My wife & I have just returned from our honeymoon cruise on board the Navigator of the seas & we are extremely unhappy with the facilities & service you provided for babies (under 3s).

Do not be mislead by the family friendly brouchure!!!

As it was our honeymoon we decided to indulge in a luxury holiday for which we have saved for a long time.
The family friendly brochures depicts young children in pools/water along side listing of baby Aqua programmes - very misleading as young people not nappy trained are not allowed in the pools.
You would get the impression that this is a family cruise & to an extent that would be very true once your child is old enough to participate in the various clubs & activities on the ship.


The first disappointment we encountered was the size of the cabin. Our travel agent implied that our room would be slightly larger as a cot would be required.
To our amazement NO cot was instaled in the room on arrival.
We enquired with the attendant on duty & with the guest relations desk twice before the cot arrived.
When it finally turned up we were given inadequate bedding to make him warm & secure.

Our 2nd issue is that NO baby life vest was provided in the room. We were told that during a drill a baby not wearing a life vest is not a problem & if i had problems holding the baby then i can also be exempt from wearing one. On speaking to other families they also experienced the same problem with the baby life vests.
We were also told that a baby life vest would also be delivered to our stateroom. The NEXT DAY this finally happened, a serious laps of basic sea safety with breaches in Health and safety procedures.

On our second day we tried to change our sons nappy in deck 11 toilets as we had difficulties locating the baby changing room.
Not only was this very difficult & unsafe but not very pleasant for our fellow passengers to witness. we was told by a member of staff to return to our cabin and change the nappy as the ship does not have such designated rooms.

RC have strict policies on pool hygiene however they fail to address the issue of NO baby changing facilities which in unacceptable on a 'family advertised ship'.

We totally understand the regulations on pool hygiene however why do RC not supply other forms of stimulation in the pool area for the under three passengers.
Like a ball pit?
The number of toddlers crying because their older siblings are enjoying the pool & our sons frustration was a regular daily occurrence.

It appears that RC is a fantastic experience for any child over 3 years old as they lay on some wonderful activities & clubs, however if you are in our position there is relatively nothing for babies.
The only event for our son was the Fisher price Aqua babies/tots programme.
Hardly an interactive class if by judging by our experience which consisted of an uninterested tutor pushing round small toys on a play-mat.
Ironically RCTV advertised a much different experience to what we witnessed - misleading and false advertising.

Even the chargeable baby sitting facility proved unsuccessful as none were available for the time we required even though we gave sufficient notice.

I would recommend it to anyone as the ship is amazing, the majority of staff are friendly & helpful, the food & shows are top class however book with P & O if you have a small child as they appear far more superior & advanced in baby requirements.
They provide:
BABY POOLS
SUPERVISED NIGHT NURSERY
PLAY ROOMS - EXTENSIVE PROGRAMMES OF PLAY
BABY FOODS (which is a must when leaving the ship)
GENEROUS CHILD DISCOUNTS & FREE SPACES.

Well done Royal Caribbean we enjoyed ourselves and have already booked to cruise with you again may I comended you on your services for the disabled and the not so able-bodied people, I do risk assesments for people of all capabilites and found that you catered and cared enough to inculded them in all activites I also noted the chair lift to the chapel. The ship was immaculate and the staff friendly and curtious at all times, the food was excellent in all of the eataries we went to the portafino and well felt that we had robbed you as the meal was worth £200 instead of $40.00. The entertainment was broadway quality. People were encuraged to do a mile walk for ship shape dollars which we participated in, it was fun and I noted all abilities takiing part. I missed the show with the children as this proved very popular seeing as the children were traveling whith their parents I would recommed Royal Caribbean to anyone. Once you have cruised with them you will not want to cruise with anyone else. There was no illness or virus on board and me and my partener are still in good health but a few pounds heavier.

