Navigator of the Seas Review May 20-24, 2019

[DramaQueen22]

My 23 year old son and I sailed on the Navigator to celebrate his cum laude graduation.  We had a fantastic time!  

 

DAY 1 Embarkation in Miami

 

We flew in to Fort Lauderdale the night before and stayed at the Rodeway Inn. (great hotel for a great price!).  In the morning, Jiffy Jeff Shuttle picked us up and drove us to POM.  We were through the terminal and on the ship before noon.  Easy process!  We enjoyed lunch in the Windjammer then headed to our cabin.  We had an inside on deck 8 aft (8669).  Surprise...our luggage was already waiting for us!  The cabin was very spacious for an inside, although the bathroom was tiny.  Lots of storage.  Very quiet most of the time but for our neighbor who was a habitual door slammer.  We chose MTD and had the same waitstaff each night.  Malcin and Mark took very good care of us!  We enjoyed our meals very much.  The first night headliner comedy show was funny.  We loved the 70's Disco Party as well.

 

DAY 2  CocoCay

 

So amazing!  We had a clamshell reserved on South Beach.  Very glad for the shade as the sun was intense.  Fantastic weather the day we visited.  We enjoyed literally sitting in the water and relaxing for hours.  Food was good...loved the grilled vegetable salad.  Of course we had the famous CocoLoco!  Yummy.  I wanted to stay longer!  It was a "perfect day!"  We saw the Ballroom Fever production show, which was fairly good.  Loved the progression of dance styles throughout the show.  Capped our day off with a movie on deck.

 

DAY 3 Nassau

 

We walked up to the Watlings Distillery for a tour and tasting.  Nice way to kill some time.  Then we went to the Graycliff Hotel for afternoon tea.  Did some shopping on Bay Street then headed back to the ship.  A nice nap that day!  The headliner show that night, The Company Men, was THE BEST show I have ever seen on any ship.  Every song was fantastic and their energy was amazing.  

 

DAY 4 At Sea

 

This was the only day we had trouble finding seats on deck.  The weather was gorgeous, so everyone wanted to be outside.  We had lunch at Jamie's Italian.  THe pasta was so good!  We ordered the eggplant parm, which was good, but not a traditional presentation.  The desserts were amazing...DS loved his tiramisu.

 

THE GOOD:  Solarium area, Cafe Promenade had great snacks, food was very good in all venues we tried, ship was clean and staff friendly.  Musicians were incredible...house band and the piano bar especially.  Cabin was well cared for by Martin.

 

THE SO SO:  Cruise director and staff were virtually invisible.  We only heard from the CD at the start of shows or through announcements...never saw him out and about.  Staff were only around during events.  The RC app is good, but many time the events listed didn't match up with the Compass.

 

THE BAD:  only one negative...as we were disembarking, we were made to go back in to Guest Services because our bill hadn't been settled.  What?  I set up our onboard accounts with a credit card.  Apparently, they never added my son to my account, so they had him listed as a cash account.  This wasn't evident from the statement we received in our cabin that morning.  We were never asked to come to Guest Services the night before to take care of this.  Being pulled out of line was embarrassing, and the GS staff treated me like I was a criminal.  Inexcusable when it was THEIR mistake.

 

Happy to answer any questions!

 

Margie

 

Edited May 28, 2019 by DramaQueen22
mispelling

[goneclear]

Doing this same cruise in August. Was there a formal night? Recent passengers have said no. Only a dress

to impress night But my booking document says one formal night so a little confused.

Thanks for your review. 

[SAmome]

Nice review, thanks for posting.

[Kriazerie]

Do you happen to still have the cruise compasses? I'm going on a 4 night Navigator cruise in a couple weeks and would love to get a sneak peek! 

[DramaQueen22]

1 hour ago, goneclear said:

Doing this same cruise in August. Was there a formal night? Recent passengers have said no. Only a dress

to impress night But my booking document says one formal night so a little confused.

Thanks for your review. 

They did call it "dress to impress" night.  I didn't see too many people dressed up.  We had My Time Dining, so that may be the difference.  Overall, I would say most people were fairly casual on our sailing.

