Misc. photo dump from Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas from San Pedro to Vallarta

by   •   Cruises
 

In case you missed it from the past three blog posts, I recently wrapped up a one-week cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas from the World Cruise Center at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, California. This was the second ever cruise I’ve taken, with the first one also being with Royal Caribbean, but on their Quantum of the Seas ship instead. My cruise this time around had stops in Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlán, and Puerto Vallarta in Mexico.

I already shared my thoughts about my second Chef’s Table experience, the all-access behind-the-scenes tour of the ship, and the food I ate at each of the specialty restaurants with my unlimited dining package. I still have a bunch of miscellaneous pictures I took around the ship that I haven’t shared yet, so here is my concluding photo dump with everything else I haven’t covered.

To address my hatred of standing in line, I once again purchased The Key add-on, which is basically like a paid VIP service for certain aspects of the cruise. … The actual reason I get it is because it comes bundled with onboard Internet access, which is mandatory for me so I can continue working while cruising. With that being said, I do actually hate standing in line though, so the priority access from The Key made my boarding process much easier.

After getting through security, I joined a line with everyone else to head onto the ramp to get on the ship. I think this process would’ve been quicker if I had shown up earlier at the beginning of my priority boarding period, but because I was still waking up pretty late at that time, I didn’t want to make myself suffer through any unnecessary sleep deprivation.

I enjoy seeing the logistics of how things work. I think it is quite interesting to think about how complex and full my life is, and then realize that everyone else also has a life with just as much time as I do, and then further realize that there are hundreds of those people dedicating all their working hours into making large-scale coordinated things happen, such as a cruise.

With that in mind, I like getting a peek at the behind-the-scenes of how things are organized. This may seem very mundane, but I saw a long row of carts with checked luggage waiting to be loaded onto the ship, so I snapped a photo.

After boarding the ship, I had my welcome lunch as part of The Key. Not long after I finished eating, staterooms opened up, so I headed up to the sixth floor to drop off my bags. The Key has a system where you can leave your bags at a designated drop-off point immediately upon boarding and the staff will deliver them to your stateroom door for you if you’d like. I personally don’t use that service because it’s not that much of a hassle to bring a carry-on-sized luggage around with me for a little bit, and I’d much rather not take the risk of it getting lost.

For this cruise, I decided to get an interior room with a promenade view. During my previous cruise, I had a balcony room; it was nice, but I realized that the value that you get with the balcony relative to the upcharge is debatable.

I think if you’re cruising with family and want to spend some quiet, private time together with them, then a balcony room might make sense. However, I’m cruising solo and have no problem going out in public spaces on my own just to people-watch, so I didn’t actually really spend that much time in my stateroom (and if I did, I was working at my desk and was focused enough on my work to not care about the balcony). On top of that, if I ever actually wanted to go look at the ocean, there were plenty of public places at which I could do that.

After leaving my carry-on luggage and backpack in my stateroom, I headed back out to go for a walk and check out what Navigator of the Seas has to offer.

The main difference I noticed compared to Quantum of the Seas is that Navigator is a bit more “portioned out.” On Quantum, I felt like I could start at any point on the ship and always make it to the opposite side of that deck just by walking on a path that cuts through the entire length of the ship. However, on Navigator, things were organized in “sections,” and if you are in one isolated section, you have to do a bit more navigating before you can make it to a different section.

After everyone embarked on the ship, the sail away party started and we departed San Pedro.

On the first night of the cruise, I thoroughly walked around the entire ship to figure out where everything was and scout out some nice areas where I could work while people-watching. After returning to my stateroom and getting some work done while looking down on the promenade from my interior window, I headed over to the Royal Theater in time for the first show of the cruise.

After the show, I headed over to the Star Lounge to listen to a live performance by the band Euphoria. There was a dance floor in front of the stage, so for some of the more fun songs, people went up there to dance to the music.

Royal Caribbean’s mobile app has a convenient schedule of activities going on at all times, and especially on sailing days, that list is packed. During one of the sailing days, the art shop ran an art auction.

This was probably the stupidest art auction I have ever seen in my entire life. A staff member would bring out a piece of art to the stage, then the auctioneer would say something like “this art piece is worth over a hundred thousand dollars, but we are starting bidding today at only $70,000!” He would then count down, and obviously not a single rational soul on a cruise ship would spend tens of thousands of dollars on an impulse purchase of a random painting, so nobody would make an offer. The auctioneer would request applause anyway, and then they would swap the art piece and repeat the process.

I did not see a single art piece sold at this auction. I left early so I could eat lunch instead.

After the auction was over, they brought the art pieces back down to the designated art gallery area. While walking around and taking a look at a later time, I saw this cat sculpture. It looks nice, but knowing their pricing system, it’s probably worth $300,000, but they will give you a great deal and sell it to you for $299,999.

And of course, you shouldn’t touch it for your safety, i.e., so you won’t have to take out a second mortgage on your house to pay for the damages if you break it.

Here’s another shot of the Royal Theater for a different show. This one was very strange. At first, these two guys started as comedians and told about half an hour of jokes. … Then they randomly pulled out some bolas and swung them around and did some kind of hybrid dance and martial arts performance. It was very unexpected.

Quantum had a long walking track that stretched across the entire upper deck, but the one on Navigator felt like it was only about half the length, and it was curvy and wound around cabanas and was overall just more difficult to use. Thus, I spent a decent amount of time in the fitness center, not only to use the treadmill to get my steps in, but also to do some resistance training as well.

The gym had a back door that led to somewhat of a secret area with a row of pool lounging chairs. It was a nice place to get a peaceful view of the ocean after my workout. In the distance, you can see Cabo San Lucas; I didn’t disembark the ship because Cabo has tendering service only (i.e., they put you on a smaller ship and bring you back and forth to shore), and I get severe seasickness on small ships, so I didn’t want to take the risk.

The following day’s show at the Royal Theater was “Ballroom Fever.” Apparently I decided to take a picture of the empty stage upon my early arrival, but didn’t actually take any pictures of the show.

Here are some photos of our day docked at Mazatlán.

One of my favorite spots to work was in the Cosmopolitan Lounge on one of the upper-most decks of the ship; it had floor-to-ceiling windows that showed a great view of the pool deck and ocean.

Here are some photos of sail away from Mazatlán.

I returned to the Cosmopolitan Lounge the next day to work while people-watching again.

After wrapping up most of the work I needed to do for the day, I dropped my laptop off in my stateroom and headed out to the pool deck to watch sail away from the next port, Puerto Vallarta.

Here is the mini-golf course on the ship. I managed to get a picture of it empty because it was extremely windy and slightly drizzling this day, so it wasn’t practical for anyone to play mini-golf.

The night of sailing away from our final port, there was a performance by Jennifer Singer.

And finally, the night after that, which was an all-day sailing day, the show in the Royal Theater was “Showgirl! Past. Present. Future.”

So there are the rest of my miscellaneous photos to fill in the gaps between the other three cruise blog posts I already published.

I’d say that I had a comparable level of enjoyment on this cruise compared to my first one on Quantum. There were a lot of aspects about Navigator that were either better or worse than Quantum, but overall, I think it averaged out. One thing that did help a lot was the fact that I wasn’t as much of a newbie for this cruise as I was on Quantum, so I feel like I was able to take advantage of more of what the cruise had to offer because I knew what I was doing better.

If I find another absolutely insanely incredible bargain deal on Navigator or Quantum for one of these same sailings, then I am willing to do a repeat of one of these itineraries. However, it seems like I already experienced both ships and both longer sailings that depart from San Pedro. Thus, for my next cruise, I will most likely be looking at other ports (like ones in Florida, Texas, or Washington) so I can experience both a new ship and a new set of destinations.

 

—§—

 

Hello, Chef’s Table on Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas

by   •   Cruises, Food
 

The last time I was on a Royal Caribbean cruise on Quantum of the Seas this past winter, I tried their Chef’s Table, a private, premium, multi-course dining experience with a small group of other cruisers. I enjoyed it a lot, so when I went on a spring cruise on Navigator of the Seas, I booked it again.

Chef’s Table is an upgraded experience that comes with an additional US$118.00 supplement. Because I purchased the unlimited premium dining package add-on prior to sailing, my upcharge was lowered to $59.00 (consisting of a $50.00 base price and a $9.00 mandatory 18% gratuity). The extra fee isn’t cheap, especially considering that all your basic meals are already included in your standard fare, but if you compare the quality of the food and service to other fine dining establishments on land, it’s actually not bad.