Royal Caribbean Navigator of the Seas Short Baltic 28th April 2007

We sailed from Southampton for a one week cruise to Stavanger in Norway, Copenhagen in Denmark and Amsterdam in the Netherlands on the RCI Navigator of the Seas. This was our first cruise on one of the big ships, and the Navigator is huge.

The Good Stuff

The ship is fantastic in design. Attention has been given to the smallest detail and it looks fantastic. There are numerous sun beds on decks, and of course, the climbing wall, ice rink, and multideck show lounge and cinema are legendary.

Check-n and Checkout was extremely well organised and went really smoothly with no waiting or queues to speak of. On boarding we were invited to go to the Windjammer, the ship’s informal dining room for lunch before being able to access our cabins at one o’clock. Check-out was similar, we were asked to vacate our cabin at 8 o’clock and given a disembarkation time of half past nine until when we could use the lounges and dining room etc. We were called a few minutes early, luggage was arranged by label colour, we found ours easily and were soon out of the terminal where someone was waiting to direct us to the car park coaches picked up the car and were on the road before ten.

Restaurants. The food in the Windjammer was fantastic, with an incredible choice at every meal including an egg station at breakfast for omelettes and fried eggs to order. You take a number, then wait a minute or two for your order to be ready. The meat from the carvery at dinner was wonderfully tender, there was also a pasta station at dinner time. The best part was that staff circulated constantly serving complementary hot and cold drinks, such as tea, coffee, hot chocolate, iced tea, fruit punch and lemonade, as well as wine and other drinks which were at a charge. Jade had delicious looking sushi, and a good selection of curries and other eastern cuisine and both had a wonderful panoramic view. Johnny Rockets is a fantastic experience of a fifties style American Diner. A very reasonable cover charge includes items such as fries, onion rings. Various burgers and fabulous ice cream dessert. There’s a juke box on every table compete with titles from the fifties and sixties, and the waiters sing once an hour. We really enjoyed our visit. The main dining room is on three floors. We only went there twice. The food was fine, and there was more room between tables than we’ve experienced before. Two other restaurants serve premium menus at an extra charge, but we didn’t use them.

Our cabin was first rate, although we were told that this was the only ship in the fleet without tea making facilities, although room service was free. We had an attractive shower room with sliding doors to the shower. In the cabin we had a huge 6’ wide bed, really comfortable, and curtains right across the cabin between the bed and the rest of the cabin, a sofa and glass-topped table, dressing table with mirror, drawers, hair drier, and mini bar. A full length mirror and sufficient wardrobe space with plenty of hangers. Ours was actually a four berth cabin, the two extra berths were retracted into the ceiling. If there were four people storage would have been quite limited. The cabin was very quiet, all we ever heard from our neighbours was the vacuum flush on the toilet.

Entertainment. The Ice Show was fantastic, we saw it twice, and really enjoyed it both times.. Being in total ‘Boring Old F**T mood, we were mostly tucked up in our cabins by about nine, so missed much of the entertainment, although some of it was repeated on our cabin TV the following day. There was a family of acrobats with two very talented children, both aged under ten. We saw the last !( minutes of an Elton john tribute performer which was quite good they also had Duggie Brown the comedian who was reasonable. There didn’t seem to be much interesting entertainment going on during the day

TV We could catch the shows we missed the next day in our cabin. There were also channels with films in a range of languages as well as RCI’s own channels. They had a shopping channel which was devoted to the purchase of high dollar items such as minks, Rolex watches diamonds and other jewellery. A DVD of the cruise on sale at the end.

A photo gallery, art auctions quizzes and game shows were also available.

