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Navigator of the Seas - My Thoughts
I have a short photo parade of the Mariner of Seas at the following web
site. She and the Navigator are sister ships. You will also need the free viewer from http://www.photoparade.com/player.asp The photo show is located on: http://home.cfl.rr.com/w4rjd/ This is my first attempt at this and please excuse the mistakes. |
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Navigator of the Seas - My Thoughts
Interesting viewpoint, Tom. We've been on both the Adventure and Navigator, and
definitely enjoyed the ships more than you did. While I won't say the dining room food is great, it's always been at least acceptable. I've never had a problem with the fish, and try to keep in mind that, at best, it's banquet food for 3000 people. Order accordingly. I found the Windjammer to be truly outstanding, for ALL meals, especially on the Navigator, with the addition of "Jade," the asian section. We've always been the dining-room-for-dinner types, but due to various reasons found ourselves at the buffet for several dinners on our last Navigator cruise. We LOVED the option of Jade (sushi every night and a different featured country's food) along with the traditional American fare in the Windjammer. And yeah, it's hard to beat the onion rings and fries at Johnny Rockets! As for hangout places, we enjoyed the piano bar in the Schooner, and really enjoyed the Duck & Dog (Bull & Bear, Pig & Whistle, etc.) on the Promenade. We also liked to bring our Rummikub game down to the Cafe and drink the delicious coffee there for a spell. As for the Western Caribbean itinerary, I, for one, don't care if I never see Jamaica again (nothing against the people, the island just doesn't do it for me), and I can live without Labadee. I still find Grand Cayman and Cozumel enjoyable, even if it's just to go to the beach or do some shopping. I'd easily sail a Voyager class ship again, I like the additional attractions (I didn't rock climb but my kids did). But I'm also just as happy on a smaller Royal ship or something like the Century or Sea Princess. Hey...it's a cruise! ~ Peri |
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Navigator of the Seas - My Thoughts
I was in cabin 9692, port side. You may be in the same cabin on the
other side. Good location IMO. Only problem with places like Schooner bar was the smoke cloud hanging in the air. Get a sunscreen with Parsol, minimum SPF 30. I like the PreSun Gel. I find that it doesn't run into your eyes during the day. Parsol provides both UVA and UVB protection. --Tom D Ball wrote: (Oops. The prior post was a boo boo. I'm sitting in bed w/ my laptop & usually just surf with it because when I type, I "smoosh" the keyboard and hit all of the wrong buttons.) Tom, enjoyed your "review" a lot. Sounds like you got in some good snorkeling and fun times! I was bummed to hear you got weathered out of doing the "deep" Stingray City--I wanted to hear about it. We had the best moray eel adventure ever along the reef there.... I share many of your thoughts about RCI. Food is a big thing with us, and yes, the dining room food is only so-so (although I've never felt it was so bad as you experienced), but the buffet food is suprisingly good. And you must be onto something stability. I am reminded of thinking the Explorer was an unusually rough ride, and I hear people complaining that the new Mariner (which we board for Christms week) is a "rock 'n roller." I agree, a solarium should have a retractable roof. I am thinking it did have the roof on the Explorer? I know the Mariner tracks the Navigator in most ways and doesn't have the roof. Pity. But, no surprise, we differ about a few things. We think RCI has the best entertainment of the lines we've tried so far. I think the Schooner bar is always "the" place to hang out--we like singing along at the piano bar and never fail to make friends among the "regulars" who hang out there throughout the cruise. I love the Voyager-class discos and the Promenade. We always climb the rock wall...and always have to wait in line! To each his/her own. Say, we're trying our first aft-facing balcony this trip. We're on deck nine (this is the Mariner), one over from the starboard corner. I'm pretty psyched to hear your "thumbs up" report, except that I'm fair, too, so may have to devise some shade avoidance. Have you ever brought--or seen anyone else bring--your own sunbrella? Glad you made it home safely. We were all concerned. Best regards, Diana Ball near Houston, TX --- not even ready, but celebrating Christmas on the Mariner eff. 12/19 flight out of Texas! Sorry, I can't figure out how to snip all of this except manually....I didn't think I was so laptop-challenged, LOL turday after Thanksgiving. We were a group of (I believe) 189 people. Engineer. I'm analytical. I look at how things work. The concept of "go with an open mind" is meaningless to me. I don't even understand the concept. Also, recognize that I'm a Celebrity and Princess fan. This cruise reminded me of many of the reasons that we stopped sailing on RCI a good 5 years ago. This collection of thoughts (it's not really a review) is about 90% complete. I got tired of typing, and I didn't do a careful proofread. So this is it. Any typos? Oh well. I focus mostly on the ship and cruise experience, not our group, since most of the people here don't know most of the people in the group. --Tom Flight Down ----------- Effortless. Had a connecting flight through Atlanta. Pretty much all on