Chef’s tasting menus like this are usually rotated by season. Because my previous cruise was during the winter and it’s spring now, I was looking forward to seeing how they changed up the menu. Unfortunately, the course list was exactly the same as it was on my previous cruise, which was a bit disappointing. Upon the conclusion of my meal, I did some research about how frequently they change up the menu, only to discover that… they don’t. Apparently this menu is highly standardized and remains the same, year-round and fleet-wide.

I feel like this is a huge missed opportunity to hook the foodies into spending more money every time they’re on a Royal Caribbean cruise. Yes, having delicious, high-quality food is probably the most important facet of attracting customers, but if they want to monetize food enthusiasts as repeat customers, I feel like adding in at least some kind of novelty value every season would be a big plus.

So, if you already read my blog post about my previous Chef’s Table experience, then this one will probably feel like déjà vu. Regardless, I still decided to do a full post about it again because there are still some thoughts I had throughout this meal about the limited differences it did end up having compared to the one I experienced on Quantum.

I don’t drink alcohol, so in lieu of the wine pairing, I requested a non-alcoholic pairing instead. On Quantum, they had a designated non-alcoholic pairing prepared, and when I brought it up, they even asked if anyone else at the table wanted to pass on the wine and make a substitution too.

However, this time on Navigator, it felt like the non-alcoholic pairing was an afterthought. The waiter’s facial expression made it look like he was incredibly confused that I didn’t drink alcohol, and at one point during the dinner, he even asked me “would you like another one?” as if I was supposed to be ordering the mocktails myself rather than there being a pairing.

On Quantum, the waiter immediately took away my wine glasses, but on Navigator, I had six empty, unused wine glasses sitting in front of me for over half the meal, and the waiter only thought to remove them after the first three of six courses were already done. Additionally, because this was a circular table, it felt a lot more cramped. The rectangular table that was used on Quantum had more efficient usage of space because there was very little unused space on the table, but on a circular table, the entire center of the table is unreachable, so you end up having all the wine glasses really close to each other and your eating area is just basically a pie slice.

The meal started with some bread.

At this point, I noticed that there were 13 people at the table—six couples, plus me solo. I started having a sneaking suspicion that the capacity of the table was supposed to be 12, but because I was a solo diner, they squeezed in another couple so that they didn’t end up with 11 in this session and “miss out” on a spot if there is no other solo diner who signs up. That would give a partial explanation of why we all felt so cramped and had so little space.

The reason I found this out? They ran out of bread. They prepared 12 portions of bread, even though there were 13 people. I got my own blossom of bread, but the man sitting next to me didn’t get one and had to share one with his wife. He ultimately got his portion… after course number four.

After an unusually long wait, we were served the first course, scallop carpaccio with yuzu vinaigrette and crispy quinoa. This was very consistent with the previous scallop carpaccio I had on Quantum; it was cut extremely thin, so I rolled them up into tubes with the quinoa and some vegetables inside so that it had more substance per chew.

After finishing my dish, I looked up and noticed that the woman across the table from me hadn’t received one. I wondered if this was another case of the kitchen only making 12 instead of 13, but after someone else also noticed and asked her about it, she said that she had an allergy and requested a substitution. Considering how long we had to wait to get our first course, I figured that it would be plenty of time to prepare her substitute dish as well and serve everyone at once. A while after everyone at the table finished their scallop, the woman finally got her alternative dish.

I also finally received my “first” drink of the non-alcoholic beverage pairing. I say that this is the “first” because the actual first one I got was supposed to be in substitution for the welcome champagne. This one was the first drink of the actual meal.

For the second course, we received smoked tomato soup with garlic focaccia croutons. As you can see from the photograph, it was just focaccia and not croutons.

The smoked tomato soup was served plain at first, and then the chef came out to add the cream and basil sauces into the soup.

I remember from Quantum that I really enjoyed the earthiness and smoky flavor of this soup, and this is actually one of the dishes that I thought Navigator did even better. The flavor was much more intense here, almost as if the Quantum version of soup was diluted. I still had some of the bread left from before, so when I ran out of focaccia, I dipped the bread into the soup to clean my bowl.

The third course was Maine lobster salad with hearts of palm, pineapple, cilantro, and vanilla dressing.

I liked the Quantum version of this a little bit better because the Quantum’s lobster was prepared in a more pure and simple way, while this one had a lot of sauce, some of which was already soaked into the vegetables. With that being said, liking the more plain version of lobster is just a personal preference (mostly because I just really like the flavor of lobster itself); everything about this dish was delicious, including the sauce.

My next mocktail was a pineapple and coconut drink. It looks like a fruit slushie and I think it visually looks extremely sweet, but in reality, it was actually quite moderate in sweetness. That meant that it was easier to discern the flavors of the fruits themselves, which I thought made the overall flavor profile of the drink much better.

Our fourth course was roasted branzino with grilled zucchini, peppers, lemon confit, and pesto.

This was another dish that was very consistent between Quantum and Navigator. The fish was cooked very well, and the vegetables and citrus complemented it well. I noticed that the sauce here was a bit stronger than the one served on Quantum, but that was fine, as a majority of it was pooled in the moat of the plate and diners could personally decide how much to use.

A significantly noticeable difference between the dining experience on Quantum and Navigator was the skill of the sommelier. On Quantum, it was easy to tell that the sommelier was experienced and confident in the way that he explained and served the wine, but on Navigator, the sommelier made some questionable choices that even I, as someone who never drinks alcohol, found to be quite obviously unusual.

I don’t know if this was just him being nervous, but he was very fidgety with the wine bottles. I believe a reasonable expectation you can have of your sommelier presenting the wine is to hold it steady with a folded liteau so that there is minimal body heat transfer, and so the diners can still see the label on the bottle. The sommelier for our dinner seemed to really like touching the bottle with his bare hands, and not just touch it, but really get in there and massage it like he was loosening some cramps.

For one of the wines—specifically, the Leviathan Red Blend California—the sommelier poured it into a decanter first. Remember the pineapple drink I had earlier? It had a little too much in the glass, so some of it overflowed and ended up forming a puddle on the table. Do you know where the sommelier decided to place the decanter on the table so that people could look at it (after cradling it and massaging it too, for a bit)? Directly on top of the puddle. A blind man literally had a statistically higher chance to place the decanter on a dry spot of the tablecloth than this sommelier.

Here is a picture of the sommelier serving the wine to my next-seat neighbor. Hmm, I wonder why he still has so much bread left. Oh wait…

The fifth course of the evening was filet mignon.

Prior to serving it, our waiter (who, if it wasn’t clear, is the same person as our sommelier) went around the table collecting doneness level preferences. Most people ordered their steak medium rare, while the other half ranged from medium to medium well. During this process, he told an elaborate story about how it is worth trying steak cooked medium rare, even if you usually like it more cooked, and he shared some anecdotes about how he is slowly convincing his wife to eat steak cooked closer and closer to medium rare.

He had started this quest by asking the person next to me, so by the time he had gone all around the table (and also finished telling his story), I was last in line to give my order. I asked for my filet mignon to be cooked rare. He asked “oh, so you want it still mooing?” This is obviously a joke, but with this guy, I literally could not tell. Just in case there was a miscommunication, I clarified, “no, I’d just like it regular rare, not blue rare” (because blue rare is often the doneness level at which you get “your steak is still alive” comments). The waiter then repeated his joke, asking, “yes, so you want it still mooing?” to which I replied “yes, that would be great.”

Fortunately, the steak came out properly rare, and it was delicious.

The filet mignon was served with a side of potato purée, asparagus, carrots, and baby tomatoes. The chef also came around and added some bordelaise sauce to the moat; I ended up barely using any sauce because the flavor of the steak and vegetables was so great on its own.

On Quantum, the filet mignon had a nice quirk where it was served with extra crispy potato chips pressed into the potato purée. I enjoyed that the Navigator version also came with a few potato chips on the side as well. The portion was small enough that it added a nice little diversity of flavor and texture without being considered too significant a component of the overall dish.

For our final beverage of the night, we got espressos—a regular salted caramel espresso for me, and an espresso martini for everyone else.

