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

[FionaMG]

Totally agree about that "hole" in the dining hours from 3-6 pm. DD and I made it to the WJ at 3.10 pm one day on our recent Anthem cruise and were able to get in but 5 minutes later and we'd have been out of luck. I think it's even more important on ships with limited alternative options and I always mention it on the post-cruise survey.

[HappyTexan44]

Isn't there a reason for the crappy toilet paper?   Like if you bring your own it will clog the toilet and you might be charged for the work involved in fixing that.  (pun wasn't intended)  

[ch175]

Thank you for taking the time to write this - I walk onto Adventure of the Seas on Oct 14, so it’s been a nice way to get a preview of what to expect. You know you’re a good writer when you can even make the harryfat -> harryfat1 story interesting.

 

Maybe we will run into each other one day. I will just look for the man and woman taking pictures of each other from opposite sides of the ship.

[Sea Dog]

9 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

Harry, who agrees with Biker19 and thinks he should start a polling question to get the feel of the market for over/under spread.

 

Harry, who thinks like an accountant, believes there is a market for Royal to sell upgraded toiletry products such that they can package the Charmin soft toilet paper with higher-quality lotions and shampoos for $85 per sailing and call it "The Royal Flush"...

 

Harry, who thinks RCI, after selling the Royal Flush package for a big profit, will now limit each passenger over the age of 21 to only bringing 1 roll of toilet paper per person in their suitcases.  Any rolls of toilet paper above the limit will be confiscated by security and only be returned to them on disembarkation day

Nice job channeling your inner Biker. 😉

[HappyTexan44]

Old CC thread on bringing your own TP.   

[harryfat1]

17 hours ago, FionaMG said:

Totally agree about that "hole" in the dining hours from 3-6 pm. DD and I made it to the WJ at 3.10 pm one day on our recent Anthem cruise and were able to get in but 5 minutes later and we'd have been out of luck. I think it's even more important on ships with limited alternative options and I always mention it on the post-cruise survey.

Yeah, especially on port days when many people come back from tours/exploring the port area and they can’t always get back prior to the 3 PM close time. 

 

On the older ships, your dining option left is either Mexican food on the pool deck or cold sandwiches at Café Promenade.  RCI should open Windjammer for the 3 extra hours on port days.

 

[harryfat1]

11 hours ago, HappyTexan44 said:

Isn't there a reason for the crappy toilet paper?   Like if you bring your own it will clog the toilet and you might be charged for the work involved in fixing that.  (pun wasn't intended)  

 

10 hours ago, HappyTexan44 said:

Old CC thread on bringing your own TP.   

Thanks for digging up the old post from 2014. 

 

I like the answer to post #22.  I have seen many of his posts as he has always been very technical in his responses on these boards.

 

If we can’t get thick TP, how about at least softer TP? Some of us older folks get more sensitive in "key areas" as we age...

 

After TP shortage due to Covid, I am much more aware of TP brands than before. I remember I took his picture at Costco of people hoarding TP at the start of the pandemic

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

10 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

Nice job channeling your inner Biker. 😉

Often imitated never duplicated

[harryfat1]

11 hours ago, ch175 said:

Thank you for taking the time to write this - I walk onto Adventure of the Seas on Oct 14, so it’s been a nice way to get a preview of what to expect. You know you’re a good writer when you can even make the harryfat -> harryfat1 story interesting.

 

Maybe we will run into each other one day. I will just look for the man and woman taking pictures of each other from opposite sides of the ship.

Thanks for the kind words.

 

I hope the info I have provided has been useful in your cruise preparation.  The Adventure of the Seas is the same class as the Navigator so it should provide you with a reasonable expectation of what your cruise will look like – minus the ports as they won’t be the same.

 

You don’t want to be on the same cruise as me as I might accidentally take a picture of you in a less than flattery pose and upload it here on CC.

 

Whatever happens on the cruise won’t stay on the cruise ship if I am writing a report on it. That Belly Flop picture is being posted for worldwide audiences…

 

Haha, yeah, my wife and I like to document the photo-taking process.  We don’t just show the final product but also like to show the process of making the product.

 

Case in point – here’s a picture of my wife trying to take a picture in the rain while we were in Hiroshima Japan back in 2019.  As it was raining, my son had to provide rain protection coverage.

 

 

Or going even further back to 2008 for the Carnival Spirit in San Diego as the port was just next to the streets Downtown, I was on the ground trying to take a picture with the camcorder (remember those?) and my son was young and curious enough to want to be down on the ground with the old man to see why Pops is on the ground

 

 

 

Nowadays, they don’t care what I do as they are too busy chatting with friends online or updating their Instagram photos on their cell phones…

 

But my days of getting on the ground to take pictures are over - the old man in me will likely pull a muscle I didn't know I possessed as I try to get up...

