Fun but Dated

Embark/Debark: easy and pretty fast. We are local, so we left our car parked at the port for $20/day and were able to walk back to the parking lot when we debarked. The port of LA never (I don’t think) has more than 1 ship docked, so it doesn’t get too crowded (unlike Miami which is HUGE with like 5(?) ships docked at a time). Carnival uses the port of Long Beach, which is 20-30 minutes away by car, although it’s essentially the same waterway.

Dining: 3.5 stars. Overall good not great. The main dining room is good, but beyond that the buffet is just ok and the DIY Mexican is only open for lunch. The Promenade Café serves some pre-made stuff like sandwiches, pizza, pastries and is open almost 24 hours. There are no other included options. Although MDR had different menus every night, it still feels kinda Groundhog Day to go there for all meals. Room service is only included for continental breakfast. Other than that, they charge $7.95. We ate at Izumi (sushi only since Navigator is smaller, no hibachi) via the sushi-making class. I highly recommend this option as it’s actually cheaper than the prix fixe meal and you get the fun of making 2 cut rolls, a hand roll, and a 2-piece nigiri. The sushi was good and the class was fun. We had Jamie’s Italian night 1 and the food was excellent. Great menu and tons of food. I wish there was a half-price sharing option or something. Only complaint: it’s literally inside the MDR so you miss out on some of the “special”ness of eating at a specialty restaurant. We had chef’s table on night 2. We had done Chef’s Table twice before with Carnival and LOVED the experience, including our daughters who felt really special and fancy. Although the Royal version was still good, it did not live up to our expectations. The good: the food is pretty good (but not spectacular). Each course includes a different wine pairing. The ok: you’re still seated in the MDR (although at a separated table), so it doesn’t feel as special. The menu is not as expansive as the 10-course Carnival one, but there is still PLENTY of food. The bad: it was soooo slooow. 6 courses took almost 4 hours. Not sure if there was something going on our particular night or if this is the normal pace of the meal? Johnny Rockets Express: we had shakes from here, which are delicious, but why is this a pay restaurant?? Soft serve: my kids loved getting themselves a cone at all hours on Carnival’s ships, so they were a little disappointed that Navigator’s soft serve is only open until 6pm and it is not self-serve. Promenade Café: the pizza is actually not very good, but it is open late for a slice or dessert whenever you want. They also have fancy coffee drinks for an additional price. I could get my usual Starbucks selection here, but if you want a dragonfruit lemonade or similar, you have to go to the actual Starbucks shop. Note that Starbucks charged ~$8 for my latte, but PC only charged ~$4.50. Drinks: 4 stars. Good. I tried specialty drinks at almost all the bars and enjoyed them all. I was worried the selections might not be “craft-y” enough for me, but they definitely were. Lots of options with premium liquor, beer cocktails, a variety of syrups, bitters, etc. Unfortunately, they had only 2 non-alcoholic beers on board and only one bar carried the 2nd option. Everywhere else is only Heineken 0.0. My complaint would be out of ~12 bars, ~9 of them felt like the same place and even had the same menu.

The “built-in” entertainment is where this ship (maybe all RCI ships) really shine. We were able to either walk up or get reservations for the flowrider, water slides, laser tag, and ice skating (all free). And for the paid sushi-making lessons and paid escape room. All were really fun! If the weather had been nicer, we would probably have spent much more time at the flowrider and water slides. Fitness center is not great. Ceiling is so low you can’t raise your arms over your head. Approx half the cardio machines are broken.

The shows were good, but very “cruise-y” as in, I wouldn’t pay to watch them on land. We went to iSkate, Ballroom dancing, and Showgirl. All 3 were fun and not too long (~45 mins each). iSkate and Ballroom we went to the late shows and they were only half full or less. Showgirl we went to the early show and arrived a couple minutes late. We were still able to get 4 seats together, but it took a little more searching. The small random shows were a shortcoming of Navigator, I thought. On Celebration (granted, it holds almost twice as many passengers) there were multiple live musics, a piano bar, trivia games, board games, live game shows, and q&a with the cruise director going on at all hours. Navigator had far fewer options, but at least one entertainment option happening at a time all day/night.

The good - Either by good design or by having less passengers, this ship only felt crowded once, on “dress to impress” night. On the other hand, the Carnival Celebration felt crowded quite often at the buffet, in the main walkways, at the pool, and at shows, where we frequently could not get seats if we did not arrive >15 minutes early. The meh - everything felt so “the same” on Navigator. The bars weren’t really destinations, but more of alcoves where you could grab a drink on your way to somewhere else. Same for some of the restaurants – instead of having a pizza shop and a sandwich shop and a dessert/coffee shop, like Celebration did, Navigator just had the Promenade Café, where you could get everything. At the next dry dock, it would be awesome if they would give the bars walls and doors, varied décor and different/themed menus. Doubly awesome to divide the large blow-out salon, large PC seating area, and a couple other larger areas into smaller, more unique-feeling restaurants. Finally, move Jamie’s Italian, Chef’s Table, and Chops steakhouse out of the main dining room into their own themed areas, similar to Izumi and Hooked.

We had an aft-facing “spacious balcony” room. It was great! The room was basically the same square footage as one we had last winter on Carnival Celebration, but it felt much roomier. The closet was big and there was space to walk between the bed and the fold-out couch. The bathroom was standard. The balcony was really big, with room for 2 chaise lounges and 2 chairs and being aft-facing, it was always comfortable, even when it was SUPER windy on deck. One bad thing was the pole right in the middle of the room. Also you can tell the ship was built in 2009. Electrical outlets were limited (to 1 US-compatible, actually) and the décor is kinda 1990-ish. Carpets and everything were clean, though – I assume replaced in the 2019 dry dock.