By this point, because the service had been so excruciatingly slow, we were about to hit the end of hour 4 of our dinner and it was almost 9 PM (we started at 5 PM). Because it was so late, most people didn’t dare take more than a sip or two of their espresso martinis out of concern that the caffeine would keep them up all night. Luckily, I have the blessing (or curse, depending on how you look at it) of being immune to caffeine, so I enjoyed my entire espresso. I thought it was extra great because I also really like salted caramel.

The espressos were served in conjunction with the sixth and final course, The World.

In theme with the slow service, they brought out our orbs of chocolate first, and then our waiter disappeared for a while. They were gone for long enough (and also did not give clear enough instructions) that the woman sitting two seats away from me started cracking open her chocolate orb with her fork. I had to stop her and told her to wait a bit longer, because there was a surprise coming.

The surprise, of course, is that the waiter comes out with some warm caramel sauce and pours it over your desserts to melt the outside chocolate shell and reveal the inside.

Inside was peanut butter ganache, Valrhona chocolate mousse, and salted caramel gelato.

On Quantum, I wasn’t able to eat much of this because it was so overwhelmingly sweet that it registered on my taste buds as bitter. However, I’m happy to report that the Navigator version was not excessively sweet. I was quite excited that I was able to taste all the ingredients this time, and in celebration, I finished the entire thing.

This was also time for celebrations. Two couples were celebrating anniversaries, so they each got a small slice of chocolate cake with a candle.

On Quantum, the Chef’s Table took place in a private room all the way in the back of Chops Grille. On Navigator, the Chef’s Table is actually inside the main dining room on the center floor. I wouldn’t say either arrangement was better or worse; it was just different. I guess this version on the Navigator is better if you’re the type who wants to brag to others that you’re having a nice meal, while the more private Quantum version is better if you don’t want to hear the quiet chatter and clinking of utensils on dishes from other regular diners.

Here are some photos I took from the perspective of our dining table.

This is what the Chef’s Table dining table looked like. While taking this photograph, I did not notice that one of the couples from the dinner was still there taking pictures, so that was amusing to notice after-the-fact while I was organizing my photographs. The couple there was very kind (as was everyone else at the table); I ran into this particular couple a few days later on the pool deck when I was out for a walk, and we had a great chat about their cruising adventures.

If you want to go on a fun scavenger hunt, you can zoom into the table to see where my seat was. It’s quite easy to figure out if you know that I am the only one who finished my entire dessert and drank my entire espresso.

Here’s another view of the Chef’s Table, but from the opposite side of the dining area.

After my second Chef’s Table, my assessment of the experience remains mostly the same as before. The thing that makes it special is the interactions and conversations you have with the other diners. There were some more shy diners this time compared to my dinner on Quantum, but after the alcohol got flowing, they got a whole lot more chatty.

If you want a high-class and elegant dining experience during your cruise away from the regular bustle of the main dining room or buffet, then I would recommend this experience for people who don’t have children to bring with them and have the budget or financial flexibility for the supplemental charge. My recommendation here still stands, even with the inconsistent service I experienced on Navigator compared to Quantum.

 

—§—

 

Hello, “Behind the Waves: The Insider’s Tour” on Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas

by   •   Cruises
 

I’m not really much of a cruise excursion person. I feel like most excursions are activities you can just go do on your own, and by booking one with the cruise line, you’re basically paying a big upcharge for logistical assistance and an “insurance policy,” e.g., if you are on your excursion and there is a delay, there is a guarantee that either the ship will wait for your excursion group or the cruise line will ensure they can get you to the next port on time, all expenses covered. For some people, that peace of mind is worth it, but if you want to be smarter with your money, the value might not always land with everyone. With that philosophy in mind, I want to make sure that, if I am booking an excursion, it offers something that I cannot otherwise get on an independent adventure.

During my most recent cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas, I noticed that they had an excursion available called “Behind the Waves: The Insider’s Tour.” I obviously cannot just go in crew-only areas of the cruise ship on my own, so I figured that this would make for a great (albeit unconventional) first-ever cruise excursion for me. Prior to sailing, I saw that a lot of cruise add-ons were discounted, so I purchased a ticket to this tour for US$105.99.

For my cruise itinerary, there were two sailing days near the end of the cruise. Both of these sailing days had two timeslots each for the all-access tour, totaling four tours. I booked the afternoon tour on day 2, but after I boarded, I was notified that the day 2 afternoon tour was canceled and I was rescheduled to attend the day 2 morning tour instead. Unfortunately, I am extremely asleep that early in the morning, so I went to guest services to see what they could do; luckily, there was still space left in the day 1 afternoon tour, so they re-rebooked me to that one instead.

Upon arrival to the tour meeting spot, the staff asked us to answer a health questionnaire and fill out a brief acknowledgment that attending the tour, and thus exposing ourselves to the crew-only mechanical areas of the ship, comes with inherent risk and that we are assuming that risk voluntarily in order to participate in the tour. I am absolutely that annoying type of person who reads through contracts thoroughly and disputes clauses I don’t like; with that being said, the waiver that Royal Caribbean provided was entirely reasonable, so I had no issue signing with no further questions.

After everyone’s paperwork was sorted, the tour began in the main dining room. Hilariously, because I have always gotten the unlimited premium dining package every time I went on a Royal Caribbean cruise and have only dined at specialty restaurants (or the extended-hours café for late-night snacks), I had never eaten in the main dining room before (and probably would have never even seen it at all, if it wasn’t for the fact that the Chef’s Table experience took place at a special table deep in the main dining room).

We were seated at a few of the tables near the edge of the dining room, and shortly thereafter, the head chef came out to explain the logistics of food service. He walked us through the three-floor dining room on Navigator of the Seas, and how each floor is dedicated to a specific type of dining—standard, expedited, and flexible.

We were then led back into the kitchen where we were able to see the equipment used to prepare our meals.

This tour took place early in the afternoon, so the kitchen servicing the main dining room was still empty, as I believe the earliest timeslot for dinner service begins at or around 5 PM. However, this one random table had one random employee making pastries. I don’t know if these were for the café and they just happened to request certain desserts from this particular kitchen instead, but I instead enjoyed the thought that maybe she had just been planted there and was instructed to pretend like she’s making something so that she could be a paid actor for the tour.

The kitchen was quite large; the head chef weaved us in and out through all the aisles so that we could take a look at all the different equipment in the different subsections of the kitchen.

After wrapping up the kitchen portion of our tour, we were led out through a back door so that we could walk straight to the next crew-only area.

I found it amusing that they put all this effort into pasting an advertisement for Perfect Day at CocoCay onto the elevator, even though the only people who would see this elevator are employees (or guests on the tour). Maybe they are trying to advertise to their employees? Or maybe they just wanted the elevator to look less bland, considering that the picture they used of Royal Caribbean’s private island in the Bahamas is pretty nice.

Right around the corner was the next area of our tour, the loading zone. As is probably self-explanatory, the loading zone is used to load pallets of food, equipment, consumables, and other products onto the ship. At the end of each cruise, the same area is used to unload trash and unused goods that won’t serve a purpose during future cruises.

One of the logistics managers walked us through this area and answered questions about how the ship’s supply is controlled. He also brought us into the refrigeration unit to show us how the food was stored, and explained how the food portions were determined (i.e., based on passenger volume, expiration dates, and emergency buffer in case the ship cannot return to land for unexpected reasons).

He also let us take a quick walk through the freezer as well, though that was short-lived for most people. I took a peek inside, realized that it was quite literally freezing, noticed the icicles hanging down from the ceiling, snapped a photograph, and promptly fled.

After that, we took another crew-only shortcut around to the next area of the tour.

The garbage processing area is kept reasonably close to the loading zones, which makes sense because they’d probably want to easily get the trash off the ship.

The tour briefly brought us into the trash sorting area where they separate different kinds of garbage and recyclables, and it smelled absolutely horrific. I was surprised that the employees working in this area seem to be handling it well, even without wearing face masks or any other protective gear apart from gloves.

Hopefully they get paid generously, because smelling garbage this close to your face in an enclosed space with poor ventilation on a cruise ship sounds magnitudes worse than what people have to endure working as trash collectors on land.

Next up was the control room.

This is where engineers constantly monitor the ship, both to make sure it is in full mechanical function, and to make sure that no passengers are causing any security risks on board.

