We booked a 2-week cruise with Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas and I will never make that mistake again! R.C is completely incompetent, uninformative and extremely disorganised!So, the holiday overall was pretty good as I went with family and we made the best of things but as a disabled passenger, I felt very much as an afterthought by R.C.We had booked pier assistance which I have to say was great and extremely helpful until we boarded the ship. We were left just inside the main boarding area and left to get on with it as this was as far as they could take us. We had no idea where to go, or what to do next. I had to search for a member of staff to ask what we do now! His reply was whatever we wanted. Not very helpful!!Our roomOur room (an Accessible cabin), only had ONE 240v plug? This was completely impractical when you have electric wheelchair users needing to charge their chair and other equipment. You are constantly prioritising which piece of equipment needs charging next.The sink in the bathroom is way too high from a wheelchair user’s perspective. It came up to the bottom of my neck and I am in a high seated wheelchair. I was unable to use the sink fully.The bed was so hard; it felt like I was sleeping on stone. I did complain to guest services and a mattress topper was arranged. This helped but was still not perfect! The emergency buttons in all the disabled toilets are positioned so high up the wall, they are completely unfit for purpose, if I had an accident and fallen out of my chair, there was no way I would have been able to reach any of the alarms to call for help. R.C only supply ONE unisex disabled toilet across the whole 15 decks on the ship and it is located on deck 2...Where nothing happens.Our bed linen had not been changed until 2 nights before our cruise ended.ExcursionsTrying to search for the information needed regarding accessible excursions was practically impossible to source. The “Accessible” excursions we were able to find all stated “passenger must be able to navigate steps of a coach”....Sorry, how is this “Accessible”? Then when we did manage to find what looked like a “fully accessible” excursion, it said we could not purchase this excursion online, we must book once onboard. So we went to the excursion desk roughly an hour after boarding the ship, to find out about said accessible excursions for Rome & Pisa. (This was the main reason for choosing this cruise). We were told that the one and only “Fully Accessible” excursion they had for Rome & Pisa was fully booked. Now, bear in mind, you are given a time slot between 11;00am and 4:00pm to board the ship based on the deck number your cabin is on. We boarded at 11:00am so was at the excursion desk approx midday and it was already fully booked, so no hope for anyone else who is boarding later in the day! Mind you, finding out the price of this excursion, I was completely gobsmacked. Cruise holidays are expensive as it is, to then charge extortionate prices for excursions is an insult but then we found everything to be extortionate on the ship!!We then asked if there was any way we could get to Rome by ourselves, by train or a taxi that would drop us off and arrange for another to bring us back. The clerk clearly had no idea what we were asking, we tried again to explain and were told he would have to go and ask someone and would get back to us. It took 3 days for R.C to get back to us with any info. We were told they knew nothing of the train and if we wanted a taxi it would cost 900 Euros, yes 900 Euros. We asked why so much and was told that it was for the taxi to take us there, ferry us around Rome and bring us back. We explained this was not what we asked for and again, we were looked at like we had two heads. The following day, we tried once again to get help regarding travelling to Rome. Unfortunately, the end result was no better than the first attempt! So now we had to resign ourselves to the fact that we were not going to get to Rome. We were, however, told that the local town at the port was worth a visit but was a small town. We decided on the day of Rome (Civitavecchia) we did not have to get off too early as the town was very close and not a very big town. So can you begin to imagine our frustration, disappointment and anger, when we disembarked in Civitavecchia that there was indeed a tour company offering accessible tours to Rome and all the sights and then able to drop us off straight back to the ship as they had a license to enter the port itself, all for just 300 Euros?. Because we were led to believe from R.C staff that our only option was to visit the old town, we were in no hurry to disembark so we didn’t have the time to take up the offer of the tours offered at the bus station. It is such a shame staff either don’t or can’t supply such information to passengers. I mean, it’s not like you were losing money, your excursion was fully booked. In