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Live from Navigator of the Seas B2b to the Western Caribbean and ABCs!

iahawkfan21

By iahawkfan21,
in Royal Caribbean International

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iahawkfan21

iahawkfan21

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Pre-dinner drinks were at the R Bar. Go see Olga, she will make sure you’re taken care of! Quickest dinner ever in the MDR, took us barely over 45 minutes for the entire meal. Food continues to just average, but by and large service has been good.

 

Skipping the production show but will watch some football and grab a couple drinks to enjoy formal night. Labadee tomorrow with arrival at 7am. Will try to post cruise compass later.

724c3411f8752a40d53815c75d346fcf.jpg

 

 

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APDMOM "Live from...." Rare

APDMOM

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OMG. We sailed with Apdmom in Freedom over Thanksgiving two years ago. Tell her that RSLeesburg said Hi!

 

 

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Oh wow! You guys should have been here! We are enjoying an amazing cruise... and it has only been one day. 8 more to go.

Hope we see you again on a future cruise! [emoji846]

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RSLeesburg

RSLeesburg

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Oh wow! You guys should have been here! We are enjoying an amazing cruise... and it has only been one day. 8 more to go.

Hope we see you again on a future cruise! [emoji846]

 

 

 

Yes. We should, but we opted for a Christmas cruise this year - taking same ship, same itinerary but over Xmas. Hope you, your husband, and son are having an amazing cruise! Keep in touch - now that we are moved to WPB area, we are prepared for last minute cruises...lol

 

 

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Fairway15

Fairway15

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Good evening everyone. As the title indicates, I will be departing with my wife on Navigator of the Seas on Sunday for b2b sailings on the first two since coming back stateside. I’m going to try and use Periscope (@codyh21) if VOOM allows, but also plan on running a live blog here with photos and reviews of both the ship and our port stops. Please feel free to ask questions throughout and I will do my best to answer or find out. FYI, we are not staying in a suite and are currently Gold C&A so won’t be visiting/reviewing any of the DL/CL venues or perks. I do have the Deluxe Beverage/1 Device VOOM combo for both legs as well. A little background and summary is below.

 

My first cruise with Royal was back in 2007 on Navigator of the Seas. My wife and I were searching for new ports and a longer cruise back in January and I came upon the 9 night ABC cruise. When I saw that and the Navigator we knew it was perfect. We initially booked a Promenade room and was happy with it. However, I saw a balcony guarantee pop up for the same price we had already paid. A quick call to my TA and we were all set. Got assigned a D2 balcony on Deck 10 aft, perfect! Fast forward to a couple months ago and I noticed pricing dropping heavily on the 5 night sailing. I convinced my wife, and was able to get the time off of work, so we jumped on an inside guarantee. I really wanted to do a balcony, but we got this sailing for under $1100 with tax and gratuities all factored in. Ended up in a deck 6 room slightly aft of the aft elevators. We’ve stayed in this spot on Freedom and had no issues.

 

Was looking at transport, parking, hotels, the works. My wife has a commitment tomorrow night so we’re relegated to heading down Sunday morning. Thankfully we live 3 hours straight north of Miami on I-95 so this is an easy drive. With parking at the port being $20 per day we were looking at $300. I did a little research and I managed to snag a pair of one way rentals from Melbourne Airport to Miami Airport and vice versa with Alamo. They offer a shuttle to/from the cruise port so that works out well. Gas is a wash since we would’ve been driving anyways, and with a little research I ended up paying $113 total for both rentals w/tax. Even if we didn’t feel like the shuttle and wanted to Uber from the airport it would still be less than half the cost of parking.

 

Leg 1 (5 Night Western):

 

Day 1- Depart Miami 5pm

Day 2- At Sea

Day 3- Costa Maya 8am-5pm. We were just here at Maya Chan in December but love the port and were able to snag return visit to Maya Chan last minute so we’ll definitely enjoy that.