time. I flew down on Friday for our sailing on Saturday. I took a taxi to the hotel. Overnight in Miami ------------------ We stayed at the Radisson on Biscayne Blvd. Nothing to write home about… but the group rate price was very reasonable. It was convenient to the cruise docks. After flying down, I decided to take a nap around 5:00 pm. We were going to go to Bayside later that evening. I woke up at 7:00. Not pm. 7:00 am… the following morning. Talk about being exhausted. Embarkation ----------- Since we were part of a big group and had spent the previous night in Miami, we had a bus pick us up at 10:00 am at the hotel. We were at the dock by 10:30, after all the luggage was loaded on, and then unloaded off the bus. With Crown & Anchor Platinum status, I was shown to a side room adjacent to the big area where everyone stands in line, where my paperwork was processed. I was on the ship within 5-10 minutes. The Ship -------- Since it's not a new class of ship, there's not much to tell that hasn't been told before, but it was my first time on a Voyager class ship. So I'll offer my impressions of the class of ship. The Royal Promenade. OK, I'm probably the exception. I don't really care for the Royal Promenade. I do like the 15 story atriums on most ships. They are unique. You really mostly find them on ships. But a 3 story mall, we've got them all over the place. No Big deal. The Royal Promenade might be unique on a ship, but there was nothing fundamentally unique about it when we have malls that look like that every few miles around here. One thing I found interesting is that they have 2 sets of stairways, port and starboard, at each end of the promenade. The ship is so wide that you can do all kinds of different things like that. So instead of one set of stairs, port and starboard each have their own set of stairs. Much of the ship is smoke free. The restrict smokers to bars and other places on the ship like that. I think that even outside, one side is smoke free. Where the Promenade ended in the aft, you have to walk around the stairs that go to the lower level. You walk through a narrow area by the champagne bar. That's one of the few places that allows smoking so you either hold your breath or get a lung full of ciggy smoke as you walk past. Having only 2 elevator and stairway banks (at each end of the Royal Promenade) for a ship that long meant a LOT of walking. Bars are everywhere. Many are on the smaller side, like on Grand Princess. Lots of different options, but also I got the feeling that there were so many places to go that you never really developed any "chemistry" with any one place on the ship. There was no "the place to hang out" kind of place on the ship, like you get on many ships. Many of the bars are very smoky. The Dungeon - strange. Never went there other than looking around the first day. Looks like something Farcus would design. Not my thing at all. The Dining Room - Very Attractive… if it wasn't for the food… more on that later. Lots of dark colored wood like on Century. The Windjammer. Best RCI Windjammer I've seen yet. Probably best overall on all the ships I've seen in fact. LOTS of buffet station and LOTS of tables and chairs. There are even Asian buffet stations on each side of the ship before you even get to the Windjammer stations. Casino - Gaudy. Tacky. Any Farcus sightings? Never spent any time there other than as a walk through, to get to other areas. Library - almost no books. Very small. On-Line Internet Café - very nice, with all computers working. Rock Climbing Wall - it was there but I never saw anyone anywhere near it. Hoops - there were always guys shooting hoops. Solarium Pool - by definition isn't it supposed to have a cover? Well it doesn't. What's the point of having a solarium pool without a cover? There was almost no one ever there. To me, the best solariums are ones like on Grandeur and Galaxy where the roof can be opened or closed. Ice Skating Rink - we had our group photo taken there. No signs of Gretzky or Lafleur. All the different places - I think it fragmented our group having that many different places to go. My Cabin -------- I had one of the aft balcony cabins. The plus: the balcony was larger than most. The minus: they are tiered and there is no privacy from above. The person above you can see your entire balcony. There is a unique characteristic on the Voyager class ships for these cabins, they are not at the very back of the ship. Some circular metal structures actually extend out past the balconies. What I did like was that these structures formed a partial covering of my balcony which gave me some nice shading - I have a very light complexion and skin cancer is always a major concern for me. The inside of the cabin was pretty much identical to the cabin on Constellation. Cookie cutter, with some minor changes like the design of the closet area. The cabin had a mini refrig. Stability of the Ship --------------------- Two words - Not Good. We were doing the Western Caribbean. The calmest of all itineraries. The ship bounced all over the place, with the same noticeable herky jerky back and forth motion as Ocean Princess. I give her a Poor rating for stability. Cleanliness ----------- They're doing a nice job maintaining the ship so far. They're already re-varnishing railings. For RCI they've gotten rid of much of the Astroturf and are using the Celebrity type decking instead. Big improvement. Hallway carpets are light colored and are showing stains where people walk out of their cabins… so in front of every door