Apart from the main dining room, this was the second most peaceful area of the tour so far, so they used this space to do a little presentation about Navigator of the Seas.

I learned that the ship is apparently a lot older than I had originally thought, and it only looks fine and not particularly aged due to recent renovations. We were told that Navigator is about to reach the end of its lifespan soon, and in a handful more years, it will be moving on for its next adventure and fulfilling its next purpose, whatever and wherever Royal Caribbean will decide that may be.

This is also the portion of the tour where I was able to learn some more detailed specifications about the size of the ship.

Navigator of the Seas is part of Royal Caribbean’s Voyager class of ships. Funny enough, even with a gross tonnage of about 140,000 and a passenger capacity of about 4,000, it’s actually now considered one of Royal Caribbean’s smaller ships. Above Voyager class is the Freedom class, and then above that is the Quantum class, which holds the Quantum of the Seas on which I took my previous, first cruise.

There are also two classes above that on which I have yet to venture: Oasis and Icon. Icon of the Seas and Star of the Seas, both part of the Icon class, are just barely under double the size of Navigator of the Seas in terms of gross tonnage and passenger capacity. I do want to take a cruise on one of those ships at some point, but because they are homeported in Florida, I will have to find some time to make my way over to either Miami or Cape Canaveral to do so.

After the conclusion of the presentation in the control room, we were led out to I-95 to take a shortcut direct to our next stop. I-95 is named after the Interstate 95 on the East Coast of the United States, a highway that stretches the entire height of the country from Miami, Florida to Houlton, Maine.

The I-95 on Royal Caribbean ships serves a similar purpose—it stretches the entirety of the ship and acts as a core corridor through which crew members can go from one side of the ship to the other without needing to reroute around obstacles.

On the other end of I-95 was the laundry room. I’ve seen major laundry facilities in hotels before, but the laundry area on this cruise ship was on a whole other level.

Unfortunately, by this point, I was starting to get seasick.

If you didn’t see the blog posts from my first cruise, you might not have the context that I easily get every type of motion sickness, but I managed to overcome seasickness and grow “sea legs” after the first day of my first cruise, likely because the ship was very large and relatively stable. I think another part of it was that my brain was able to quickly pick up on the motion of the ship and get used to the fact that it would rock back and forth, so it stopped sending me panic signals.

Well, the laundry room is below sea level. That means that any of the motion of the ship is in reverse, because the fulcrum of the motion is at sea level. This means that, whatever motion my brain was anticipating, it was literally exactly in reverse while I was in the laundry room. On top of that, these tours took place on sailing days, and the seas just happened to be particularly rough.

I was already starting to feel a bit unwell upon first entering the laundry room, but comboed with the heat, chemical smells, and long duration it took while they explained how exactly they did all the laundry, my condition worsened rapidly. By the end of the laundry room section, I was definitely seasick and wanted to go lay down.

However, they saved the best for last, and there was one final section of the tour I needed to see.

The final portion of the tour was the captain’s room on deck 10. As you’d expect from the name, this is where the captain and his highest-ranking crew operate and navigate the ship. It had an amazing panoramic view out of floor-to-ceiling windows.

I don’t know if, by this point, my brain was putting in a lot of work trying to adapt to the reverse motion of the below-sea-level laundry room and I had messed it up again by going very high up on the ship shortly afterwards, but I was on the verge of vomiting. After checking in with the tour guide, she said that the tour was over and she was just hanging out to answer any leftover questions people had, so I let her know I was feeling unwell, thanked her for the experience, and excused myself back to my stateroom.

Overall, I enjoyed the tour, and I’m glad I spent a few hours on a sailing day to get a behind-the-scenes look at the ship. I’m someone who enjoys seeing how things work, so this tour satisfied that interest of mine very well. On top of that, I want to make sure I stay humble, so seeing large-scale operations like this run by highly qualified and intelligent people acts as a motivating factor for me to continue learning and growing so I can keep up with the rest of the world.

Cost-wise, I think ~US$100 might be a little bit high for a tour like this, especially considering that the price I paid was after a discount. I am guessing that the all-access tour on Icon of the Seas or Star of the Seas would be longer, so a $100 price point might be more reasonable for those ships, though I’m guessing that they might already be scaling it up for the larger ships and it might already be more expensive there. Regardless, I guess the market demand is setting the price of the tour, and considering how long Royal Caribbean has been in business, they probably already have analytics-based algorithms in place to determine ticket prices.

With that being said, at $100 per ticket, I think this is on the borderline of being just an enthusiast’s tour (i.e., you’d only find it worth it for the price if you already have an intrinsic interest in the topic), rather than a generalist’s tour. I personally thought it was worth it for myself, but it is probably not a tour I would repeat in the future unless there was a very special version of it for the newest Icon class ships that focused deeply on the latest technological advancements.

 

—§—

 

Food photo dump from Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas from San Pedro to Vallarta

by   •   Cruises, Food
 

After what I would consider a fairly successful first-ever cruise experience for me on Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas, I continued keeping an eye out on various cruise lines’ websites to check for opportunities to book a second cruise. Eventually, I ended up managing to catch a great deal on Royal Caribbean’s website for a 7-night cruise to Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlán, and Puerto Vallarta.

The base fare for a solo cruiser in an interior cabin was $1,156.00, but it came with a $347.00 discount as part of a sale, another $226.00 discount on top of that for a different promotion, and an additional $81.00 discount even on top of that for being a Nevada resident. (Apparently the resident discount applies to short-notice bookings for residents of states neighboring the port, which is a way to incentivize nearby people to book the cruise assuming that traveling the relatively short distance won’t be too much of a hassle for them.) With $155.82 added on for taxes, fees, and port expenses, my total base fare for this trip was US$657.82. I bought a bunch of add-ons so the grand total was closer to a thousand dollars, but for the base price, $657.82 is insanely low.

I’m a bit behind on blogging right now, and I’ve actually been back from this cruise already for one week. However, I’m taking a brief break from traveling and have a bit more time now, so I’ll be catching up soon. I used this extra free time to go through and organize my cruise photos, and I’ve decided to split it up into four blog posts (this one being the first one).

To start, here is a rundown of (most of) the food I ate on the cruise.

Like last time, I purchased a premium dining package add-on that allowed me to eat at any specialty restaurant for no extra charge (apart from the extra charge of actually purchasing the add-on, that is). Normally, all meals are included in your fare, but if you get this add-on, you get to go to more private and higher-quality on-board restaurants instead of the buffet or main dining room. This cost me $214.62 extra for the 7-night cruise, which is broken down into $181.93 for the package and $32.69 for a mandatory 18% prepaid gratuity.

Also like last time, I purchased The Key for $181.93 (this is separate from the dining package, and it is just a coincidence that they share the same base price, which was due to a pretty steep discount on The Key). The main perk of this is the fact that it includes on-board Internet access, but it also comes with a special welcome lunch and departure breakfast.

The welcome lunch on Quantum of the Seas was great—I had a nice, private window seat and enjoyed some delicious fish. The welcome lunch on Navigator of the Seas, however, was a bit… different. Instead of giving everyone a private table, they randomly grouped some strangers into larger parties. For example, rather than giving me a solo table, I was put in a group of nine at what is basically a really big family dining table. This is fine for something like the Chef’s Table where you’re intentionally opting into it, but it seemed weird for a regular meal like this.

Regardless, thanks to a handful of chatty people at our table, it wasn’t too bad. I got to know some new people, and many of them were intrigued at my mobile lifestyle of traveling non-stop and living out of hotel rooms most of the time.

As the main entrée of my lunch, I ordered some branzino with asparagus. Similar to last time, the fish came out looking sort of sad, but taste- and texture-wise, it was great.

For dinner on embarkation day, I dined at Izumi Sushi. I intentionally scheduled sushi night to be the first night because I wasn’t sure if I was going to get seasickness, so I figured that it would be best to try and get ahead of it and eat a lot of ginger from the sushi restaurant as a preventative measure.

As my appetizer, I had crispy rice spicy tuna, which was made from creamy tuna, masago, spicy aïoli, chili garlic oil, hot crispy rice, and jalapeño.

For my first main course, I ordered a poke bowl with seasoned tuna, salmon, avocado, sea salt, sesame chili oil, onions, scallions, masago, seaweed salad, and sushi rice.