The not so good stuff
The first thing we noticed was the lifts. For some reason they did not always come when someone pressed the call button they would either sail right past the deck you were on< or worse still would stop enticingly close like the deck above or below before zooming off again in the opposite direction> this was particularly tough on people with mobility problems< but was made worse because for the rest of the week a lot of people would pile into any lift that actually stopped at their deck irrespective of whether it was going up or down just to be in one this meant that when a lift did stop it was often already full and people with wheelchairs couldn’t get in at all

the second was the supply of tea and coffee. This was the first ship we’ve travelled on where tea wasn’t served in a pot on a tray by a waiter. It was available in the restaurants by room service, and free by DIY into paper cups from the Promenade Café. Coffee supply was similar, with the exception of the Two Poets Bar where cappuccino was served. This meant half a cup of coffee and half a cup of foam for about $3. But at least it came in china cups and was brought to your table.

The result was that the extremely busy Royal Promenade was populated by people walking along, balancing cardboard cups, often not looking where they were going, a bit like drivers looking to park in Tesco’s car park, searching for one of the all to few seats. Later in the week they ran out of paper lids so liquid was getting slopped about as well. Happily the ship was very smooth with hardly any tilting or lurches, so there weren’t any major accidents.

Although the ship was very well designed with a lot of deck space we were on a Northern Europe cruise in April. Only a few people braved the decks for any length of time and this showed up the ship’s major shortcoming. There was simply not enough interior seating for the number of passengers, especially on a seven day cruise with three sea days. The comfortable seating in the library, Cosmopolitan Club and 19th Hole was soon taken up by people who appeared to be there for the long haul, reading, sleeping and playing cards. Less comfortable seating such as in the Promenade Café was at a premium for much of the time, and seating in the bars soon filled up.

Our idea of a relaxing time is to settle ourselves down somewhere with a bit of a view where my husband can enjoy a leisurely cigarette and I could order a cup of coffee, hopefully working my way through the speciality list. This didn’t happen. There were very few smoking areas, no coffee service to speak of and seats with a view were in such short supply that people were spending the day sitting in the Windjammer Restaurant, where obviously, there was no smoking.

A Word About Smoking

Before anyone says anything mean about smokers, I would like to point out that there is a generation of smokers in this country who were actively encouraged to smoke. Many received a ration of cigarettes as part of their reward for serving their country in the Armed Forces such as the Navy. Others who lived through the war (and since) were told it would steady their nerves.

On board the RCI Navigator of the Seas, the amount of seating for smokers is very limited. I would estimate it at around 10% of the total seating - maximum. On deck there is a strip on the starboard side, while all the central areas and port side are smoke free. Similarly in the bars. The 19th Hole, which has panoramic views and comfortable chairs has about 3 smoking tables which are usually taken up by non-smokers playing cards or reading. Other bars are the same except the Two Poets (which doesn’t have any windows). The exception is the Connoisseur Club, which is for pipes and cigars.

My husband was peacefully smoking in the smoking area of the 19th hole when he was verbally attacked by a lady who said that all the bars were non smoking. After a period of unpleasantness which ruined my husband’s enjoyment both of that cigarette, and perhaps the whole cruise, she and her husband left. I called in at Guest Relations to inquire as to the exact position as regards smoking in the bars and was told that RCI had decided to BAN smoking in the bars whilst in Europe.

Ports of Call.

Stavanger was a very pleasant town where many people spoke English. Their currency is the Norwegian Krone. The ship docked right in the town. Helicopter trips were on sale by the pier. We were told they cost about £80 and were fantastic.

Copenhagan. Their currency is the Danish Krone. We were a little further from the main city, but there was a row of various shops right alongside the ship. An open topped bus operated from a short walk away. They accepted Sterling, US Dollars and Danish Krone, but not credit or debit cards. We booked a shuttle ticket and entrance to the Tivoli Gardens onboard for 22 US dollars each which seemed a reasonable deal for the convenience of a shuttle bus every 20 minutes or so.

Amsterdam

Here we docked at the Amsterdam Cruise Terminal which was a short distance from Central Station. A number 25 or 26 tram stopped right outside on the way to the station. The water bus also stopped adjacent to the Cruise Terminal, as well as opposite Central Station. Just along a bit from the pedal boats and glass topped cruise boats operated by Thomson. You should note if returning to the cruise termilal by tram, the number 25 stops a short way from the station. Otherwise it goes to Kennedy something which is going in the wrong directon.