is a dark blotch in the carpeting. They really should use darker carpeting on the ships. I give RCI good marks for cleanliness of the ship. The one exception… the day we were anchored in Labadee, there was a large collection of black greasy soot all over the back of the ship. It was on the decking, the railings, the chairs, tables, even all over any clothes or towels left out. I'm not sure if it came from the ship or from the Haitians burning something on land. But it was pretty disgusting. There were small particles (black on one side and brown on the other side) and larger ones up to 1 inch in diameter. It would fall apart when you picked it up, and leave a greasy black film on your skin. They didn't do much of a job of cleaning it up - they just eventually let it blow away. It kind of stays on the ship permanently where ever it ends up once the wind blows it around. I saw remnants of it from the previous cruise when I boarded the ship. It looks like something that happens repeatedly, though that was the only time it happened during our cruise. Food ---- Buffet Food - TOP notch for RCI. I was very impressed. They had almost everything that Celebrity and Princess have except for the crepes/blintzes and orange slices… they even had smoked salmon though it basically had no taste. There wasn't a good selection of pastries, but they did have fresh made omelets. I rated the buffet among the better ones I've seen. On the 1-10 scale… I give it a good honest 8. Johnny Rockets - Lots of Fun. I had lunch there 3 afternoons. One of my favorite places on the ship. On the 1-10 scale… a good honest 9. LOVE the onion rings. And they give you a LARGE size beer or soda there. For dessert they have wonderful apple pie and ice cream. Really good pie. Light flaky crust. The real stuff. The burgers there are an afterthought. One afternoon all I got was a big batch of onion rings that I scoffed down on my balcony. Dinner in Dining Room - here's where we do a quick change of direction. Only one way to describe the dining room food: Atrocious. I had one excellent meal during the week - the fillet mignon the second night. Other than that, the food was a waste. Poor quality ingredients, steaks that were blood red and still tough as leather, fish that was horrible (I went against one of my cardinal rules… eat no seafood on RCI, NCL or Carnival), pasta that was terrible, mushy shrimp that I had to discretely "spit" out. Desserts were terrible. The tiramisu was basically rubbery tasting. There was nothing real about it. It was like plastic. "Vinyl". The one good dessert was the soufflé with Grand Marnier sauce. One night I had the apple pie and ice cream… it was NO WHERE near as good as the apple pie and ice cream at Johnny Rockets. On a 1-10 scale… I'd be hard pressed to give dining room food any more than a 2. For what it's worth though… at Miami airport I talked with someone else who was on the ship. You'd think we were on different ships. He said it was the best dining room food he's had on over 50 Royal Caribbean cruises. Different strokes. Maybe I'm just a lot more fussy than he was. Café promenade - had desserts and mini sandwiches 24x7. It replaces the buffet for mini sandwiches in the afternoon. Service ------- Actually top notch. RCI is so well orchestrated that it's hard for them to NOT give you good service. Our Maitre d' was a waste though. He only visited once during the week. I'd leave 80% of my dinner un-eaten and he never even bothered to find out why. I gave the pre-paid voucher for his tip to the waiter instead. I hope he can cash it in instead. Our waiter always asked if he could get me something else instead, when I didn't eat my dinner. But after a few days I think he just kind of accepted that I wasn't going like the poor quality of food that they were serving. My cabin steward did a decent job. In the Windjammer, they had lots of extra help. There are stations where there are at least 50 glasses of orange juice, lemonade or water lined up all the time. You never have to get your own juice like on just about every other ship I've been on. Cruise Director. I never met him until the last day (since I don't go to shows), at a C&A Platinum meeting. His name is Jeff and he asked where I was from. I said "Jersey". He said "Where?". I said "Central Jersey". He asked what town and when I replied, he said that he grew up the next town over. Small world. The Shows --------- Fred Travolina was the guest comedian. I watched about 5 minutes of his show. He did a few California Gov. Aaahnold jokes and a few Michael Jackson "oops I dropped a baby" jokes. I also saw a few minutes of one of the ice shows - a guy took a tumble doing a triple (at least I think it was a triple). I love hockey, but not figure skating - just not my thing. Caribbean Pool Party -------------------- Held during the middle of the cruise (I'm too lazy now to look up the exact night) but it wasn't well attended. Nothing like on Ocean Princess when the whole deck was totally packed with people. Captain's Reception ------------------- It was held in the Royal Promenade. The Royal Promenade doesn't handle 2000 people well. Ports ----- Labadee - I took an early tender and took lots of pictures of the ship. It was a cool day, so after an hour or so, I wasn't totally drained in the heat like the last time we were there. I grabbed a lounge chair on the ocean side of the peninsula and sat there for a while. I talked with a couple, who I later had lunch with, and several days later arranged to go to Chankanaab with. RCI has