that pool. People diving in the solarium pool, adults playing leap frog in the solarium. I was beginning to wonder if we were magically transported from the Navigator of the Seas to Walmart of the Seas. Like the Beverly Hillbillies, you can take a person out of the trailerhood but that doesn't automatically give them manners.

 

But, even with all that we had a very good time. We heard a lot of groaning from passengers but they have different expectations than us I guess. We went to a concert on board and loved it. We missed it on the first leg and people told us we should go so we did. OMG, someone went on and on about how terrible that show (and all the shows) were. Some people have to find the negative aspects of life. Go with a good attitude and have fun.

[j3000]

we just did the dec 4-9 run. except for the boarding, which was a PAIN, everything else was Ok. what do you expect? food-ok. enetertainment-ok.

weather-nice. all-in-all-ok.

[2flacruisers]

we just did the dec 4-9 run. except for the boarding, which was a PAIN, everything else was Ok. what do you expect? food-ok. enetertainment-ok.

weather-nice. all-in-all-ok.

 

You would you happen to keep the daily's? Doing the the 5 day and would like to get a feel of what goes on.... :)

[KuffMUp]

I have them. I will try to scan and get them posted.

[wardog10839]

Sailed NOS 9 DEC 16 and I am a loyal RCL customer 91 RCL & 45 X cruises, but I must say it was the most unenjoyable cruise I have ever been on in my 19 years of cruising !! This was my 6th cruise on NOS 3 TA & 2 EUR . It saddens me greatly to see all the lower level crew members working extremely hard to please but with the total lack of supervision from Hotel Director down ! Rarely saw anyone with strips anywhere on the ship !!

 

ONLY Excellent points : 1. Room Attendant, 2. Waiter & Asst Waiter, and 3. ALAN the Diamond Concierge !

 

UNSATISFACTORY areas to many to mention all, but here are major ones : 1. Food Horrible, 2. Crown & Anchor program nonexistent (no loyalty ambassador) 3. Customer Service Desk extremely slow with do not care attitude, 4. Total lack of leadership in hotel department, few if any officers visible around the ship,probably hiding from unhappy guest !

 

If this was my first RCL cruise I would probably never come back !

[preschool teacher]

I'm on the other side of those that did not like it....

We were on the December 9th cruise and we had a great time...we had 8 in our group and all were happy...beds comfortable....dining room food and service were awesome..my time dining...

 

Ports were fantastic and we are on the same cruise for 2017!!!!

[KuffMUp]

Seems like Diamond, Diamond +, and Pinnacle all were all very critical of their Nov/Dec sailings on Navigator. I guess it is good I don't have enough experience to know good from bad. I had a great time. Funny, the Pinnacle's all are upset over not seeing officers. I saw plenty of officers talking to Pinnacles (easily identified with their name tags on). The officers did not waste any breath with us lowly steerage passengers.

[sherlynn]

We were on the Dec 9 cruise also and have zero complaints!!! Ship was beautiful and we had excellent service from dining room and cabin staff. We enjoyed the shows and all the ship had to offer. It was our second time in navigator and I wouldn't hesitate to sail again! Have a great cruise!

 

 

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