navigator going to ibiza overnight.

[aga]

we are going on the navigator of the seas on thursday.i chose it because we have never visited ibiza and was looking forward to formentera and hiring a car to see the island.we were originally told that we would dock at 7.30am which changed to 5.30pm....disappointing.worse was to follow when i realised that we were departing at 5am not 5pm the next day.surely then it shoud show as a day at sea.even the travel agent , who by coincidence is going on the same cruise , found this very misleading.

has anyone been on this rather short stop......and are there any recommendations for things to do to make the most of the time given......i will have my 17 and 18 year olds with me , is it safe enough to let them loose on the club scene!!!!!!

many thanks...

[Merion_Mom]

I have no idea, but welcome to Cruise Critic! :D

 

I'm sure that some knowledgeable European cruiser will be along shortly to answer your question. :)

[sddsddean]

We stopped here a few weeks ago. As you say, arrive 5.30pm, leave 5am. I was quite disappointed, as apart from wandering around the shops and harbour, going for a meal or going clubbing there isn't really a 'trip' you can do. If you want to do any of the above you will be fine, but with hindsight I wished we had just walked up by the lighthouse by the dock and walked down the road toward Ibiza and come back when we started getting tired. The ship docks at a newish breakwater right on the outskirts of the harbour, so you need to use the shuttle bus ($6 each, each way) or a taxi (don't know cost) as it is a good 10 minute ride into Ibiza.

 

Simon

[aga]

thank you for that simon....i had booked this for a post exams treat for my teenagers solely for the trip to ibiza as they both have friends holidaying there and thought they could all meet up.they are so unhappy with the way things have turned out....i do not understand why the boat only docks at 5.30pm , not to mention the ridiculous 24 hours it is taking to return to barcelona....a ten hour cruise at most.a shame , i will pay more attention to the details next time !

 

thanks again.

[sddsddean]

not to mention the ridiculous 24 hours it is taking to return to barcelona....a ten hour cruise at most.

 

I seem to remember that on the ship info channel on the TV, the highest speed I saw that day was 5.5knots!! When I woke up and looked out in the morning after leaving Ibiza, I thought we had stopped!!

 

Simon

[aga]

is the day at sea a pleasant one....are there any nice views or is it open sea? i was on the navigator with my girlfriends on april 26th and we saw lots of dolphins at sea between palermo and barcelona.

weather permitting it will be a nice day on the balcony sipping cocktails....

[sddsddean]

is the day at sea a pleasant one....are there any nice views or is it open sea? i was on the navigator with my girlfriends on april 26th and we saw lots of dolphins at sea between palermo and barcelona.

weather permitting it will be a nice day on the balcony sipping cocktails....

 

We were on starboard side, so saw views of the other Balearic islands, but thats about it!! Didn't see any wildlife...knowing my luck I just wasn't looking at the right time!

 

Simon

[emdia43]

I did the strolling around the harbor, tourist shops and snacks scene while my cruising companion ( 19yrs)went to Pacha, one of the teen/young adult clubs close to the harbor. It is normally around 50 Euros to get in but as he was in a group they charged them 20- well that's what they told them anyway. He liked the music scene but a beer cost 8 Euros so that was a bit of a culture shock for him. :D

Once I did my stroll then it was back to the ship, there wasn't anywhere else to go as far as I could see.

[MattInFLL]

Ibiza is well known as "party central" in Europe... it's a nightclub, stay up all night kind of place, with that Spanish eat dinner at 10 or 11pm type feel... so I would venture to say that some of the younger crowd who are into that kind of scene are probably very happy, since the night clubs don't even start to get a crowd until about 1am.

 

And if the ship is catering to a European crowd at all, it would be a big draw.

 

I am well past the nightclub phase of my life, but have to say if I ever did get to Ibiza I would be glad I could at least see it for what it is known for.

