This was my 58th cruise and 13th RCCL cruise and 2nd cruise on Navigator ( also did last April) both times in a Grand Suite.
We flew in from Dallas to Houston/hobby the night before and stayed at the Doubletree Hobby which is a very nice hotel with a decent restaurant and nice bar/lounge.
Getting on the ship was ok waited about 20 mins to get through security ( arrived at 11:45) and needed to wait till 1pm to access suite, so we went to Chops and got some food from windjammer ( Chops is for suite guests for breakfast and lunch, but cannot order food for lunch on sea days and 1st day, but still nice place to sit since it is not crowded like Windjammer) room was ready at 1pm .
Life boat drill was longer than last year , I prefer other lines that do not force you to wait outside for the drill.
I was highly annoyed when I got a phone call about 5:45 about my luggage being held. I ask why my luggage was held and I wanted a name of idiot who did it, I had a wine opener in luggage, they x-rayed luggage again and gave it to me without opening the bag. They blamed outside security for holding the bag, another person at dinning table had similar problem with shampoo in bag and took concierge down with them to get bag and again it was never checked. I also do not understand what took 6 hours since we checked bag before noon.
We also booked this cruise a year ago and had requested a table for 2 and we were at a table for 8. But this worked out ok since we had a nice time talking to another family that was also on cruise critic, we had a option to change to a table for 2 but decided to keep the table we had. Another couple that was also at same table were in a Royal suite and also from Dallas area , we had a nice conversation and we also went to some shows and specialty restaurants together, they also invited us to the Royal suite for drinks and gave us a tour.
Food
We had 3 dinners in main dinning room, my wife complained the escargot was cold every night and so was entrée, also on second night , she and half the other people in the section were given the menus for the 1st night??, waiters were friendly and w had no problem getting a second glass of wine . We had premium drink package and there was a decent wine by the glass selection in MDR and better selections in all the specialty restaurants. (Bars however had a very limited selection n( other than the wine bar)
We had lunch twice in Giovanni's and dinner once, the lunch was the bargain of the cruise we a 4 course meal for 12 dollars with excellent service, had several glasses of wine with each meal, all the restaurants and bars were missing several bottles of wines that were on wine list.
Izumi - was good we had dinner there twice
Chops- was my least favorite (again) , we ordered steaks and told the waiter that we wanted no sauce of any kind on the steaks but they had a sauce when delivered
Entertainment was excellent we saw 4 of the show 3 very good comedy shows and a very nice singer. Also the piano player at the Schooner bar JR Neal was very good , nice improvement over country singer that was there last year and same went for Guitar player Dallas Cord who played at the Pub
Drink Package, we got our moneys worth on this had several glasses of wine at all the dinner and most of the lunch's and they had nice selection of wine my the glass ( even though a few were missing) , for scotch drinkers the bargain was the 18 year old Johnny walker platinum which was only at one bar on 5th floor but package covered the cost of this.
Suite life , this was second Grand suite, and we loved the perks, concierge lounge was never crowded on this cruise, preferred seats for ice show without waiting on line and reserved seating next to the pool bar. Breakfast and lunch ( on sea days only ) were great, excellent service in a nice quite room( Chops) with some soft music playing in background ( Sinatra and Dean Martin played each day), Waiter Attila was great. Concierge got us off the ship and we bypassed all the lines and through customs by 9am. Cabin was also nice size with large bathroom with double sinks, only problem was it took a little effort to climb into the tub to take a shower.
Shore excursion: We booked tour GCC7 Catamaran Sail and Stingray city . this was one of the worst tours we have taken in my 58 cruises, 1st we were stuffed into a very uncomfortable bus with no leg room ( I am 6' 4") then Catamaran was way over crowded for the amount of people ( approx. 40) and staff on boat was just 3, and one of those was the photographer , when we got to stingray city there was no one supervising getting on and off the boat, I cut/scraped my head getting back on and was bleeding quite a bit, crew had me fill out a report for RCCL about the injury. I was very surprised that no one from RCCL inquired on what happened or how my health was after getting back on board.
