Review: Royal Caribbean - Navigator of the Seas - [Decemeber 17 , 2005]

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Reviewer Comments:

We are a family in our late 40's with two children, ages 11 and 13. This
was our fifth cruise, and third on RCI. We had previously cruised the
Southern Caribbean route on the Adventure about a year and a half ago.

Embarkation

We arrived at about noon. Boarding time is optimally about 2pm, but there
were a number of early arrivers. We were processed, given numbers, and
put in a 'holding' line, as customs was still processing previous
passengers disembarking.

RCI forgot about our particular group in line (probably 100-200 people)
and once they started allowing boarding, we waited a while until one of
the people in our line spoke up and reminded an employee. They then held
other lines and processed us all onto the ship. I think that if they
hadn't forgotten us this would have been a lot quicker. Still, it wasn't
too bad.

The Ship

Since we had been on the Adventure we knew what to expect. The Navigator
is very similarly beautiful and in excellent repair. One thing I noticed
was dark/light areas of carpet in the stairwells; we assumed this was
drying patches that had been shampooed between cruises. But later in the
week these patches were still there. I reached down and felt the carpet,
but didn't feel any dampness. What could it be? Other than that, there
were no obvious stains or disrepair.

We had taken our Adventure cruise in summer '04 as a couple, so with our
kids along this time we partook of the rock wall and the inline skating.
The kids had a great time with these activities.

The main dining room deserves mention, it was a bit differently decorated
than on the Adventure, but still stunningly beautiful. If you haven't
been on a Voyager-class ship this is a real highlight. There was a 2
story high artificial Christmas tree at the base of the stairs.

In the Windjammer entrance there was a set of lights, reindeer, and
decorated gingerbread houses which were lit for the holidays. There was
also a small Christmas tree at the back of the Windjammer at the very
stern of the ship.

The Royal Promenade had additional gingerbread houses on display along
with holiday lighting.

For this trip we got two promenade-view cabins, our first cruise without
a balcony. The downside was disorientation on what time of day it was.
The upside was the view of the promenade activities. I also found that
the seat in the window made for great reading spot, where I could put my
feet up on the opposite archway frame. Other cabins across the promenade
sometimes were displaying their hanging towel animals. On cabin even hung
four Christmas stockings with the family names on each stocking. This was
a cute touch to make the season more festive.

Still, it was a bit odd to be in the Caribbean and be listening to
"Winter Wonderland", etc. on the Windjammer audio system!

Food

Since we have also sailed on Princess and Carnival, we would have to
agree that the food was only fair. We are not picky eaters, though, so
this was not a big source of disappointment for us, and is probably one
of the reasons we still like RCI. Windjammer food was plentiful but
average. A number of days they had an ice cream bar.

We ate in the dining room 4 of the 7 nights. I had the sirloin steak one
night on the alternative menu and it was mediocre at best. I also had the
pasta with marinara sauce one night and it was mediocre. The break
offered was quite good with meals. The desserts were fairly good. I
ordered a pumpkin and apple soup which I expected to be cold, as there
were pear and strawberry soups on other nights that were also cold. I was
surprised to get hot soup, not what I was expecting! Once I readjusted my
mind to the hot soup, it was quite good.

The midnight buffet was the usual overindulgent pig fest. I had a few
desserts but tried to stay in control :).

Staff

Staff was uniformly outstanding. We never had a bad employee experience.
Particular mention should be made of the dining room staff. I've never
seen this good of a wait staff on any of our previous cruises. Our main
waiter spent a lot of time showing my 11 year old son how to fold various
napkin creations. An adjacent different waiter was so exuberant during
the waiter Italian dance show, bumping and grinding to the cheers of his
table, that a couple of the formally-dressed young ladies went over and
danced with him. Everybody was whooping it up, and we were all laughing.
Just about all of the wait staff ended the event with huge grins on their
faces, it was obvious they had a great time.

Entertainment

Entertainment was good, but seemed a little less good than on the
Adventure. The variety shows were decent but not outstanding. Ken Rush,
the cruise director, was also good but I didn't think as outstanding as
our cruise director on the Adventure. Ken will be the first CD on the
Freedom of the Seas in June.

The ice show was excellent, but again we thought it had been even better
on the Adventure. It was a different show. The Adventure's ice show had
contained some gymnastics and a flying sequence that was missing on the
Navigator show. The Navigator's show had an excellent Russian skater who
could do incredible things with a set of hula hoops.

There were a few comedians during the week. The young guy did the opening
show and a late-night adult show. He had funny moments and was only OK.
Another older guy from New York did some cleaner humor and was pretty
good.

Ports

We had been to all of these ports except Nassau. In San Juan we took our
kids to San Cristobal fort and then walked around in old San Juan. It was
nice that we docked where we could walk to town; when we cruised the
Adventure we had departed from a pier on the other side of the channel
and had to take a cab to get to old San Juan.

In St. Thomas we went to Coral World and Magen's bay, since we had been
to Trunk Bay last time. We thought Coral world was pretty interesting.
Magen's bay is very pretty, but it was crowded and we didn't think it was
as nice as Trunk Bay.

In St. Maarten we took a cab to Margiot, since we had not been there. We
were unimpressed - don't waste your time.

Our tablemates that night mentioned they had taken a scuba expedition and
had only gotten one dive rather than three, as a diver from another ship
had gotten lost. We later learned that this was the lady who drowned
while on a diving excursion. The other two ships at St. Maarten that day
were the Caribbean Princess and the Carnival Triumph, so I assume she was
from one of those ships.

Nassau was new to us. We walked around and went to the pirates museum,
which was pretty good. We didn't go to Paradise Island, but Atlantis was
easy to see in the distance and the water looked quite pretty.

Disembarkation

I don't know how RCI assigns which tags to which rooms; I know that we
had different color tags than the balcony room across the hall. Perhaps
because we're Crown and Anchor and have sailed RCI before we got a better
color. All I know was that we were supposed to be out of our rooms at
8am. We were just about to vacate at about 8:10am and were ready for a
couple of hours of waiting in a lounge to leave the ship. Our color was
called just as we left our room. We waited about 10 minutes on deck 4
before "punching out" of the ship. Customs and luggage retrieval took <30
minutes, and we were to our overnight hotel in Fort Lauderdale before
10am, where we spent Christmas night and then flew home to California on
Christmas day.

Conclusion

We really enjoyed this cruise, as did the kids. I felt the experience was
just a tiny bit less good than our cruise on the Adventure of the Seas in
2004. The entertainment was not quite as good; we didn't seem to have a
deckside pool party; there seemed to be a little less enthusiasm at the
"Rock and roll through the ages show". Jonnie Rockets (which we did not
use) had a cover charge here, it was free on the Adventure (is this still
the case?). I noticed the DVD on building the Voyager of the Seas, which
I paid $20 for in 2004, is now $29.95. You can see the small things that
are efforts to raise revenues -- just like our banks and credit card
companies, etc. I guess that is the way things are going. Still, we think
RCI has the best ships afloat and offers a great family experience. We
hope to sail on a Freedom class ship in a few years once the initial
pricing softens a bit (hopefully) as more ships come on line.