First passengers to visit a remodeled Cococay with new water park, pool with bar etc, The whole facilities were excellent, beach did not feel crowded at all (may change on the bigger ships like the Allure), pool was very animated with DJ, had the feel of being in a 5 star hotel pool, The water park gave nice fit to whole family travel idea with rides for every age, this island will surely be a reason to travel in Royal Caribbean for many families in months to come. Of course the water park has a cost of $44 per day, Zipline is $79, There is a Hellium Ballone (costs $24) Jetski tour ($104), etc. Navigator has free water slide on ship, one doulble rider and a single rider (heads down), pretty nice and its free. Shows were ok but not on the level of the Symphony or Harmony, Will recommend it is certainly a nice weekend getaway alternative for those who live in Florida. Read Less

We are Diamond members on Royal Caribbean but three years ago stopped cruising with them as I felt all the reasons we cruised with them originally were no longer there. We since went on two cruises with NCL on their newer ships and enjoyed ourselves, then we went on Celebrity and was disappointed. We decided to give RCL another try and we were very pleased. One of the main reasons we stopped cruising on RCL was the main dining room food was awful. We started going to the specialty restaurants each cruise which added up. The Winjammer buffet was just as bad. On the cruise we ate every meal in Main dining room with Bernardo and Jennifer at table 632. They were awesome. Did not enjoy Impact Explosions which is a Latin version of Stomp. I feel the entertainment management should go on NCL Escape to see the Level of entertainment. They were excellent and RCL’s was 1/2 that. On our cruise to Aruba a few years back they did not have room for the Diamond members as there was so many Diamond Plus. On this cruise they had a Diamond club which had wonderful staff but the room was small. Another nice feature for the Diamond members is that free drinks are loaded onto your Sea pass to use in many places. I still hate that in the Solarium people are still taking premium seats with a towel and going off for hours at a time. I witness this everyday. Big surprise no Body Wash. was told they stopped suppling this around 3 years ago. We had such a pleasant cruise we booked another. Going to see CoCo Cay. Yeah! Read Less

We are avid cruisers and have probably been on 35-40 cruises. We have never paid for a cruise up front (paid in the Casino). We started with offers from land-based casinos and now deal with the cruise lines directly. I primarily play $1 video poker and some slots. This review compares the NCL Casino at Seas program to the Royal Caribbean Casino Royale based on our experience. ODDS : The odds on both cruise lines are poor. NCL has better odds RCL – 6/5 Bonus Poker with $150 for all 4OK – 7/5 DDB NCL: 6/5 Bonus poker with $250 for 2,3,4 and $400 for 4A – 8/5 DDB Bill Adjustment at the End of the cruise. Typically I earn $10,000 points RCL – Usually nothing NCL – Usually $500+ Tier Benefits RCL- Prime: worthless cruise ctf at the end of the cruise which we have never used. Annual cruise which is worthless because we receive cruise offers all the time NCL- Ruby: $400 each on board credit. Ultra drinks- usually will get an upgraded bottle of wine by request Amenities Sent to Room RCL: plate of 4 cookies NCL: Chocolate covered strawberries with wine or Champagne Host overall Casino Service RCL: Never saw the host – staff generally not very friendly. My wife approached the host to ask about all of the out of service machines and she said he was rude when she asked him. This was on Navigator of the Seas NCL: Host will come over and introduce themselves and check in almost daily to see if we need anything. Very friendly staff. The personalized service and friendliness fo the NCL staff makes the experience a lot more fun. Casino set-up RCL: We just got off Navigator of the Seas which has probably the worst Casino we have ever been to. Probably 30% of the machines were out off service. Card frequently stopped registering points. Machines were on top of each other and could not move. Other ships like the Allure are much better. NCL: Much better and roomier The room was much largerthen expected for a Junior suire. The food in the main dining room was very good. Especially the nextt to last night that included lobster and filet mignon. We did not feel the need to eat in the specialty restaturants because the dining room was very good. Service in the dining room was excellent and we sat at the same table every night even though we had My Time dining. The room steward was also very good and friendly. Shows were good but not excellent. The first night was some guys banging drums that gave me a headache and I walked out. The comnedian, magician and stage shows were very good. Read Less