[celticgirl]

I did this itineary last weekend and imo its a total waste of a port, ok when we were there it was raining heavy but as previous poster said on the sunday at times the boat was so slow you thought we had stopped!! Why couldnt we have did a port on the saturday early and one on the sunday, it was all a bit odd 5.30pm till 5am.

Also beware they are charging you tax for everything you buy on this cruise.

I thought the food was excellent this time around much better than on previous 2 voyager class ships i had been on. Windjammer seems to have gotten much better. We also did portofinos which is worth a visit. We had a d2 balcony on deck 9 and were very happy. And on disembarking day everyone seemed to be off ship by 9.30 fastest I've ever seen.

 

The cruise director was good but as the cruise was mostly spanish people I think his humour was lost on them also I was shocked at a full capacity cruise only had 200 odds previous cruisers!!

[mike@sea]

RCCL obviously changed port times to save some money. Very easy explanation. That way people have to spend their money on the ship plus they have to pay much less port fees.

I think a lot of people were unhappy about the port time changes in IBZ. However it is still a nice stop. Great for shopping, especially for your 17 and 18 year olds! Of course you can let them loose to go clubbing. Just make sure they have enough money since it is really pricey. ;-) One problem might be that the clubs really start late, talking maybe 2 or 3 in the morning, so they will only have about 2 hours in the clubs where they can really enjoy the crowds. If they have bad luck they have to pay full price admission, that easily means € 50 depending on club. For 2 hours....?!?

Needless to say they must not miss the last shuttle to the ship. ;-)

Besides clubbing and shopping it is just fun to walk around the old town, "climb" up the streets to the fort and have a nice dinner at one of the restaurants.

 

In contrary to CelticGirl I found the food on the Navigator not very good ( I was on the same cruise as she was ). Very limited food selection in windjammer and a very uninspiring food selection in the dining room with food never really being hot.

Chops was good but I find $25.- for the limited selection there rather expensive.

However, it is quite a party cruise and I have never had more fun on the ships dancefloor than on this cruise. The dj was fab and the athmosphere just great.

It was a fun cruise and the last day at sea due to good weather very nice and relaxing.

I´m sure you all will have a good time! Enjoy!

[raffles]

Needless to say they must not miss the last shuttle to the ship. ;-)

Besides clubbing and shopping it is just fun to walk around the old town, "climb" up the streets to the fort and have a nice dinner at one of the restaurants./quote]

 

Thanks for the info - we are on the ship on Thursday. Re the shuttle - does it run back and forth all the time or just a certain times?

Thanks

[aga]

thanks for that mike@sea........

 

my teens have never travelled independantly as yet so knowing that they can be let loose on ibiza is a relief......what time is that last shuttle by the way !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

i was , myself and two girlfriends , on the navigator 26th april for the 5 day cruise . i did not find the food that great and finding a seat in the windjammer was a struggle at times . but the ship was nice and i thought the destinations on this cruise looked ideal for my teens until i realised the limited time in ibiza....last minute thing!!!!!

 

hey ho ....i am sure it will be great and anything that takes my other half away from his work is a good thing...

 

 

blue skies would be nice.....

[sddsddean]

[quote=raffles;14957890Thanks for the info - we are on the ship on Thursday. Re the shuttle - does it run back and forth all the time or just a certain times?

Thanks

 

When we were there 3 weeks ago there was about 15 buses and they just filled up and went, so shouldn't be a problem.

 

Simon

[flahagan]

"I seem to remember that on the ship info channel on the TV, the highest speed I saw that day was 5.5knots!! When I woke up and looked out in the morning after leaving Ibiza, I thought we had stopped!!"

 

"we were originally told that we would dock at 7.30am which changed to 5.30pm....disappointing.worse was to follow when i realised that we were departing at 5am not 5pm the next day.surely then it shoud show as a day at sea.even the travel agent , who by coincidence is going on the same cruise , found this very misleading."

 

 

We were on the Navigator TA in April, which originally was supposed to stop in the Azores. That was cancelled in January, and on our sailing the Captain said that was due to the ship not being able to travel fast enough to make it there as scheduled. He said it was due to the age of the ship!!