Overall it was a good cruise on a nice ship
We flew in from Dallas to Houston/hobby the night before and stayed at the Doubletree Hobby which is a very nice hotel with a decent restaurant and nice bar/lounge.
Getting on the ship was ok waited about 20 mins to get through security ( arrived at 11:45) and needed to wait till 1pm to access suite, so we went to Chops and got some food from windjammer ( Chops is for suite guests for breakfast and lunch, but cannot order food for lunch on sea days and 1st day, but still nice place to sit since it is not crowded like Windjammer) room was ready at 1pm .
Life boat drill was longer than last year , I prefer other lines that do not force you to wait outside for the drill.
I was highly annoyed when I got a phone call about 5:45 about my luggage being held. I ask why my luggage was held and I wanted a name of idiot who did it, I had a wine opener in luggage, they x-rayed luggage again and gave it to me without opening the bag. They blamed outside security for holding the bag, another person at dinning table had similar problem with shampoo in bag and took concierge down with them to get bag and again it was never checked. I also do not understand what took 6 hours since we checked bag before noon.
We also booked this cruise a year ago and had requested a table for 2 and we were at a table for 8. But this worked out ok since we had a nice time talking to another family that was also on cruise critic, we had a option to change to a table for 2 but decided to keep the table we had. Another couple that was also at same table were in a Royal suite and also from Dallas area , we had a nice conversation and we also went to some shows and specialty restaurants together, they also invited us to the Royal suite for drinks and gave us a tour.
Food
We had 3 dinners in main dinning room, my wife complained the escargot was cold every night and so was entrée, also on second night , she and half the other people in the section were given the menus for the 1st night??, waiters were friendly and w had no problem getting a second glass of wine . We had premium drink package and there was a decent wine by the glass selection in MDR and better selections in all the specialty restaurants. (Bars however had a very limited selection n( other than the wine bar)
We had lunch twice in Giovanni's and dinner once, the lunch was the bargain of the cruise we a 4 course meal for 12 dollars with excellent service, had several glasses of wine with each meal, all the restaurants and bars were missing several bottles of wines that were on wine list.
Izumi - was good we had dinner there twice
Chops- was my least favorite (again) , we ordered steaks and told the waiter that we wanted no sauce of any kind on the steaks but they had a sauce when delivered
Entertainment was excellent we saw 4 of the show 3 very good comedy shows and a very nice singer. Also the piano player at the Schooner bar JR Neal was very good , nice improvement over country singer that was there last year and same went for Guitar player Dallas Cord who played at the Pub
Drink Package, we got our moneys worth on this had several glasses of wine at all the dinner and most of the lunch's and they had nice selection of wine my the glass ( even though a few were missing) , for scotch drinkers the bargain was the 18 year old Johnny walker platinum which was only at one bar on 5th floor but package covered the cost of this.
Suite life , this was second Grand suite, and we loved the perks, concierge lounge was never crowded on this cruise, preferred seats for ice show without waiting on line and reserved seating next to the pool bar. Breakfast and lunch ( on sea days only ) were great, excellent service in a nice quite room( Chops) with some soft music playing in background ( Sinatra and Dean Martin played each day), Waiter Attila was great. Concierge got us off the ship and we bypassed all the lines and through customs by 9am. Cabin was also nice size with large bathroom with double sinks, only problem was it took a little effort to climb into the tub to take a shower.
Shore excursion: We booked tour GCC7 Catamaran Sail and Stingray city . this was one of the worst tours we have taken in my 58 cruises, 1st we were stuffed into a very uncomfortable bus with no leg room ( I am 6' 4") then Catamaran was way over crowded for the amount of people ( approx. 40) and staff on boat was just 3, and one of those was the photographer , when we got to stingray city there was no one supervising getting on and off the boat, I cut/scraped my head getting back on and was bleeding quite a bit, crew had me fill out a report for RCCL about the injury. I was very surprised that no one from RCCL inquired on what happened or how my health was after getting back on board.
Overall it was a good cruise on a nice ship