We chose Royal Caribbean because we got tired of Carnival. Our ship , Navigator of the Seas was a 7 day western cruise. Great itinerary. Nice ship. However, the food on this ship was just subpar! It was awful in the Windjammer and the main dining room. Completely disappointed Would not feed that so called food to my dogs! Carnival being a lower class line has much better food! The waite staff in the dining room was fabulous. Shout out to Nuran, Dandung & Hainin. Great guys!!! The service on the entire ship was excellent! The activities were also very disappointing!!!. No good shows and the comedy shows were limited and sporadic so if you missed the show you were not going to see it. But again the food, horrible! That was our first Royal cruise and probably our last.....Wondering if the food was just lousy on this particular ship or all Royal Caribbean ships.?? Read Less

Stateroom 6552 very quiet and calm location. Enjoyed the balcony very much! Vandie was our cabin attendant and was awesome! We were close to the elevators too. We purchased the unlimited dining package. It was great dining at the finer restaurants every night, but were not big sushi or seafood eaters so Hooked and Izumi didn’t really appeal to us. We wished we would have purchased the three day dining package and eight and the regular dining room the other two nights. Jamie’s was our favorite restaurant and we ate there three times. The lemon meringue cheesecake was heavenly. The shortribs & the lasagna was also great. We enjoyed the solarium area every day and were able to secure a cabana bed almost every time we went out there if we woke up around 7:00 am. One thing that I didn’t realize before this cruise is that they pre-authorize charges on your card daily so while they take the final balance on the last day of your cruise you’re accruing charges or pre-authorizations every day on your credit card for things like gratuities drinks souvenirs etc. Read Less

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Go to better, cleaner Caribbean islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao) As a Diamond + traveler and using Jr. Suites, we had access to the Diamond and Concierge Lounges. How they screwed all diamond plus travelers by eliminating the concierge lounge and dumping all diamond+ travelers to the diamond lounge, small, no view, overcrowded, dark, etc Next cruise we will shop around with other cruise lines. No sense in being loyal to Royal Caribbean. Loyalty is a one way street with this Company. Food quality continues to diminish every year, they nickel dime you on everything and who can assure us that the mandatory gratuities ends up in the workers hands Anything you buy has a line for additional gratuities. If you purchase a drink or a food item, they each on an 18% gratuity and expect you to add an additional tip. Some elevators just go by you, usually the wait is on the long side Read Less

We chose this cruise because of the really great itinerary. We stopped at Haiti, Bonaire, Curacoa and Aruba with 4 sailing days. We were in port at Labadee (Haiti) until 5pm, at Aruba until 6pm, at Bonaire until 8pm and stayed in Curacoa until 11pm so we really had a chance to explore and enjoy the Islands. The food on the ship was wonderful and the staff, without exception, was cheerful, helpful and worked non-stop to make life enjoyable for us. The staff even made going in to meals fun by adapting songs in creative ways to encourage people to wash their hands. They had all the kids singing and dancing their way into the Windjammer dinning room by the end of the cruise. There were lots of things to do on the ship and we particularly enjoyed the Ice Show, Laser Tag and the water slides. The Constant presence of piped music got a little wearing after a while since they pipe music almost Everywhere and their music selection was somewhat limited (by the 4th day I had heard most of the songs at least 10 times). We started retreating more and more to the outer portion of Deck 4 which was about the only place they were not piping music. The first day there was almost no one walking around on Deck 4 but by the last 2 cruising days it was getting downright crowded with people who just wanted a little peace and quiet. The only complaint we had, and the reason I'm only giving this cruise 3 stars, is that our room was extremely noisy which I describe in the cabin review section. Read Less

