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Saturday, May 18, 2019

[Day 8] Navigator of the Seas - At Sea

At the end of Day 7 in Bonaire, Mom was not feeling well (we made her take "medicinal shots" of whiskey). She woke up today completely sick - stuffed head, sore throat, achy body... she wasn't coming out of the stateroom. It really sucks to get sick on vacation (I think we've all been there at some point... except Dad).

Rachel and I went to workout in the gym that morning and decided to check out the sauna and steam room in the ladies' locker room that Rachel had remembered. They're probably redone this layout in the drydock, but the Navigator had gender-separated sauna and steam rooms, which isn't as common on cruise ships anymore.

We ran into Dad after our workout and decided that today might be a good day for Johnny Rocket's (though we felt guilty because Mom loves Johnny Rocket's).

So Johnny Rocket's has been slowly climbing in price over the past fifteen years. There was once a day when it was less than $5 per person. The price for our sailing was listed as $6.95 per person, which we found to be a little ridiculous considering it's fast food burgers, and they're getting closer and closer to their "on-land" price. I'm wondering if Royal Caribbean is reconsidering their partnership with the Johnny Rocket's franchise because Rachel said she got a survey from RCCL asking about what kind of burger she'd like to have on a cruise, having her choose between Johnny Rocket's and other brands.

At Sea

So we sat down thinking this is kind of pricey, we should get all of the things while we're here.

Service wasn't great.  We were seated for maybe ten minutes before anyone came to take our order.
 We all ordered milkshakes and made the plan that Dad would ask for a to-go milkshake for Mom before we left.

At Sea


We all ordered different starters.  Hot tip - the Chili Cheese Fries are much better than the Bacon Cheese Fries (pictured below).  Don't fall for the Bacon like I did.

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The servers still take incremental dance breaks.

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The burger is good compared to what they're serving in the Windjammer, but it's not the greatest burger of your life.  But, this is The Original - I didn't get fancy with the Smokehouse or Route 66.

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And for dessert, Apple Pie a la Mode with Cheese -

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So at the end of our meal, our server only charged us $6.95 for the entire table.... not per person.  I'm not sure the reasoning for this.  Maybe he made a mistake or was trying to help us out a little.  But we didn't argue.  And with that price, the meal ended up being a complete steal!

On today's Cruise Compass, one of the activities listed was Disney Tunes Trivia.  Rachel and I don't typically partake in trivia unless we are very bored and there is nothing else to do, but the topic sounded like one we'd be good at, so we made a plan to go down and win.  We may or may not botth sing along to the Disney Spotify in our free time...

Schooner Bar was PACKED for Disney Tunes Trivia... turns out a lot of people thought they'd be good at that.  It was also somewhat obnoxious the amount of people who would sing along to the songs.  This was a relatively easy version - you just needed to know the movie it was from, not the name of the song or who sang it.  Anyway, Rachel and I killed it - she caught me when I made some errors, and we were able to get the tricky songs from older Disney movies that no one has seen or remembers.  Anyway, the obnoxious people singing along to Part of Your World really shut up when Best of Friends came on.  And Rachel and I scored 100%.  Winning trivia sheet posted below -

At Sea

The grand price was some Royal Caribbean logo pens and keychains. We went to visit Mom and brag about our win, then got ready for dinner.

Tonight's appetizer was alright with me (I typically preferred the apps over entrees), Caprese Salad -

At Sea

And it was lobster night! Gotta get the lobster tail -

At Sea

Also Baked Alaska night, and the servers still walk around the dining room twirling napkins, but since Royal Caribbean's Baked Alaska is no longer torched, but just Neopolitan ice cream, I don't go with that dessert.

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There we go, a little chocolate bundt cake for me -

At Sea


Tonight was The Quest. My family has been known to be crazy competitive at this game, but we've toned it back the past few years. And since Mom was sick, we decided we'd just go to watch and donate some items if absolutely necessary. Royal Caribbean plays Quest in the ice skating rink on the larger ships (on smaller ships it's played in a lounge). Rather than smaller teams of six, they break the arena into sections and designate a male and female captain for each section.

At Sea


We also may be getting a little too old for Quest. Royal Caribbean doesn't enforce the age requirement (which we've benefitted from in the past), so a good number of your wild key players are actually 16 and 17-year-olds. There was a gymnastics family onboard, I guess, because both the teenage boy and his mom did some sort of flip combo that Rachel can tell me what it is later across the stage. And I'm kind of surprised they let that happen because we are on a moving ship and these are guests, not contract employees - if one of them had fallen and hurt themselves, it would've not only killed the game, but turned into a medical emergency and big insurance problem. The cruise director took a big risk there.

The game still ends in an absurdly ridiculous drag pageant -

At Sea

When the young girl (definitely not of the legal drinking age) was cheering for the boy she wanted to win, she knocked her glass of white wine all over me, and was only mildly apologetic. At least it was white wine.

I guess I could understand if she was cheering for the guy with the abs...


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So, yeah, Quest is still alive and getting crazier!

2 comments:

  1. GR8 REVIEW!!! We are going on Celebrity Summit this Xmas to the ABC islands and St Kitts

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    Replies
    1. Thank you! Have a great time on your cruise!

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