done a great job of stopping the locals from hassling you all over the area. Two thumbs up for that. The water did appear to be a little cleaner than the last time we were there, but it still didn't have much visibility and I didn't see any fish. Like a lot of people have said, it's a beach place not a snorkeling place. I still have no reason to want to go back, but I didn't hate it like I did last time I was there. CocoCay and Great Stirrup Cay are still my favorites by far, for private islands. Ocho Rios, Jamaica - I found a snorkeling excursion. We were taken by boat to a reef that is actually only a few hundred yards from the ship. The snorkeling wasn't great, but it was better than sitting on the ship, or sitting on one of the beaches that don't have any reefs or fish. One of the Fantasy class ships was in port with us. Cayman - I booked Stingray City the "deep water" site. There are actually 2 Stingray Cities, the original deep water site, and the newer sand bar. Since I had alrady gone to the sand bar once before, I wanted to try the other one. As I awoke, we heard announcements that all Stingray City excursions were canceled due to the weather. It was windy and a little on the rough side. I later heard that we came "that close" to having Cayman canceled for all ships that day. Luckily it improved in the afternoon, rather than getting worse. I packed my snorkel gear and walked to Eden Rock. I got in the water and saw 4 huge tarpon patrolling the area around the rock/coral steps into the water. Each was 4-5 feet long. They would swim at you and if you didn't feed them they'd just veer off to the side. Lots of smaller fish there as well. I missed seeing the stingrays, but it was still a wonderful day, seeing the tarpon. We were in port with Grand Princess, Norwegian Sun and Carnival Triumph. We didn't have an anchor chain that I could see from the tender, so we might have been using the dynamic stabilization system to keep us in place instead. Cozumel - I went to Chankanaab with my friends from Labadee, some of their friends, and a couple from our Viking group. Lots of fish everywhere. We all had a great time. We walked around the lagoon to see the iguanas. Some of the Viking group were going to one of the other beaches but I wanted a place that I knew had reefs and lots of fish. In port with us were the Voyager (first time Navigator and Voyager were in port together), Nordic Empress and Norwegian Wind at the Downtown pier, and us, Veendam and one of the Fantasy ships at the International Pier. Mickey needs to buy HAL some buckets of black and white paint. Veendam looked very shabby. Flaking paint all over. We grabbed a XX beer at the Sr. Frogs at the dock area. Days at Sea - quiet for me. I read my book, a re-read of JRRT's Two Towers/Lord of the Ring. I'm getting ready for the December release of Return of the King. I tried to get a cell phone signal off the coast of Key West (to check in with Linda and the kids) but had no luck. Crown & Anchor Platinum/Diamond Lunch Get Together -------------------------------------------------- On Friday, there was a lunch meeting of the C&A Platinum and Diamond members in the Viking Crown Lounge. I met some guy who was Director of Revenue and Marketing. We talked for a while. I told him how I was extremely pleased with breakfast and lunch, but very disappointed with dinner. He took a lot of notes. As I said before, that's also where I met Jeff, the Cruise Director. The Captain spoke for a short while and answered some questions. Debarkation ----------- I set my phone for a 7:30 wake up. They had already cleared everything with the port and had begun calling color tags. I had the white color tags (first off) for C&A Platinum, but waited until after I had breakfast. By then they were to the red color tags. There was about a 10-15 minute to get off the ship, but about a 30 minute wait to clear customs. After that it was a quick taxi ride ($20) to the airport. Going Home ---------- Here's where it gets interesting. During dinner the last evening we heard that New York / New Jersey were getting hit with snow. I had flights that connected through Atlanta (I was using an old ticket on Delta and there are no Miami to Newark non-stop flights). I got as far as Atlanta on Saturday, but all the flights to Newark had already been canceled by the time I got to Atlanta. I spent the night near the airport at the Marriott Courtyard for $55 per night, distressed passenger rate. Not too bad. I was booked on a 2:30 flight from Atlanta to Newark on Sunday. There were several earlier flights, but rather than go standby and worry about luggage, the agent put me on the 2:30 flight with a reservation and seat assignment. Since I had toiletries and my evening clothes from the last night in my carry on, I opted to let them keep my 2 large bags. I washed the few pieces of clothing I needed on Sunday at the hotel. When I got to Newark my luggage had already arrived. Linda picked me up at the airport and we were on the road within about 5 minutes after arrival. What I liked: ------------- The buffet dining room - lots of dark wood for accent Buffet food Smoking restricted to certain areas - not simply all over the ship, or limited to only one side of the ship. The ship is very smoke free. Johnny Rockets My aft facing balcony with the shade The dining room interior design 2 Paintings (still lifes, with large blue backgrounds, starboard side, aft staircase, about deck 8 or so IIRC) Ice Cream self serve all over the ship The promenade deck outside What I didn't like: ------------------- Royal Promenade Dining Room food Desserts Long walks with the 2 "double" elevator/stairway banks at each end of the Royal Promenade. Light hallway carpeting showing dirty areas outside cabin doors. Poor stability of the ship. No "one place" which is "the place to hang out" like the Fleet Bar on the Zenith. With smoking restricted over much of the ship, places that do allow smoking had a LOT of smoking going on. You couldn't even think of going to those places if you didn't like smoking. |