Day 4- Cozumel 7am-5pm. My wife has booked a dolphin encounter excursion as it’s always been on her bucket list. I will be taking a taxi to the Money Bar to snorkel and enjoy breakfast as soon as we dock. Spend a couple hours there, then taxi to downtown to have lunch at our favorite place Casa Denis. A little exploring and then I usually enjoy making the long 3 mile walk back to the ship.

Day 5- At Sea. Did Thanksgiving away a few years ago while on deployment, but this will be my first onboard a ship.

Day 6- Turnaround Day Miami. For those interested, I will try and document the b2b experience.

 

Leg 2 (9 Night Southern to the ABCs):

 

Day 1- Depart Miami 5pm

Day 2- At Sea

Day 3- Labadee: Nothing planned, just a relaxing beach day for us.

Day 4- At Sea

Day 5- Willemstad, Curacao 9am-8pm. My wife really wants to visit the aquarium so we will take a taxi there. My plan is to drop her off and walk next door to Lion’s Dive to grab a beach chair/umbrella and a cold drink and just relax for a few hours. Afterwards, we’ll head back and explore downtown Willemstad.

Day 6- Kralendijk, Bonaire 7am-5pm. We are booked on the morning Woodwind snorkeling tour, absolutely looking forward to this. Afternoon will bring more exploring of downtown.

Day 7- Oranjestad, Aruba 7am-6pm. Plan is to take the local bus to Eagle Beach and grab chairs in the area around either La Cabana or Amsterdam Manor which have been mentioned as good spots. Found a local dutch pancake house we’re going to try for lunch and then, yes, you guessed it more exploring around town.

Day 8/9- At Sea

 

Apologies for the long winded post, but I’m a planner/detail person at heart. Again, hope you follow along and ask any questions you may have and I’ll do my best to respond!

 

Are you on the ship now? How is all? CD? Atmosphere? etc....;-)

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iahawkfan21

iahawkfan21

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Karaoke tonight was subdued to say the least. The selection of songs and the setup in the Cosmo Lounge is not great, but we did have a couple of good singers and a couple of the usuals.

 

Labadee in the morning, our plan is to be off the ship first thing and find a beach chair and some shade. Nothing planned other than relaxing. Will post compass in the morning.

 

 

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moopetguy

moopetguy

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I attended the RCI production show, “Now and Forever” tonight. I didn’t recognize some of the Broadway songs (which I still thought were performed very well) but they definitely finished strong with a medley from ABBA/Mamma Mia. However, I am a layperson, not a theatre arts critic, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

(Furthermore, I do not watch any shows such as “So You Think You Can Dance”, DWTS, etc. so I don’t even pretend to know what I’m talking about when it comes to the choreography [emoji6])

 

IMO, Cuddy has been great so far - the M&M on this cruise has been the most interesting/fun I’ve ever attended in my experience. [emoji106][emoji106]

 

Simon John has been performing at the Schooner Bar and it’s been crowded each time I’ve passed through. Also saw him on Liberty last year but the Schooner was much less busy during that sailing.

 

 

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ihopfar

ihopfar

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Thanks for the all the great information! We are on the 9-night in April.

 

Today's daily shows they are not serving lunch at the Columbus Café. Can you please confirm if that was actually the case? We love to sit at Columbus Cove and have the lunch right there! A bummer if they are only serving at two of the three areas -- a farther walk and probably more crowded!

 

I wonder if that is always the case with a ship the size of the Navigator.

 

Thanks!

Brad

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cidymom

cidymom

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I'm on the Navigator to the ABC island next year too. Just wondering if Navigator uses the wristbands in place of the seapass card as I still have them from my Allure cruise. I understand they can be reused on another RCI ship which uses them. Thanks.

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moopetguy

moopetguy

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Thanks for the all the great information! We are on the 9-night in April.

