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

[harryfat1]

20 hours ago, Another_Critic said:

 

You missed a good one ...  https://www.urinal.net/voyager/

 

Unfortunately, they removed it.  

Thanks for the info.

 

Very sad this was gone.  I bow down to the evil genius who created this mural. It made going to the men’s room a special visit.

[harryfat1]

17 hours ago, JamesEM said:

Wow, $6.00 for a gallon of gas, I got gas today and it was $3.30 a gallon, after Labor Day the price usually goes down once the tourists leave town. I'm doing well, and did a b-3-b on the Harmony this past May to celebrate my birthday. 

$3.30 gas is unheard of in California or any of our neighboring states.  As many know, Costco has one of the best gas prices and it’s at $4.75 today.  Most gas stations are above $5.

 

One heck of a birthday celebration to be on the ship that many times in a row. Did you folks break every bar stool on the ship in the end with all the crazy parties?

[harryfat1]

11 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

I think I'll leave that part of my marriage off Cruise Critic. 😜

 

And I forgot to answer your earlier underwear survey question:

<=7 days is +1

>7 days is +2

The longer the trip, the more "insurance" that I need.  

 

Thanks for replying to the unofficial poll.  I will ask this in the December trip report as that’s a longer cruise.

 

The reason I came up with this question was on the Princess cruise last year, I needed to do laundry just prior to the cruise as I didn’t have enough clean underwear.  As I was doing laundry, I was wondering if I could “get away” with only 6 underwear for 8 days?  Hence the question to the audience.  Less of an issue on a 4-night cruise. 

 

Just a teaser for future episodes…

[Another_Critic]

6 minutes ago, harryfat1 said:

Thanks for replying to the unofficial poll.  I will ask this in the December trip report as that’s a longer cruise.

 

The reason I came up with this question was on the Princess cruise last year, I needed to do laundry just prior to the cruise as I didn’t have enough clean underwear.  As I was doing laundry, I was wondering if I could “get away” with only 6 underwear for 8 days?  Hence the question to the audience.  Less of an issue on a 4-night cruise. 

 

Just a teaser for future episodes…

FYI - Princess has self-service laundry.

 

Even though I get a free bag of laundry on RCI for D+, I still take an extra pair just in case.

 

Next cruise is 9-nights, so probably 10 pairs.

 

I do need to decide how many pairs for my 3-night pre-cruise in the UK, then 15-night transatlantic.  I will have a washer in the rental house in the UK and the one free bag of laundry on the cruise, but things happen.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Another_Critic

[harryfat1]

9 hours ago, ch175 said:

Thank you for taking the time to write words and post pictures.

 

When you showed the “fancy” luggage tags, I thought about how I make my own luggage tags by printing them out, encasing them in clear packing tape, and then attaching them to my luggage with zip ties.

 

I spent some time wondering if that makes me more or less anal than you, and more or less cheap than you. I have no answers. I guess it doesn’t really matter anyway.

Sounds cool.  You should do a YouTube video of the DIY cruise luggage tags. Get 10,000 likes and make enough money to buy your own tags…

 

I’m not sure if I am the standard people should judge against in being cheap/anal.  There are way cheaper/more anal than me. The only question is how open they are to admit it. Some feel embarrassed to be “cheap”/save money or anal.

 

I’m just more open to discussing both topics but by no means do I claim to be the de facto standard bearer of both.

 

Whereas flaunting wealth/extravagant lifestyle on social media to get “likes” and “thumbs up” are more socially acceptable nowadays.  There is a lot less glamour in being reasonable in spending and being frugal so people feel less comfortable sharing.

 

We can get into a whole set of discussions on how our society has deteriorated with social media but that would open such a big can of worms where we’re still on day 0 after 500 posts…
 

I think you answered your own anal question by actually debating it in your head and can’t come to a conclusion…😜

[harryfat1]

6 hours ago, wolfganghowell said:

harry, I meant where'd you go as in no posts for several hours.  😉  Enjoying your style.

“Ah, I see,” said the Blind Man to the Deaf Woman…

 

I was out for almost a couple of days on the Shingles vaccine side effects.  It’s like a mini Covid Booster side effects of body aches and fatigue. 

 

I need to negotiate with CC to have a better sick leave policy in my next contract if I have to post during sick days…

[harryfat1]

6 minutes ago, Another_Critic said:

FYI - Princess has self-service laundry.

 

Even though I get a free bag of laundry on RCI for D+, I still take an extra pair just in case.

Good idea to back a backup plan.

 

Thanks for the Princess self-service laundry info.  I was on the Majestic Princess last year and you guessed it - I have pictures of the laundry area...

 

It was a very nice setup.  They have one laundromat on every deck that had guest cabins. 