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Navigator of the Seas - My Thoughts
Sue and Kevin Mullen wrote: What is the Dungeon?? 2 Story bar that looks like something out of Harry Potter. I guess it would work depending on the rest of the surroundings, but on this ship it looked out of place. It was just SO different from everything else. How would you compare it to the buffet we had on the Zenith? Zenith had a bit less variety since the ship is so much smaller. Navigator had lox but it had no taste. Zenith had great lox. Navigator had fresh omelets like Zenith. Navigator adds an oriental buffet area. Navigator had no crepes/blintzes, and much less variety of rolls and buns. Nothing like chocolate croissants. Or no sliced oranges like on Zenith. Still, Navigator's buffet was far better than other RCI buffets I've seen. --Tom |
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Navigator of the Seas - My Thoughts
Peri wrote: Interesting viewpoint, Tom. We've been on both the Adventure and Navigator, and definitely enjoyed the ships more than you did. While I won't say the dining room food is great, it's always been at least acceptable. I've never had a problem with the fish, and try to keep in mind that, at best, it's banquet food for 3000 people. Order accordingly. Fishy smelling fish means old poor quality fish. It has nothing to do with being banquet presentation of the food. Celebrity and Princess provide banquet presentation of the food as well, but if you use good quality ingredients... it shows even if you're preparing food for 2000 people. Same with steaks. Poor quality doesn't arise because you're cooking for 2000. Poor quality arises because you bought cheap food. And you can't say that I wasn't satisfied with any of the food... because buffet food was simply FAR BETTER than the dinner food. I had some procuitto (sp?) in the buffet (6:00 pm snack) that was superb one evening. The procuitto in the dining room was dry and tasteless. The apple pie in Johnny Rockets was fantastic. Light flaky crust. The apple pie in the dining room was terrible. Rubbery tasting. --Tom |
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Navigator of the Seas - My Thoughts
In article , Tom & Linda
wrote: 2 Story bar that looks like something out of Harry Potter. I guess it would work depending on the rest of the surroundings, but on this ship it looked out of place. It was just SO different from everything else. The Dungeon is the disco. Usually one of the most hopping spots on the Vogager class ships. You probably were in bed when all the action was taking place there. -- Charles |
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Navigator of the Seas - My Thoughts
Tom & Linda wrote: Sue and Kevin Mullen wrote: What is the Dungeon?? 2 Story bar that looks like something out of Harry Potter. I guess it would work depending on the rest of the surroundings, but on this ship it looked out of place. It was just SO different from everything else. If it looks like something out of Harry Potter, Kevin would love it. Zenith had a bit less variety since the ship is so much smaller. Navigator had lox but it had no taste. Zenith had great lox. Navigator had fresh omelets like Zenith. Navigator adds an oriental buffet area. Navigator had no crepes/blintzes, and much less variety of rolls and buns. Nothing like chocolate croissants. Or no sliced oranges like on Zenith. Still, Navigator's buffet was far better than other RCI buffets I've seen. Thanks Tom. sue |
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Navigator of the Seas - My Thoughts
Charles wrote: In article , Tom & Linda wrote: 2 Story bar that looks like something out of Harry Potter. I guess it would work depending on the rest of the surroundings, but on this ship it looked out of place. It was just SO different from everything else. The Dungeon is the disco. Usually one of the most hopping spots on the Vogager class ships. You probably were in bed when all the action was taking place there. I see you know Tom well, when the disco would be hopping, he would be outside watching the stars(grin). sue |
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Navigator of the Seas - My Thoughts
Sue and Kevin Mullen wrote: Charles wrote: In article , Tom & Linda wrote: 2 Story bar that looks like something out of Harry Potter. I guess it would work depending on the rest of the surroundings, but on this ship it looked out of place. It was just SO different from everything else. The Dungeon is the disco. Usually one of the most hopping spots on the Vogager class ships. You probably were in bed when all the action was taking place there. I see you know Tom well, when the disco would be hopping, he would be outside watching the stars(grin). Or checking out the art collection on the ship... or tracking the route using my GPS and a navigation chart. --Tom sue |
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Navigator of the Seas - My Thoughts
Thanks for posting your thoughts, Tom, I enjoyed reading this.