 

 

 

Today's daily shows they are not serving lunch at the Columbus Café. Can you please confirm if that was actually the case? We love to sit at Columbus Cove and have the lunch right there! A bummer if they are only serving at two of the three areas -- a farther walk and probably more crowded!

 

 

 

I wonder if that is always the case with a ship the size of the Navigator.

 

 

 

Thanks!

 

Brad

 

 

We visited Columbus Cove today and we enjoyed it a lot.

 

Columbus Cove Cafe was serving lunch today, but only until approximately 13:00 when they shut down. My family grabbed food from there, as did many others. The usual fare...salads, rice, burgers, hot dogs, chicken, ribs, fruit, etc.

 

 

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moopetguy

moopetguy

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I'm on the Navigator to the ABC island next year too. Just wondering if Navigator uses the wristbands in place of the seapass card as I still have them from my Allure cruise. I understand they can be reused on another RCI ship which uses them. Thanks.

 

 

Navigator is not using wristbands (yet?) - still SeaPass cards at the moment.

 

 

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moopetguy

moopetguy

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This is so great and appreciated...keep your thoughts coming...how long r u on the ship??

 

 

Until Dec 3rd when the 5-night charter begins. Was originally going to be on that one instead of the Nov 19th 5-nighter (before Dec 3rd was chartered - compensated by OBC and a no-charge swap), but we have met great people through this B2B and regret nothing!

 

 

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moopetguy

moopetguy

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really enjoying your review! just wondering what kind of prizes they gave away at meet n mingle??thanks

 

 

Some really nice prize packages. Several packages included a bottle of wine or bubbly (4 or 5 bottles in all I think), along with some combination of a baseball hat, a shirt or bag, pen, and keychain...that’s my recollection (apologies if not 100% accurate).

 

 

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ihopfar

ihopfar

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We visited Columbus Cove today and we enjoyed it a lot.

 

Columbus Cove Cafe was serving lunch today, but only until approximately 13:00 when they shut down. My family grabbed food from there, as did many others. The usual fare...salads, rice, burgers, hot dogs, chicken, ribs, fruit, etc.

 

 

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Great! Thanks for the first hand account! I must have miss read the Compass that was posted.

 

Very glad you enjoyed Columbus Cove -- it is our favorite place.

 

Brad

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iahawkfan21

iahawkfan21

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This is so great and appreciated...keep your thoughts coming...how long r u on the ship??

 

 

 

We’ve been onboard since last Sunday. The ship is in great shape and the staff has been excellent. Some of the meals are hit or miss IMO but we’ve still had a great time. We love this class of ship as there is always plenty to do and it’s big but doesn’t feel too big. I’ve never cruised Oasis class and honestly love all these ships I may not for quite some time.

 

If you’re considering Navigator I would not hesitate, especially with this itinerary.

 

 

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preschool teacher

preschool teacher

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Great weather today in Labadee!

 

0cd6e06583c183e88181eb1c9877d923.jpg

 

 

 

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I’m reading along with you. We sail same cruise on Dec. 8th....noticed that they have some different activities going on, nice to see that.

Did the same cruise last year and also had Cuddy as CD, he just did not float my boat...thanks for taking along with you. Great writing....

 

 

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moopetguy

moopetguy

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Both show times featuring Horizon were great tonight. Some comedy and crowd work sprinkled into the performances were particularly notable and entertaining!

 

Battle of the Sexes: the men gave the women a run for their money, but ultimately the women took the title. The women raced ahead to a 2-0 lead before the men made it exciting by tying it up with the next two challenges. In the final challenge, the men had a slight lead but faltered, and the women pulled ahead with the win. A good showing, gents!

 

Late night ADULT comedy with Brad Mastrangelo was hilarious. Not sure why some parents thought it was okay to bring little ones?! There was a 2-year-old in the audience... [emoji848]🤦*♂️[emoji15]

 

Time change tonight, ship’s time goes ahead 1 hour at 02:00.

 

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