 

 

 

Time for each wash and drying cycle (Helps that I can read Chinese)

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Onward with day 0 of the trip report:

 

++++++++++++++ 

We made it to the LA area just before 5 PM.  But where is LA technically?  When people think of LA, they are really thinking of various cities within the LA “region” but not the “official” LA city limits itself.  Places like Beverly Hills/Hollywood/Santa Monica are famous areas that many people link to be “LA” but each city has its own official city hall/police and other city functions.

 

Has anyone seen the freeway map of LA?  It’s like a spaghetti strand exploded.  It’s a complicated mess for non-residents to figure out where is what.

 

Not to mention the traffic is a mess even at weekends. 

 

This is traffic conditions on a Tuesday night at 4 PM.  Red areas are bad traffic and notice how bad it is and it’s not even 5 PM yet.  The money cost of burning expensive $6/gallon fuel while waiting in traffic daily in Southern California is mind-boggling:

 

 

Anyway, before going to the hotel, time to fill up the gas one more time at the Costco right by the hotel.  Why get gas again when we got gas 120 miles ago? That way when we get off the ship on Friday, we can just get on the freeway and not have to worry about getting gas before heading out of town on the backend.

 

Costco gas was much more reasonable at $4.58 that day.  From Jim’s post, it looks like South Carolina gas is only $3.30 range.  Unheard of amount out here on the west coast.

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

The cruise terminal is located in San Pedro.  Now how you do pronounce San Pedro?  Do you say “San PEE-DRO” or “San PAY-DRO”.  There are various articles online or on YouTube channels of people debating on how to say it correctly. 

 

However way you say it, we are not staying there for the night.  We stayed at the Marriott TownPlace Suites near LAX at Hawthorne.

 

From the map below, San Pedro is the red arrow place and Hawthorne is in blue – about 17 miles away.

 

 

 

If you are flying in from out of town, then yes, stay as close to the cruise port as possible.  But as we are driving to the port ourselves, we can be further away because there are better deals elsewhere away from the cruise port. Being 25 minutes on the freeway going 65 MPH isn’t that far compared to 15 minutes on city streets versus the local hotel nearby.

 

 

[harryfat1]

Being a Marriott credit card holder, I get one free night annually for a mid-tier hotel after I pay the $95 fee. When you look at the hotel prices nowadays, $95/night from their mid-tier listing of hotels isn’t a bad deal.

 

 

Front lobby area

 

 

Free Breakfast area

 

 

 

One classic song always comes to mind whenever I check into any hotel for the night…

 

 

Especially since we are in the State...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Check out the “free” ($95 credit card fee) room.  It’s really a “suite” that consists of 2 queen-sized beds, 1 full-size bed, and 1 upper bunk bed.  On top of that, you have a mini kitchen area and 2 regular bathrooms and sofas.  This was only for the 4 of us.

 

 

Mini Kitchen Area with a full size refrigerator

 

 

Beds 3 and 4 in the second room of the suite

 

 

Two full-sized bathrooms in the suite

 

 

The stated space for the suite is 600 square feet.  It will make the cruise cabins look cramped but we will enjoy the space for the night.

 

Our room can easily fit 6 people so if you have a big family clan traveling together, try to book this type of suite either with free Marriott points or even if paying cash, it’s still a better deal than your regular room that can only sleep 4 and one bathroom.

 

The in-laws have a regular-sized King suite with one king-sized bed and their kitchen as well if only 2 people traveling and you don’t need 4 beds.

 

[Jimbo]

@harryfat1Cheap isn't cheap until you see your Father-In- Law washing off paper plates..............

Edited August 23, 2023 by Jimbo

[Another_Critic]

1 hour ago, harryfat1 said:

I was on the Majestic Princess last year

My daughter and ex-wife sailed on Majestic Princess in late June, northbound from Vancouver to Whittier. 

 

I had thought about joining them, but I decided to do an 11-night transatlantic from Cape Liberty to Southampton plus 7-nights post-cruise in Wales this past May.

 

Edited August 23, 2023 by Another_Critic

[harryfat1]

2 hours ago, Jimbo said:

@harryfat1Cheap isn't cheap until you see your Father-In- Law washing off paper plates..............

Oh, very nice. Those must be the family heirloom paper plates.

 

I assume your wife will expect to inherit these plates years down the road...

[JamesEM]

Harry, I have done several b-2-b cruises but this was my first b-3-b cruise and it was very interesting.  Found out the bar tending gets rotated every two weeks, your sail and sign card gets a small red circle on the back, the staff calls out your name when they see you, have no problem getting on/off the ship on turn around days (I was issued a In Transit Card), a visit from ships officer when I was in the Diamond Club, and no issues with getting the table I want in the MDR.