 

We also came to what felt like a stop somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic, a day or so after leaving Bermuda.

 

Now you may recall, ours was the cruise with the broken stabilizers that were cut off in Lisbon and repairs have still not been made. I'll be the first to tell you I know absolutely nothing about ships, but it seems something may not be right here. Maybe someone with more knowledge could offer some input.

[emdia43]

Needless to say they must not miss the last shuttle to the ship. ;-)

Besides clubbing and shopping it is just fun to walk around the old town, "climb" up the streets to the fort and have a nice dinner at one of the restaurants./quote]

 

Thanks for the info - we are on the ship on Thursday. Re the shuttle - does it run back and forth all the time or just a certain times?

Thanks

 

 

The last shuttle bus leaves town at 0400- when we got off the ship there were 6 buses lined up and left quickly, then when I returned, the same thing, no standing in line, they leave every couple of minutes, they may thin out a bit as the night goes along though. It's $6 each way pp.

[aga]

i do not like the sound of missing stabilizers!!!!!!a bit alarming.....

[aga]

i see that stabilizers are what keeps the boat going straight and steady , making sea sickness less likely....well , funnily enough , my friend was on the navigator a few weeks ago and her daughter was green with sea sickness which is unusual as they have thier own boat and have never experienced this before....

[nikkicattrell]

Ibiza is well known as "party central" in Europe... it's a nightclub, stay up all night kind of place, with that Spanish eat dinner at 10 or 11pm type feel... so I would venture to say that some of the younger crowd who are into that kind of scene are probably very happy, since the night clubs don't even start to get a crowd until about 1am.

 

And if the ship is catering to a European crowd at all, it would be a big draw.

 

I am well past the nightclub phase of my life, but have to say if I ever did get to Ibiza I would be glad I could at least see it for what it is known for.

 

San Antonio starts to come to life around 5.30pm in time for the sunset, go to somewhere like Coastline, Savannah's or Kumharas for a peaceful time (this is NOT like Ibiza uncovered :rolleyes: ). Dinner normally starts at around 11pm and there are plenty of nice places to eat around both Ibiza Town and San Antonio, especially fish. Ibiza Town starts coming to life with the bars on the front and the surrounding streets at about 10pm - there are plenty of shops open at this time. There is a very very good Italian place on Ibiza Town harbour right at the end on the front. Clubs open at 1am and don't even start getting a crowd until around 3am, so if your leaving at 5am I wouldn't bother, however El Divino and Pacha (especially the funky room El Cielo and the roof terrace) are well worth it. The cheat with Pacha is that if you spend over €50 in the resturant - the price of a club ticket - you get let in for free. During the day, Ibiza Town is pretty much closed!

 

If you go to Formentera on the ferry, you can either get taxi's to the beach or hire cycles - aim for Blue Bar (and the bar next door up the beach) for a lovely peaceful place.

[mike@sea]

i do not like the sound of missing stabilizers!!!!!!a bit alarming.....

 

The ship has 4 stabilizers and only one is missing/broken as far as I know. Don´t worry. When we were on, the ship was stable all the times. No movement whatsoever! The Med should be flat as a mattress now. The week prior our cruise they did hit some rough seas due to very bad weather. That is not predicted for the end of the week as far as I can see. You´ll have a great time!

[Moeve]

We too would have fancied this route but decided against it because of the port times since we are not the party crowd it is of no used to us.

[flahagan]

As for the missing stabilizers, we sailed just fine without them, really that wasn't a problem. I was just wondering about the ship cutting ports, cutting hours in ports, etc., as it doesn't seem to be able to go the distance in the amount of time it has on schedule. That's what has me a little puzzled. We were originally supposed to arrive in Bermuda earlier in the day but didn't dock until nearly 8:30 PM, when nothing was open. We at least had most of a full day following that.

 

I wouldn't want to go to any port where you don't get in until the evening and then leave early the next morning. Seems like a wasted effort.