I comboed that with my second main course, the assorted sashimi with salmon, yellowtail, and shrimp. It looked like getting the sashimi was much better value than getting the assorted nigiri in terms of portion size. Because the poke bowl came with plenty of sushi rice already, I fished some out and combined it with the assorted sashimi to have some build-your-own nigiri.

For dessert, I had assorted mochi ice cream. It usually comes with one piece each of mango, strawberry, and chocolate, but I requested for the chocolate to be replaced with a second piece of mango. It’s not that I dislike chocolate, but rather, I just find more consistency in liking fruity flavors instead.

This is what the entrance of Izumi looked like.

This is a shot of the interior of Izumi. I had a fairly late dining time, so it was pretty empty by the time I was there.

Next on my rotation was Jamie’s Italian. I dined there twice—one time for lunch, and one time for dinner on a different day.

On the day that I went for lunch, I started my meal with their ultimate garlic bread, which is made from warm artisan buttermilk buns, herby garlic butter, Parmesan, and rosemary.

For my main entrée, I ordered truffle tagliatelle.

I remembered from Quantum of the Seas that this pasta dish was borderline-inedibly salty, so for this one, I put in a special request with the waitress to minimize the amount of excess salt that was added to this dish. She passed along my preference to the chef, and it was very well honored; this came out at the perfect saltiness level, and it tasted great.

For dessert, I got some ice cream topped with fruits and caramel popcorn.

Jamie’s Italian was located inside the Windjammer Buffet in its own dining room along the edge of the ship. This meant that I got to enjoy a great view of the ocean through the floor-to-ceiling windows while dining.

On the day that I went to Jamie’s for dinner, I started with some crispy squid with a side of lemon and garlic mayo sauce.

For my main course, I had lasagne made from slow-cooked beef and pork, topped with herbs, baked in a Béchamel sauce with tomatoes, mozzarella, and Parmesan. I’m usually not the biggest fan of eating a ton of cheese, but the cheese in this dish wasn’t unpleasantly pungent like some other cheeses are. This was also specially made with low sodium, which made me like it more than I expected.

For dessert, I had a banana split with one scoop each of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream, topped with caramel popcorn and a caramel drizzle. This was incredibly delicious and possibly the best dessert I had on the ship. The caramel was torched in a way such that, combined with the banana, it tasted like a fruity crème brûlée.

Next is the big one: Hooked Seafood. Seafood is my favorite type of food, so I spent three of my dinners dining at Hooked.

Each dinner started with some cheesy bread.

The first night at Hooked, I selected fresh-shucked oysters with mignonettes as my appetizer.

That was followed by The Captain’s Platter as my main entrée, consisting of a four-ounce lobster tail, grilled halibut filet, and three jumbo shrimp. This was accompanied by some melted butter as the dipping sauce and some seasonal vegetables as the side dish.

Afterwards, I opted for a lemon tart for dessert.

The second night at Hooked, I started with some mussels steamed in a garlic white wine sauce.

For my main entrée, I ordered a grilled salmon filet. I got this because I figured the portion size of the fish would be larger, but it was about the same as what was served in The Captain’s Platter. The platter didn’t have an additional upcharge, so it seems like it is just categorically better, considering that you get to select the type of filet you want anyway, and you get the “bonus” lobster tail and shrimp as well.

For my side, I got some lobster mac and cheese. It was quite greasy and didn’t really have much lobster in it, so I would’ve probably been better off trying the coleslaw or corn on the cob instead.

For dessert, I got a cherry tart topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

For my third and final night at Hooked Seafood, which was also the final dinner I had on the cruise ship before debarkation day, I ordered some baked oysters as my appetizer—half Rockefeller and half leeks and white wine. I’m glad I got to try this for the sake of variety, but I much preferred the fresh oysters and drunken mussels instead.

My main course this day was the surf and turf, which came with a lobster tail and steak. I’m still working on improving my heart health and minimizing my consumption of saturated fat, so I’ve been avoiding red meats where possible. With that being said, I figured that, even though filet mignon isn’t as low in saturated fat as cuts like the round, it’s lean enough that I could enjoy a surf and turf for one of the days.

For my final dessert at Hooked, I got a coconut cream pie, made from coconut custard and topped with whipped cream and toasted coconut. It also came with a few dollops of caramel and a few dots of chocolate sauce.

This is what the interior of Hooked Seafood looked like.

And finally, the last specialty restaurant I went to, which rounds out all the available options, was Chops Grille, Royal Caribbean’s popular American-style steakhouse.

Upon being seated, I was brought some bread: one piece of onion bread, and one piece of pretzel bread. It came with a side of butter, but I opted to just have the bread on its own because I didn’t feel like clogging my arteries that day.

For my appetizer, I ordered a pan-seared crab cake topped with fresh herbs and served alongside some chipotle aïoli.

For my main entrée, I ordered a hand-cut nine-ounce filet mignon cooked rare. According to the menu, their filet is sourced from the Midwest. I requested the sauce on the side in the moat of the plate and only used a very small portion of it, considering that I like the actual flavor of the beef and don’t want strong sauces to overwhelm or detract from the flavor.

For my sides to go along with the steak, I asked for half portions each of Yukon gold mashed potatoes and grilled jumbo asparagus.

To conclude my meal at Chops, I got some key lime pie as dessert.

And finally, the last thing I ate on the ship before disembarking was an Eggs Benedict with crab cake and avocado, along with a side of hash browns. This was part of the special à la carte breakfast that came with The Key, and luckily, I had a private dining experience this time and didn’t have to share a large family-style table with strangers.

Overall, I’d say that I liked the food on Navigator of the Seas a little bit more than the food on Quantum of the Seas. However, that comes with a few caveats. I enjoyed the Italian food on Navigator more because I learned from my mistakes on Quantum and asked for the sodium reduction. Additionally, I just really like seafood, so the fact that there was a dedicated seafood restaurant this time basically by default made me like Navigator’s food more. I did enjoy the creativity of Wonderland on Quantum of the Seas, but that was somewhat gimmicky and didn’t contribute as much to the overall perception of core food quality.

There are three things not pictured in this blog post:

The first is the food from Café Promenade. This is the late-night option for people who want something to eat after the buffets and main dining rooms are closed, and I usually only came here when I had intensive workouts at the fitness center and needed some extra calories before ending my night. I usually just got some pastries or pizza from here, and they weren’t particularly notable or special (the pizza tasted like generic grocery store frozen pizza).

The second is Johnny Rockets. Navigator of the Seas has a Johnny Rockets Express on the pool deck that usually sells burgers à la carte for an extra charge, but because of my premium dining package, I was able to redeem one combo (a burger, fries, and beverage) for free every day. I only went here a couple of times, and I guess I ended up forgetting to take a picture of my burger every time. The burgers and fries here were the equivalent of what you’d find at a decent fast food restaurant on land. It was worth it for me because it was inclusive in my dining package, but otherwise, it’s around a $15 additional supplement, which I think is way too high for the circumstances (specifically, the fact that you can get other good food elsewhere on the ship for no extra charge).

And finally, the third is the Chef’s Table. I had it last time on Quantum of the Seas and enjoyed the experience enough that I booked it again for Navigator of the Seas. It usually costs an extra $118 per person, but with my unlimited dining package, I was able to get it for a discounted $59 upcharge (composed of a $50 base price and a $9 mandatory 18% gratuity). I will have a dedicated blog post on the Chef’s Table coming up soon.

 

—§—

 

Photo dump from Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas from San Pedro to Cabo

by   •   Cruises
 

I already published three blog posts from my first cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas—an overview of and thoughts from embarkation day, a review of the specialty restaurant Wonderland, and a review of the Chef’s Table. I have a bunch more photographs and impressions that I wanted to share beyond what was contained in those three pieces, so like I usually do, I decided to do a photo dump to wrap up everything else I haven’t posted yet.

As is typical for me now at this point, we shall start with a tangent.

I explained this more thoroughly on my embarkation day blog post, but in summary, I have been traveling full-time and living out of short-term housing solutions for a majority of the past several years. This means that I do not have a formal and official long-term lease or rental anywhere, and my “landlord” is basically Marriott. I have friends in various places with whom I stay in their homes when I’m not in hotel rooms, but otherwise, I am a nomad. (I used to ironically call myself homeless, but then I ran into too many people who got genuinely concerned because they thought I was actually literally homeless, so I’ve started avoiding saying I’m homeless lately…)

This lifestyle naturally means that I end up encountering a lot of different kinds of people. Even though I am checking into a hotel because that is literally where I will be living for the next couple weeks, most other people around me are there temporarily, be it for work or leisure. When I go for a walk outdoors within proximity of the hotel, I may be running into vacationers or businesspeople, but I might also be seeing locals.