 

[harryfat1]

As I was looking at the old photos from 2008, I saw a Mooring Line photo to share with the club members as I started taking pictures of them way back in the old days.

 

Wow.  When was the last time anyone saw a pay phone booth?

 

[harryfat1]

Anyway, back to the trip report...

++++++++++++++

 

As I said before, I am not a Sea Day person but for the last day of the cruise, I want a sea day as it’s too hectic to do things on the last day if you have a port day and you come back from excursion tired and then late lunch and need to pack for the trip home.  Less stressful if the last day is Sea Day but we can’t choose and pick when is Sea Day.

 

Picture of the cabin with the door open.  At first, you think that door is a mirror as it looks like a reflection but the right side is the boys' cabin

 

 

So we showered and packed as much as we could but also had to go visit the crazy aunt to see how she was doing at 6 PM (aka going to the ship’s photo area to choose the pictures we wanted from the photo package).

 

From the crowd, it looks like many cruisers are also visiting their locked-up relatives in the basement.

 

 

The process is you order the pictures now and then pick them up later at night.

 

There is likely a correlation between dollars spent per cruiser versus the length of the cruise as well as the experience level of the cruise.  Meaning that it’s much more likely for a first-time cruiser on a short cruise to buy a shipboard photo compared to an experienced cruiser on a 12-day voyage. 

 

I am positive all cruise lines have these metrics in the Finance department as they have gathered historical data of money spent by cruise passengers on various voyages and cruise experience levels since all purchases are linked to your Sea Pass which is link to your RCI cruise experience

[harryfat1]

The 7 PM show was called “Showgirls”.  As per previous conversations, that’s the same show on the Odyssey as well so we will see it again in December, albeit with slightly different costumes.

 

 

Check out the chandelier on her head

 

 

 

I wonder if you can pick up SETI on this gal's costume?

 

 

[harryfat1]

Done with the show and y’all know the routine now.  Restroom break to wash hands and nightly ocean view

 

 

 

 

I have always liked these ship maps

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

They opened up the MDR early as it was only 7:57 and some people were already seated on deck 4

 

The dinner theme is Italian Night.  For my money, my least favorite night as there wasn’t anything interesting to eat

 

Here's a snip of the web page menu:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 4, 2023 by harryfat1

[harryfat1]

Near the end of the meal, the cooking staff came out to say goodbye. I have always liked this part of cruising with the cooking staff coming out to do the parade. It makes a cruise vacation that much more special/different than a land-based vacation.

 

I have read some CC folks commenting they dislike the theatrics of this process but I disagree as this to me makes cruise vacation unique

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not sure how much they like it as with these short cruises, they have to come out twice a week to do the song and dance routine versus the 7-night cruise where they only need to come out once a week.

 

That brings up the next question – do workers dislike working on cruises with 3 and 4-day sailings more than longer 7-day sailings?  Meaning the cabin stewards have to change out the cabins twice a week instead of once per week. Or does the entertainment staff need to do the 70s/80s dance party twice a week instead of once per sailing?

[harryfat1]

We also said goodbye to the wait staff. The waiter was fine although a bit too pushy nightly asking us to rate him a “10” nightly as he reminded us to rate him highly on the post-cruise survey.

 

In the dining room, the workers must be in a hurry to feed us and kick us out because they were super fast in the meal preparation for the night.

 

The dessert pictures were taken at 9 PM on the dot.  That meant from the time we sat down and getting dessert took 1 hour and 3 minutes.

 

 

 

If one of the main goals of the new menu is to speed up the dinner process, they certainly achieved that today.  Along with the unstated goals of cost-cutting in providing lower quality food...

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

As you recall, earlier in the evening we ordered our pictures to be picked up after the photo department printed them. So it's back to visiting the crazy aunt in the basement to make sure she is well taken care of on our last night.

 

Even more people at the photo area now than earlier as they are all anxious in trying to find the few pictures everyone can agree on.  The larger the group, the harder it is to decide on the picture as inevitably you have one person blink an eye or wasn’t smiling perfectly.  Easy to take a good picture of 2 people.  Exponentially harder to take a good picture of 10 people (especially if you have fidgety kids…)

 

 

Anyway, the photo department is crazy busy on the last day of any cruise as people need to buy their photos before they close shop at 11 PM.  I believe if you order very late prior to the closing, they are able to print them overnight and have the photos ready by the next morning before you get off the ship.  We never waited that late to order but I thought I heard some workers say that in the previous cruises.