We docked at about noon, which didn’t give a lot of time to visit places of interest such as the Science Centre and the diamond dealers which closed around 5.00pm. The water bus went on to about 7.00 and the cruise boat until 10.00. We sailed at about six the next morning. Both on our way in and out of Amsterdam we went through a lock which was pretty amazing.

Cannot fly so at last had the chance to sail from Southampton on one of the 'super ships'. Only a week cruise but we loved it all. Like other cruise liners operators they must brainwash the staff into being so polite/helpful nothing was to much trouble. Food was even better than PO and we thought that would be imposible.Unlike some other operators they do not allow kids to have it all their own way and thus not spoil it for us adults whose own children have now grown up. No star acts on the shows but the ships company made up for that. Difficult to believe ship is a few years old, everything about it is like brand new and cleaner than our hospitals.

We sailed on the short Scandinavia trip 28th April-5th May.

Embarkation- very quick- we arrived at Southampton port by car at approx.10.45am , dropped off the luggage, drove the car to our allocated free car park and returned to the terminal building by shuttle to check ourselves in. We were on the ship by 11.45am waiting for the Windjammer to open for lunch.
We heard from other people who arrived as per their travel docs.i.e 2pm that the queues were horrendous.
Complimentary juice,water, cakes and biscuits were available in the terminal building before we boarded.

Cabin- we had 7123, inside, forward on deck 7 on an interior corridor. It was a peaceful location, no noise was heard from the Royal promenade from inside the cabin. There was plenty of hanging space in the wardrobe with extra drop down rails plus shelves. Dresser had drawers and mirrored cupboards plus hairdryer. The Shower in the bathroom had sliding curved doors not the horrendous curtain that sticks everywhere! Cabin steward was very good seeing to room twice a day and making wonderful towel animals.

Food- excellent choices at dinner in the main dining room where we ate every night, no complaints there though the service was a bit slow on a couple of nights. We ate breakfast and lunch in the Windjammer. This is where problems were found in trying to find seats. The ship was full to capacity and there weren't any outside tables to sit at.The weather was cool so everybody wanted to be indoors to eat anyway.I did see staff actively helping people to find a table but sometimes the used ones weren't cleared fast enough.
Available 24hours a day at the Cafe Promenade are pizzas,sandwiches,cakes,cookies and fruit.This is also where the 24hour tea and coffee is and there was nearly always queues for it. The ship's guests were mainly Brits and you know how we all like a cup of tea! I found out later that the daily Compass newsletter advertised other places to find tea, just make sure you read all the print!
Complimentary room service is also available 24 hours a day plus there are 2 speciality restaurants where there is a 20 dollar covercharge.

Entertainment- The production shows were new and very good, the ice show is not to be missed. You need a ticket ( free ) to watch the ice show which was performed 4 times in the week to give everyone a chance to see it. The time for issue of tickets will be advertised in the Compass Newsheet. We did not have a problem getting a seat at our allocated show and only arrived 10 mins before curtain up.
There is so much going on at night on this ship from street parades to pub singers to music bands you are bound to find something to suit.

Sport- this ship has everything. Try the iceskating, its fun, open sessions are advertised in the Compass and it is possible to sign up for limited lessons. You will have to wear long pants and provide socks so if you are going on a hot Med cruise bare this in mind when packing!

We have sailed with RCI many times but this was our first trip on Navigator,have been on Voyager and Explorer.It was the first time we had experienced the Windjammer as busy as it was and we put this down to the fact that this cruise was sold off so cheaply and the ship was filled to the max.We would definitely sail on her again.
Cruising is all about meeting new friends, eating good food and seeing new sights, we got all 3 and more.