This phenomenon has become an unremarkable part of my life at this point, but upon reflection, what I experience is probably a bit surreal for someone who just lives peacefully in a suburb where an overwhelming majority of people they encounter are fellow local neighbors.

However, this train of thought led me to a different, adjacent realization. Ever since moving out of my parents’ house in the Chicagoland suburbs, this moment—stepping foot onto a cruise ship—is probably the first time I have ever been around only one “type” of person. Unlike hotels where you don’t necessarily don’t know why someone is there, everyone on this cruise ship was on vacation. Nobody is booking a Royal Caribbean cruise to hold a business conference on the ship. Everyone is there for leisure.

I could’ve stopped there and it would’ve been an amusing thought, but if you take it to the next level, it’s interesting to consider what this actually means. Every customer on the cruise ship was there voluntarily for fun (or close enough to it).

The reason I even started pondering this concept is because, prior to analyzing it, I immediately noticed how happy everybody was. The overall mood of any other land destination that I’ve been to usually balances out to be fairly neutral—there are some people who are enjoying their time, some people who are diligently getting to their next work meeting, and some people who are having a bad day. However, this cruise ship was probably the highest density of happy people that I’ve ever seen in a single location. Everyone looked excited, and there were an unexpectedly high number of people just randomly singing and dancing in the hallways.

This might not have any productive meaning to normal people who might think “of course people will be happy when they’re on vacation,” but it was an insightful point of reflection to me. I have integrated “vacation time” so deeply into my regular lifestyle that I am just perpetually in a state of constant amusement—not too happy, not too upset. Thus, experiencing the joyful mood of thousands of vacationers packed around me on a ship was an eye-opening way for me to see the life of an average American and stay closer in touch with reality.

 
Anyway, the cruise was great.

In my embarkation day blog post, I pointed out how seasick I got, but fortunately, that passed. By the second day, I no longer felt unwell, even though I didn’t take any medication and I didn’t materially change anything about what I was doing. I would still occasionally notice the rocking of the ship, but my brain stopped registering it as threatening.

I’m a big fan of large, dense, clean, walkable cities. This is one of the reasons why Tokyo quickly became my second favorite city of all time (only ranking after my home city of Las Vegas). I want to be able to step outside my door and be able to do and see interesting things, be it either getting food or just walking around and sightseeing or people-watching.

I loved Quantum of the Seas because it felt like it was a densely packed town condensed onto a cruise ship. There was always a wide variety of things to do. If I wanted a change of scenery, I could just go up or down several flights of stairs and be in a completely new environment. If I wanted to eat, I had a ton of options within a few minutes’ walk. If I needed stimulation, I could walk into one of many entertainment venues for ongoing live music or performances. And most importantly, everything was clean.

Branching off the point about entertainment, something I really appreciated was being able to pop in to an entertainment spot on the ship, check it out for several minutes to see if I liked it, and leave to go somewhere else if I didn’t.

Being a resident of Las Vegas, I thought about how neat it would be if a major resort brand on the Las Vegas Strip, like MGM Resorts International, made some kind of “unlimited entertainment pass,” potentially just for locals, where entitlement holders would be able to show up at any MGM property’s show or performance that isn’t sold out and be able to watch for a monthly membership fee. I think that kind of structure would make going to shows much lower-stakes and low-commitment, thus encouraging locals to engage with the Strip more. I am aware that there are seat-filling programs already out there, but it would be nice to have something run officially by MGM or Caesars.

Sort of going back to the idea of “everyone is on vacation here,” another thing that was notable to me was how shocked the stateroom attendant and housekeeping was when they heard that I did not want service throughout my entire stay. Other cruisers love being taken care of so they don’t have to worry about making their bed or cleaning their bathroom while on vacation; on the contrary, I’m there literally to live my normal life, but just on a ship.

I was already supplied with plenty of towels to last me the entire one-week cruise if I use a towel for two days each. I always hang up used towels so they dry out properly, and I always have either the balcony door open or the HVAC system circulating air to control the humidity. If I have garbage, I neatly bag and tie it up and leave it outside my door in the morning. I am generally a clean person, so it’s not like I’m dribbling urine around the toilet or anything. I’m also a pretty peaceful sleeper, up to the point where the sheets and blanket don’t really get moved around much and literally stay tucked at the bottom of the mattress across multiple nights of sleep.

Just like how a lot of people don’t like others intruding in their personal homes, my stateroom was literally the equivalent of my home during my cruise, so I preferred to just have privacy. I did still have to interact with the housekeeping staff once every couple days so they could make sure I hadn’t died in my room, and I had no issue with them looking in my room so they could confirm that I wasn’t secretly cooking methamphetamine in there or something. But otherwise, I mostly just took care of myself, which hopefully also meant that my housekeeper was able to get an extra 15 minutes of rest per day in lieu of tending to my room.

 
With all those rambling thoughts out of the way, here are some more photographs I took during my cruise.

Our first stop was at Cabo San Lucas. Apparently Royal Caribbean doesn’t have a dock at Cabo, so they had to anchor the ship in the middle of the water, which I did not realize was actually a thing. Then, for people to get to shore, they would offer what is called tender service—a system where people get on small boats and are taken back and forth from ship to land.

By this point, I had just overcome a severe bout of seasickness, so I didn’t want to risk it again by getting on a small boat, which I have previously confirmed definitely gives me seasickness. This cruise had an overnight stay at Cabo, so while everyone was out exploring Mexico, I decided to stay on board and enjoy the ship while there were not too many people around.

While doing rounds on the walking track, I noticed a set of stairs leading down to the 14th floor. Out of curiosity, I made my way down there to find that this was the outdoor section of the buffet. Because the buffet was closed at that time for their midday break, this section was empty, so I was able to take in the views in great peace.

Later that evening, I headed back to my stateroom and went out onto my balcony to watch the sunset.

The next morning, I returned to the private 14th floor lookout spot I found the previous day to watch sail-away from Cabo.

The entertainment schedule is usually packed with a lot of shows on sailing days to ensure that cruisers have plenty to do and don’t get bored. One of the shows was Sonic Odyssey, a percussion and dance performance. Most people entered the Royal Theatre through its main floor, but I noticed that there was an upper floor entrance too that wasn’t as busy; for Sonic Odyssey, I found a nice spot near some of the tech equipment up there which offered an unobstructed head-on view of the stage.

Prior to sailing, I purchased the unlimited premium dining package. The benefit of this is that you can dine in specialty restaurants (which come with an upcharge) for free.

Beyond Wonderland and the Chef’s Table that I discussed previously, I also went to Chops Grille, which is a steakhouse. I thought this was very worth it because I had top-tier sit-down restaurant service in an elegant environment, and I was able to avoid the congestion of the main dining areas where everyone else was eating.

For this meal, I got tuna and avocado tartare as my first appetizer, shrimp as my second appetizer, lamb chops as my main entrée, and apple pie and ice cream for dessert. The apple pie had a strange coagulated texture that I wasn’t a fan of, but everything else in the meal was delicious.

Here is another sunset photo, this one from a sailing evening. The sunsets from the ocean looked particularly orange and vibrant.

Here is a stillframe from another show I stumbled across and watched; this one again is from the Royal Theatre, and this one was a musical performance.

Time for an interesting story.

There was a man named Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, more commonly referred to by his alias “El Mencho.” He was the head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, an organized crime group in Mexico known for drug trafficking, among other criminal operations. He was one of the most wanted men in both the United States and Mexico, and there were bounties of US$15 million and MX$300 million by each country’s government for information leading to his arrest.

Did you notice how I am describing El Mencho in past tense? That’s because he was captured and subsequently died in Mexican Army custody. In response to his death, cartels carjacked large vehicles and set them ablaze on key roadways to serve as narcoblockades. This happened on February 22, 2026. Do you know where I was on February 22, 2026? Atop Mexican waters, headed towards Ensenada.

Yes, I was literally in Mexico when Mexico’s most important drug lord was killed.