my experience, I have found other cruise companies to be so much more informative on such information. We had exactly the same issues when we wanted to visit Pisa, Rome the following day. So far, two ports of call have been ruined.On the second day of our cruise, we received a port itinerary explaining that wheelchair users could not get off the ship at Marseilles due to no accessible shuttle buses. There was NO MENTION of this, ANYTIME during our booking or on the website. R.C would most certainly have had prior knowledge as to whether or not the port had any accessible shuttles, therefore, making R.C negligent towards their disabled passengers. Plus the fact that we found out from another family with a wheelchair user, that the port staff had confirmed to them that the port could indeed supply accessible shuttles as they have supplied them to cruise companies many times before, Royal Caribbean only had to ask for them! Shocking really!! Especially when R.C is charging passengers port fees, this is presumably to include the cost of supplied shuttle services at the different ports. So now we have had 3 ports/excursions destroyed due to R.C’s lack of communication and incompetence!!! That’s almost half our holiday!! Muster DrillWe attended the muster drill that is compulsory on every cruise. Very unorganised indeed, some muster masters were taking a register of passenger attendance and other were not! When we returned to our room later that day, we had received a letter telling us that we had not attended the muster drill? Another problem to sort out!!Cash accountWhen booking our cruise and filling out our set sail passes, we were asked how we would like to pay for our ship account. We all decided on a cash account. What R.C doesn’t tell you is this: if you want to play in the casino, by having a cash account you are not charged a 5% convenience fee at the tables. If you pay your account by any other means, you will be charged the 5% convenience fee.By having a cash account you can go to Guest services and pay your account bit by bit throughout your cruise. My son went to guest services to pay off some of his account. He asked if he could do this using his debit card. He was told this was fine. What he wasn’t told was that his card would now be registered to his account for any further transactions on board. This caused untold problems when it came to him playing in the casino. It took several days for guest services to try and rectify the situation and my son constantly going to & fro to get his card taken back off his account, only to be told this could not be done. Yet the casino manager confirmed it could be done because it was a press of a button to delete the card from his account. So be warned when choosing your method of payment!!EntertainmentWe found the entertainment to be very holiday camp orientated. With games in the Star Lounge such as who wants to be a millionaire, blockbusters and such like. The karaoke should have been advertised as acapella hour as the music was so quiet. I obviously wrongly thought we were on holiday.My son (27) and daughter (14) went off to the climbing wall. Parental or guardian’s signature was required for my daughter, my son was able to sign this form but when they wanted to go ice skating he was not allowed to sign the form required there. Meaning they had to miss that session of ice skating.You were given no information regarding what was being shown in the theatres, just said “Headliner Showtime” in the cruise compass, so you had to physically go to the theatre to see what was happening. Hmm very helpful for families with children or disabled!!!We went see a comedian on one of the first evenings. How awful he was, he told jokes that have been circulating Facebook for the past 5 years, generally not that funny and scruffy looking as well. RCI’s choice of so-called cabaret shows showed to be very cheap entertainment indeed!! We didn’t bother going to see any others.Pool Side Bingo was the pits, the noise was ridiculous and on one occasion, we had a member of bar staff go around shouting “lucky drinks, get your lucky drinks here”. All of us at our table missed 2 numbers being called by the bingo caller (entertainments manager). This is beyond incompetence!! We are paying good money to play for large sums of money and it is deemed quite acceptable to play such a game in such a loud crowded area. I’m lost for words!!!My husband booked and paid $39 for a sushi class. He was more than delighted with the class and what he got out of it. Yet on the other end of the scale, I booked a cupcake decorating class for my daughter and me at $20 each. What a letdown! We were not shown any special techniques using the pipe bags, nor were we shown any fancy way of creating pretty effects. We decorated 4 cupcakes and the class was over. 20 minutes is all it took!! At the end, we received a certificate? A box with a recipe book, one thin apr
