We sailed on Navigator of the Seas on Dec. 4-11. This was our second cruise, our first being 3 years ago on the Carnival Triumph. While we were very satisfied with Carnival, we thought the bigger RCI ships looked pretty neat. Overall, we thought RCI was a notch above Carnival in many respects. We had a wonderful overall cruising experience and would definitely cruise with RCI again.

Embarkation: We decided to fly into Miami the night before which we would highly recommend to anyone. We stayed at Sofitel (very nice hotel-we used Hotwire and got a room for $77) and then took a taxi to the pier (cost about $24 for 4 people). We met a very nice couple from England and split the tab. We got to the pier about 10:30 a.m. and were inside within minutes. We then went through the necessary procedures at the front desk; the first RCI person we ever met was extremely nice, a pattern for the week to come. We had to wait in line for about an hour after we got our cards, etc, because they didn't let the people on the boat until noon. Once they opened the doors though we were on within minutes.

We went to our room (an interior room toward the aft of the ship) and found it to be acceptable. The room was set up much better than Carnival and had lots of mirrors which made it look big. We found out it also had a lot of storage space. We always think it's worth saving the money on getting a nicer room because you're hardly in it anyway. Read more