Because the Army couldn’t graciously wait two days for me to return to the United States first, I had a bit of a predicament. The local news was reporting that even Baja California was suffering from unrest even though it was fairly far away from Jalisco, so I figured that Ensenada was also affected. If the captain of the ship decided to just skip Ensenada entirely and dock at either San Diego or Catalina Island instead, then that would solve the problem for me. However, if we were still going to dock at Ensenada, it was up to me to make the decision.

I ultimately concluded that I would not disembark the ship onto Mexican land. Having formerly worked in law enforcement, I am aware of the strength of organized crime groups and how much more dangerous they are than random people committing crimes alone on the street. I have also personally seen the fragility of life and how easily an innocent bystander can accidentally die.

Furthermore, Mexican drug trafficking organizations hold a complex role in Mexican society. The cartel employs a substantial number of Mexican people and directly contributes to the health of their economy. The cartel is known to provide infrastructure and public services to local communities where the government responsibility falls short. Although a lot of people surely would like to live a life free of the cartel’s intimidation, it is a far more intricate matter than just dismissing the cartel as a bunch of random criminals.

Because of all these factors combined, I decided to just sit this one out. I plan on going back to Mexico again, and because of how much I enjoyed this cruise, I will be going on another cruise soon on a different Royal Caribbean ship that will also go to Mexico.

The following morning, I woke up and opened my curtains to see us docked at Ensenada. According to the captain’s judgment, there was not enough of a risk to skip this port and head straight back to the Untied States. However, I stuck with my decision and took this as another day to enjoy the ship amenities in peace.

We were only docked at Ensenada for several hours before we needed to head back to San Pedro for the conclusion of our cruise. During sail-away from Ensenada, I noticed that the stairway down to the 14th floor was blocked off for some reason. Now extra curious, I stepped over the rope and headed down there anyway.

I immediately saw why that area was closed. The seagulls were extremely aggressive, and the entire deck and overlook area had a ton of seagulls flapping around. I guess they really liked the shaded and sheltered overhang from which they could smell food coming from the buffet. The floor and glass was absolutely drenched in bird droppings. After snapping a photo, I quickly made my way back upstairs to safety.

The timing of El Mencho’s death was unfortunate because the ship was actually docked at Ensenada instead of having tender service, so I actually would’ve been fine with going outside. It was fun watching what the logistics look like of docking a cruise ship as large as Quantum of the Seas. There were a lot of workers overseeing the operations, including these ones in this photograph who were responsible for managing the ropes that tied the ship to land.

One of my new favorite cruise ship activities was watching people sprinting to make it back onto the ship before sail-away. Apparently, I was not the only one who enjoyed this, because there was a very large group of people standing on the edge of the ship watching to see if anyone would miss their ride back to the United States.

We had three parties nearly miss the cut-off to re-embark the ship (i.e., they were late, and they made it back to the ship during the unofficial grace period before the ship left). In each situation, the people on the ship would yell at the stragglers to run, cheer when they started running, boo when they slowed down, and cheer again when they made it to the ship in time. It was actually quite fun and felt like we were all watching a live sports game together or something.

Here is a photo from sailing away from Ensenada.

For the last night on board, there was a farewell show at the Royal Theatre. I decided to mix things up this time and take a seat on the side to see if there was anything I was missing from this vantage point. The show consisted of a comedian, so I found out that the angle didn’t really matter, though I did get a chance to take a fresh photo from a different perspective.

After the first half of the farewell show was over, there was an intermission for the balloon drop. Everyone gathered at the Royal Esplanade, the cruise director came out to give credits to all the crew on board, there was a quick dance party, and then the balloons were released onto the crowd.

I didn’t want to be down there shoulder-to-shoulder with other cruisers, so I went up on the balcony instead. I gently pushed my way to a spot directly opposite of the makeshift stage so that I could have a clear and unobstructed view of all the action and enjoy the balloon drop.

After the balloon drop, I dined at Jamie’s Italian, another premium dining venue. I personally much preferred the other specialty restaurants; the food at Jamie’s was overwhelmingly salty.

After going back to the Royal Theatre and enjoying the second, late-night portion of the farewell show (which was the same comedian, but with a second set that was not limited to being family-friendly), I returned to my room and looked out my balcony for a nice view of the moon. The photo turned out blurry because it was so dark, but the reflection on the ocean was quite stunning in-person.

After getting a little bit of sleep overnight, I was woken up by the early-morning disembarkation announcements the next day. I opened my blinds to find us facing the World Cruise Center at the Port of Los Angeles and a seagull perched atop the ledge of my balcony.

As part of my VIP perks for purchasing an upgrade to The Key, I was allowed to be one of the final people to disembark the ship. While everyone else was standing in line and scrambling to leave, I was able to enjoy a leisurely sit-down breakfast at an on-ship restaurant.

For my final meal of the cruise, I had a “Royal VIP Signature,” which was a crab cake and poached egg atop a crispy sourdough muffin garnished with crushed avocado, shaved black truffle, and hollandaise sauce.

And that concludes my overview of my first ever cruise. As I mentioned before, this was definitely positive enough of an experience that I will go on another cruise again soon.

Royal Caribbean’s port in San Pedro has two ships that regularly have round-trip sailings from it—Quantum of the Seas and Navigator of the Seas. Although both are relatively new, I heard that each ship has its own unique vibe and identity, so I’ll be keeping an eye out for a well-timed and well-priced cruise on Navigator so I can check that out as well.

 

—§—

 

Hello, Chef’s Table on Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas

by   •   Cruises, Food, Highlights
 

I am now back on land after finishing my first cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas, and I’m working on catching up on blog posts. (While still on the ship, I wrote about my experience leading up to, during, and shortly after embarkation day, and a few days ago, I published a review of Wonderland, a specialty dining venue on the ship.)

While purchasing my ticket, I added in an unlimited premium dining package that allowed me to go to any specialty restaurant on board without needing to pay the extra cover charge. However, even with that package, there was one dining experience that still had an upcharge—the Chef’s Table.

Upon doing some more research, I found out that the Chef’s Table is the highest-tier dining experience on Royal Caribbean cruises and is basically an interactive prix fixe chef’s tasting menu experience served to a limited number of guests per night. Considering that I have become somewhat of a food enthusiast over the past several years and especially like unique and personalized experiences, the Chef’s Table aligned perfectly with what I was looking for in a nice dinner.

If you read my embarkation blog post, you already know this, but as a quick summary, I had a disappointing experience with the food quality at Izumi Sushi, so I canceled all my future reservations there and looked for other options instead. I replaced one of the Izumi nights with the Chef’s Table. Chef’s Table normally requires an additional US$118.00 payment per person, but because of my unlimited dining package, the cover charge got reduced to US$59.00—a base price of US$50.00 for the experience, plus a mandatory 18% gratuity of US$9.00.

I didn’t see a way to book the reservation on the Royal Caribbean app in a way that would link it to my unlimited dining package, so I went to Guest Services for assistance. I heard that the Chef’s Table is in pretty high demand and often sells out before departure; I was wondering whether that was part of the reason I was having issues with the app, but fortunately, the representative at Guest Services was able to get me a spot for that same evening as the 13th of a maximum of 16 diners.

At 6:25 PM, I went down to the designated check-in spot at the Schooner Bar to wait for everyone to arrive and be walked over to the Chef’s Table. After a brief wait, all the diners showed up and our waiter (who was also the sommelier) led us to the table.

The format of this was quite different than what I’m used to. This felt more like a family Thanksgiving dinner than it did a restaurant. Everyone was seated together around a single large dining table, which made the experience very communal and conducive to conversation among everyone.

The dinner was a multi-course meal that also came with a wine pairing, so everyone’s placemat had wine glasses lining the edge. I don’t drink alcohol, so the waiter took away my wine glasses and said he would provide a special non-alcoholic beverage pairing to go along with my dinner instead.

After our waiter and sommelier explained the basic idea behind the Chef’s Table, the chef also came out from the kitchen to introduce himself. This was apparently his first cruise for which he was the chef for the Chef’s Table.

While we were talking amongst ourselves and waiting for the first dish, the waiter came out with some bread. Each pair got one large portion of blooming bread, but because I was alone, I got to have an entire one by myself. I ate half of it as an appetizer, then saved half of it to use as dipping bread for any leftover sauces that I assumed I would have with some of the dishes.

The first course was scallop carpaccio with crispy quinoa and yuzu vinaigrette.