[DramaQueen22]

19 minutes ago, Kriazerie said:

Do you happen to still have the cruise compasses? I'm going on a 4 night Navigator cruise in a couple weeks and would love to get a sneak peek! 

I do...let me scan them in and post when I have a chance.

[bgcruiser]

Thanks for the review. Very helpful! We will be on the Navigator in October and I have a question about the Clamshell rentals on Coco Cay. Did you rent them on Cruise Planner or once you were aboard the ship? I am not seeing them offered in my Cruise Planner yet.

[SAmome]

What were your hours in Coco Cay and did they match your original documents?  We are showing 8-5pm on cruise documents but app is showing all aboard at 6:30pm.

[leight]

Thanks for the review! Just booked tonite for a girls getaway with my sister. Very excited. Did you have any issues having to wait for a table with the MTD? I chose early but am wondering if I should switch it. It's her first cruise and I know we want to see all of the shows.

[DramaQueen22]

On 5/31/2019 at 1:51 PM, bgcruiser said:

Thanks for the review. Very helpful! We will be on the Navigator in October and I have a question about the Clamshell rentals on Coco Cay. Did you rent them on Cruise Planner or once you were aboard the ship? I am not seeing them offered in my Cruise Planner yet.

I rented it through the cruise planner...under excursions.  It will list as "Beach Lounger for 2".  You only have to use one name to reserve, but it will have space for 2 guests.  There are about 24 of them on the beach.  

[DramaQueen22]

On 5/31/2019 at 4:21 PM, SAmome said:

What were your hours in Coco Cay and did they match your original documents?  We are showing 8-5pm on cruise documents but app is showing all aboard at 6:30pm.

We were scheduled the same as that.  All aboard was 6:30.  Gave us a bit of extra time.

[DramaQueen22]

On 5/31/2019 at 10:05 PM, leight said:

Thanks for the review! Just booked tonite for a girls getaway with my sister. Very excited. Did you have any issues having to wait for a table with the MTD? I chose early but am wondering if I should switch it. It's her first cruise and I know we want to see all of the shows.

No issues with MTD.  You can reserve your spot in your cruise planner.  When you get to the DR on the first night, they will show you to a table.  If you like the location and waitstaff, you can request the same for each night.  That's what we did and it worked out really well.  We went at 6:15pm and there were empty tables around.  

 

I probably won't do MTD again...just a personal preference after doing it on this cruise.  

[mcatmcat]

On 5/28/2019 at 3:03 PM, DramaQueen22 said:

 

Hi 

did you see shrimp or lamb during the night at the windjammer? 

[CRUISEFAN0001]

Very nice review!

[SAmome]

9 hours ago, DramaQueen22 said:

We were scheduled the same as that.  All aboard was 6:30.  Gave us a bit of extra time.

Thanks for that info.  Maybe they are flexible about it and depends on weather and the captain.  I called RCCL C&A to ask and they said departure is at 5pm and they'd have been sent a notice if it hand changed so I'm going to be hopeful about the 6:30 showing in the app but not shocked if all aboard is 4:30.  

[Big_G]

On 5/28/2019 at 12:27 PM, DramaQueen22 said:

 

 

THE BAD:  only one negative...as we were disembarking, we were made to go back in to Guest Services because our bill hadn't been settled.  What?  I set up our onboard accounts with a credit card.  Apparently, they never added my son to my account, so they had him listed as a cash account.  This wasn't evident from the statement we received in our cabin that morning.  We were never asked to come to Guest Services the night before to take care of this.  Being pulled out of line was embarrassing, and the GS staff treated me like I was a criminal.  Inexcusable when it was THEIR mistake.

 

Happy to answer any questions!

 

Margie

 

 

The account snafu happened to us on the previous sailing but we came back to a cabin to find a note in our door. My wife wasn’t included on my onboard account. Its never happened before in 30 something cruises with Royal. Easy fix but I’m curious where in the process her authorization was lost.

[CRUISEFAN0001]

20 minutes ago, Big_G said:

 

The account snafu happened to us on the previous sailing but we came back to a cabin to find a note in our door. My wife wasn’t included on my onboard account. Its never happened before in 30 something cruises with Royal. Easy fix but I’m curious where in the process her authorization was lost.