[harryfat1]

5 hours ago, Another_Critic said:

My daughter and ex-wife sailed on Majestic Princess in late June, northbound from Vancouver to Whittier. 

 

I had thought about joining them, but I decided to do an 11-night transatlantic from Cape Liberty to Southampton plus 7-nights post-cruise in Wales this past May.

 

Good choice.  18 days versus 7 days seem like an easy decision although the scenery of Alaska one-way sailing on Princess is extraordinary as I posted previously.

[harryfat1]

53 minutes ago, JamesEM said:

Harry, I have done several b-2-b cruises but this was my first b-3-b cruise and it was very interesting.  Found out the bar tending gets rotated every two weeks, your sail and sign card gets a small red circle on the back, the staff calls out your name when they see you, have no problem getting on/off the ship on turn around days (I was issued a In Transit Card), a visit from ships officer when I was in the Diamond Club, and no issues with getting the table I want in the MDR.

So on a b-3-b, does the itinerary of the first and third sailing repeat?  Did you find something different to do at the repeat ports or you just stayed on board and enjoy the quiet pool area? 

[harryfat1]

Continuing on the day 0 trip report

 

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

 

OK, this is the part of the vacation where not everything goes according to plan. I don’t know about you folks, but very few of my vacations ever go exactly as planned with no hiccups. There’s always “something” that deviates from the original plan no matter how far in advance you plan things out.  The only question is how you adapt and improvise and move on.

 

The original plan was to check into the hotel and then go to Redondo Pier to catch an early view of the Sunset over the Pacific Ocean and then go to Torrance for Korean food dinner. 

 

Well, that went by the wayside as people were hot and tired from being in the car all day and everyone liked the big spacious hotel room that they wanted to do sushi take out in the comfort of the big room instead of eating at the crowded restaurant.

 

OK, time to whip out the phone and iPad to find a place and look at the menu to decide on what to get.  Found a sushi take out place at 4.3 stars and went there to order and waited a bit for them to make the sushi. 

 

While waiting, walked around the super busy strip mall.

 

 

 

 

Anyone like donuts?

 

[harryfat1]

Oh, yeah, also got some Popeye Chicken and Klondike ice cream.  Yeah, I don’t care if you roll your eyes at how sushi doesn’t work with fried chicken.  We eat what we like.

 

I will let KC explains how I like my food as we get ramped up early for the 70s party on the cruise on day 4:

 

 

 

So you get to see what we ate for dinner.

 

Good thing we got a big table to seat 6 in the hotel room to spread out all the food.  First is the overall of all the food and then the rest are detailed shots

 

 

Sashimi sampler pack 

 

 

Various types of special sushi rolls

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hint:  Not sushi...

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

A few pics of the hotel room to close out the night as we listen to Dreams…

 

This picture shows the connecting door to the second room of the suite.  That's where the boys slept

 

 

Different perspective

 

 

The table when pulled out away from the wall can squeeze in 6 people for a simple takeout dinner

 

 

Dreams

 

 

 

This concludes day 0 of the trip report. 

[harryfat1]

As always, thanks to everyone for reading along.  I appreciate all the comments/contributions to this report as I prefer a more interactive exchange of cruise experience instead of just me doing a monologue re-telling my “days of our lives”. That’s boring. 

 

Much more interesting if people chime in, and contribute their experience/pictures to this report. If you are a Newbie cruiser, feel free to interrupt anytime to ask questions.  This report is aimed at someone like you.

 

The whole idea is to have a good comprehensive guide to assist future cruisers reading this to make their cruise experiences better. By doing so, we veteran cruisers build up good karma points with the Cruise Goddess going forward to ensure we have good sailing weather on our future cruises.

 

Now how many more karma points do I need before reaching Diamond?

[perfect match]

On 8/21/2023 at 7:39 PM, harryfat1 said:

Wow.  Double Wow. 

 

You are really digging deep into the archives if you are going back to my 2014 trip report.  Are the old pictures still working?  

 

In the old days, CC didn’t host any travel pictures, so all the reviewers had to cut and paste the link from Photobucket or Shutterfly and then manually “cut the bad part” in order to post pictures. It was a labor of love as you must REALLY want to show people the picture because each picture takes like a minute to get the link, cut it, preview it, and then post it.

 

It’s not as simple as the current days of the simple drag and drop. So not sure if those links even work anymore.

 

I know for sure they got rid of the “secret balcony” so you won’t see that anymore.

 

The experts on these boards can tell you what has changed on the Allure since then.  But I believe that is the only Oasis-class ship that doesn’t have the ugly purple slide blocking the view of the back.  Not a fan of the “new and not so improved” look.  Just more of a grumpy old man talking about how things used to be better…

I haven’t started reading your Allure 2014 report yet. I’m too busy enjoying this one! 😃 We don’t sail until April so I should have time to read it after this one is done. I’ll let you know about the pictures.
 