I understand that the premise of carpaccio is to thinly cut the meat or fish, but I still would’ve preferred for the scallop to be cut a bit thicker so that it had more of a bite. The way that I adjusted for this was that I rolled up each slice of carpaccio into a little tube so that it felt like I had more material to chew down into. I liked the textural contrast between the soft scallop and the crispy quinoa, and dipping each tube into the yuzu vinaigrette added a nice splash of citrus that enhanced the overall flavor profile.

There wasn’t a separate non-alcoholic beverage menu that had all the ingredients of all the drinks listed, so I don’t quite remember what exactly was in every drink, but this first one was (as you can probably tell from the photograph) an orange citrus drink.

To go along with our second course, we received what the menu called garlic focaccia croutons. As you can tell from the photograph, it was definitely just a focaccia and not so much a crouton. The toppings were refreshing, and this served as a great side for the upcoming soup.

The actual second course was smoked tomato soup. I couldn’t really distinctly identify the smoke, but it did taste noticeably more earthy than what you’d expect from normal tomato soup.

The chef came out with a pitcher of cream and individually added a swirl to each of our bowls. Interestingly, the cream maintained its coagulated shape, and even when agitated with my spoon, it didn’t really separate much. I ended up “cutting” the cream with my spoon and including some in each spoonful, which was quite interesting.

The next drink of the beverage pairing was a blueberry nojito, the non-alcoholic version of a mojito.

The third course was Maine lobster salad with hearts of palm, pineapple, cilantro, and vanilla dressing.

This dish was an example of pristine simplicity. The lobster was incredibly tender and very strong in clean, pure lobster flavor. The vegetables added a nice crunch to the texture but did not materially affect the flavor of the lobster. The dressing was incredibly light and also did not affect the core taste of the lobster. If someone wanted to eat lobster because they love the lobster itself, then I think the way that this was prepared is the best cooking method possible to achieve that goal.

The fourth course was roasted branzino with grilled zucchini, peppers, carrot, lemon confit, and pesto.

Similar to the lobster, this was prepared in a very simple and straightforward way that emphasized the natural flavor of the whitefish without having anything else alter or overwhelm it. The skin was cooked very well in the sense that it was a great balance of both chewy and crispy at the same time. Although not listed on the ingredient list, it also came with a slice of citrus that basically acted as a superior substitute for squeezing a bit of fresh lemon on the fish.

Because I don’t consume alcohol, I haven’t really had any high-end wine experiences, and the only things I know about wine come from observing others ordering and drinking wine. That was applicable during my Chef’s Table meal where I saw the usage of a centrifugal wine aerator for the first time, by our sommelier while he was serving the other guests.

He later explained that it was a decanter, though I’m wondering if that was just a language barrier, because I am fairly certain that is just an aerator (and yes, I do recognize the irony here of attempting to correct a sommelier, especially considering that I just disclosed my general lack of wine knowledge). He was using that tool to serve Sequoia Grove Winery’s Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley, California.

For the third installment of my non-alcoholic beverage pairing, I received a fruity pineapple smoothie.

The pineapple went along great with the fifth course, a grilled filet mignon with truffle potato purée, asparagus, and bordelaise sauce.

The waiter went around the table asking people their doneness preference for their steak. I ordered mine rare, and I am relieved to share that nobody at the table requested well-done. I was mindful to cut against the grain for each bite, and the steak was incredibly tender and flavorful.

I liked that there were two variants of the potato purée—one regular, and one with truffle. I especially liked the truffle potato purée because it had a more subtle and earthy truffle flavor (as opposed to a more greasy truffle taste that you find when people just use truffle oil for flavoring). I also noticed that the potato purée here was quite a bit firmer than what I usually get at high-end restaurants, which I actually found to be a good thing; I think that indicates that there is a higher ratio of potato to butter, which I personally prefer because I actually like potatoes.

I also appreciated that there were two additional tiers of textural enhancements. The vegetables were lightly boiled so they were softer but still maintained a good crunch, and it fulfilled the traditional “steak and veggies” archetype. However, the dish was also served with miniature potato chips, which added an unusual but fun extra crisp to some bites.

(The reason the sauce is not pictured in any of the photographs is because the chef came out after everyone received their plates and individually asked whether they wanted the sauce on the steak or in the moat, then served it to the diner’s preference.)

For the final drink of the night, everyone received a salted caramel espresso martini. Because mine was non-alcoholic, I guess it was just a salted caramel espresso coffee.

Dessert was the grand finale of the dinner. They call it the World, and it is a hollowed spherical chocolate orb with peanut butter ganache, Valrhona chocolate mousse, and salted caramel gelato, topped with warm caramel sauce. Surrounding the World were small pieces of caramel popcorn, strawberry, and mint.

For the presentation, the waiter goes to each plate and pours the warm caramel sauce on top so that it melts away the top shell of the chocolate sphere and reveals its inner contents.

This was the only dish of the dinner that I wasn’t able to finish. The inside of the World was delicious, but unfortunately, the chocolate outside was far too sweet. When I supplemented each bite of chocolate with the espresso, that helped balance out the intensity of the sweetness, but after I ran out of salted caramel espresso, I couldn’t down the rest of the chocolate shell.

During the dinner was also when they did special celebrations. One person across the table from me was celebrating his birthday, and a couple sitting to my right was celebrating their six-year wedding anniversary. They each got a little plate with caramel text hoping well wishes for their special occasion, along with a candle planted in an arrangement of strawberry, blackberry, mint, and whipped cream.

And with that, the Chef’s Table concluded. The overall experience took a bit over three hours. The waiter treated us to a quick magic trick to end the night, and then the chef came out from the kitchen to thank us all for our attendance.

This is what the other part of the dining area looked like, which would be the “back side” behind the photographs that I took. This might give a bit more perspective on how exclusive of an experience this was due to its secluded location and limited availability.

The room itself was nestled far in the rear of Chops Grille, an American steakhouse that is part of the specialty dining restaurant collection on the ship.

I had a great time at the Chef’s Table. I go to a lot of chef’s tasting menus and other special multi-course dining experiences, but in terms of atmosphere and environment, I think this Chef’s Table ended up being my all-time favorite.

A lot of omakase or other chef-led dining experiences will seat you at a bar so you have a view of the kitchen and can watch the chef and cooks prepare your food. If they don’t have bar seating available, each party generally gets their own private table. Royal Caribbean’s Chef’s Table is the first time that I have ever been seated at what is basically a residential dinner table that you would usually only share with your extended family for holiday meals.

This may potentially sound like an introvert’s nightmare, especially if that introvert is named Adam Parkzer and decided to go on the cruise by himself. However, I think the interactions and conversations with the other diners are what made this dinner so pleasant and memorable.

Except for the couple directly to my right who were in their mid-30s like I am, everyone else was an older person. They all seemed intrigued and fascinated by my ambitious nomadic lifestyle, especially because of how different it is compared to how they lived their 30s decades ago. Them wanting to learn more about me and my life served as a good conversation starter that carried on throughout the entire dinner.

With that being said, I think I also just got lucky with the people with whom I shared my Chef’s Table dinner slot. Everyone had a laid-back, relaxed, welcoming, and warm attitude that made the experience feel much more cozy and wholesome.

As for whether or not I would recommend the Chef’s Table, this may be shocking considering the fact that I just spent an entire blog post explaining why I loved it, but I actually would not recommend it for most cruisers. Keep in mind that it comes with an additional US$118.00 upcharge per person, so that can add up pretty quickly when you’ve already paid quite a bit for your ticket, and considering the fact that most of the other food options on the cruise are included in your fare. Furthermore, if you have young children, I would actually specifically request that you do not go to the Chef’s Table, because I think your child would feel sorely out of place, and the presence of children may spoil the experience for others.

With that being said, if money is not an issue and you want a high-class, elegant dining experience shared with like-minded strangers who enjoy a premium meal and great conversation, then the Chef’s Table would be a good fit for you. Even though everyone else in attendance came as a couple, I did not feel out-of-place as a solo diner. Furthermore, the waiter was engaged with us throughout the meal, so if you get unlucky and everyone else you end up getting grouped with is extra shy, then it seems like the waiter is trained to take initiative to get the conversation flowing as a backup.

I have one final cruise blog post coming up soon, in which I will share my overall concluding thoughts about the experience.

 

—§—