This was my 8th cruise and first time on the Navigator. Overall, it was a great ship with a great crew. The ship is very similar to the Independence and Freedom of the Seas, which I've sailed on before and thoroughly enjoyed. Lets start with the good: - The Ice show. This was fantastic and shouldn't be missed. They have a coordinated light show using drones as part of the show and it's amazing. - The guitar singer in the Windjammer singing "washy washy" songs. Haven't seen this on any other ships, and it always brought a smile to hear the days rendition of some song converted to a "wash your hands" song. Loved it. - Cruise director and staff were very energetic and funny. - Balloon drop at midnight on the first night of the cruise. I've done a New Years eve cruise and this reminded me of that scene. It was really cool. This was the first cruise where I decided to try the specialty dining as I've always been impressed with the MDR food, so was looking forward to seeing how much better the food would be. I tried Chops and Jamie's Italian restaurants. Chops was decent, but this was no where near as good as it should have been for the price. I was expecting something along the lines of a Morton's steakhouse or Ruth's Chris quality, but it really wasn't even close...more like an Outback experience. It was good, but not worth the extra money. We had a similar experience at Jamie's, though it was even more of a disappointment. Never been to an Italian restaurant where they didn't play Italian music...instead they're playing some pop/techno stuff, that just didn't fit. I've also never been to an Italian restaurant where they don't immediately serve you bread along with some form of spread. Instead, Jamie's has some different breads as part of the appetizer menu. Also the waitress seems to over explain everything. I appreciated her knowledge, but it got to the point where we just wanted her to shut up and let us eat. The staff was wearing jeans and flannel shirts...not sure how this is Italian themed, but maybe I'm not hipster enough to get it. The desserts were hit and miss...the lemon meringue cheese cake was wonderful, the tiramisu was lacking and short of any coffee flavor. I didn't get a chance to do the escape room. It wasn't open on our last sea day so you'll want to get in early so you don't miss that. Also, one night there was an even on the cruise planner for "Stargazing on the helipad". We weren't sure what would be involved with this but assumed it would have some crew lead event of sort. Nope, it was just a bunch of people on the helipad at night, all wondering what was going on. Overall, it was a great cruise and I would definitely go on it again Read Less

We chose this cruise as it is about a month out of dry dock from an extensive renovation. We have previously sailed on the Majesty, Allure, Freedom, and Mariner of the seas. We have also sailed on the Disney Wonder and MSC Seaside. We arrived at the port around 1:30 and basically walked onto the ship. Very quick and easy. We only got a chance to do the Riptide slide as we didn't feel like waiting in line for the blaster. We really enjoyed the solarium for adults only. We are early risers so we never had an issue getting chairs. I was thrilled to see them actually keep track of chairs that people tried to save. There were plenty of chairs all over in case they were all taken at the pool. We spent a good deal of time at the casino. We had fun but there was a lot of smoke that made it difficult to breathe. Our stateroom was great. We had a balcony towards the back and didn't have anyone above us. Our balcony was the last one, so it was slightly bigger than normal. We generally spend a good amount of time in the room, so we were disappointed with the few choices there were for tv. Even the movies you had to pay for didn't have good choices. We didn't do any excursions, so we splurged on specialty restaurants. We dined at Hooked the first night, which was decent. The food was good, but the service was lacking. We went to Jamie's Italian the second night and it was so good we went back again the final night. The main dining room was seriously lacking in food and service compared to the specialty restaurants. Even the plating was mediocre. I cook much better food at home. The food is one of the main things that we look forward to when cruising. I would absolutely recommend the dining package if it's something you're able to do. Food in the Windjammer wasn't as good as we have experienced in the past. El loco fresh was an excellent addition to the included restaurants. They do need to improve the queso though as it was tasteless and way too watery. We only had the pizza at the promenade which was good. We got wings from playmakers that were good as well, but they took much longer than we expected. Overall, we really enjoyed this cruise. We spent a LOT of time relaxing, which we desperately needed. Read Less