All it would take is a lack of a box being checked in the online check in process for a secondary passenger on the same reservation about authorizing payment.

 

How it is handled onboard...not that's entirely a different story that didn't sound pleasant.

[Big_G]

1 hour ago, CRUISEFAN0001 said:

All it would take is a lack of a box being checked in the online check in process for a secondary passenger on the same reservation about authorizing payment.

 

How it is handled onboard...not that's entirely a different story that didn't sound pleasant.

 

Thankfully for me it wasn't a problem. It was a quick trip to GS on a port day so no line and I the greeter was able to connect her with her iPad. I wouldn't have been too happy to be pulled out of line as I was disembarking.

[belmontcrew]

15 hours ago, mcatmcat said:

Hi 

did you see shrimp or lamb during the night at the windjammer? 

 

We were on this same sailing. After dinner each night we would walk up to the WJ just to see what they were serving as we were originally going to skip dinner on the last night to go to the WJ.  We had sailed on the Mariner in September and they had this huge feast of shrimp and mussels on the last night. After seeing the dinner selections the first 3 nights, we decided to make a MTD reservation in the MDR the last night and we were glad that we did. Never saw any shrimp in the WJ although they did serve the lamb shank there on Night 4. The WJ was always crowded when we went to check it out, but I thought dinner in the MDR was more appealing. 

[DramaQueen22]

On 6/5/2019 at 12:59 AM, mcatmcat said:

Hi 

did you see shrimp or lamb during the night at the windjammer? 

I did see shrimp, but no lamb.  

[DramaQueen22]

On 6/5/2019 at 7:08 AM, CRUISEFAN0001 said:

All it would take is a lack of a box being checked in the online check in process for a secondary passenger on the same reservation about authorizing payment.

 

How it is handled onboard...not that's entirely a different story that didn't sound pleasant.

The thing is, I did check that box when I completed the online check in.  There was no indication on the statement we received that morning that the account wasn't paid.  Didn't have a clue until we tried to disembark.  I most certainly would have dealt with it the night before if I knew about it.  No apology from Guest Services, and no courtesy given.  A real shame that was my final interaction on what was otherwise a fantastic trip.

[BeancounterUSA]

DramaQueen22, can you tell us what the evening entertainment was for each night?

[CRUISEFAN0001]

1 hour ago, DramaQueen22 said:

The thing is, I did check that box when I completed the online check in.  There was no indication on the statement we received that morning that the account wasn't paid.  Didn't have a clue until we tried to disembark.  I most certainly would have dealt with it the night before if I knew about it.  No apology from Guest Services, and no courtesy given.  A real shame that was my final interaction on what was otherwise a fantastic trip.

That’s indeed a crummy way to finish a nice cruise.

[leight]

 

So amazing!  We had a clamshell reserved on South Beach.  Very glad for the shade as the sun was intense.  Fantastic weather the day we visited.  We enjoyed literally sitting in the water and relaxing for hours.  Food was good...loved the grilled vegetable salad.  Of course we had the famous CocoLoco!  Yummy.  I wanted to stay longer!  It was a "perfect day!"  We saw the Ballroom Fever production show, which was fairly good.  Loved the progression of dance styles throughout the show.  Capped our day off with a movie on deck.

 

when was the clamshell option available? I don't see it in excursions list for our 2/24/20 trip and would love to reserve it.

[DramaQueen22]

On 6/8/2019 at 8:04 PM, leight said:

 

So amazing!  We had a clamshell reserved on South Beach.  Very glad for the shade as the sun was intense.  Fantastic weather the day we visited.  We enjoyed literally sitting in the water and relaxing for hours.  Food was good...loved the grilled vegetable salad.  Of course we had the famous CocoLoco!  Yummy.  I wanted to stay longer!  It was a "perfect day!"  We saw the Ballroom Fever production show, which was fairly good.  Loved the progression of dance styles throughout the show.  Capped our day off with a movie on deck.

 

when was the clamshell option available? I don't see it in excursions list for our 2/24/20 trip and would love to reserve it.

You can find them in the excursions for that day.  When you reserve, you only need to put in one person's name, but the loungers are for 2 people.