I was interested to read your comments about the soot - sounds exactly like what we experienced on our aft balcony cabin on the Carnival Spirit inaugural cruise. (On subsequent cruises on that ship, we didn't have an aft cabin, but we saw the stains - perhaps the soot was acidic or something like that - it had left on the upper decks.) I got the impression that they learned to clean it up before it became a big problem, and recent cruisers have reported not seeing the soot. Tom, I think it may be time for you to try HAL! Eileen Tom & Linda wrote: I was part of Sue W's Viking Group on Navigator of the Seas. We sailed November 29, 2003, the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We were a group of (I believe) 189 people. My initial thoughts and observations follow. Remember, I'm an Engineer. I'm analytical. I look at how things work. The concept of "go with an open mind" is meaningless to me. I don't even understand the concept. Also, recognize that I'm a Celebrity and Princess fan. This cruise reminded me of many of the reasons that we stopped sailing on RCI a good 5 years ago. This collection of thoughts (it's not really a review) is about 90% complete. I got tired of typing, and I didn't do a careful proofread. So this is it. Any typos? Oh well. I focus mostly on the ship and cruise experience, not our group, since most of the people here don't know most of the people in the group. --Tom Flight Down ----------- Effortless. Had a connecting flight through Atlanta. Pretty much all on time. I flew down on Friday for our sailing on Saturday. I took a taxi to the hotel. Overnight in Miami ------------------ We stayed at the Radisson on Biscayne Blvd. Nothing to write home about… but the group rate price was very reasonable. It was convenient to the cruise docks. After flying down, I decided to take a nap around 5:00 pm. We were going to go to Bayside later that evening. I woke up at 7:00. Not pm. 7:00 am… the following morning. Talk about being exhausted. Embarkation ----------- Since we were part of a big group and had spent the previous night in Miami, we had a bus pick us up at 10:00 am at the hotel. We were at the dock by 10:30, after all the luggage was loaded on, and then unloaded off the bus. With Crown & Anchor Platinum status, I was shown to a side room adjacent to the big area where everyone stands in line, where my paperwork was processed. I was on the ship within 5-10 minutes. The Ship -------- Since it's not a new class of ship, there's not much to tell that hasn't been told before, but it was my first time on a Voyager class ship. So I'll offer my impressions of the class of ship. The Royal Promenade. OK, I'm probably the exception. I don't really care for the Royal Promenade. I do like the 15 story atriums on most ships. They are unique. You really mostly find them on ships. But a 3 story mall, we've got them all over the place. No Big deal. The Royal Promenade might be unique on a ship, but there was nothing fundamentally unique about it when we have malls that look like that every few miles around here. One thing I found interesting is that they have 2 sets of stairways, port and starboard, at each end of the promenade. The ship is so wide that you can do all kinds of different things like that. So instead of one set of stairs, port and starboard each have their own set of stairs. Much of the ship is smoke free. The restrict smokers to bars and other places on the ship like that. I think that even outside, one side is smoke free. Where the Promenade ended in the aft, you have to walk around the stairs that go to the lower level. You walk through a narrow area by the champagne bar. That's one of the few places that allows smoking so you either hold your breath or get a lung full of ciggy smoke as you walk past. Having only 2 elevator and stairway banks (at each end of the Royal Promenade) for a ship that long meant a LOT of walking. Bars are everywhere. Many are on the smaller side, like on Grand Princess. Lots of different options, but also I got the feeling that there were so many places to go that you never really developed any "chemistry" with any one place on the ship. There was no "the place to hang out" kind of place on the ship, like you get on many ships. Many of the bars are very smoky. The Dungeon - strange. Never went there other than looking around the first day. Looks like something Farcus would design. Not my thing at all. The Dining Room - Very Attractive… if it wasn't for the food… more on that later. Lots of dark colored wood like on Century. The Windjammer. Best RCI Windjammer I've seen yet. Probably best overall on all the ships I've seen in fact. LOTS of buffet station and LOTS of tables and chairs. There are even Asian buffet stations on each side of the ship before you even get to the Windjammer stations. Casino - Gaudy. Tacky. Any Farcus sightings? Never spent any time there other than as a walk through, to get to other areas. Library - almost no books. Very small. On-Line Internet Café - very nice, with all computers working. Rock Climbing Wall - it was there but I never saw anyone anywhere near it. Hoops - there were always guys shooting hoops. Solarium Pool - by definition isn't it supposed to have a cover? Well it doesn't. What's the point of having a solarium pool without a cover? There was almost no one ever there. To me, the best solariums are ones like on Grandeur and Galaxy where the roof can be opened or closed. Ice Skating Rink - we had our group photo taken there. No signs of Gretzky or Lafleur. All the different places - I think it fragmented our group having that many different places to go. My Cabin -------- I had one of the aft balcony cabins. The plus: the balcony was larger than most. The minus: they are tiered and there is no privacy from above. The person above you can see your entire balcony. There is a unique characteristic on the Voyager class ships for these cabins, they are not at the very back of the ship. Some circular metal structures actually extend out past the balconies. What I did like was that these structures formed a partial covering of my balcony which gave me some nice shading - I have a very light complexion and skin cancer is always a major concern for me. The inside