Let me preface what I am about to convey by stating that I have been cruising since I was five years old when my grandparents (my grandmother is currently 89, still works as a travel agent, and has been on 108 cruises) first took me on the S.S. Dolphin, and since then, I have been on approximately 35 or so cruises with approximately 25 of those cruises on Royal Caribbean. I am currently a Diamond Plus member of Royal Caribbean’s Crown & Anchor loyalty program, and cruising on Royal Caribbean’s ships has been one of the great joys of my life. I have gone on a cruise almost every year of my life, and I typically bring groups of 15 or more friends and family members with me so they can share the joy I experience.

With that said, I’ll discuss the Navigator of the Seas sailing April 24, 2016. We booked the Navigator of the Seas with a large group in order to celebrate my 35th birthday around January of 2015 - a full 15 months prior to sailing. My husband and I were hesitant in booking a Royal Caribbean cruise because of a medical incident on the Oasis of the Seas several years prior that resulted in us being disembarked early and how handled Royal Caribbean handled it, but because of my longstanding love and enjoyment with the cruise line, we booked along with twelve other friends and family members. Then, the worst possible thing that could have happened, happened. TWO WEEKS prior to sailing on the Navigator of the Seas, my husband gets a call from Royal Caribbean informing him that his reservation has been cancelled effective immediately (not my reservation). The associate, was unhelpful, rude, and provided no answers other than it related to the Oasis of the Seas sailing and that their Global Safety Team is prohibiting him from boarding the ship. I called after his conversation concluded with her, and I had the exact same experience. she was the end of the line and that there was no possible way to have this decision reversed – even after tears and begging and pleading just to even talk to someone else (apparently she does not have a supervisor, according to her). Yes, you could say we should have expected this possibility, but we honestly and sincerely thought that with my husband’s name and personal information in Royal Caribbean’s system for a full 15 months prior to sailing and without ever having received any notice related to being blacklisted that enough time had passed – 2.5 years – and that booking this sailing would be fine. Royal Caribbean’s decision caused significant strife in our relationship seeing that now, 2 weeks prior to sailing, I was faced with making a decision of either staying home with my husband or screwing over the other family and friends that had taken time off work, spent money, and planned a vacation at my behest. Ultimately, we made the difficult, but unavoidable decision that I would go and he would stay home, crushed from disappointment. To alleviate the situation as much as possible, we ended up purchasing plane tickets and hotel stays so that my husband could at least fly to Grand Cayman and Jamaica, two of the Navigator’s stops, to spend time with me and the group. Not an ideal outcome, but better than nothing

Thank you for bearing with me to this point, but I thought it was important that you have the all of the background information. I’ll now discuss our actual cruise on the Navigator of the Seas, April 24, 2016. Just to mention, I actually sailed on the Navigator 3 or 4 times back when it was relatively new, and the ship, as I understand, recently went through renovations in 2014. Read more