One of the reasons I’m excited about sailing Allure again is the fact that there’s still no big purple slide blocking the view. While I enjoyed riding the slide on the other Oasis class ships that do have it I didn’t think it was good enough to warrant the space it takes up. 
 

Our first cruise post pandemic was on Allure with 2,200 pax on board. We felt like we were sailing on our own private mega yacht. The upcoming one in April is a B2B, a three day going to Coco Cay and Nassau followed by a four day going to Cozumel. I’m sure this will be a totally different experience than the nearly empty post pandemic sailing and even different in our other seven and eight day cruises on the other Oasis class ships to say the least. It will work for us because it is out of Port Canaveral which is only 90 minutes from our house and we’ll essentially have three sea days if you count turn around day, and I’ll get to go diving in Cozumel. 

 

[perfect match]

I couldn’t resist opening your Allure trip report. I’m happy to tell you that at least on page one the pictures still show up! I’ll go back and read later.

[bobmacliberty]

8 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

Anyone like donuts?

 

 

I saw this and immediately thought "Iron Man".  So off to Google I went to find the Iron Man picture:

 

 

Wait...that was Randy's Donuts, not Donut King.  So there's more than one big donut in the LA area???  Turns out, there are several, including one you can drive through.  The things you learn from a Cheapo Dad review.  

 

 

[Fishfan0073]

On 8/19/2023 at 9:42 PM, harryfat1 said:

Pre-Cruise Preparation:

 

This is mostly for the newbie cruisers to Royal (or cruising in general) as I will discuss on some aspects of cruise preparation.

 

Experienced cruisers can skip this section or if you are not a 9+ anal scale cruiser, you can skip it as well. 

 

Being a Finance person, I’m not the most tech savvy or tech loving person out there.  I still prefer laptops and hard copy printouts to do my pre cruise planning/cruise pass printouts but the cruise industry is pushing toward the usage of the Phone app which I’m not really a big of.  We cruised last year on Princess Cruise and that App is bad beyond belief.  It is no surprised it’s averaging a 1.6 out of 5 on the App Store.

 

The Royal Caribbean app is better rated at 3.7 but that’s not exactly great as I typically won’t download any app rated less than a 4 but there’s no option here.

 

So after you have downloaded the app, you need to create an account and then link your booked cruise to the app.  In the beginning, there’s not much “to do” as it’s pretty generic info about your ship and your itinerary. Go ahead and explore around as if you are new to RCI, the app has enough info on it to get you familiar with names like “Windjammer”,“Café Promenade” and “Chops” that people here on CC talk about it all the time but if you never cruised (with Royal), the app will get you familiar with the names.

 

Besides, it adds excitement to your upcoming cruise as you eat your plain turkey sandwich at lunch at work dreaming about your upcoming cruise vacation. Which by the way is what you might end up eating at the blah food at some of the venues but that’s a totally different discussion.

 

After you have made the final payment for the cruise, start checking on when to do the “check-in” either online (my old man's preference) or via the phone app (the younger generation’s preference). It should open up around 45 days prior to sailing. I’m sure if I’m incorrect on my exact date, someone will correct me in less than 3 minutes. But the date will be displayed in both places so just set a reminder on your calendar to log into your account the first date you can check in and select a time slot that works for you.

 

I know what you are thinking – this dude is anal beyond help. Who cares what time I select?  I will just show up when I want and they will let me on the ship after I get there, right?  Yes and No. 

 

In the “old days” when I last cruised in 2017, that was the plan to just show up early and stand in line to wait for the door to be among the first group to board the ship.  Now the current policy is you have to select a time slot on the App/Online and you can only board at or after the stated time slots.

 

See my response #30 above on the process.

 

Do you want to be inside the tent city at 10:30 or stand outside?  I rest my case.

 

 

If you are the anxious type that wants to start your vacation early like me, you will want the early time slot so you can board early.  Set a reminder on your calendar to do so on the first available date. Ok, fine, because you are not 9.2 anal so you refuse to follow my suggestion and instead do it on the second available date instead - don't come crying to me if you are outside in line...

 

The closer you get to the sailing date, the earlier time slots will be gone and you will be forced to board later.

 

The check-in slot is within a 30-minute window like 11 to 11:30 AM or 11:30 to 12 noon and so on. When I tried to reserve our time slot, the first available slot of 10:30 was no longer available so 11 AM was the earliest available slot for us.

 

 

This is a few days before the cruise and you see only after 1 PM slot is available

 

 

So I am also over 50 now but consider myself tech savey, but due to my anal score being high up on the scale I still print everything to bring with me.  My wife just shakes her head at me, but hey better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.