[harryfat1]

So after picking up the pictures, bring them back to the cabin and do one last packing of clothes before putting them outside the hallway.  I could swear that in the older days of cruising, the deadline to drop off the luggage was later at 11 PM or midnight, but last 2 cruises with RCI and Princess, they had the 10 PM deadline.

 

This makes it a tad complicated as we still try to look “decent” for dinner at MDR even at the very last evening by having a pole shirt/slacks. But I don’t want to wear that off the ship tomorrow for my 400-mile drive.  So after dinner, I came back to the cabin to switch out of the dinner clothes for t-shirts and jeans and packed away the dinner clothes in suitcases.

 

Less of an issue if you have an earlier dinner as you will have plenty of time to come back to the cabin and change.  The other solution is you dress down on the last night and just wear a T-shirt and jeans and have the CC Fashion Police Squad form a lynch mob at the entrance of MDR tar and feather you for not looking proper for MDR.

 

 

[harryfat1]

Always a sad thing to see the luggage in the hallway on the last night as your vacation is near the end

 

 

Oh, yeah, we were assigned group #14.  As I haven’t cruised in many years, I’m not used to the concept of completing the debarkation info on the handy dandy phone App.  I was supposed to go to the App by 11 AM on Day 3 (while we were at Catalina) to complete the departure info. Oops. 

 

I was waiting for the “old school” way of filling out a piece of paper and dropping it in a box at Guest Services. Besides, not used to short cruises as I'm not thinking of leaving the ship on the morning of day 3.

 

Anyway, they gave us group 14 even though we didn’t complete anything so I assume groups 1 to 13 are the people who are in a rush to get off the ship.  Per the departure info (which I will share on day 5), the last group is 35.  I thought we should have been at least group 25 or higher since we didn’t need any transfers or have any planes to catch. 

 

Whatever. Not going to stand in line at GS to switch to a later group.  We will get off whenever we get off.  No rush.

 

Hard for 9.2 anal people to say this – don’t worry, be happy - as we are constantly worrying about something but not going to sweat the departure group when I don’t have a plane to catch.

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

OK, luggage outside the hallway to be picked up.  One last entertainment venue left for the night.  The comedian had a late show at 10:30 so off we went back to the main theater.

 

The dude was only OK. Not that great.

 

 

 

Back to the Hallway at 11:19.  These people must have gotten their luggage out pretty late as everything had already been collected.  I assume (hope) that the ship isn’t too strict on the 10 PM luggage pickup time and has some leeway for late people. 

 

We call people that come back from tour late and rush to get back on the ship as “pier runners”.  What do you call people who put the luggage out after the deadline – Luggage Runners?

 

 

Has anyone ever tempted fate by placing their luggage out way past the deadline like at 1 AM and still had the workers picking them up?

[JamesEM]

No, I'm a bag dagger, like to leave the ship when I'm ready to leave and not have to hunt for my bag(s) in the terminal.  

[harryfat1]

41 minutes ago, JamesEM said:

No, I'm a bag dagger, like to leave the ship when I'm ready to leave and not have to hunt for my bag(s) in the terminal.  

Yeah, it's good to have control of your bags.  Last year for the Alaska cruise, the tag for my son's luggage getting off the ship fell off during transport and we had to hunt it down at another section when we couldn't find it at our designated section

[harryfat1]

We realized we forgot to take a picture of the family looking out at the RP with a perspective from below so I went downstairs by myself in order to get a view of them.

 

RP with minimal activity at 11:20 on the last night of the cruise

 

 

 

Not even GS was busy this late

 

 

So no fear of privacy from people seeing anything from deck 5 up to deck 8. Deck 6 might be a different story as it’s just right above the walkway but deck 8 with its angled windows will be hard to see from below

 

 

None of the neighbors have their shades open

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Couple more pics of RP before I walk back up

 

 

 

Hey, what’s this?  As the workers were loading up the various suitcases to be stored away down below, they opened up the service elevator/section for me to get a glimpse of the “inner workings” of the ship seldom seen by other cruisers

 

Elevators not meant to be used by passengers

 

 

Same for the staircase.  You won’t find this picture in any glossy RCI promotion brochures…

 

 

This is the last picture of the day and just like that, the short 4-day cruise is over in a blink of an eye.  I will let Kansas close out day 4

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Thanks to everyone who has slogged through with me on this trip report. 

 

I still have some more pictures of debarkation for day 5 as when I read other trip reports, people get to the last day of the cruise, they just say, we ate breakfast and made it home in no time. 

 

Huh?  How did you get off the ship?  Anything special that newbie passengers need to know? Have no fear, I will help you connect all the dots in the abbreviated Day 5 trip report coming up.