We awoke early and finished breakfast before the ship dropped its anchor at 8am. Libby, Emerson, mom, and I were among the first ‘landing party’ of the morning, arriving on shore a little after 8:30. Some Caribbean Islands wow you with their scenic splendor immediately, Grand Cayman isn’t one of those places (at least not above the water).
It’s a diver’s paradise, has attractive beaches with jewel colored blue waters, and serves as an offshore banking center (with an economy that was obviously better and less singularly on tourism than many islands in this part if the world). Downtown was populated with a mix of modest size office buildings and the usual contingent of duty free shops. In all, we spent a couple of hours exploring the city and then returned to the ship in time for lunch with Pop.
After lunch, Libby, Emerson, and I engaged in a rousing game of mini golf. This was followed by Emerson’s afternoon nap. We spent the balance of the afternoon visiting with Libby’s parents.
Dinner was once again in the MDR. Service–which had been slow other nights–was positively glacial (pre-global warming) in its pace. After 30 minutes without so much as an order taken (while watching other tables eat), I finally had enough and told our waiter that this was completely unacceptable. That’s very rare for me, but I was resoundingly “pissed off” (much like with the boarding debacle on Day #1). I can live with slow service without a toddler along, but it’s like watching a bomb tick down without any defusing activity with Emerson on hand.
I must say visually, as a ship, I like Navigator. Yet, I think she’s far from the best run ship in RCI’s fleet. I don’t know if that’s a function of her size/class or if it’s unique to this ship?
Today’s box score: +1 country
Emerson in Grand Cayman:
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We started our day at 6:30am by heading down to Cafe Promenade for coffee (for us) and milk (for Emerson). Not surprisingly, we ran into Mom and Pop already there. We spent some time chatting before everyone headed upstairs to breakfast in the Windjammer.
Following breakfast, we walked around the upper decks watching Emerson frolic aboard the ship. We then headed to the kids club to pick up a bag of loaner toys (a fairly paltry selection compared to what was on offer on Celebrity Infinity). Libby and Emerson then went to the open play time with Mimi. And, I did pretty much nothing.
After playtime, we had a light lunch and then I returned to the cabin with Emerson for her daily nap. I read and finished watching a movie on the iPad while she slept for nearly two hours. Nap time over, Libby returned and took Emerson off to a Crayola Beginnings class, which was followed by open playtime. Meanwhile, I went off in search of a wheat beer (found a Leffe at the Two Poets Pub) and a quite spot to read (finding none, I opted for our cabin’s balcony).
Emerson and Libby returned to the cabin around 4pm — the former covered in marker stains; the latter blissfully unaware/unconcerned. We spent the next hour or so out on the balcony of either our cabin or with Mom and Pop next door.
Tonight was formal night in the main dining room, and we managed to get all dolled up (cruises out of Florida are generally my one exception to the ‘no formal night’ rule). Once again, dinner was very good. Emerson are two bowls of guacamole and also had half of my escargot (to the amusement of her grandparents and great-grandfather)! She continued to be very well behaved… lasting the full 2 hours with minimal fuss. Everyone else seemed to enjoy their meals too — uniformly good to very good.
Following dinner, we briefly strolled through the Captain’s Gala party (in search of nighttime milk for Emerson). She enjoyed the music, lights, and disco ball effects on the Royal Promenade. After we returned to our cabin, I went back to the party to nab a glass of free champagne (ok, technically cheap sparkling wine–but free alcohol of any kind is a rare treat aboard a ship). Unfortunately, my consumption of it was promptly foiled upon returning to the cabin as Libby managed to hit me with the bathroom door, thereby sending the contents of the champagne flute down my dress shirt and trousers. And so ended our ‘relaxing’ day at sea. 
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We departed home around 7:00am and had a pleasant and uneventful drive to Port Everglades down in Fort Lauderdale. Following a couple of rest stops, a coffee break, and a refueling, we arrived at the port a little after 11:30. I deposited Mom, Pop, Libby, and Emerson at the terminal with the luggage and proceeded to park the car. Unfortunately, our terminal (#29) was some distance from the garage and required me to ride a shuttle bus back to the family. As luck would have it, I managed to catch up with Libby’s parents on the shuttle. The bus ride took quite a while due to traffic. And, we arrived back at the terminal at nearly 12:30.
Thanks to Pop’s needing wheelchair assistance we sped through security and check-in. However, we were forced to wait (along with others) for over an hour before boarding the ship. You see, RCI seems to now require a change of wheelchair / staff to assist passengers onto the actual ship. As such, a queue formed of passengers waiting for the only two assistant-waiters-turned-wheelchair-jockeys (one lazy and the other lazier still) to assist them aboard the ship. Totally unacceptable treatment of elderly and/or disabled passengers. I’m also starting to think that Port Everglades just sucks as I’ve now had both my worst embarkation and disembarkation (on a Nov 2009 cruise aboard Navigator) experiences at this port.
After finally(!) boarding the ship, we headed to lunch (at 2:00). Since dinner was in only a couple of hours, we all ate very light. After lunch, we moved into our cabins (three balconies in a row on Deck 7), unpacked, went to the muster drill, and dressed for dinner.
Our table in the MDR is on the middle tier (of a three story room) and in the far back corner. It has lots of room around it and is somewhat isolated from the other patrons. In short: ideal. In the interest of brevity, I went mention what everyone ate–I’ll just say that the meal seemed to be universally enjoyed by the family and of pretty high quality for a mass market cruise ship’s MDR. Emerson–as on Vision of the Seas this past summer–was a dream. She ate her ‘mole’ with gusto and despite the usual chaos of the first night amused herself for nearly two hours. Bravo!
It’s good to be back aboard Navigator. She remains the most architecturally impressive ship I’ve sailed upon. And, she might be a contender for being my favorite. But, she also feels perhaps a wee bit crowded.
Tomorrow’s our first day at sea.
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We’re off to Ft. Lauderdale to catch our (almost) annual Thanksgiving cruise aboard Navigator of the Seas. We’ve done this yearly since 2009, skipping 2010 because Libby was too far along in her pregnancy to cruise. In fact, we were aboard Navigator in ‘09 for a four-day sailing to Cozumel, Mexico. This year, we’ll be visiting Grand Cayman, Jamaica, and Haiti on a 6 day itinerary.
As usual, I plan to blog along the way.
Posted in Grand Cayman, Haiti, Jamaica, Navigator of the Seas | 1 Comment »
We departed from New York late (which reminded me of why I dislike returning through NY airports) due to ground-based airplane traffic gridlock at JFK, a slow boarding process, and a reconfiguration of runways (just as we were #1 for takeoff). All told, we landed in Tampa around 12:30am, reaching our home at approximately 1:40am. Both Libby and Emerson slept for the entire flight home… I napped for maybe an hour.
All things considered, it was a successful travel day, filled with both highs (e.g., the London cab driver, Emerson for the vast majority of the flight time) and lows (e.g., the usual JFK-related problems, including a deficient airport facility and larger than average percentage of rude/obnoxious/impatient fellow passengers—who were a special test of my patience on this day). Indeed, this was far from our worst experience in domestic or international travel, as we’d feared it might be.
Encouragement – for next summer’s overseas adventure with Emerson!
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