Our first cruise with Royal Caribbean, previous experience with P & O and Princess, we were very happy with most aspects of Navigator although inevitably more cruises make you more critical.No problems or delays with boarding at Southampton,although it did seem to help by having done some preliminary work online, car parked across the road from the ship, puts you off airports! The ship is huge and even if one disapproves of a few over the top American features, is sure to impress. On the first few days we lost each other twice, however, the sectional diagrams in stairwells and similar high traffic areas are a good guide to finding your way around, and after a few days we found our way quite easily, but the sheer size means there is a lot of walking, a point to consider if you have mobility problems. The features of this class are well publicised but the Royal Promenade is a remarkable shipboard innovation with its mix of bars,shops and a pub, another less obvious feature was to be able to access the foredeck , an area not open to passengers on some ships. The ship was very clean, the cabin service excellent and staff polite and helpful.Our inside cabin was a reasonable size,with room for a settee and small table,and the facilities featuring an excellent shower with a door rather than a curtain. This was the first full weeks cruise after coming to the UK and in some respects things seemed a little unprepared. For the first couple of days the buffet was frequently overcrowded which gave the impression that the Brits make more use of it than the Americans, or perhaps the different weather had something to do with it, however, staff were in attendance to assist with finding seats and there was a notable presence of senior staff considering the problem, later in the week things seemed to have improved considerably with some subtle changes to timings so it seemed they were keen to get it right. The ships internet connections were also causing problems, even for the companies future cruise sales staff (We never did receive details of two future cruises we tried to option). The weather, for the North Sea in late April/early May was excellent and we could truthfully say that the only motion we felt onboard could be described as a very slight vibration rather than any rolling or pitching.
The food was excellent with plenty of choice, the extra cost Italian Restaurant Portofino deserves a specific mention, so good we visited twice in the week. Minor food quibble that the late night outlet Cafe Promenade was often very crowded with limited stock available and an on deck midnight buffet was definitely more suited to the Caribbean than Europe.
We were pleased that RCI had avoided the mistake of having American biased entertainment (a fault with Sea Princess the previous year from Southampton) and the Ice Show deserves 5 Star+ rating.
We only took one organised tour a coach/canal city tour in Amsterdam, this could be rated as average in terms of content and value, at least we had an option to get off in the city centre and make our own way back to the ship. In Stavanger we took the fjord trip, the same as that offered onboard but booked directly with the operator at a cheaper rate, the Tourist Information Centre in Stavanger deserve mention for their assistance on this one. In Copenhagen we took the shuttle bus to the city centre and went on a public canal sightseeing trip achieving the same as Amsterdam at less cost.
To sum up , a very pleasant cruise, a beautiful ship and an operator keen to increase their share of the British market, we would certainly anticipate using RCI again in the future.

I am writing to inform any families with children under 3 years of age,or those with any 3 year olds that are not toilet trained,that you may be very disappointed with the facilities for said children onboard the Navigator of the seas.We took our 20 month old son on a two week caribbean cruise and quite frankly wish that we hadn't bothered.
to summarise;
1. No nappies could be purchased aboard.
2.only 1,45minute play session per day was available.
3.No play area on board,supervised or unsupervised.
4.No children wearing nappies, even swim nappies allowed in ANY pool.
5. No infant friendly excursions provided.
6.No provision for priority boarding or dissembarking of ship for families with infants(queues were in excess of 90 mins).
We stayed in an inside cabin and were provided with a travel cot, which they had forgotten to provide initially.This proved to be difficult as we then had very little room to move about our cabin.

This ship is amazing, i sailed on the Eastern Caribbean in December 2005, had an outside cabin on deck 3 and it was great.
The food is out of this world and the staff are fabulous. We went Rock climbing, Ice skating at sea, played shuffleboard etc.
You must try this ship - you WILL NOT be disappointed.
I can't wait to go on it again when it heads for Southampton in 2007.