of the cabin was pretty much identical to the cabin on Constellation. Cookie cutter, with some minor changes like the design of the closet area. The cabin had a mini refrig. Stability of the Ship --------------------- Two words - Not Good. We were doing the Western Caribbean. The calmest of all itineraries. The ship bounced all over the place, with the same noticeable herky jerky back and forth motion as Ocean Princess. I give her a Poor rating for stability. Cleanliness ----------- They're doing a nice job maintaining the ship so far. They're already re-varnishing railings. For RCI they've gotten rid of much of the Astroturf and are using the Celebrity type decking instead. Big improvement. Hallway carpets are light colored and are showing stains where people walk out of their cabins… so in front of every door is a dark blotch in the carpeting. They really should use darker carpeting on the ships. I give RCI good marks for cleanliness of the ship. The one exception… the day we were anchored in Labadee, there was a large collection of black greasy soot all over the back of the ship. It was on the decking, the railings, the chairs, tables, even all over any clothes or towels left out. I'm not sure if it came from the ship or from the Haitians burning something on land. But it was pretty disgusting. There were small particles (black on one side and brown on the other side) and larger ones up to 1 inch in diameter. It would fall apart when you picked it up, and leave a greasy black film on your skin. They didn't do much of a job of cleaning it up - they just eventually let it blow away. It kind of stays on the ship permanently where ever it ends up once the wind blows it around. I saw remnants of it from the previous cruise when I boarded the ship. It looks like something that happens repeatedly, though that was the only time it happened during our cruise. Food ---- Buffet Food - TOP notch for RCI. I was very impressed. They had almost everything that Celebrity and Princess have except for the crepes/blintzes and orange slices… they even had smoked salmon though it basically had no taste. There wasn't a good selection of pastries, but they did have fresh made omelets. I rated the buffet among the better ones I've seen. On the 1-10 scale… I give it a good honest 8. Johnny Rockets - Lots of Fun. I had lunch there 3 afternoons. One of my favorite places on the ship. On the 1-10 scale… a good honest 9. LOVE the onion rings. And they give you a LARGE size beer or soda there. For dessert they have wonderful apple pie and ice cream. Really good pie. Light flaky crust. The real stuff. The burgers there are an afterthought. One afternoon all I got was a big batch of onion rings that I scoffed down on my balcony. Dinner in Dining Room - here's where we do a quick change of direction. Only one way to describe the dining room food: Atrocious. I had one excellent meal during the week - the fillet mignon the second night. Other than that, the food was a waste. Poor quality ingredients, steaks that were blood red and still tough as leather, fish that was horrible (I went against one of my cardinal rules… eat no seafood on RCI, NCL or Carnival), pasta that was terrible, mushy shrimp that I had to discretely "spit" out. Desserts were terrible. The tiramisu was basically rubbery tasting. There was nothing real about it. It was like plastic. "Vinyl". The one good dessert was the soufflé with Grand Marnier sauce. One night I had the apple pie and ice cream… it was NO WHERE near as good as the apple pie and ice cream at Johnny Rockets. On a 1-10 scale… I'd be hard pressed to give dining room food any more than a 2. For what it's worth though… at Miami airport I talked with someone else who was on the ship. You'd think we were on different ships. He said it was the best dining room food he's had on over 50 Royal Caribbean cruises. Different strokes. Maybe I'm just a lot more fussy than he was. Café promenade - had desserts and mini sandwiches 24x7. It replaces the buffet for mini sandwiches in the afternoon. Service ------- Actually top notch. RCI is so well orchestrated that it's hard for them to NOT give you good service. Our Maitre d' was a waste though. He only visited once during the week. I'd leave 80% of my dinner un-eaten and he never even bothered to find out why. I gave the pre-paid voucher for his tip to the waiter instead. I hope he can cash it in instead. Our waiter always asked if he could get me something else instead, when I didn't eat my dinner. But after a few days I think he just kind of accepted that I wasn't going like the poor quality of food that they were serving. My cabin steward did a decent job. In the Windjammer, they had lots of extra help. There are stations where there are at least 50 glasses of orange juice, lemonade or water lined up all the time. You never have to get your own juice like on just about every other ship I've been on. Cruise Director. I never met him until the last day (since I don't go to shows), at a C&A Platinum meeting. His name is Jeff and he asked where I was from. I said "Jersey". He said "Where?". I said "Central Jersey". He asked what town and when I replied, he said that he grew up the next town over. Small world. The Shows --------- Fred Travolina was the guest comedian. I watched about 5 minutes of his show. He did a few California Gov. Aaahnold jokes and a few Michael Jackson "oops I dropped a baby" jokes. I also saw a few minutes of one of the ice shows - a guy took a tumble doing a triple (at least I think it was a triple). I love hockey, but not figure skating - just not my thing. Caribbean Pool Party -------------------- Held during the middle of the cruise (I'm too lazy now to look up the exact night) but it wasn't well attended. Nothing like on Ocean Princess when the whole deck was totally packed with people. Captain's Reception ------------------- It was held in the Royal Promenade. The Royal Promenade doesn't handle 2000 people well. Ports ----- Labadee - I took an early tender and took lots of pictures of the ship. It was a cool day, so after an hour or so, I wasn't totally drained in the heat like the last time we were there. I grabbed a lounge chair on the ocean side of the peninsula and sat there for a while. I talked with a couple, who I later had lunch with, and several days later arranged to go to Chankanaab with. RCI has done a great job of stopping the locals from hassling you all over the area. Two thumbs up for that. The water did appear to be a little cleaner than the last time we were there, but it still didn't have much visibility and I didn't see any fish. Like a lot of people have said, it's a beach place not a snorkeling place. I still have no reason to want to go back, but I didn't hate it like I did last time I was there. CocoCay and Great Stirrup Cay are still my favorites by far, for private islands. Ocho Rios, Jamaica - I found a snorkeling excursion. We were taken by boat to a reef that is actually only a few hundred yards from the ship. The snorkeling wasn't great, but it was better than sitting on the ship, or sitting on one of the beaches that don't have any reefs or fish. One of the Fantasy class ships was in port with us. Cayman - I booked Stingray City the "deep water" site. There are actually 2 Stingray Cities, the original deep water site, and the newer sand bar. Since I had alrady gone to the sand bar once before, I wanted to try the other one. As I awoke, we heard announcements that all Stingray City excursions were canceled due to the weather. It was windy and a little on the rough side. I later heard that we came "that close" to having Cayman canceled for all ships that day. Luckily it improved in the afternoon, rather than getting worse. I packed my snorkel gear and walked to Eden Rock. I got in the water and saw 4 huge tarpon patrolling the area around the rock/coral steps into the water. Each was 4-5 feet long. They would swim at you and if you didn't feed them they'd just veer off to the side. Lots of smaller fish there as well. I missed seeing the stingrays, but it was still a wonderful day, seeing the tarpon. We were in port with Grand Princess, Norwegian Sun and Carnival Triumph. We didn't have an anchor chain that I could see from the tender, so we might have been using the dynamic stabilization system to keep us in place instead. Cozumel - I went to Chankanaab with my friends from Labadee, some of their friends, and a couple from our Viking group. Lots of fish everywhere. We all had a great time. We walked around the lagoon to see the iguanas. Some of the Viking group were going to one of the other beaches but I wanted a place that I knew had reefs and lots of fish. In port with us were the Voyager (first time Navigator and Voyager were in port together), Nordic Empress and Norwegian Wind at the Downtown pier, and us, Veendam and one of the Fantasy ships at the International Pier. Mickey needs to buy HAL some buckets of black and white paint. Veendam looked very shabby. Flaking paint all over. We grabbed a XX beer at the Sr. Frogs at the dock area. Days at Sea - quiet for me. I read my book, a re-read of JRRT's Two Towers/Lord of the Ring. I'm getting ready for the December release of Return of the King. I tried to get a cell phone signal off the coast of Key West (to check in with Linda and the kids) but had no luck. Crown & Anchor Platinum/Diamond Lunch Get Together -------------------------------------------------- On Friday, there was a lunch meeting of the C&A Platinum and Diamond members in the Viking Crown Lounge. I met some guy who was Director of Revenue and Marketing. We talked for a while. I told him how I was extremely pleased with breakfast and lunch, but very disappointed with dinner. He took a lot of notes. As I said before, that's also where I met Jeff, the Cruise Director. The Captain spoke for a short while and answered some questions. Debarkation ----------- I set my phone for a 7:30 wake up. They had already cleared everything with the port and had begun calling color tags. I had the white color tags (first off) for C&A Platinum, but waited until after I had breakfast. By then they were to the red color tags. There was about a 10-15 minute to get off the ship, but about a 30 minute wait to clear customs. After that it was a quick taxi ride ($20) to the airport. Going Home ---------- Here's where it gets interesting. During dinner the last evening we heard that New York / New Jersey were getting hit with snow. I had flights that connected through Atlanta (I was using an old ticket on Delta and there are no Miami to Newark non-stop flights). I got as far as Atlanta on Saturday, but all the flights to Newark had already been canceled by the time I got to Atlanta. I spent the night near the airport at the Marriott Courtyard for $55 per night, distressed passenger rate. Not too bad. I was booked on a 2:30 flight from Atlanta to Newark on Sunday. There were several earlier flights, but rather than go standby and worry about luggage, the agent put me on the 2:30 flight with a reservation and seat assignment. Since I had toiletries and my evening clothes from the last night in my carry on, I opted to let them keep my 2 large bags. I washed the few pieces of clothing I needed on Sunday at the hotel. When I got to Newark my luggage had already arrived. Linda picked me up at the airport and we were on the road within about 5 minutes after arrival. What I liked: ------------- The buffet dining room - lots of dark wood for accent Buffet food Smoking restricted to certain areas - not simply all over the ship, or limited to only one side of the ship. The ship is very smoke free. Johnny Rockets My aft facing balcony with the shade The dining room interior design 2 Paintings (still lifes, with large blue backgrounds, starboard side, aft staircase, about deck 8 or so IIRC) Ice Cream self serve all over the ship The promenade deck outside What I didn't like: ------------------- Royal Promenade Dining Room food Desserts Long walks with the 2 "double" elevator/stairway banks at each end of the Royal Promenade. Light hallway carpeting showing dirty areas outside cabin doors. Poor stability of the ship. No "one place" which is "the place to hang out" like the Fleet Bar on the Zenith. With smoking restricted over much of the ship, places that do allow smoking had a LOT of smoking going on. You couldn't even think of going to those places if you didn't like smoking. |
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